AMES, Iowa — After 13 years of gathering data from a side-by-side comparison, Iowa State University’s Neely-Kinyon Research and Demonstration Farm at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agricul-ture found organic farming is growing in both popularity and profitability.

“I think there’s a strong future for organic agriculture,” said Kathleen Delate, professor in ISU Agronomy and Horticulture, who leads the project. “My phone is ringing off the hook. The Interest hasn’t waned.”

According to Delate, organic crop systems can provide similar yields and much higher economic returns than a conventional corn-soybean rotation, based on the data results. Established in 1998, the project, called the Long-Term Agroeco-logical Research Experiment (LTAR), is one of the longest-running replicated comparisons in the country, which was originally designed to help farmers make the shift to an organic system.

But “the transitioning years are the hardest years,” she said. To sell a product as organic, Delate said the crop must be raised on land that has received no synthetic chemicals for three years prior to harvest. Averaged across 13 years, the project found yields of organic corn, soybean and oats have been equivalent to or slightly greater than their conventional counterparts, and “a 12-year average for alfalfa and an 8-year average for winter wheat also show no significant difference between organic yields and the Adair County (Iowa) average.”

The study said organic crops get a premium price on the market and eliminate the need for expensive inputs like herbicides and synthetic fertilizers. As a result, they are far more profitable than conventional crops, the study found.

Craig Chase, interim leader of the Leopold Center’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative and extension farm management specialist, calculated the money left over for family living after deducting labor, land and production costs, for both systems. His calculations were based on actual LTAR data from 1998-2004, as well as scenarios modeled with enterprise budgets.

Chase said both methods gave the same results: On average, organic systems return roughly $200 per acre more than conventional crops.

In addition to its profitability, the study said organic agriculture aids in building healthy soils. While conventional LTAR plots receive synthetic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer, organic plots receive only local, manure-based amendments.

The study also indicated total nitrogen increased by 33 percent in the organic plots, and researchers measured higher concentrations of carbon, potassium, phosphorous, magnesium and calcium.

Delate said the results suggest “organic farming can foster greater efficiency in nutrient use and higher potential for sequestrating carbon.”

Delate also said “a whole suite of practices to manage weeds” were used in the organic plots, including timely tillage and longer crop rotations. “Allelopathic chemicals from rye and alfalfa help keep weed populations under control, as does growing an alfalfa cover crop in winter, which provided cover for beneficial insects and animals,” she added.

In 1997, when Delate became ISU’s first specialist in organic agriculture, the Leopold Center provided startup funds to develop a program and set up LTAR research plots. The Center has provided annual operating funds for LTAR, and in 2010, the work was moved to a competitive grant in the Leopold Center’s Cross-Cutting Initiative. Nationally, there are 14,500 certified organic farms with sales for 2010 totaling $29 billion. With 520 certified organic farms, Iowa ranks ninth in the nation in the number of them.

There are also 106,000 certified organic acres in Iowa, where ISU continues to be a leader in research and extension for organic agriculture. As one of the largest organic agriculture programs in the nation, ISU has 36 acres across three research farms and five acres of organic in transition at the ISU horticulture farm near Gilbert.

When the Iowa Department of Agricul-ture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) started certifying in 2000, there were 27 organic producers and three organic processors at the time. Today, it certifies 250 organic producers and 55 processors. IDALS also administers the organic certification cost share program, which, in fiscal year 2011, reimbursed $219,000 to organic producers and processors – and is available again this year.

Iowa producers and processors can receive 75 percent back from the money spent to cover certification fees up to $750; this year, producers of crops and livestock can be reimbursed for both enterprises. For example, Maury Wills, IDALS bureau chief of agriculture diversification and market development, said, “We see a lot more high-tunnel production going organic and a huge increase in organic aronia berry production.”