Organic Certification Cost Share (NOCCSP)

Program Basics
The National Organic Certification Cost Share Program (NOCCSP) makes financial assistance available to help defray the costs of organic certification for producers and handlers of organic products. Producers and handlers can receive up to 75 percent of their annual certification costs up to a maximum payment of $750 per year.

Handlers in all states, and producers in every state except the 12 Northeast states plus HI, NV, UT, and WY, are eligible to receive cost share assistance under this program. A separate but nearly identical program called the Agricultural Management Assistance Program provides cost share assistance to producers in the 12 Northeast states plus HI, NV, UT, and WY.

In either case, the assistance is made generally available to producers and handlers through the State departments of agriculture, particularly if that state has an accredited organic certifying program. Recipients must be certified by a USDA accredited certifying agent under the National Organic Program.

Contact Information
The Agricultural Marketing Service of the USDA manages the National Organic Certification Cost Share Program.

Currently the AMS website can be accessed via this rather long link:
www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateA&navID=Home&topNav=Home&page=Home&acct=AMSPW

From this link you can access both the National Organic Program website with an additional link to the cost-share program and the special Agricultural Management Assistance Program version of the same program.

Producers and handlers should contact their certifiers for additional information, or contact their State Department of Agriculture if they have an accredited organic certification program's organic program. A complete list of state contacts is available from the National Association of State Organic Programs at www.nasda.org/nasop/.

There is also an association of private accredited organic certifiers who may be helpful with cost share program issues: www.accreditedcertifiers.org/index.htm