Organic-Food Regulations Are Proposed by USDA
Bestowing official status on the fast-growing $3.5-billion-a-year organic-foods business, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday released the first proposed federal regulations for the industry--one it had long disdained.
Organic-food groups and farmers lauded the sweeping farm-to-table standards as a necessary first step toward clearing up marketplace confusion about what is and is not organic, thus helping the industry achieve what is widely expected to be explosive sales growth in the United States and abroad. Approved foods would carry a USDA organic seal.
Organic foods are produced without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers or hormones. Farmers use compost for fertilizer; they plant cover crops to control weeds and to attract beneficial insects that devour problem pests.
But industry proponents harshly criticized the agency for putting off decisions on whether foods produced by certain methods could win designation as organic: the use of irradiation to kill disease-causing pathogens in food, the genetic engineering of crops, and the use of sewage sludge as fertilizer.
In six years of testimony at hearings nationwide, organic farmers and food processors had made it clear that they adamantly opposed these technologies and practices.
“These problems must be fixed for the rule to have any integrity,” said Michael Sligh, who heads the Rural Advancement Foundation International in Pittsboro, N.C., and chaired several hearings on the subject.
The voluminous rules, posted Monday on the Internet and scheduled for inclusion in the Federal Register today, would establish the first national standards for a system of farming and food production that for decades operated on society’s fringes but in recent years has won strong mainstream acceptance, as shoppers have grown concerned about the effects of pesticides in food.
At a Washington news conference Monday, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said the hope is that a uniform standard will increase the availability of organic foods and thus help bring down prices. Because of its limited scale, organic farming often entails higher costs, and organic foods thus tend to cost more.
The federal rule would override a patchwork of private and state laws, including California’s 1990 organic-foods act, one of the toughest in the nation.
California’s rules, long viewed as a benchmark, appear in many cases to be stricter. Organic proponents say they would prefer that the national standards be at least as tough.
Reluctant to appear to be favoring organic foods as safer than or superior to those produced conventionally, Glickman said: “These rules are not about creating a category of agriculture that is safer than any other. These rules are about giving consumers choices as to how their food is produced.”
Organic food accounts for a mere 1% of U.S. food production but is the fastest-growing category in all retailing.
That strength belies organic farming’s fragile roots four decades ago as an alternative to the chemical-intensive production that was causing U.S. crop yields to soar. By the 1970s, organic farming was being pursued by counterculture types leery of the long-term environmental and health effects of these synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers.
At the time, the industry was routinely derided by Washington officials, with Earl Butz, who served as Agriculture secretary under Presidents Nixon and Ford, reportedly remarking in the mid-1970s: “When you hear the word organic, think starvation.”
Since then, organic foods have gradually moved to center stage. The industry has attracted the interest of such savvy investors as Roy Disney, whose investment firm bought organic frozen-vegetable pioneer Cascadian Farm, and food giants such as H.J. Heinz Co., which two years ago bought Earth’s Best, an organic baby food company, from its founders.
In recent years, the industry has experienced sales growth of more than 20% annually, far outpacing the gains of traditional foods. Many small companies have taken advantage of the interest to offer stock to the public.
Meanwhile, the surge in interest in organic and natural foods (those raised without synthetic chemicals, preservatives or colorings) has spurred a revolution in food shopping, giving rise to two large chains--Wild Oats and Whole Foods Market. In turn, their success in luring mainstream shoppers has prompted conventional supermarkets to stock more organic items.
The USDA’s proposed rules would lay out exactly which raw or processed products may be labeled as organic. They would establish regulations for crop production and harvesting, the handling of poultry and livestock and the processing of organically grown ingredients.
Under the proposed rules, animals could not be given hormones or antibiotics to stimulate growth, but drugs could be given if an animal became ill.
To earn a USDA organic seal, raw products would be required to be 100% organic; processed foods would have to contain 95% organic ingredients.
Processed foods containing 50% to 95% organic content could be labeled as “made with certain organic ingredients,” while those with content that is less than half organic could merely specify organic ingredients.
Any farmer or processor that labeled or sold as organic a product that violates the USDA’s National Organic Program rules could be fined up to $10,000.
Under the proposed rules, the USDA, for a fee, would accredit state and private certifying agents. Those agents in turn could charge farmers and processors for certification services. Farmers and processors would also pay some fees directly to USDA.
Organic-industry officials say the USDA is dodging the irradiation, genetic-engineering and sewage-sludge issues because the Clinton administration is on record supporting them. The Environmental Protection Agency advocates the use of sewage sludge as fertilizer, the Food and Drug Administration recently approved the use of irradiation for meat, and the administration has long applauded biotechnology.
“This relieves the USDA from making those decisions,” said Tonya Pavich, marketing chief for Pavich Family Farms in Kern County, the world’s largest producer of certified organic table grapes. “This way they can say they let the hippies hash it out.”
The USDA plans to spend a required 90-day comment period to glean the views of more consumers and agriculture representatives before deciding what to do about irradiation, bioengineering and sewage sludge. Glickman vowed that the department would publish a final rule before the end of next year, so that organic farmers could plan their spring 1999 plantings.
Several organic food groups, including the Organic Trade Assn., said they plan to ask the USDA to extend the comment period to 120 days, to allow them to muster grass-roots opposition to irradiation, genetic engineering and sewage sludge.
“That’s where we draw the battle lines,” said Robert B. Anderson, an organic-farming pioneer.
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What Would Qualify
Some of the standards proposed by the Agriculture Department for labeling food products as organic.
CROPS
* Land could have no chemical pesticides or other substances applied on it for at least three years before harvest of an organic crop.
* Crop pests, weeds and disease would be mainly controlled through prevention, not with chemicals, or through biological methods such as wasps that kill harmful insects.
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LIVESTOCK
* Animals could not be given hormones or antibiotics to stimulate growth. Drugs would be prohibited unless the animal is sick. Animals would be fed organic feeds.
* Manure would be managed to ensure it does not pollute water and that its nutrients are recycled.
* Animals raised organically would exist in “health-promoting living conditions” such as having access to sunlight.
