Organic Farming Continues to Expand
Organic hops, research trial of cover crops. Yakima Valley. Photo: D. Granatstein. It’s hard for much to make the news other than politics these days. But the world keeps on turning, we keep on eating,…
Organic Farming
My First Tilth: educational, informative and full of surprises
This year CSANR sponsored registration for several WSU students to attend the Tilth Conference. We will be posting reflections written by the students over the next several weeks. Please feel free to comment and give these students your feedback. My name is Tuong Vu, an undergraduate of the Organic Agriculture Systems major at Washington State […]
CAFOs manure use on small farms – from liability to asset
This year CSANR sponsored registration for several WSU students to attend the Tilth Conference. We will be posting reflections written by the students over the next several weeks. Please feel free to comment and give these students your feedback. My research work at Washington State University deals with environmental problems associated with big agricultural enterprises, […]
A Good Harvest: Mendoza and Baird dazzle the Quincy Success Summit
As shown in this logo designed by Quincy resident Oscar Romero, the theme of last Tuesday’s bilingual community summit held at the Quincy Junior High as “Seeding Success, Growing ONE Community.” A team of bilingual junior high students and faculty, along…
Washington organic apples – nearly a billion strong!
It is apple harvest time again in Washington State, albeit about two weeks earlier than normal in most places. This will be a large crop overall, and probably a record crop for organic apples. The projection is for a harvest of just over 11 million 40-pound boxes of organic apples. At 88 apples per box […]
Organic Farming Provides Ecosystem Service and Solves Weed Problems
In nearly all surveys of organic farmers their top priority for research is weed control. Weeds are a tough problem to solve, but with creativity and spunk, researchers in Spain have done it! In their…
The “Sunset Review” Process of the National Organic Standards Board
This post was written by Harold Austin, NOSB member and David Granatstein, WSU The Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-624, Nov. 28, 1990) was passed to establish a uniform definition and regulation of organic foods in the U.S. The law provides the framework for development of a system for organic certification (7 […]
The State of Organic Seed and How it Changed Me
This year CSANR sponsored registration for several WSU students to attend Tilth Producers of WA annual conference. We will be posting reflections written by the students over the next several weeks. Please feel free to comment and give these students your feedback. When I entered the “State of Organic Seed” workshop Sunday afternoon of the […]
Carkner of Terry’s Berries awarded “Farmer of the Year”
After 31 years, Terry Carkner has retired from her namesake farm, Terry’s Berries, in the Puyallup River Valley. She and her husband Dick converted a 25-acre conventional raspberry farm into a diversified organic vegetable farm and started one of the first CSA farms in the state. At their recent conference, the Tilth Producers of Washington […]
Organic appetite continues to grow
Next week, Sept. 12-19, is Washington Organic Week, an annual celebration of organic farms, foods, and businesses in the state. This week we are releasing our 2014 statistical update of the organic sector, a report we have now produced for 10 years running. With continuous data over time, one can start to pick out some […]