Seafood to e labelled Organic?

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Seafood label outrages organic advocatesAmendment tacked on war spending billTuesday, April 15, 2003< http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/info/copyright/ >San Francisco ChronicleURL: < http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi ?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/15/MN174559.DTL> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/15/MN174559.DTL First it was chicken feed. Now it's wild seafood. For the second time in two months Congress has used maneuvers to make a major change in the nation's organic food standards.The latest change, proposed by Alaska Republican Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski to benefit Alaska's salmon fishermen, orders the federal government to find a way to certify wild seafood as organic.In a ploy that outraged organic advocates, the seafood amendment was tacked onto the hard-won repeal of the earlier change, which diluted feed requirements for organic chickens and livestock. Both were attached to the Iraq war spending bill that awaits President Bush's signature."We've been working really hard on the repeal of this bogus livestock amendment, and we got that -- but in its place we got the fish provision we were opposed to," said Simon Harris, Bay Area spokesman for the Organic Consumers Association.The seafood amendment requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to devise a plan to certify wild-caught fish and shellfish as organic.It has been sought for several years by Stevens and by California's fishing industry; both see the organic label as a potent marketing tool.The idea was turned down by the National Organic Standards Board, which helped write the standards that took effect last October.The organic standards are built around the idea that animals and produce are raised in closed systems where their foods and their access to any chemicals are controlled, explained James Riddle, board secretary. Wild fish don't fit that framework because there's no way to know what they've been eating or whether they've been swimming in pristine or polluted waters, he said.Stevens tried again during debate of last year's farm bill, and the fishing industry was granted the right to put "wild" on labels.Last week, with repeal of the organic feed provision on the line, Stevens, as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, grabbed his opportunity and played hardball: no seafood amendment, no repeal."I am delighted," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations in San Francisco. Under the organic standards, he said, "Farmed fish could potentially get an organic label but wild fish could not. I thought that was haywire."Grader doesn't think most wild fish would be able to win organic certification -- certainly not fish from the polluted Gulf of Mexico, or San Francisco Bay. But testing water and fish might allow some to qualify, he said.Full story<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/15/MN174559.DTL & type=printable>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/15/MN174559.DTL & type=printable