Earlier this month, the Iowa Organic Association (IOA) Board of Directors voted unanimously to OPPOSE the organic checkoff.  In order to come to this decision, the board polled the organization’s membership of Iowa organic farmers, organic processors, agriculture service providers and consumers.  

Of those who responded to the survey, 65% were certified organic farmers and 15% were certified organic processors—both stakeholder groups that will be directly affected by the proposed Checkoff Order.  Agriculture Service Providers (researchers, educators, government employees, and agriculture supply providers) and Consumers also responded at 10% each.  

80% of IOA members, representing the Iowa organic community oppose the proposed organic checkoff.    

“IOA is concerned the organic checkoff will increase sales and markets for organic products without making a commitment to U.S. organic farmers, leading to a flood of cheap organic imports,” says Scott Ausborn, IOA Board President. “Over the last year, a sharp increase in organic soybean and corn imports greatly reduced prices for Iowa organic commodity growers.  Iowa farmers have the capacity to transition more acres to organic to meet our skyrocketing U.S. demand, but a competitive pay price is needed for farmers to transition.  This checkoff program heads the industry in the wrong direction—it should instead promote America farmers first.”   

IOA opposes the checkoff because:

  • it does not sufficiently address organic farmers’ research needs, 
  • farmers cannot opt out of the program, 
  • it is divisive between the people who market and those who produce organic products, 
  • Iowa checkoff dollars cannot return to support Iowa farmers, 
  • the assessment is cumbersome and burdensome, and 
  • not all certified organic entities will be allowed to vote in the initial referendum—even though they all will be required to participate in the checkoff annually by submitting their gross annual sales data to USDA.  

“Iowa organic farmers support more organic research, but this proposal commits too little of the checkoff dollars to agricultural production research (estimated at only 3.5 million annually),” says Kent Boyum, IOA Board Member.  “For all the extra paperwork an organic checkoff will require of producers, we would have liked to see much more of the total checkoff revenue devoted to agricultural research.”