The organic industry wants to tap into check-off money collected by commodity groups.
That was the consensus of a committee formed at last week’s Organic Connections conference with the purpose of establishing an organic prairie research coalition.
“This is essentially just a set-up committee. We’re still sort of a step behind the real thing,” said Brenda Frick, prairie co-ordinator for the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada.
Convincing commodity groups to devote more of their research budgets to organic production isn’t expected to be a tough sell, said conference president and committee member Debbie Miller.
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“Organic producers are paying into those programs already. If we can somehow show that we are organized and reasonable, then they will seriously consider our requests.”
Miller said the rapid growth of the organic sector has created a demand for research into subjects like how to make phosphorus more available.
“There are some issues like that and hundreds of others that we would like to see done.”
The fact that 500 farmers, trade show participants and speakers showed up to the Saskatoon Centennial Auditorium for the two-day Organic Connections event shows the need is there, said Miller.
There is also mounting interest in the research community to explore organics, said University of Saskatchewan agronomist Steve Shirtliffe, who is investigating better weed control methods for organic agriculture.
Ten years ago, organic research was something “kooks and nuts did,” but these days it is “cool and vogue,” said Shirtliffe.
While there is definitely heightened interest in organics, there is a lack of money to fund such projects, said Frick. There is also a lack of co-ordination when it comes to setting research goals and avoiding project duplication. That’s why mapping out a direction for organic research would be another task for the proposed coalition.
“There are so many little voices out there. This one should be a larger overview kind of a voice for determining research priorities,” she said.
Eventually the group would be responsible for collecting and disbursing check-off dollars from commodity groups, but that’s a long way down the road.
The first priority will be to establish a structure, mandate and mission statement for the coalition, which should happen in December, said Frick.
