Reflection on a first-time lobby day

Published: Mar 2026
By: Jen New, Communications and Policy Manager

Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Washington, DC, as one of 24 delegates on the National Organic Coalition's (NOC) annual fly-in. Marbleseed has been a member of NOC for nearly two decades. The four-day event was coordinated (beautifully, I might add), to ensure the voices of the organic movement were heard by members of Congress.

Our delegation represented 15 states from Washington and Oregon to Maine and Jersey, and included farmers and ranchers, retailers (including the Menomonie Market Food Coop and Wedge Community Coops), environmentalists, and others. Some people had done this numerous times; others, like myself, were entirely new to the process.

We were unified in sharing NOC's policy priorities:

• Strengthening the USDA National Organic Program (NOP), which has lost roughly a third of its staff in the past year, threatening the integrity of the USDA organic seal and the agency's ability to intercept fraudulent organic imports.
• Bolstering the National Organic Certification Cost Share Program (NOCCSP) by advocating for the maximum reimbursement rate to be doubled from $750 to $1,500 per scope per operation. We also asked every office we visited to contact Sec. of Agriculture Rollins and ask for the Cost Share checks to be dispersed; they're currently nine months overdue.
• Investing in research by releasing the $100 million authorized by Congress for the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI), which delays critical research that helps farmers and businesses solve pressing challenges in organic production; and asking Congress to increase OREI funding in FY 2027.
• Expanding Organic Dairy Market Data by having Congress direct the USDA to improve organic dairy data collection so that policy responses reflect the realities of the organic market.

Altogether, our group visited 45 offices. I went to one of my home state's Senate offices – Grassley from Iowa – and accompanied other delegates to meetings with offices from Minnesota and Wisconsin. They ranged the political gamut and included longtime politicians and the newly elected.

How did our message go over? In several meetings, we were mainly sharing gratitude for the vocal and public support the Congress people had given to organics. The largest point of agreement was for getting the overdue cost share funds disbursed. We received many questions about how NOC's priorities overlapped with those of the so-called MAHA movement. While there is no explicit answer to this, many delegation members with whom I spoke, as well as Congressional staffers, felt there is possible progress to be made in intersecting areas.

We were far from the only ones making visits to Congress that day. Other advocacy groups we encountered included bicyclists, veterans, students, and construction workers. Seeing the level of conversations occurring in every nook and cranny (many meetings, including planned ones, happen in the hallway; there's just not enough space) was exciting, but also made me wonder how much of the noise has an effect.

During our time in DC, the USDA terminated $300 million in contracts that were part of the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access (ILCMA) program. Created with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and American Rescue Plan, this defunding has quickly pulled the rug out from under many programs. Jobs have been terminated, and farmers have lost access to training and money they'd already earmarked for land and equipent purchases. Like the Local Food Purchase Assistance program that was cut this time last year, this program has supported locally-sourced solutions. It was preparing beginning farmers to step into the shoes of the more than 50 percent of farmers who will retire in the next decade.

Did the visit to DC matter? I think it did in that we all need to speak up and keep elected officials accountable. We need to share space with people of different political views and find ways to connect on any scale, be that Caitlin Clark or a pair of chicken socks (two ways I connected with staffers whose bumper stickers don't match mine). Many kinds of action and advocacy are needed now - marching in the streets, planting seeds and nourishing soil, caring for our communities, and showing up for and to our democratic institutions.

Thank you NOC, for your work and helping us contribute!