I get questioned sometimes about varieties to plant in organic agriculture. Farmers are some of the best experimenters of all time and they find things nobody else can! If you look at the USDA Integrity Database there is lots of great information available and depending on the organic certifier there will be a good list of what organic growers are planting.
Now the hard part is getting all that information out of the database and into a format that you can see what they are planting. Now it will not include every variety our many Texas organic growers plant but it will give you a pretty good idea. Check out the list below by clicking either on the button for a Download or on the Organic Varieties for 2025 for it to open in an online spreadsheet.
This article and information were written by Tom Karst with The Packer, and it appears on The Packer website here: The Packer Hopefully this will keep me out of trouble for copying their information for you to read!!!
The Packer surveyed over 1000 consumers last fall about a host of things but in particular they asked about buying organic produce. They asked, “Why do you buy certified organic produce?”
Food safety/avoiding chemicals: 57%.
Nutrient content/Personal health: 51%.
Environmental/social responsibility: 41%.
Other: 3%.
I hear from a lot of consumers and even though I won’t say that my results are scientific, I will have to agree that people talking to me say they want organic because they don’t want chemicals on their food.
Here is the second question they asked, “When consumers were asked where they were most likely to buy organic fresh produce, respondents said:”
Almost everyone assumes that people buy organic at specialty stores that sell organic but notice that the typical Texas grocery store sells 70% of all organic produce bought.
They also asked about the percentage of organic produce bought and all the consumers surveyed bought some organic produce. When asked if they would pay a premium for organic only 11 percent of consumers were not willing to pay more for organic.
Nobody likes to do surveys – period! We are about to see the political survey season and the calls, emails and texts will be coming almost every day. I never really see the point to those surveys and like everyone else I just “hang up!”
But occasionally there are surveys that are designed to help tell your message and this rice survey is just that. Producers almost always complain that “no one is listening!” But sometimes they are listening, and we want to know your opinions about rice farming and the rice industry. We would love to have your answers and we will use your answers along with every other rice producer to implement change and tell your message.
Or just take a picture with your phone of this scan code to go to the website.
This survey was developed by the University of Arkansas, University of California, and Texas A&M University. A big thanks to the University of Arkansas for doing the survey formatting. This project is ongoing, and we will continue to collect information for the next several months.
Recently I spoke with Josh Brooks the new Chairman and CEO of Guar Resources in Brownfield. Josh is pretty excited to announce the reopening of the facility after a long 15 months of work. They are now looking for growers to contract guar production in 2023.
Guar is an indeterminate legume that is perfect for rotation programs around cotton, sorghum, corn, etc. It is predominantly a dryland crop and is very drought tolerant. I have had the opportunity to be a part of growing guar in the 2012-2014 years and found it to be easy to grow. Seeding rates are generally around 8 lbs./ac. but can range from 6-12 lbs./ac.
I asked Josh about the need for organic guar, and he said YES! He is offering contracts for organic that are about 50% more than conventional price. For more information on guar go to https://guarresources.com
Utrisha N from Corteva Biologicals is an OMRI certified dry powder of Methylobacterium symbioticum, a bacterium that enters the plant and takes nitrogen from the atmosphere for the plant to use. It comes in 50 ounces packages that will treat 10 acres (5 oz. per acre). It is mixed with water and sprayed with a minimum of 10 gallons of water per acre.
On April 4thI applied the Utrisha N on triticale being grown for silage (picture below). I wanted to see if Utrisha N would increase silage protein when applied late in the season (preboot to boot stage). The Utrisha N was being applied by a commercial rig as a liquid and I marked off a sizeable area that was not treated to be able to harvest as an untreated check.
I took two harvests from the plots (2 plots with 2 replications), one early harvest on April 18 and one late harvest on May 3rd. I did not take a yield from each plot since the Utrisha N was applied after vegetative growth had ceased and we were into grain production. The cost of organic protein sources can mean a lot of extra money spent on organic grain when there could be a cheaper source! Forages are always a cheaper option for both energy and protein and they help stimulate milk production. But they must be high quality to fit in a milking cow ration.
The longer the plants were in the field and continued to mature to grain, the overall crude protein % went down (typical, with maturity). It is amazing how quickly overall crude protein drops with maturity as seen by the untreated area. But the Utrisha protein reduction was less with time than the untreated area and more than paid for the Utrisha N treatment and application at $20 per acre!!
Are you a producer transitioning to organic or maybe you already grow a certified organic grain or feed crop? Are those crops covered with Federal crop insurance? If the answer is yes, you can now get premium assistance from the USDA for the 2023 reinsurance year through the Transitional and Organic Grower Assistance (TOGA) Program. It’s offered by the USDA’s Risk Management Agency, and it can reduce your overall crop insurance premium bills, and help you continue to use an organic agricultural system.
Eligible organic grain and feed crops under the TOGA program are: alfalfa seed, barley, buckwheat, canola, corn, cultivated wild rice, dry beans, dry peas, flax, forage production, forage seeding, fresh market sweet corn, grain sorghum, hybrid corn seed, hybrid popcorn seed, hybrid sorghum seed, hybrid sweet corn seed, millet, oats, crops insured under the Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage policy, peanuts, popcorn, rice, rye, safflower, sesame, silage sorghum, soybeans, sunflowers, sweet corn, triticale, and wheat.
You will automatically receive the premium assistance on your billing statements for the 2023 reinsurance year, which covers applicable policies with sales closing dates from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023.
Since there is no enrollment paperwork, the premium assistance will automatically apply to those eligible insurance policies with July or August sales closing dates that have passed.
More information is available on this website: TOGA
USDA to Provide Aid to Organic Dairy Producers for Marketing
Assistance to Help Organic Dairy Producers Cover Increased Costs Farm Service Agency (FSA) is making $104 million available to organic dairy operations to assist with projected marketing costs in 2023, calculated using their marketing costs in 2022.
FSA will begin accepting applications for ODMAP on May 24, 2023. Eligible producers include certified organic dairy operations that produce milk from cows, goats and sheep.
More information the dairy market program is available on this website: ODMPA
Texas A&M AgriLife Organic 