Follow Cornucopia's Fall 2024 NOSB Coverage - Cornucopia Institute (2025)

Join The Cornucopia Institute as we keep you informed via web updates from the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting.

We will be sharing the play by play of the meeting on October 22-24 below.

For background on issues up for discussion at the meeting, see:

• The NOSB’s Proposals & Discussion Document for Fall 2024
• Cornucopia’s formal written comment
• Cornucopia’s notes on the oral comments for the Fall 2024 NOSB meeting
• Additional information on this meeting and past meetings dating back to 2012

October 22, 2024

Call to Order

Dr. Jennifer Tucker, NOP Deputy Administrator
[Welcomes everyone.] This meeting, like other meetings of the National Organic Standards Board, is being done based on the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and the Board’s Policy and Procedures Manual.
I am your Reserved Federal Officer. Transcripts for all the segments will be posted once completed.

Welcoming Remarks

Jenny Lester Moffitt, Under Secretary, Marketing and Regulatory Program, USDA

Thanks NOSB members for their service. Thank you to Board Chair – Kyla Smith. Continuous improvement is important. Thank you for the public commentors – your input in the process is very important.

For 2025 appointments, we have received applications.

Jenny Lester Moffitt discusses TOPP partnerships: It’s a really about building and strengthening America’s producers. creating an organic network and building and growing producers. Around the country who are certified organic. This is about connecting transitioning farmers with mentors. This is about providing community building. It’s about providing direct on-farm technical assistance, whether that’s technical assistance with organic farming practices, developing them the organic plan doing the certification process, all of the different components that are involved in becoming certified organic. It’s about workforce development and it’s about helping producers over time overcome some of the challenges and improving market access.

TOPP has hosted 849 events; close to 1600 people have received direct technical assistance, with close to 700 mentoring pairs. Over the past two years, over 60,000 acres of US farmland has begun transitioning into organic production as a result of the TOPP program. In addition, over 18,000 acres are already certified organic as a result of the TOPP program.

So we’re excited about all of these different components. So we’re excited about all of these different components together. TOPP as well as a very purposeful focus on small and mid-sized businesses, underserved businesses, veteran farmers, folks that USDA has not been working with as much in the past. I’m excited that the organic market development program of the 107 projects that have been funded: 68%, over two-thirds of the awardees are small businesses.
It’s important: we are not just investing. But what the economic driver that will be for all of the communities in which those businesses are serving.

Also, we know that transparency and price transparency and things like market news are really important for producers, for processors, for folks in the organic sector to be able to make informed decisions.

We are excited (yesterday) to announce that we’ve added more organic products to USDA market news: organic milk, cattle, grains, stuff and fertilizers are now added to the list of published reports that are happening through USDA Market News. This is really about making sure that everyone in every sector can make informed decisions about their businesses. So I’m going to wrap up.

Lisa Charpilloz Hanson, Director, Oregon Department of Agriculture
Lisa Charpilloz Hanson’s biography and information can be found here.

Raising family on a small farm. Oregon agriculture has evolved. Organic sector has been at the forefront. At ODA, transforming selves as an agency. Preparing farmers and ranchers. Producers ability to adapt to changing climates, resilience – diverse landscapes. Organic practices improve soil and serve as a model for all farming. Collaboration across production types is essential. United by shared goals. Recent climate events remind of how interconnected we are and how fragile our systems are. Not just cultivating crops, but the future. Decisions affect future generations. All farmers are united to protect vital resources – soil, water, and land. Discussions around carbon dioxide, compost, crop insurance are areas where collaboration can drive real change. Research priorities encouraging innovation and resilience – thriving in uncertainty. Oregon prides self on diversity and innovation to build a prosperous future. Shaping the future that is sustainable and thriving. Welcomes all to Oregon.

Kyla Smith leads a Q&A between the NOSB and Jenny Lester Moffitt, Under Secretary

Allison: I have been following the organic transition initiative closely. I’m blown away by the statistics you just shared. Can you speak to what USDA is doing to continue progress and build on this program?

Jenny Lester Moffitt: Investing in those who are invested in organic – that is what the TOPP program is doing and the organic Market Development Program is doing. This program runs for a few more years – 3 more years. By design, we wanted it to be a longer program. From there, we will see what is next. There is a commitment from the Secretary and all throughout the Program to grow organic transition, and I think the $3M is evidence of that. The investment in folks, the organizations, the mentors, the people who are making this transition possible will continue.

Amy: Thank you for joining us here. And thank you to the director in organic for Oregon. Many of us would like to see organic policy role filled to see better coordination. Can you speak to the importance of this role?

Jenny Lester Moffitt: This role is critically important to USDA, to the Department, and to the industry, as a whole. I too would like to see the Organic Policy Advisor role filled. We continue to work on it. We welcome folks to reach out to us if they are interested. What that role looks like – we welcome feedback from the sector. We have a variety of roles – political, career – and we are eager to fill this role. I have been filling that role, as well, and while I love the meetings with the Secretary, I also know that we really need a person in that role to make it even better than what I’ve been able to give.

Nate Lewis: Equity Commission – could you tell us about the process and progress, including across AMS?

Jenny Lester Moffitt: This was a commission that was launched a few years ago by the department really to take a hard look at the work across the department that we’re doing and how it touches or doesn’t provide equity to the Secretary a recommendation. The recommendations are many. What the commission has been doing since then is having different commission meetings around the country – like NOSB does – to really engage with commission members in their regions, to hear about the work and the need. That is everything from something as specific as making sure our program materials comes out in more than just the English language, as well as taking a look at our programs and the barriers to access to those programs. I think that we all know of producers that have been following organic but haven’t been able to transition to organic because they do not have the resources, and the TOPP program is making that possible. TOPP is a great example of where we have really invested money and the community power to really start to address – what I think is one of the biggest gaps in organic – is to address predominantly small, non-English speaking farmers. We have more than 60 program – Value-added producer plan is an example that many people know about – and we’ve added new ones, as well. That comes with it’s own challenges, to even know about these programs, and that is where we have also invested in Food Business Centers. These are navigators for producers for them to know what kind of help is out there – loan funding, grant funding, technical assistance to developed food safety plan – they also have business building funding. The Business Center in this area is the Rocky Mountain Food Business Center. They will be announcing their funding for folks to apply. Within AMS, we are touching upon more access to our programs. Those that have not always seen USDA as a resource are able to do that. We are investing in organizations that are trusted by farmers. The TOPP partners are all trusted by farmers. I think that is important, as well, that we are investing in small, local organizations that are trusted by farmers.

Kyla Smith: Working for a certifier the organic cost share program is near and dear – since the farm bill has expired, how is the USDA going to deal with the gap in cost share funding?

Jenny Lester Moffitt: Across the board, Farm Bill and for cost share is we continue to work with Congress. We continue to work with and engage with Congress and providing technical assistance. So that they know what programs are at risk at what point. The longer that there is a delay in implementation of the farm bill.

Agenda Overview, NOP

The NOSB meeting agenda can be found here.

Introductions

Dr. Jennifer Tucker, NOP Deputy Administrator
[Jenny makes introductions for NOP staff.]

NOSB Introductions

Kyla Smith, NOSB Chair
[Kyla Smith, NOSB Chair facilitates the introductions for the NOSB members.]

The current NOSB members and their bios can be found here.
Detailed meeting materials can be found here.

Secretary’s report

Nate Lewis, NOSB Secretary
Minutes approved as written.

NOSB report

Kyla Smith, NOSB Chairperson
Logan’s area was hit hard by hurricane Helene so she needed to stay in place; but some things are worth repeating within the organic regulations. There is a mechanism to temporarily deviate from certain regulations that may have been impacted due to natural disaster. Those allowances are outlined in the regulations at section 205.290: the temporary variance section. There is also an instruction in the program handbook: 25- 2-006. So certified operations must engage in this temporary variance process in consultation with their certifier variance process in consultation with their certifier and consultation with their certifier and ultimate approval is given by the NOP.

I’m going into my last year, which is wild. So there really are only 10 meetings, 10 opportunities to recommend something to the NOP. The NOSB has looked at ways to streamline our processes to make them more efficient, but not so that we have just more time and can do less work, but actually so that we can prioritize and take on additional items. From National List cleanup items to additional topics that have the potential for some real impact. We are grateful to have additional staff resources from the NOP.

We will be onboarding 5 new NOSB members in January, and after that an additional 5 new NOSB members. We need to onboard them quickly.

Annotation changes on the agenda. New process – bound to be some bumps. Two annotation change proposed on fall agenda and we discussed process to remedy. We could have done a better job of identifying next steps throughout the summer. At this meeting will be voting on 2026 sunset materials. These have had a thorough review taking into consideration by audience. When we get to that portion you may notice that some materials –not a lot of discussion- intentional so we will have longer time for others. Taking a “risk-based” approach. All have been fully vetted and reviewed. Comments – 4258 total, and 4100 were form letters from 3 letter-writing campaigns. Suggestion for submitting letter-writing campaigns in a different way, to save time in administrative tasks and bundling – newish feature: You have option for submitting comment for the group, described on NOSB page, but you can submit for group and attach the letter, and then enter the number of persons it’s representing; the number tallies in the same way so they are counted. Saves administrative labor (posting multiple copies in the record) but still counted.

Will be highlighting outgoing board members this meeting. Will be honored on Thursday.

Amy Bruch, NOSB Vice Chairperson
As a farmer, I see agriculture not only as a career, but a life that provides profound meaning. Reflecting on this during our NOSB It’s also important to build bridges with new partners within the ad community when we review issues that impact organic regulations, standards, and marketing. I’ve been able to serve on the NOSB, assume leadership positions, and most importantly, grow my family’s organic operation and also be blessed with 2 incredible boys.

[break]

USDA/AMS/National Organic Program Update

Dr. Jennifer Tucker, AMS/NOP
Part 1 of the NOP update can be found on the NOP Learning Center.
Celebrate the organic businesses in Oregon: there are 869 organic businesses in Oregon.
The main topic we are going to talk about in the Part 2 update is Strengthening Organic Enforcement.

It is a critical part of what we are doing right now. No part of the program that has not been touched, and it is making a difference. For folks that aren’t around this every day, we are going to be doing a tutorial. One of the key parts of SOE are import certificates, as well as … Two main parts were certification – covering those that haven’t needed to be certified before, and NOP import certificates. This is the landscape for how this works. Certified operations in other countries – exporting entity certifier issues NOP import certificate. It is provided to a US importer, who also must be certified organic. The NOP-IC is the link, the handshake across the border, of certification. There is a chain of certification here that we did not have before, and we have NOP-ICs that are telling us, for the first time, what and how much is coming into the country.

Where we are with SOE: I just talked about the importance of the NOP-IC and getting more entities across the supply chain certified. And that has happened. That is helping on multiple levels. The handshake really gives us leverage so that we can do investigations much more easily. Much easier to fulfill that promise of integrity from farm to table. Previously, when we were doing investigations, we would lose the trail frequently. We are now able to much better follow it.

More information on the Strengthening Organic Enforcement rulemaking can be found here.

Customs & Border Protection (CBP) is actively stopping product. You are not always going to see that and what is happening to not bring product in. We are hearing weekly from brokers who have not let product in because it did not have an NOP-IC. They are doing that on our behalf. A lot of the product is being turned away or destroyed. There is also a new code called reconditioning that brokers can use to mark a product that was originally labeled as organic but does not have a NOP-IC and cannot be represented or sold as organic. The benefit of that code is that we get a copy of that list, and we are able to then contact the importer so that they can demonstrate the fact that the product did not enter the organic market. That is part of the mechanisms that are new and not possible before SOE. The fact that all of those importers have to be certified now has a level of accountability that we did not have before, because if they allow those products that shouldn’t be sold as organic to be sold as such, they can lose their certification. There are a number of steps here that were not there previously.

CBP has blocked a number of shipments – sugar, coffee, $120,000 worth of packaged goods. Product coming mainly from China (packaged goods). Not coming into the market b/c of trademark protections. (I now spend more time going to broker conferences than to organic conferences.) They are on our side. Brokers can lose their license if they don’t follow the rules. If not IC, we can follow up with importer, exporter, or broker. Still figuring out all those work flows. Product is being blocked as a result of SOE.

The third point here is certifiers and strengthening their systems. They have fundamentally updated their systems and introducing those updates. They are also dealing with acknowledged technology challenges we are having in the program. We had no idea the number of ICs that we were going to need. We have had some challenges with the USDA system challenges, as well as OID system challenges. Not only are certifiers working very hard to implement SOE, but they have also had to deal with technology issues. We are making good progress on it. We know what the challenges are, but it remains a challenge.

I want to give an example of a specific investigation that we did that was assisted by SOE. We got a complaint about soybean imports. We know that feed is of significant concern and risk in the market. We need evidence or a signal that gets us to evidence. We got a credible, but incomplete complaint. We got information that told us about a supply chain that there were concerns with – a grower group in West Africa. Because of SOE, we were able to fairly rapidly traceback where the operation was, to gather information, to do an investigative request to the certifier and ask them to investigate it. Certifiers really are at the frontline of this work. We were able to then trace it back to the importer, who was certified under the requirements of SOE. As a result of that work, not only was the operation put under a Settlement Agreement with the certifier for them to improve their systems, the certifiers improved their systems, and the importer received a notice of non-organic status, and most of that product did not enter the organic market because of the data and traceability that we are able to produce. That certifier has now acknowledged the weaknesses in their system, as well.

A lot of concern about soybean imports. Soy only represents about 5% of imports. We are looking at broad set of commodities and imports. Whole lot of different commodities we have to protect to maintain consumer confidence.

Some of our longer-term emphasis points is that we need to determine the best way to have an impact. Sometimes it’s to go through CBP. If there is a challenge with a particular broker or exporter, we will contact them. It’s much easier now with the broker saying that they’re not letting it in. It allows us to focus our efforts in different ways.

Certifiers are such an important part of all of this. I want to report back on the SOE desk audit where we asked all of the certifiers how they are implementing SOE. About 2/3s are in good shape. About 1/3 of the certifiers received noncompliance notices, and three of them were significant firm language saying that the next step would be a notice of suspension if they didn’t comply. Of the 1/3, 2/3 of those are international certifiers. The other 1/3 were small domestic certifiers that did not have procedures in place that were needed.

In the last 6 months, informed by SOE and other problems, we have issued 3 notices of proposed suspension to certifiers. 2 are in appeals process. We are reviewing those at this time.

One of the most common problems we are seeing among certifiers who do not have effective control systems is a lack of control over subcontractors. As they are expanding their services to new countries, they hire subcontractors, but do not adequately oversee them.

We issued a directive to certifiers working in Africa. It is a big area of concern for all of us. It is a very detailed directive to ask certifiers to take certain steps and report back to us. We use those directives judiciously, as we know they take time, but we use them when needed.

Over the past three months we are starting to see data that we’ve never had access to before. We are also blending education with enforcement. CBP has blocked shipments for us and we are using their authorities, but we are also using our own authorities. Certifiers, particularly under SOE, really are the touchpoint for being able to make systemic improvements.

Over 1,000 notices to uncertified handlers. We started with a warning letter system, and we have been doing follow-up letters and phone calls. There are actually some larger companies that are certified, but not using the NOP-IC, and we are contacting them to ask them why. This is a new rule, so learning what the challenges are so that we can better educate that market is important.

Over 2400 new operations have been certified. A lot of those are importers, so the message has gotten out.

More than 100,000 NOP-ICs have been issued since March. They are provided by the exporter to the importer. About ½ of that have been converted into the ACE system (within CBP). About 49,000 NOP-ICs have been turned in as imports that are entering into the US.

We are getting better in terms of compliance levels. We are now seeing 88% of products entered into the imports system are associated with an NOP-IC, and it is getting better. That is because of brokers not allowing products in, and because more people are being certified.

About 60% of NOP-ICs are issued by USDA. 40% of imports are not directly overseen by USDA – that’s a lot of imports.

The list of top 10 imports has been shifting over time based on seasonality. Beef has continued to be at the top of the list – and you can see the rest of the list on the slide. We need to see what happens for the first year of data. I think a lot of people guess what the seasonality of these things are, but it’s interesting to see what stays on the list and what changes.

Part of tracking over time, you can start to see peaks and valleys. We are still gathering data and following the trends. We are really looking at the percentage of green: valid ICs. The other colors are either a temporary code that was allowed through 9/21, but no longer allowed. The more green, the better.

Reviewing priorities and challenges: I want to emphasize where we are. This is a bit of a mantra for the program – success brings new problems. About every 2 weeks, we’re seeing the need to shift messaging. Things that we did not anticipate because we didn’t know what we didn’t know with a rule this big.

Example: International certifier surrendered their certification. When a certifier surrenders, their operations remain certified until their certificates run out – but how do they get an NOP-IC? Those are examples of policy questions regarding how you support legitimate trade despite those things happening. Technology challenges are a top priority for the Program. We also did a lot of work to get end-users what they needed for the ICs, but that has also led to technical debt – things that no one sees but makes the Program run smoothly. So that really needs to be our top priority right now. We’re continuing to maximize our CBP and broker relationships. We’re going to a lot of brokers conferences and doing a lot of outreach about the import certificates. I went to one in San Diego last week and a number of folks, you know, approached me on the way to the to the talk and afterwards saying that they had indeed turned away product because it didn’t have an import certificate.
A lot of certifiers are upping their game as a result of SOE. Hasn’t been without challenges. Certifiers are at the front line. With repeat violators, we are experimenting with authority. Often breaking multiple rules. CTAC helping put importers on watch lists.

We have a real opportunity to strengthen equivalence arrangements. We have EAs with governments around the world – biggest EU and Canada. When we have an organic trade arrangement with another country, we do not directly oversee those certifiers or operations. When we suspect one of the other countries has violated we do not go to that operation, we go to the government with the evidence we have. It’s up to the trade partner to do investigation. Systems are equivalent but not identical. Part of what we are doing now is looking at other governmentt systems and seeing if they are equivalent, and how do we ensure a competitive market seeing how we don’t directly oversee those certifiers.

Again talking about 40% of import certificates coming in under those arrangements. 25% of soybeans coming into the U.S. are brought in through Canada. Transshipments and coming in under Canadian import certificate. This is the next big challenge. We are in active conversations with EU and Canada.

EU is a particular challenge, as they are operated through member countries. Each of those countries has their own system that is united under the commission. One of the challenges we are seeing – not a huge volume, but a “loud” industry – is alcoholic beverages. We are seeing some challenges with exports of wine and getting ICs issued before the product leaves the country. We are also seeing challenges with the critical variances – wine coming into the US cannot have added sulfites. Animals cannot be treated with antibiotics. Being sure that all of these countries know the variances and follow them is a challenge.

Moving to big picture and future vision. SOE has identified challenges with the system. It is a good time to reconceptualize continuous improvement. We got to as community think about continuous improvement – SOE should not hurt small farmers. And yet, it is hurting small farmers. How do we fix that? Trying to impact what happened? In chatting with folks, one root cause is the organic system plan. Any time we do a new rule, certifiers add questions to the OSP, and that has led to more questions that operations need to look at, and a sense of overwhelm. Small farmer looking at questions that don’t apply, but have to figure out what they actually mean. Because organic is size neutral, it means when certifiers are updating OSP, means the more you add the more burden you get.

The question is: what do we do about that? There are multiple barriers to Sound & Sensible – regulatory, cultural. I mentioned that small certifiers were getting noncompliances because they didn’t have a procedure to doing supply chain traceability audits. But one might say that these small certifiers are certifying farmers at the beginning of the supply chain. How do you differentiate the realities between systems – a small organic farm to a large broker. There is good work happening here. ACA has done a lot of work. There is also good work happening in moving toward a common OSP. We have been talking about this for a while here.

We managed over the last year, ACA put plan for crops and livestock. Hearing more and more from certifiers who want a common OSP. If a coalition developed OSP, we as a program, would review it and voice support for it. It is time. It is one step to fundamentally rethinking the system. We need a separate approach for small end of the market.

Broadening out, the other piece is a whole collection of small organic farms that have chosen not to pursue organic certifications. We talk about farms that are exiting the system, but we also want to talk about those that never pursued certification in the first place. Collective work is needed to articulate what that new model could look like. I do not have the answers here today, but this is a start. Systems that grow too complex collapse. How do we innovate to correct that?

We need to approach this in a Sound and Sensible way. We have our audit checklist, too. We own this problem with you, and we want to work together to craft a future that can serve everyone of any size that is implementing the organic principles and living the organic vision, so that they can become certified.

Questions from the NOSB

Allison Johnson: My wheels are turning. As far as questions, impressed by statistics Undersecretary shared about the transition initiative and TOPP. Can you share what TOPP has done to spur growth in organic seed market?

Dr. Tucker: Seed is an important topic, glad it’s on the NOSB agenda. How can we pull some of that tech assistance happening in the regions – how do we get seed expertise into those conversations. The number of TOPP conversations around the country are very technical and there is a huge range. Those who have expertise in seed – get plugged into the TOPP network! They are here. There is no reason there couldn’t be seed issue. One of the good things about TOPP is that it is flexible to allow that. All sorts of leaders in organic are on the ground – the ones farmers actually turn to. So we need that leadership extended into the seed topic.

Amy Bruch: As a grain farmer, I really appreciate the focus on integrity and all playing by the same rules. Oversight and enforcement have been core components of the Board’s work agenda. Since we are a process-based system, can you touch on how we can strengthen our systems for compliance. Organic is a process-based standard and we’re all very, very proud of that. It also has its limitations, right? And so I think the work you’re doing on testing it also has its limitations right and so I think the work you’re doing on testing is really important, right? And so I think the work you’re doing on testing is really important.

Dr. Tucker: Organic is a process-based standard. Work you are doing on testing is very important. Often hear inspections need to change to focus on things need to be looked at to detect fraud. Folks out doing work know what those are. We need to bubble those up. Challenge is when you make that transparent, the bad guys hear that too. One of the disadvantages of openness and transparency in requirements is: bad guys are good at working around it. Let’s talk about technology, there is a huge potential for AI to help with some of this. This can get controversial because OSPs are personal and reflect investment in site specific conditions. Yet, are there ways to use AI to detect inconsistencies and look at inspection report and see what doesn’t connect. Large pools of data – system better than detecting things than we are. See patterns through data and ask questions. We don’t know potential, but tremendous. Transaction certificates are things that can be fraudulent. Could we use AI to do supply chain analysis, to say “this doesn’t look like a government document,” then government could verify or not. Tools like that — I’m interested in that conversation.

Mindee: Thank you for work agenda on compost. Hoping you can walk us through the dynamics of receiving a petition to the USDA and the distinction from FACA process. What will happen if the NOSB passes the compost proposals before us in this meeting?

Dr. Tucker: We are going to move into what I call the “Civics of NOP.” Brace yourselves. There are two kind of major acts that govern what we do. The most simple, the Federal Advisory Commitee Act (FACA), which is what you work on. The handoff to the program. At that point, the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) kicks in. That governs how we do rulemaking. There are two kinds of petitions – one that comes to the Board that are part of the FACA process. You consider them, and then your recommendation either comes to us or it doesn’t. If you do not decide to recommend adding a synthetic to the national list, it dies there and never goes in to the APA. A petition for rulemaking is different. The petition that you are considering now over compost isn’t the first time that we’ve dealt with these. We had one over import oversight a few years ago, and we were able to say that we are working on SOE, and that resolved that petition.

There was also petition for rulemaking about hydroponics. We denied it and ended up in the court system. The way this petition for rulemaking would work – directly related to a topic Board was interested in. Instead of analyzing it at program level, we sent it to the board as a work agenda item. That did not make it a board petition. It is not a petition for the board. It is a different mechanism. You are working on that as advisory, once you are done, you are part of active analysis phase. When rec comes to USDA we will combine that output with a petition for rulemaking and do our own analysis. All your recommendations, we move them to rulemaking or explain why we can’t. Petition for rulemaking will join recommendations. We want board to finish work on compost before we fold it into the petition.

For example, a proposed rule that lays out a number of options. That proposed rule would then go out for public comment, and then whatever provisions come out of that go into the regulations. There is a whole stream of activity here. With a petition for rulemaking. We deferred it to the Board, but we still have a legal obligation to analyze that, and we will do that along with your recommendation, and then we will likely go into a comment period from what I’m hearing. That will give the public a process under the APA to further deliberate on it.

Important for all of us to understand the processes. This codified process is as much democracy as anything else.

Nate Lewis: We heard on public comment webinar that the insect industry is having trouble accessing organic market because of the lack of standard. We’ve also seen issues with aquaculture standards and in particular wild fish certification and not move forward.

Dr. Tucker: Appreciate the challenges with insects. They can be certified under the livestock standards, btu I’ve heard that can be challenging because of access to the outdoors. This gets complicated. I am not entirely sure. We have not gotten an NOSB recommendation on insects. If the NOSB was interested in working on insects, let’s have that conversation.

For wild caught fish, standards were never developed. A few years ago, 2021, we were directed by Congress to do a report for wild caught fish. We did a listening session and gave a report to Congress that they still have. The ball is in Congress’ court.

For aquaculture, there had been an in-depth Board process, and there was a proposed rule that made it to the Office of Management and Budget. It was never cleared. It ended up coming back to the Program, and that is it on that. I will say indirectly that I think one of the things that was particularly useful was that Congress directed CBP to work directly with us on SOE, and it would have been hard to achieve those things otherwise.

When you’re thinking about aquaculture, you have to think about the other federal agencies that have interest in this, and when Congress encourages federal agencies to work together, things tend to happen.

Kim Huseman: Statement about USDA Expands Market for Organics. I am excited to see that in a space that is extremely opaque, we have brought to light SOE. Understanding the pricing structure and getting the foundation built to help farmers determine crop rotation, and help farmers understand that if there is an imbalance, people understand why. Hoping we can create a WASD (World Agriculture Standards Development) report for organic. Maybe this could be the foundation for having an O-WASD eventually.

Dr. Tucker: Market News is part of the AMS. Market News depends on folks providing data: give data for the public good, and get benefits in return. Erin Healy is our contact in Market News. Challenges in data collection, and thank you for having seen the announcement.

AMS Market News can be found here.

Brian Caldwell: First question: Related to your presentation, you gave a list of the ranking of different commodities in terms of ICs. Was that in terms of the # of ICs, and not based on tonnage or that kind of thing? I noticed that soybeans were #3, and corn wasn’t on it…

Dr. Tucker: Think values – do we have phone a friend to send the answer? Can someone from my team answer? Let’s put a pin in that and see who is listening who can send. I’ll have an answer in just a minute.

Brian Caldwell: Second question: Relates to our inerts proposal, which proposes two different approaches to inerts and putting inerts on the NL. Could you outline, if that got passed, what is the future process, and would it potentially include mixing and matching or combining parts of those proposal?

Dr. Tucker: Love civics questions. Application of civics conversation we just had. Your recommendations on this topic will feed into the APA process. From 2015, there is a rec related to inerts. Recs don’t expire. May be elements of this rec we could mix and match and took different pieces of Board’s work to move in the rulemaking process. We can’t add synthetic without recommendation from the Board. Important that any rec when we do rulemaking that we can point to Board saying want this to happen. Will see bits and parts of recs in proposed rule. Need to trace it back to board rec if relates to synthetic.

Back to question 1, the top 10 is by value. Kudos to Jason for that information. One of the benefits of having added resources from Congress over the past few years is being able to hire people like Jason, an agri-conomist. We have a whole team that is protecting this industry every day.

Carolyn: Intrigued by discussion about common OSP. Smaller scale producers always complain about making life easier. If small producer have handling certificate they are really in a bad situation – suggesting you consider those. Question: given Supreme Court rulings, how do you see this affecting work of NOP?

Dr. Tucker: These are certainly interesting times. There were 3 supreme court cases overall that we have been thinking the most about. One has to do with Chevron differences and the degree to which courts rely on agency decision-making and how much on the acts of congress. The second one had to do with when you’re allowed to contest something in rulemaking. There used to be a statute of regulations on that. The third has to do with the authority of administrative law judges. When we have an appeals case and it is contested beyond an administrative decision, that is where it goes. What are the boundaries on the administrative law judge in having penalties in regulatory programs like ours. We are one of many programs across the Federal Government evaluating these. No one really knows. It is going to take a series of additional court cases to see what happens. We are starting to see it with different court cases. We’ll keep a close eye on it. Will take some time to play out.

Amy: Two-part question on benchmarking. We heard about EU and efforts on residue testing, risk-based certification, and seed. Should we harmonize our standards closer to EU on those topics? Second, where do our peers see us as leaders in organic standards?

Dr. Tucker: I mentioned the challenges of trade arrangements; there are also significant benefits. EU did have residue data we didn’t have, and shared it with us. We are seeing collaboration. In terms of harmonization, that will always be a challenge. Every government has own standards that meets needs of its people. Working group of all equivalent countries – bilateral agreements, but we do come together and talk about standards issues. U.S. is seen as a strong leader, based on SOE and types of enforcement and supply chain traceability, our system is considered a gold standard. We used to have a very tiny budget, our larger budget allows us to do things. We talk about how we do investigations and every country has different judicial systems. We are seen as a leader. EU is a great partner, because they do have differences and challenges with member countries. There are some differentiated approaches. Working group is important. We will be renegotiating with EU. That is on the calendar. Canada we continue to have conversation with in strengthening oversight over that border.

Kim Huseman: Follow-up question to that: The way that I thought about that question was about being a leader with bringing products into the US and how other countries are managing bringing products into the US. Would you say that the answer would be similar to how we would export products out of the US?

Dr. Tucker: I don’t talk about exports often because I am at regulatory body; my job is to protect consumers. Export markets are incredibly important for farms and businesses in the USA. They come into play with enforcement actions. There may be a noncompliant biz in another country – calls to “kick them out now!” – but what if one of our operations messed up? We give everyone an opportunity to come into compliance. That’s part of continuous improvement. We don’t want to impose a penalty structure on other countries we wouldn’t be willing to use ourselves. We need to think about these trade arrangements in a way that is fair and competitive. Delicate balance. If we set a tone that is strict, they could do the same for us. We want to protect all the markets.

Dillip: One of the goals of TOPP program is to create a minority of small farmers, black farmers, veterans – you may not have the data presently, but the presentation this morning gave some very good statistics. Is there anything you want to comment or add from the perspective of how many minorities they are reaching?

Dr. Tucker: We do not collect demographic data under TOPP or organic program. “Can you add different…” – we do not collect it. In TOPP, looking at where are our partners and have they been part of organic before. How do we build diversity in communities where we haven’t been before? When we focus on where organic is underrepresented, we are looking at plains states and not necessarily what we think about when we think “underserved.” The southeast is doing a remarkable job because most states are underrepresented in organic. Partners in every single state reaching out to communities that have never been involved before. See these stories being told on the ground level. Local leadership driving change. Can’t always predict that in terms of numbers. Proudest of with TOPP is the number of local leaders building organic from the ground up that you’ve never met before.

Northwest Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP) Presentations

About the Transition to Organic Partnership Program
The USDA Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP) is investing up to $100 million over five years in cooperative agreements with non-profit organizations who are partnering with others to provide technical assistance and wrap-around support for transitioning and existing organic farmers. USDA is building partnership networks in six regions across the United States with trusted organizations serving direct farmer training, education, and outreach activities.

