b'that 44 percent of existing organic producers saidscale. I would love to see more commercial they plan to maintain their current level of organicfarmers embrace the no-till method. 33production over the next ve years and 29 percent plan to increase their organic production. 29 TRUSTED SOURCES FOR UPDATESThere is also a growing preference for food to be United States Department of Agriculture:produced locally by family farms. Small familyhttps://www.usda.gov/farms (grossing less than $350,000 a year) bring in 45% of direct sales to consumers nationally and National Agricultural Statistics Service:96% percent of the 25,000 Idaho farms are familynass.usda.govowned. 30Furthermore, food grown locally is United States Census Bureau (Census of thought to be touched fewer time and thus hasAgriculture):https://www.census.gov/history/a greater perception of safety; this preferencewww/programs/agriculture/census_of_was further fueled by the COVID pandemic asagriculture.htmlmore people sought safer products. In fact, direct farm marketers saw an increase of 30 Idaho State Department of Agriculture: to 50% over 2019. The pandemic revealed anhttps://agri.idaho.gov/main/additional benefit of locally produced food and 2020 STATE AGRICULTURE OVERVIEW less reliance on global supply chains. As supplyhttps://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick_Stats/Ag_chains across all sectors continue to struggle,Overview/stateOverview.php?state=IDAHOor even worsen, local production can sidestep Idaho Dept of Labor Occupational & Industry many of these issues and help build moreProjectionsresilient, food-secure communities. 31 https://lmi.idaho.gov/projectionsOut of a desire to create a carbon negative epa.govor carbon neutral footprint wherein more https://legislature.idaho.gov/carbon is stored in the soil instead of in the https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/10/atmosphere as CO2, regenerative agricultural practices are increasingly being used. These include efforts to rebuild the soil by planting cover crops instead of leaving a field bare as it rests, rotating livestock, and using no-till planting practices. These efforts are thought to reduce greenhouse gases, thus slowing climate change, and increase soil fertility and biodiversity. Some private companies are rewarding farmers and ranchers for adopting practices that sequester carbon, legislators are also beginning to follow suit. 32David Mitchell, a farmer at Ohana No-Till Farm, near Meridian, estimates he gets three times the yield of a traditional farm of the same size because he uses every inch of space for crops and cover plantsa method called small plot intensive relay. He says, This is probably the most sustainable method that can be done on a large Idaho Agricultural Forecast 27'