Dive Summary:

• Many organic farmers are feeling forgotten as the U.S. legislature passed the last minute extension of the 2008 Farm Bill, now effective until September.
• The extension, however, did not include extensions for many existing organic programs, nor did it include any of the new programs laid out by the not yet ratified 2012 Farm Bill.
• The biggest program that was cut was a cost-sharing initiative that reduced the cost of organic certification considerably, a measure that was necessary for small scale farmers.

From the article:

“We’ve been thrown under the bus.” That’s how some organic farmers and advocates are describing the government’s “eleventh-hour” decision on Jan. 1 to extend the 2008 farm bill for 9 months instead of enacting a new 2012 farm bill.

Their dismay is based on how organics fared when the 2008 farm bill was extended until September 2013 (Section 701). Pure and simple, mandatory funding for a variety of organic programs written into the 2008 farm bill didn’t qualify for automatic inclusion into the farm bill extension.

That outcome is in contrast to the proposed Senate and House versions of the 2012 farm bill, hammered out last summer, that had included funding for all of the organic programs (except for one in the House version).

One reason for extending the 2008 farm bill was that there just wasn’t enough time to enact a 2012 farm bill, especially in light of all of the frenzied work Congress was putting into keeping the nation from toppling over the tax side of the fiscal cliff. The other factor was that House leadership worried about possible infighting over cuts to food stamps and subsidy programs.