Blog Posts

Are you a producer transitioning to organic or maybe you already grow a certified organic grain or feed crop? Are those crops covered with Federal crop insurance? If the answer is yes, you can now get premium assistance from the USDA for the 2023 reinsurance year through the Transitional and Organic Grower Assistance (TOGA) Program. It’s offered by the USDA’s Risk Management Agency, and it can reduce your overall crop insurance premium bills, and help you continue to use an organic agricultural system.

Eligible organic grain and feed crops under the TOGA program are: alfalfa seed, barley, buckwheat, canola, corn, cultivated wild rice, dry beans, dry peas, flax, forage production, forage seeding, fresh market sweet corn, grain sorghum, hybrid corn seed, hybrid popcorn seed, hybrid sorghum seed, hybrid sweet corn seed, millet, oats, crops insured under the Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage policy, peanuts, popcorn, rice, rye, safflower, sesame, silage sorghum, soybeans, sunflowers, sweet corn, triticale, and wheat.

You will automatically receive the premium assistance on your billing statements for the 2023 reinsurance year, which covers applicable policies with sales closing dates from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023.

Since there is no enrollment paperwork, the premium assistance will automatically apply to those eligible insurance policies with July or August sales closing dates that have passed.

More information is available on this website: TOGA

USDA to Provide Aid to Organic Dairy Producers for Marketing

 Assistance to Help Organic Dairy Producers Cover Increased Costs Farm Service Agency (FSA) is making $104 million available to organic dairy operations to assist with projected marketing costs in 2023, calculated using their marketing costs in 2022.

FSA will begin accepting applications for ODMAP on May 24, 2023. Eligible producers include certified organic dairy operations that produce milk from cows, goats and sheep.

More information the dairy market program is available on this website: ODMPA

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) provides organic producers and handlers with financial assistance every year to reduce the cost of organic certification. The program reimburses producers and handlers for a portion of their paid certification costs. Once certified, organic producers and handlers are eligible to receive reimbursement for 75 percent of certification costs for program year 2023, up to a maximum of $750 per certification scope—crops, livestock, wild crops, handling, and State Organic Program fees. As you all know this is an increase from $500 in previ0us years to $750. 

According to the 2021 USDA Organic Survey released this past December 2022, only about 20% of the organic farmers in Texas ever request this reimbursement of certification costs!  That amounts to $240,000 never claimed by Texas producers for organic expenses – every year. I am trying to figure out a way for the Texas A&M AgriLife Organic program to apply for your “cost share” reimbursement if you don’t want it. Just think of all the organic research, educational programs and farm visits we could do!!!!

The date has been extended to August 8, 2023! Also go to the Grant Info page to get more information. I tried to put everything I can find on that page….

That’s right! I consider these mostly organic producer/handler grants and what is unique is that they pay for capital improvements.  That rarely happens in grant programs. The program focuses on building and expanding capacity for certified organic production, aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storing, transporting, wholesaling, distribution, and development of consumer markets. There are 3 types of projects:

Market Development and Promotion – Developing or expanding commercial markets for generic (non-branded) organic commodities, producer and/or consumer education, and product development for underutilized organic commodities.

Processing Capacity Expansion – New or expanded aggregation, processing, storage, marketing, and distribution mechanisms for organic commodities to create a path to market for producers, including purchase and installation of equipment.

Simplified Equipment Only – purchase equipment to expand capacity for processing, aggregation, and distribution of organic products to create markets for producers.

Grants for Market Development or Processing Capacity are from $100,000 to $3 million and do require a 50% match.  The Simplified Equipment Only grants are up to $100,000 and do not require a match.  Grant matches can include your labor and materials and so don’t necessarily mean CASH! More information is found here: Organic Market Development Grant Page

Over the past few months, I have had a number of questions about pesticide drift onto organic fields, pesticide applicators who want to know where organic fields are located, organic growers who want pesticide applicators to know about organic fields, and conventional growers who want to know where organic fields are located.  That is a lot of information to keep track of but there may be a system!

I reached out to FieldWatch and Curt Hadley who is Business Development Manager for Field Watch and is a great contact for what they do.  In the process of visiting with Curt about Field Watch and how it might benefit organic growers in Texas he quickly said, “I need to write this down and make it available to your growers!” Here is his thoughts….

“How New Areas Can Approach the Need for FieldWatch Registries”

by Curt Hadley

We are often asked how new states / provinces / areas join FieldWatch and bring the registries to their areas. With 24 US states, Washington DC and 1 Canadian Province in Saskatchewan in the registry network we could tell you that they all joined the same – that would be far from the truth! The fact is that there are many ways that states / provinces / areas have joined and brought the registries to their respective areas, but there is one common thread……just click this link to go to the website and read Curt’s article (How New Areas Can Approach the Need for FieldWatch Registries – FieldWatch)

As the Extension Organic Specialist, I would like to know if this is something I need to help organize for Texas and Texas organic producers. I am willing, but I do need to hear from you to make it happen.  Bob

This research report starts off with this first sentence, “An increase in salt concentration in the soil, i.e., soil salinity, is becoming a significant problem worldwide, as it is prevailing in all climates. Almost 7% of the earth’s land surface has become saline prone (Ruiz-Lozano et al., 2001), and the increased salinization of arable land will result in 30% land loss by 2030 and up to 50% by 2050 (Porcel et al., 2012).”

If you have been involved in farming any length of time you know what salt does to crop land and you know that the salt concentrations happen slowly over time, but they do happen! How does it happen? Usually, it is through irrigation water and lack of rainfall. Almost all irrigation water has some salts in the water and this minor amount is not too bad until drought and then the salts accumulate and cause problems. Salts can also build up in high rainfall. Typically, these salts move through the soil till they reach an impermeable area and so move laterally through the soil. They will move till they pool in the lower field areas and these pools of underground water are salty. Salts can also accumulate through fertilizer or manure applications both of which can be very salty.

Fortunately, these salts are usually in such low concentrations that we never notice how they are affecting plants, but they can affect plants. AM fungi are known to improve plant performance under stress, and they are naturally found in organic systems where they do improve plant yields through a number of pathways. What we don’t do is supplement or augment AM fungi to help these plants overcome salt stress.

A great table in this study shows the crops (wheat, cucumber, basil, alfalfa, pepper, pigeon pea, squash), the AM fungi (Rhizophagus irregularis, Glomus mosseae, funneliformis mosseae, Glomus versiforme, Glomus monosporum, etc) that can colonize on these plants for salt stress relief and the effect the AM fungi had on the plant growth (increased leaf area, increased plant growth, increased nutrient uptake, increased stomata conductance, etc.). Why is this important to you as a grower? These AM Fungi are available to you to apply to fields. The science behind these AM fungi and the industry that supports the organic grower are now able to produce, package and make available these for use on the farm!

So, you may ask yourself, why am I reading boring research reports? There is always a hope that something will stand out and make a difference for organic farming and maybe this is one of those things. To read more here is a link to the report: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi for salinity stress: Anti-stress role and mechanisms