Written by Vinnie Trometter and Gordon Merrick of OFRF’s Coverage Group
Earlier than all of us rushed to our dinner tables for Thanksgiving, we on the Natural Farming Analysis Basis (OFRF), natural agriculture researchers, and natural farmers had been grateful for actions taken by a number of state capitols throughout the nation. On November twentieth, the state secretaries of agriculture from Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey joined Pennsylvania Secretary Redding to submit a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, requesting unreleased FY2025 funding for the Natural Agriculture Analysis Extension Initiative (OREI) be included on prime of latest fiscal 12 months funds for this system in FY2026.
OFRF’s coverage workforce spurred this effort as a result of we needed to guarantee that state departments of agriculture had been conscious that their land-grant universities didn’t have a chance to use for the most important natural analysis program beneath USDA regardless of it being a everlasting and necessary program beneath the Farm Invoice. OREI represents $50 million out of the $72.5 million which USDA dedicates to answering natural farmer’s questions annually. Nevertheless, USDA didn’t launch an RFA for this system for FY25resulting in zero awards being given out. Consequently, researchers have endured disruptions within the continuation of their work and within the delayed examine of natural subjects that concentrate on many new and rising points dealing with natural farmers.
OREI recipients are overwhelmingly agriculture researchers at land-grant universities who develop tasks in partnership with working certified-organic farms. These tasks are important steps in the direction of discovering methods to unlock natural producers’ capability to be extra productive and higher market their items. The necessity for packages that examine natural productiveness and provide chains is turning into more and more vital as a result of the U.S. has a spiraling natural commerce deficit and has misplaced greater than 16% of its licensed acreage since 2021. But on the identical time, home demand for organically produced items grew 5.2% final 12 months, greater than double the speed of the general market.
Shortly after the discharge of this letter, OFRF obtained phrase from USDA that FY2026 OREI funding will embody all of FY2025’s monies, which is an end result we’re very grateful for. State-level advocacy is a vital and efficient technique that OFRF makes use of to tell federal officers concerning the localized impacts of federal coverage.
We encourage natural farmers, researchers, and stakeholders to interact with their state representatives, senators, and departments of agriculture to amplify their challenges and successes because it involves deployment of federal funds concentrating on natural agriculture analysis subjects.
If you wish to learn extra blogs like this, join our publication right here; if you wish to take a subsequent step in participating with the coverage course of at an area, state, or federal stage, join our free, email-based Speaking with Legislators course!
Eat nicely and breathe deep,
Vinnie and Gordon
