**U.S. farmers harvested nearly 3.3 million acres of certified organic field crops in 2019, driven by 14% more organic field crop operations.

That’s according to Mercaris, the market data service and online trading platform for organic, non-GMO and certified agricultural commodities.

Mercaris’ Final 2019 Acreage Report shows the number of growers converting land to organic production escalated significantly in 2019.

Final numbers beat previous estimates for every region of the U.S.

**The U.S. could sell $4 billion worth of beef annually to China within the next five years, thanks to the Phase-One deal and China's protein shortage caused by African swine fever.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s Kent Baucus tells agrimarketing.com, we haven't even scratched the surface, referring to U.S. beef exports to China of just $86 million in 2019.

He says while China is culturally and historically more attracted to pork, they may actually be the largest beef importer in the world now.

**Lower retail prices helped fuel volume gains of 22% for the Honeycrisp apple variety in January.

That is one observation from Stemilt Growers’ latest episode of Fast Facts The Cast. , available on YouTube.

According to thepacker.com, Fast Facts: The Cast “video podcast” provides retailers with apple category analysis.

The latest edition reviews apple category performance in January, when volumes rose 1.8% but total sales sagged 3.6% from year-ago levels.

More From News Talk KIT