Washington, DC
June, 2009

Emerging Issues in the U.S. Organic Industry
By Catherine Greene, Carolyn Dimitri, Biing-Hwan Lin, William McBride, Lydia Oberholtzer, and Travis Smith
Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB-55) 36 pp, June 2009

Consumer demand for organic products has widened over the last decade. While new producers have emerged to help meet demand, market participants report that a supply squeeze is constraining growth for both individual firms and the organic sector overall. Partly in response to shortages in organic supply, Congress in 2008 included provisions in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act (2008 Farm Act) that, for the first time, provide direct financial support to farmers to convert to organic production. This report examines recent economic research on the adoption of organic farming systems, organic production costs and returns, and market conditions to gain a better understanding of the organic supply squeeze and other emerging issues in this rapidly changing industry.

• Report summary, 213 kb. | HTML

• Abstract, Contents, and Summary, 405 kb.
• Introduction, 105 kb.
• U.S. Market Growth Outpaces Domestic Supply, 395 kb.
• Higher Food Prices and Local Food Labels, 117 kb.
• New Directions in U.S. Organic Policy, 107 kb.
• Conclusions, 94 kb.
• References, 113 kb.

• Entire Report, 1,240 kb.

Charts and graphs (in .png format) from this report are available in the .zip file listed below. The .zip file also contains a document (readme.txt) that lists the name and title of each chart or graph file.

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Website: http://www.ers.usda.gov/

Published: June 15, 2009