I first heard about the Rodale Institute through my Miessence training and was so impressed by their important work. The Rodale Institute is a non-profit who’s mission is to generate support for organic farming through research and outreach. For the last sixty years they have been researching every aspect of organic farming and sharing the findings with the farmers of the world.

The Farming Systems Trial is Rodale’s longest running side-by-side U.S. study comparing conventional chemical agriculture with organic methods. The institute gathered data for thirty years for this study and just released the findings this month. You can read the details of the results on the Rodale Institute website, but a basic summary is this; organic farming was found to be superior to conventional in the areas of crop yields, economics, energy consumption, human health and soil health. The bottom line is clear…as the world population grows we need to rely on farming systems that will provide in the face of drought, extreme weather and with less dependence on oil. Organic is the only way forward. Check it out and share the good news!