USDA's BioPreferred Program back in business

It is good to hear that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) BioPreferred Program web portal is open again for companies to apply for the voluntary USDA Certified Biobased Product label. Up-to-date, the agency said about 900 individual products have received the USDA label and that there are there are currently 9,000 designated biobased products in 89 different categories available for preferred Federal purchasing.

Under the Farm Bill passed in 2002 and 2008, the BioPreferred Program was authorized to certify and award labels to qualifying biobased products, and designate categories of biobased products that are afforded preference by Federal agencies when making purchase decisions. Unfortunately, the 2012 Farm Bill has still not been settled by Congress and the Farm Bill extension legislation (“American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012″) passed early this year as band-aid did not include any funding for the BioPreferred program.

Products with USDA BioPreferred labels

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