December 21, 2000
		New Organic Standards Released In what Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman called “the strictest, most comprehensive organic standards in the world,” the government released the first national standards for growing and processing organic food on Wednesday, December 20. The guidelines were released a decade after Congress ordered the creation of uniform rules to make the marketing of these products comprehensive. The new regulations will ban the use of biotechnology or irradiation in organic products. Products that meet the new federal standards will bear a label designating it “USDA Organic.” The organic standards the Agriculture Department first proposed in 1997 drew wide criticism and were withdrawn after hundreds of millions of U.S. consumers voiced their opposition of regulations that would allow biotech crops, irradiation and sewage sludge into certified organic products. Nineteen states currently have no organic regulations, and eleven others have production standards but no certification process for ensuring that producers abide by them. The food industry has opposed any labeling that would designate items as being organic, fearing that this would naturally draw consumers, and the National Food Processors Association wanted the USDA to require a disclaimer on organic labels stating that such products were not safer, better quality or more nutritious than conventional foods. The USDA did not add the disclaimer, but changed the seal so it looks different than the shield that goes on other government-inspected products. When the USDA first released the organic standards three years ago, angry consumers flooded their office with more than 275,000 comments blasting the agency for considering genetic engineering, irradiation and soil laced with toxic sludge as acceptable practices for organic agriculture. The new standards still allow less than ideal conditions for animals that would ultimately become organic meat, but, as far as we're concerned, the concept of raising any animals for food is unacceptable.