USDA Proposes Rules on Strengthening Organic Enforcements

Responding to increasing fraud threats to the organic industry, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) published a proposed rule that would amend the USDA organic regulations in an effort to strengthen oversight and enforcement of the production, handling, and sale of organic agricultural products. 

Most of the proposed changes are in four main areas: (1) Reducing the types of businesses exempt from organic certification, (2) Requiring electronic National Organic Program (NOP) Import Certificates for all organic products entering the United States, (3) Amending recordkeeping and fraud prevention procedures, (4) Standardizing requirements for on-site inspection of organic operations.  

Interested stakeholders may submit comments on the proposed rule before October 05, 2020.  The proposed rule and instructions for submitting public comments can be accessed at http://www.regulations.gov by searching for document number, AMS-NOP-17-0065.