Organic Agriculture
This page provides overviews of several important aspects of organic market production such as organic grain market trends and budgets, and conventional and organic crop rotations. These sections can be navigated using the "Jump to a Section" feature below or feel free to scroll through the page.
If you are just getting into organic agriculture, you may find this free Guide for Organic Crop Producers from ATTRA helpful, which is intended to lead farmers through the organic certification process.
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Organic Grain Market Trends and Budgets
Purdue Extension publication HO-304-W, "Is organic right for my grain operation?" provides an overview of recent organic grain market trends. As described in the publication, price discovery is a challenge often cited by farmers entering the organic grain marketplace. Two sources of information for price reports are the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and Mercaris. Mercaris is a Certified B Corporation that provides market data and information on organic and non-GMO commodities, and manages a trading platform for buyers and sellers to meet online to trade these commodities. Farmers can sign up to receive free price reports on their site here.
Comparison of Conventional and Organic Crop Rotations
Purdue Extension-Organic Agriculture, in collaboration with the Purdue University Center for Commercial Agriculture, is working to develop a series of enterprise budgets and financial tools to assist farmers considering a transition of acreage to certified organic grain production, and to help those already managing certified organic grain production to assess their net returns with changes in crop rotation and practices. Specifically, net returns are compared for a conventional corn/soybean rotation, a conventional corn/soybean/wheat rotation, and an organic corn/soybean/wheat rotation (with a phased transition of acreage).