Fighting for the Organic Industry’s Fair Share of Research Funding

Written by - Vinnie Trometter, Policy Manager, Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF), and a native of Williamsport, PA.

The Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) is working with Senators Fetterman (D-PA) and Schiff (D-CA) and Congressmen Vindman (D-VA-07) and Lawler (R-NY-17) to ensure the Organic Science and Research Investment (OSRI) Act is included in the Farm Bill. This bill would increase funding for the only dedicated organic agriculture research programs, the Organic Agriculture and Research Extension Initiative (OREI) and the Organic Transitions Program (ORG). It would also bolster economic and market reporting and ensure that future research targets the most pressing organic issues. This will result in universities studying more of the most pressing topics to help established organic farmers and those transitioning overcome their most persistent production and productivity challenges. It will also ensure that farmers have better market data, so they can feel confident about transitioning to organic.

This bill has strong Pennsylvanian support. Outside of Senator Fetterman’s leadership, House Agriculture Committee member Representative Rob Bresnahan cosponsors the House bill. Pennsylvania organizations such as the Rodale Institute, Pennsylvania Certified Organic, and Pasa Sustainable Agriculture have also endorsed it.

Dedicated organic research funding is the most focused and relevant research that helps spur organic profitability and productivity across the country. “Dedicated” means that research must either be done for established organic farms, like for OREI, or with the goal of how best to manage organic agriculture systems, like ORG. Establishing these parameters ensures that innovations are directly applicable to organic farmers who must adhere to strict organic certification requirements.

Passage of the OSRI Act would be a huge boost for organic, transitioning, and conventional farmers alike across the Commonwealth. We all know that Pennsylvania is a leader in organic agriculture. According to the latest published Organic Survey, conducted by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service in 2021, Pennsylvania is the top producer of organic mushrooms and organic broiler chickens. They also consistently rank in the top five for organic egg production. Overall, our Commonwealth ranks third in organic farmgate sales and fourth in organic businesses.

A lesser-known fact is that Pennsylvania is also a leader in organic agriculture research. Penn State ranks 8th among land-grant universities in receiving organic agriculture research funding since 2021. Nearly ninety-nine percent of that funding has come from the dedicated organic research programs - OREI and ORG. Other organic research organizations, most notably the Rodale Institute, enhance Pennsylvania’s relative strength in organic agriculture research.

Nationwide, research on organic agriculture is woefully underfunded. Right now, less than 2% of the USDA’s research budget is dedicated to studying organic topics, even though organic foods account for 6% of all food purchases, including 15% of all produce. This not only threatens Pennsylvania’s organic competitiveness and transition efforts but also imposes additional drawbacks on a highly regional agricultural production method.

At its foundation, organic agriculture works to optimize local conditions for production while adhering to the rules that come with certification. For instance, growing organic crops in the Lehigh Valley calls for different strategies than growing the same crops around Lake Erie. Soils, climates, and other factors differ. Imagine how different it is to grow organic crops in Lewisburg compared with growing them in Montana, Arkansas, or California.

Organic agriculture research is also highly regional. North Carolina State University has a project focused on breeding organic tomatoes to abate the risks of common, potentially devastating diseases that are becoming more prevalent in the mountainous areas of Appalachia. The University of Tennessee has a project addressing barriers to organic corn production in the American Southeast. The list goes on and on, including great research being conducted at Penn State. Many projects also partner with organizations across the country to maximize regional and agroenvironmental relevance for farmers. Though helpful, without sufficient dedicated funding, many region-specific organic challenges go unstudied.

Each OREI and ORG project must collaborate on experiments with working farms and include built-in extension activities, such as organic conferences, seminars, and workshops, to ensure innovations reach the broad farming community. These built-in extension activities are crucial because it is difficult for state-level agricultural extension programs to serve organic producers. States will always prioritize capacity funding to support their largest agricultural sectors, none of which are organic.

In fact, other organic farmers have been found to be the most important source of technical assistance for organic farmers and those wanting to transition. This is why bills that build capacity for peer-to-peer technical assistance, like the Opportunities in Organic Act and the Farmer to Farmer Education Act, are so important.

However, it is also important to recognize that researchers at land-grant universities dedicate large chunks of their time to extension, on top of the time they devote to research. Often, extension accounts for the majority of their time during the year. For organic scientists, the more topics they are funded to study, the more solutions they can deploy in the field.

Simply put, increased funding for OREI and ORG will generate more organic field days, seminars, and workshops for farmers to participate in, while helping researchers share solutions to challenges through extension. All of this improves farmers' access to technical assistance that can help them transition to organic production, among other benefits.

The OSRI Act also helps coordinate USDA organic research. Outside of dedicated organic research programs we’ve already discussed, other programs have projects that study organic topics. The Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) and Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) programs, along with research conducted in-house at the Agriculture Research Service (ARS), often include projects that study soil health, IPM, and other organic-related issues that could benefit organic producers. However, since they are not dedicated to organic research, unless the results explicitly state that they are applicable to organic farmers, it is hard to tell how relevant the findings are for organic systems. The OSRI Act tasks USDA with conducting a comprehensive review of what organic research has already been done so farmers can more efficiently find answers to the organic challenges they are experiencing. Furthermore, USDA would create strategies to tackle the most pressing organic production barriers that remain unsolved.

Securing the Organic Data Initiative (ODI) is another way the OSRI Act helps organic farmers. This small but mighty program provides price and volume data to hundreds of organic crops and commodities nationwide. It also provides funding for the Organic Survey, moving this from a periodic report, to a necessary annual piece of market information as the industry approaches $80 billion annually. The bill would secure consistent funding for ODI and establish funding for the USDA to publish an Organic Survey annually.

Finally, the bill would direct the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) to conduct a comprehensive, systematic evaluation of the economic impact of organic agriculture on rural and urban communities, taking into account economic, ecological, and social factors. This will help highlight the economic and social development impact of organic agriculture on local communities, helping policymakers at all levels better understand the industry.

Organic agriculture deserves its fair share of research funding to support the industry now and into the future. Pennsylvania’s organic footprint is outsized compared to every state except California and Washington. Organic agriculture is highly regionalized nationwide, even in our geographically diverse Commonwealth. The OSRI Act is the organic industry’s flagship bill to rightsize research funding and improve research effectiveness. Penn State and other agricultural research institutions would directly benefit from the passage of this bill, as their researchers would have more opportunities to study a broader range of topics and, in turn, apply a greater array of knowledge to extension.

Members of Congress want to hear directly from farmers when considering which agricultural policies to support. Only through your voice can change occur. We hope you can lend your voice by calling your local members of Congress and letting them know how important this bill is for Pennsylvania’s organic farmers!

Learn More about the Organic Farming Research Foundation at https://ofrf.org/

Image Captions:

• First Image: Penn State, Wallace - organic grain.
• Second Image: Rodale Institute Moyer Final Report Table - Black cutworm moths trapped
• Third Image: Penn State, DiGioia - cover crops.