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“I’m a huge fan of the organic movement,” Kohl said in a speech at the 18th annual Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference at the La Crosse Center. “I think it’s great for America. I think it’s good for you.”
Kohl also said, “Americans buy products that are labeled organic, and they expect them to be pure and natural. They expect them to have integrity.” He said that’s why he and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced legislation earlier this month to bar products produced from cloned livestock from receiving an organic food label under the National Organic Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Helping farmers convert to organic systems is a good way to cultivate integrity, Kohl said. “Conservation is also about integrity in our agriculture systems,” he said. “And I hope and believe that our next farm bill will have strong conservation provisions.”
Kohl added he is chairman of the Senate Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee, and will work with Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin,
D-Iowa, to make sure these ideas are incorporated into the 2007 farm bill. That bill will replace the 2002 farm bill, which expires later this year.
Later, at a press conference with three organic farming leaders, Kohl said a farmer’s transition to organic farming takes several years. Financial support is needed for that transition, he said.
Faye Jones, executive director of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service, which sponsors the annual conference, said MOSES’ has three top priorities for the 2007 farm bill. They are a significant expansion of funding for organic agriculture research, education and information; an increase in cost-share funding for organic certification; and full funding and putting into use the Conservation Security Program.
Sales of organic food have risen to about $15 billion a year and continue to grow about 20 percent a year, said Mark Lipsohn, policy director for the Organic Farming Research Foundation. The organic sector gets slightly more than one-half of 1 percent of the money the USDA spends each year on research, extension and education, he said. “We’d like to shoot for
10 percent,” he said.
More than 2,300 people are attending the conference, which began Thursday and ends today.
Steve Cahalan is business editor for the La Crosse Tribune.