[Dr. Tucker introduces the TOPP panel.]

Chris Schreiner, CEO of Oregon Tilth
Shared historical data, including that the US has been unable to meet the demand for organic products and how TOPP was born in part from that. Shared some of the concerns raised by farmers when confronted about transitioning to organic, including the preference for high-contact support measures (one-on-one mentoring). Highlighted the challenges around access to infrastructure, including processing facilities. Talked about the education of NRCS staff to help farmers meet conservation goals.

Three focus areas of the presentation: 1) Pinpointed market development areas. 2) Direct farmer assistance. 3) Mentoring and advice.

Ben Bowell, Education and Advocacy Director for Oregon Tilth
Thanks 30 partners in 6 state region. Expressed appreciation for leaders in other TOPP regions. Also thanks OTA and OFA, and staff at NOP, and Oregon Tilth. Mentions stats in northwest (see slide 5). Introduces the panel. (see slide 7).

Northwest TOPP Panel Participants:

Grace Lemley and Griffin Lehman, Dear Table Farm
Mary Ellis and Britta Janssen, Farm Connect Montana
Erica Thompson, Blueberry Meadows
Evie Witten, Regeneration North

Griffin Lehman: Farm approximately 3 acres of mixed vegetables and cut flowers, selling primarily direct and wholesale through an incubator program called Viva Farms that provides lease for land, education and technical systems.

Grace Lemley: Viva Farms is certified organic through OTCO (Oregon Tilth), and that made it easy for us to get certified through OTCO, as well. The application was one of the most intimidating parts for us, and it took a long time, which is a real challenge for farmers, especially small scale farmers. It has been well worth it for us. Having the assistance that we did from Viva and OTCO made the difference.

Griffin Lehman: Before certified, it is intimidating and expensive process. Being so close to Viva and having mentors and having to keep organic records to send to Viva for their own certification encouraged us that it’s reachable. We had people we could talk to and gain encouragement. Hardest part is initial step. Time is biggest obstacle. In third year and starting hiring process. Important to have organic certification. Since having it at markets, we have seen the value of it.

Grace Lemley: We found that certification was so important to sell wholesale, including local restaurants.

Mary Ellis: Work with Farm Connect Montana. Work in beginning farmer and rancher program. Shares what they do: provide support services to beginning farmers and ranchers – most in first 5 years and have 5 acres or less in production; land link program; farmer tool library – low membership fee and gives access to implements; a lot of one on one technical assistance; Certified Farm Start-up Program – business planning, marketing, production (4 month program culminates with business plan).

Britta Janssen: We wanted to ensure that we understood barriers that farmers were facing to organic certification. A lot are around recordkeeping. Other major barriers that we saw are outlined in (TOPP slide 10) – sourcing local materials, especially mulch; cost, as springtime when fees are due is often a hard time for farmers; experience with organic systems in general; and local alternatives to organic certification, with “homegrown” being a bit one in our area. There are also new incentives for farmers to become certified.

Mary Ellis: We’ve had our own mentor program for beginning farmers, and a big piece with TOPP is being able to compensate them. That is something we have been having a lot of positive feedback on – that one-on-one support. We also created an Organic Certification Guide that is specific to Montana – a shorter guide that provides all of the links to where farmers can get the information they need. We did an Organic Certification Workshop as an add-on to our beginning farmer course and were able to pair farmers with mentors after that. Finally, there is a local seed cooperative in Montana that we were able to work with and learn from. Mentorship and supportive community have made the difference.

Britta Janssen: Takeaways: having information upfront for folks just starting out is crucial. Understanding where they want to get and record systems is crucial. Big takeaway – lean on existing farmer networks. Been wonderful to find mentors who are working with new farmers and provide support from TOPP program. Folks want to sit down and talk to a real person and program cultivates that. Allowed us to have realistic conversations with farmers about the nuances, timing, places it fits or doesn’t. Allows for personalized support.

Erica Thompson: 6 acres of blueberries. Conventional until last year. All berries sold on the farm direct to consumer. Mainly U-pick. In addition to TOPP, working with NRCS to install hedge rows and high tunnels. Knew wanted to be organic. Certification is standardized and people recognize it and seemed like the way to go. Two main tasks: figuring out organic alternatives to fertilizer and fungicide and also navigating paperwork and certification process. TOPP has been super helpful and also set me up with mentor. Got a crash course in soil biology and chemistry. Got recommendations on products. Went from feeling overwhelmed to set up products that get good results. Certification assistance and having certification specialist was a major piece. Being able to ask them questions has been a huge peace of mind. Knowing have solid access to information and answers is awesome. Plan on becoming certified transitional.

Evie Witten: Day job, I’m an ecologist, and work on a variety of climate and kelp-related projects. My family and I also have a small kelp and oyster farm in Alaska. I’ve been working with TOPP on two projects – one to conduct an assessment of need for certified organic kelp farming in Alaska, and the second project was a realization and need to bring together a national process to bring together the certification and protocols for certification of kelp, as we were approaching it differently in different geographies.

Evie Witten: First part was to determine what is the market need and demand, and if we do have demand and need, what are the barriers. This included processing operations. Finally, how can we overcome those barriers, and what exists already in the state to support transition to organic?

Evie Witten: We found that there is a demand for organic seaweed, not just for kelp food products, but many other areas noted on the slide. There was virtue signaling in those other products – ex.) your straw is made out of kelp, and it’s organic kelp. Demand was there, but markets can be very nascent. Markets are new. Buyers do not always know exactly what their needs are going to be, and therefore farmers do not, either. Geography and expense were also barriers. All of the kelp growers were working with OTCO, which meant flying someone in, and then flying that person around the state for inspection, which added expense. The good news is that there is a lot of attention on this industry within the state of Alaska right now that help with farmer training, technical assistance, support for organic, etc. One of the interesting things going into this was that there were 2 farms certified, but within the next few months of these ongoing conversations and dialog, 7 more people came forward to become certified. The assessment itself spurred a lot of interest.

Evie Witten: Second project: Found early in Alaska assessment that people were talking to colleagues in Maine and finding a lot of commonalities. One was that the whole process for certifying seaweed in marine environment is based on land-based standard. A lot of challenges interpreting the standard and for certifiers interpreting land-based standard. Being done differently in NE than in Pacific states. Concern by people in kelp industry is whether there is integrity if means different things in different places. Been interesting multi-stakeholder process to bring together certifiers working on seaweed cert, OTA, and Green Way that support kelp mariculture. Where are biggest problems? Those lie under NOP 205.202 land standard and 205.204 and seed and seedling standard. Ongoing effort to bring everyone to the same table and approach it in the same way. Are we using standardized buffers in marine environment. Seed and seedling standard – there are 2 producers of organic seedlings (algae – different biological process) in Maine that are successfully producing organic. They are only ones who have figured it out and closely held industry procedures. Concerns about how we get to a place in country on producing organic seed. Take home message – in seaweed mariculture we have nascent industry and we can set the stage for organic certification. Most is organic by nature. Kelp mariculture – in some parts of world, they are dumping inputs. In U.S. we can figure out how to do it really well and encourage virtue signaling industries to want and expert organic certified kelp.

Chris Schreiner and Ben Bowell guide Q&A with the NOSB and the TOPP presentations.

Allison Johnson: Are there any other particular market opportunities for seaweed in the NW, and if you are getting any information for retailers; where are the market opportunities the strongest?

Ben Bowell: AK has 18 certified operations including crop and handling. Trying to support growth is challenging. Rhodiola is one crop there is interest in exporting from the state, so there are opportunities there. We have a diversity of crops in the NW. Hazelnuts from Oregon. We see saturation in in organic produce.

Chris Schreiner: Oregon produces over 200 agricultural commodities. There are spaces where there is saturation. We don’t want to lead farmers to transition where there are not market opportunities. Looking at what Oregon is uniquely positioned to produce – hazelnuts are one. Organic economic assessment – firm candidly said they had so little data at this point. Importance of good market data – happy to hear market news updates.

Nate Lewis: Land access is not a problem unique to organic producers; how is TOPP in the NW looking at land access? Conservation work? Long-term leases? How does that fit into this puzzle?

Ben Bowell: It’s not been an area of our expertise or specialization. We have been trying to partner with other organizations that work with beginning farmers and who are more vert

Beginning farmers – certification is one of many challenges they face. Those producers need the most support – where can TOPP most support?

Chris: We can’t solve big problems individually. In OR there are other NGOs who have taken on land-access issue. We heard about that in the NOC farmer panel. There is also the Organic Agricultural Trust. Finding the right partners and leveraging strengths.

Organic Agricultural Trust does a lot with succession planning. A lot of times equity is tied up in the land. Retiring generation has that interest. How do we leverage each of strengths for common goals.

Grace: In our experience, we are going through that right now. We are on leased land through a program that helped us get land access through a period of time; we cannot stay on this place long-term. Viva Farms helps pair us with people who work in land transition. So far, there are lots of groups of people doing that, but nothing so far for us, but I think it will come. There aren’t a lot of success stories yet.

Amy Bruch: For Chris and Ben: you mentioned market saturation; maybe need for the “top 2” — getting the farmers in and then retaining them. Looking at imports certs it looks like a lot of products the NW could grow instead of importing. How can we grow acres domestically?

Chris: I would say that in terms of market opportunities; certain crops we saw on that list and why not more organic is part of it is reality that this is a global market – cost of labor, land, and challenges all of U.S. agriculture faces. Thought wanted lead on was TOPP 2, the reality is just the beginning. If we don’t have continuation of investments and programs, then realizing missed opportunity for domestic organic acreage, then we are not going to realize full potential of that opportunity. 26 years in organic sector, it uses market for incentives for change. 25 years later still small percentage of the acreage. Market lever is one lever. Policy and programs are another lever of change. Invite you to lean in to real and lasting change through policy and programs.

Dilip: The US market for seaweed production is very, very small compared to the world market. I wanted to mention about harvesting seaweed around the world – Japan, Iceland – the companies’ harvesting methods are not sustainable, from my research. What I heard from your presentation, it looks like this method is very natural and sustainable, and I’m happy to see that. What else can you tell us about what are the barriers for organic production? Do we have the standards for this in the US? How can we be more sustainable? How can we increase this production? Whatever more you can share would be great.

Ben Bowell: Think that is one of the things that came out, would be to have more specific standards. Like you said, we started looking at it again – I’ll invite Evie.

Chris: If there are better practices that align with organic principles, how can we incorporate those best practices into the organic system, the organic standard, and recognize those producers that are doing it the best way possible for the people and the planet?

Evie: Couple distinctions to make: looking at farm-grown seaweed as oppose to wild-grown. There is both happening in the US. In the US we have a good handle on the wild-harvest – the first to be organic certified. We are trying to fit the standards to farmed seaweed. It has been challenging to fit wild-harvest to farm grown. It’s not a good fit. The farm grown is farmed very responsibly; easy to certify organic because practices are already organic. In The US we are farming brown seaweeds. In other parts of the world growing in a farmed setting it’s more difficult because of the different species. It can be damaging to the environment. We are finding national alignment project is an attempt to say: what we have to work with, how do we come up with common protocols for certifiers? It’s clunky. Hearing from seaweed industry we need one standard. We should be looking at it like mushrooms, maple syrup, etc. Because it’s so different to grow a macroalgae in a marine environment. I think it needs to move to regulation, otherwise it’s round peg in square hole.

Jerry D’Amore: It isn’t frequently in what we do that we are in a position to talk about improving the environment continuously. I haven’t heard anything today about the benefits of harvesting seaweed in terms of erosion control, environmental benefits, etc.

Evie: Benefits of seaweed mariculture are pulling carbon dioxide out of the ocean water. Ameliorates acidification. A lot of work about carbon sequestration power – depends on what do with seaweed once harvested. A lot of interest in growing it in a farm setting as a carbon sink, but it’s more important to focus on it as a way to grow biomass for human, plant, and animal food – those areas where benefits really come in. We can grow something in marine environment that can pull out nutrients and move the needle on soil health on land. Doing so with zero inputs. Footprint of product is in planting, harvesting, and processing mechanisms.

Brian Caldwell: Has the transition process helped with marketing at all? Are you seeing the same consumers, or new ones – wondering about your market base? Any price advantage at all?

Erica Thompson: Specifically seeking organic product. Very localized and repeat customers and those that are specifically seeking out organic berries. Yes, there will be some. I haven’t gotten to this yet specifically. I’m not sure how it will shake out as far as profitability. I think I need to mess with the numbers a bit. Transition isn’t necessarily profit driven, but more how we want to grow. The repeat customers that have been coming for 20 years and then I think additional ones that are specifically seeking out organic berries.

Nate Powell-Palm: Can you speak to storytelling of organic blueberry growing?

Erica Thompson: Don’t have a seal yet, but looking forward to it. Have a sign that we use organic practices and we are a year into the process. Just working with my employees about a one-sentence elevator pitch.

Franklin: About the seaweed discussion: wondering about distinctions between farm-grown and wild-harvested. What’s the control that seaweed farmers have, given it’s a marine environment? Is there bio-remediation? How does the farmer control the marine environment?

Evie: Really the biggest question that this group is wrestling with. The certifiers that are working on certification getting together – how do we apply land standard in marine environment and how does land law apply? Seaweed farmer has little control. I have a permit to grow in specific area, but that’s all I have – right to grow, not right to keep people off. Difficult to control access. On the other hand, these are areas, permitting process is quite stringent. Farms are only being cited in areas away from point sources of pollution. Another reason it is relatively easy to become certified organic. But we don’t have that control. On the other hand, not sure how different farmers on land don’t have control over air or ground water or the parts of their growing environment. Key difference is water movement and flow and maintaining exclusive access in terms of who can go on the farm or not.

Alison: Back to Ben and Chris. OR has been a leader in technical assistance, especially collaboration with NRCS. Can you speak to what lessons we can learn from collaboration with NRCS?

Chris: Dates back to 2010. Attending state technical advisory committee meetings for NRCS: helped to get to know their priorities and form relationships with NRCS staff. We got a Western SARE project and did some cross training between organic cert inspectors and conservation planners to compare what they did. We share a lot of common goals: soil health, clean water, all things conservation. Building relationships. Ben served as our national organic specialist for NRCS for many years.

Ben: Helpful that we had a position within the agency and then tried to better understand opportunities. We have an NRCS guest tomorrow to speak to this. There are not 6 positions nationally in partnership with CCOF, Marbleseed, and OATS OTA. We are thankful for increased work capacity in NRCS.

Chris: Elevate Ben’s comment on the importance of having these positions embedded in the agency (NRCS). Not many have these shared positions. It makes all the difference in receptivity in what we have to say.

Kyla: Thank you to NW TOPP, transition into lunch.

[Lunch]

Public Comments

Johanna Phillips – Strengthening Organic Systems (SOS) – CACS; Crops; General

Good afternoon NOSB members. Thank you for your service and for the opportunity to provide comments today. I’m Johanna Phillips, Director of Business Development and Technical Affairs at Strengthening Organic Systems, LLC.

SOS submitted written comments on several topics including residue testing, risk-based certification, seed, and nationalist sunset materials. Our written comments provide additional detail in my incredible colleagues. Kim and Gwendolen are also providing comments today.

It was a privilege to share the stage with experts in seeds during the National Organic Coalition Meeting yesterday. We underscore the urgent need for improved oversight of commercial availability, particularly in seed usage and enhancement to the organic integrity database by adding a new category for current organic seed suppliers certified by USDA National Organic Program

This simple yet effective update would facilitate real-time access to seed supplier data. This solution, when paired with focused certification attention on a systematic basis, will support increased organic seed usage critical to the future of the US market.

Risk-based certification is a critical tool for successful enforcement. Attempting to hit every point in every compliance activity is time-consuming, less effective, and burdensome, and attempting to do so typically results in narrowly focused results, with an element of luck to catch fraud.

Risk-based certification must be implemented thoughtfully, and with a plan to achieve comprehensive fraud prevention outcomes. We have proposed a decision tree that supplies an example of how a certifier might prioritize specific requirements, including cyclical adjustment to level of compliance in lower risk activities so they aren’t overlooked.

With the offered farm operation example, we proposed examples of higher and lower risk activities, with a developed schedule for prioritization.

Thinking of one business comments during the comment period about being surprised in late season with animal identification requirements; these risk priorities can also be used to put operations on preparation notice early in the certification cycle, allowing prioritization of specific requirements more thoughtfully and avoiding the feeling of “gotcha.”

Additionally, I’m posting a statement that increasing transparency and risk and compliance decisions to the public will support effective deterrence to fraud. Residue testing links closely to risk-based certification. Today’s testing approach needs to be improved, including training, decisions, resources to support certifier enforcement and operation awareness.

Fraud reduction starts with comprehensive tools so that cheating is deterred. People are less likely to commit fraud when they know it will be checked. Today, the NOP profile focuses too narrowly and limits enforcement tools to deter fraud adequately.

Thank you for your time and I’m happy to respond to questions.

Questions

Amy: In a previous comment you mentioned where instruction is not clear, enforcement might become less prevalent, including sampling, despite risk being present. Can you package your recommendations about known intentional application and what is needed to exclude organic sale?

Johanna: I think the comment was related to where instruction is on where can end up with businesses being unfairly evaluated. In some areas, herbs, and because of way instruction is written, certifiers are required to use EPA and these instructions need to be modernized. If certifiers feel can’t fairly apply requirements, might be selective about pulling samples. Certifiers are pulling samples when have concerns, but logical not to pull samples with logical outcome.

Amy: Can you touch on your recommendation on the current public comment process – we need more clarification for 205.601 — might be misinterpreted if a certifier sees a direct application of a pesticide in a field, but maybe later the grain might not test for that substance.

Johanna: I’ll say clearly that application of prohibited materials would exclude product from the market place. Sometimes certifiers will say observe application but possible that 5% EPA tolerance would be threshold applied. If application product should be excluded from sale.

Kyla: Other commenters noted using EU as a model – you have some experience with EU scheme. What can we learn from their system?

Johanna: I think not as familiar with EU requirements. Employer with EcoCert introduced me to EU standards. Has more stringent standards in many areas. Did introduce risk-based certification because we are geared to check all the boxes. However, I’ve been convinced the reality is you end up checking a lot of boxes but not important ones. Certifiers default to comfort zone. Risk-based certification allows focusing on areas of real risk for that business. Speaking from EU model, there is no system that is perfect. “One size fits all” is not going to be successful. Domestic certifiers have different risks that international. Systematic process could be achieved.

Gwendolyn Wyard – Strengthening Organic Systems (SOS) – Crops; Handling; General

Good afternoon, NOSB, NOP, and all of the fine people of the gallery. My name is Gwendolyn Wyard and I’m speaking today as a founding partner of Strengthening Organic Systems, an advising firm that does just as what our name states. First, welcome to Oregon. I’ve lived in this wonderfully green and luscious state for almost 30 years and I hope that everyone can take a little time to get outside, and go for a hike and enjoy the ecological diversity of our amazing surroundings.

Second, Mindy, Nate, Kim, Wood and Jerry: Thank you so very much for showing up, for your service on the board, and for your commitment to keeping organic strong.

I do have written comments, so I’ll be brief. I’m going to focus on take-home messages for residue testing, organic seed usage, organic pullulin, and if I have time I might touch on L-malic acid.

Residue testing: We’re very, very supportive of this work. It’s a high priority and we urge the board to deliver a proposal for updated instruction to NOP in spring of 2025. Time is of the essence. The organic sector has an opportunity to better utilize testing as a tool to help detect and deter organic fraud and support SOE.

The risk-based application of testing is valuable for businesses wanting to protect their brand, and it’s valuable to the organic sector as a whole, because it sends a serious message to the fraudster: that they will get caught. It reduces the fraud opportunity and this is criminology 101. SOS strongly agrees with the need to prioritize updated NOP instruction that helps overcome challenges related to unintentional contamination, uric and drift, and positive residue detection for crops without tolerance levels.

Organic seed usage: Our position is that a regulatory change is needed, as recommended by NOSB in 2018, and increased oversight of organic seed usage is a top priority for the organic sector.

The codifying of continuous improvement into the organic seed use regulation lays the regulatory framework, and it sets the goalpost for all of the following steps that we’re talking about, that are needed to build a strong, resilient and diverse organic seed sector.

In our written comments, you’ll find a timeline, detailed history leading up to the 2018 recommendation, and more recently to NOP’s 2022 priority rulemaking process, all of which illustrates a strong record of support.

We urge NOSB to recommend that NRP move the 2018 recommendation to the unified agenda without delay.

Pullulan: Keep it on the list, because it’s non-agricultural, with a “made with” label restriction. Yes, organic is available and I think a lot of it and many companies are using it and the intent was to remove pullulan when it became commercially available. However, we arguably need more organic manufacturers in the supply chain. Competition — and we have a regulatory irregularity, as it relates to classification materials, fermentation byproducts specifically, and we think we probably need to look at that and address the classification issues before pullulan is removed.

I know that’s a little cryptic, but with that I’m going to stop and I will answer any questions you have because I think I’m out of time.

Questions

Nate Lewis: L-malic acid: What is your opinion of classification motion and whether classifying 605(b) should set any precedent for excluded methods?

Gwendolyn: I was going to touch on classification motion. Second question is a doozy. We did not comment on L-Malic acid. There is a technical correction that needs to be made: classification motions states synthetic is fermentation of fumaric acid. In the proposal itself it states it is a 2-step process: fermentation of carbohydrate, then enzymatic conversion. It states that in the proposal. Fermentation and enzymatic conversion isn’t one and the same in this case. Being real clear as we figure out fermentation. Second question: Excluded methods. Want to be able to determine where EM might be utilized. If we put the synthetic form on 605(b), and I agree with that, I don’t think it would set precedent for letting GMOs in. Certifiers are doing the review to check if GE is being applied to the materials list. They ask all the questions already, like if a microorganism is being used. Synthetic source for synthetic form. You have to ask the question for each listing and where the genetic modification would take place.

Mike Menes – True Organic Products, Inc – CACS; Crops; General

I’m going to be less entertaining than Gwendolyn; that’s a tough act to follow. I get to talk about something fun called testing. My name is Mike Menes; I’m the chief technical officer at True Organic Products. True is the leader in organic fertilizer manufacturing in the US; organic integrity has been at the core of our business since its inception. In fact, it was the basis of our name. So, thank you to the NOSP and the NOP, for your tireless efforts in the continuous improvement of organic, in particular the residue testing for a global supply chain.

Whenever you talk about fraud in any industry, the discussion will inevitably turn to testing. How do you tell that an object of your investigation or interest is authentic or fake? My scientist head immediately says, “let’s test it.” What does the data say?

One of the roles I play at True is food safety. We’re looking for human pathogens in every lot that we produce, because it could potentially touch produce that is eaten raw. Many parallels can be drawn when comparing food safety with organic integrity testing. Simply replace the words “organic integrity” for the words “food safety”. I’m looking for salmonella — now I’m looking for prohibited substances.

More detail is in our written comment, but I’ll point out some specifics here. Get a representative sample, and train the people appropriately. Get the appropriate sampling plan for it. Testing for sampling for grain? A truckload of grain is much different from a field of spinach. Use the appropriate tools for it. So, sampling from a bulk truck of grain, versus 80 acres of [domain], you’re going to use different tools.

Always understand the cross contamination potential, throughout supply chain. These are reputable laboratories with industry approved methodology. So, specifically, you could use an ISO 1700 and 25 accredited laboratory that is a using methodology approved by the AOAC.

All these things are important. But what I want to point out is you can increase the confidence by in the product by combining a panel of tests, or a whole slew of them. There may be a number of tests that are needed to provide the conclusive evidence of economically motivated adulteration.

This panel may need to be specific to a particular matrix. That is, these tests for organic authenticity testing may be different for celery or for soybeans, for cotton or for liquid organic fertilizer. Fortunately, you and I don’t have to figure any of this out. There are programs out there already addressing the issue. And so we we can rely on the professionals that are already concentrating on that.

So at True, we’re going to continue what we do. We’re going to promote the US farmer. We’re going to protect the organic seal. And we’re going to push for the organic consumer.

Ready to answer some questions for you.

QUESTIONS

Amy: Can you unpackage metabolite testing? We had indicated that could be a good clue for glyphosate? You indicated that might not be the case.

Mike: It’s matrix dependent. There might be a biological event that provides metabolites that could identify fraud. But I don’t know enough about it. There is a group called TOFO (TOFO-food); they talk about metabolites, and may have the matrix you are looking for.

Nate Lewis: on testing inputs, input manufacturers like you aren’t squarely under NOP, but when we think of testing inputs for input quality how do we connect those regulatory bodies and it isn’t completely born by farmers

Mike: Where does the burden of proof really lie? Who do you tell that to? Additional testing could provide more insight.

Ramy Colfer – True Organic Products, Inc – CACS; General

Thank you very much; My name is Ramy Colfer. I’m here representing True Organic Products also. I’m the Vice President of Research Development and Field Agronomy. First, I’d like to thank the NOSB and NOP for your great commitment to organic foods and the opportunity to speak today.

I have spent the last 24 years working and on the central coast in organic vegetable and fruit production, working at True Organics over the last 6 years, and for Earthbound Farm in the internal farming department for 18 years.

I am here today to promote, like Mike, expansion of the use of prohibited substance residue tests. And in particular, we support the expanded residue testing to include synthetic nitrogen residue.

Going back to my history of organic farming, I observed how fraudulent organic fertilizer being manufactured by Port Organics and California Liquid Organics damaged the organic seal, and consumers’ trust in the organic label, and this was eloquently described in a recently written article by Chris Bennett in the Farm Journal.

And while this scale of fraud may not be occurring in the United States, it’s hard to know exactly what’s happening in countries with few organic inputs, minimal organic certifier oversight, and few laws discouraging organic fraud. And while the NOP launching [SERE] has been a substantial improvement in improving organic integrity, it would be improved further with residue testing. Now is the time to expand the expand the the panel of prohibited substances residue testing for organic produce, especially in organic products from regions with high risk.

I’d like to also mention True has been working with commercial labs in the [AOC] to help develop interest in the formation and validation of panel tests to evaluate the authenticity of organic products.

An NOSB requirement for broader prohibited substances residue testing would encourage these groups to pursue this direction. Specifically, synthetic nitrogen residue testing would be technically and economically feasible, and would be a useful tool for a range of organic products, including crops that rarely have pesticide residues, organic or conventional, such as avocados. This type of residue testing is already being done in Europe by [Eurofin], required by the stakeholders — Mike mentioned this group, TOFU — great name too, by the way.

I grew up with back-to-the-earth hippie parents in Santa Cruz, California area. I remember going to stores like Community Foods as a young child in the seventies, where my mother would buy organic foods. My mother now, 83, is committed to still buying organics. And I believe organic is the answer. But we need to ensure organic food is legitimate and authentic.

Thank you.

Questions

Amy Bruch: Synthetic nitrogen should be a focus area. Heard from a prior speaker with your company that nitrogen testing has evolved. To couple process based standard, could you generate pounds of nitrogen per produce crop – might be good supplemental material for certifiers to have. They could look at units. Could you and your company generate this and put on crop rotations – might be good to come up with a matrix. More of an assignment than a question.

Ramy: We could do that easily, the nitrogen per pound. Yes, we could make a matrix. Most of my day job is spent helping organic growers with organic field plans. There is a comprehensive understanding how organic fertility works – lots of ways to do it.

Nate Powell-Palm: When we talk about testing, wondering if for nitrogen who the best testing training institutes would be to train folks to do this or if you have cross-testing, if inspectors going to be doing it?

Ramy: It would be done by certifying agencies. There are standards for certifying. Figuring out the matrices would take some research for each commodity. That’s the goal of getting [AOAC] involved – we have experts that are able to do these tests.

Brian Pontious – Ingevity – Crops; Materials

My name is Brian Pontious, and I’m here representing Ingevity, which is based in North Charleston, South Carolina, and for over 100 years has been providing products that purify, protect, and enhance the world around us. We understand that the adoption of BPI’s petition would be a policy shift in how compost feed stocks are managed in organic agriculture. We believe the BPI petition clearly explains why the ASTM standards are appropriate and sufficient in a way that addresses many of your concerns.

Since the CROWD subcommittee made its recommendation, a number of companies and organizations have signaled their support for BPI’s petition. This includes the Georgia, South Carolina, and Kentucky Department of Agriculture, as well as Western growers. The US Composting Council noted 78% of their membership supports the BPI petition as filed with USDA and the inclusion of certified compostable products.

The city of San Francisco and many other composters, brands, and parent companies like Ingevity, comprise a long and diverse list of entities that support BPI’s petition and recognize the need for a change in the definition of eligible inputs for organic compost.

We believe this highlights widespread desire and need to find a reasonable and science-based solution to ensure composters have a pathway for processing feed stocks for organic agriculture in a way that allows them to stay legally compliant. We must recognize that not every food service item can be replaced with a reusable, recyclable or an alternative-to-plastic format. And that goes for USDA organic food that is packaged as well. Just getting you two examples: the banana peel with a plastic Purdue sticker, and this plastic-coated product here as well.

So if we don’t we don’t invest in alternatives, what we’re going to be stuck with are conventional plastic products that we know, particularly in a compost pile, can produce persistent microplastics.

Companies like Ingevity after years of research and development have developed compostable food packaging that addresses many of the environmental challenges we face. States like California have recognized the need to incorporate these advances in the composting standards, and stakeholders around the country are eager to see NOP acknowledge these advances as well.

Unfortunately, if the petition fails, certified compostable products will not be an option to be sold in California. And it likely be placed with conventional plastics, which have been shown to increase persistent microplastic contamination in our environment.

Stakeholders all across the value chain working on composting will suffer, if we do not make a decision that is based on the best available science in a way that is expedient. We therefore ask that you please support USDA in publishing BPI’s requested rulemaking, and to use that process to resolve any differences of opinion. I’m happy to stand by for any questions.

Thank you.

Questions

Franklin: Thinking about compostable plastics – microorganisms break down synthetic stuff down. If we have compostable plastic, has anyone looked at fitness cost of microorganisms breaking these things down. Would it become a selection factor that selects for certain microorganisms?

Brian: Just to clarify your question: microorganisms that can break down certified biodegradable products are available in the environment. Products can be broken down by microorganisms. Compostable plastic – those are referring to products can break down in industrial compostable facility. I’m not sure that was satisfactory, but that is what I can give you.

Amy: We are working as a Board to weigh diverse subject matter. Can you repeat statistic about support?

Brian: US Composting Council, 78% members supported it.

Amy: Haven’t seen a lot of farmer comments, wondering what farmer is thinking?

Brian: As far as farmers, we have tried to reach out community wide, Kentucky, SC, GA supported the petition. Struggle is that people are far removed from it and what’s going to happen in 2032 when all packaging has to be compostable or recyclable. Farmers are far removed from options and what options would be if had more composters coming online. When have the conversation, they are excited, but we are small niche industry and ability to outreach is limited.

Amy: Would you agree they are recipient? Aren’t they the solution where this compost would be going?

Brian: Yes, nurseries, farmers. They would benefit from expanding the supply.

