Soil Health

Written by Brian Geier, OFRF Communications Manger. This article was originally published in Pennsylvania Certified Organic’s (PCO) Organic Matters publication. See the article in PCO’s Winter/Spring 2025 edition.

Before diving into the importance and impact of organic research in Pennsylvania, let’s start with some national context. Nationwide, certified organic produce now makes up more than 15% of total produce sales in the United States. Organic dairy and eggs now constitute more than 11% of the total market. And overall, organic sales have doubled over the last 10 years and in 2024 made up about 6% of the total US food market. By most measurements, organic food is trending upward. Most notably, the growth of organic sales is consistently outpacing the growth of the overall food market. To say it another way, we might be heading into a future that is more and more organic! 

But will we get there? 

Despite the growth of the organic sector, organic agriculture research funding makes up less than 2% of the total research at the USDA, and less than 1% at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). Additionally, much of the research focused on conventional agriculture relates to chemical applications or genetic traits—technologies that organic producers do not, and if certified, can not, use. To put it another way, organic research benefits all farmers, including conventional ones, but not the other way around.

In order to sustain the growth in organic acreage, producers, and products, it is crucial that more USDA funding be organic and applicable to all farmers. National policy priorities identified by the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) include:

• Increasing USDA’s research funding for organic research through both competitive grant programs at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and intramural research at ARS to reflect its market share and growth trajectory.
• Fully funding the Organic Data Initiative to provide the necessary market analysis of a rapidly sophisticating sector. 
• Expanding the accessibility and applicability of technical and financial assistance programs for organic farmers. 

To learn more about this policy work that supports organic nationwide and in Pennsylvania, visit OFRF’s advocacy page.

Organic Research in the Keystone State

Pennsylvania is a powerhouse of organic agriculture. It ranked 4th in the nation with over 100,000 certified acres and 1,200+ farms generating $1 billion in sales in 2021, according to the latest organic survey by the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The USDA’s NIFA has awarded over $28 million in grants to the state’s research institutions for organic research. Penn State University has played a crucial role, investing $12 million. The ARS has historically funded 17 projects in the state researching organic topics, but currently has no active projects. 

Organic farmers in the state and region have identified three key research concerns (according to the 2022 National Organic Research Agenda): 

• Climate adaptation and resilience. 
• Pest management.
• Soil health.

Active Research Projects in Pennsylvania

Recent NIFA investments, through programs like the Organic Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) and the Organic Transitions Program (ORG), have provided nearly $12 million over the past four years to ongoing projects with an organic focus in Pennsylvania. Key projects at Penn State focus on intensifying production and improving resilience of organic grains, developing a nitrogen decision support tool, testing anaerobic soil disinfection (ASD) in fields and in high tunnels, tracking foraging patterns of organic bees, evaluating perennial crop rotations, and developing parasite resistance in dairy cattle. Another project looking at immersive experiential education of urban educators is underway at Drexel University.

OFRF’s State-By-State leave-behinds provide data on the organic industry and organic research in states, and can be used to help farmers, researchers, and advocates when articulating needs for proposals or advocating for policy.

OREI-funded research on organic grain production (led by Dr. John Wallace) builds on previous research on reduced and no-til strategies, including planting into high-residue cover crops. Credit: Penn State Weed Science.

Besides providing new knowledge to organic growers, each of these research projects have other direct and indirect benefits worth noting. The Economic Research Service estimates that every $1 spent on agricultural research generates an additional $20 in benefits to the economy. In Pennsylvania, that means the $28 million for organic research translates to $560 million in economic activity. This effect can be seen given the growth of the value in Pennsylvania’s organic production between 2019 and 2021. In 2019, Pennsylvania had 1,039 organic farms with over $740 million in farmgate sales. In 2021, those numbers grew to 1,123 organic farms generating over $1 billion. Research provides real economic opportunities to farms looking to maximize both their economic return and their ecological impact.

Additionally, organic research provides professional training opportunities for undergraduates, graduates, and postdoctoral fellows on organic systems, and promotes symbiosis between up-and-coming researchers and the organic community. As Dr. Ajay Nair, newly appointed as the Department of Horticulture Chair at Iowa State University explained in a recent interview with OFRF, OREI “is the foundation for several of the organic projects that happen across the country. It serves as a good platform for us to reach out to organic growers and for organic growers to reach out to us and say, ‘Hey, can we address this particular issue that is coming up?’ These OREI grants,” he explains, are “actually helping to build our network…to help us build teams across the country.” 

