Wisconsin Has Second Most Organic Farms

(CBS/AP)  The latest agricultural numbers show Wisconsin with more than 1,200 certified organic farms, which is second in the nation behind California.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also said Tuesday that Wisconsin leads the nation in sales of organic cranberries and beef cows.

The numbers are from 2008, which was the most recent information available.

Even though Wisconsin has a lot of organic farms, they are on average smaller than similar farms in other states. So Wisconsin is only sixth in the U.S. in total organic sales.

About two-thirds of Wisconsin's organic revenue came from cow milk, and a quarter came from crops. The rest came from livestock and poultry.

Wisconsin organic farms made an average of $115,000 in 2008.

The growth in organic farming comes amid growing concerns that the overuse of antibiotics in livestock is leading to a dangerous spike in human infections.

A University of Iowa studylast year, found a new strain of the drug-resistant bacteria MRSA - in nearly three-quarters of hogs (70 percent), and nearly two-thirds of the workers (64 percent) - on several farms in Iowa and Western Illinois, CBS News anchor Katie Couric reported last week. All of them use antibiotics, routinely. On antibiotic-free farms no MRSA was found.

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Health officials are concerned if workers who handle animals are getting sick - what about the rest of us? Drug-resistant infections have sky-rocketed over the past two decades, killing an estimated 70,000 Americans last year alone. It's an emerging health crisis that scientists say is caused not only by the overuse of antibiotics in humans, but in livestock as well. Antibiotics fed to healthy animals to promote growth and prevent disease.

Related:
@KatieCouric: Antibiotics
Animal Antibiotic Overuse Hurting Humans?
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"My fear is that one of these days we are going to have an organism that's resistant to everything that we know, and we'll be left powerless," said Thomas Cummins, chief medical officer for Batesville, Ark., where an MSRA outbreak at a Pilgrim's Pride poultry plant sickened at least 37 people two years ago.

"There are a lot of concerns about antibiotics being added to animal feeds that may be contributing to MRSA as well as other antibiotic resistance," Cummins said. "Certainly the more bacteria are exposed to antibiotics in any shape or form, the more tendency there is for resistance."