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Call for a Resilient, Equitable, and Sustainable 2024 Farm Bill!
On September 11, our partners at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) delivered a letter to Congressional leaders with support from 1,096 groups across the country—including 43 sign-ons from Ohio alone!
The purpose of this letter was to affirm the need for a farm bill to be passed in 2024, without it coming at the expense of policies that address hunger, public health, farmers, workers, and the environment.
On September 11, our partners at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) delivered a letter to Congressional leaders with support from 1,096 groups across the country—including 43 sign-ons from Ohio alone!
The purpose of this letter was to affirm the need for a farm bill to be passed in 2024, without it coming at the expense of policies that address hunger, public health, farmers, workers, and the environment.
The Path to a New Farm Bill (Regularly Updated)
It’s GO time! Our federal policy team has been busy at work keeping up to date with the farm bill action in Congress. In this blog, you’ll find all relevant updates, with the oldest news at the bottom and the most recent updates at the top. Stay tuned for more as things are moving.
Help Us Celebrate Ohio Soil Health Week!
The Ohio Soil Health Initiative (OSHI), organized by OEFFA, is inviting you to participate in the first annual Ohio Soil Health Week from November 10-16, 2024.
Ohio Soil Health Week provides a time and space to celebrate, honor, and protect Ohio’s soils.
This weeklong celebration of soil health includes education opportunities and events to reach within and beyond the agriculture community and raise awareness around one of Ohio’s most valuable natural resources.
Throughout the week, farmers, gardeners, educators, community members, and organizations from all over Ohio will celebrate with a variety of events and resource sharing.
The Overturning of Chevron: What it Means for Our Work
When the Supreme Court overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), it did away with the precedent that regulatory agencies have deference regarding statutory interpretation. In other words, Chevron held that courts should defer to federal agencies’ expertise in interpreting ambiguous statues. Not only does this spare the courts from devoting time to ruling on ambiguities, but it also gives the responsibility of interpretation to federal agencies that are much better suited to the task.
Celebrating Earth Day with Representative Max Miller
Written in collaboration with the Organic Farmers Association.
There are few more impactful ways to celebrate Earth Day than by inviting a Congressperson to see some of Ohio’s organic farms! It was an honor learning from farmers at Woodlyn Acres Farm in Dalton, Ohio, and County Line Family Farm in Wadsworth, Ohio with Representative Max Miller (OH-7).
The Organic Farm Day was planned in partnership with the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) and the Organic Farmers Association (OFA).
Conservation, not Consolidation (Take Action!)
Over the last few weeks, we have been posting an educational ‘Farm Safety Net Fridays’ series on our Instagram page. This has all been leading up to a week of action titled: Conservation, not Consolidation. You may have seen a blog post from us a few weeks back about the farm safety net. In it, we outlined how some folks on Capitol Hill want to use climate-smart agriculture funding to prop up commodity programs.
Some lawmakers in Congress are being pressured to raise commodity program subsidies by $20 to $50 billion. These include the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program, which makes payments to commodity farms relative to a price floor, or a “reference price,” fixed in legislation. Just 0.3 percent of farms are projected to benefit most from an increase in PLC reference prices.
NSAC 2024 Winter Meeting Recap
Our federal policy team is feeling extremely motivated and connected after joining fellow NSAC members in DC at the end of January. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) puts on a summer and winter meeting each year where its members join to strategize, build relationships, and learn about agriculture policy. This winter meeting was the largest to date!
New Year, New Organic Rules
Welcome to 2024! To help us ring in the new year, we wanted to highlight some recent changes to the USDA organic standards and share what’s on the horizon. There have been some notable updates to the standards, some of which will go into effect in 2024. While we still have significant room for improvement, these updates help to strengthen the USDA organic label and foster more consumer trust.
Historic Amount of Funding Available for Conservation
Because of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the 2018 Farm Bill, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has nearly $5 billion in funding for conservation practices in 2024. Agricultural producers and forest landowners are encouraged to apply now to receive support for participation in voluntary conservation programs and the adoption of climate-smart practices.
Well suited for a wide variety of producers—including organic and urban producers—USDA is now accepting applications for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP).
Farm Bill Extension Update
On November 16, 2023, President Biden signed a short-term spending bill for the government. But what does this have to do with the farm bill? Well, this also included a one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill.
Farm bill programs and the USDA will now be able to continue operating until September 30, 2024—exactly one year from when the 2018 bill originally expired. This had to happen because the 2023 Farm Bill was not finished being written, debated on, and budgeted for.
With next year being a big election year, we are hoping that the final farm bill implementation will happen in the springtime. If this does not get moving as soon as the new year comes around, there is a worry that it could get pushed even further.