The environmental and health benefits of organic agriculture are plentiful, but the problem is that farmers seeking to tap into the organic market often face prohibitive costs when transitioning their conventional production methods to organic ones. In order to spur more organic farming in America, private companies are starting to pick up the slack by helping finance the upfront costs on behalf of farmers. For example, Pipeline Foods created a program that provides grain farmers with economic support, marketing assistance, and insurance advice for farms that are in the process of switching to organic. Elsewhere, yogurt-giant Danone is offering farms a cost-plus contract in which the company covers the input costs and guarantees a margin of return for a specific duration of time to support dairy farms that are transitioning. Making the switch from conventional farming methods to organic farming isn’t so straightforward for most farmers, but thanks to a number of food giants including Kashi & Land o’Lakes, more and more farmers are finding the means to do so.
Major food companies are backing farmers to make the switch to organic
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