Rise of Organic Farming in the United States

by Collin Tennant

Submitted : Fall 2012

Organic farming is a practice of agriculture and animal husbandry without the use of harmful chemicals and antibiotics. In the past decade the popularity of organically grown products has sky rocketed. Public demand is pressuring many farmers to become USDA organic certified operations. According to USDA certifications given out between 2002 and 2008, an increase can be observed. In using calculus it was possible to discover the exact rate of change in terms of increase in organic farm certifications being granted. It is also possible to determine the rate of change leading into the future for proactive measures.

Taking the derivative of the function representing the increase in organic farms allowed the increase at any given moment to be easily discovered. The derivative was taken using the chain rule. By using calculus, projecting the market for organic farming in the future is possible.

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