As more consumers throughout the nation opt for organic produce and meats, the sale of such products has accelerated in the Midwest.
In fact, Wisconsin has the second-most certified organic farms in the country for the past eight years, according to a recently released survey from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agriculture Statistics Survey.
“A big part of it is the Driftless Region,” said Chuck Anderas, an organic specialist with Midwest Organic Sustainable Education Service. “Southwest Wisconsin goes back to the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and they started promoting conservation. The land is very, very hilly. That’s kept the farms smaller in that area. You just can’t use the really big machinery like you can in the flat parts of Illinois and Iowa.”
But the popularity of organic farming and foods has spread from Wisconsin to other states that make up the tri-state region as people grow mindful of where their food comes from and how it is produced.
“We started in 2011 with selling down at the farmers market, and since that, we have added an online store, and we even do another farmers market,” said Amy O’Connell, of O’Connell Organic Acres in Durango, Iowa. “First, we just started selling beef, and then we had a demand for pork and chicken.”
Ray Kruse, food systems program coordinator with Iowa State Extension and Outreach Dubuque County, said he worked on an organic farm in the area and acknowledged its growing popularity.
“I would not say if there is a huge uptick, but the increase is there,” he said.
Brittany Demezier, also a food systems program coordinator with Dubuque County ISU Extension, added she knows the marketplace for organic foods has increased and that organic meats and produce are easily accessible in the tri-state region.
According to the survey, the total sales nationwide for organic products increased by 31% from 2016 to 2019. In Iowa, sales increased by 10%; Wisconsin, 5%; and Illinois, 40%.
“There is just a really large opportunity for growth for farmers, so it makes sense that Iowa and Illinois would make a big shift because the markets are there and you can sell $9 (organic) corn or $3 corn,” Anderas said.
What helps the tri-state area is the abundance of dairy farmers who shifted their cows to organic in the 1990s. Wisconsin cow milk had the highest total value of sales out of any organic commodity with $125.7 million sales in 2019, according to the survey.
“I think a lot of the younger consumers, especially the younger mothers that are more concerned with where their food comes from, are starting to get more concerned,” said Larry Tranel, dairy field specialist with ISU Extension and Outreach. “Producers are beginning to show more interest in it, and consumers continue to show interest in it, so where that growth is going to go, it’s hard to try to make a guess.”
