USDA Organic Standards

It’s nice to win a victory once in a while. Feeling the heat from consumers, the USDA has appar-ently decided to call off its food fight — at least temporarily — with the nation’s 10 million organic consumers, 6,000 retailers, and 10,000 organic farmers. On Wednesday, March 8, the USDA released a completely revised proposal for national organic food standards and labels. The new 663-page proposal incor-porates nearly all of the recommendations made by the National Organic Standards Board and organic activists, including a prohibition on genetic engineering, sewage sludge, irradiation, and a variety of other industrial-style agriculture practices.

Besides backing off on the “Big Three” (genetic engineering, sewage sludge, and irradiation) the USDA bureaucrats bowed to grassroots pressure and basically agreed that any product bearing the label “USDA Certified Organic” will have to be produced without toxic pesticides or toxic “inert ingredients;” that antibiotics, growth hormones, and rendered animal protein can not be administered or fed to animals; that factory farm-style intensive confinement of farm animals will not be allowed; and that no synthetics or chemicals will be allowed in organic production without the approval of the National Organic Standards Board. In addition, the USDA basically agreed to leave the pre-existing system of private and state organic certifiers intact; to allow accredited state and private organic certifiers to uphold higher standards than the USDA; and for licensed organic certifiers to be able to display their logos or seals on the front label panel of organic products. Finally the USDA backed off on their previous proposal to outlaw “eco-labels” which might imply that a product was organic.

Not All We Need for Organic Purity
Despite major improvements in the current proposed USDA organic standards over what was put forth in 1998, there are a number of problems and short-comings in the lengthy March 8 document. Among the most obvious problems are the following:

• So-called “natural foods” with less than 50% organic ingre-dients will be allowed to list their organic ingredients on their information panel — usually on the back of the package — even though the non-organic ingredients of these products may be genetically engineered, irradiated, derived from sewage sludge, or produced with pesticides, growth hormones, or antibiotics.
• Manure from factory farms will be allowed to be used as a fertilizer on organic farms.
• Although the proposed regulations on organic animal husbandry require “access to outdoors,” no clear definition of what constitutes “pasture” are offered, nor does the USDA delineate exact space or spacing requirements for humane hous-ing and outdoor access for poultry, pigs, cattle, and other animals.
• Although the USDA claim they don’t intend to impose economic hardships on organic certifiers and farmers, the added costs of USDA oversight will fall heavily on small certifiers and farmers. The USDA should provide accreditation services to organic certifiers free of charge as well as subsidize the costs of any farmer who wishes to become certified as organic. Beyond this, the USDA should allocate funds to pay farmers a premium price for their products during their “transition to organic” phase as an added incentive for the major-ity of farmers to begin making the transition to sustainable and organic farming practices.
• Although genetic contamination of organic crops by “genetic drift” from farms growing gene-tically engineered crops is one of the most serious environmental threats to organic agriculture, no residue limits for genetic contam-ination are delineated in the USDA’s proposed federal regulations. The USDA must hold bio-technology patent holders and seed companies accountable and financially liable for the environmental and economic damage inflicted on organic farmers and producers caused by genetic drift.

Proposed Rules Versus Final Rules:
Consumer Vigilance & Comments Required

Although organic consumers and farmers should be proud of the fact that our collective grass-roots efforts have forced the government to adhere to high standards in these proposed rules, we need to keep in mind that the March proposed rules are not final regulations. After a 90-day official comment period — which ends June 12 — the USDA could bow once again to pressure from corporate agri-business and the biotechnology industry and issue a set of weaker final rules, filled with legal loop-holes and exemptions. For this reason it is important for us to flood the USDA with thousands of comments — which can be sent either by email (go to the USDA website listed above); by fax (703-365-0760); or regular mail (Keith Jones, National Organic Program, USDA-AMS-TMP-NOP, Room 2945-So., Ag Stop 0275, PO Box 96456, Washington, D.C. 20090-6456). When sending comments by fax or regular mail, identify your comments as refer-ring to docket number TMD-00-02-PR. Please demand that the USDA deal with the problems we’ve noted above, but stress first and foremost that the USDA should not weaken the provisions outlined in the March proposed rules in any manner, whatsoever.

Food Agenda 2000:
Transforming American Agriculture

The growing U.S. and global citizens movement against genetic engineering and corporate global-ization can draw inspiration from the fact that America’s organic community woke up, got organized, and forced the USDA to maintain strict organic standards, at least for the moment. This is an important and historic victory for citizen action, comparable in significance perhaps to the U.S. anti-nuclear movement stopping the building of new nuclear plants in the late-1970s.

The challenge over the next months and years will be to see if organic consumers, environmental organizations, farm activists, churches, and public interest groups can build upon this tacti-cal victory and begin making headway in the bigger battle — driving genetically engineered crops off the market all over the world, beginning to phase-out the most dangerous practices of indus-trial agriculture, and jump-starting the conversion of the majority of the world’s agriculture to organic methods as soon as possible.

Come hear and meet Ronnie Cummins at the Celebrate the Earth Festival, Sunday, April 16, to learn more about what you can do to protect the environment while ensuring a safe food supply. And look for Food Agenda 2000 petitions at the GMO table at both locations.

Reprinted from BioDemo-cracy News #25, March 2000. BioDemocracy News and Organic View are publications of the Organic Consumers Association.