Congress recently approved the agricultural appropriations bill, and within it is a provision that will help restore a portion of the original USDA National Organic Program’s rules, that was altered by a federal court decision. Congress was asked to take up this issue as a result of a June 2005 decision in the case of Harvey v. Johanns, which had severely limited the types and levels of non-organic agricultural ingredients that could be added to foods labeled with USDA's organic seal.

It was estimated that if Congress had not acted, more than 90% of the multi-ingredient organic foods in the marketplace, including many organic dairy products, would have lost USDA’s organic labeling status. IDFA joined an industry coalition, led by the Organic Trade Association, that lobbied Congress to pass an emergency procedures provision to rectify this problem.

Specifically, the court decision called into question technical inconsistencies between the Organic Food Protection Act, passed as part of the 1990 Farm Bill, and the current USDA NOP standards, which were implemented in October 2002.