Kill the NOP?

On March 19 Mother Jones magazine published an article about the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) bowing to industry pressure on the proposed rules for the National Organic Program (NOP) standards. The article spoke specifically about genetically modified organisms and the USDA's effort to include genetic modification as an acceptable practice in the new federal standard for organic food. In support of their assertion, Mother Jones cited a May 1997 "informational memorandum" that circulated through the USDA, essentially outlining how the USDA will railroad the NOP and make a mockery of organic certification and their own advisory body, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).

It's not a mockery to the USDA. It is business as usual, except this time they are taking the choice of buying organic food away from those of us that rely on labeling to identify what is and is not organic. For consumers living in metropolises, where we rely on specialty stores that sell organic foods, food cooperatives, and if we are lucky, an occasional visit to the farmer's market, the USDA's proposed rules for organic food rings the death knell for knowing what we are eating.

The proposed rules are corrupt. They ignore the NOSB's recommendations. They will certify food grown with pesticides, genetically modified organisms, sewage sludge, irradiation, and slaughtered stock loaded with drugs, to name a few examples. Once the food is labeled "organic" by the USDA, higher standards set by states or professional associations would be prohibited. The law would prohibit any additional labeling; such as labels from responsible producers that identify their products as free of pesticides or irradiation.

Pesticide residue, for example, is considered an acceptable organic component by the USDA because to prohibit it, as recommended by the NOSB, would be to establish "organic as being safer food, and our program is not a food safety program." There you have it folks. Organic food means different things to different people, but it means "safer" to every consumer that pulls a jar of organic baby food off the shelf or buys a bag of organic apples. It also means more trees for migrating songbirds on organic coffee farms in Central America, less toxins effecting ecological systems around our farms and in our environment, less control by agri-business and more opportunities for small farmers, predictability of risk from the foods we feed our children and eat ourselves, and confirmation that we can still find and eat food that is grown without chemicals and industrial modification.

The USDA is out to sabotage the intent of 1990 Organic Foods Production Act that called for federal standards. In response, the matter can be approached from two different positions. Kill the NOP Rules. Salvaging the rules with the USDA at the helm of the ship is a likely hopeless endeavor. Expect to end up in court, because that is where the next battle will be fought. So eliminate the federal standard and go back to reading labels for standards you know and trust, such as the California Organic Foods Act. If you cannot give up on the bureaucrats, demand two things: that the NOSB recommendations be followed to the letter -- adding your own suggestions for allowed and prohibited substances and practices -- and that "secondary" labeling be permitted. If a farmer or manufacturer wants to say that the food they are selling was grown in accordance with another standard apart from the federal rules, they should be able to put it on the label.

Write the USDA. Call your representatives in government. Let Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the authors of the initial Act calling for a federal standard, know how you feel about the USDA railroading the rule. Go in swinging and ring everybody's bells.

Laura Orlando

For more information:

Rachel's Environmental Health Weekly #583 An excellent article on the proposed rules by Frederick Kirschenmann, an organic farmer and member of the National Organic Standards Board.

Mother Jones March 19 article "Organic Engineering."

Submit your comments on the NOP proposed rules to the USDA.

In These Times. The First Stone: "Organic" with a Corporate Twist. The USDA wants to label sludge, bioengineering and irradiation "organic." By Joel Bleifuss. In These Times. February 22,1998. Volume 22. Number 7.