Kim Dietz – Strengthening Organic Systems (SOS) – Handling; General

Good afternoon. My name is Kim Dietz, and I’m speaking today as founding partner of Strengthening Organic Systems. I’ve been fortunate in my career to have many firsts in this organic community. I served as a handler representative on the first NOSB in 2000, 2005, under the USDA, when we first brought the rule to all of us. I managed the certification process for the very first certified organic handling facility in the US, another milestone, difficult but a trailblazer. And it was while working for that company that we developed the very first certified organic flavor. I say this today because I’ve had a very rewarding history of standing in front of you all with those many firsts, and today as a small business center.

This is also the first time I’m speaking on behalf of myself, which is really quite something. Today my comments will be on the handling topics of vitamins and minerals, and commercial availability, both of which are near and dear to me and that I’ve followed my entire career.

So there’s a long and complicated history around the listing of vitamins and minerals that have never really been fully resolved. In short, the current annotation is referencing 21 CFR 104.2. That is not maintained by FDA, nor does it reflect the nutrients and vitamins that were reviewed and approved by NOSB way back in 1995, folks. It does not contain several of the essential vitamins and minerals required in food products today and it does not reflect an annotation proposed by NOP in 2012.

Instead, we have an NOP interim rule that continues the allowance of vitamins and minerals that are not listed under one of [4.2.], with no further clarification on which nutrients may be added to organic products. It’s messy and it’s inconsistent.

SOS believes there’s room for updating the annotation to reflect a more appropriate FDA reference, or even NOP guidance to clarify the nutrients that may be added to organic products.

Lastly, commercial availability. Oh boy, we’ve heard a lot about that today, and even yesterday. It was intended originally to use as a tool while we didn’t have supplies. So, as someone who developed the very first certified organic flavor, twenty-something years ago, now we have thousands and thousands and thousands of flavors. So for the past 20 years, it has served a purpose. Unfortunately, what was was once used as a tool is now a burden.

As some organic businesses are being forced to sell their products as conventional because they have too much supply. That’s a fact. Yesterday I received an email from a company that stopped selling organic because of this issue. I urge the NOSB to take the topic seriously and improve the process.

Thank you all.

Questions

Kim: Commercial availability is almost a subjective word. How do we continue to get more producers to state their case and help us with the viability of sufficient supply?

Kim Dietz: Part of the problem in industry, I’ll use flavors, is that they have conventional and organic supply. They have the supply of organic, try to sell organic, then there’s check the box, and i think difficult place for some companies to be. Some organic companies going out of business because they have this supply. Let’s start moving the needle. Know a lot of organic extracts and botanicals. Let’s just start to make the change. Going to take somebody to push.

Jerry: You said it twice but it escaped me: what is the issue in your mind when an organically-produced item is sold conventionally? Drives something that you see as damaging?

Kim: It goes against what we are trying to do. If you have something that is not selling, you are going to stop selling that organic product altogether.

Jerry: So it’s solely a demand issue.

John Foster – Wolf & Associates; The Organic Specialists – General

Good afternoon, everyone. Lovely to see you all. I feel like Kim and Gwendolyn just created more room for more thunder with the commercial availability — which we’ll get to in a second — but my name is John Foster, the COO for Wolf & Associates organic consulting firm, also known as The Organic Specialists. I am on the board of directors for Organic Seed Alliance, and we had a hand in the Meloxicam campaign. So I think that’s all my due diligence there.

Our main interest is: more organic acres with integrity. That’s the real driving force behind pretty much everything we do. It’s not our mission, but it is a driving force. And I want to be up front about that.

So, in terms of general comments, we submitted a lot of written comments. There are many of them. Happy to answer any questions on any of those. Our standard kind of [powder] is: please make the National List as inclusive and accommodating as possible, particularly remembering that those who use it are not necessarily here in the United States. That’s really important.

They don’t, a lot of folks don’t have the same access to materials, certainly not at the same price, seasonality, etc., so please be mindful of that.

You’ve all heard me talk about commercial availability till you’re really tired of it — in 205.605, so I’m going to harp on that a little bit better later.

And also, I’m going to introduce this — what will I hope be a future intuitive term of commercial desirability, instead of availability. You should also — as I offered in Milwaukee, no one took me up on it, except members of the NOP. Actually, you should ask me about how SOE is going, because we’re in a fairly unique position to see a lot of different ways that SOE has been applied by many different certifiers, in many different states and countries.

On meloxicam, as I said, we had a hand in that. We believe this is very unique in that the petition was submitted by producers and veterinarians, not by a manufacturer. That’s a really big difference. You should note that. The PPM is quite clear about how TRs need to be, under what circumstances they can be asked for external TRs — you’re more familiar with PPM now than I am. There are — it was a thorough petition and appendices. Those of you who bother to read the 538 pages, it was exhaustive. And that was by design. A lot of technical information. Every TR question was answered. I know that because there was a map linking every question in the TR to exactly where it was located in the petition or the appendices.

I think that the livestock subcommittee did an excellent job. They don’t get enough credit for that because it was an exhaustive petition.

When it gets down to annotations, please be clear about your intention for those annotations; do that in the cover letter. And since specific annotations in this case needed interagency collaboration, really have faith in the process and rely on them to do that work. I can go for days.

Questions

Amy: How’s SOE going?

John: In general I think SOE is going well. There was some question about how doable it was, and it was nice to hear the statistics – particularly about imports. The thing I most note: as certifiers are constrained by inspection supply, I am not sur ethe inspection criteria – how the certifier chooses an inspector for a specific inspector – some corporations are reporting the quality of the inspector is less than optimal. Particularly for larger orgs who are used to a pretty high level of say food safety audit and auditors. Some are fantastic and some are awful. I think if certifiers had an unvarnished view of that activity on a broader basis there would be more feedback.

Kim Huseman: I mentioned earlier in the day a report called the WASDI. How do we prove demand? Supply can lead to market erosion and demand can drive that supply. How do we prove demand?

John: Proceed or ingredients – doesn’t matter. We use the term commercial availability because it’s in the regulations. But that is detrimental because demand drives supply, not the other way around. And commercial availability is a supply thing. So we need to quantify demand. Some will fill that. Whats available is nice; but what’s needed is better. Demand. A registry could be useful, collected as part of the OSP like any data, to say in aggregate we need 700lbs conquistador celery seed. So someone could then go to their investors with hard numbers for demand.

Nate Powell-Palm: What is the mechanism to collect that data? How would you compel that to folks iffy on privacy?

John: In the OSP. They share a lot of other info in the OSP. So that would have to come from the NOP. They could make it anonymous. Where the demand, might be so small you could identify one – it wouldn’t be easy, but we’ve been sitting on the commercial availability issue for too long. The trick is to quantify demand.

Nate Powell-palm: Could you share quality deficiencies. Is it math? Is it audibility?

John: Yes, it’s preparation. We have clearly studied it on the walk in from the parking lot. It’s not deficiency in the knowledge of the standard and inappropriate dress and jokes. Familiarity around OSP before you walk in the door isn’t happening.

Nate: Are you saying – do your clients feel like being raked over the coals enough that fraud would be found?

John: in a good inspection, slightly below raked over the coals. Some are overly exuberant. There’s no additional gain there. It’s not just the inspector. I know certifiers do best they can do and review their inspectors, but inspectors are always on best behavior when certifier observing. Operators are very reluctant to list a complaint, particularly before certification decision comes back.

Carolyn: Going back to commercial availability. All this conversation, economists call organic a thin market. Idea is because the non-organic are less expensive, incentives set up never to use organic. Like idea of information being more public and some sort of data base would show up where the wizard is hiding. Just thinking of thin markets. Hopefully this is helpful in some regard.

John: Yep.

Karen Warkentien – AgroSpheres, Inc. – Materials (inerts)

My name is Karen Warkentien, and I am the director of regulatory affairs for AgroSpheres. We’re a biological products company. And I am also the co-chair of the Biological Products Industry Alliance, their organic subcommittee of their registration committee. So my comments are sort of for both of us.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the inert ingredients in organic pesticide products proposal, addressing the outdated EPA and her ingredients list 3 and list 4, and how to rectify and improve the policies and procedures for establishing allowable pesticide inert ingredients for use in organic crop and livestock production.

The key issue at hand is how best to include and maintain inert ingredients for organic crop and livestock production on the national list, under [7 CFR 205 parts, subpart G]. So as you’re likely aware, BPIA, as well as AgroSpheres, has provided comments to the NOSB and the NOP previously making suggestions as to how the system can be revised and improved.

The proposal put out by the material subcommittee we believe is an elegant solution and one that moves the needle forward in a meaningful way. [BPIA in atmosphere is both] that strongly support the adoption of the proposal by the full NOSB.

Including both options for valuation by the NLP staff and possible inclusion in a proposed rule addresses the concerns of many of the commenters.

As stated in our previous comments, we are more supportive of option 2, as it leverages the reviews and expertise of EPA in their review of the inert ingredients, and it provides the NOSB then the ability to then fine-tune that list for what you view as being more acceptable. It also will review the sunset review burden on future iterations of the NLSB.

Option one we believe would add hundreds of individual listings of inert ingredients to the sunset review workload that invariably would result in an incredible burden on the NOSB, affecting the ability to accomplish the mission of ensuring compliance with standards. So it’s for that reason we would say to start using that EPA review as your baseline.

However, I also want to say that whatever mechanism is ultimately chosen, that it’s critical that the allowable list be a flexible living list.

There must be an effective way to add new inert ingredients and chemistries as they develop, to encourage innovation. The way we’ve been, right now, we’ve been stuck 20 years ago. And as we know, we all want to move forward. So we strongly support the proposal moving forward to the full NOSB for the vote, as you’re going to have — I think, on Thursday morning, if I’m not mistaken.

And we recommend that the NOSB approve the proposal and move it forward to the staff. Doing so will finally remove references to the obsolete inerts ingredients list the EPA provided and provides a path forward to encouraging and supporting innovation and products available for organic crop production.

And I thank you again for the opportunity to comment on this proposal.

Questions

Nate Lewis: Discussion at Board about conveying to the program, providing two options, does that nuance change your position in terms of changing proposal moving forward on Thursday?

Karen Warkentien: for me personally no. The biggest thing here is that we have a proposal to move forward; this is a meaningful proposal because it looks at the various options. To make some movement. The big issue we in the industry – while we represent inert manufactures as well – speaking more as producer of biological products. We find it difficult to produce formulations that really are what people want to use. We make a lot of dry products but farmers don’t like dry formulations. Dust, they clog nozzles. We’d love to be able to do other formulations but without the tools to make them it becomes more difficult.

Marni Karlin – Accredited Certifiers Association – General

Hi, my name is Marni Carlin, Carlin Strategic Consulting. I work with stakeholders to navigate sticky issues and paradigm shifts in the organic sector. And today, I’m here on behalf of the Accredited Certifiers Association to talk about one of those paradigm shifts: risk-based certification. We are thrilled to see the groundswell of interest in this topic. We appreciate NOP and the NOSP for taking it on.

It’s not a new idea for certifiers at all, but elevating this discussion here facilitates an important sector-wide conversation.

I’m here today to offer the idea that, if conceptualized well, risk-based certification could be part of the solution to many of the sticky problems we face.

Residue testing. Risk assessment can illuminate when and where resources are best spent on residue testing to reveal fraud or other concerns.

Groups. Maybe we can tailor how we validate grower group compliance to focus on the unique risks that that business type brings.

Small and diverse operations opting out of certification. If we’re able to reduce the administrative burden on lower risk operations, we can make certification more accessible to folks who historically have viewed it as too burdendensome or not for them.

Inspector and certification staff burn out. Let’s empower certifiers to focus qualified human resources on high-risk situations and avoid burning out the people responsible for protecting the system.

Now I’m not here saying a risk-based certification will solve all of these problems. What I’m saying is it is a critical lens through which we must look in order to solve the problems. It will allow us to invest our limited resources where they are most impactful, increasing capacity throughout the system.

This will only work if we think critically about risk, how we validate compliance, and how that could look different across risk levels. To be clear, compliance will always be validated and organic integrity always maintained, but the tools used may differ.

So what does this look like? ACA is standing up a working group with a mandate of defining risk, building tools to assess risk that can be used consistently but are flexible and empower inspectors and certification staff.

Navigate different vulnerabilities. Creating a plan for updating those tools as risks change. And getting brave and proposing how we validate compliance for operations with different risk profiles.

This could mean rethinking what recordkeeping looks like at different risk levels or what tools are best suited to validate compliance in different situations. It could be relying on AI or other technology when appropriate. We’ll be happy to report out on our work at a future NOSB meeting.

I want to quickly mention one area where we will ask for some real partnership from NOP. It will be hard for certifiers to make this paradigm shift, especially when a certifiers’ accreditation is on the line. We trust that we will get feedback from NOP on our efforts and we are eager to partner with NOP on trainings for inspectors, certification staff, and NOP accreditation staff, to ensure we’re all aligned.

This is going to be a big change, and so many of us are student overachievers and we’re going to need to lean in, together, to the discomfort of knowing when good enough is good.

Thank you.

Questions

Brian Caldwell: Just wondering, do you think certifiers will be able to in some way change their fee scale so higher risk operations would be charged for?

Marni: I think that would be a question we would work through in this group. What does this look like and how do we use our resources. Don’t speak for any individual certifier. But that’s not up to me, it’s up to certifiers.

Kyla Smith: Want to echo comments and say: super pumped about this topic. Looking forward to partnering with ACA and NOP. Collaboration is super important.

Amy Bruch: You mentioned AI and technology. How long will organic program be without integration of AI?

Marni: I don’t know a lot, but aren’t there tools out there that we should be using. Echo what John Foster said, with inspectors walking in prepared with best and highest use of their skill. When we put our heads together, I think we would be remiss if didn’t think about using all the tools in the toolbox. We should be leaning into AI and thinking about it.

Bill Wolf – Wolf & Associates Inc – Crops; Handling; Livestock; Materials; General

I’m Bill Wolf, CEO of Wolf & Associates, and Second Star Farm. Thanks, to every NOSP member, for your great work, and a special shout-out to the 5 retiring members.

For 50-plus years, earthworms have guided my organic farming practices and my mission to increase organic acreage, and sequestration of carbon, for a healthier world. Obviously, what they prefer has been my teacher.

That passion has led me to launch numerous organic businesses, nonprofits, and help hundreds of growers and handlers, and recently be appointed to the Rodale Institute Board. My worms didn’t want to fly to this meeting. We talked about that in the spring. Thankfully, local relatives volunteered to be here.

Please consider our many earthworm-friendly written comments about sunset and essentiality in the national list. I’d like to be happy to answer any questions about those, but today comments are about risk-based residue testing, and inerts.

Risk-based scrutiny is basic to most inspection and safety protocols, and already a component of fraud prevention and organic system plans.

If we target high risk regions, crops, trade, high-risk drops, trade channels and bad actors with unannounced inspections and focused sampling.

We’ll get the job done. I especially appreciate that NOP, in their July 11th announcement, plans to update guidance [26 through 2613] thank you.

Regarding risk-based residue testing. I ask that you consider the recommendations in our white paper on risk based risk based residue. We need targeted sampling and less burden on farmers, especially US low-risk farmers that are constantly dealing with Europe contamination. Let’s coordinate testing costs and publish the results.

Finally, inerts. Really, carriers. The materials committee proposal, I believe, is moves the route, moves this forward and solves the current roadblock.

Innovation needs to happen. We need to get US farmers the tools they need to compete with imports. The options on list 4 don’t provide those tools. I recognize that this is not a perfect solution, but it’s time to move forward. The ideal solution would in fact be complete transparency and disclosure. So it’s urgent that we collaborate to increase US organic acreage.

Thank you very much.

Questions

Dilip: What’s in the bucket?

Bill Wolf: TSA would not give permission for earthworms to fly. We had a collaboration between two consulting agencies. Gwendolyn provided some earthworms and they can speak up. Brought them as co-speakers.

Milo Petruziello – Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association (OEFFA) – General

Good afternoon; I am Milo Petruziello. (I know, it’s an mouthful.) I’m policy director at Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association; our organic certification program certifies about 100 farmers and food processors in 12 states, and our policy work represents a broad coalition of farmers, gardeners and food advocates across Ohio in our certification region. I appreciate the opportunity to comment on behalf of organization and our members.

A few comments on crop insurance and inerts.

First, I would like to thank the NOSB for shining light on the critical need for an effective and accessible safety net for organic farmers. The proposal reflects much of what we have heard from the farmers we serve and we appreciate the board taking the time to listen to them and address their concerns.

Risk management agencies’ recent rule allowing organic enterprise units is a win for transitioning grain farmers in particular, and demonstrates that this board’s efforts are already yielding real results. So we appreciate it.

And still, the proposal rightly points out there’s much work to be done, and we support the proposal, and wish to highlight a few key areas for improvement for RMA’s consideration.

So purchasing a crop insurance policy should be as smooth for an organic farmer as it is for a conventional one. Whole-farm revenue protection needs further reforms to reduce the paperwork burden on diversified producers and incentivize agents to write the policies.

We very much appreciate the goal of the transition production plan. However, its current format is nearly as rigorous as no OSP and largely relies on open-ended questions.

Producers often need a lot of help building an OSP for the first time and the same might be true of a TPP.

This is a significant burden, considering low organic T-yields remain a problem — as the proposal also rightly points out — and transitioning producers do not yet benefit from the organic premium.

So we would ask that the TPP be simplified, or RMA accept a signed statement from a certifier or a top improvement or in lieu of a TPP or an OSP.

On the issue of inert ingredients in organic pesticides, OEFFA strongly supports option one and thanks the board for including it. Inert ingredients should be listed individually on the National List just like any other synthetic substance. OEFFA understands that this is the most labor-intensive approach; we really do. However, we think that grouping them by chemical type streamlines that review a sensible way to manage the workload and we feel strongly that’s the only way to fulfill the requirements. Most importantly, individually listing is the only way to guarantee organic farmers and their customers that the transparency and safety they deserve and expect from the organic label. Avoiding harmful synthetic pesticides is one of the primary reasons most people buy organic.

We believe that the average organic consumer would be shocked to know that synthetic inerts are included in organic pesticides with no scrutiny. I genuinely certainly was. And allowing in and pesticide formulations that are exempt from tolerance largely maintains the current lack of transparency, and risks public trust in organic that we cannot afford to lose.

We asked the board adopt option one, and demonstrate once again that organic is the gold standard for protecting human health and the environment. Thank you.

Questions

Nate Powell-Palm: Could you share how long it’s taken your team to complete these TPPs? I have found them to be incredibly efficient.

Milo: So I’m not a farmer, but I can say every farmer I’ve run this by in our working group has said it looks alot like an OSP for them and it would be better to pick a certifier and work with their OSP. Farmers feel quite strongly they shouldn’t have to fill out something as comparable as OSP. They aren’t getting the organic premium and if working with folks in transition, they are not necessarily comfortable thinking about farming as a system.

Nate Powell-Palm: Are they receiving direct technical assistance?

Milo: If they know to ask for it, they are receiving it. A lot of cases, they are doing it between other farmers. Grain chapter of OEFFA is very active.

Jaydee Hanson – Center for Food Safety – Livestock; Materials

I’m Jaydee Hansen, policy director at Center for Food Safety, speaking quickly on three topics.

First is compost. We have serious reservations and strongly disagree with the allowance of so-called compostable packaging as an organic feedstock. The current ASTM standards do not require that compostable materials be broken down into their basic components — just that 90% are broken down into smaller sizes.

The issues of microplastics, and now nanoplastics, are just starting to come to the forefront of environmental consideration. And NOSB and NOP must not allow for these synthetic plastics to be intentionally added to organic compost.

We also must know about which plasticizers are used in the plastics, and whether compostable packaging contains PFAS, [orthophalates], and bisphenols — whether added intentionally or not. These chemicals have negative implications for human and environmental health. And you’ve heard me talk at other meetings about PFAS. I will fast forward about that.

But we have the experience of farmers in Maine and other places that can’t grow, because their compost was contaminated with PFAS. We don’t want anything that encourages more of that.

Inert chemicals. The Center for Food Safety believes that without individual review of each chemical on a pesticide, there is no way to fulfill the [offer] criteria of evaluating synthetic substances for their effects on the environment and human health, or for their necessity to organic production.

Moreover, the EPA’s limited review process for inerts is far weaker than even its flawed process for evaluating active ingredients. EPA inert regulation is an ad-hoc affair with no standard data requirements; their classes of inerts are approved based on arbitrary, limited data, for just a few; EPA often relies on guesstimates of inert toxicity.

The Center for Food Safety has had a damn hard time getting responses to our FOIA requests about EPA’s work on inerts; and we just had it turned down, and we’ll have to sue to get our FOIA request on inerts answered by the EPA.

Thank you very much.

Questions

Amy: You mentioned farmer challenges with PFAS and some of the areas and growers that are taking production out of circulation. We are familiar with Maine and areas in TX. Are there other known hotspots you know of?

Jaydee: Been told by Dept of Ag in state to take it out of production. I think we’re going to see hot spots any place have been for a long time disposing of our compost on farmland. Even in my home state of Virginia doesn’t allow using sludge on farmland like they allow it on forestry land right next to farmland. It’s going to end up in every state. We have not been excluding all these PFAS substances from sludge for a long time.

Allison: I know you have done a lot of works on inerts and trying to get stronger oversight from EPA. Are there any categories we could defer to EPA as far as meeting OFPA criteria?

Jaydee: I think one of the things that NOP could do is push the EPA for better disclosure. When we finally get stuff back from the EPA it’s almost entirely redacted. Europe doesn’t allow this. If human health effects, you have to disclose it and explain. I hope next administration will push EPA to get off this excessive confidential business information and let the people know what they’re getting.

Brian: You mentioned you thought hotspots were where compost was applied?

Jaydee: I meant sewage sludge. You also have our comments on induced mutagenesis in writing.

Kendall Meadows – 3 Creeks Produce (presence sponsored by OEFFA) – Seed Issues

Kendall Meadows, 3 Creeks Produce in Columbus, Ohio. First, thank you to the board; I’m honored and grateful that the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association prioritized bringing farmers to this meeting. And I’d also like to thank my outstanding crew for holding down our farm during one of the most busy times of the year so that I could be here.

My spouse and I are first-generation, early-career growers. We grow 7 acres of diversified organic vegetables. And again, we are proudly certified organic. Somewhat uniquely, we primarily serve wholesale customers who have really high expectations for volume and quality.

We rely on vetted seed varieties that have the characteristics that are important to our buyers and perform well in our systems and in our climate.

Seed varieties are very much not interchangeable on a compact and a highly diversified farm; each and every seed matters.

We’ve grown dispirited by some of the characterizations of the commercial availability provision as a loophole. I can’t speak to the motivations or intents of others, but my preference is always for organic seed. And despite this prioritization for sourcing and trialing organic varieties, we still find that we are purchasing a significant amount of conventionally-produced untreated seed.

In fact, my records do indicate that our seed purchasing has plateaued — as has been the claim from folks present at this meeting. But I would posit that the plateauing effect is a result of the gaps in the seed marketplace, and not its cause.

Organic seed production should indeed be a priority, and I acknowledge its unique risks and challenges. But it’s precisely those challenges that make it even more apparent to me that a commercial availability provision for seed is not a loophole, but rather an essential and sensible compromise that allows me to remain viable, meet my market need when I lack the significant influence on purchasing or demand of seed.

I feel that further restricting our seed options could have the unintended impact of less organic production of crops, or even producers.

I understand that the board needs to address this important issue with its established scope and tools. But even if a change in the standards or its enforcement would have the intended positive impact on the seed organic seed demand in the long term.

I am a bit uneasy, putting certifiers in the potential role of determining what would constitute commercial availability adequately. How would they judge and measure opaque concepts, like continuous improvement? How would that be fairly measured, or for anyone else to judge what threshold of [your boss], or any other performance expectation, should be acceptable to replace one of my favorite varieties.

A speaker referenced some pain to start and change to this area, and while I’d welcome that change, I’m also someone who would acutely feel pain. I want to encourage the NOSP to consider centering and considering the needs of organic producers, and small ones, when determining a path forward.

Thank you.

Questions

Nate Powell-Palm: Huge shout out to OEFFA for bringing in person public comments. With seed discussion, appreciate your perspective. Could you speak to what you see as the catalyst that would grow your business I haven’t heard from many farmers about tightening the organic seed marketplace.

Kendall: It would be great to have a complete start-to-finish, seed-to-sale organic supply chain. In the interim, I guess I would say, as a small producer, I’m at the mercy of the dynamic seed market. In the specialty veg market, every region and every farm, has specific growing conditions, it seems impossible — even though I know it isn’t. Market demand might come from a change in regulation, but as for me, I would be faced with not meeting customer demands or choosing not to be certified.

Nate Powell-Palm: Follow up. What good does strengthening organic seed rule do for you as a farmer?

Kendall: If I weren’t ideologically aligned with farming organically, I’d be doing something else. As a veg farmer, I would hope I would benefit from high quality seed and also want to support them in what they do. Our competition is: we don’t have direct customer interaction where I can say, “our kale looks different.” Buyers often never meet me; they just see what’s in the box.

Amy: Risk-based certification. Heard about SOE. How many seed options are you putting in your OSP? How many varieties?

Kendall: I can think of up to five ways of how we measure our seeds — whether that’s number of seeds, dollar value of seed purchased, dollar value of produce sales, you know, so that’s a kind of a difficult question. About 89 entries on my spreadsheets.

Amy: What amount of time on OSP is spent on seed entry?

Kendall: My spouse handles our OSP. We entered organic farming with an advantage in that we were able to keep records from the beginning. Our shopping for seeds is based on what we need to provide to our certifier. We are trying. And we trial organic varieties every year, sometimes at the invitation of seed companies we work with.

Allison Johnson: Appreciate you drawing our attention to language that we are using. We don’t intend to imply producers aren’t caring about sourcing organic seed. Think most are doing best they can. As we look at options available to you, I’m curious to know what would help you. Sounds like your buyers are playing a significant role and anything else that would help you try more types of seeds, try varieties, what would be helpful to you.

Kendall: Answer in 2 parts. It’s a concern of mine is the ability to try new varieties; it will be difficult if we have a stricter provision. Proudly representing radiccio and chicory market: the unique varieties we are trying and exploring are not likely to be certified organic when we try them. We don’t want restriction on trying new things. Other tools: I would like to see help to seed producers to alleviate the significant financial risk to bringing seeds to market. Alleviating risk most often translates to money. Modified crop insurance options in case of crop failure, grants for development.

Brian Caldwell: Thanks for coming from Ohio. When you’re worried about restricting options, can’t try new variety, is that what you’re saying? Commonly try new varieties? I know about wanting prime variety for the that crop. Harder to find organic for certain varieties?

Kendall: It depends but I think it could. Crops like high performing hybrid varieties, carrots are tough, brassicas are tough. Varieties of curly kale are hard to find that do well on our specific farm.

Michael Crotser – Director of Certification, CROPP/OV – Crops; Materials

I’m Mike Crotser. I’m the certification director at CROPP Cooperative. We appreciate the work at the NOSB and the NOP to support organic agriculture; thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Before I begin, I want to take a moment and thank all the accredited certifiers. It’s been a period of change and I want to acknowledge the increased expectations as certifiers. This work includes the organic livestock and poultry, origin of livestock, and strengthening of organic enforcement standards. It’s your work that’s essential to bring our farmers products to market.

My first comment will be on residue testing. We appreciate the board’s work for continued improvement for the Np’s residue testing program. Ensuring the organic integrity of our supply chain is essential and the residue testing program is critical at protecting our market. We support a targeted approach to improve the program’s efficacy, assembling a comprehensive risk assessment tool and testing program would serve the industry well.

This would include identifying at-risk prohibited materials by reviewing and summarizing findings from the USDA pesticide data program and the collective work of certifiers. Now that operations must have a fraud prevention plan, additional risks could be identified by private. The goal should be to test for fraud where fraud exists, then augment that testing for lower-risk crops.

Although progress has been made, it seems like the certifiers and the NOP are not readily sharing information about the root cause of positive tests. Sharing information could yield basic information such as our positive test results associated with the failure of an organic system plan, environmental contamination, or fraudulent activities.

My next comment will be about iodine and the proposed annotation change. Our business will need time to process this proposed change and to determine the impact on our business. We feel the certifiers are also sorting this out. One certifier, well-versed in livestock materials, reached out to us to understand the context of APEs and teat-dips and disinfectants. We were unable to help. To our knowledge, the organic industry has not been asking if APEs are present in teat dips.

CROPP already prohibits the use of NPEs and livestock products. NPE free products are readily available. Being said, CROPP as a business does not cast or monitor for APEs in the same manner which we have for NPEs.

One major manufacturer told us that if a product is labeled as NPE-Free, it will also not contain [ease], and another manufacturer confirmed that MPEs are not available in their Teat-dips, but did not provide input on APEs. Reasoning for the inputs is that we just didn’t have time before this meeting.

More APE research and information should be gathered and understood before there is an annotation prohibiting its use.

Questions

Nate Lewis: If NPE free, that also means APE free?

Michael: If it’s labeled at NPE free it also includes APEs.

Kyla Smith: Some good connection here between work agenda item and final rule implementation. You work with producers of all sizes. If anything more specific about most beneficial in terms of risk based certification and how rule roll out could look better?

Michael: We have roughly 1700 farms, 70% from plain community. We have a couple seasoned certification specialists. We are telling people don’t freak out about fraud prevention plans. Supply chains are relatively simple.

Philip LaRocca – LaRocca Vineyards – General

Good afternoon, my name is Phil LaRocca, a long time organic farmer, a long time organic processor. I sit, at present, as a member of the California Organic Product Advisory Board, and I am Chairman of the Board of Directors for CCOF. Thank you for your patience and your time, and thank you for the opportunity to do oral comments. And I was running a little late; I’m over 70, never pass up a bathroom. So here I am now.

A couple of topics. My first one is inerts.

So I was around in the very, very early days of the formulation of the NOP, and inerts was a big topic. It was we tossed it around a lot, and the bottom line was: we’re young. It was the first time all the certifiers were getting together under one seal. The industry was confused, so we lifted up the carpet and we rushed him under the table, and said, one of these days we’ll have to deal with it. Well, here we are.

People are talking about it now, which means the industry wants to know what’s going on with these inerts!

We have to remember that the backbone of the organic industry is integrity. So if the industry and the people, the culture, want to know what the inerts are about: It’s time that we look at it, and take a deep look at what these inerts are all about. This is not going to be easy as it was, back, 20-some-odd years ago — it’s not going to be easy now. But the fact is: it needs to be done.

My second topic I want to deal with is cost share. You know, it’s a little bit absurd that we’re struggling for $750 and we’re a multi-billion dollar industry. It actually hurts me that I have to deal with this issue. Just recently with the state of California, I did a tour of some of our organic farms. And we did three farms: two were pretty large, 1500 acres [in Bega]. We talked about cost share. They basically said: “it’s ridiculous for us to spend this much time for 750 bucks. What about $3000? For $3,000 we could spend the time.”

So we need to look at this. We need to help our organic farms out. We’re all hanging in there the best we can, and $750 is — quite frankly is embarrassing. We were at $1500 and it got lowered. I think that number should be at $3000.

