If you take HobbyFarms.com on a regular basis , you ’re likely on control board with the idea thatorganic farmingis a effective choice for an area ’s environmental wellness . Penn State University ag economist Edward Jaenicke has foundit ’s good also for an surface area ’s economic wellness .
He chose 225 counties in the U.S. to examine as “ constitutional hotspot . ” These are counties with a in high spirits denseness of constituent operations surrounded by county that also have a high density of organic operations . ( see out if you subsist in anorganic hotspot . )
Jaenicke ’s findings are encourage for the future of constitutive factory farm ’s role in rural ontogenesis :
Organic Rural Development
The Organic Trade Association call for Jaenicke to collect his findings into a white paper for their use . In anOTA closet release , chief executive officer and executive director Laura Batcha said :
“ Organic agriculture can be used as an effectual economic development putz , particularly in our rural area . The findings of this research … provides policymakers with an economic and sound intellect to abide organic agriculture and to create more economy - arouse organic hotspot throughout the country . ”
OTA points out that organic is one of the quickest - growing sector of the U.S. solid food industry , climb 11 pct in 2015 , as compared to the overall food market ’s 3 percentage ontogeny . It ’s worth $ 40 million .
This economical growth find complementsPenn State news show from 2014that enounce farms engaging in community of interests - focused farming — direct - to - consumer sales and agritourism — boost local economic increment .
“ We found that for every $ 1 increase in agricultural gross sales , personal income rose by 22 cents over the course of five years , ” says Stephan Goetz , prof of Agricultural and Regional Economics at Penn State and the managing director ofThe Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development .
Andthe USDA recently reportedthat farms that sell direct - to - consumer — think farmers markets , roadside tie-up and CSAs — may stay in business longer . The identification number of these farm increased 24 pct between 2002 and 2012 . From 2007 to 2012 , 61 percent of farms with direct - to - consumer sales were still in commercial enterprise under the same operator , compare with 55 percentage of farm that did not have these verbatim sales .
All around , economist are come up up with good word for small - shell , constitutional farm businesses !
