
A Farmer Who Wants to Go Beyond Organic - ciconia
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theresabeckhusen/2018/10/12/luke-peterson-wants-to-take-his-farm-beyond-organic
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TruffleLabs
For clarity, there is no specific equipment use requirement to be certified
organic in the USA.

The statement “To achieve certification, Peterson restored 40-year-old
cultivation equipment” implies such an action.

Peterson could have bought or leased new or used equipment.

See background:
[https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/who_needs...](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/who_needs_to_be_certified.pdf)

Also, the story mentions the number of farms that are certified organic but
that is not the only metric to consider: number of acres certified organic,
revenue of the organic ecosystem by year, revenue by sector, organic imports,
etc.

See details
[https://www.nass.usda.gov/Surveys/Guide_to_NASS_Surveys/Orga...](https://www.nass.usda.gov/Surveys/Guide_to_NASS_Surveys/Organic_Production/index.php)

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dbcurtis
You are correct. I suspect the reason he uses old machines is that with 80
acres, he doesn’t generate the free cash flow for anything other than picking
over the junk pile.

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skosch
Yes, this is important.

Regenerative Agriculture is ranked #11 in Project Drawdown's list of solutions
to climate change, higher than offshore wind turbines (#22), nuclear (#20), or
electric cars (#49) [0].

This will be a political battle first and foremost, as so much farming
activity depends on subsidy incentives favouring conventional methods.

[0] [https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/regenerative-
agricul...](https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/regenerative-agriculture)

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dbcurtis
I am 100% behind the concept, but there needs to be a demonstration of
scalability. 80 acres in Western Minnesota isn’t a farm, it is a hobby. Maybe
with 10x the land, you could earn a living and support a family. 80 acres is a
collection of small research demonstration plots.

