It’s important to know that the Farm Bill used to be enacted approximately every 5 years, but the last one was in 2018. There has always been discussion about stripping the Nutrition title out of the Farm Bill but that has gone nowhere in a partisan Congress. Without more recent legislation, the 2018 Farm Bill provisions have been repeatedly extended until September 30, 2026, with important agriculture and nutrition bills attached to other must pass legislation.

At the time of this writing, The Agricultural Act of 2026, or Farm Bill, is stalled. The Senate Agriculture Committee chair recessed the mark-up meeting for the Senate version of the Farm Bill on August 6, 2026 after failing to secure enough votes to approve the Republican version of the Farm Bill, due to Senator Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) absence, and unanimous Democratic opposition. The hold-up occurred because the committee could not agree on the nutrition programs, even though there was bi-partisan agreement on many of the different parts of the Bill by the Senate committee. There is no possibility that the full Senate will vote to approve a Farm Bill and that the House and Senate conference committee will fix differences between the two versions in time by a vote from both House and Senate on the combined version before they leave Washington for the mid-term elections. The 2018 Farm Bill will likely be extended again before the end of this September. Some observers expect Congress to pass a full Farm Bill during the December 2026 lame-duck session, while others anticipate an omnibus bill with key agriculture provisions in December 2026 and a restart of the Farm Bill process in the new Congress in 2027.

The Organic Standards Board

With the enactment of the OFPA in 1990, organic agriculture was designed to differ from other commodities by establishing the NOSB, which works with the National Organic Program to oversee accreditation and the program. The NOSB advises the USDA on the management of the National List, on organic standards, practices, and policies, and supports the continued development of organic rules. It also promotes transparency by giving the public, farmers, scientists, and consumers a direct role in shaping and updating organic food regulations and preserving organic integrity. This gives the organic community the opportunity and right to be directly involved with the continuous improvement of the organic certification program. This process can be slow and is deliberately transparent. It is open to influence from the policies of each administration and, as a small program, has difficulty maintaining its unique status and some independence. The NOP is severely underfunded and understaffed for an international certification program, so NOSB recommendations can take years to become Proposed and Final regulations through the Federal Register.

NODPA believes we can achieve more by working with the NOP to make certification practices sound and sensible, size appropriate, and to educate inspectors/certifiers not to impose unnecessary requirements. We can work with many certifiers who already achieve that goal. We need to work with the NOP to improve inspector training and customer relations between certifier and producer. NOP already has regular meetings with certifiers and annual educational sessions to share evaluations of different processes and provide updates on the NOP’s priorities.

What is wrong with the current legislative language: a Summary

NODPA and others have learned through experience the legal and practical importance of precise legislative language, for example, definitions of Access to Pasture, Origin of Livestock, and now defining what ‘Temporary’ means when attached to a variance. A major concern with OTA’s proposed Farm Bill language is that it is unclear, overly broad, undefined, and open to interpretation. It gives the Secretary of Agriculture discretionary, statutory authority that could weaken the oversight process. While more support is needed for organic farmers to meet recordkeeping requirements, the proposed legislative language does just the opposite by providing the Secretary with authority to reduce oversight and verification as part of certification (reducing in-person inspection to every 3 years), which will likely result in the erosion of consumer and producer trust in the organic label. The language sidelines the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to consultative status in the process of establishing integrity protocols when there should be a strengthening of NOSB’s authority over standards with stakeholder engagement. The language weakens the annual on-site inspection process established to ensure compliance rather than creating resource support for farmers to meet rigorous standards in a growing market that is demanding more, not less, verification, of product, for example-- demands for a ‘clean label.’

Problems with the Proposed Study by the USDA

The OTA language included in the draft Farm Bill directs the Secretary to conduct a comprehensive study of the National Organic Program and assess how risk-based oversight could apply to compliance enforcement and certification verification.

• The USDA lacks the capacity to complete a comprehensive and transparent study. The USDA is in the process of large-scale reorganization, and the National Organic Program has lost one third of its employees and is looking at being level funded for the upcoming year. There was no request for funds to pay for the study.
• We already have the NOSB which is mandated by law, has a defined process, and is a representative body of stakeholders from the organic community that is already funded and whose mission it is to do this work.
• The NOSB has already considered some of the issues raised by the OTA and has produced informed comments that can be reviewed and commented on by the industry in a transparent process. Some of them have said they need more consideration before moving to become regulation.
• USDA, not the Inspector General or an independent committee, will be running an internal assessment of its own program and choosing who is on the committee. USDA has a lengthy history of accepting pressure from many different commodities and trade groups who have an interest in undermining the long-term integrity of Organic certification and little support for farmer led involvement.
• Despite the guardrails that OTA has introduced into the proposed legislation, USDA studies are historically usually buried, too long, dominated by trade groups or unable to reach agreement on recommendations. In addition, there is a history of such studies being dragged out later and re-purposed after institutional memories are long gone -- typically again by a trade group that sees it can use it (or part of it) to their advantage.
• Any recommendations from the study will have to go through the Federal Register rulemaking process with a proposed comment period of 90 days. The administration has total control over whether those comments are received and used positively or ignored. This administration has a track record of not responding to comments on its plans. For example, according to the USDA Reorganization Analysis, 82% of the individual comments and 89% of the campaign submissions expressed negative opposition or serious concerns regarding the restructuring of USDA when the USDA asked for comments on its plans. The Secretary has continued to move forward with the reorganization plan with no changes.
• Some aspects of the proposed study, for example reducing certification fees, are not within the power of the USDA to change. In the case of certification fees, certifiers are sub-contractors to the USDA and can charge whatever they want or their market can stand. The USDA can change the amount of work that certifiers need to do but not how much they charge for it.

NODPA is working with other groups to strip the risk-based integrity language from the Farm Bill as it moves through the Senate Agriculture Committee and potential vote of the whole Senate, and replace it with language that provides the resources necessary to have a strong and growing organic sector. We are working with other groups to include the Opportunities in Organic Act into the Farm Bill which supports technical assistance and the underwriting of certification costs associated with the transition to organic, as well as any other legislation that supports organic systems with additional mandatory resources and capacity.

Please send this message to your Senator

Introduce an amendment to the Farm Bill:

Don't allow the weakening of public trust in organic by relaxing standards. Please introduce an amendment to uphold a rigorous inspection system. Do not authorize a risk-based oversight/inspection/verification system.

a. DELETE proposed authorizing language on establishing a risk-based oversight/inspection system with wide discretionary authority to the Secretary and the weakening organic inspections critical to public trust in the USDA organic label.
b. DELETE Subsection (e) Authority to Establish Additional Terms and Conditions of Section 10112, National Organic Program Oversight Protocols and Inspection.

Help organic agriculture grow with the support it needs.

Please introduce an amendment with the language of the Opportunities in Organic Act (S.3717). This provides the support to farmers that is needed, rather than adopting subsection (e) of Section 10112 (see above) and reducing organic standards and the integrity of the organic label.

Posted: to Industry News on Sun, Sep 6, 2026
Updated: Sun, Sep 6, 2026