How Pennsylvania Research Benefits Growers Across the Eastern US

Just as organic research can be applicable to all farmers, multi-state projects led in Pennsylvania are bringing new findings to organic farmers facing similar challenges across regions. For example, the OREI-funded project assessing ASD in field, led by Dr. Gioia at Penn State, includes similar research plots led by Dr. Xin Zhao at University of Florida. Results from Pennsylvania may provide insights for growers in the Northeast who face challenges managing soil borne diseases, while the plots in Florida reflect conditions faced by organic growers in the Southeast, but results from each region might inform growers who face similar challenges to similar cropping systems. Growers interested in managing soil health with ASD in the Upper Midwest or the Southeast might find the eOrganic webinar from Dr. Zhao valuable. The webinar focuses on selecting the right carbon source for the organic practice of ASD, which includes insights from the trials on Pennsylvania farms. All growers who want to use ASD to support their transition period to organic farming may be interested in the additional grant awarded to Dr. Gioia and his team to assess the economic viability of using ASD during the transition to organic to control pests and weeds. Additionally, any grower using or considering using ASD can share their story and contribute to the project. “The survey,” Dr. Gioia explains “is part of the bottom-up approach our team have been using to improve the ASD application method and make sure that our research is relevant to growers and meets their needs.”

Research at Penn State evaluates the impacts of cover crop residues combined or not with wheat bran and molasses as a carbon source for ASD applications on lettuce. The project supports similar research being conducted at the University of Florida. Credit: Francesco Di Gioia/Penn State.

Completed Projects Provide New Resources for Organic Growers

Aside from the active projects above, several NIFA-funded organic research projects have been completed in Pennsylvania. While they may be concluded, the benefits of these organic projects continue. The results of these studies are not limited to publication in academic scientific journals or relevant only to scientists. Researchers, farmers, and extension specialists often collaborate to share the results of studies in ways that are meaningful and applicable to farmers. 

Take soil microbial management, for example. An OREI-funded study led by Dr. Jason Kaye at Penn State involved adding different sources of microbes (composts, forest soils, and other sources) to soils and measuring microbial populations. The project partnered with Pasa Sustainable Agriculture to collaborate with working farmers to conduct studies on working farms. While measurements of soil microbes may not be enough to provide specific recommendations to growers, the knowledge of how microbe populations change under management conditions and how they interact with plant crops can help farmers make better decisions.

Assuming soil microbes are fascinating to everyone with an interest in organic matters, let’s digress here for a moment. There are a myriad of ways that microbes can help or hinder organic systems: Microbes called biostimulants can release hormones into the soil that can help increase plant growth, while others can degrade the stress chemicals that plants produce during drought, helping plants become more resilient. Some microbes called biofertilizers can unlock nutrients in soils that plants cannot access themselves, helping where there may be excess nutrients, while other biofertilizers exchange nutrients directly with the plants in exchange for carbon. And get this—some perform better than others. That is, some biofertilizers that exchange phosphorus for carbon, called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), offer plants more phosphorus in exchange for the same amount of carbon when compared with other AMFs. 

When research-generated insights like these are made available and then accessed, farmers can make better-informed decisions for years to come. All of this fascinating information and more is available to farmers on eOrganic (see Management of Soil Microbes on Organic Farms and Soil Microbes in Organic Cropping Systems 101). Launched in 2009, eOrganic is a national, internet-based, interactive, user-driven, organic agriculture information system for farmers and agricultural professionals.

Want To keep Up With Organic Research in Your State or Nationally?

Aside from using eOrganic, growers and researchers can look forward to a new Organic Content Hub being developed by the OFRF, coming in early 2025. The Content Hub will be searchable by topic, crop, and region, and will provide users with the most current research relevant to organic farming. (Follow OFRF on social media and sign up for our newsletter to get updates on the Content Hub, organic research updates, new organic resources, and more.)

A figure developed by a graduate student (Laura Kaminsky) working on an OREI-funded project during 2019-23 at Penn State, illustrates examples of beneficial microbes. The left diagram shows nitrogen-fixing bacteria, housed either in nodules on legume roots or free-living in the soil. The right diagram illustrates arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) (pink) associated with plant roots. See Soil Microbes in Organic Cropping Systems 101.

Moving Forward With Organic Research 

Organic farming research is generating economic activity in Pennsylvania, providing professional development to researchers and students across the east, forming regional networks between researchers and growers, and producing publications being used by organic growers across the country. One might say that the current state of research in Pennsylvania is healthy and humming! 

Looking to the future, it is critical that federal funding keeps up with the growth of the organic movement nationally and in the state. OFRF and partners work daily to bolster and protect this funding, and we are always looking for farmer and researcher partners in this work. If you are an organic farmer or researcher and are willing to share your story, your experiences can be some of the best fodder for advocating for or directing future organic research in Pennsylvania.