Improving Price Transparency in U.S. Organic Markets at the Farm and Wholesale Levels

Price transparency is vital to fair and seamless transactions in the organic food system. Price information is largely lacking in the organic sector, but has been assessed as a critical need for both the private and public sectors. Of the three price series now available to the industry, only one data product is representative of the entire U.S., offers an historical price series, and allows internally consistent calculations of margins from farm to wholesale to retail. None of the existing services offer interpretive analyses of their price data. In the absence of these data, the industry cannot even be adequately described in terms of value of sales and revenue-cost ratios, among other metrics. Lacking historical data, trends in market development cannot be identified. Without descriptive information, it is impossible to assess global competitiveness of the U.S. organic sector, and regional competitiveness in the U.S. within commodity groups. As a result, the future development of the sector may only be guessed at, not planned for. This project will examine user data needs and identify preferred price information products, formats, and information delivery methods through a survey of current and prospective subscribers. The technical and economic feasibility of collecting and disseminating price information on organic feed and seed products will be assessed. To assure users of the quality of the data, the national representativeness of the information sources will be evaluated in terms of geographic dispersion and market significance.