I e-mailed them for permission to put on page and here is the answer:
email4nirc <Director@naturalingredient.org> wrote:
> Absolutely feel free to add
> sources for organic, certified organic, natural and other healthy
and
> beneficial ingredients!<
Here is a new article:
New York Times Covers the Attempted Corporate Takeover of Organics
November 1, 2005
New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/
What Is Organic? Powerful Players Want a Say
By MELANIE WARNER
...last week, Senate and House Republicans on the Agriculture
appropriations subcommittee inserted a last-minute provision into the
department's fiscal 2006 budget specifying that certain artificial
ingredients could be used in organic food.
The Organic Trade Association, an industry lobbying group that
proposed the amendment and spent several months pushing for its
adoption, says that the measure will encourage the continued growth
of organic food.
Some advocacy groups, however, say the amendment will weaken federal
organic food standards, first established under a 1990 law. Ronnie
Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association,
calls the initiative a "sneak attack engineered by the likes of
Kraft, Dean Foods and Smucker's."
One of the lobbyists for Altria, Kraft's majority owner, Abigail
Blunt - the wife of Representative Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri,
who recently became interim House majority leader after Tom DeLay of
Texas resigned from the post - has been working on the issue, the
company says.
Dean Foods' subsidiary Horizon Organic and the J. M. Smucker Company,
the owner of Knudsen and Santa Cruz Organic juices, said they
supported the work by the Organic Trade Association, which represents
both large and small companies in the business, but did no lobbying
on their own.
The amendment injects Congress directly into the debate over whether
certain artificial ingredients and industrial chemicals should be
allowed in products labeled organic. In a lawsuit ruled upon in
January, Arthur Harvey, an organic blueberry farmer, argued that no
synthetics at all should be in food bearing the "U.S.D.A. Organic"
seal. A federal judge agreed, sending shivers down the spine of many
organic food manufacturers.
Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade
Association, said that the amendment was intended to protect the
industry from the Harvey ruling and will not change the status quo.
If applied, the judge's ruling would have forced many manufacturers
to stop using the U.S.D.A. Organic seal and instead relabel products
to state, for instance, "cookies made with organic flour" or "frozen
lasagna made with organic tomatoes."
Many in the organic industry say they are willing to allow some use
of synthetics in organic food. Since 2002, the National Organic
Standards Board, a 15-member panel of advisers appointed by the
Agriculture Department, has served as the gatekeeper for such
substances. In that time, 38 have been approved, many of them
relatively harmless ingredients like baking powder, pectin, ascorbic
acid and carbon dioxide.
But Joseph Mendelson, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, a
liberal advocacy group, says that the proposed legislation will open
the door to a range of other chemicals and artificial materials,
including a large category of so-called food contact substances -
things like boiler additives, disinfectants and lubricants with
unpronounceable names.
Most of these substances would not end up in finished products in
detectable amounts. But many in the organic community say that these
tools of mainstream food processing do not belong in organic
production.
"We don't want organic food manufacturers having carte blanche use of
the same kind of synthetics that conventional food processors use,
especially when it involves things that do not appear on the
ingredient panels," said James A. Riddle, chairman of the National
Organic Standards Board. "I think people choose to buy organic food
because they don't use all those things."
Ms. DiMatteo contends that the Organic Trade Association is not
trying to loosen organic standards or take authority away from the
standards board.
At the same time, Charles Sweat, chief operating officer at
Earthbound Farm, the country's largest grower of organic produce,
said he was concerned with the section of the spending bill that
gives the Agriculture Department authority to grant temporary
exemptions to allow conventionally grown ingredients like corn,
soybean oil or tomatoes in organic food when organic versions are
not "commercially available."
"We see this as opening up a Pandora's box," Mr. Sweat said. "Any
company that can't compete because something is too expensive could
go to the secretary and claim they need an exemption."
