WSU's Biologically Intensive Agriculture
and Organic Farming (BIOAg) Program

Overview

For the past 60 years, the American agricultural system has largely been based on policies and practices that have caused the demise of many family farms and environmental damage including soil erosion, water pollution and human and wildlife exposure to harmful chemicals. For the most part, farms have specialized in growing single crops over vast acreages using large amounts of water and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, as a result of the "Green Revolution" and government agricultural and economic policies that have forced farmers to "get big or get out." Unfortunately, these policies continue today. Costs for farm inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, and machinery continue to rise, while prices paid to farmers for the crops they sell are increasingly unstable due to the uncertainties and manipulation of global economic and trade policies. All of these factors make life on the family farm or ranch in many cases a constant financial crisis. Washington State lost 2,000 farms between 1997 and 2002.

Now, biotechnology is being put forward as the solution to many of the problems of our current agricultural system. Transgenic crops, in which a gene from one species is inserted into a completely different species (which would never occur in nature), are being touted as the solution to world hunger and environmental problems. The Network has many concerns about transgenic crops, including the use of genetically-engineered food crops to 'grow' drugs and industrial chemicals ("biopharming").

The Network envisions a different future for agriculture in Washington State. Our Sustainable Farming Practices Program works to support and promote production and marketing methods that are environmentally, economically and socially sustainable, and humane.