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The following article in its entirety was published in the Washington
Post. Ask me if you want the whole thing. Or visit the web site.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-05/01/149l-050198-idx.html
Organic' Label Ruled Out For Biotech, Irradiated Food
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 1, 1998; Page A02
Intense pressure and criticism from tens of
thousands of citizens have pushed Agriculture
Secretary Dan Glickman to decide that
genetically engineered and irradiated food,
and crops fertilized with sewage sludge, should
not be allowed to be labeled "organic,"
according to an administration official.
That decision, still not formalized but
described by the official as all but inevitable,
would remove three of the more contentious
issues threatening to derail an effort to codify
for the first time a federal definition of organic
food.
But several other elements of the USDA
proposal remain controversial, including the
rule's relatively liberal allowance for the use of
antibiotics, nonorganic feed and long-term
confinement of animals in the production of
organic meat.
An estimated 150,000 people flooded the
Agriculture Department with cards and letters
during the four-month comment period on the
proposal that ended yesterday -- more
comments than the department had ever
received on any single rule.
The proposed rule had left open the question
of whether gene-modified, irradiated or
sludge-fertilized crops could be deemed
organic. The vast majority of comments
opposed those ideas. Moreover, most were
personal and passionate, as opposed to
mass-produced form letters from interest
groups -- an indication of the American
public's increasingly fervent hunger for
"natural" foods.
Glickman said he could not comment
specifically on how the department would
respond to what he called the "extraordinary"
wave of public opinion generated by the
proposed rule, but he did promise "significant
modifications" in a final rule that he hoped
would be approved by the end of this year
after allowing for additional comments.
Sligh and others representing the organic food
industry said they were especially troubled by
a provision in the proposed rule that gives the
agriculture secretary authority to add products
to a national list of approved organic foods.
Organic industry advocates argue that
Congress granted those powers only to the
National Organic Standards Board.
If Glickman insists on retaining that authority
in a final rule, advocates said, a lawsuit is
likely to follow.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post
Company
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