The deadline for submitting comments on the Organic Trade Association’s GRO Organic Initiative is Tuesday, April 30. OTA is encouraging industry members to provide ideas and feedback on the proposed initiative.
The Generate Results and Opportunity for Organic initiative, simply referred to as GRO Organic, is a private-sector effort to advance voluntary industry-invested organic research, promotion and education. GRO Organic would be an opt-in program that uses resources collected from the industry to address critical needs across the organic sector and will be collaboratively designed and implemented by organic stakeholders.
The concept of a federally mandated organic check-off program was initially proposed by OTA in 2015. USDA had officially proposed a nationwide organic check-off program back in 2017, but the rulemaking process was ultimately terminated before a referendum vote on the program could be held.
Organic stakeholders will need to include their name, location, and business affiliations when submitting feedback to OTA so that the GRO Organic Steering Committee can seek clarifications and ask questions.
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