Now, since we’re on a topic of money, I’m going to really throw something out at you. I think that certified organic forms should be subsidized. And first I thought this was a kind of a unique idea until yesterday at the NOC meeting, when some of our seed growers came up and said, we could do a lot better if we were subsidized.

So it’s — there it is. We have farms, we’ve subsidized a lot of farms — and I’m pro-subsidy, because farming is really a tough job. You go up against a lot of stuff. We need help. I have rice grower friends and if it wasn’t for the subsidy they flat couldn’t make it.

Come out and say, so here we are. We subsidized grain crops. Fabulous. I’m all for it. Yeah, I’m from California where we grow — we’re the leader in organic and conventional produce — and they call it “specialty crops.” It should be called “necessity crops,” and there’s nothing better than an organic necessity crop, right?

(No questions)

Scott Rice – Industry Trade Association (OTA) – CACS; Materials; General

Good afternoon. My name is Scott Rice. I’m the Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs at the Organic Trade Association, and I also serve on the board of directors of the Organic Materials Review Institute. As the leading voice for organic trade in the US, OTA’s mission is to grow and protect organic with a unifying voice that serves and engages its diverse members from farm to marketplace.

OTA offered written comments on a slate of topics on behalf of our members, and rather than try and highlight these in these three minutes, I’m happy to answer any specific questions you may have on these in a little over two minutes from now.

As I thought about what I wanted to share with you today, I look back on my own time on the board and the comments that brought value and insight to my decision-making. Some of the most beneficial speakers and comments answered the granular details of thorny technical topics. Others capitalized on the power of first-hand stories and experienced illustrate a point of view or need. It is the latter that I draw on today. I’ve been able to visit many farms over the years and see for myself the challenges producers face, the tools they rely on, the ingenuity they employ.

As we often hear, weeds are one of the greatest challenges — and even with the amazing ingenuity of timing or density of plantings and calculated cultivations, plastic mulch still stands as one of the best tools to control weeds. And while the standards require the removal of plastic mulch at the end of the season, weather, exposure, and the practicalities of farm machinery and movement in the field, see some of this degrade before it can be removed. Despite farmers’ best efforts, I see more plastic fragments than I care to admit, and it pains me that there is still no alternative available.

While we may be uncomfortable with some biodegradable synthetics, we must ask “to what degree are we comfortable with the continued use of non-biodegradable or non-compostable plastics and synthetic microplastics that don’t break down at all?” Perfect solutions are rare, and trade-off decisions must be made in the context of real-world challenges.

I will note this is not the producer’s problem alone. It is no secret that plastic proliferates in the products we reach for at the grocery; much thought and work is underway in that sector of the industry as well.

But we have an opportunity to take a fresh look, and position organic as a leader in reducing plastic. With the response to NOP’s 2023 memo to the board on biodegradable bio-based mulch film requested at or before spring 2025.

And the question of whether, or how many, synthetic degradable substances should be allowed in organic compost. I encourage the board to take the opportunity to challenge itself to explore some of these trade-offs and the impact of not engaging in efforts to reduce reliance on conventional plastics. I believe we can find a balanced solution that safeguards our soil, water, our health, provides growers the tools they need and upholds the trust and faith consumers have in the organic label.

So all of you, thank you for your concerted and thoughtful effort on this. And all the issues before you. And especially to the five who see their free time returning on the horizon, a big chant, big thanks to your service and the organic community.

Questions

Wood Turner: I think I’ve landed in place that plastics I can see are better to manage than those I can’t.

Scott: If there are plastics we can be comfortable with, that have degradability that’s not making microplastics, I would say that is a win over conventional plastics. We did a lot of work on the board, when I was where you are, hearing the options available 5-10 years ago. You have 5 members coming on. You have biodegradable mulch film coming back for review. Look to see if there has been innovation where we can be comfortable for not relying on conventional plastics.

Nate Lewis: Seems in my observation looking at non-biodegradable and biodegradable plastics in a vacuum – we haven’t looked at them in the context of a crop. If we discussed all of that in one big conversation in relation to 205.206 — is that a good way to approach this? Don’t want to repeat history, and wonder if additional context would be helpful.

Scott: I think any fresh idea is welcome. Don’t encourage anyone to go down the same road again, and with five new people you have to go down the road a little bit. There’s a lot of good work being done on this in field trials. I won’t be surprised if expert panel shows alternatives in interim time. Any ideas good to move beyond conventional plastics.

Jerry: We talked during the break. There is nothing in the 5 years that’s disturbed me more than the topic of plastic. An acre covered by a layer of plastic, with fumigants put under it. Layers of plastic in tunnels. This problem isn’t 1-on-1 as I see it, it’s 1-on-3. The NOP needs to act. We are a 3% footprint and I don’t think organic can move the needle. The alternative can’t be as cheap as what’s going on now. Question for the community: this has to be handled by someone who has more shops than we do.

Scott: Fair question. We still represent a small percentage of overall ag. We are also innovators and we have done things people said we never could. $70 billion industry now, taken seriously, consumers take label seriously. Consumer base looks to us to be the gold standard. Can’t be gold standard for everything, but we are using as much plastic as conventional. We need to show way forward and that adds to value of our brand.

Jerry: I agree. I would like to get the manufacturer in there [to participate].

Tom Chapman – Industry Trade Association (OTA) – CACS; General

Good afternoon, everybody; Tom Chapman, coseat of the Organic Trade Association; long time listener, first time commenter. So please give me some grace as I get used to this 3-minute box.

We have a trifecta here of 2017 to 2019 NOSB alumni. I’m both honored and humbled; honored to be the meat in the alumni sandwich following Scott and being followed by Steve, and humbled to follow and be followed by two very dedicated organic advocates that I know very well. The three of us know more than most the burden of service — not just from being away from our farms, families and work, but being asked to pick up the mantle of trying to represent all of agriculture, food-related businesses as well as the environment, consumers, and other interests. It takes a lot and I thank you all for your service.

I’m happy to respond to any additional questions that the board may have on OTA’s comments to the best of my abilities, but with my jokes now filed, I want to turn to my favorite topic, which is perspective.

4676. Do you all know what that number represents?

Well, of course, the 2900th anniversary of America’s independence. It’s also the date that we would get to 80% organic agricultural land in America at our current growth rate.

Can we wait till 4676? We have some complex issues to manage. Fraud, the burden of certification, the appropriate government support for organic, consumer education — and many, many more topics. I ask you to keep this number in mind when you make decisions; will those decisions accelerate or decelerate that date, when organic becomes the foundation of American agriculture?

Second comment is also on perspective, but commingled with process.

I like my math. 110,108 words. That’s the number of words in the fall meeting packet. Google tells me you would take 7.2 hours to read all of that. If we wanted 20% of the 27,000 US operators to respond and comment into the National Organic Standards Board, that’s the equivalent of 19 full-time jobs. 117 questions; that’s the number of questions I counted in the packet; 5 minutes per question — I think a very conservative estimate — but amount of time it takes to respond. Good question. 20% of 27,000 operations, 52,000 hours; 26 full-time jobs.

We’re nowhere near 20% of operators commenting here. I think we’ve been very thankful that the folks that we do have come and speak and provide written comments to the board.

I know they were very odd when I was on the board. But we need to increase the accessibility. A simple start to consider: an executive summary, perhaps? With it broken out by scope or segments, as well as a summary of questions.

But I ask you all to really consider the experience of your community, of the farmers, of the small businesses, of the big businesses and the stakeholders that all want to support you in this important process.

So thank you again.

Questions

Allison Johnson: Appreciate the attachment of numbers to the pain of going through the agenda. Also think there are places where we could have said more. Should we take on fewer things at a time? Should we talk more and write less?

Tom Chapman: Appreciate the position you are in. I heard stakeholders give the same comments. Encourage the use of panels. I struggled to get the answers through public comment when I was on the NOSB. I think we have an under-reliance of technical panels. No one is going to comment on everything besides OTA. Make things more accessible so people can find exactly what they want to comment on. I burned out on the NOSB. I think you need to look at what you tackle.

Nate Lewis: Attracting new Board members to the process – turnover. I want people not to feel scared to come on the Board. Will your statistics scare people off? We’re talking about balance. Not burning out the Board, but also feel there is a need to perfect everything, and that’s barrier to those considering – how do we attract folks to the Board?

Tom Chapman: Run. Making sure you have that balance and support. Support of NOSB specialists make it more realistic. But there need to be limits on what we ask NOSB to do. Progress is what we should be striving for, not perfect.

Brian Caldwell: more numbers and ideas, but we have probably over 100 million consumers/eaters of organic food that are big part of this equation. We have groups that consolidate input and foster discussion and funnel it to us. Response to that?

Tom Chapman: 100%. They have to have the time and capacity to carry out those conversations. It’s important we are hearing those voices. We have to embrace continuous improvement.

Amy Bruch: What is the catalyst to grow? Quote from you in May 2024 about market share – “we still have plenty of room to grow.” How do we get there quicker?

Tom Chapman: It’s going to take all of us. I don’t have the answers. We need to ensure the organic seal is valued and valuable. If it’s trusted, consumers will pay for it. That’s a big piece of where we need to go: we need consumers to be willing to invest money into their health, farmworker health, etc. It’s going to take cultural change and support from the government. Support programs need to be designed to support these areas. We have segments of our market that are 1% and some that are 15%. Other countries have different tools. We need to stay focused on the growth. Grow and protect organic until it’s the foundation of American agriculture.

Steve Ela – Organic Farmer; National Organic Coalition – All

Well, apparently this is the sliced bread portion of the comments here. My name is Steve Ela; I’m an organic tree fruit grower outside the small town of Hotchkas, Colorado; former NOSB member and a staff member of the National Organic Coalition, and today I present comments on the behalf of the NOC members.

I wish to back all the comments of Alice Runde. We, as an organic community, need to pay careful attention to racial and social equity. The NOSB should have racial equity as a standing work agenda item, and there should be training for all incoming board members. For some, the training is redundant, but for others, such as myself, it would have been helpful.

Crops. NOC supports the compost definition in this fall proposal. While we share the sentiments of other organizations that compost feedstocks should only be of plant or animal origin, we also believe that the potential addition of any synthetic feedstock is a National List issue, and is clearly under the jurisdiction of the board.

Inert materials. NOC has consistently supported option one for inert materials; we believe this is the only option that provides transparency and evaluation according to [OFPA] criteria.

We strongly oppose option 2. This is the first time that option 2 has been discussed, and it has serious flaws in that it only evaluates the human health effects of pesticide residues in food, but does very little to evaluate the health effects on applicators, farmers, farm workers, and environmental harm.

Furthermore, option 2 suffers from the same issues as other [masks] listings; while, theoretically, community members could petition to remove a problematic material, there’s no way for the public to even know what materials are being used. At a minimum, there has to be transparency of what materials are being allowed.

Furthermore, this option puts the onus on the public for removal of synthetic substances from the list, rather than the board reviewing substances to add to the list.

Livestock. I know this is going to be like the lightning rod, but NOC opposes the proposal to add meloxicam to the National List. It should be sent back to [subcommittees]. While we believe that meloxicam could be useful in organic production and maybe should be approved at some point, the current proposal falls short.

I know it may feel like you have been working on this for a considerable time. However, for the public, there has only been 30 days for comment. All the other discussions have been private small groups, telephone calls, and subcommittee. I’ve had several people tell me they believe the board had already made its decision before this proposal even hit the public sphere.

And this is a terrible optic for a board that should pride itself on transparency and inclusivity. Question should be about whether there’s widespread community sport and if not what can be done to make it better.

The science that has been cited must be presented to the public, either as a TR or if the board did its own TR as that TR being attached to the proposal. I believe in the expertise of the board, but we need to be able to see that data as well on this side of the fence, not just in internal discussions of the board. Further, the annotation stating withdrawal periods must be added, and it must be include both meat and milk.

As the National Organic Coalition (NOC), I do need to end with a knock-knock joke, and it is about Halloween. So Kyle, if you would indulge me, knock knock. (Who’s there?) Boo hoo. Kim, do you want to answer this? This is like a dad joke of — why are you crying? But I’m gonna finish with a different way and say kambu. Sea weed and [walkingesa] seaweed and fish oil.

The board must continue to work with the NOP to find ways to protect marine ecosystems, and, better, make sure that marine ecosystems are protected. So thank you. Thanks, Steve.

Questions

Nate Lewis: You all mentioned not having enough warning related to methionine annotation change. How do we get annotation process right and way to communicate to stakeholder community? Want to make sure folks know it’s happening and can comment.

Steve Ela: Always a tension between quick action and lots of transparency and notification. We follow subcommittee notes – so put something in subcommittee notes so people can have a heads up on that. Lots of things get talked about in the NOSB meeting but don’t necessarily get worked on. Applaud working more on annotations.

Kim Huseman: Liked your segway into marine materials. Got tripped up and has to do with collagen gel and gelatin. Talked on subject of commercial availability and NOC position wants more info on what supply is sufficient. I’m asking stakeholders the exact same question?

Steve Ela: NOC is a membership group, but we don’t have direct touch with manufacturer or growers. Tough one to answer. Expert panels are useful. Do we need to be creative in who to reach out to for comment? Do we know who they are. Need to be more creative.

Kim: 606 manufacturer panel? So many times being succinct and plagiarism is also okay term to use. What’s the barrier to taking it off the list?

Steve Ela: So when Jerry first got on the NOSB we had colors – that question was very real. Some may be commercially available, some may not. He had the time to reach out to manufacturers. We recommended delisting 5 of them, and they slid through to rulemaking. Having time to reach out to manufacturers was key.

Nate Powell-palm: Zooming out. Heard some concerning feedback on how we establish expertise when reviewing materials. I have heard some feedback as kind of anti-science. How do we decide we are a community that values science?

Steve Ela: Science-based person, and I think my comments are saying that. With meloxicam – is the science transparent though? We were not aware of what information the NOSB was working off of. If it is actually science-based, then put it in proposal so we all can evaluate it as a community. It’s not in the PPM, then show us what you did. Then it becomes science based.

Nate Powell-palm: Backing up to xylazine, etc. With AMDUCA what is enough for explaining how the world works, removing veterinary license. We are saying “x number of days” for withdrawal and it’s on the license of the veterinarian.

Steve Ela: I don’t think that’s general knowledge. A lot of public doesn’t know that. How many vets know that – not something I would assume that all of them know that. Organic regulations are not often known by everybody. Put withdrawal period in annotation and it also gives certifier something to come back to. What I heard in public comments is that it isn’t zero. You can test at many different levels. To me, be clear, put it in annotation then it’s all done.

Brian Baker – ORGTracker, a project of Heartland Health Research Alliance

Thank you, members of the board, for the opportunity to speak and the good work. I’m Brian Baker, speaking today on behalf of ORGTracker, a project of the Heartland Health Research Alliance. ORGTracker is a multifaceted tool to improve the safety and quality of organic food.

Please consider these constructive comments on risk-based certification, pesticide residue testing in the global supply chain, and inert ingredients in pesticide formulations; please refer to our written comments.

Risk-based certification. The NOSB should prioritize health and food safety risk above all others. Scientific evidence, including data from the U.S.A.’s pesticide data program, shows that organic food significantly reduces dietary risks from exposure of pesticides. Organic standards can still further reduce those risks with residue testing.

ORGTracker is a tool that can identify crops and regions that are hotspots to be targeted as high risk for pesticide contamination, getting certifiers to pool resources and partner with the PDP. Can leverage other residue tests that will result in a more effective and efficient program today detect high-risk pesticides in organic food. The PDP and FDA need to share their results with certifiers in real time if enforcement is to be a priority.

Our comments also take a fresh look at avoidable residual environmental contamination and what levels are obviously below beyond the control of operators, that’s an unfinished task for the NOSB.

Inert ingredients are, as we prefer to say, co-formulants. Unlabeled ingredients and crop protection products used in organic production are an issue that predates OFPA and subsequent reforms to pesticide regulations. We urge the NOSB to weigh the risk posed by all ingredients used in organic production and handling. Each ingredient in any given pesticide formulation is there for a reason. Undisclosed co-formulants are often more toxic than low-risk labeled ingredients allowed for use in organic production.

We cannot support either option as written. Each has merits. Both have flaws. Both expand the NOSB workload beyond capacity. The proposed options do not explain how the NOSB chooses to evaluate such formulas. Our comments propose a compromised solution, that takes the best of both options. Before making a final recommendation, the NOSB should request a technical review of all co-formulas in current use by organic producers and handlers, and develop a procedure to add and subtract from that list, before it recommends any specific substances to be added to the national list.

The options are two speeding trains on the same track, heading towards each other. If the NOSB passes the both options as written, a train wreck — with a pending federal election — will occur. We urge the NOSB to withdraw both proposed options, keep the current rule and recommend a consensus solution that merges the best of both proposed options. Thank you.

Questions

Amy: Appreciate written comments you and Chuck submitted. Can you provide more insight on availability of data on conventional crops. You mentioned setting of mean of data, where does that data reside?

Brian: Data set resides in pesticide data program of AMS. It is very extensive, very well curated, rigorous program that limits quantification below those in regulations. Low residues in alot of samples in organic food. Less than ½ are contaminated. Often result of drift or residues for which there are no tolerances b/c they were applied to another crop for which that pesticide was labeled and drifts onto a crop for which it was not labeled. Not farmer’s fault. That’s why important to understand what conventional levels are adn what might be potential fraud and what doesn’t require further investigation in a risk-based system.

Patrik Barr – Bright Pharma Caps, Inc – Handling

Hi, I’m Patrik Barr. I’m the Vice President and Sales director of Bright Pharma Caps. We’re the ones that have produced the organic certified pullulan capsules. Kess, my wife, that helped write the patent and started the company, did the talk yesterday and — I don’t know how many of you heard that, but she decided not to get in too deep into pullulan. Anybody wants to know a lot about it, I’ve got handouts.

But the big thing today is — this is what we’re talking about. I brought an organic certified capsule for every one of you. You can taste and feel it. It’s unlike any other capsule. It’s clear. It’s flexible. It runs better. And we’re really proud of them.

You guys got a lot to be proud of too. I’ve just researched quickly on some statistics. And the organic food, I saw numbers over 50 billion dollars. Well, that’s what the natural supplement industry is too. Not in the organics, but it’s becoming a bigger part. The capsule is the preferred delivery method, and it’s only when we brought these out that they could get the little green seal and have it organic certified.

And as I say, you get the green seal, your product will fly off the shelf. So it’s been a struggle, and as you know, all the organic farmers — it’s not easy.

We had have had these on the market over 10 years, we’re still the only one. If it was easy, there’d be others.

And this is not the first time pullulan’s been to the NOSB rodeo; years ago, when Oregon Tilth represented us, he said, “You should have been a fly on my shoulder,” to hear what was going on then — because nobody knew it. Now I’ve been in a room where I’ve heard it repeatedly said correctly, and I want to thank you for that. And it’s something to be proud of, and proud of organic, and that we’ve done it. We’re doing really good.

There’s no issue on shortages. We’re only selling about 30% of what we could make right now and we can triple that growth. We’re happy to pull down lines that we do HPMC capsules on because we are dedicated to our organic.

Which brings up another thing, that if people have heard me talk before, is one of my pet peeves — is the equivalence let’s say, with the EU, they can bring in and get the USDA organic seal on a product that has an HPMC capsule — that has been on the prohibited list in the US, but because of that, they can bring a product in and get that seal.

That’s not fair to us, or our customers, that are really organic. And you know, it’s just something I try to say that people should be aware of. I think it may be, we’re trying to deal with it in the EU, but people need to hear that.

Thank you.

Questions

Allison: It’s exciting we have something that we could maybe pull off the list. We’ve heard from earlier comments that it could be complicated because pullulan is a non-agricultural listing. Is there a process difference for producing non-organic pullulan?

Patrik: I don’t want to stick my foot out in anybody’s business too much. There really isn’t other than details you know you have to go to maintain certification. HPMC is half price of organic. As I’ve heard about market driving some of it that could be it. Our material is superior to what’s out there. This is one thing we learned. When only supplier of conventional from Japan would have viscosity problems. We developed it and materials higher quality. I don’t see why there needs to be a difference. Market will drive it. Why would anybody buy un-organic if they can get organic. I think it will level itself out in the market. I get calls almost everyday saying this is what they’ve been looking for. Our growth is 40% in last year.

Dr. Meggan Hain – Organic Valley – Livestock (Meloxicam)

My name’s Dr. Meggan Hain. I’m a veterinarian and animal care specialist with Organic Valley. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. So I’d like to start by thanking the National Organic Standards Board and the Livestock subcommittee for their consideration and thorough review of the meloxicam petition.

I am one of the veterinarians who started the meloxicam petition, with the primary goal of providing organic farmers with practical pain control methods to provide the best welfare for their livestock.

We recognise the organic focus on limiting synthetic chemicals to only those which are reviewed, responsibly used, and deemed as necessary. We believe that meloxicam meets these requirements. The meloxicam petition was thoroughly reviewed, all the questions asked by the NOP of a petition substance.

In addition, the use of meloxicam in US livestock species is already strictly regulated by the Food and Drug Administration through the Animal Medical Drug Use Clarification Act, or AMDUCA.

This act strictly regulates the use of extra-label drugs, which meloxicam is in livestock species, and sets the responsibility on veterinarians to prescribe and oversee, as the recognized medical providers for livestock and the guardians of food safety.

Veterinarians are trained in medicine, including pathology (or the understanding of disease), pharmacology (or the understanding of medicines’ effects), and, finally, food safety, to ensure that food production from animals are safe for public consumption.

AMDUCA set strict limitations which include only using FDA approved human or medical drugs which have undergone safety testing, not allowing any drugs which could pose a risk to human safety, and limiting the use of extra-label drugs to the treatment of illness or the alleviation of suffering, so they cannot be used for growth promotion. Under AMDUCA, the veterinarian holds the responsibility and the risk of prescribing extra-label medications to food animal patients.

For meloxicam, there is a zero tolerance for meat and milk — meaning that the residue, any residue, is considered a violation.

In addition, if a residue is found, the FDA may take regulatory actions against the veterinarian, including warning letters, fines, injunctions (meaning the loss of a license), or criminal prosecution.

Finally, to answer the last question as to whether meloxicam, as a synthetic medication, is necessary in organic production. While I agree with natural treatments as the first line, I do not agree that we should use these treatments if we know that they are not the most effective, and that their use results in unnecessary pain or suffering.

Aspirin has also recently been removed from being able to be used in dairy cattle. This removes another option for our organic producers. So this just leaves flunixone, which is effective, but not as easy to give. Thank you.

Questions

Kim Huseman: Can you speak to what happens when a veterinarian’s license is at stake? That procedural process when practice is not adhered to?

Dr. Hain: In the case of a residue, the FDA will first go to the farm and do an investigation on what happened. Where was the medication from, was it prescribed by a vet, etc. Then they go to the veterinarian and the dose was set correctly, they ask whether the veterinarian took the necessary steps to ensure it’s not misused. It can then be taken to the veterinary board.

Nate Lewis: Can you paint a picture. You are at a farm and prescribing meloxicam. Do you have over a bottle of pills and hope for the best? What’s the process?

Dr. Hain: The process: any time we are looking at extra-label drugs is, establish medical need. Meloxicam we use to treat pain. We have to establish diagnosis and then species. If there is already an on-label FDAQ drug for that use, then we have to use that. If there is none, like with meloxicam, then we go to that. If I am not sure what withdrawal time would be, I reach out to food animal residue avoidance. They are a very specific group of veterinary pharmacologists. They do case-by-case recommendations and set the withdrawal. They don’t want residues either. If it is a species they do not have information on, they either say you can’t use that drug, or the animal can’t go into the food supply. I leave the bottle with the farmer, the dose, and the withdrawal. If it’s a farmer I don’t know well, I make sure they have a good way to separate the animal so they can establish the withdrawal period.

Brian Caldwell: First, how often are samples of meat tested for meloxicam? Do you know non-detect level? Back in the day, it would have been parts per million — now could be parts per billion? We don’t know specific test. Finally, there have been some concerns to human reactions and health effects to meloxicam. Are those health effects when the person takes meloxicam, or residue from meat or milk product? The side effects are tested at doses at more concentrated than residue on a food product?

Dr. Hain: Meloxicam is only tested randomly. With the penalties there, there is enough of an incentive not to take the chance. Detection level… for meloxicam where there is not an FDA food animal label there is no established tolerance. So some medications they establish tolerance… but for drugs like meloxicam they will test down as far as they can test. As far as the sensitivity that lab will test. If there is any residue at all that is considered a violation. The specific levels would be a question for a veterinary pharmacologist. Human reactions – meloxicam is a human drug. There have been human testing done because it’s a human drug. The side effects listed are from a full dose. The likelihood of seeing side effects from residues is negligible, it’s just a trace. If there are medications where there are concerns for human safety risks, those medications are not allowed in food animals. Bute is one not allowed.

Garth Kahl – Organic Integrity Cooperative Guild Inc; Independent Organic Services Inc; Common Treasury Farm – CACS; Handling; Livestock; Materials

Garth Kahl, Organic Integrity Cooperative Guild, Common Treasury Farm; grower, stockman, inspector, consultant, reviewer. Been in the industry a long time; thank you all for your service, and the NOP as well.

In the spirit of Halloween, I brought a few props along, to just prompt me to highlight a certain number of topics — you already have my written comments.

I’m wearing my bump hat, my hi-vis vest, my transportation worker identity card, I have my sampling kit here with tamper evident tape — thank you very much, CCOF — reminding me to say “Testing in the global supply chain.”

We need to be testing in the global supply chain with new criteria. We need to be looking for glyphosate. We need to be looking for organic solvents. And we need to be testing high up in the supply chain. We need to be going into ports. We need to be going into trans-loading facilities. We need to be going into rail facilities.

So certifiers, you can do this. You can ask your importers to do this. You can charge them more. You can get notice when they’re bringing in bulk shipments. It’s doable. Please see my comments.

Let’s talk about meloxicam briefly. This is a castration tool, it’s a castration bander. If you’re a ruminant animal, you’re going to get this; it’s rather painful — if you’re a male animal, and you need to be castrated, you’re going to get this. If you’re a piglet, you’re going to endure this scalpel. Okay? Ouch, I see people squirming here. This is why we need more options in our toolbox.

I had to follow Dr. Meggan. But, you know, meloxicam is needed. Our vets are saying that it’s needed, and as inspectors, we already have tools in our process on every organic dairy to look for milk diversion. So it’s there, it plugs in really well into our system. And I would urge the board to move it forward.

Let’s talk about induced mutagenesis with this head of broccoli. And this apple. So, as our seed breeders have told us in many of the comments, induced mutagenesis is out there. It’s been part of classical seed breeding since the 1930s. This broccoli, probably it or its parentage was developed with cell fusion, induced polyploid. This apple may have been a product of zapping the parentage with high levels of x-rays to induce mutagenesis. It’s part of classical seed breeding. We need it. We don’t want to go down that rabbit hole.

Last but not least, I brought an egg here. Okay, an egg — DL-methionine, it’s time to put this chicken to roost. Okay, we’ve been talking about this since the early “aughts,” since before the last time the NOSB meeting was here in Portland, and I attended, and we were talking about DL-methionine.

The position paper so well puts it — It didn’t work. We tried soldier larvae. We tried other pulses. It didn’t work. It’s time to clean DL-methionine.

Thank you very much. I welcome any questions.

Questions

Nate Lewis: You’re the inspector. Can you walk us through what your job is, to make sure producer adheres to withdrawal period for meloxicam?

Garth Kahl: Every organic farm has to track how they are prescribing medical inputs. And specifically any inputs with a withdrawal time – we see it flunixone, lidocaine, etc. — you have to show how you are ensuring withdrawal in OSP. Often the hospital pen will run through the parlor last, and the milk gets dumped. Robots can program it. Farms already have to do this, it’s already baked into the organic dairy checklist.

Kim Huseman: Just going to point out that we need a show and tell. You nailed it. I do think the practicality of bringing forth to this community and those not in attendance to have visual to understand it more closely. Question – we are not reinventing the wheel with meloxicam, we are putting another tool in the same vein of what’s happening. Does the producer have anything more to do than manage this tool?

Garth Kahl: they will have to work with their vet – required to have prescription. But no, they should not have to put any additional systems in place. They already have to record medications and withdrawal. It’s a key component of any inspection.

Amy: You mentioned in your written comments about the need for collaborative approach for certifiers so we can understand testing and these long complex supply chains. Can you touch on core components that are going to be necessary for that guidance document?

Garth Kahl: Guidance document touched on a lot of them. Need new guidance from NOP. Testing protocol is old. Not even looking at herbicides. We need training through ACA or IOIA or both. Sometimes taking representative samples, sometimes focused. Need to know what looking for depending on commodity. If looking at soybean meal, we should be looking for solvent residues. Need to know what to test for and how to test for. Collaborative environment is new for certifiers. Every year we need to be bringing back what happened studies. Supply chains are big and move fast. Certifiers need to collaborate.

Angela Wartes – Organic Integrity Cooperative Guild Inc; Fibrevolution Inc; Common Treasury Farm – CACS

Hi. My name’s Angela Wartes-Kahl. I represent the certified operations of Common Treasury Farm and Fibrevolution Inc, and also as member and consultant for Organic Integrity Cooperative Guild. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today, and I appreciate all of your work and dedication on the board.

I brought props, obviously. There’s a seed shortage occurring in fiber crops; you might not be aware of this. I want to highlight an example for you from our network: the PA Flax Project is the recipient of the OMDG grant with an impressive goal of transitioning 12,000 acres over organic fiber flax in Pennsylvania.

The annual seed requirement for a project of the size is 300,000 pounds of seed per year. Where’s the seed coming from? It’s not coming from the States yet. It’ll be imported from Europe until we can meet the demand with domestic seed production.

Or, that is what we thought — until climate change hit Western European seed suppliers for the last 3 years running with heat domes and dry springs. So they actually aren’t selling into the United States right now.

They aren’t the only project in North America working to revive fibre flax for them in production. Fibrevolution are planning to build a sketching mill to process 3,000 acres of flax a year here in Oregon. Quebec has a mill plan in the works. And then Wisconsin, then Vermont and so on. You can see that the growing need for organic seed with this new, historic — new/historic — crop!

To kick off the resurgence of domestic linen, we at Fibrevolution have focused on seed production since 2018 with independent seed breeder Jennifer Cling; it will take us several years to scale up and meet the future demand. I brought some of her collection of fiber flax varieties under evaluation. On this side over here, and then this is redded flax ready for sketching to release the fiber bundles, and here’s linen fibers grown in the Willamette Valley, right down the road. Her operation budget for the last 7 years of flax and oats — she’s also an oat-breeder, totals $180,000. There are not enough available research dollars to offset some of that expense for independent seed breeders.

So, let’s switch to the natural fiber powerhouse, cotton. Very little organic seed. Limited amount of non-GMO untreated seed available to fill the void. Breeding organic cotton seed with enough isolation from GMO crops is the biggest obstacle, by far, to building the supply — and without a stronger guidance from NOP, all cotton seed companies and growers will favor the non-GMO untreated option, over organic seed sources, at every opportunity.

