Reviewing Organic Materials

Reviewing Organic Materials. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Miles McEvoy, Deputy Administrator for the National Organic Program recently spoke at the annual Hort convention and spent some time discussing the process that the National Organic Standards Board goes through and some of the things they look at.

McEVOY: This comes from the Organic Food Production Act. So the Organic Food Production Act permits exceptions for the use of a substance. It allows a synthetic substance to be on this national list if it meets certain criteria. The criteria include - would not be harmful to human health or the environment; is necessary in the production or handling of agricultural product because of the unavailability of wholly natural substitute products and is consistent with organic farming and handling.

He says a lot of board members really focus on that second aspect.

McEVOY: This comes into play with tetracycline. There’s these arguments whether tetracycline is really needed to be used to control fireblight in apple and pear production. And then finally whether it is consistent with organic farming and handling. What does that mean? And the board is the one that makes these determinations on these particular questions.

McEvoy gives the definition of synthetic.

McEVOY: It’s defined in the organic food production act as a substance that is formulated or manufactured by a chemical process or a process that chemically changes a substance that’s extracted from a naturally occurring plant, animal or mineral source.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.