David I bet that in the Cedar Rapids area there is not 2% of the crops grown truly organic. There is/was the fellow right there at the 2 to 4 lane merge west of Mt. Vernon on 30 that grew produce or tried, on some pretty poor soils. He grew some great weeds there.
I live right across from a very good farmer. He went organic 10 years ago with his dairy. He struggles to produce protein feed for his cows. He rents extra ground to grow soybeans to roast. He never needed that ground when he was conventionally farming. He rarely can get over 15-20 Bushels per acre of soybeans because of weed pressure. It is a good thing he can chop his corn if the weeds take over. He has to about half the time. He is at the mercy of the weather too much. He has fertility and cultivates but neither of those do much good when you get wet weather that does not allow you in the field. Even better it rains a few hours after you just cultivated. Then on herd health. He struggles with keeping cows. They will be in great condition and health. Then wham he gets hit with a mastitis out break and down the road go some more cows. He has free stalls for 100 cows but struggles to keep in the 75-80 range. When he was doing conventional farming he was in the top of the county in production and longevity.
I do know some other very successful organic farmers. They are successful monetarily not crop production wise. They average 1/3 to 1/2 of the crop that can be produced conventionally on their ground. That is in good years too. Two of them are heavy into produce. They both say the second the big premiums are gone in organic, they are back to conventional farming. They only do organic because of those premiums.
Many of the fellows I see jump on the organic band wagon fail because they are not making money in the conventional farming world. Usually to some management short coming. Then they chase the "BIG" dollar organic market. They just about always fail. Their management short comings are magnified with organic. You have hours/days to do things right not days or weeks. The people that I know that are successful at organic, are all top notch managers. Most of them would be successful managing just about any business. So I say that is their "key" to success not organic production.
Organic is easy to promote and believe in when your earning higher wages plus living in a country with abundant food supplies. Try that poor and with tight food supplies and the wheels fall off real fast.
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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