After serious concern that the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) wouldn’t be meeting at all in the spring, board members gathered online in April 2025.
Each biannual NOSB meeting is announced in the Federal Register, which publishes proposed and final changes to rules and regulations and invites public comments for NOSB consideration.
Ordinarily, the NOSB has about six weeks prior to its meeting to read public comments. But comments were still surfacing the day before the April meeting began, raising concerns that board members wouldn’t have adequate time to read them.
[Read Cornucopia’s written comments here.]
The unusual circumstances of the spring 2025 meeting didn’t otherwise appear to disrupt its flow.
The five new Board members added in January 2025 were engaged and eager to participate in the public process, indicating that the NOSB onboarding process has improved over time. Unfortunately, one of the four vital farmer members continues to be unavailable for meetings, and there seems to be no move to replace them. Community-scale farmers experience some of the highest barriers to volunteering their time on the board, while input from these small farms is desperately needed.
Rulemaking Report
Christopher Purdy, the temporary Deputy Administrator for the National Organic Program (NOP), gave a brief update at the meeting. (Dr. Jennifer Tucker, the previous Deputy Administrator, transitioned to Deputy Administrator for the Specialty Crops Program earlier this year. However, Dr. Tucker will be returning to the NOP June 2.)
To verify that the Strengthening Organic Enforcement (SOE) Rule is being implemented correctly, the NOP, which oversees certifiers, is focused on “desk audits” of certification activities, Purdy reported.
So far, SOE is directly impacting organic fraud: US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have stopped non-compliant products at the borders. Last fall, the NOP reported that 85% of imports were compliant. During the spring 2025 NOSB meeting, the NOP reported taking enforcement actions against non-organic entities.
NOTE: Despite the NOP’s initial SOE efforts, fraud continues to haunt the organic grain industry. The impossibly high volume of “organic” grain entering the US from countries with relatively small organic acreage is driving down prices for legitimate organic grain.
Cornucopia strongly favors the proposed Organic Imports Verification Act of 2025 (OIVA). If enacted, OIVA will require USDA Secretary Rollins to establish pesticide residue testing guidelines and to identify high-risk crops annually. If shipments are flagged for pesticide residues at the border, they will not be allowed for sale as organic. An organized response from Congress and USDA is required to retain and encourage certified organic grain production in this country.
Cornucopia notes that SOE has increased the workload for certifiers. Certifiers must now conduct more unannounced inspections, audit supply chains for high-risk operations, and make sure certified operations can track their products back to their organic origins. SOE has simultaneously driven additional clients: a large number of organic handlers have been certified since January 2024 in response to the new rule.
These needed updates take more time, staff, and effort — and certifiers are raising their prices in response. Price increases are most painful for small, diversified organic farms.
At the same time, The Organic Certification Cost Share Program (OCCSP), which helps organic farms afford certification costs, has been defunded. This issue demands attention: Certified organic agriculture must not be reduced to a short list of industrialized operations.
The Market Development for Mushrooms and Pet Food Rule is being scrapped due to requirements from the Administration to cut down on new regulations.
Of course, USDA Certified Organic is a voluntary program, which means it should be treated differently than other regulatory frameworks. Regulation is necessary to main integrity in the marketplace and trust in the label.
Set to go into effect early this year, this particular rulemaking would have clarified standards for organic mushroom producers and standardized existing practices in organic pet food.
(For a deep dive into Cornucopia’s thoughts on compost, read our written comments submitted to the NOSB in fall 2024.)
The withdrawal notice for the Market Development Rule is open for public comments. Cornucopia encourages stakeholders to comment in favor of this regulation on or before June 11.
Current Activities in the Organic Market
NOP staff members Robert Yang (Accreditation Division Director), John Veley (Activities Director), and Lori Tortora (Compliance and Enforcement Director), shared further details on program activities:
- SOE rollout includes risk-based audits and the identification of high-risk operations. For example, soybeans are currently considered particularly high risk for organic fraud. And West Africa and Turkey are considered high-risk areas for fraud. Soybeans from these regions are thus subject to greater scrutiny.
- Residue testing on organic products has helped identify and curtail fraud. Samples are being collected by trained NOP staff, the USDA Federal Grain Inspection Service, and certifiers, and then analyzed at the USDA National Science Laboratories. After detecting hexane (a solvent prohibited for use in organic production) in non-organic soybeans but not organic soybeans, the program has identified the potential value of testing for solvents.
- The Origin of Livestock rulemaking is still being tracked and there have been no major concerns.
- Recently acquired trademark authority over the USDA organic seal has allowing the USDA to seize fraudulent products and assist in prosecutions for fraud.
- Growth in the organic seed sector is lackluster, and the challenge of acquiring required organic seed remains a concern. The NOP is tracking ways to improve and support organic seed producers.
Sunset Review Efficiency
Nate Lewis, Chair of the Policy Development Subcommittee (PDS), led a discussion about the NOSB’s experimental sunset discussion process.
Sunset reviews are one of the NOSB’s primary duties. Each material on the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances is reviewed by the NOSB every five years. The so-called sunset review typically includes reviewing public comments and seeking any new information about the substance’s impact on human health or the environment, any new natural alternatives, and other criteria under the Organic Foods Production Act.
Due to concerns about workload and efficiency, the PDS wants to develop a consent document that would group similar substances into a single sunset review and vote. The NOSB initiated a trial of this process at the Spring 2025 meeting, noting which substances board members thought would be good fits – or not – for a future consent agenda.
Some public comments noted concerns about the proposed consent agenda. Though most agreed that the NOSB’s workload is large, many were concerned about the proposal’s potential to weaken the NOSB’s substance review. Once added to a consent agenda, individual materials will be subject to cursory discussion by board members.
