Ten Years of the National Program: Past, Present, and Future

Since the National Organic Standards came into effect in 2002, significant progress has been made at the federal government level with respect to support for organic agriculture and organic farmers.  The national standards and their enforcement, along with efforts such as the USDA–Organic Research and Extension Initiative grant program, USDA’s conservation program funding for organic practices, and the Organic Certification Cost–Share program have made a significant impact on the growth of the organic industry. USDA’s annual investments specifically for organic production and markets have grown from a negligible amount in 2002 to over $75 million in 2012. Meanwhile, U.S. sales of certified organic products have grown from about $9 billion to about $30 billion. In this session, Mark Lipson, Organic and Sustainable Agriculture Policy Advisor in the Office of the Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, will present an overview of USDA organic policy and programs over the past decade.  He will also discuss the opportunities and challenges faced by USDA in meeting its strategic objective for the U.S. organic sector (increasing to over 20,000 operations by 2015) and provide an update on organic policy issues in the current Farm Bill process.