To Read the Complete Article go to:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos/nytimes110105.cfm
Sue
Copyright 2005 Natural Ingredient Resource Center
www.naturalingredient.org
SPONSORED LINKS
Plant herb Natural ingredient Nature herbs Silk plants
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Copyright 2005 Natural Ingredient Resource Center
www.naturalingredient.org
email4nirc <Director@naturalingredient.org> wrote:
> Absolutely feel free to add
> sources for organic, certified organic, natural and other healthy
and
> beneficial ingredients!<
Here is a new article:
New York Times Covers the Attempted Corporate Takeover of Organics
November 1, 2005
New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/
What Is Organic? Powerful Players Want a Say
By MELANIE WARNER
...last week, Senate and House Republicans on the Agriculture
appropriations subcommittee inserted a last-minute provision into the
department's fiscal 2006 budget specifying that certain artificial
ingredients could be used in organic food.
The Organic Trade Association, an industry lobbying group that
proposed the amendment and spent several months pushing for its
adoption, says that the measure will encourage the continued growth
of organic food.
Some advocacy groups, however, say the amendment will weaken federal
organic food standards, first established under a 1990 law. Ronnie
Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association,
calls the initiative a "sneak attack engineered by the likes of
Kraft, Dean Foods and Smucker's."
One of the lobbyists for Altria, Kraft's majority owner, Abigail
Blunt - the wife of Representative Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri,
who recently became interim House majority leader after Tom DeLay of
Texas resigned from the post - has been working on the issue, the
company says.
Dean Foods' subsidiary Horizon Organic and the J. M. Smucker Company,
the owner of Knudsen and Santa Cruz Organic juices, said they
supported the work by the Organic Trade Association, which represents
both large and small companies in the business, but did no lobbying
on their own.
The amendment injects Congress directly into the debate over whether
certain artificial ingredients and industrial chemicals should be
allowed in products labeled organic. In a lawsuit ruled upon in
January, Arthur Harvey, an organic blueberry farmer, argued that no
synthetics at all should be in food bearing the "U.S.D.A. Organic"
seal. A federal judge agreed, sending shivers down the spine of many
organic food manufacturers.
Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade
Association, said that the amendment was intended to protect the
industry from the Harvey ruling and will not change the status quo.
If applied, the judge's ruling would have forced many manufacturers
to stop using the U.S.D.A. Organic seal and instead relabel products
to state, for instance, "cookies made with organic flour" or "frozen
lasagna made with organic tomatoes."
Many in the organic industry say they are willing to allow some use
of synthetics in organic food. Since 2002, the National Organic
Standards Board, a 15-member panel of advisers appointed by the
Agriculture Department, has served as the gatekeeper for such
substances. In that time, 38 have been approved, many of them
relatively harmless ingredients like baking powder, pectin, ascorbic
acid and carbon dioxide.
But Joseph Mendelson, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, a
liberal advocacy group, says that the proposed legislation will open
the door to a range of other chemicals and artificial materials,
including a large category of so-called food contact substances -
things like boiler additives, disinfectants and lubricants with
unpronounceable names.
Most of these substances would not end up in finished products in
detectable amounts. But many in the organic community say that these
tools of mainstream food processing do not belong in organic
production.
"We don't want organic food manufacturers having carte blanche use of
the same kind of synthetics that conventional food processors use,
especially when it involves things that do not appear on the
ingredient panels," said James A. Riddle, chairman of the National
Organic Standards Board. "I think people choose to buy organic food
because they don't use all those things."
Ms. DiMatteo contends that the Organic Trade Association is not
trying to loosen organic standards or take authority away from the
standards board.
At the same time, Charles Sweat, chief operating officer at
Earthbound Farm, the country's largest grower of organic produce,
said he was concerned with the section of the spending bill that
gives the Agriculture Department authority to grant temporary
exemptions to allow conventionally grown ingredients like corn,
soybean oil or tomatoes in organic food when organic versions are
not "commercially available."
"We see this as opening up a Pandora's box," Mr. Sweat said. "Any
company that can't compete because something is too expensive could
go to the secretary and claim they need an exemption."
To Read the Complete Article go to:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos/nytimes110105.cfm
Sue
Copyright 2005 Natural Ingredient Resource Center
www.naturalingredient.org
SPONSORED LINKS
Plant herb Natural ingredient Nature herbs Silk plants
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Copyright 2005 Natural Ingredient Resource Center
www.naturalingredient.org
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"email4nirc" <Director@naturalingredient.org>
[NIRC_ENewsletter] What are the Organic laws?