We all know that seed for organic fibee crops is likely grown with synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, nervous sites. Time to tip the scales, and focus on organic seed breeding for forage crops, cover crops, and all grains.

The demand is there. If they make a t-shirt on it, there’s demand! Radicchio? There’s demand. Thanks.

Questions

Nate Powell-Palm: $187k a year or..? So I am hearing we need to have a larger investment in public seed breeding.

Angela: over 7 years she spent over $187,000. Bigger the better.

Cathleen McCluskey – Organic Seed Alliance – Crops

Good evening; my name is Dr. Cathleen McCluskey, and I’m the advocacy director for Organic Seed Alliance. We are a mission-driven organization that works to ensure organic farmers have the seed they need to be successful, and we achieve this goal through research, education, and advocacy.

My comments will focus on the certification accreditation compliance subcommittee’s consistency and organic seed use discussion document. We applaud the NOP and the NOSB for picking back up this issue.

OSA was founded in 2003 to fill a gap in formal instruction about organic seed improvement and production at a critical juncture, when NOP rules around organic seed became active. Relatively little certified organic seed was available at the time, and while we have seen incredible progress since then, the sector has experienced stagnation today.

Seeed systems are complex with interrelated functions of variety development, supply, dissemination, production and use, and (pertinent to this) meeting legal frameworks.

We are at an incredibly important choice point about whether we will evolve the organic sector to be built on and contribute to a thriving and resilient organic seed system — one in which the organic sector cultivates its power and innovation for germ plasm management, breeding, and seed production that aligns with the principles that built the organic movement.

This will take coalition building across the entire organic sector, and we know the immediate tasks in front of us. Growing the quality and quantity of the organic seed supply, recruiting and training more high quality organic seed producers and plant breeders. Knowledge flow about various production scales and systems. Critical assessment of how seed choice affects each touch point. I’m going to throw a public public breeding investments back in here, too — thank you Angela.

We strongly urge the NOP to prioritize the implementation of NOSB’s 2018 recommendation to update the organic seed planting, planting, and stock regulation as a next step.

Now I’m not going to use the big scary “D”…atabase word. However, a system for collecting and analyzing real-time organic seed availability is absolutely the first step in creating a framework for closing seed exemptions that avoids undue hardships on organic growers. And NOSB’s continued feedback and future support and identifying this resource is just absolutely necessary. It will never be our intention to push growers to use a variety that is not appropriate for their operation; however, more consistent enforcement of the requirement, including consistent tracking and improvements, is necessary if we’re going to see increases in the availability of sourcing organic seed.

OSA has been committed to navigating an equitable path to a hundred percent organic seed usage for over 20 years, and we will continue to do so in partnership with NOP, NOSB, and the entire organic community.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments today and to and for your service on the board.

Questions

Allison Johnson: One thing that has stood out to me is the role of buyers and continued reliance on non-organic varieties. How do we push the market upstream?

Cathleen McCluskey: I think this was a question discussed yesterday on the organic seed panel hosted by NOC. If a company required or asked a grower to apply an excluded method to the crop they wouldn’t do it. When there is increased vertical integration there is more of a push.

Allison Johnson: I want to push back on that answer. It’s not a prohibited practice to purchase non-organic seed. The choice is pretty tough on the grower. If you can follow up or continue to think about it, seems crucial part of the puzzle.

Cathleen McCluskey: I think it plays out in different scales. I think it happens more at a larger scale. Growers are uncomfortable talking about it and sometimes won’t talk because of contract agreements.

Brian: Questions about gene editing. I won’t use the d-word, database, but I will use the old word “list.” Are we going to need a list of excluded varieties that we can determine were produced due to gene editing? It may not be required to be disclosed on the seed packet – but how are we going to move forward on knowing what to plant?

Cathleen McCluskey: Correct which is challenging since we have no testing for that. A lot of conversation in organic seed community especially since April. Going to take concerted effort from industry folks to not put gene edited seed in organic seed supply. I don’t have answers for you on gene editing.

Brian: So it would be a declaration from a seed company that whatever is sold organic from that company is not gene edited. So along with issues of sales and contracts, would it benefit the organic industry when that comes into play? There is an issue of people using untreated conventional seed, but if only organic seed could be guaranteed not be gene edited, would that be further incentive for growers to use that seed?

Cathleen McCluskey: I would imagine so.

Amy Bruch: Any insight on organic seed development outside the U.S.? Our program is a global program. Any international insight?

Cathleen McCluskey: Largely our mission focuses domestically. Our state of organic seed report does not gather international data. But based on policy conversations with partners in the EU we are considering expanding our data set.

Carolyn: Such a huge category. If you were going to pick one or two crops or one or two areas . What would you pick?

Cathleen McCluskey: I don’t think anyone in the organic seed community could pick that right now. Those conversations are the next piece happening and that’s why real-time availability resource is why it keeps coming up as this is the real important tool we need.

Nate Powell Palm: We’ve heard a lot about vegetable seed. Why are we not talking about grain [seeds]?

Cathleen McCluskey: I wasn’t not talking about grain; it’s in conversations I’ve been having.

Chelsey Lenczyk – Bejo Seeds Inc – CACS

This was a long time to wait to make my first ever comment, but I’m super excited. And I echo everyone’s sentiments for the gratitude to the board and the CACS committee for elevating the organic seed discussion. (name and affiliation requested) I am (Chelsey Lenczyk,) the organic lead for Bejo Seeds, and also the co-chair for the OTA Organic Seed Task Force.

Bejo is a family-owned vegetable breeding and seed production company that will see 2025 mark our 20 years as USDA certified organic. Bejo has worked tirelessly on the global platform to help support European legislation for organic seed usage.

Arriving at the current EU goal of 100% organic seed usage by 2036 has taken decades, and many iterations. Policies there rely on high participation levels from organic seed breeders and suppliers, and high adoption rates by organic farmers and handlers. Through a checks-and-balances system, allowances for conventional seed use is closely monitored and diminishing.

In a nutshell, things are working. I acknowledge that the US organic program is a creation of our own, and I do not suggest that the EU model is a plug-and-play template — nor even that a goal of 100% organic seed usage is feasible here in the US, in part due to the complexity of the US supply chain and market, but also due to the sheer size of the US territory and numerous farming scales and practices, as I elaborate in written comments.

What we do support to bring forward from the EU model is the broad scale thinking and systemizing which has mobilized breeders, producers, farmers, handlers and consumers, in the US. We need to bring forward a pragmatic, multifaceted strategy which builds on the current US organic program, perhaps reconsiders commercial availability, and mirrors the confidence of saying, “yes, we can continue to improve on organic.”

While I do not stand here today with a multifaceted strategy in hand, I instead make a request for time. Since June, Bejo and numerous other organic industry stakeholders have begun to meet and envision what US strategy could look like for increasing organic seed usage. And we have a couple ideas. A stepped, sound, and sensible approach that focuses on reasonable and achievable crops and deadlines. A survey on data on organic crop acreage by market segment. Forming crop expert groups to weigh existing genetic attributes and seed availability to narrow which crops to begin with and move on to down the line and creating a real-time seed availability resource to unburden growers and inspectors alike.

Within the next 12 to 18 months we hope to propose a strategy representing a majority of the organic seed chain point of view, and ultimately creating full improvement in organic seed usage.

To quote Dr. Tucker, collective work is needed to innovate the system. So the board and program, please allow us a window to strategize. To stakeholders, please bring us your ideas and to everyone listening to today, let’s build the strategy together and answer collectively that we are committed to continuously improving organic.

Thank you.

Questions

Allison Johnson: Appreciate all the work that is happening on seed. What do you think the Board can do in the next year or so or should we take a step back and hear from you when it’s time to move?

Chelsey Lenczyk: I am a little new on the legislative part of it, not exactly sure. I hope no one pauses on moving forward conversations. Whether we can bounce ideas off you as far as what it takes to develop an expert group, what resources might be available or what levers we might need to pull to find resources to make some sort of “availability” resource. I would hate to silo the work for the next 12 months.

October 23, 2024

Meeting materials, including details about Sunset Reviews and Petitions can be found here.

Subcommittee Presentations: Livestock (LS)

Brian Caldwell, Livestock Lead, introduces the Livestock Subcommittee agenda.

Meloxicam Proposal

Summary of Petition: In February 2024, the NOP received a petition to add meloxicam to the National List of synthetic substances allowed for use in organic livestock production, 7 CFR 205.603.
More information can be found in the meeting materials.
Use: Meloxicam is highly effective in treating acute pain from various veterinary procedures, including disbudding, debudding, dehorning, castration, or surgery, as well as managing chronic pain from conditions like lameness, arthritis, and other musculoskeletal issues. Meloxicam offers a prolonged therapeutic effect (half-life) within the animal’s system, which often means a single dose is sufficient for acute cases, thereby enhancing the animal’s welfare compared to other pain management drugs listed on the National List (NL). Available in oral tablet form with an extended half-life in tissues, meloxicam ensures longer intervals between treatments, making pain management easier and more efficient. This not only benefits the animal’s well-being but also minimizes potential harm to the environment and the farm ecosystem.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Powell-Palm: [Discusses with others on the NOSB the concern about children working on farms giving medications like flunixin via injection – that a pill would be easier for these “ranch hands”.] Small dairy farms are who petitioned this substance, not a manufacturer.

Kim Huseman: [Notes that commentors were dissatisfied with how the NOSB presented their scientific evaluation of the material.] How we presented the data could have been better presented and it will all be attached to the proposal.

Nate Powell-Palm: A question we heard was why not limit to just cows or cows of a certain age. We have dreams for all mammals we steward. When looking at dehorning looking at getting horn burned out of its head. With a pig, going to be a scalpel. Tail docking in sheep, etc. These are elective procedures humans want to do to animals. So we need to think about pain management.

Kim Huseman: Calf banding of testicles when you. 1-in-5000 chances you don’t get both testicles and later in life there has to be a procedure. Male species for meat do better if not producing a large amount of testosterone. Organic dairy life span is 5 lactations and compared to conventional, 1.5 lactations. We want this animal to be able to be milked for a long time. We want to see the life cycle and for farmer to be able to produce from that animal for a longer amount of time.

Nate Powell-Palm: Helpful coincidence – aspirin is now out as a medication for lactating cows. So we need more tools for producers. Note about how beef is top of the list for imports by value. This tool will make raising certified organic beef in America easier.

Kim Huseman: Organic farming is a family practice. From a safety standpoint – how do we keep organic farmers safe and keep families safe?

Nate Powell-Palm: AMDUCA has been part of NOP process since 2002. [More on AMDUCA can be found here.]. Organic is a tiny portion of the industry and it’s going to be hard to get manufacturers to pay attention to our process.

Kim Huseman: We pregnancy-checked all of our cows. If we didn’t have a calf cyclically, if she wasn’t bred, she didn’t stay on our farm. Had a vet come out and preg-check cows. It’s wrecking on the body. Their home life is non-existent. They are there to support betterment of an animal. Vet community put selves aside – I trust veterinary community.

Nate Powell-Palm: 3 points to make: the NOSB process is as good as it’s going to get; NOP relationship is as good as it’s going to get…

Alison: I do believe this material should be added to the National List at some point. I don’t think we need to go back to subcommittee.

Nate Lewis: I hope to prove Nate wrong and we will have a more collaborative Board. Similar to Allison’s thread, I did see work you all did on reviewing substance, but also want to acknowledge stakeholder community’s interest in transparency. I have heard that and strive to insure that transparency piece will be front and center moving forward. Just want to put that on the record.

Kyla: I don’t sit on the Livestock Subcommittee, but I try to attend most subcommittee meetings and was present on the LS deliberation for meloxicam. I’ve heard the concerns expressed by the community – like the lack of a TR – but this NOSB does have the technical experience.

Mindee J: Is referencing AMDUCA a nonsubstantive change for FDA?

NPP: FDA would manage this through relationship with veterinarian. Will be through veterinarian licensing process.

Mindee: To recap, it sounds like this is an essential material and you don’t have human health or environmental concerns. Is there any information you did pull from the TR out of the petition that could be housed on the petition substance database?

NPP: Correct – no human health or environmental concerns. Data would be attached under the recommendation is my understanding.

Mindee: Also uncomfortable with parts of process. Really compelled by welfare need and what it means to get this much work focused in a particular area. As the process queen of current Board, I can put them aside. We did work the TR system and onboarding process next year will be a big hill to climb. Have expertise here now and because of answers you’ve given me, I can move through my hesitations. I am going to support moving forward.

Carolyn: I would have appreciated seeing all this information and having this discussion at this meeting, and then voting on the next meeting. I know [Kim and Nate] won’t be here next time – this NOSB is supposed to be an entity that lives on. There are other people on the NOSB other than the livestock subcommittee. The community deserve the right to be able to see everything long in advance and have time to talk about it before the vote. I am very uncomfortable with the process. I would like it to go back to subcommittee.

Wood Turner: I strongly support the material. I respect expertise of two on the Board with. Trying to parse – we are all experts on this Board. I think you suggested in presentation there is opportunity that internal TRs could be a way forward. I have concerns about that. I do not want to see 14 experts who believe they can run processes. I understand deliberations at subcommittee level to decide how process will be run. Concerned about precedent. Not 100% comfortable with TR process. Feel we’ve elevated TRs with 30 year old technical documents. There have been a lot of perfunctory TRs. A lot of those that didn’t have a lot of support and elevated TRs to add objectivity to the process. Don’t think internal TR precedent is something I’m excited about.

Amy Bruch: I support this material. Appreciate of stakeholder community and new voices we heard – especially in livestock industry – in comment contributions. One of the things I took away from stakeholder comments was the method of administration with this material stood out. Administration of a pill is easier than a needle. Times ticking for producers – when we delay with the info we have on hand, from a farmer POV this sounds like a pull system rather than push. They need this now so we need to take that into consideration.

Allison Johnson: Could you go to the revised motion? How precisely does this annotation ensure no consumer will be exposed to meloxicam through organic product? Do we think certifier would have tools to issue noncompliance if residue slipped through?

Nate Powell-Palm: we have entire weight of FDA process to ensure zero tolerance. We have agency backing us up on this.

Kim Huseman: Would work the same as other medications on the National List. Same process and OSP and how each certifier manages their inspections – follows same process as others on National List.

Nate Powell-Palm: I was so tickled by public comments, especially Garth Kahl. Every single inspection report going to be asked about withholding period and if any problem, then results in noncompliance. You are going to look at producer’s calendar, sales check, testing – great process – folks like inspectors should be given more credit. This is not a promise system.

Allison Johnson: I think if this proposal does get through it would be essential in cover sheet would be that consumers are not exposed to residue. The underlying concern is human exposure to this material through food. My understanding is striking “meat” is that dairy is supposed to be covered too.

Nate Lewis: We are added an extra layer by doubling withdrawal time. We’re not only doubling withdrawal time, but also confirm and expect adherence of the rules.

Jerry: There is public-private partnership in this as well, which I cherish. To wreck that process can be fast – I wouldn’t be for this if I hadn’t seen the willingness to take responsibility for how this group was loose with process.

Votes

• Classification Motion: Motion to classify meloxicam as synthetic. Yes: 14 No: 0 Abstain: 0 Recuse: 0 Absent: 1. Motion succeeds.
• Motion to correct language REVISED FROM MEETING MATERIALS: Motion to add meloxicam (CAS #-71125-38-7) at §205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable. In accordance with approved labeling for organic livestock; Also, for use under 7 CFR part 205, the NOP requires:
  (i) Use by or on the lawful written order of a licensed veterinarian; and
  (ii) A meat withdrawal period of at least two-times that required by the FDA
  Changes motioned by Nate Powell-Palm and seconded by Kim Huseman. Yes: 13 No: 0 Abstain: 1 (Carolyn) Recuse: 0 Absent: 1. Motion succeeds.
• National List Motion: Motion to add meloxicam (CAS #-71125-38-7) at §205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable. In accordance with approved labeling for organic livestock; Also, for use under 7 CFR part 205, the NOP requires:
  (i) Use by or on the lawful written order of a licensed veterinarian; and
  (ii) A withdrawal period of at least two-times that required by the FDA.
  Yes: 13; No: 0; Abstain: 1 (Carolyn); Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion succeeds.

2026 Livestock Sunset Reviews

Atropine

§ 205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable.

(3) Atropine (CAS #-51-55-8)—federal law restricts this drug to use by or on the lawful written or oral order of a licensed veterinarian, in full compliance with the AMDUCA and 21 CFR part 530 of the Food and Drug Administration regulations. Also, for use under 7 CFR part 205, the NOP requires:

(i) Use by or on the lawful written order of a licensed veterinarian; and

(ii) A meat withdrawal period of at least 56 days after administering to livestock intended for slaughter; and a milk discard period of at least 12 days after administering to dairy animals.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove atropine from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Hydrogen Peroxide

§ 205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable.

(15) Hydrogen peroxide.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove hydrogen peroxide from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Iodine

§ 205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable. (16) Iodine.

§ 205.603(b) As topical treatment, external parasiticide or local anesthetic as applicable. (4) Iodine.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: Notes that iodine will be one of the substances we will be coming back to at the end of today for the annotation-change process, so keeping background light for now.

• Vote: Motion to remove iodine from § 205.603(a) and§ 205.603(b) of the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Magnesium sulfate

§ 205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable. (19) Magnesium sulfate.

NOSB Discussion

Also known as “Epsom salts.” No discussion.

• Vote: Motion to remove magnesium sulfate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Fenbendazole

§ 205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable.

(23) Parasiticides—prohibited in slaughter stock, allowed in emergency treatment for dairy and breeder stock when organic system plan-approved preventive management does not prevent infestation. In breeder stock, treatment cannot occur during the last third of gestation if the progeny will be sold as organic and must not be used during the lactation period for breeding stock. Allowed for fiber bearing animals when used a minimum of 36 days prior to harvesting fleece or wool that is to be sold, labeled, or represented as organic.

(i) Fenbendazole (CAS #43210-67-9)— milk or milk products from a treated animal cannot be labeled as provided for in subpart D of this part for: 2 days following treatment of cattle; 36 days following treatment of goats, sheep, and other dairy species.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Powell-Palm: combined this item with moxidectin (below). How can we better equip inspectors and farmers for what “emergency use” is?

Kyla: Echo comments about providing more guidance around what emergency treatment is. In some comments asked for more clarification on that. There is a definition for “routine use of parasiticide” and language in the practice standard. Would like to align all the language in the regulations.

Nate Lewis: Stressing that we already have what we need in the regulation to prohibit the activity folks are concerned about. The regulations are already clear with “emergency.”

Allison Johnson: Think there is somewhere in between the two. Emergency to me is very unusual and in response to some extenuating circumstances. I do think is space between those two points and other drug use areas. Slippery slope toward routine where not on a schedule but overusing.

• Vote: Motion to remove fenbendazole from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Moxidectin

§ 205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable.

(23) Parasiticides—prohibited in slaughter stock, allowed in emergency treatment for dairy and breeder stock when organic system plan-approved preventive management does not prevent infestation. In breeder stock, treatment cannot occur during the last third of gestation if the progeny will be sold as organic and must not be used during the lactation period for breeding stock. Allowed for fiber bearing animals when used a minimum of 36 days prior to harvesting of fleece or wool that is to be sold, labeled, or represented as organic.

(ii) Moxidectin (CAS #113507-06-5)— milk or milk products from a treated animal cannot be labeled as provided for in subpart D of this part for: 2 days following treatment of cattle; 36 days following treatment of goats, sheep, and other dairy species.

NOSB Discussion

Brian Caldwell: Are those the only two parasiticides in the toolbox?

Kim: Ivermectin was on the NL but it’s been removed.

• Vote: Motion to remove moxidectin from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Peracetic acid/Peroxyacetic Acid

§ 205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable. (24) Peroxyacetic/peracetic acid (CAS #-79-21-0)—for sanitizing facility and processing equipment.

NOSB Discussion

Brian Caldwell: Having an array of sanitizers is also critical – we need materials to rotate to keep things working well.

• Vote: Motion to remove peracetic acid (PAA) from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Xylazine

§ 205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable.

(30) Xylazine (CAS #-7361-61-7)—federal law restricts this drug to use by or on the lawful written or oral order of a licensed veterinarian, in full compliance with the AMDUCA and 21 CFR part 530 of the Food and Drug Administration regulations. Also, for use under 7 CFR part 205, the NOP requires:

(i) Use by or on the lawful written order of a licensed veterinarian, and;

(ii) A meat withdrawal period of at least 8 days after administering to livestock intended for slaughter; and a milk discard period of at least 4 days after administering to dairy animals.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove xylazine from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Tolazoline

§ 205.603(a) As disinfectants, sanitizer, and medical treatments as applicable. (29) Tolazoline (CAS #-59-98-3)—federal law restricts this drug to use by or on the lawful written or oral order of a licensed veterinarian, in full compliance with the AMDUCA and 21 CFR part 530 of the Food and Drug Administration regulations. Also, for use under 7 CFR part 205, the NOP requires:

(i) Use by or on the lawful written order of a licensed veterinarian, and;

(ii) Use only to reverse the effects of sedation and analgesia caused by Xylazine; and,

(iii) A meat withdrawal period of at least 8 days after administering to livestock intended for slaughter; and a milk discard period of at least 4 days after administering to dairy animals.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove tolazoline from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Oxalic acid dihydrate

§ 205.603(b) As topical treatment, external parasiticide or local anesthetic as applicable. (8) Oxalic acid dihydrate—for use as a pesticide solely for apiculture.

NOSB Discussion

Allison: Echo that I heard Dr. Tucker say recommendations don’t have expiration dates, so some of them that have been sitting there awhile… we can bring it back to life. Let us know what you’d like the NOSB to prioritize and maybe we can bring life back to [apiculture standards].

Nate Lewis: I think there is spectrum of comfort for production systems that we don’t have standards for. Those for aquaculture have been tabled because no standards. Also keeping tools available even where no standards. Spectrum of comfort for voting on systems where don’t have standards.

Brian Caldwell. Very benign substance which might be why we can move ahead with it even without specific standards.

• Vote: Motion to remove oxalic acid dihydrate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

DL-methionine

§ 205.603(d) As feed additives. (1) DL-Methionine, DL-Methionine—hydroxy analog, and DL-Methionine—hydroxy analog calcium (CAS #’s 59-51-8, 583-91-5, 4857-44-7, and 922-50-9)—for use only in organic poultry production at the following pounds of synthetic 100 percent methionine per ton of feed in the diet, maximum rates as averaged per ton of feed over the life of the flock: Laying chickens—2 pounds; broiler chickens—2.5 pounds; turkeys and all other poultry—3 pounds.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Powell-Palm: The public comment has evolved over 9 years. It’s more nuanced now. Welfare issue – they become cannibalistic when fed exclusively vegetarian diets without DL-methionine.

Kim Huseman: Appreciate way you framed that, Nate. Shout out to community of nutritionists – those putting together the complex diets. Commend you on your work.

Nate Lewis: We will be bringing DL-methionine back as part of the proposal to remove the limits, this is just the Sunset.

• Vote: Motion to remove DL-methionine from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Trace Minerals

§ 205.603(d) As feed additives. (2) Trace minerals, used for enrichment or fortification when FDA approved.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: Also geographic aspect to this. In maritime NW our soil is deficient in Selenium. Mineral supplement is essential.

Amy Bruch: When we see deficiency it is too late. The proactiveness that’s needed on some of these materials. My soil scientist says livestock is the best biochemist and they do want to go to the pasture or mineral bins they are deficient in. Phenomenal what livestock do to self-balance when given the opportunity.

• Vote: Motion to remove trace minerals from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Vitamins

§ 205.603(d) As feed additives. (3) Vitamins, used for enrichment or fortification when FDA approved.

NOSB Discussion

Jerry: Feel your pain that fermentation process and looking only at an affidavit makes one feel unstable, but combined with risk-based process, feels comforting.

Mindee: To clarify, do you see a path forward for working on an annotation or do we go to fermentation first?

Brian: Need broader discussion. I don’t know how wide it can be, but issue of microbes added to compost. Need to do work on this and not ready for annotation.

• Vote: Motion to remove vitamins from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Proposal: Annotation Change – DL-methionine

Summary of NOSB Activity:

Methionine is an essential sulfur-containing amino acid used in organic poultry rations. It was first allowed in organic poultry rations when its National List reference became effective on November 3, 2003. Since that time, methionine garnered scrutiny through NOSB reviews, petitions to amend annotations, and stakeholder comments. A full documentation of its NOSB and regulatory history can be found in the Petitioned Substances Index. Methionine is undergoing its five-year sunset review, and the Livestock Subcommittee (LS) is not recommending its removal, however, the LS is scrutinizing the current annotation and evaluating whether the impacts of this annotation on organic poultry flocks align with organic principles and the goals of encouraging natural alternatives.

Rationale for Removing Methionine Restrictions:

LS is proposing to amend the annotation for methionine to remove the inclusion rate limits. These limits can prevent producers from providing adequate nutrition to their flocks which has serious health impacts on organic poultry, does not align with our largest trading partners, Canada and the EU, and does not appear to have hastened the development of natural alternatives.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: For sake of the Board, want to make sure we get this process right. There were some in community that were caught off-guard. That message was heard and we are working on full transparency as add sunsets back to annotation process. Welfare of our flocks are paramount. The proposed annotation change would remove everything in strikethrough (the specific feed amounts).

Allison Johnson: In public comment someone mentioned incentive for feed producer to over include methionine in blended products and lack of competition in feed markets, and small producers may not have choice about the blend. What is the downside to over feeding methionine if getting too much in rations.

Nate Lewis: I would question the assumption that removing the restriction would lead to over-feeding methionine. It’s very expensive and usually included in the pre-mix. Feed mills probably wouldn’t be adding more for a markup. If it is over-fed I do not believe there are adverse health effects for the birds.

Allison Johnson: Why not go the Canada route? They have a built-in preference for natural sources and unlimited allowance if necessary. Why not do that here?

Nate Lewis: that approach also appeals to me. My view on that was having a stepwise approach that has preference to natural over synthetic – too big of a topic to discuss for one substance. I think the NOSB should go that way for [all substances]. Too big of an issue to tackle in this timeline. I think a stepwise to also was prefer the natural alternative is good, maybe we could get a petition from the community.

Allison Johnson: Deal with it at list level?

Nate Lewis: Exactly.

NPP: Who is the guardian of not over-feeding: feed manufacturers won’t pad the feed because they get customer pressure on getting the cost down.

Allison Johnson: My sense is that for a lot of inputs, producers are price takers, not price setters. Need to be careful about role input industry plays in terms of what’s available to producers.

NPP: Not enough feed manufacturing going on in America.

Mindee: Can you unpack the regulatory pickle for the soldier flies?

Nate Lewis: The organic regs specify that livestock be fed 100% organically produced agricultural products. There is allowance for non-synthetic ingredients – fish meal and yeasts. The way insects are reviewed is they are agricultural and therefore must be cert organic. But insects cannot get certified organic because the regulations are not built to certify insects. The certification gate is closed to them.

Mindee: I feel pain of where we were on this subject and that producers have done a lot of work to develop natural process. This work agenda and standing annotation change – this is our first time of doing it and it’s a big act of trust to move through the annotation changes. Want to be careful about how bring everyone with us. This one is late in the process. The stakeholder community might need time to chew on it.

Nate Lewis: This is an issue of the insect industry to solve in partnership with the NOP. At that point we take another look at whether methionine should be listed at all. Opportunity to supply regulatory relief to producers. I don’t believe it takes too much of the pressure off of finding natural alternative. Burden should not be borne by the birds or the producers.

Mindee: I have a strong impetus to send it back to subcommittee, but not sure it would be materially different in 6 months.

Kim Huseman: I am not a PhD nutritionist, but in ruminants & monogastric, I have spent time with nutritionists on how to build balanced diets. There is often a chart with limitations and you can impute everything. If you are an organic nutritionist you take that formula and tweak it from what is ideal to what is allowed. Have you heard from community on soy-free diets and how methionine adds balance to those diets?

Nate Lewis: As poultry producer, we have 500 birds, provide couple hundred eggs per week to co-op. We have gotten questions about our productions – if we feed corn and soy – they are allergen concerns. I have never gotten anyone asked me about DL-methionine added to the feed. IT is possible to feed and make a balanced ration without soy. With inclusion rates right now impossible to do without fish meal. Fish meal is also an ingredient that is not attractive to consumers. Constrained by the needs of the birds. Ultimately it’s about flexibility to meet consumer demands. If don’t have soy, the list of options, fish is where we tend to look.

[Unknown]: Where my area of expertise lies, there are a lot of bagged feeds and demand for soy-free rations. I know of a sunflower and canola producer who can provide those options.

NPP: The idea of feeding baby orcas to chickens… the soy-free conversation as a producer of chicken feed, all my lines have to be soy fee by demand of customers. In Montana I am at a disadvantage if I need to feed soy because we don’t grow soy here. Having mineral infrastructure distributed evenly across country is an advantage. This will help realize more infrastructure and feed availability.

Mindee: We’re going to hear about annotation changes in update? How going to get better at annotation changes?

Nate Lewis: PDS is going to work on it, but having a conversation on it now would be great.

Mindee: willing to concede we can get better at externalizing things. We might not be able to solve the insect problem right now. We have a process problem and that’s okay; don’t think we will get somewhere different if we [send this back to subcommittee].

• Vote: Motion to amend the annotation of DL-Methionine on the National List at 7 CFR 205.603(d)(1) as follows:
  § 205.603(d) As feed additives.
  (1) DL-Methionine, DL-Methionine—hydroxy analog, and DL-Methionine—hydroxy analog calcium (CAS #’s 59-51-8, 583-91-5, 4857-44-7, and 922-50-9)—for use only in organic poultry production at the following pounds of synthetic 100 percent methionine per ton of feed in the diet, maximum rates as averaged per ton of feed over the life of the flock: Laying chickens—2 pounds; broiler chickens—2.5 pounds; turkeys and all other poultry—3 pounds.
  Yes: 14; No: 0; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion succeeds.

Proposal: Annotation Change – Iodine

Summary of Review:

The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) acknowledges that iodine sanitizers remain necessary to livestock operations as a sanitizer for medical procedures as well as for topical use, particularly as a teat dip for dairy animals. The NOSB has also heard from numerous stakeholders that it is time to ensure that iodine products used on organic farms are free from nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs). The Livestock Subcommittee (LS) requested a limited scope technical report (TR) in 2024 to evaluate the availability of NPE-free iodine products and their suitability, the potential for NPEs contained in iodine products to contaminate organic products and the environment, and what detrimental effects may occur should NPEs enter the supply chain or be applied to soil.

At the NOSB’s Spring 2024 meeting, the LS requested comments from stakeholders about a potential annotation change to prohibit NPEs in iodine products. Commenters generally expressed support for the phase-out of iodine formulas that contain NPEs. Environmental groups applauded the idea that organic farmers would lead the way in removal of these harmful substances from their organic system plans (OSPs). Certifiers and Materials Review Organizations (MROs) indicated that there are numerous formulations available on the market and approved for use in OSPs that do not contain NPEs. Organic dairy producers indicated support for the additional restriction, as it would better minimize impact to the environment while continuing to provide options for iodine products. Commenters suggested that the annotation prohibiting NPEs include language that clearly prohibits all alkylphenol ethoxylates. LS agrees with these commenters and is proposing an annotation change to prohibit alkylphenol ethoxylates.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: Broad commentor support to prohibit NPEs specifically and APEs generally. Some concerns about material review burden on certifiers who are accustomed to reviewing iodine formulations for NPEs but not for the entire class of APE substances. APEs in general are being phased out everywhere, anyway – they are toxic, they are persistent, they are no longer necessary EPA and FDA are moving that direction – we are ahead of the curve.

