A Regulatory History of USDA National Organic Standards
In 1990, the United States Congress passed what is known as the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA). The OFPA was the result of many years of negotiation and active lobbying of legislators and other policy makers by environmental and consumer groups, the general public, and especially by the many organic farmers, ranchers, producers, manufacturers and others who supported organic production.
There was a shared conviction that the future growth and vitality of organic agriculture depended upon having strong, clear, sensible and nationally certified, organic standards that the organic consumer could have confidence in.
The OFPA language presented a clear vision of organic agriculture, where crops would be grown without the use of dangerous pesticides, with great care and stewardship for the land, and where organic animals would be raised without the use of antibiotics, growth hormones or other dangerous drugs in humane, naturalized living conditions suited to their particular species.
The OFPA intentionally created a framework for creating detailed organic standards, with the establishment of a National Organic Program (NOP). The OFPA also specified that the NOP be overseen by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The NOP is a part of the Agriculture Marketing Service at the USDA. The history and details of rules and regulations of the NOP can be found at www.ams.usda.gov/nop.
The OFPA specified that the Secretary of Agriculture should appoint a National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), with unpaid members chosen to represent all sectors of organic agriculture, manufacturing, retail, and environmental and consumer interests. The NOSB was intentionally vested with the responsibility of assisting the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture in the creation of detailed rules and regulations for the production of all segments of organic agriculture, including manufacturing, handling, processing and labeling issues.
The NOSB was also given final authority as the body to determine the content of what's known as The National List of specific natural materials that are not approved, and synthetic materials that are approved, for use in all the various aspects of organic production, including crops, livestock, processing and handling.
What no one could have predicted was that the actual effective date of the National Organic Standards would take another twelve years before full implementation!
In late 1999, the USDA finally issued a first proposed draft of national organic standards. However, the proposed standards were very far off the mark from the extensive advice and work that had been done over a period of several years by the NOSB. The NOSB recommendations had been arrived at with extensive amounts of public input and were drafted with the intent that they would be workable, for farmers, ranchers and all segments of the organic industry — and that they would be excellent standards that the consuming public would strongly support.
So shocking was the proposed document that a spontaneous national outcry resulted, and the USDA received more than 275,000 angry and detailed responses, all protesting the proposed standards — in fact, more responses than the USDA had ever received on any other single subject.
To its credit, the USDA withdrew the 1999 proposed standards and set about seriously to re-evaluate and address them. Many aspects of the proposed standards caused grave concern, but comments showed there were three bottom line, hot-button, non-negotiable issues that the USDA's original proposal would have allowed: genetically engineered seeds and other genetically engineered substances, use of biosolids (untreated sewage sludge) as fertilizers, and use of ionizing radiation in organic agriculture.
All three of these technologies and practices are utilized in mainstream, non-organic agriculture, but they were absolutely non-negotiable to the supporters of organic agriculture. Had these three seriously flawed concepts been permitted to stand, as part of so-called "organic" production, it's certain that organic agriculture would not be in the favorable position it is today, in 2004.
In 2001 the USDA successfully passed the Final Organic Rule, after a thorough re-design of the ill-conceived first attempt in 1999. The nation's first organic standards finally were officially implemented on October 21, 2002, 12 years after the initial passage of the Organic Food Production Act in 1990.
The USDA National Organic Standards supersede a patchwork of more than 40 separate standards that had been being used by various states and private organizations. The State of Washington had one of the very best State sponsored Organic Agriculture Programs, which had existed for several years.
Much of the effort to establish the Washington state organic program was due to active PCC leadership. A member of PCC's Board of Trustees, then State Representative (now State Senator) Ken Jacobsen, introduced the initial legislation. Goldie Caughlan, PCC Nutrition Education Manager, served several terms on the Washington State Organic Advisory Board, prior to her appointment to the National Organic Standards Board.
Establishing national standards was vitally important to level the playing field so foods labeled as certified organic in one part of the country would mean the same thing as in another part of the country. See understanding organic labels.
