Watered down organic food labeling being pushed through with little public input

From Common Dreams:

Another Sneak Attack on Organic Standards: USDA to Allow More Conventional Ingredients in Organics

WASHINGTON - MAY 17 -The USDA has announced a controversial proposal, with absolutely no input from consumers, to allow 38 new non-organic ingredients in products bearing the "USDA Organic" seal. Most of the ingredients are food colorings derived from plants that are supposedly not "commercially available" in organic form. But at least three of the proposed ingredients, apparently backed by beer companies, including Anheuser-Busch, and pork and food processors, represent a serious threat to organic standards, and have raised the concerns of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), as well as a number of smaller organic companies and organic certifiers.

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After the jump are the comments from UEPI's Center for Food & Justice that we are submitting today.

May 22, 2007

To Whom It May Concern:

We at the Center for Food & Justice, a division of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at

Occidental

College

are writing to state our support of strong standards for organic certification. We urge you to reject current efforts to allow non-organic materials in organic foods. We oppose the proposition identified as docket No. AMS-TM-07-0062. Not only do we disagree with the language, content and intention of the propose rule, we also disagree with the lack of public outreach on such a monumental piece of proposed legislation. The proposed changes to organic standards could have far-reaching adverse effects on public health, safety and access to safe, tested, and trusted foods.

The Center for Food & Justice has a mission of a more just and sustainable food system.  We engage in community-based organizing and program implementation to educate consumers about food issues, and we work to support local and sustainable food growers and producers. The organic label offers consumers the opportunity to purchase foods that are truly and authentically produced and processed in agro-ecologically sound ways and free of substances with unknown health effects. If the legislation proposed by the USDA and other governmental agencies is adopted, the integrity and benefits associated with organic will have been severely diminished.

The proposal to allow, for example, casings from non-organic beef and non-organic fish oil in products labeled “organic” is incompatible with the spirit of organic production and ultimately will further dilute the standards that have made organic agriculture a trusted certification among growers, producers, and consumers alike.  Efforts such as these to dilute organic standards will erode consumer confidence and lead to even more highly processed and ecologically detrimental food raising practices, further diminishing the ecological, economic, and social sustainability of our food system.

For the sake of American consumers and food producers, we urge you to reject docket No. AMS-TM-07-0062 and its proposed changes to the organic certification laws.

The Center for Food & Justice
Urban & Environmental Policy Institute