USDA’s Organic Transition Initiative in Action

Feb 09, 2024

USDA recognizes how critical organic agriculture is to our nation’s economy. We also recognize the challenges producers can face transitioning to organic.

Organic production allows producers and processors to hold a unique position in the marketplace and take home a greater share of the food dollar. But before crops can be certified organic, farmers must carefully manage their land without using prohibited inputs like synthetic pesticides for 3 years. During this transition period and the first years after certification, farmers often face many technical and market challenges.

That is why, in 2022, to help build more, new, and better markets and streams of income for farmers and producers, USDA launched the Organic Transition Initiative (OTI). OTI is a $300 million investment that delivers wrap-around technical assistance to producers interested in transitioning to organic. The initiative includes mentoring and advice, direct farmer assistance through conservation financial assistance and targeted organic market development grants.

I recently had the honor of participating in two events in support of OTI. First, I visited Longmont, Colo., to announce the first round of awards through the Organic Market Development Grant program (OMDG). In this first round, $9.75 million was awarded to ten projects which will make great strides in developing and expanding markets for organically grown products nationwide. I look forward to announcing more grant awards through OMDG very soon.

Next, I traveled to Pacific Grove, Calif., for the 44th Annual “EcoFarm” Conference. EcoFarm is the oldest and largest organic farming conference in the West. At EcoFarm, in an interview with Marc Lipson and Berkely Food Institute’s Sakeenah Shabazz, I spoke further about how OTI funding is supporting the organic sector and providing support for all interested farmers, including small and traditionally underserved producers, to transition to organic. We specifically discussed the Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP). TOPP is a farmer-to-farmer mentorship program providing direct farmer training, education, and outreach activities. At the conference I had the chance to meet with TOPP regional leads for the Southwest region and it's amazing to hear how many connections have already been made between producers through this program. We just reached year one of TOPP and there is so much more to come in this five-year program. You can read TOPP success stories from all regions across the country on our website.

Together, these programs help reduce the risk for farmers who want to grow and market organic crops and they expand opportunities for American producers to participate in new markets. With programs like OTI, OMDG and TOPP, it’s an exciting time to be in organic agriculture!

Source : usda.gov

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators