Organic agriculture won backing in the House version of the food and farm bill, though not at the level the organic lobby was pushing for. I’d call it a solid double rather than a home run. Here’s the break down, as reported by the Organic Farming Research Foundation:

The organic research and extension initiative got $5 million a year, plus $25 million in discretionary funding (that portion will only appear if money can be found). The money will fund much-needed research on organic methods and USDA extension agents who can advise farmers on organic agriculture. OFRF comment: "While the mandatory funding is an increase of $2 million
per year from the 2002 Farm Bill, it falls short of the $15 million per
year in mandatory funding which OFRF recommends."
An organic data initiative to collect information on production and marketing got $3 million over five years.
The Organic Conversion Assistance Program was allocated $50 million, […]

Original post by Samuel Fromartz and software by Elliott Back

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 11:42 am and is filed under Farm Bill. You can follow responses to this entry through the Comments RSS Feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.