Kyla: Also wanted to point out one of the comments form a certifier explaining the relationship of excipients through complexing agents in iodine – APEs or NPEs could be used as a complexing agent. Excipients are being reviewed next year – want to flag that. Similar to the inerts, one of the options we have called out. Perhaps in the cover sheet we could make it clear that the intent is to prohibit all uses of APEs and NPEs even if used as an excipient.

Allison Johnson: There were a number of commenters asking us to use language without the use of alkyphonenol ethoxolyates and speak why we wouldn’t want to broaden to include alkylephonols.

Nate Lewis: Alkylephenols are a broader class and perhaps we should include them.

Allison Johnson: Don’t know if it’s the oxolates part we’re worried about. Is it the ethoxilate we are worried about or the broader class?

Nate Lewis: Maybe should bring back to subcommittee to align with excipients. Combining with review of excipients resonates with me.

Nate Lewis: Motion to send this back to subcommittee.

[Unclear]: Second.

• Vote: Motion to send this back to subcommittee. Yes: 14; No: 0; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion carries to send this issue back to the subcommittee.

[Break]

Subcommittee Presentations: Policy Development (PDS)

Nate Lewis, Chairperson

Nate Lewis: We are working on diversity and equity – seeking ways to work with USDA’s equity commission and implement it across the program. We are making sure our onboarding procedures have a plan with the oncoming NOSB members. Continuing to work with food technologists. Setting up technical support for the NOSB. We need a little more clarity in our PPM related to technical reviews – like when an internal versus external one is conducted. I’d like to add that to the agenda. Taken by comment yesterday: increasing accessibility to NOSB materials is of interest. Thinking through that and how to improve accessibility, like executive summary.

Subcommittee Presentations: Crops (CS)

Logan Petrey, Chairperson

Proposal: Carbon Dioxide – Petitioned

Summary of Petition:

Carbon dioxide (CO2) was petitioned in 2020 to be added on the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances, for use as a plant or soil amendment at §205.601(j). The same petition requested the addition of carbon dioxide at §205.601(a) of the National List for use as an algicide, disinfectant, and sanitizer, including uses in irrigation systems, to acidify irrigation water. The petition heavily focused on the use as an algicide, disinfectant and sanitizer in irrigation systems, and did not provide enough information about the material as a plant or soil amendment. Under “the intended use or current use of the substance” the petitioner stated “Carbon dioxide is used in a water pH adjustment process. Dissolved carbon dioxide in water makes carbonic acid, which reduces water pH, therefore increasing H+ concentration and neutralizing bicarbonates. Water pH adjustment is common practice in agriculture. Irrigation water sources are usually alkaline and with bicarbonates above the maximum desired levels for proper irrigation water quality.” In 2022, the NOSB recommended the National Organic Program add carbon dioxide at §205.601(a) but requested a full-scope technical report (TR) to address the sections of the petition requesting the addition of carbon dioxide at §205.601(j), as a plant or soil amendment, before making a second recommendation.

The 2023 technical report outlined the specific use of the petitioned material as an atmospheric adjustment in indoor production. In the report, we find that ambient air contains 350-450 ppm CO2, while the optimal concentration of CO2 for plant growth in a greenhouse environment is 800-1000 ppm (Poudel & Dunn, 2017; Thomson et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2022). As plants grow, they metabolize CO2 in the air of the greenhouse, depleting it to 100-250 ppm during peak CO2 consumption. Venting the greenhouses to allow more atmospheric CO2 in disrupts the temperature control. Natural turnover of air by venting may help to moderate CO2 levels during warm months, but venting is usually not practical during colder periods or in colder regions, and supplementation is needed.

Logan Petrey: The main concern is increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, which the subcommittee agreed with. So our requirement suggested would be it’s only allowed as a byproduct. To necessity: plants use it. We have a new and thorough TR.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: Intimated at this comment, wanted to share with Board a little evolution in my thinking. Was averse to adding a substance to the list for production systems for which we don’t have standards. Thought: we don’t have standards, should we be voting? I looked at my own farm and have a green house and crop standards applied. Many certifiers have applied crop standards to greenhouse production. My thinking is: this is distinct from materials used in aquaculture which should be tabled until we have standards. Evolution of thinking that moved me from “let’s let this one die” to “let’s put this tool in the tool box.”

Jerry: Agree entirely.

Nate Powell-Palm: I’ve done 3000+ inspections and have never come across vegetable production that didn’t have a greenhouse.

Amy Bruch: Could you highlight some of the outreach on the producer end to get more information?

Logan Petrey: Most in Southeast and found out not using a lot because of climate. I was looking in nurseries. Relied a lot of Jerry’s experience. We spoke to a certifier who uses non-synthetic CO2 and has difficulty sourcing it at times and has a difficulty getting supply.

Allison Johnson: Have you heard from producers wishing they had this tool, in your many visits to greenhouses?

Nate Powell-Palm: Yes. But interesting thing Logan just brought up: climate. We are venting greenhouses. The north is at a disadvantage to the South if we are trying to have elevated CO2 in a greenhouse. If we vent it gets very cold. I have hard commentors say there is a South-favoritism. How can we help give producers one more tool in toolbox. Jerry your controlled-environment ag experience may be very helpful.

Jerry: Add on to the comment, in last 2 days, received 15 comments from overseas asking what the blank are we doing. To most of the world it’s just a total SOP. Without this tool, you would have to exhaust the heat to bring in the ambient and the economic cost is staggering. Every time you have to bring greenhouse up 10 degrees, you are doubling fuel bill. My experience is didn’t have to worry about this because prior to OFPA. It was a no brainer in terms of production. CO2 is addition to total crop that approaches 20% increase in production. It’s phenomenal. CO2 in world I know is used. I thought annotation was okay, why not, and I think we’re in a good spot to proceed.

Logan: Question on that: if people who are in colder areas do vent then they have to burn even more fuel to heat the greenhouse, which increases CO2 emissions (from the heating).

Jerry: That’s the irony of the entire discussion right there.

Nate Powell-Palm: Over-explaining what we are talking about so people are not in the dark. [Explains how plants work.]

Jerry: I don’t want to go overboard. Both advantages and disadvantages.

Mindee: I remain unconvinced of necessity/essentiality. Compelled by public comments about the early stages of the petition and maybe we shouldn’t have been considering this. I could have seen a path where sending this back to committee.

Franklin: CO2, even though it’s produced normally it is a greenhouse gas. If you have an operation that needs something we are already producing – it’s a good thing because CO2 is needed for photosynthesis. Looking at climate smart and carbon sequestration. Let’s not give an incentive to produce CO2, but instead, if it’s already being produced, let’s use it for something plants need. Win-win situation.

Allison Johnson: A lot of comments voiced concern because of connection between climate change and CO2. Can someone talk about sourcing it as a by-product. Some talked about pulling it in from atmosphere? What does sourcing as byproduct do in terms of environment?

Logan: The sourcing as a by-product — assuming the byproduct is coming rom the heating process they are doing for the greenhouse. The production is closer to the operation like comments have said. In the oil wells that’s where the production is already going on for oil extraction. In the TR it may have specifics.

Nate Powell-Palm: From a practical point, it’s mostly from the heater. It’s going to send it into the air or back to the plants.

Classification: Carbon Dioxide is already on the national list and classified as synthetic.

• Vote: National List Motion: Motion to add carbon dioxide at §205.601(j) with the annotation: must be sourced as a byproduct. Yes: 11; No: 3; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion carries.

Proposal: Compost Production for Organic Agriculture – Petitioned

Mindee Jeffery: [Discusses the process and BPI petition, and the history of the work agenda.] Public comments noted that we didn’t deal at-depth with synthetic substances that might arrive with compost feedstocks. We do have a work item on hold to deal with crop contaminants. We need to understand the toxicology of compost piles – what breaks down, what makes it through, etc. We don’t have clarity on that. We should proceed with the umbrella right now so we can move forward with the compost industry. Food waste, green waste, and manure might come with prohibited synthetics – but that is future work.

Nate Lewis: On the west coast, waste-derived fertilizer must be evaluated for heavy metal. Don’t think outside Pacific time zone. Also need to discover standards composters are already meeting and how do they align with principles of organic production.

Mindee Jeffery: There were plenty of public comments that support BPI petition – advocating for USDA to go straight to rulemaking. Because we got the great explanation I will confine myself to the comments on the definition and the practice standard. So large compost nonprofit organizations supported the technical review rather than blanket approval. They like the national list process pass and the NOSB’s process for evaluating materials entering compass making. They expressed a concern about contamination and best practice and they these part and they want to. They want to continue to work to seek better labeling and education. They expressed a concern about contamination and best practice and they these part and they want to. They want to continue to work to seek better labeling and education to minimize any problems of contamination and that the quality of compost is really important to compost makers and that in this particular comment they supported how we’re going about doing this because they see the support for a technical review process and for research priorities. Like we were mentioning, going towards the really high quality compost and really understanding. I think there was a suggestion that the seal of testing assurance could be a great tool for us and I love the seal of testing assurance that comes through the US. Compost Council and I think that organic has difficulty like referencing a non-governmental. Framework and so we couldn’t consider that in this context. There were some questions about mesophilic and thermophilic, but we got a lot of support for our dovetailing of the definition and the importance of those 2 things.

A fertilizer company supported the modern modernization to align with AAPFCO and appreciated the adjustments to 203 methods on how to get there should be referenced and a lot should be left to the discretion of compost operators as needed. A nonprofit group supported the definition and 2 of the 3 upgrades. And then there were some questions around the necessity of this phrase, permitted synthetic bead stocks and and there is a group stating that they don’t support the addition of synthetic materials as compost feed socks at all.

The addition of that phrase as an indication that there’s only one way into organic crop inputs and that is through the national list. another our nonprofit group emphasized that we have that the NOSB must maintain control over synthetic materials allowed in organic production… a nonprofit group was against the addition of synthetics because contaminants and broadly defined compost feed-stocks cannot be predicted and history suggests more persistent toxic pollutants will be found.

Nate Lewis: Comments that relate to grammatical structure and potential of compost pile to be made entirely of synthetic feedstocks. We do not intend to open door to a fully-synthetic pile – won’t work. Pile of compostable bags won’t even work – not our intention to allow for that.

NOSB Discussion

Brian Caldwell: Was there an issue about whether it could only be aerobic?

Mindee Jeffery: We added aerobic to the definition. AFOA and EPA both reference anerobic digestion. If we were going forward on anerobic digestion we’d need to work more to deal with pathogens.

Nate Lewis: Also important to remind everyone that this portion of regulation its impact is on compost that contains manure and applied to crop with 90-120 days of crop.

Brian Caldwell: Occurred to me, is there any interface between this proposal and the mushroom standards, the market development.

Nate Lewis: Question is related to if we pass this as update and NOP is also working on an update.

Dr. Tucker: Can’t talk too much about MDR rule because it’s still in process. We don’t need to worry about it here. The MDR rule will have a discrete definition because it is a separate part of the process standard.

Allison Johnson: Biting off chunks in methodical way makes it manageable. CA law makes compostability hinge on our decisions here. We are on a path to make decisions. Law makes 2026 deadline with room for 5 year extension. In regulatory life, we are moving fast and soon within 2031 realm of possibility. Time for industry to adjust accordingly. Definition gives me pause as we enter realm of products with compostable claims. I do think it’s unsafe to have definition that could have synthetic stand alone compost pile. I have suggestion that would solve that. The first phrase – if we struck “and/or” and say “may also include permitted compost synthetic feedstocks” then that shows includes plant or animal material and certain synthetics. Up to “plant and/or animal materials” remains the same.

Amy: Another great example of the technical expertise. The precautionary stance suggestion for the definition. I’m requesting farmer voices. They are not far removed from this equation. As a farmer myself, I am concerned with PFAS and microplastics. I see some parallels with sludge. There are some remediation techniques for water but I am not aware of any for soil – and [PFAS] is a forever chemical. I think the TR will be a great step.

Franklin: Thoughts: plastics in compost – all the research going into compostable plastic. Better than where we were. But for folks farming organic, if we put that in compost – what is the fitness cost to microorganisms? If we decide to put it in our compost and it’s selecting some microorganisms over others, then later down the line we may have to deal with that problem. We need to figure out the fitness cost from a microbiologist. We need to know this before making the decision.

Nate Lewis: Your point is well taken. Power of National List process b/c we can evaluate a number of factors. We can evaluate impact on microbes and evaluate impact on use patterns when it comes to waste reduction. Organic does have a role in how our market force can effect change. Paper was put on the list for leaf collection bags and want to compost the bag and leaves in it. We have a lot of work to do on paper in compost. Beauty of TR process allows us to evaluate full spectrum of considerations.

Allison: I was supposed to correct myself when I was characterizing paper as non-synthetic– but the chemicals used in paper-making make it synthetic. Some comments wanted clarity on paper. It might be a good test run.

Nate Lewis: runway to evaluate what’s on there and new substances that should or should not be added.

Amy: Wood, didn’t you review this material – newspaper – at the last Sunset? Were there highlights?

Wood: I reviewed paper. I don’t have any quick reaction. Merits deeper analysis in this context.

Mindee: Do we want to sit with this? To the Program and Chair, changing and/or which may also include – is it a substantive change? I don’t personally think it’s a substantive change, we could defer the vote.

The NOSB agrees to defer the vote till tomorrow, updating the minor change to the language.

Discussion Document: Pear Ester – Petitioned

Background: In September 2023, the National Organic Program received a petition from Trécé Incorporated requesting the addition of pear ester (i.e., Ethyl-2E,4Z-Decadienoate), a semiochemical material, to the National List as a synthetic allowed for use in crop production [§ 205.601].

The proper classification of pear ester as a kairomone instead of a pheromone rendered its continued use under the pheromone category in organic crop production, untenable (Trécé, Inc., 2023). This discussion document covers the petition to add pear ester, a kairomone, to the National List under 7 CFR 205.601 (synthetic material allowed in organic crop production). The petition is aimed at providing organic crop producers with pest management tools that were available to them prior to the reclassification of pear ester as a kairomone instead of a pheromone.

Franklin: This is an attempt to get pear ester in the right category (kairomone instead of pheromone) so it can be used.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: Should kairomones be listed as broad class of substances, or do we need to list just pear esters as petitioned? Wanted to highlight comment that was helpful: many other kairomones do not need to be on the National List.

Amy: You can connect scientific world to farming world. One thing I caught from comments is the delivery mechanism – there were concerns about that mechanism (in a trap or applied directly?).

Franklin: It has to be a passive dispenser. Still some work to be done. Is there a particular – any safety concerns general public has – important for us to find out – we still would like some information that is needed.

Sounds like the public has some homework.

2026 Crops Sunset Reviews:

Hydrogen peroxide

§ 205.601(a) As algicide, disinfectants, and sanitizer, including irrigation system cleaning systems. (4) Hydrogen peroxide. And § 205.601(i) As plant disease control (5) Hydrogen peroxide.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove hydrogen peroxide from the National List at §205.601(a)(4) and at §205.601(i)(5). Yes: 0; No: 13; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 2. Motion fails.

Soaps, ammonium

§ 205.601(d) As animal repellents—Soaps, ammonium—for use as a large animal repellant only, no contact with soil or edible portion of crop.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: There is a whole regulation that precedes the NL: cultivation and mechanical means are always required before synthetic substances.

• Vote: Motion to remove ammonium soaps from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Oils, horticultural

§ 205.601(e) As insecticides (including acaricides or mite control). (7) Oils, horticultural—narrow range oils as dormant, suffocating, and summer oils.
And
§ 205.601(i) As plant disease control. (7) Oils, horticultural, narrow range oils as dormant, suffocating, and summer oils.

Brian Caldwell: 8 commentors in favor; one commenter said that essential uses should be identified and if there are none it should be de-listed. But the other commenters said they were essential. There is research showing vegetable oils could be used in the same way as these oils – which are petroleum-based. Ask that farmers experiment and check alternatives.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove horticultural oils from the National List at § 205.601(e). Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.
• Vote: Motion to remove horticultural oils from the National List at § 205.601(i). Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Pheromones

§ 205.601(f) As insect management. Pheromones.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: Pacific fruit growers in Pacific NW – foundational tool. Has been adopted industry wide to reduce pest pressure.

• Vote: Motion to remove pheromones from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Ferric phosphate

§ 205.601(h) As slug or snail bait. (1) Ferric phosphate (CAS #s 10045-86-0).

Brian Caldwell: In terms of written comments, 5 were in favor and one was opposed. Due to the reliance of, EDTA, which is a chelating agent in the formulations and it’s been pretty well documented that that EDTA is present in all available formulations. We asked for a TR to look at the impact of these inerts on other organisms, including earthworms. TR said toxic effects are at much higher rates than the product formulations.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove ferric phosphate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1.

Potassium bicarbonate

§ 205.601(i) As plant disease control. (9) Potassium bicarbonate.

NOSB Discussion

Brian: I could almost eliminate copper sprays and use less than half the sulfur, when I switched to potassium bicarbonate.

• Vote: Motion to remove potassium bicarbonate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1.

Magnesium sulfate

§ 205.601(j) As a plant or soil amendment. (6) Magnesium sulfate—allowed with a documented soil deficiency.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove magnesium sulfate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1.

Hydrogen chloride

§ 205.601(n) Seed preparations. Hydrogen chloride (CAS # 7647-01-0)—for delinting cotton seed for planting.

Amy Bruch: This substance hydrogen chloride is used in cotton seed de-linting and that’s essential for mechanical planting, for that singular reason. The availability of organic cotton seed is next to nothing domestically. So this substance generally isn’t ever used to de-lint cotton because the organic seed itself is not available. However, this has been on the list. It’s been unanimously listed in the past and this round of the subcommittee review voted to relist. A good portion of the conversation about this substance has always been surrounding natural alternatives, and we also had a limited scope TR looking at natural alternatives. The leading option is mechanically de-linting cotton. There is a little bit of challenge with germination then, compared to a chemical application.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove hydrogen chloride from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Ash from manure burning

§ 205.602 Nonsynthetics prohibited. (a) Ash from manure burning.

Discussion: Ash from manure burning is a non-synthetic material present on the prohibited list for crop production. Since the carbon present in manure is considered valuable for soil building, its destruction during burning would not be consistent with foundational organic production principle.

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove ash from manure burning from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Sodium fluoaluminate (mined)

§ 205.602 Nonsynthetics prohibited. (g) Sodium fluoaluminate (mined).

NOSB Discussion

None.

• Vote: Motion to remove sodium fluoaluminate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

[Lunch]

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service: Organic Transition Initiative

Amanda Moore, Director of West National Technical Support Center

[NRCS slide 1]

[NRCS slide 2 – Agenda]

[NRCS slide 3 – overview]

Amanda Moore: Want to give overview of NRCS and how organic production systems fit in. NRCS provides technical assistance to help implement conservation practices. Work with private land owners, and have staff present in every territory.
[NRCS slide 4 – Technical Assistance]

Amanda Moore: Mission is to improve health of natural resources, working with agriculture. Foundation is Technical Assistance.
[NRCS slide 6 – Resource Concerns]

Amanda Moore: If planner visits farm or ranch, they assess the condition of soil, habitat, etc.; if condition of resource doesn’t meet baseline standard, might say there is resource concern. For example, if notice erosion might use erosion tool to determine the problem. Six main categories of resource concerns (see slide on Conservation Planning).
[NRCS slide 7 – Conservation Planning]

Amanda Moore: If there is a resource concern, and the owner wants to treat it, we can do so with a Conservation Plan.
[NRCS slide 8 – Conservation Planning Phases]

Amanda Moore: Conservation Plans follow a 9-step custom process in 3 phases.
[Slide 9 – Conservation Practices]

Amanda Moore: Have implementation requirements, which means we’ve made progress and are solving a problem. Have authority through the Farm Bill to provide financial assistance (see slide on Financial Assistance).
[Slide 10 – Financial Assistance]

Amanda Moore: Application for Financial Assistance. We do have state specific cut off deadlines. Important to know those dates to be considered for funding. Application received after the date get considered in the next cycle. Applications get ranked. Criteria on state websites.
[NRCS Slide 11 – Get Started]

Amanda Moore: All farmers and ranchers are allowed to apply to any of our programs. NRCS accepts applications year round, but each state has specific ranking dates for funding cycles. The funding is applied in a competitive process. AD 126 form.
[NRCS Slide 12 – How to Get Involved]

[NRCS Slide 13 – Find Your Local…]

[NRCS slide 14 – NRCS and Organic Alignment]

Amanda Moore: Specific EQUIP programs targeted for organic producers. CPA 138 is a conservation plan supporting organic transition. We do have the commitment as funding allows towards supporting 3 more years of organic transition initiative funding. And this is a US data initiative and funding is allocated in addition to the state general EQUIP.
[Slide 15 – Most Common Practices]

[Slide 16 – CPA 138]

[Slide 17 – other state led]

[Slide 18 – Organic Transition Initiative]

Amanda Moore: It’s pretty exciting. We have been able to add 6 new regional organic specialist positions and a new national organic research position through the National, through the organic transition initiative. So we’ve had a long-standing arrangement or agreement. Really since 2010 with Oregon till starting in the West Tech Center. So we’re pretty proud about that, to bring organic training, resources, technical assistance to states. Over time that grew from, serving just the West region disturbing the whole country. And you know historically that’s been one person for a while — for a while it was Marina, I don’t know who was before Ben, but: one person, whole country. So underneath OTI we’ve been able to expand that agreement with Oregon TILTH to bring on 6 regional specialists.

Oregon NRCS is partnering with Oregon Tilth who is partnering with Marble Seed, Organic Economy Training Service and CCOF in California to bring on 2 een able to expand that agreement with TILS to bring on 6 regional specialists.
[Slide 19 – Transition Initiative – Technology]

[Slide 20 – Org Transition Initiative – Interim Conservation]

Amanda Moore: OTI was developed to address resource concerns on land work and it practices are used. It incorporates a lot of aspects of organic regulations and takes a whole system’s approach and it does require assessment of resources on the land. It’s an interim practice, meaning that we’re in the process of testing it out. If it works and what about it works what about it does it we go through a review process each year minor changes can be made and then at the end of that three-year period we collect feedback, we evaluate it, we review it and determine whether the practice should be continued. For use by any state. During the interim process, states kind of have to sign up and say if they want to use it or not…
[Slide 21 – Fiscal Year 2024]

[Slide 22 – What’s Next?]

[Slide 23 – Website]

[Slide 23 – Contact]

Questions from the NOSB

Dillip: Part of TOPP, and a lot of stakeholders have been asking – this is for 5 years – also climate smart program, part of that too – producers also ask, we are now in second year joining say for certification. Once they start transitioning it’s 3 years they have to wait; at 3 years they go for certification. Question sometime with these programs, is set to expire Oct 2027, anything you want to provide assistance for producers beyond that time.

Amanda Moore: Our financial system programs are authorized through the Farm Bill and have an end date, but our flagship programs have been around a long time, so even if Organic Transition Program ends, other programs might show up. I would say that Even if say the organic transition initiative ends or when the IRA funding when diarrhea legislation ends we still have EQUIC we still have CSP we still have RCP so we still have opportunities for producers to work with us to continue to address the problems that they want to solve.

Dilip: The Farm Bill – we don’t know if it’s going to be extended another year.

Amanda Moore: I don’t want to speculate exactly, but we do have through IRA legislations can continue operating EQUIP. There will be some type of program to continue.

Allison Johnson: Can we go back to how to get involved slide. Heard that appetite for promoting organic producers in different states is variable. If in a state that hasn’t been proactive, how would I get involved? If we wanted to have an interim practice around sourcing organic seed, how would be use those levers to start that process?

Amanda Moore: States do have their local and state priorities. About relationship building – get to know folks in local office. Attending meetings and expressing what your considerations are – a state technical committee meeting might be a good place to interface with the local groups as well. The Technical Committee meeting meets 3-4x a year. Reach out to state resource conservationists or stare agronomists about sourcing seed. If you need help making connections your local office can probably help make those connections. Ultimately, we do need a state to take an interest and sponsor the interim.

Nate Lewis: My question is about small farms? Is there any energy to add some flexibility to programs? Structure of programs are barriers to access. How can we overcome those barriers?

Amanda Moore: We have been putting effort in reaching new customers including small farms, urban farms, etc. We don’t put those folks in a box but do recognize they have different needs. We’ve been putting effort into “payment scenarios” that are more reflective of the cost of business on a small operation. For example using the cost per pound versus bushels. We’ve been trying to figure out how the practices are implemented on a small farm. But the payment process is pretty consistent regardless of size of farm. We have a raised bed interim practice. High tunnels and low tunnels were also probably well suited to small farms.

Kyla Smith: You mentioned 6 positions. Are those yet to be filled?

Amanda Moore: We are in the progress of getting those filled.

Marina: We are actively hiring now. We have 4 of them already hired, Christina Peterson is one who is here now.

Nate Powell-Palm: Appreciate statement that conservation aligns with organic.

Brian Caldwell: Add onto Allison’s question – curious about local work groups? Can an individual farmer get involved?

Amanda Moore: Local work groups – individual farmers can get involved. Different states probably handle differently. In Oregon, those groups are really used to set county priorities. To concur on what important resource concerns are in a county and which of those concerns and proposed projects might become a priority for that fiscal year. Reaching out to local conservatist to get feedback to see how using local group and making sure on invite list.

Allison: Could you put a finer point on why the priorities matter? I think it’s where the money goes?

Amanda Moore: I think we only have so much funds available and a lot of work can be done and state and local priorities and national are how we prioritize use of funds.

Amy Bruch: Question is on 823: it’s one of the most impactful opportunities for transiting producers to take advantage of. It’s in it’s second round. We heard that it was a struggle for farmers who wanted to engage to be accepted. If there is a time limit – what do we need to do to provide evidence to ensure this program stays? What can we all do?

Amanda Moore: This is an interim practice being trialed by states. I would say best avenue is for producers – when trying interim practice, seeing if it works correctly – feedback is provided back to headquarters. Probably again, same communication pathways that feedback and use is provided to local and state office.

[Unknown speaker]: It’s a different type of practice and there is a lag to get staff trained up for it. This interim stage is really valuable. There is still a lot of learning.

Amy Bruch: We will stay in close contact with NRCS on this.

Compliance, Accreditation, & Certification Subcommittee (CACS)

Amy Bruch, Chairperson, gives an overview of the CACS work over the past 4 years.

[CACS Proposal 4-Year Review]

Proposal: Climate Induced Farming Risk and Crop Insurance

More information on this proposal can be found in the meeting materials.

Amy Bruch shows a slideshow of climate challenge photos, including center pivots knocked down, etc. From members of the NOSB and community.

[Slide: Progress Made]

Amy Bruch: Slide [shows roller crimper rye with soybeans] is a highlight of the progress we’ve made – a final rule was published and that’s on expanding options for specialty and organic growers. There’s 3 things that are highlighted there on the slide that that rule implemented. One of them in particular is something that we’ve heard from farmers. Several times on public comments is about enterprise units by organic farmers.

One of them in particular is something that we’ve heard from farmers. Several times on public comments is about enterprise units by organic farming practice so they can separate farmers can separate out their conventional acres if they’re split production from their organic acres and get really specific types of insurance for those different practice practices. Also the updated good farming practices definitions. That’s something in collaboration with the NRCS, RMA, and the organic program, it’s really come to fruition. That picture above is on my farm. It’s an example of a roller crimper rye with soybeans. Implementation of reduced tillage, no tillage type operation for the season and originally that was not an approved practice. I’m thankful that it is improved practice for insurance right now. So that’s progress being made and then that we have double cropping an annual forage as well.

So opportunities in certain areas to plant 2 seasons of crop in one year – and still get insurance. Other notable improvements that we’ve talked about that have been progressed made is the contract price addendum.

[Slide: Opportunities for Improvement]

Amy Bruch: Continuous improvement is still needed. There is still a list. The top issues that matter to close the gap – this list is essentially helping to close the gap. The updated manuals are two critical items – mutually beneficial for grain and produce. Right now, heard through public comment process, 65% of value of conventional producer in terms of insurance level coverage. We have multiple solutions for RMA and excited to present

[Slide: Additional Challenges]

Amy Bruch: Additional challenges summarized in discussion documents and meeting materials. Want to make sure have a succinct list for risk management agency. From community perspective, some chemicals that drift on fields can’t identify point of source. The list resembles many of the things other farming groups have on their list.

Questions from the NOSB

Nate Powell-Palm: Thank you for this work. [Explains hail loss picture.]

Wood Turner: Wondering if the amount of education you’ve done is substantial. Curious if you – what is the tangible action you are hoping to happen here? What will I see differently in 5 years? Trying to make it really tangible. Is it access to policies or availability of underwriters, is it farm level economics? What are we going to see differently because of this work?

Amy Bruch: Have to look at it from macro view – need to do whatever we can to keep our farm going for the next generation. My husband and I farmed in Brazil for quite awhile with no insurance – farming organic is similar, there is no safety net. Risk management plans are very similar to conventional – quite a delta in levels for conventional. Big barrier that isn’t always communicated as to why farmers are not transitioning to organic. Top 3 for sure if not top 1.

Nate Lewis: question resurrected a memory. One of the challenges was showing up in offices with one farmer’s problems. We often heard y’all go figure out what you need and then we’ll work on it. We function like a clearing house and then advocacy groups can point to this as they work with their representatives or put pressure in certain areas. Will be really helpful to those advocacy efforts.

Carolyn: Organic farmers couldn’t get crop insurance. Telling RMA organic farmers deserve it. RMA tried to adapt a non-organic program to organic. RMA needs to step back. Maybe we need to think about insuring organic farms in a different way.

Amy Bruch: Updating the loss adjusting manuals – and having a specific section for organic exactly as you said. This document is similar to the document on transition to organic. If this passes, we hand this over to Dr. Tucker, and then she will present it to RMA. Anything else you would like to add Dr. Tucker?

Dr. Tucker: One of the things I like about this item is that it’s very focused on one agency (RMA). It’s more targeted which is good.

Amy Bruch: The recipient at RMA is aware we are working on this as well, and she wanted to make sure she received our feedback.

Dr. Tucker: The value of human connection cant be undervalued – that has positioned this better.

• Vote: Motion to accept the Climate-Induced Farming Risk and Crop Insurance proposal. Motion by: Amy Bruch. Seconded by: Nate Powell-Palm. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion passes.

