Organic Farming

Blueberries are Blooming and Booming

Consumer interest in blueberries as part of a healthy diet has exploded in recent years.  Blueberries are considered one of the “superfruits”, full of antioxidants and other beneficial compounds. They are also easy to use, especially in breakfasts, where the breakfast smoothie has become a standard way to start the day for many.  This new […]

2015 BIOAg Projects

Each year CSANR administers an internal competitive grant program called BIOAg to fund new research and education projects focused on improving the sustainability of agriculture in Washington State. To date, through BIOAg and precursor internal grant programs, CSANR has funded 150 projects – many of which have led to significant new investments of extramural funding […]

Embracing Value-Added, Evidence-Based Diversity Across the Food Industry is Good for Business

If you ask any brand manager, company executive, or corporate board member what a company’s most valuable asset is, the answer is always the same – consumer trust, and the marketplace loyalty grounded in that trust. Whether selling cars, computers, or potato chips, both trust and market share are difficult to earn and easily lost. […]

Innovation sparks excitement and engagement

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. My name is Kyle and I’m currently studying organic agriculture systems at WSU.  […]

Narrowing the Conventional Versus Organic Farming System Yield Gap

Nearly everyone agrees that producing ample, nutritious and safe food to feed 9 billion people, with minimal harm to the environment, is one of mankind’s grand challenges. In the May 14, 2014 issue of National Geographic, Jonathan Foley sets out a thoughtful, five-step plan that highlighted these imperatives: “Freeze agriculture’s footprint” (e.g., stop clearing tropical […]

Promoting Global Food Security One Crop of Tomatoes at a Time

In early September I visited a remarkable organic farm on the coast of California.  This farm has been in organic production for about 30 years, and its harvests of mostly organic tomatoes have been marketed through a variety of outlets in Northern California. I arrived on the day picking had just begun on a sloping […]

FY15 BIOAg Request For Proposals released

This week, CSANR released its annual BIOAg Program request for proposals for new research and extension projects. The RFP can be found here. This competitive grant program is the key mechanism that CSANR has to engage a broad, interdisciplinary spectrum of WSU faculty in projects that further the development, understanding, and use of biologically intensive […]

Washington Organic Week – a time to celebrate the harvest

Every year the second week in September (7th-13th this year) is designated as Washington Organic Week (WOW!) to celebrate the organic farmers, farms and food and the bounty of the harvest in our state (learn more HERE). Nationally, the organic sector did well in 2013, reaching $32.3 billion in retail food sales, up 11.4% from […]

New Meta-Analysis Identifies Three Significant Benefits Associated With Organically Grown Plant-Based Foods

There have been four progressively rigorous meta-analyses published since 2009 focusing on differences in the nutritional quality and safety of organic versus conventional food. The latest comes out July 15, 2014 in the British Journal of Nutrition (BJN). I was the sole American scientist on the mostly European research team that produced the BJN paper: […]

Pesticide Residues in Organic Food — Delivering on a Promise

Avoiding pesticide exposure and risks remains the #1 reason most people choose organic food. This is not likely to change until there is convincing data that show only modest differences between the pesticide dietary risks associated with residues in and on organic food, compared to conventionally grown food.