National Organic Program; Market Development for Mushrooms and Pet Food

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Agricultural Marketing Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>7 CFR Part 205</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Doc. No. AMS-NOP-22-0063]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0581-AE13</RIN> <SUBJECT>National Organic Program; Market Development for Mushrooms and Pet Food</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Agricultural Marketing Service, USDA. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) proposes to amend the USDA organic regulations to clarify standards for organic mushrooms and organic pet food. Specific standards for these products do not currently exist. Instead, these products have been certified organic using the general organic standards for crops, livestock, and handling. However, this approach is not ideal as the current regulations do not address unique aspects of either product. AMS expects this rule would promote development of these markets by increasing regulatory certainty that would, in turn, encourage investment in the markets. The topics addressed by the proposed rule include sourcing of substrate and spawn in organic mushroom production, composting requirements for organic mushroom production, composition and labeling requirements for organic pet food, and the use of certain synthetic substances in organic pet food. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Electronic or written comments on the proposed rule must be submitted by May 10, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit electronic comments on this proposed rule through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> (docket number AMS-NOP-22-0063). Instructions for submitting electronic comments are available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Comments may also be sent by mail to: Erin Healy, Director, Standards Division, National Organic Program, USDA-AMS-NOP, 1400 Independence Ave. SW, Room 2642-So., Ag Stop 0268, Washington, DC 20250-0268. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All comments should include the docket number (AMS-NOP-22-0063), and/or the Regulatory Information Number (RIN 0581-AE13) for this rulemaking. You should clearly indicate the topic and section number of this proposed rule to which your comment refers, state your position(s), offer any recommended language change(s), and include relevant information and data to support your position(s) ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> scientific, environmental, manufacturing, industry, or industry impact information, etc.). All comments and relevant background documents posted to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> will include any personal information provided. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Erin Healy, Director, Standards Division, National Organic Program. Telephone: 202-720-3252. Email: <E T="03">Erin.Healy@usda.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Purpose and Need for the Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Summary of Provisions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. General Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Does this proposed rule apply to me?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. What should I consider as I prepare my comments for AMS?</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Purpose and Need for the Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. NOSB Recommendations on Mushrooms and Pet Food</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Community and Stakeholder Feedback</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Organic Mushroom Standard</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Mushroom Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Need for Organic Mushroom Standard</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Overview of Proposed Amendments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Organic Pet Food Standard</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Pet Food Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Need for Organic Pet Food Standard</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Overview of Proposed Amendments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Regulatory Analyses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Orders 12866, 13563, 14094, and the Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Executive Order 12988</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Executive Order 13132</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Executive Order 13175</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Civil Rights Impact Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Purpose and Need for the Rule</HD> This proposed rule would amend the USDA organic regulations to establish specific standards for organic mushroom production and organic pet food handling. Specific standards are necessary to resolve inconsistency and uncertainty in these two markets. AMS is addressing standards for pet food and mushrooms together in this rule because both markets are currently hampered by the lack of specific regulations that are suitable for these particular products. Both markets exhibit inconsistent interpretations of the organic regulations by certifiers and uncertainty around regulatory requirements that are likely to deter investments in the sectors. In addition, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has made recommendations to revise the regulations for these organic products, and these changes are supported by the organic industry. Finally, both organic mushrooms and pet food are developing markets that would benefit from clearer standards to facilitate and promote growth. The organic regulations do not currently include standards specific to mushrooms and pet food. Although some mushrooms and pet food products are currently being certified using the general organic standards, the current regulations are an imperfect fit for both mushroom and pet food production and do not address unique aspects of either product. For example, some certifying agents use the current crop production standards to certify organic mushrooms or the handling standards for processed products to certify organic pet food. In both cases, certifying agents and operations extrapolate from the organic standards to fit organic mushroom and pet food production. This creates varying and inconsistent interpretations of the organic regulations, such that some mushroom producers are required to use organic inputs where others are not, and some pet food manufacturers are allowed to use slaughter by-products where others are not. The inconsistent certification and enforcement practices for organic mushrooms and pet food fail to meet one of the purposes of the Organic Food Production Act (OFPA), that is, to assure consumers that organically produced products meet a consistent standard (7 U.S.C. 6501(2)). Additionally, the National Organic Program (NOP) has received feedback from stakeholders that the lack of specific standards for mushrooms and pet food creates uncertainty that may deter development in these markets. Clearer and more specific standards would give businesses certainty about how they should produce organic mushrooms and pet food, which would create the conditions necessary for the growth of the organic mushroom and pet food markets. Addressing uncertainty and inconsistency in organic mushroom and pet food production is important for market development. Ensuring consistent standards across the organic industry also protects the integrity of the organic seal by building customer trust in the label. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Summary of Provisions</HD> Through the amendments in this proposed rule, AMS would establish standards for organic mushroom production and pet food handling. The proposed rule would: • Add the term “mushroom” to the definitions of “crop” and “wild crop;” • Establish definitions for “mushroom,” “mushroom substrate,” “mycelium,” “spawn,” and “spawn media;” • Create a new section titled Mushroom Production Practice Standard; • Require that operations use organic mushroom spawn and substrate when commercially available; • Add mushroom-specific requirements for organic compost production; • Establish definitions for “pet” and “pet food” for the purposes of the USDA organic regulations only; • Add a new paragraph to the organic handling standard describing the requirements for production and labeling of pet food, including composition (what can be included in organic pet food) and labeling requirements; and • Add synthetic taurine (an amino acid) to the National List to allow its use in organic pet food. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. General Information</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Does this proposed rule apply to me?</HD> You may be affected by this proposed rule if you are engaged in organic mushroom production or pet food handling. Potentially affected entities may include, but are not limited to, the following: • Organic pet food manufacturers; • Organic mushroom producers; • Individuals or business entities that are considering organic certification for pet food or mushrooms; • Existing livestock, mushroom, and handling operations that are currently certified organic under the USDA organic regulations; and • USDA-accredited certifying agents, inspectors, and certification review personnel. This list is not exhaustive but identifies key entities that this rule may affect. Other types of entities may also be affected. To determine whether you or your business may be affected by this action, you should carefully examine the regulatory text and discussion below. If you have questions regarding the applicability of this rule to a particular entity, contact the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What should I consider as I prepare my comments for AMS?</HD> AMS seeks comment from the public and organic stakeholders regarding the proposed amendme ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 123k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━