Glickman Postpones Organic Labeling Rules

Amid mounting protests from pro-organic groups, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said Friday that action on new national organic labeling rules would be postponed for 45 days to allow for more public comment.

The Agriculture Department has already received more than 4,000 comments on the rules, hundreds of them objecting to the possibility that irradiation, genetic engineering and sewage sludge fertilizer could be involved in organics.

Glickman, however, noted that the Agriculture Department had taken no stand on those issues and wanted to hear from the public about them. The new deadline for comment is April 30.

“Our goal is to develop a final rule that the organic community and all the public can embrace,” Glickman said.

But the mere possibility that organics rules could include a high-tech process such as irradiation to kill bacteria is anathema to most organic farmers, who say big agribusinesses seeking a share of the market are trying to move the definition away from its all-natural history.

“We as organic farmers and our customers will not sit idly back and have (the rules) force-fed to us by corporate agribusiness lobbyists and bureaucrats in Washington,” said George Siemon, chief executive of an organic co-op in LaFarge, Wis. “The farmers of our co-op will not lower our standards.”