[Break]

Discussion Document: Residue Testing for a Global Supply Chain

Amy Bruch: Tried to select products from Dr. Tucker’s list. We believe testing is tool for compliance verification. We have decided to revert back to foundation first. When we launched this document, we were targeted, but found out broader base is better. Examine guidance documents that educate certifiers and inspectors. Alot of those are dated from 2013 and 2014. This is a massive project. NOP is ready for this recommendation for Spring 2025 and update guidance documents for all to reference. Comment about level playing field – I believe as a producer is that all playing by the same rules. Competition makes us stronger, but want to make sure all upholding integrity that have seal on their products. Value of an executive summary – provided because very extensive. In lieu of a mega-document The NOP is ready for this recommendation coming in Spring 2025 — the work already has a landing spot for next steps.

[CACS slide 7 – Executive Summary of Changes]

We are reviewing these guidance documents. In addition to the updates, if there is information that could inform new guidance documents, then that’s what last bullet is for.

[CACS slide 8 public comments]

Nate Powell-Palm: I often hear lay folks criticizing us for not testing. This is driver so we can say we do test and will be some logistics in testing. Continuously hear about how question of train inspectors and tackle testing and how we look to make it better. Benchmarking for how we would approve the system – look at other regulatory programs and looking to risk-based approach. How do we get best bang for our buck. How are we all getting in the same room – taken a lot of tests where I could not say it would ever yield anything.

Nate Lewis: I’ll be focusing on herbicides, pesticides, fumigants, solvents. But many prohibited substances and testing should be tool for all of those prohibited substances. Heard need to add to pesticides and recommending bring in fumigants, herbicides, solvents and processing aids used in conventional industry so we don’t have inspector knowing result before collect it but collecting test for that particular operation and risks that are there.

Kim Huseman: moving past the pesticides… heard from stakeholders the importance of new technologies in the space. How do we manage that evolution and look for products out side of these basic procedures. We heard a lab speak about what’s available – what’s possible. There is a gamut of organic products being brought into the US and this is a big piece of the pie.

Amy Bruch: innovation on lab front, the panels 26-1 panel, got feedback it needs to be updated. Right test of right situation in the right region. Some substances banned from US are still used overseas, or certain producers overseas have access to them. Understanding where originating. The catcher’s test is great, but might not be best test for every situation. Community provided us with great feedback.

Nate Lewis: Building on that, important to recognize: when used as a compliance tool it needs to be defensible. Lab needs to be accredited and have competency. The results need to be acted on consistently. We got good feedback on the concept of the decision tree to accomplish these goals. As wee seen samples come in, we’ve had situations where we don’t have a clear way forward. Examples: extracted products, the crop can test clean but then when extracted it will test with a residue. The test itself is not the final action — the corrective action that needs to be taken with these programs is.

[Slide: Next Steps]

Nate Lewis: For regulations, we’ve been focusing on guidance. Short-term solutions or expanding the tool. Identified a challenge in responding to results when it comes to exclusion of organic crops in the marketplace. Right now the only pathway for excluding an organic crop that test positive is if it is in excess of 5% of the EPA tolerance for that substance for that crowd. That should remain. That’s also that’s a good. Threshold to maintain so that there is some sort of action for highly contaminated organic crops to stay out of the marketplace. But there is another provision in the law that gives some ability to provide exclusion from sale when prohibited substance was intendedly or was applied with intention and so we’re going to be exploring that on how to make a recommendation to the program on a regulation update that’s rooted in the law, but that gives certifiers the ability to exclude or prevent market or product from entering the market when a intentional application of prohibited substances identified.

Mindee: Amazing work, in relation to what Nate was saying, in CA we did a GMO test pilot program under CA organic Products Advisory Committee. Great experiment and got great feedback. Could this apply to biotech and testing there?

Nate Lewis: I think GMO testing is a challenge we need to take on in a broader context. What focused on here is prohibited substance. While certifier certainly have test throws wrench into system we have in place, need to expand fine tune and program for prohibited substances so we’re detecting drift, etc. And regroup about how to test of GMOs and excluded methods. More complicated than saying, “yeah let’s do GMO testing too.”

Dr. Tucker: Agree with comment about excluded methods. We have stopped shipments coming into US market due to GMO testing. It can be very effective testing and matters – it’s compelling. We are good at announcing things once and then forgetting them: there is a course in Learning Center about what to sample and how to sample and when. Reminding you those resources exist.

Nate Lewis: low hanging fruit with GMO is how it can be used as a piece of evidence in a larger adverse action operation.

Dilip: Echo Brian and what Mindee mentioned – the impact of this is already felt, seeing results. I’m a domestic small farmer perspective. My neighbor is using a duster plane. It’s unintended drift contamination, whether it’s GMO, pollen, or pesticides. Concerned about the cost to small farmers for these tests.

Kyla Smith: as far as duster planes, there is definition of drift in the regulations. Physical movement of prohibited substance from intended target sight onto organic operation. Certifiers talk a lot about this and if drift situation – duster plane over neighboring field and drift to organic field v. duster plane flying over organic field. Cost – within the regulations certifiers are paying for these tests. Now, certifiers may later their fee schedules to increase their fees to subsidize these costs, but they are not allowed to pass specific testing costs to producer. ACA currently has a working group on pesticide residue – collectively as a certifier community. Hopefully that work will feed into this subcommittee – I am happy to be a liaison since I am on that ACA group.

Allison: Wanted to flag 2 things: 1) the nexus with risk based certification and how we can have more tools to catch fraud without adding to burden and cost for smaller scale producers; 2) heard in public comments, testing for synthetic nitrogen – don’t think we talk about nitrogen enough, an area where pretty easy to cheat and want to have that in the record beyond just the pesticides bucket.

Amy: Incredible amount of work to be able to detect synthetic nitrogen.

Nate Powell-Palm: What do you actually learn testing a tiny famer? What do we do to not overburden.

Discussion Document: Risk-based Certification

Conclusion: Risk evaluation is an important tool and is now required by certifiers to evaluate high risk operations and by certified operations in the form of an organic fraud prevention plan. Risk evaluation is a factor in risk- based oversight or decision making. The result of which is spending more time on higher risk areas of an operation or on higher risk operations and less time on lower risk activities of an operation or lower risk operations.

While these concepts are not new, there seems to be a renewed focus on them due to SOE and continued limitation on resources. The board seeks to understand what resources are serving the organic community well and what additional resources exist so that we may continue to grow the organic sector while maintaining a high level of organic integrity and reducing fraud.

Questions to stakeholders:

1. How does your organization define risk? a. Would it be valuable for the definitions listed above (Risk-based oversight, Risk management, Risk, Vulnerability) to be included at §205.2 Terms Defined? b. Are there other definitions that would be beneficial to include at §205.2 Terms Defined besides those listed above? Is it important that all certifiers use the same risk criteria to evaluate certifier operations? Why or why not?

2. What other resources (e.g. trainings, models, certifications/credentialing program) are currently available that would help an organization become more proficient at risk-based oversight and/or risk evaluation?

3. What are the unintended consequences that could arise from using a risk-based oversight approach?

4. What other ways are there to reduce burdens on low-risk operations?

5. How can the community provide information to NOP and/or certifiers on acute risks?

6. Certifiers: a. Have you adopted or base your risk assessment criteria on the ACA Best Practices documents? b. When operations are identified as low risk, what actions are you taking to streamline and make these operations’ certification less burdensome?

Kyla Smith: Worked in certification for over 20 years. Potential to have real impact for me and my colleagues. But also for low-risk operations. Issues with current process and one thing can say is that we are a resilient and collaborative community. We can narrow in on a new process to better service community. Alot of comments will take back to subcommittee. Also have partners at the program. And also partners in ACA and many others. Will highlight public comments.

First question related to definitions. Most commentors agreed having shared definitions was important. Some thought should be in regs, others think could be elsewhere like in OI Learning Center. Agreeing that shared definition is important and then figure out where to put them.

Next question around resources currently available. Several identified including learning center, ACA, OTA, and Dr. Spinx, and also idea of interactive training or credentialing program. Several models suggested, such as ISO 31000

Next question was asking about the unintended consequences. Commentors stated the following: smaller low-risk operations could feel overlooked or undervalued in certification process, risks could be missed, impacts to organic integrity, losing deterrent benefit, operations trying to game the system purposefully to look low-risk, operations getting complacent in recordkeeping, and losing connection with their certifier. However, also noted that the risk to NOT using a risk-based approach would be overburdening small and low risk operations, leading to certifier and inspector burnout.

Fourth question related to how to reduce burden on low-risk operation: reducing paperwork burden, common OSP, several inspection related items – focused inspection on specific element, frequency of inspections, tiered inspections, remote, simplified audits, using phased recertification. Streamlining review processes, streamlining for certain types of ingredients, suppliers

Fifth question was what can the community provide information to NOP and/or certifiers on acute risks? Ideas included directly reporting to NOP or certifier — hotline or email or using current complaint system. Might need to be adaptations to complaint system to make more general complaints. Heard from Jenny: incomplete information and complaints are hard for NOP to follow up on. Establishing a forum of some sort. NOP is collecting a lot of data now.

Sixth question directed at Certifiers: a. Have you adopted or base your risk assessment criteria on the ACA Best Practices documents? And when operations are identified as low risk, what actions are you taking to streamline and make these operations’ certification less burdensome?

Of certifiers that responded, all indicated risk-based criteria based off ACA best practice document. Only handful responded so doesn’t cover all certifiers. More like we are doing extra stuff for high risk and not doing for low risk and therefore less burdensome. Certifiers good from going from base line and above and beyond. Not as good as looking at what can do less of.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: “Prescriptive and vague” has refilled the well of memes over here in my head.

Kim Huseman: General CACS, memes themes – one thing we’ve heard and CACS has tackled, prelude to seed, is insurance and as talk about residue testing. Word “risk” is what get back to. Risk has become such a key component – can utilize some of same concepts and how residue testing overlaps risk-based certification and overlap into seed. Leaning into word “risk” and how we can help find ways to bolster the industry.

Kyla Smith: Risk of what – challenges us all not to just say “risk” but risk of what? Let’s try to say “risk of…” Be mindful of terminology.

Allison: Give an example from my certification days of risk of certifiers doing less. Risk to client when you do less for one. Period of zealous accreditation audits. Heard another certifier got in trouble for not requiring the certified organic statement directly under the company name. Ended up having someone throw away thousands of labels even though we knew there was no fraud because we didn’t want to be “caught” doing the same.

Kyla Smith: appreciated Jenny’s comments in opening remarks about the need for NOP accreditation team to participate in these conversations and they have been. Think that’s why certifiers don’t go from here to here b/c fear getting noncompliances. Certifiers want gold stars all the time. We tell clients noncompliances are normal, put a correction plan, yet we don’t want to have to do that. We can do a little bit less and not have accreditation at risk.

Dilip: Comment from small farm. Comingling and contamination on small number of acres where half is organic and half conventional – we learn they give up on certifications. We tell them that they need to keep these things in mind and what will be a risky behavior. It will help.

Discussion Document: Consistency in Organic Seed Use

Summary: The Certification, Accreditation, Compliance Subcommittee (CACS) seeks to understand the current state of organic seed use, potential tools for increasing the amount and variety of organic seed that is commercially available, and methods for strengthening enforcement of the existing commercial availability requirements.

Discussion & Questions:

The need for NOP action on the 2018 and 2019 recommendations is still strong, and additional actions may also be necessary to spur use of organic seed and growth of the organic seed market in the United States. The NOSB seeks stakeholder input on the following questions, to guide next steps:

1. Is there still support for the 2018 and 2019 recommendations?

2. How burdensome is it for producers to demonstrate compliance with the commercial availability requirement for seed?

3. In general, how available is organic seed, and is untreated seed significantly easier to find than organic seed?

4. Are there some crops for which organic seed is available? Are there any crops for which lack of organic seed supply is notable?

5. Is current organic seed research meeting industry needs? Which crops/varieties are the most promising avenues for organic seed research?

6. How can the NOP address the handler role in seed choice, beyond the updates to Guidance 5029 that the NOSB previously recommended? Should the regulations be amended to apply the commercial availability requirements in 7 CFR § 205.204 to handling operations? Should handler Organic System Plans address seed choice? If so, how?

7. What additional information do certifiers and inspectors need to effectively enforce the commercial availability requirement (i.e. how would a certifier or inspector know that an organic option is available and must be used)?

8. How could the NOP (or other entity) make information about commercial availability available publicly? What additional factors could be used to determine that a seed must be used? How could the EU’s seed expert panel model inform the U.S. approach?

9. Who could/should build/maintain a U.S. commercial availability database for seed? What attributes should be listed/made available?

Carolyn and Alison summarize the discussion document.

Allison Johnson: Document outlines history on “commercial availability” in organic seed sourcing. Nine questions with sub-questions. Overall thrust was so glad taking this up and going to take time to do a lot of work. Highlight a few points and next steps. More mixed comments on 2019 recommendation. One part that surprised me is the handler role in the 2019 recommendation and comments were mixed and lukewarm about what we should be looking at in terms of handler requiring growers to use certain seeds.

The rest of the questions – what are the big problems? What solutions do you see? Overwhelming response was – this was regional, complicated by variety and market – so many issues packed into seed you can’t make sweeping generalities. Going forward we need to figure out what areas we can pick off at this stage to make progress on.

Cabbage is available as organic. Seed is available. Optimistic feedback on grains. Market isn’t fully there. Overall optimism for moving needle on using organic grain seeds.

Overwhelming interest in seeing more research done. A lot outside the NOSB’s control. Overall sense that there is a lack of access to information that could drive market, like acreage of crops, what seed is needed, what’s the demand. Where’s the decision-making happening? Is it 3 years ahead.

From here, there are a few easy next steps. We need to find a structure that pulls together CACS, crops, and stakeholders. Would love to see NOP move forward on 2018 recommendation. 2019 recommendation we take back to the drawing board.

Our research priority list does not include seed – oops. So we should move to that next year. More thinking needed. Holding on additional steps for handler role – needs more work and not ready to go there.

From here I think we need to go back to subcommittee. We need some kind of information source on what’s coming available – a pulse check. Are there opportunities to work with USDA and ERS to get the data and resources we need? To guide folks who are thinking about getting into organic seed production. Hopefully we can pluck off pieces that we can move in short term by tackling long term commercial availability problems. How can we use other levers to push us towards greater organic seeds over time.

Carolyn Dimitri: I have only two thoughts. One is it would be interesting to see analytical research looking at barriers to organic seed adoption. Second is if commercial availability requirement actually a barrier or a spur for innovation in seed. Some assuming would spur innovation. Need to look at incentives set up by such a clause. Would love to hear what others think.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Powell Palm: Commentor Kendall ringing in my ear still. Haven’t seen how farmer input is being considered. The folks who are going to pay for this are not at the table.

Allison: It’s tough to be an organic seed producer because you have no guarantee that someone will buy your product. Making sure farmers have tools to meet market demand. Stuck in conventional loop. We also want flexibility so people can trial new varieties. Value in bringing in non-excluded method genetics so we can continue to innovate in organic. The 2018 recommendation is driving toward all or nearly all organic seed use.

Nate Powell-Palm: Producers I’m talking about are about 99% of those who aren’t going to benefit. How are we bringing those folks whose bank account is going down. How can you draw out those communities to make sure at table?

Carolyn: Part of the problem is that some of the producers are willing to pay and actively find organic seed and others are not. If you let that go on, there is a cost advantage. I think raising the bar is necessary. But that won’t happen unless you have enough people using the higher-priced seed.

Nate Powell-Palm: think we’ve done a good job drawing out farming communities. Is there a way over next few months to understand what this is going to do to growers who will be pushed to buy more organic seed?

Allison: One comment that stood out to me. Found lots of benefits using organic seed, they are more adapted to organic management and more effective to farmers. So there is a cost benefit balance. But there are task forces and coalitions coming together and it’s valuable to hear directly from producer who are impacted as well.

Carolyn: I don’t think we are planning to force this on people. We want to understand barriers to adaption… if the barriers are cost we need to take that into account. Are you then willing to let organic seed aspect fall to the side? I don’t have the answer. Not trying to make things less competitive to farmers. I am all about farm profit.

Allison: I think some of the feedback that came through in comparing to EU, once you have a line in the sand that have to source organic, it seems having spectrum of options we have is creating market uncertainty has driven up prices for organic seed.

Nate Lewis: Couple thoughts… going back to 2015 I had a tour in Stowe, VT. Tom Stern said on that tour: the way to get farmers to use organic seed is by increasing the quality of those seeds, so that they choose it because it’s better. We have inbred parental lines that are wimpy plants, but those are the source for the hybrid seeds. Learning why we face difficulty with organic seed production.

Brian Caldwell: I wish it was true that conventional seed didn’t do as well under organic conditions. Usually best varieties for conventional growers are the best for organic. I think what’s happening, a lot of small scale vegetable growers are taking a hit by ordering 80% or more as organic. They might try to contract that as organic and it may cost 200-300K more for their seed. Have to look at trying not to ask organic growers to take that hit. Look at financial disincentive to use conventional seed. Our growers are trying hard.

Allison: Things came up in comments that are outside the NOSB’s purview like subsidies… what are the financial incentives here. Looking at NRCS programs… can we have something that incentivizes people to switch to organic seed.

Carolyn: Unreasonable to think we will come up with specific answers. Probably a 3-5 year research with what Brian was talking about.

Logan: wanted to comment on that fact that EU is going to organic seed in 2036. We use a lot of European varieties. They may have a big supply we can crack into. Maybe if they are making the leaps there it will help in the vegetable industry. Hopefully with EU bringing some of these varieties on that’s going to open up opportunity.

Allison: We heard in comments that it’s not happening. Because you have guaranteed market in Europe they are marketing there. There is push-pull between leaving farmers flexibility and having enough of a market signal that strides that have been made can benefit farmers here.

Kyla Smith: Comment on commercial availability. It’s a challenge for certifiers. We get put in an awkward position. We got comments that it’s problematic. Also about commercial availability… handlers role: currently ACA best practices document is they are doing those searches and then providing that documentation to the producers directly. Some commenters had talked about slippery slope of applying crop standards to handlers.

Jerry: Question for Nate and then comment. You said farmers pushed to buy organic seed. My question is have we categorized the pushers? To my experience, you have retailers, you would call buyers, and that is primarily a fresh market. We don’t give credit to the significant volumes of handlers. For instance, blueberry for frozen market is not ideal for fresh market. You triggered by thought is a starting point is who the pushers are. It’s the pull.

Nate Powell-Palm: might be using word “push” differently. You’re using “push” as those providing the seed. Idea of handler not just being brought to task, but becoming a driver to get their supplier to use it.

Amy Bruch: I liked the idea of focusing on the barriers.

October 24, 2024

Materials Subcommittee (MS)

Franklin Quarcoo, Chairperson

Proposal: Research Priorities 2024

Details about the research priorities can be found in the meeting materials.

Wood Turner: Spent time trying to make priorities more meaningful and to prioritize. Deeper engagement on these issues with the Board. Get solid comments from the community. I still feel like I want to leave behind the continued need to hear feedback – who is doing research, even if not fully complete. Had conversation: the idea that opportunity where meetings where research university that we give local folks opportunity to come in. Comments – hear about feedback loop, idea of adding PFAS to all or general category, organic seed research, more clarity on racial equity topics, adding to BPA research priority, ongoing in several comments about getting plastics out of organic. The need to do more research about organic pork, ancillary ingredient research, ongoing on-farm research in addition to university, methods to quantify soil biology in a quantifiable way.

Amy Bruch: Really important topic. I love the list; wonderful. Good issues; we need to solve them. Let’s cross things off this list. I understand that our jurisdiction is not the Farm Bill, but it does fund these things. We need to specifically say why we need these research dollars. Community list. Yes, let’s get to the folks who can help us. Break down barriers. Reach outside of our community, but still in the realm of agriculture. We need to partner with people to keep moving the community forward to accomplish this 80% of market share. Transparency and feedback loop really important. Accountability piece really important.

Mindee: Thank you to Wood for work on this. Re-invigorated.

Nate Lewis: In vein of reimagining, would love to see subcommittee thing about not just the subject matter but methods by which we do research. Academia research is extremely valuable but so is on-farm, practical research. Trying to think about priorities within the subject matter and those which are practical and useful for farmers. Would like to add some nuance in that vein.

Carolyn Dimitri: Thanks for the highly organized list. OFRF is piloting farmer-led research trials. Let’s get the word out to farmers that are interested in doing research on their farm.

Allison Johnson: wanted to echo energy you put in and development that has happened in terms of prioritization – let’s keep big list but also identify things that can really move the needle. Celery powder – engaging with research team to identify barriers and figure out hangups to overcome, not sure we would get that level of detail without the research list.

Franklin: Farmer-led research as a researcher myself. There is an aspect of not having a kind of study that shows best-practices in relationships between researchers and farmers to get the best data. For example, researchers wanting data collected or done one way and farmer not doing it. It would be helpful to have research on this including what kind of training farmers need to get the best data.

Dillip Nandwani: Clarification – Is this list going to be for next 5 years if approved? Reason asking is that new research priorities keep coming. New issues and topics keep coming from farmers, stakeholders, and industry, especially with climate change. Can we add more?

Wood Turner: We do it every year. This is a living document.

• Vote: to approve the Research Priorities document. Yes: 14; No: 0; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion passes.

Proposal: Inert Ingredients in Pesticide Products

This proposal was started due to a memo from the National Organic Program (NOP).

The two options for inert ingredients up for discussion are:

1. List inert ingredients individually on the National List. Starting with the list of substances currently in use in organic pesticide formulas, NOP should move forward with rulemaking listing all of these substances individually. With the status-quo preserved in the National List with individual listings, additions and removals can be petitioned by the public as needed, and NOSB can propose additions and removals during the sunset cycle. MS acknowledges this option expands the National List substantially and adds to the sunset review burden for future boards, however, this option also focuses the individual review of inert substances used in organic pesticides away from EPA and towards NOSB and NOP, which aligns with many public commenters’ opinions.

2. Allow substances defined and allowed by EPA as “inert ingredients” (40 CFR 152.3 & 7 CFR 205.2) with restrictions and prohibitions. Starting with inert ingredients that have been reviewed and approved by EPA for inclusion in pesticide formulas, MS recommends further restricting this group by only allowing those which are allowed in formulations that are exempt from the requirement of tolerance. MS also proposes an initial list of prohibitions that include alkylphenol ethoxylate substances and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

Nate Lewis leads the discussion and background: The NOSB has passed numerous recommendations. [Nate summarizes the NOSB’s work in this area, leaving time for NOSB discussion.]

[Slide: Inerts Option 1]

[Slide: Inerts Option 2]

NOSB Discussion

Brian Caldwell: This has been an extremely difficult topic for years and there’s a need with our farmers and regulators for improvement of obsolete list working with now. Cut to the chase – I think when we first got this agenda item we were very much encouraged to submit proposal at this meeting. Felt a lot of time pressure. Thought discussion doc first would be better. Comments from Dr. Tucker and others seemed to suggest we could decouple our timeframe for when list of inerts comes up to renewal and no real rush to get that done before that happens. Appreciate comments and particularly hybrid one. Prefer it go back to subcommittee right now.

Mindee Jeffrey: Public atmosphere and inerts – substance came up in media, I’ve never had to explain inerts to marketing team before. Our collective intelligence is ready for in depth review. Important to understand our criteria ask us for a deep level of review. Love NL and protective of it. Need to explain to consumers has arrived to us. Support the work and functionality of giving options to program. I support work and want to raise notion that consumer is starting to digest this level of looking at organic system.

Allison Johnson: It’s time to unsweep this issue from under the rug; we’ve been punting it for too long. Appreciate that the Program gave us a deadline. The Program’s memo said that we got 70% of the way there through the advanced notice of rulemaking. And they are looking to us to get the rest of the way there. I do not think we are quite there yet. My day job exists because EPA isn’t doing enough to protect us and protect our environment, and for me, Option 2 gives up too much. I would like to see this go back to subcommittee for one more go-round. I think we made a lot of progress, and we got excellent comments, but I think we need another go-round to get a little bit closer.

Nate Lewis: Appreciated. My background is in material review. Franklin – your experience is in testing efficacy of pesticides – huge body of expertise the NOSB hasn’t had before. We should move this proposal forward so that the NOP has the latitude to create context that is legal and to move forward. We should pivot toward a granular review of the substances in anticipation of sunset reviews. The level of commitment we have now – we should take advantage of it. Give the program some of the options. Turn it to Jenny and the Program – can we conclude this aspect of the inerts program… can we pivot to a review of substances, keeping inerts on our work agenda?

Dr. Tucker: I will broaden it out a bit. First, I want to acknowledge how complicated this is and thank you. A long time coming. The Board had expressed once when they renewed List 3 & 4 last time, they said they didn’t want to do this again. When we wrote the Work Agenda item, we did the math on how long it would take to do rule making. If it goes back to subcommittee, then the chance of needing to relist 3 & 4 again go up, as we wouldn’t have time to finish rulemaking, and people still need these. If it passes, then we would engage in a rulemaking process. We would also recognize that this is done and we are not working on it anymore, but you would need to continue the work. This would remain an active work agenda item, because there are so many moving parts to it. We are allowed to talk until we publish a proposed rule, but once it is published, then we cannot talk. But we could keep an eye on what you are doing to ensure there aren’t conflicts or overlap. We would just make sure that we own this part of the process, and you own that part of the process. Does that help?

Nate Lewis: It’s reassured me this would not be the end of the inerts discussion for those terming off the Board.

Dr. Tucker: I think a lot of people will have “retired” and we are still going to be talking about inerts. I think this is a living topic.

Brian Caldwell: If rulemaking is going into effect, there is going to be a phase-in period for the manufacturers. It seems to me that we are going to have to re-approve List 3 & 4 no matter what happens, and then it will be superseded by the new rule when it goes into effect.

Dr. Tucker: I think that’s a valid point. Been trying to think through dependencies and what can be decoupled and we need to be careful we are following OFPA. We can’t add synthetic to NL without a board recommendation.

Mindee Jeffrey: I am compelled. Thank you for that clarification. I am not your “trust the government” person naturally. I do trust this process, and I do love this process, even though it does not always go the way that we want it to, but I think that’s because the tide changes. I think that it’s important to note that the consumers are starting to look at this issue. I am okay with not going back to subcommittee and working through, and I appreciate the dialogue.

Franklin Quarcoo: Question Nate asked earlier today and statement from Dr. Tucker makes me way more comfortable proceeding with a vote on this issue.

Wood Turner: Practical question – I am reminded that 2 years ago we tabled a petition for distilled tall oil – what happens on that issue, for example? It’s an adjuvant, on List 3 – let’s say List 3 rolls over during rulemaking – what happens on that issue practically? I have no dog in the race on this – the material isn’t relevant – I’m curious about the process.

Nate Lewis: It was being used as an inert in that case, then it would depend on the option the NOP chooses. Whatever the rule comes out – it depends on where tall oil is included and whether we have to review it.

Amy Bruch: I echo many of the Board member’s comments. Scope of the project was to determine options. Brian – question for you – we have Option 1, 2, the idea of hybrid between some of those, reconciled public comments – you said there might be something more that we can do. Balancing that with Dr. Tucker’s comments, where we are going on this, and public comments, what more did you think we could do?

Brian Caldwell: Basically my feeling is that what we’ve got before us today is much better than just continuing with List 3 and 4. i think we could make narrower guardrails the NOP and EPA could work within. I’m uncomfortable with the inerts not subject to tolerance requirement and those list total over 2000 substances, many of which are not in use right now, but could be if that was the way we went forward. I’m not comfortable – I would like to limit the universe of materials that are grandfathered in and would like to make list smaller and more transparent.

Carolyn Dimitri: I am a consumer of organic, and I sit in that seat. I’m an economist and do not really understand the nuances of inerts as some of my colleagues do. I was really taken by the hybrid proposal that was put forward. As an organic consumer, I do not like the idea of saying we are going to give our power over to EPA. I think sending it back to subcommittee and putting together a better idea of what the categories would look like make me most comfortable.

Logan Petrey: Amy and Brian have debated what I was going to bring up. Nate – could you go over how restricted we are. Still a lot of work and seems we are just narrowing down a focus. Started out with many possibilities and now this is. step forward. Option 1 seems very comprehensive. Can you explain passing this proposal does not inhibit us a lot.

Nate Lewis: We will need to respond to any action the Program takes. As they engage in the theory of inter-agency collaboration on this topic. Moving forward with a proposal with narrower bookends would have more reassurance. But I think we should pass something as wide as possible so the Program has more latitude. The unique concerns of interests – because they are regulated by a group outside the USDA, and protected by confidentiality statements of formula – we need to approach it that way.

Allison Johnson: I wanted to build on this – The NOP cannot add a synthetic substance to the NL without our recommendation. Leaving the Option 2 bookend where it is, I think gives them too much discretion. I think we can find something where we can be comfortable with EPAs work, but leaving that bookend where it lies, I think we need to be very careful, because that’s ceding any power that we potentially have.

Brian Caldwell: Question for Dr. Tucker: we anticipate that there might be legal issues, especially if we narrow the options… that could block entire process. One of the advantages of going forward with what we have is it’s a broader playing field and gives more options to avoid legal issues. If we move forward with narrower approach, and there was a legal impediment, how quickly could be get feedback and jump into the fray again?

Dr. Tucker: I am, we are not going to do anything illegal in a rule. We won’t. I have not heard concerns with the legality of this proposal. We’re more concerned about cost than legality. That’s more the red flag with some of the options being discussed. Coming up on sunset, reason NVM, was a listing Board proposed a change, we tried to move forward with rulemaking and it ended up being economically significant – was going to be so expensive so it died. Interim final rule kept the status quo because of the economics, because it was going to be so expensive for manufacturers to reformulate. People have been relying on list 3 and 4 for a long time. Making fewer options available can certainly be costly.

Brian Caldwell: To be more specific, in option 1 we have a list of what we think are inerts currently in use… we thought there might be issues with proprietary info between EPA and NOP. The way we originally got the list, we worked with MROs who told us all of the inerts that were included in products, but we did not get specific formulations of any materials, because it was proprietary information, and I think that’s what we were concerned about.

Dr. Tucker: I hear what you’re saying. In a rule, we care about what would actually be listed and the justification of how the Board came to it. We wouldn’t include proprietary… I want to answer the question, but I’m not sure I understand it. People could comment in a proposed rule on anything they liked or not.

Nate Lewis: What we’ve talking about in working group is that initial list is what we know, or have been told, are included in proprietary formulas. By publishing, these are included, it backtracks into formulas. Concern is whether that has some impact. Whether FIFRA could say that’s an issue around confidentiality. Might be how partner agencies vet the rules.

Dr. Tucker: I do not know the answer to the question. Any rule we do will go through inter-agency review if it is determined to be significant. Because of the novelty of this and reference to EPA, it will absolutely go through inter-agency review. When we did the inerts ANPR, we actually went to EPA, and we will likely have those conversations very early in the process.

Brian Caldwell: That stage may have been gone through. Option 1 was evidently vetted.

Dr. Tucker: We put the 4 options in the ANPR that we thought were legally viable. We did express some preferences in that based on the work load and labor. EPA did weigh in on those. There is nothing in there that wouldn’t be legal.

Jerry: Feel being first vote, want to share. I’m not in your league here. This is way beyond my core competency. Going to have to use a phrase I don’t like: “optics.” Listening to Mindee and have read stakeholder comments. Going to vote yes because I don’t think we can afford the optics. I am going to vote yes.

