A New "Organic" Food Label

The sale of organic products will likely break $9 billion this year. But up to now, there hasn't been a standard definition of what exactly an organic food is. Different states and certifying agencies had different ideas and requirements. But all that has changed with the recent adoption by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) of the first national standards for organic food. The new rules, a decade in the making, took effect last month, although farmers and others will have until August 2002 to comply. The rules say that organic ingredients cannot have been made using sewer-sludge fertilizers, most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, genetic engineering, growth hormones, irradiation, or antibiotics. Read the full article at consumerreports.org