Alex Avery, Director of Research at the Center for Global Food Issues, has written to the National Organic Program at the United States Department of Agriculture, asking why they are misleading farmers, consumers, and policy makers about the status of organic crops that test positive for biotech-derived crop material, and whether they’re doing it deliberately. Alex Avery, Director of Research at the Center for Global Food Issues, has written to the National Organic Program at the United States Department of Agriculture, asking why they are misleading farmers, consumers, and policy makers about the status of organic crops that test positive for biotech-derived crop material, and whether they’re doing it deliberately. The USDA’s rules clearly state that so called “GM contamination” will not affect the organic status of a crop or farm. In fact, the USDA admitted in a December 2004 letter to the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture that not a single crop or farmer has ever lost “organic” status based on so-called “GM contamination.” In answering this question on their website, however, the NOP misquotes USDA rules and adds unnecessary and confusing language: “The unintentional presence of the products of excluded methods will not affect the status of the organic operation. As to the status of the commodity, USDA’s position is that this is left to the buyer and seller to resolve in the marketplace through their contractual relationship. (See page 80556 of the preamble, “Applicability—Clarifications; (1) “Genetic drift”).” http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/Q&A.html The cited section of the organic regulations actually states, “the unintentional presence of the products of excluded methods should not affect the status of an organic product or operation.” http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/NOP/standards/ApplicPre.html The rules say nothing about commodity status being left to buyer and seller to resolve. After repeated phone calls and emails to the NOP, a public affairs spokeswoman emailed the following clarification to the Center for Global Food Issues: “According to USDA and the regulation, the crop status IS NOT adversely affected. But buyers and sellers in the market may have agreements; USDA does not enforce or intervene in private contracts under the National Organic Program. Also, the National Organic Program does not have a tolerance level for GMOs (like for chemical residues) at which food may no longer be sold as organic, and the preamble says the absence of this tolerance level does NOT create a zero tolerance.” The NOP office has refused suggestions to correctly quote their own rules or to add a clarification to their website, thereby allowing the confusion to continue. For years, organic activists have misled reporters and the public on this issue, helping them gather public support for local-level biotech crop bans such as the one passed in Mendocino California last year. The question is why the USDA is adding to the deliberate organic industry confusion? Contact: Alex Avery, Director of Research Center for Global Food Issues (540) 337-6354, or -6387