April 1, 2026 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has yet to initiate the 2025 application and payment process for funds authorized by Congress to help farmers afford organic certification.
Three months into 2026, the agency has not indicated when those funds might be made available. Due to rising costs of both certification and other farm necessities, it will likely result in fewer farmers pursuing certification, said Kate Mendenhall, executive director of the Organic Farmers Association.
“It’s the small farms where it really makes a financial impact,” said Mendenhall, who is an Iowa livestock farmer. “I would anticipate that farms might hold off on certifying for a few years, and we’ll probably lose some smaller farms.”
Data from the Organic Trade Association (OTA) shows an increase in organic food sales, up to more than $70 billion in 2025. But that increase is primarily from imported food. Other data points to a decrease between 2021 and 2023 in the number of U.S. acres certified organic, with many existing organic farms going out of business or dropping certification.
The USDA’s cost-share program—which pays for up to 75 percent of fees up to $750 per scope–is a very small chunk of money per farm, but advocates say it’s meaningful.
“It is clear that, despite the popularity of organic agriculture in New York State, organic producers need continued support to meet increasing consumer demand,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) said in a March 19 letter to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.“As farmers across the country struggle with rising costs and lower margins, every dollar is critical.”
In her letter, Gillibrand called on the USDA to release both 2025 and 2026 organic cost-share funds. The USDA did not respond to Civil Eats’ requests for more information and comment.
The funds were initially delayed because the program was not included in earlier extensions of the farm bill, said Tom Chapman, co-CEO of OTA, but Congress remedied that in the One Big Beautiful Bill, passed in July.
In several meetings since, Chapman said, staff at the Farm Services Agency (FSA), the office that administers the program, have said the funding will be released but that the priority is currently on larger payments—specifically from the $13 million Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, which is primarily for commodity crop farmers.
Former USDA officials say FSA has long struggled with its workload, especially when new programs are introduced. In 2025, the agency lost more than 1,200 employees.
Mendenhall said there may also be gaps in communication: In the fall, she submitted organic cost-share paperwork to her local FSA office. A few weeks later, the worker in her local office told her she hadn’t realized the office had not received authorization to submit the applications.
Chapman said he’s confident that FSA is working on it and he doesn’t get the sense that the agency is deprioritizing organic farmers, but “we would love to see the FSA, working at full staff capacity, able to act on these programs with gusto so they support our sector,” he said.
In the meantime, Mendenhall is worried about the ripple effects: She just found out that because fewer organic farmers have been going to her meat processor, the processor dropped its certification, meaning she won’t be able to label her meat as USDA Certified Organic if she sticks with them. “It has greater implications across the supply chain when stuff like this happens,” she said. (Link to this post.)
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