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Farmers Wanted for Organic Commodity Price Reporting
St. Paul, MN - December 15, 2006
Certified organic growers of organic grains, beans, oilseeds and hay are invited to participate in a new organic commodity price reporting service. The service is being developed by Gigi DiGiacomo, a Senior Fellow with the University of Minnesota's School of Agriculture Endowed Chair Program, in collaboration with the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).
The new price reporting service will make available high, low and weighted average prices for organic commodities throughout the Upper Midwest. Prices will be gathered from buyers and sellers on a daily basis and reported either monthly or weekly - depending on the volume of data available. Once collected, all data will be available in a report format and through the AMS' searchable database online.
Farmers will benefit tremendously from organic price reporting DiGiacomo says. "Price reporting will create transparency and stability in the marketplace." And, she says, the more farmer participation the better. "Currently, there are only a handful of price reporting services for organic commodities," DiGiacomo says. "These services report prices offered by buyers only. The price reporting that I am proposing to establish with AMS will average prices from buyers and sellers so that a balance is created and price manipulation in either direction is minimized." Moreover, DiGiacomo says, by including the organic numbers in AMS' database, lenders, crop insurance agents, growers, and others in the industry will be able to access information and generate price histories for organic commodities free of charge.
If you are interested in learning more about organic price reporting, have ideas to contribute, or would like to participate please contact Gigi DiGiacomo by phone at 612-710-1188 or by email at rgdigiacomo@earthlink.net. For a copy of current AMS reports for conventional grain and livestock commodities, visit http://marketnews.usda.gov.
Contacts: Gigi DiGiacomo, Endowed Chair in Agricultural Systems, University of Minnesota, 612-710-1188 or rgdigiacomo@earthlink.net
Helene Murray, Executive Director, Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, 612-625-0220, murra021@umn.edu