USDA Sets New Rules for Organic Foods

The long-awaited release Tuesday of tougher new federal standards for organic food should fuel a boom in that rapidly growing niche and help American producers sell more of their products abroad, analysts say.

But most important, the strict universal production and labeling standards unveiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture should take the confusion out of organic products for consumers.

However, the program, which would replace a patchwork of 49 state and private certification standards, can’t guarantee that a product will be free of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, and pesticides. It simply assures consumers that food companies earning the USDA organic seal are using food cultivated by organic farming methods.

“We’re not going out and testing each product that goes across the shelves,” Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said Tuesday at a news conference. “Organic is a production claim, not a content claim.”

Organic trade and environmental groups generally praised the rules, which not only prohibit the use of most chemical substances such as pesticides but bar GMOs, irradiation and sewage used in fertilizer--three controversial items excluded from the agency’s first proposal released in late 1997. Those guidelines sparked more than 275,000 comments from consumers--the largest public response to any proposed rule in USDA history. The response forced federal officials to draft more stringent rules and drop some of the fees charged to farmers in the original version.

The final standards should go into effect by the end of the year. With a final rule, the U.S. should strengthen its position in world markets such as the European Union where the outcry over GMOs has reached fever pitch. Japan and France, for example, have been wary of buying U.S organic products because there has been no universal standard.

The European Union market for organic products rivals the $5.5-billion U.S. market, and it is growing faster. By 2006, it is expected to reach $58 billion, according to USDA projections.

“It will help the industry export its products,” said Margaret Mellon, director of the agriculture and biotechnology program for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The label will now mean something and will be backed by the U.S. government.”

The guidelines also are expected to benefit small to medium-sized farms by stirring demand for organic products, which carry premium prices and in many cases are more effectively managed by smaller, diversified operators.

USDA officials estimate the number of organic farmers is increasing 12% a year. About 6,600 U.S. farmers are now certified organic, according to the Organic Farming Research Foundation, and an additional 15,000 are running trials on organic plots.

Until now, certification has been optional in the U.S., required only if companies wanted to put “certified organic” on their label. With 49 separate standards, it was difficult for consumers to know exactly what they were getting, said Betsy Lydon, program director of Mothers and Others for a Livable Planet.

The new guidelines provide a universal set of standards for farmers, milk producers and cattle and poultry farmers. And the rule lays out a new set of labeling guidelines.

Products labeled as organic must be composed of 95% organically produced ingredients. Processed products with 50% to 95% organic ingredients must use the phrase “made with organic ingredients.” If a product is less than half organic, the organic items may be listed only in the ingredient list on the side panel.

Proponents of biotechnology are critical of the guidelines for giving the signal that there’s something safer about organic foods.

“There’s been no research to give consumers any confidence that paying twice as much for their [organic] food is giving them any enhancement in safety or nutritional value,” said Michael Phillips, executive director for food and agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Glickman said the guidelines were just a “marketing tool” and not a “judgment on the quality or safety of any product.”