Political Quotes

“I am offering this amendment to move funding from the Agriculture Building and Facilities and Rental Payments account and investing that money in the Organic Data Initiative. Organic agriculture is a very important and growing sector of our farm and ranch community. It has continued to grow at a double-digit rate since Congress passed the Organic Act in 1990. The office collects and disseminates data regarding organic agriculture through the Agricultural Marketing Service, the Economic Research Service, and the National Agricultural Statistics Service. The organic sector should have the same access to data available to all agriculture--a building block to a successful U.S. agricultural economy. As the industry surpasses $29 billion, this information is vital to maintain stable markets, create proper risk management tools, and negotiate equivalency agreements with foreign governments. It is imperative that we continue to collect information gained by ODI. The AMS collects organic prices and disseminates the data through Market News Reports. {time} 2200 NASS conducts surveys and collects data used for the Census of Agriculture. The ERS published the consumer survey ``Marketing U.S. Organic Foods: Recent Trends from Farms to Consumers 2009,'' and continues to produce reports which used the data collected by AMS and NASS in addition to surveying Americans about their organic consumption patterns.…”