Expert


	Issue 103 Prairie Grains


	Prairie Grains is the official publication of the Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers, North Dakota Grain Growers Association, Montana Grain Growers Association and South Dakota Wheat, Inc.


	DON’T CALL ME AN EXPERT


	*This is just the way I do things*

By Lee Thomas, Moorhead, MN

There are several reasons that we farm organically. There are reasons that are financial, agronomic, business, safety, ecological, spiritual and philosophical. Let’s start with financial.

In the late nineties we were doing okay financially, but it was getting more and more difficult to stay in the black on the income statement. The cost of production was increasing and commodity prices were not. The crop yields were steadily declining. Noreen, my lovely spouse, expressed some of these concerns as a member of a panel of farmers for the FM Chamber of Commerce (to explain why and how farmers get government payments to stay in business). Next to her on that panel was Lynn Brakke. At the time Lynn had been farming organically for years. After the panel discussion, they talked and Noreen’s interest was piqued. She came home and said we should transition to organic production. I resisted, but with Noreen resistance is futile. She talked me into going to the Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference in Wisconsin. I wore my seed hat. We stepped in the registration area and the guys behind the table were wearing tie dyed tee shirts, jeans and their hair pulled back in ponytails. I felt out of place, but we registered and then went to a restaurant for a patty melt. Noreen had to coax me a bit to return for the seminars.

The speakers seemed to make as much sense as the guys who sell seed and pesticides. One seminar was presented by an organic farmer in Iowa. He had pictures of his fields that were almost weed free, lush and full of the promise of a bountiful harvest. He explained how pesticides were a band aid but not a solution to the problems and actually caused other problems that were solved with another pesticide: A vicious spiral that leads to greater expense, reduced production and less net income.

Another farmer presented his business model for farming organically: Lower expenses with no pesticide costs, lower yields that were offset by higher crop prices with a better net income.

I was willing to give it a try, so we started transitioning two fields per year until every field was certified for organic production. There are challenges, but financially, it is working better for us, with reduced expenses and higher crop prices.

While there is lots of anecdotal information about organic farm performance and profitability, real world information about production, financial performance and profitability on organic farms is scarce. In 2006, The Minnesota Department of Agriculture was awarded a grant from the USDA Risk Management Agency and the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant program to help answer those questions about organic production. The objective of the grant is to teach organic producers to keep and use quality records to make sound business management decisions. The producers receive comprehensive year-end analyses that can be