CSA News
by Nancy Maddox
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Around 10,000 BC, the dawn of the Agricultural Revolution, human societies began domesticating wild plants. For the next 12,000 years, farming relied exclusively on natural inputs, such as animal manure and compost.
The first synthetic fertilizers and pesticides were developed only about 100 years ago but quickly became mainstays of “conventional” farming. In 1992, virtually all of the 460 million acres of U.S. cropland—all but 0.001%—were conventionally managed.
About this same time, however, a new trend emerged, marked by growing interest in traditional and innovative farming practices that invigorate the soil, without resorting to most synthetic chemicals. The Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 laid out the principles of this new “organic” farming and authorized the USDA to establish a program that would identify acceptable organic production inputs and certify farms meeting the agency’s standards. In 2000, the USDA published its final rule for the National Organic Program, which became operational in 2002.
Now, with increased momentum from the farm-to-fork movement and environmentally aware consumers, the organic food industry is going mainstream. Three out of four conventional grocery stores today offer organic products, according to the USDA. And the amount of cropland devoted to organic agriculture rose from just 403,400 acres in 1992 to roughly 3.1 million acres in 2011. In 2014, organic food sales reached an estimated $35 billion.
In fact, organic foods constitute the fastest-growing agricultural sector.Read full article here.
