Atina Diffley, published in the MIX

Our nation’s investment in agricultural research profoundly affects the future of our food, farming, and in due course, our soil, water and air. Research leads and drives agricultural activities. And, agriculture accounts for one-third of our land use. The way our land is used, ultimately dictates the health of our eco-systems.

Despite consistent growth in the organic sector of 15-22% annually since 1990 , organic research funding has continuously lagged far behind its “fair share” of agriculture research dollars. The U.S retail market share of organic foods is around 3.5% while the USDA’s research and extension expenditure for organic agriculture was less than 1.5 percent of its total research budget.

Organic research is crucial to the development of viable organic methods and to develop ecologically sound solutions to grower’s challenges. Enhancing the knowledge base of organic systems helps fulfill government goals to reduce pesticide use, protect environmental resources, and create additional opportunities for small farms and the rural economy.  Organic research also brings credibility to the high yield potential, drought resistance, climate change mitigation and other environmental gains from organic farming. Credibility brings the attention and involvement of universities, extension agents and governments. Peer reviewed research provides expert evidence in court cases and assists the work of developing government policies, supportive of the transformation to regional, ecologically based, organic food and farming systems.

Thanks to a rise in grassroots pressure, the 2008 Farm Bill takes a few important steps toward improving this unequal allocation of farm bill research funds, authorizing new national programs and making more resources available for important work on organic agriculture research.

The Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) includes a five-fold increase in mandatory funding, going from $15 million over five years in the 2002 Farm Bill to $78 million for five years in the 2008 Farm Bill. OREI funds research, education, and extension projects that enhance the ability of producers and processors to grow and market high quality organic agricultural products.

The OREI grant review process for the 2009 fiscal year has been completed and the successful applicants have been notified.  USDA’s CSREES will make a public announcement of the grantees later this summer. Despite the increase in funds, the $17.2 million available for this fiscal year was not nearly enough money to meet the demand.  There were 134 applications totaling $98 million.
 
This evidences the need for consumers to pressure the agriculture appropriations subcommittees in both houses to protect the mandatory status of $20 million for FY 2010.  It also suggests the need to ask the appropriators to provide an additional $5 million in FY 2010 money.  This increase was authorized by the farm bill but is not mandatory. Ag subcommittees in both houses expect to make decisions in July.
 
Other organic research programs also received increases in funding bringing the total for organic research in 2009 to 48 Million. This much needed increase in organic research funding still falls far short of an organic fair share of the total 2.4 billion being spent in 2009 on agricultural research.

There also is time to contact the appropriators regarding the need to increase the share of organic research done by the Agricultural Research Service from the approximately $16.9 million provided in FY 2009 to $33 million in FY 2010.  ARS, USDA’s primary in-house research agency, has a unique and important role as a federally funded, intramural research agency.  With the ability to fund projects over the long term, ARS is able to maintain continuity in its research efforts to solve problems that universities and private industry would not be able to address.

An increase to $33 million would put the ARS organic research effort in line with the “fair share” approach pushed by the organic community.  The current ARS organic research effort represents about 1.5% of the agency’s budget while organic represents at least 3.5% of the domestic retail market.  This change in allocations within the agency does not require an increase in the ARS budget; it simply says that ARS should allocate more of its resources to organic research.  This, too, is a reasonable request for consumers to make.

The third research area where some additional funding is needed is the Organic Transitions Program, an older and much smaller competitive grants program also administered by USDA’s CSREES.  It was renewed by the farm bill and $1.8 million is in the FY 2009 budget for this program.  A Request for Proposals for this year is still in the works but should be out soon.  The program has been folded into a USDA water quality program and the organic research involved would deal with the positive impact of organic farming on water quality.  The organic community is asking the appropriators to increase funding for this organic transitions effort to $5 million in FY 2010 and this, too, would be an increase that benefits consumers.
 
A final area to pressure the appropriators is to provide $5 million in the FY 2010 budget for organic production and market data initiatives authorized by the farm bill.  The organic sector is still without vital comprehensive data on a par with what USDA provides for conventional agriculture.

While the 2008 Farm Bill mandates the amount of money to fund organic research and other food initiatives for five years, the appropriations or "funding phase" of the policy cycle happens annually. And mandated funds can be subjected to “chimping”, the official method of taking funds away from mandatory programs, Change In Mandatory Programs or CHIMP. 
It is important that the ag appropriations committee hears from consumers on the importance of fairly funding organic research. Your voice has a strong influence. The word power comes from the Latin root posse – poder. Taken to its root, power simply means to be able, and demonstrates our capacity to act. Input from informed citizens and co-producers  demanding that it is time to fairly fund organic research and initiatives has huge power. Congressional representatives and senators need to hear from you about why you think a particular farm bill program should be funded in the following years' budget and appropriations bill.  Much more influential then signing a mass email are: 1) a phone call to committee members; 2) an in-district meeting with your Representative and Senators or their staff; or 3) a letter that is faxed or mailed to their office.

Ag appropriations committee members for Congress and the Senate are listed on these websites. http://appropriations.house.gov/Subcommittees/sub_ardf.shtml http://appropriations.senate.gov/agriculture.cfm

Information on applying for funding on organic research, organic transition support, conservation initiatives, beginning farmer programs, farmers market promotion funds, food education and other farm bill programs can be found at the USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) http://www.csrees.usda.gov/business/business.html
Comments on this article can be directed to Atina Diffley at atina@organicfarmingworks.com