Allison – Move to take proposal back to subcommittee; Seconded by Carolyn.

• Vote: Yes: 5; No: 9; Absent: 1. – Motion fails.

Carolyn Dimitri: Can we talk about the cover letter that might go along with this now that it failed to go back to subcommittee. I want to go that to feel comfortable taking a vote on this.

Nate Lewis: We have talked about what might go into a cover letter. With the quality of comments that we received this time, we wanted to be clear that a hybrid approach is recommended, or that we are welcome to the Program looking at all of the recommendations that we’ve made in the past. Wanted to note that we want good parts pulled out of each recommendation, if that seemed like the option that was most viable to them.

Brian Caldwell: I agree.

Carolyn Dimitri: After thinking about the cost of implementation, I do have a fear that the final rule will come down to Option 2, as I think that will be the lowest cost of implementation. I wanted to say that. I know that is really out of everyone’s control at this point.

• Vote: Motion to accept the inerts proposal. Yes: 11; No: 1; Abstain: 2; Absent: 1. Motion carries.

Discussion Document: Excluded Methods – TBD List/induced metagenesis

Questions for stakeholders:

1. Should induced mutagenesis be classed as an excluded method? On what basis?

2. If IM is determined to be an excluded method, how should varieties produced using it be handled? a. Should all varieties with IM heritage be disallowed for organic production? How would this be managed? b. Should varieties with IM background currently in use be allowed, and IM be prohibited from use in plant breeding going forward?

3. Should varieties with IM be allowed, perhaps on the basis that IM is compatible with organic production because subsequent backcrossing sufficiently reduces any negative features it may introduce?

[Slide: Excluded Methods / Induced Mutagenesis]

Brian Caldwell: [Summarizes the discussion document.]

NOSB Discussion

Dilip Nandwani: I would like to add a couple of things. The Technical Review was requested in 2023 and finalized in 2024. Much of the discussion is based on the information from the TR. [Dilip further reads from the published materials.] We have lots of experts in this room, and we like to hear from stakeholders and see what they think about this challenging topic. Would it be advisable to grandfather such varieties for use, therefore allowing them to be used for future varieties?

Mindee Jeffrey: Compelled by the clarity and fearlessness of speaking to whole-plant intelligence. Seed that has been treated in these ways may not be healthy. Talking from the depth of passion from who plants are to us: I talk to plants. Every time I move I talk to my plants and tell them how it might be different, in sacred trust. We do not have an infrastructure in our university system that functions at the depth of the public trust that it takes to continue to produce resistant varieties. Organic has always been the most progressive place in society at answering that question. What do we do with the fact we live here now? And I think we have to proceed creatively through that question. We do love traditional plant breeding and would like for our infrastructure and society to support that level of foundational life. Appreciate the depth you all are working on this.

Nate Lewis: I’ll be frank. I’m unconvinced that induced mutagenesis is an excluded method. Processes are extreme and radiation and toxic chemicals are not part of organic systems, but extreme processes are part of accepted practices; see hand pollinating tomato plants, for example. There are contrived scenarios to get genetics we need. I remain unconvinced it is an excluded method. Also consider the ramifications of classifying it as an excluded method. It isn’t just ruby red grapefruits, it’s potentially all the fermentation products. If we just limit focus on this work to plant varieties we are forgetting about all the uses of IM in our food system.

Nate Powell-Palm: This is a huge opportunity for us to invite a subset of experts and would love to hear from plant breeders. As a farmer who is constantly thinking about climate change and needing new varieties, I know that tools in the toolbox are very important. I know that this may be a foundational method to create new varieties that are adaptive. Thank you, Mindee, in keeping us grounded in how we are moving forward with this.

Amy Bruch: Nate you said what I was going to say. To the group working on this, just comment. I do believe timing is right on this work agenda item – consistency on organic seed use – really go hand in hand. Need to look at how seed is being produced from macro view. Also have some follow-ups on this subject matter from the grain space. Also question of if it’s quote unquote conventional practice. I will work on those follow ups.

Allison Johnson: Excluded methods is getting exponentially harder to track and fit into the framework that we have. With seeds, in particular, I appreciate Mindee grounding us in the origins of seed, especially when we think about equity in our food systems.

Franklin Quarcoo: I would like to commend the members of this committee that have worked so tirelessly on this. Mindee has been so helpful to me; thank you. Want to echo what Nate said about an expert panel. We need this for this topic. I also want to thank Dr. Tucker for coming here to tell us about how it has come to our attention how some of the SOE and things we are talking about have affected small-scale farmers.

Kyla Smith: This subcommittee does not shy away from the hard topics, and I commend us all for tackling these hard topics with tremendous respect of everyone’s positions.

[Break]

Handling Subcommittee (HS)

Allison Johnson, Chairperson

Proposal: Potassium Phosphate – Petitioned

A summary of the petition can be found here.

[Slide: Potassium Phosphate]

Carolyn Dimitri: [Summarizes the proposal.] This petition is for a product that’s already on the national list and the petitioner wanted to change the annotation. Currently it is of you can use it on products that are labeled made with organic, but you can’t display the organic seal on products that have this.

I saw the concerns that previous NOSB had, and wanted to see if there was new research [since the old TR]. There was one publication, sponsored in part by the petitioner, from about 2016/2017. Everything else pointed to health problems from consumption of this product. After a lengthy discussion we decided that we do not change the annotation and continue to allow it only in “made with” labeling.

Public comments: 3 comments neutral, 1 in favor of listing (in addition to the petitioner), and 4 that opposed the petition.

The science is supportive of serious concern about phosphates in the diets of consumers and did not feel comfortable allowing this in organic products.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Lewis: I sometimes think about the “made with” product as a barrier to markets for ingredients. Like sulfites in wine – without the seal, there is less incentive for producers to transition acres of grapes that would be used in the wine industry. Did you consider if this would disincentivizes markets?

Carolyn Dimitri: My understanding product is mainly used in processed foods. Others that can substitute for it. I don’t see it as a barrier.

Mindee Jeffrey: Please clarify, Nate?

Nate Lewis: The limitation of sulfites in wine to the “made with” category means that there is less incentive for wine growers to grow organic grapes.

Mindee Jeffrey: I don’t know if I’m right. I feel like “made with” means more grow more organic groups. There is progressional positive there.

Allison Johnson: Wine is unique, so maybe not the best example, but I hear what you are getting at – is opening up this material a way to drive producers to the organic market? I agree with Carolyn that this would not be the case. I also agree with her that the “made with” category provides some comfort and strikes a balance.

Mindee Jeffrey: If I’m hearing you correctly, concern is still for not listing?

Nate Lewis: My question was aiming at does this put a further disincentive for people to transition their acreage to organic, and it does not appear as if it does.

• Vote: Motion to remove the annotation restricting the use of potassium phosphate to ‘made with organic ingredients’ and to add an “s” to phosphate at 205.605(b). Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Proposal: L-Malic Acid Reclassification

Summary of Issue: Reclassification of L-Malic Acid has been on the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB’s) work agenda for a number of years, and the Handling Subcommittee (HS) is attempting to resolve the ongoing classification issue at this sunset review of L-Malic Acid. The sunset review can be found in a separate document. This proposal focuses squarely on classification of L-Malic Acid and whether it should be listed at 7 CFR 205.605(a) or 7 CFR 205.605(b).

[Slides: Explanation]

Nate Lewis: [Summarizes the reclassification.]

NOSB Discussion

Amy Bruch: I’m very clear on what you described; thank you.

Logan: Public comments were similar on potassium iodide that it’s classified similarly…

Nate Lewis: Related to potassium iodine? I don’t know. Good question, and we should tackle it in that context.

Allison Johnson: Initially, when Nate brought this material to the subcommittee, I heard “synthetic” and “made from fossil fuels,” and what I came to understand, is that the original listing and how the Board intended to listing it covered the nonsynthetic. I think that gives us grounds for how to review both of the versions going forward. The non-synthetic has driven market availability. The synthetic version has been the predominant type. I think the decision to add the non-synthetic isn’t adding something new, but something that’s been in use. I think that evaluating that same thing in other materials needs to be done on a case-by-case process because of that.

Mindee Jeffrey: compelled by comments that we would need to make some decisions about fermentation for example. I need to see in a document and process it. There are so many details here spreading across many areas. I will make that motion. With this many questions in front of us, we need to be thoughtful. I need to unpack these issues over 6 months. I think we need to be more metered about how representing in document so when we arrive at public comments.

Allison Johnson: That’s a theme that I’m hearing come up quite a bit at this meeting, and I’m appreciating it.

Kim Huseman: Mindee, if hearing you right, fermentation process in production of ethanol has some questions

Mindee Jeffrey: I have to read all of that. I have to be able to digest it. Not only for this substance, but for fermentation and other substances. That’s how I have to work, and I think we have to represent it that clearly in the proposals. To me, there’s not risk at having this written in depth for the record and for the general public. I want to hear the fermentation process in a way that I can step my way through it very clearly.

Allison Johnson: I think it’s a good call to action to be concise, clear, and understandable to anyone from any background is part of our job here. We heard this from commenters, as well.

Nate Lewis: Mindee, you make a compelling case. What an opportunity to onboard 5 new members on classification.

Mindee Jeffrey: What a great way to onboard new board members in the work we are doing to clean up the National List.

• Vote: Motion to send the proposal on L-Malic Acid back to subcommittee. Yes: 11; No: 0; Abstain: 3; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion carries.

Discussion Document: Ethylene – Petitioned

Summary of Petition: The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) received a petition to expand use of ethylene gas to include sprouting inhibition on organic potatoes and onions. The petitioner is a manufacturer of equipment that generates ethylene gas onsite through the catalytic conversion of ethyl alcohol. Ethylene is currently allowed at 7 CFR 205.605(b) for use in postharvest ripening of tropical fruit and degreening of citrus.

[Slide: Ethylene]

Nate Lewis: [Summarizes the peition, comments, etc.] We did receive general support for adding it for spuds and onion growers.

NOSB Discussion

Nate Powell-Palm: Can you tell us more about your interviews of onion and potato growers?

Nate Lewis: WA state – grow a lot of potatoes and onions. In WA we have connection with vegetable growers and potato commission. Growers in the space – reached out proactively, they had heard about it. Primarily used in UK and Europe. Kind of a novel product. Not currently used widely in organic or conventional in WA. Trading partners do allow it for this particular use. Started process of getting growers engaged.

Amy Bruch: With my consumer hat on, being a rural community, buying organic potatoes is very hard and they last maybe a day. That’s the realities of our transportation and logistics systems. Tools for farmers are important to get their products to a consumer so that we can keep the pipeline going. I really support this with my consumer hat on.

Kyla Smith: I am intrigued to continue to unpack the tropical fruit part of this. In OID there is a category for tropical fruits. PCO used InTACT system and there is a way in which you select the category and the connection between tropical fruit. List is quite long. If producer using this for any of their items, we’d have to allow it – would want to unpack, maybe getting more granular. Was just thinking about that.

Mindee Jeffrey: Appreciate Amy’s perspective as a consumer. I am sitting on the plane and often talk with people, and I generally tell people that I’m going to work on organic. I’m talking to a guy on the way here, and he said that he thought organic was like 10% real. I gave him the true perspective on what we do, and he yelled across the baggage claim that he told his family “organic is real.” As an organic consumer, I’d like to be able to plop my organic potato in my compost and watch the magic happen, because organic is real.

2026 Handling Sunset Reviews:

Acids (Citric and Lactic)
§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed (1) Acids (Citric – produced by microbial fermentation of carbohydrate substances; and Lactic)
And
§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed (1) Acids (Citric – produced by microbial fermentation of carbohydrate substances; and Lactic).

Nate Lewis: [Summarized the published materials, comments, etc.] This is in the world of fermentation clarity that we need. It appears that according to the new TR that we got, it is produced through organisms that are produced through induced mutagenesis. We will need to take this into consideration when we discuss Excluded Methods. These products remain essential in organic processing. Comments generally supported relisting. Subcommittee found both substances to be compliant with OFPA. Two substances at one listing – will need 2 votes.

NOSB Discussion

Allison Johnson: I want to note that the idea of “commercial availability” has been coming up a lot for 605 materials. That probably needs to be dealt with at a full list level, not case-by-case, but wanted to acknowledge that came up in comments.

Amy Bruch: With commercial availability good for our board and community to understand it on a macro level, within our borders and internationally.

Nate Lewis: Apparently, we can take it in one vote, if folks are comfortable with that. Because it is one National List listing, we can do it in one.

Allison Johnson: Any concerns with that approach? [Hearing none, the vote moved forward.]

• Vote: Motion to remove citric acid and lactic acid from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 0. Motion fails.

Calcium citrate, Potassium citrate, and Sodium citrate

§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (7) Calcium citrate.
And
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (25) Potassium citrate.
And
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (31) Sodium citrate.

Carolyn Dimitri: [Provided an overview of published materials.] Generally, support for relisting is overwhelmingly positive, with two comments of adding an annotation of prohibition of products from excluded methods as a source. Another commenter suggested an annotation for use.

NOSB Discussion

No additional discussion.

• Vote: Motion to remove calcium citrate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 13; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 2. Motion fails.
• Vote: Motion to remove potassium citrate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.
• Vote: Motion to remove sodium citrate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Enzymes, Microorganisms, and Yeast

§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed (11) Enzymes—must be derived from edible, nontoxic plants, nonpathogenic fungi, or nonpathogenic bacteria
And
§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed (19) Microorganisms—any food grade bacteria, fungi, and other microorganism.
And
§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed (30) Yeast—When used as food or a fermentation agent in products labeled as “organic,” yeast must be organic if its end use is for human consumption; nonorganic yeast may be used when organic yeast is not commercially available. Growth on petrochemical substrate and sulfite waste liquor is prohibited. For smoked yeast, nonsynthetic smoke flavoring process must be documented.

Jerry D’Amore: [Summarized the published materials for all three materials, and specifically the new paragraph regarding processes of fermentation.]

NOSB Discussion

Brian Caldwell: In the interest in moving ahead on Excluded Methods thinking and discussion, what were the comments from stakeholders about EMs not being used in microorganisms?

Jerry D’Amore: The answer is broad in that on the first go around there were specific concerns expressed. The meeting in Milwaukee provoked an elevation of notion of excluded methods and fermentation. What I found this go around was that the responses were not so point for these three, but created a new bucket of concern, not sure that specifically answered your question.

Brian Caldwell: Are people using affidavits, or what kinds of “insurance” are they getting?

Jerry D’Amore: The term affidavit was term that put me in a tail spin. Affidavit doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. Affidavit tied into specific communication for ACA on what that is and how it’s handled. Another new term for me, risk-based assessment. I think the whole community has a recognition that these are in place, they are important, and from Milwaukee meeting there is consensus that it’s nice that we are talking about it.

Kyla Smith: Wanted to echo what Jerry said; certifiers do rely on affidavits from manufacturers stating that they do not use EM. Also, on the ACA discussion there is a Best Practices document that certifiers use – there is a table in the back that has a risk-classification on when to dive a bit deeper on materials. There are some, admittedly, that there is not consensus on whether or not a material is high-risk, but there is a process in that Best Practices document on how to dig deeper on those materials.

• Vote: Motion to remove enzymes from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 13; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 2. Motion fails.
• Vote: Motion to remove microorganisms from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.
• Vote: Motion to remove yeast from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Calcium chloride

§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed. (7) Calcium chloride.

Kyla Smith: [Provided an overview of the published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove calcium chloride from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

L-Malic acid
§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed. (16) L-Malic acid (CAS # 97-67-6)

Nate Lewis: [Provided an overview based on the published materials.]

NOSB Discussion

• Vote: Motion to remove L-malic acid from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 13; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 2. Motion fails.

Magnesium sulfate
§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed. (18) Magnesium sulfate, nonsynthetic sources only.

Allison Johnson: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.] 2 commenters noted that we should encourage users of this material to consider sources from pit mining and seek out other sources. Subcommittee is taking a deeper look at mined materials, which we know is an environmentally destructive process.

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove magnesium sulfate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Perlite
§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed
(22) Perlite—for use only as a filter aid in food processing

Amy Bruch: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.] Public comments – handful, all positive for relisting.

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove Perlite from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 12; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 3. Motion fails.

Potassium iodide
§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed. (24) Potassium iodide.

Logan Petrey: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.] Comments in Spring mostly in support. One commenter noted this is only manufactured synthetically. In the fall, there were 2 commenters that stated this is only from synthetic sources and should be removed from this list, but the Board noted that it was covered under Nutrients, Vitamins, and Minerals and did not need to be relisted.

NOSB Discussion

Wood Turner: Can you give me a nerdy version of the NVM issue?

Allison Johnson: You will get that in a bit. There is an inconsistency/messiness on the list on these materials that have supplement value are dealt with. We will decide how we want to deal with that on the NVM. I think with this, it is nice to have the nonsynthetic listed, even though there might not be an available version. I do not see harm in allowing this to remain on the list.

• Vote: Motion to remove potassium iodide from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 13; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 2. Motion fails.

Pullulan

§ 205.605(a) Nonsynthetics allowed. (25) Pullulan—for use only in tablets and capsules for dietary supplements labeled “made with organic (specified ingredients or food group(s)).”

Dilip Nandwani: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.] We heard from commenters about the availability of organic pullulan. The company mentioned that it may need to consider this. It is possible that by the next sunset review, the threshold could be met. Spring 2024 meeting, commenters also commented on this. Now we heard from a manufacturer that they could provide it. All other commenters suggested relisting, but these comments were made prior to hearing from the manufacturer. There may be additional manufacturers that could provide this in organic variety.

NOSB Discussion

Allison Johnson: Puts us in an interesting position. In the Spring, we’d heard that we weren’t quite there on commercial availability, but I think that we heard in public comments that we are, as the company said they could provide what is needed. We did hear concern in oral comments about the “made with” category and that maybe we want to leave open the possibility of produce capsules with organic substance inside. I was personally moved by the manufacturer noting that if you are seeking the organic inside and can get the organic outside, you would probably prefer that as a consumer. I am inclined to change my vote. We did hear from a couple of companies that they didn’t know the supply was there for them, but we would have a couple of years for the manufacturer to catch up until this would be published.

Amy: This substance – all about continuous improvement. Also about verification. We need to verify with risk, fraud, and commercial availability. We heard supply is here – the manufacturer that commented seemed confident. But is the demand data available. When we only have one supplier making the ingredient, that’s risky. When there is one manufacturer there is no competition. When there is only one it’s hard for me to say let’s go hard in one direction. I think we need to evaluate the size of the marketplace with the quantity of product needed.

Nate Powell-Palm: I think in last few years we’ve been pretty consistent about saying monopoly is not a good thing. Cool time to hear from manufacturer, “we have the product” and how commenter said they invite competition. I need to see that competition tangibly and in real time. I would stick with vote as it currently shows.

Kyla Smith: I am torn. I like cleaning up the NL and getting things accurate; for example the classification kerfuffle already dealt with. If we did decide to remove this… there is a whole other rulemaking process here. The safest route to have something removed is to have a petition from industry when they feel there is comfort and enough supply.

Mindee Jeffrey: I do not think I know all of the information. I’m not sure I totally understand the ins and outs of organic labeling in the dietary industry, and I think it would be good to understand that in this context. I think that in the supplements industry, I want both available to manufacturers – organic and “made with” – because that’s what we are doing if continue to support this.

Allison Johnson: You could still make a “made-with” supplement. You’ wouldn’t be able to use a non-organic pullulan capsule. There would still be room to have a 30% nonorganic solution.

Mindee Jeffrey: So you’re saying that if we remove this, there could still be “made with” supplements. I do not want to hurt the market. I do think it’s important to understand how our regulations translate in the supplement industry, because I’m not clear on those.

Jerry D’Amore: Agree with everyone who is cautioning us to slow it down. The price for being wrong is high.

Allison Johnson: We are in a funny territory using commercial availability language because this does not have a commercial availability clause.

Carolyn Dimitri: I think I need a lesson. Say we vote to not re-list this, could you walk us through the process that NOP does? Are some of these questions ones that the NOP would be looking at? I don’t think it’s our job to worry about a monopoly.

Dr. Tucker: In a sunset review if the NOSB votes to remove (yes vote), then we would take that and do a proposed rule. And then based on public comments to that proposed rule we would decide to do a final rule or not.

Nate Lewis: Wanted to reiterate the commercial availability piece does not apply to this substance because of it’s location on the list. As we re-evaluate, we might want to consider that commercial availability is something that could apply to the 605 substances.

Kyla Smith: In the “made with” category, if we remove this, the capsule could be made with a different material that capsules are made with, or even with organic pullulan in the “made with” category. I wanted to point out that pullulan is the only vegan capsule option allowed on the National List.

Allison Johnson: When something on 605(a), nonsynthetic, nonorganic ingredient becomes available in organic, that signifies to me that there is an agricultural process that could get this product to market. Even if someone were producing a pullulan capsule that didn’t have organic certification, the presence of organic pullulan on the market now tells me you can make it agriculturally. That would leave open the possibility of using all agricultural ingredients, and in that case the certifier would look at the capsule and determine if there were excluded methods used. And if they could meet that criteria, you could still have a “made with organic” with a nonorganic pullulan capsule that was produced through a an agricultural process. You wanna get, like, as wonky as can be here. I think it can be done.

Amy Bruch: I believe the manufacturer’s process – believe it is patented. Said for 10 years? Thats the road map to make this in other means versus the pathway of intellectual property. Would be helpful to understand road map for future manufactures.

Allison Johnson: Its a good point and question, heard manufacture say it welcomes competition.

Carolyn: another thought. If this is removed, then the company selling the organic version would have better access to market. Otherwise they will be competing with people selling at a lower cost.

Nate Lewis: I want to acknowledge this conversation and this substance warrants revisiting classification so we can be sure what can be certified organic and connecting dots.

Dilip: Are companies already selling organic pullulan on the market? Trying to get a clear picture.

Carolyn: Reiterates price issue. If everything stays as it is, the manufacturer with the organic version will sell it at a higher price even though both will have the organic label. If you remove the synthetic/this listing, then only organic is available, they won’t be competing with a product that looks the same but does not have the organic capsule.

Brian: So then would be able to share at a higher price?

Carolyn: I don’t know what their pricing strategy would be.

Nate Powell-Palm: Swimming in a dearth of information right now. Petition it off and give us all the information. I think we have so many questions about how the market looks and I invite petition for this.

Kim Huseman: Speaks to so many products so lets exhaust it here. There are things that are going to come up in other NL substances. Want to bring forward that trade can be outside of the organics purview. When we talk about manufacturing and manufacturing processes, there could be opportunity where supply chain may be fragile, could be implications with geopolitical aspects to it.

Amy: Echo Nate and Kim. Need to know supply and demand and we are missing one variable in that equation.

Logan: When talking about a petition – a petition to remove. Nate says yes.

Nate Lewis: Correct.

• Vote: Motion to remove pullulan from the National List. Yes: 2; No: 12; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

[Lunch]

Activated charcoal
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (2) Activated charcoal (CAS #s 7440-44-0; 64365-11-3)—only from vegetative sources; for use only as a filtering aid.

Kim Huseman: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove activated charcoal from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Ascorbic acid
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (6) Ascorbic acid.

Nate Lewis: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove ascorbic acid from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Collagen gel
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (13) Collagen gel—as casing, may be used only when organic collagen gel is not commercially available.

Kim Huseman: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove collagen gel from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Ferrous sulfate
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (15) Ferrous sulfate—for iron enrichment or fortification of foods when required by regulation or recommended (independent organization).

Kim Huseman: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove ferrous sulfate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Hydrogen peroxide
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (17) Hydrogen peroxide.

Wood Turner: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove hydrogen peroxide from 205.605(b) of the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Nutrient vitamins and minerals
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (20) Nutrient vitamins and minerals, in accordance with 21 CFR 104.20, Nutritional Quality Guidelines For Foods.

Allison Johnson: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove nutrient vitamins and minerals from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Peracetic acid/Peroxyacetic acid
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (22) Peracetic acid/Peroxyacetic acid (CAS # 79-21-0)—for use in wash and/or rinse water according to FDA limitations. For use as a sanitizer on food contact surfaces.

Wood Turner: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove peracetic acid from 205.605(b) of the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Potassium phosphate
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (28) Potassium phosphate—for use only in agricultural products labeled “made with organic (specific ingredients or food group(s)),” prohibited in agricultural products labeled “organic”.

Logan Petrey: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to potassium phosphate from the National List. Yes: 1; No: 13; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Sodium acid pyrophosphate
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (30) Sodium acid pyrophosphate (CAS # 7758-16-9)—for use only as a leavening agent.

Logan Petrey: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove sodium acid pyrophosphate from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 13; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 2. Motion fails.

Tocopherols
§ 205.605(b) Synthetics allowed. (36) Tocopherols—derived from vegetable oil when rosemary extracts are not a suitable alternative.

Kyla Smith: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove tocopherols from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 13; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 2. Motion fails.

Celery powder
§ 205.606 Nonorganic agriculturals allowed. (c) Celery powder

Wood Turner: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.] It’s long been indicated from the community and those who followed this issue, that conventional celery and the powder that comes from it carry significant nitrates, which creates a number of issues that have been concerning to the community: the fact that there’s nitrates that are making their way into organic, and of a number of human health issues related to nitrate exposure. But the issue has persisted that organic celery powder has not existed in sufficient supply to be able to meet the needs of the organic meat industry. So, it’s been a long-standing issue, long-standing research priority. Dr. Aaron Silva from the University of Wisconsin Madison, has presented interesting and exciting research that we could argue comes out of our research priorities process. Someone recognized an opportunity and moved toward it to try to figure out other methods of handling this kind of meat processing to be more consistent and more appropriate within organic. I think there’s a lot of exciting opportunities and if she’s indicated to us, there’s opportunities are on the horizon. We’re not recommending it for removal at this point. With the belief that within this next cycle, there will be a clear reason to remove it from the national list because of the availability of organic alternatives. We consistently have heard from the community on this.

NOSB Discussion

Brian Caldwell: Did I understand that there’s opposition from meat dealer?

Wood Turner: Retailers.

Brian Caldwell: And from retailers, what was the opposition?

Wood Turner: Consumer concern

Brian Caldwell: I was surprised about the whole labeling thing, and how this is not considered “cured.”

Nate Lewis: Interesting that the conversation and curing and uncured is here because it is on 606. When have enough, we will no longer have conversation about it – there’s some benefit of list and when it’s gone from the list won’t necessarily have those conversations.

Kim Huseman: Wood, do you know how much of the organic meat market utilizes organic celery powder?

Wood Turner: I don’t.

Kim: So if we considered removing, it would behoove us to know?

Wood: The certifiers who have indicated the material is in use, in OSPs.

Nate Powell-Palm: I would echo how quickly Dr. Silva brought research to inform us on this subject. Hard to appreciate how difficult food manufacturing is. It’s very hard to make celery powder available across the board. How can we get more data about where we’re out. 606 is a list of opportunity. Sitting with this and holding it to a high bar and not losing tool until we are really certain.

Wood Turner: I hope community feels heard. Rarely hear strong opposition to things and read it and they are heard. Bringing our best thinking into it when we vote.

• Vote: Motion to remove celery powder from the National List. Yes: 2; No: 11; Abstain: 1; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Fish oil
§ 205.606 Nonorganic agriculturals allowed. (f) Fish oil (Fatty acid CAS #’s: 10417–94–4, and 25167–62–8)—stabilized with organic ingredients or only with ingredients on the National List, §§ 205.605 and 205.606.

Dilip Nandwani: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove fish oil from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 13; Abstain: 1; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Gelatin
§ 205.606 Nonorganic agriculturals allowed. (h) Gelatin (CAS # 9000-70-8).

Kim Huseman: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove gelatin from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 14; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Orange pulp, dried
§ 205.606 Nonorganic agriculturals allowed. (m) Orange pulp, dried.

Kyla Smith: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion

Amy Bruch: We need to have data to be comfortable to remove this – the size of the market and the amount of organic available.

Allison Johnson: I mentioned earlier when talking about research I had misconception on celery powder. Actually technical barrier to getting right kind of celery. This just seems to be a byproduct of oranges. We’re thinking about: is this necessary? What is the necessity of keeping it on the list and doesn’t seem to be a technical barrier to production.

Kyla Smith: I would concur that this is slightly different.

Mindee Jeffrey: I think you said there is dried pulp on the market? No fears around co-located manufacture because we know it’s being produced.

Nate Powell-Palm: I feel like it would be inconsistent – would like us to pursue commercial availability with a little more intention than the folks just didn’t show process. Process to get these on the list was a lot so I would like to see it stay on until we have hard data to take it off.

Amy: Trying to remember previous material that was similar, and when one person needed that material the NOSB decided to keep it.

Allison: I think it was potato starch and there is technical barrier. Something about the process was holding back the organic option. Don’t see that present here.

Kim: Quickly, this might be a great opportunity to look at 606 and cold call manufactures – tell them these things don’t stay here forever, prove your case.

Kyla: Tricky thing to think about who carries which burdens in this regulatory scheme.

Franklin Q: In the citrus industry, there is a lot of application. Talking about the peels; depending on pesticide there are certain things that go deeper and are difficult to wash away. That gives me cause to pause.

Nate Lewis: these are complex. Consistency is important but also have to realize each substance is used differently. No celery powder means no bacon. Trying to contrast the substances. Important as we consider de-listing, we need to think about what these products enable as farmers are trying to sell into the marketplace.

• Vote: Motion to remove orange pulp, dried from the National List. Yes: 8; No: 5; Abstain: 1; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Seaweed, Pacific kombu
§ 205.606 Nonorganic agriculturals allowed. (q) Seaweed, Pacific kombu.

Dilip Nandwani: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove Pacific kombu seaweed from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 12; Abstain: 2; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Wakame seaweed
§ 205.606 Nonorganic agriculturals allowed. (t) Wakame seaweed (Undaria pinnatifida).

Dilip Nandwani: [Provided an overview of the material based on published materials.]

NOSB Discussion
None.

• Vote: Motion to remove Wakame seaweed from the National List. Yes: 0; No: 12; Abstain: 2; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion fails.

Deferred Votes

Compost

[The NOSB discusses “friendly amendment” votes with this language change.]

• Vote: the “friendly amendment” to adjust language of the proposed change. Yes: 14; No: 0; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion passes.

[Slide: proposed new text in 205.2, with Friendly Amendment.]

[Slide: proposed new text in 205.203(c), with Friendly Amendment.]

• Vote: Motion to amend 205.2 Terms Defined as shown on the slide. Yes: 14; No: 0; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1. Motion carries.
• Vote: Motion to amend § 205.203(c) Soil fertility and crop nutrient management practice standard as shown on slide. Yes: 14; No: 0; Abstain: 0; Recuse: 0; Absent: 1.; Motion carries.

Work Agendas/Materials’ Update

The NOSB work agenda can be found on this page.

Officer Elections

Chairperson: Amy Bruch
Vice Chairperson: Allison
Secretary: Nate Lewis

[Break]

Recognition of Outgoing Members

Closing Remarks