When Is an Earmark an Earnmark

The Sustainable Ag Coalition believes that ATTRA lost its funding because Congress thought it was an earmark:

One very distressing casualty of the continuing series of Continuing Resolutions that are keeping the government open but cutting funding week by week is the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, known as ATTRA.  ATTRA’s $2.8 million was cut entirely in H.R. 1, the House-passed full-year Continuing Resolution from mid-February and that proposed program termination was unfortunately including among the $6 billion in cuts adopted by Congress this week in the new short-term Continuing Resolution keeping the government operating through April 8.
The justification for cutting ATTRA appears to be a misperception that it is an earmark.  Indeed, like earmarks, many Senators and Members of Congress request funding for ATTRA every year, as they do for many programs.  However, unlike earmarks for projects in specific congressional districts, ATTRA is a nationwide program, authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill, and it has been included in presidential budgets through many administrations over several decades. 

 What they don't mention is that the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service is not a federal agency, as the name might imply (and I first thought).  It's the outcome of a cooperative agreement with the Rural Development Service--in other words federal money provided to a cooperative.  Here's the general blurb from RD:

We have over 80 years of experience working with the cooperative sector and remain the only federal agency charged with that responsibility. USDA Rural Development has been providing support to cooperatives since the Cooperative Marketing Act of 1926, promoting the knowledge of cooperative principles and practices as well as collecting statistics on cooperative activities. The Cooperative Program provides assistance for rural residents interested in forming new cooperatives and administers programs that fund value-added producer grants, rural cooperative development centers, and small socially-disadvantaged producers.
We also provide resources to local cooperatives to support a department-wide effort known as, 'Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food'. This initiative, led by Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan puts an increased emphasis on regional food systems, which will have direct and significant benefits to rural communities. Lear [sic] more here:

Now if the appropriation is specifically for that cooperative agreement, it comes pretty close in my mind to an earmark. If RD is given a lump sum of money for cooperative agreements and decides to give $2.8 million to ATTRA, then it's not.