This report, commissioned by NIFA and conducted by the Organic Farming Research Foundation, evaluates the impacts of the OREI and ORG programs over a seven-year period, FY 2015-2021. The evaluation includes analysis on awards by institution type, priority area, commodity focus, and alignment with farmer-identified challenges. The findings of this report reveal that OREI projects addressed USDA legislative priorities through advances in soil health, pest management, and crop breeding, emphasizing practical, scalable solutions that contribute to ecosystem stability and production resilience, and ORG-funded projects made significant strides in supporting ecological services and site-specific solutions for transitioning farms.
This report is a component of a project funded through a three-year cooperative agreement between USDAʼs National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF). This agreement was initiated by NIFA and did not use any program funds from the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) or Organic Transitions (ORG) appropriations. Instead, NIFA used internal administrative funds to cover all project activities. As a cooperative agreement, rather than a standard competitive grant, the parties worked collaboratively to accomplish project goals. However, the authors acted independently in developing findings, conclusions and drafting the report.
