Assistance program
Organic Certification Cost Share Programs
$55.8 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Farm Service Agency, Agriculture, Department of
- Assistance
- Direct Payments for Specified Use
- CFDA number
- 10.171
- What it does
- The objective of Organic Certification Cost Share Programs (OCCSP) is to provide cost share assistance to producers and handlers who are obtaining organic certification for the first time or renewing their previous certification. Organic certification is obtained through certifying agents accredited by the USDA National Organic Program (NOP).
- Who benefits
- The eligible certified producer/handler receives the OCCSP benefit.
- Who applies
- State Agencies are eligible to establish an agreement to administer the program within their State. To be eligible for cost share payments, a producer or handler must possess USDA organic certification at the time of application and have paid fees/expenses related to its initial certification or renewal of its certification from a certifying agent. FSA county offices accept applications directly from producers and handlers.
- Authorized by
- The National Cost Share Program is authorized under 7 U.S.C. 7901 note, as amended by section 10004(c) of the Agriculture Act of 2014 (2014 Farm Bill).
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Direct payments
$51.3M
92%
Grants
$4.5M
8%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
Administering agencies
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments