$17,000,000 in Organic Agriculture Research funds released

Get your proposals in by March 9, 2009.

This is one of the most exciting things for the Organic industry this year. The USDA has done very little to help the Organic industry and in fact has adopted some measures in the past that have significantly hurt the industry (like making Organic farmers pay a premium for insurance and then only reimbursing them for conventional prices of their crop).

But this is a good step in the right direction. It's still does not come close to reflecting the size of the Organic industry in their support. The USDA spends billions of dollars in agriculture research. Despite Organics being almost 3% of the US food system, the industry received less than .5% of the research dollars. Not fair? Tell me about it.

Here's where you can go to apply for funds (and yes, anyone can apply):
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/organicagricultureresearchandextensioninitiative.cfm