What does the word "organic" mean when it appears on the label of a food product? The answer depends on what that product happens to be.

On October 21, 2002, the USDA issued new regulations that were supposed to establish uniformity in the production and labeling of organic products. Unfortunately, that was not the result, since the National Organic Standards Board, which proposed that new rules, continued to allow exceptions for certain products and producers. The most contentious exception relates to the use of non-organic seeds and plant stock. If you are a producer of grains that will be sold as processed cereals or breads, or if you are a producer of fruits or juices, you will be allowed to label your product as "organic," even if the seed or the plant stock were not organic, if organic products were not "commercially available." If you are a meat producer, and feed that same grain to poultry or livestock, you are prohibited from using the organic label even though you comply with all other criteria, such as avoiding antibiotics, chemical medicines and growth hormones, and follow continuous organic management. The new rules allowed the "commercially available" exception to continue for fruits and vegetables, but removed it from meat producers.

It is disappointing that the USDA ignored certain meat producers' requests to be treated the same as fruit and vegetable producers, especially since the USDA had no information as to the amount of organic feed that was commercially available. Since land that produces organic grain must have had no commercial fertilizer or chemical insecticides applied for a period of three years prior to producing an organic crop, it would require a four year lead time to change crop land to organic production. USDA should not have imposed a 100% organic feed requirement without any knowledge of the number of acres that were available for production or the quantity of feed that was required by the producers that were already certified organic meat producers.

As an alternative, USDA was asked to allow additional labels to be used by meat producers who met all organic standards but could not purchase 100% organically grown grain because it was not available. Once again, fruit and vegetable producers are allowed to use one of four different labels ranging from "100% organic" to "made with organic ingredients," where the organic content may only be 70%. Still again, USDA adopted a "vegetarian bias" and limited meat producers to only one label.

When all of these efforts failed to persuade USDA to consider alterations failed, a provision was included in the 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Bill that allowed the previously accepted organic standards to remain in effect until USDA completed a study of the commercial availability of organic feed, which was required under the Farm Bill of 2002. This limitation will only last for seven months or until the study is completed.

Georgia continues to be the largest poultry producing state, and its poultry farmers and processors, who made substantial investments and played by the rules, should not have those rules changed without sufficient time to adjust and should be given the same options as those who produce fruits and vegetables.