I think it might be a good time to review the actual USDA
regulations. To review, for many years one could legally
label
certain ingredients or products "certified organic" and
others as
simply "organic". NO MORE!!
You CANNOT legally call any ingredient organic
UNLESS IT IS
CERTIFIED!!
Yes, products may be grown organically and fill all the
necessary
requirements, but unless the ingredient or product is
CERTIFIED, you
cannot legally call it organic.
+++
Labeling standards are based on the percentage of
organic ingredients in a product.
Products labeled "100 percent organic" must contain
only organically produced ingredients.
Products labeled "organic" must consist of at
least 95 percent organically produced ingredients.
Products meeting the requirements for "100 percent
organic" and "organic" may display
the USDA Organic seal.
Processed products that contain at least 70 percent
organic ingredients can use the phrase "made with
organic ingredients" and list up to three of the organic
ingredients or food groups on the principal display
panel. For example, soup made with at least 70
percent organic ingredients and only organic vegetables
may be labeled either "made with organic peas,
potatoes, and carrots," or "made with organic
vegetables." The USDA seal cannot be used
anywhere on the package.
Processed products that contain less than 70 percent
organic ingredients cannot use the term "organic" other
than to identify the specific ingredients that are
organically produced in the ingredients statement.
A civil penalty of up to $10,000 can be levied on any
person who knowingly sells or labels as organic any
product that is not produced and handled in accordance
with the National Organic Program's regulations.
Certification standards
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/FactSheets/Backgrounder.
html
Your label MUST:
Show an ingredient statement.
List the organic ingredients as "organic" when other
organic labeling is shown. 1 Water and salt included as
ingredients must not be identified as organic. (IS)
Show below the name and address of the handler
(bottler, distributor, importer, manufacturer, packer,
processor, etc.) of the finished
product, the statement:
"Certified organic by ___" or similar phrase, followed by
the name of the Certifying Agent. Certifying Agent seals
may not be used to satisfy this requirement. (IP)
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/ProdHandlers/LabelTable.
htm
[NIRC_ENewsletter] What are the Organic laws?
I think it might be a good time to review the actual USDA
regulations. To review, for many years one could legally
label
certain ingredients or products "certified organic" and
others as
simply "organic". NO MORE!!
You CANNOT legally call any ingredient organic
UNLESS IT IS
CERTIFIED!!
Yes, products may be grown organically and fill all the
necessary
requirements, but unless the ingredient or product is
CERTIFIED, you
cannot legally call it organic.
+++
Labeling standards are based on the percentage of
organic ingredients in a product.
Products labeled "100 percent organic" must contain
only organically produced ingredients.
Products labeled "organic" must consist of at
least 95 percent organically produced ingredients.
Products meeting the requirements for "100 percent
organic" and "organic" may display
the USDA Organic seal.
Processed products that contain at least 70 percent
organic ingredients can use the phrase "made with
organic ingredients" and list up to three of the organic
ingredients or food groups on the principal display
panel. For example, soup made with at least 70
percent organic ingredients and only organic vegetables
may be labeled either "made with organic peas,
potatoes, and carrots," or "made with organic
vegetables." The USDA seal cannot be used
anywhere on the package.
Processed products that contain less than 70 percent
organic ingredients cannot use the term "organic" other
than to identify the specific ingredients that are
organically produced in the ingredients statement.
A civil penalty of up to $10,000 can be levied on any
person who knowingly sells or labels as organic any
product that is not produced and handled in accordance
with the National Organic Program's regulations.
Certification standards
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/FactSheets/Backgrounder.
html
Your label MUST:
Show an ingredient statement.
List the organic ingredients as "organic" when other
organic labeling is shown. 1 Water and salt included as
ingredients must not be identified as organic. (IS)
Show below the name and address of the handler
(bottler, distributor, importer, manufacturer, packer,
processor, etc.) of the finished
product, the statement:
"Certified organic by ___" or similar phrase, followed by
the name of the Certifying Agent. Certifying Agent seals
may not be used to satisfy this requirement. (IP)
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/ProdHandlers/LabelTable.
htm
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Organic info
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