U.S. Agriculture Department Announces New Guidelines for Organic Products
Source：Washington Post
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Chicago
Update Time：2023/02/16
A shopper at a Whole Foods grocery store in New York (Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
New guidelines were announced by the Agriculture Department for the label “organic”. USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) defines “certified organic” by standards for soil quality, animal-raising practices, pest and weed control and use of additives. The new announcement tried to prevent any loopholes being further used and integrated into the supply chain. Tom Chapman, a chief executive of the Organic Trade Association said the announcements are “the single largest revision of the organic standards since they were published in 1990”. Even with the changes, organic fraud cases are still occurring. The Justice Department has indicted individuals who labeled nonorganic soybeans from Eastern Europe as “certified organic”. They had charged 50 percent more for adding this label. Recently, two Minnesota farmers were charged in connection with a proposed plan to sell more than $46 million worth of chemically threated crops as organic during 2014 to 2021.
For the USDA certified organic label, products have to be produced without use of toxic and persistent pesticides, synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, antibiotics, synthetic hormones, genetic engineering, sewage sludge or irradiation. The Organic Trade Association says that organic food sales have increased by 12.4 percent in 2020 to $61.9 billion as people have begun to prioritize healthy foods. The supply chain has made it more difficult to maintain organic standards as companies source more from other countries. The new guidelines require certifications of more businesses. Including brokers and traders. Organic certificate requirements for all organic imports, inspection increases, and increases in reporting requirements of certified operations will be put in place. Mark Kastel, the founder of OrganicEye, an advocacy group said that the USDA “dragged its feet” on organic products, because it took 12 years to add regulations after the Organic Foods Product Act was passed in 1990 by Congress. The new guidelines go into effect in March and companies have one year to adhere to them.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/19/usda-rule-organic-fraud/