Something's fishy in Washington Posted by Daniela at 11/19/08 10:05 AM

This week the USDA’s National Organic Standard Board (NOSB) will vote on the standards for “organic” fish getting to carry the USDA organic label – and things smell pretty fishy (ok, bad pun!).

Right now, there are no standards for the kinds of fish production practices that would garner a USDA “organic” label, and the NOSB’s recommendations don’t get us where we want to go. The NOSB recommends that “organic” fish could include:

• Fish fed food other than 100% organic feed—the gold standard that must be met by other USDA-certified organic livestock;
• Farmed fish fed fishmeal from wild fish—which has the potential to carry mercury and PCBs; and
• Fish bred in open net cages—which flush pollution, disease and parasites from open net fish farms directly into the ocean, adversely impacting wild fish supply, sustainability and the health of the oceans.

Fish that don’t meet the organic standard can still carry an organic label, as long as it doesn’t say USDA. There are no federal standards for “organic” seafood, but wholesalers, markets and restaurants across the nation have labeled them as such with the exception of California (California passed a law in 2005 that prohibits the use of any organic labeling on fish and other seafood until either state or federal certification standards are established) and some distributors, including Whole Foods.

If the NOSB’s current recommendations get the final OK this week, it would send the mixed message to the fish industry that low production standards will be rewarded with a USDA organic label (and the ability to charge higher prices). This is foul news for our environment and our health!

The USDA should be concerned about its labels losing their credibility. Last week, a Consumers Union Poll revealed:

• An overwhelming majority of us—93 percent—agree that fish labeled as “organic” should be produced by 100 percent organic feed, like all other organic animals.
• Nine in 10 of us also agreed that “organic” fish farms should be required to recover waste and not pollute the environment and 57 percent are concerned about ocean pollution caused by “organic” fish farms.

Read our full findings here.

In general, we pay more to buy organic, and with that price jump we should be able to trust the nutritional and environmental standards of production.

Fish farms shouldn’t be given an easy way in to the USDA organic club. With more than 4 in 10 of us either very concerned or concerned about the health problems associated with eating wild fish, the NOSB should tame up and say all fish farms must meet real organic standards in order to get the prestigious USDA organic label.

[UPDATE 11/20: NOSB approves criteria for labeling sub-par farmed fish “organic”]

From the Scientific American Blog:

What exactly makes a fish organic? Apparently, one that feeds on a nonorganic diet.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) advisory panel says that producers should be allowed to slap organic labels on farmed fish even if their diets include wild fish and other feed that isn’t organic itself—definitions that environmentalists say depart from the criteria for other certified organic animal food products.

Nearly 30,000 of us signed a petition in favor of maintaining strong standards for the organic label for fish. But the NOSB caved in to pressure from the aquaculture industry to push a substandard through, with the chair of the Livestock Committee, Hue Karreman, claiming that he’s trying to “jumpstart” an industry by finding a middle ground. The NOSB’s decision to approve the organic label for farmed fish sets a dangerous precedent that undermines USDA organic principles, as well as our own confidence in the organic marketplace.

With this advice now in the hands of the USDA, the agency should do the right thing and propose revised standards. Sign our petition to the USDA and the Obama Administration Transition Team telling them not to gut the “organic” label for fish!

comments (8)

1 Posted by Herbert Robbins at 11/25/08 01:33 PM

We have read that wild salmon is healthier than farmed salmon and misinterpreted this to mean that wild salmon is organic. Fish stores take advantage of this misconception by displaying a "wild salmon" section at very high prices and another section at half or 1/3 that price and when asked respond that the less expensive salmon is "farmed". Is there any fish that can be called "organic"?

2 Posted by Richard Waters at 11/25/08 01:36 PM

Capitalism fueled by greed has gone stark raving mad. Call things what they are. Polluted is polluted and organic is organic.

3 Posted by Lynne Stevens at 11/25/08 02:34 PM

If we can't trust the organic label to be truly organic the USDA threatens an entire industry who by and large is friendlier to the planet and it's people. Everything I have read about farmed salmon screams big corporate greed and profit....not organic in any definition I have heard. The USDA is another agency bought and paid for by Corprotocracy. The citizens who pay the bills are ignored. Every manager in the USDA should be fired and replaced by true consumer advocates. May I submit my names....I assure you consumers not profits would be guarded.

4 Posted by Warren Nelson at 11/25/08 05:13 PM

A salmon that lives in the river, goes to sea and returns back to the same river eats what ever is available and we catch them. That is the real salmon.

The salmon fed Organic stuff in a cage or whatever may look like a salmon but is a "Different" fish and not a real salmon.

That is my feeling on this strange world of "Organic".\\Warren

5 Posted by Jeff Frasch at 11/26/08 01:44 AM

Salmon that are farmed do not deserve a title of “organic”, at least not in the present state of fish farming technology because fish farmed salmon are fed antibiotics which in turn enter our own bodies when they are digested and so a real question exists in regards to just how these antibiotics will affect our own immune system. I think that this means that calling the farmed salmon organic would be negligently misleading.

The need to give the fish antibiotics is because of their confinement and the problem of their own bodily wastes can result in the fish getting sick and so antibiotics are needed if the fish is to be considered edible. Still I guess the question of whether we feed these fish “organic” food might be interesting if the fish farm itself were capable of achieving some sort of a sustainable mini ecosystem that holds itself in a state of equilibrium so that it would be possible to remove the need to give the fish antibiotics. If it were possible to do this then I think the term “organic” would be fitting because the farm would be a bit like the salmon remaining only in their ocean state—but I think we are a long ways away from such a system because we do not know enough about the wild salmon. Still by learning more about wild salmon we may well improve our fish farms to an elevated state that might prove to be beneficial if ever a sort of balance is to be returned to our over fished oceans. A fish farm that achieved a sustainable ecological balance would strike me as worthy of the name “organic”.

6 Posted by Jeff Frasch at 11/26/08 01:51 AM

Salmon that are farmed do not deserve a title of “organic”, at least not in the present state of fish farming technology because fish farmed salmon are fed antibiotics which in turn enter our own bodies when they are digested and so a real question exists in regards to just how these antibiotics will affect our own immune system. I think that this means that calling the farmed salmon organic would be negligently misleading.

The need to give the fish antibiotics is because of their confinement and the problem of their own bodily wastes can result in the fish getting sick and so antibiotics are needed if the fish is to be considered edible. Still I guess the question of whether we feed these fish “organic” food might be interesting if the fish farm itself were capable of achieving some sort of a sustainable mini ecosystem that holds itself in a state of equilibrium so that it would be possible to remove the need to give the fish antibiotics. If it were possible to do this then I think the term “organic” would be fitting because the farm would be a bit like the salmon remaining only in their ocean state—but I think we are a long ways away from such a system because we do not know enough about the wild salmon. Still by learning more about wild salmon we may well improve our fish farms to an elevated state that might prove to be beneficial if ever a sort of balance is to be returned to our over fished oceans. A fish farm that achieved a sustainable ecological balance would strike me as worthy of the name “organic”.

7 Posted by Julie at 12/01/08 09:20 PM

There will be no Organic fish until we clean up our oceans. Slapping an Organic label on any fish is ludicrous. Maybe Obama will gut the government agencies and put in people who are not lackies for the corporations.

8 Posted by Al Daniels at 02/06/09 11:21 PM

A salmon that lives in the river, goes to sea and returns back to the same river in Washington DC eats what ever is available and we catch them. That is the real salmon.

The salmon fed Organic stuff in a cage or whatever may look like a salmon but is a "Different" fish and not a real salmon.