Organic Certification Program may be saved

The state's Organic Certification Program, which faces the chopping block in a year of decreased tax revenues, may be saved just yet, after a legislative appropriations subcommittee recommended doubling the fees that farmers, ranchers and producers of organic products pay to get the organic seal, in order to generate enough money to sustain the program.

The farmers say they're willing to pay it.

On Thursday afternoon, the Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee recommended a budget for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food for the next fiscal year — which begins July 1 — that saves the Organic Certification Program by doubling the fees.

Utah Commissioner of Agriculture Leonard Blackham said farmers are pleased about the possibility the program will be saved.

"The organic community is pleased with it, we're pleased with it and the committee is pleased with it," he said. "I think we've got it resolved, and we're moving forward."

The doubling of the fees is pending approval by the Executive Appropriations Committee.

Utah's program began in 2003. The program's size has tripled in the last two years, and last year, 65 growers and producers sought certification. They included 35 crop farmers, nine livestock producers and 21 companies that take organic products and produce another organic product such as milled wheat or face cream. The state program has accreditation to administer the U.S. Department of Agriculture's organic-certification program.

But the Legislature must cut at least $1 billion in programs and personnel in state government this year, and the Department of Agriculture and Food last month offered to close the Organic Certification Program at the end of the current fiscal year, June 30, because the program has been operating in the red.

Last year, the program cost about $75,000, and the department received $46,000 in revenue, department spokesman Larry Lewis said. "We were in the hole by $29,000 for last year," he said.

This year, the department charged the farmers and producers who received certification according to a sliding scale from $50 to $2,500, depending on their gross sales.

Without any in-state alternative to certification, farmers, ranchers and producers of organic products faced having to seek certification elsewhere, with prices that were much higher because they would have had to pay travel expenses for out-of-state inspections.

Many of the growers and producers said they would prefer the alternative of higher state prices. About 35 people e-mailed the department to ask the department to reconsider, including people whose only connection to the production of organic products was their consumption of them.