Organics groups
differ over standards
11/01/2005
Source: LOHAS Weekly
Newsletter
Author: Natural Foods
Merchandiser
Heated debate over an amendment and a rider to the 2006
Agriculture Appropriations Bill has sparked a rift in the
organics community.
The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and
passed by the U.S. Senate Sept. 22, is a compromise after an
Organic Trade Association rider calling for changes to the
National Organic Program was rejected in the Senate. Longtime
members of the organics community believe the amendment is
designed as a placeholder to allow debate on the OTA rider and
NOP changes in a House-Senate agriculture appropriations
conference committee. However, if the committee can’t reach a
consensus, the amendment will likely go through as part of the
agriculture appropriations bill, said agricultural consultant
Roger Blobaum.
The amendment calls for the secretary of agriculture to
submit a report to Congress to determine whether changes to the
National Organic Program “would adversely affect organic
farmers, organic food processors and consumers.”
The report, due before Dec. 20, would also analyze the use of
synthetic ingredients in processing and handling organic food,
evaluate expedited petitions for commercially unavailable
agricultural products because of crop disasters, and consider
the use of crops and forage from dairy farms that are in their
third year of organic development as feed for cattle that
produce organic products.
At issue is how to accommodate the changes mandated by a
federal court after the U.S. Department of Agriculture lost a
lawsuit filed by Maine organic blueberry farmer Arthur Harvey.
The court ruled that organic regulations must be rewritten
before June 2006 to ban 38 synthetic ingredients currently
allowable under NOP; require that dairy herds receive organic
feed for 12 months prior to the sale of their products, rather
than the three months currently required; and stipulate that
nonagricultural, nonorganic ingredients no longer be used in
organic products.
The new regulations would be enforced beginning June 2007.
Products that don’t include the new criteria would have their
USDA status reduced from “organic” to “made with organic
ingredients.”
In a statement, OTA officials said their ag bill rider is
designed to “uphold the NOP standards as we know them. The only
change to the rule that OTA’s [rider] would make is to make it
more difficult for manufacturers to claim that ingredients are
not commercially available as organic by proving it to the USDA.
This, in fact, would strengthen the rule.”
However, a group of nongovernmental public interest groups
disagrees. Citizens for Health, The Center for Food Safety, the
Organic Consumers Association, the National Organic Coalition,
the National Cooperative Grocers Association and the National
Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture have proposed their own
changes to the NOP that would accommodate the Harvey ruling.
They have also lobbied Congress against the Leahy amendment and
OTA rider. As of mid-October, the OCA reported that more than
250,000 consumers had e-mailed their representatives.
Ana Micka, president of Citizens for Health, says if the OTA
rider is passed, the USDA could permanently allow synthetic
processing aids and ingredients in organic foods “without any
type of public review for their safety and compatibility with
organic production and processing.” Micka also said the
amendment would “leave unresolved whether young dairy cows could
be treated with antibiotics and then converted to organic after
12 months,” and “create a serious new loophole in which organic
ingredients could be substituted with nonorganic ingredients
without any consumer notice, based upon ‘emergency decrees.’”
Theresa Marquez, chief marketing executive at Organic Valley
Family of Farms, said the OTA and its supporters are “98 percent
in agreement with the nongovernmental organizations. It’s only
the 2 percent that’s causing a rift in the organics industry.
This is a silly fight.”
Marquez also believes changing the NOP would benefit large
organics producers rather than the small companies and farmers
the NGOs are fighting for. Finding organic replacements for
synthetics is very expensive, she says. “For companies with
multimillion-dollar R&D budgets, they’re going to be able to
weather this one out. It will be much harder for the smaller
manufacturers and farmers to stay in business, and the
conversion of conventional farmland to organic will come to a
halt.”
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