On August 22nd, Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack announced that $300 million from the American Rescue Plan would be assigned to a USDA Organic Transition Initiative.  The intent is to build new markets and to improve income for farmers and producers of organic food products. Funding will be directed to technical assistance, mentoring on crop production and market support. This attempt to buttress organic production is necessitated by the reality of a 71 percent decline in the number of organic farms since 2008.

In announcing the initiative, Secretary Vilsack stated, "through this multi-phased, multi-agency initiative, we are expanding USDA support of organic farmers to help with every step of their transition as they work to be certified and secure markets for their products. Agencies participating will include the Agricultural Marketing Service, the Risk Management Agency, and the National Resources Conservation Service.

Despite the allocation of public funding to support organic agriculture, financial realities will dictate actual production levels.  It is apparent that demand for organic eggs has plateaued as denoted by the number of hens producing under the program relative to the increase in cage-free flocks over the past two years.

USDA has not supported the Certified Organic seal with appropriate promotional activities but has concentrated on issuing regulations and third-party audits conducted by authorized commercial entities.

It will be interesting to learn how the $300 million will be spent. It would be even more pertinent  to evaluate the results of the various programs initiated by the USDA.  Neither the Secretary nor the participating Agencies have indicated the parameters that will be applied to measure success.