National Organic Standards: What Do We Do Now?

Position of the Organic Consumers Association
June 13, 2000

Now that the USDA comment period on their second set of proposed federal
regulations on National Organic Standards has ended (June 12), what should
organic consumers do? In a word we need to remain vigilant. According to
Reuters news agency, the USDA received over 24,000 comments, and looking at
the USDA website <www.ams.usda.gov/nop> most of the comments seemed to
basically correspond with the position of the OCA (see BioDemocracy News
#25 and #26) and the coalition that we're part of, the National Campaign
for for Sustainable Agriculture, that the proposed rules need to be
tightened up, not loosened.

According to the USDA they expect to publish final regulations on organic
foods sometime near the first of the year (2001) in the Federal Register.
Upon publication the final rules will come into force approximately 12
months later.

If the final rules do not meet the expectations of the OCA and the organic
community once they are published, we'll have to either sue the USDA in
Federal Court or join the organic community and come up with our own label
and standards. In the meantime stay tuned to our website <www.purefood.org>
and our newsletter, BioDemocracy News for further developments.

Organic Consumers Association - 6771 South Silver Hill Drive, Finland MN 55603
E-mail: Staff · Activist or Media Inquiries: 218-226-4164 · Fax: 218-353-7652
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National Organic Standards: What Do We Do Now?

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