Organic food from Europe? Check your local grocery store soon

Dan Charles — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:55:04 +0000

If you buy organic products, your options may be about to expand. The U.S. and the European Union are announcing that they will soon treat each other's organic standards as equivalent. In other words, if it's organic here, it's also organic in Europe, and vice versa. Organic food companies are cheering because their potential markets just doubled.

Those formal definitions of "organic" actually were codified quite recently — just a few decades ago.

Organic farming down in Washington despite growing demand for organic foods

Charla Bear — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:39:28 +0000

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kplu/local-kplu-960610.mp3

As sales of organic foods continue to climb across the country, organic farming in Washington has decreased. That surprised some researchers for a state that's one of the country’s top producers of organic produce.

While people in the agriculture industry expect certain crops to go through challenging cycles now and then, an annual study of the state’s organic farms shows "significant" declines in the past year, according to David Granatstein. He's sustainable agriculture specialist at Washington State University. Granatstein co-authored a new study that found decreases in the number of organic producers, acreage and farm gate sales.