Sludge Watch ==> Canada - What does 'organic' mean when it comes to fertilizer?

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

The wastewater/sludge industry aas been trying to batter a hole in the 
Canadian organic regulations.  The new organic farming regulations define 
‘organic’ to meet in compliance with the standards of certified organic food 
production.

This means that ‘organic fertilizer’ in the regs means only those 
fertilizers that are suitable for use in certified organic food production.  
The regulations passed last year and come into enforcement in December 2008.

Sewage sludge and paper sludge ‘fertilizers’  don’t qualify as suitable for 
certified organic agriculture and they would no longer be able to advertise 
themselves as ‘organic fertilizer’.

But the sludge/wastewater industry has been attacking the Canadian Food 
Inspection Agency
( CFIA ) organic regulations trying to get them to exempt sewage sludge 
based fertilizers from the organic labeling language requirements.

At the same time the sludge promoters are pressuring the Food Inspection 
Agency, which regulates the sale and quality of fertilizers in Canada, to 
amend the requirements for the sale of sewage sludge based fertilizers like 
Milorganite.  Now the sludge fertilizer must have the words ‘contains 
processed sewage’ on the label.  Sludgers want it to read ‘contains 
biosolids’.  But there is no agreement on what ‘biosolids’ is supposed to 
mean.

Canadians need to be vigilant in the defense of the organic regulations…or 
we will watch the Harper government and its waste industry pals gut federal 
fertilizer standards and leave us ankle deep in sludge.


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October 11, 2007


SUSTAINABLE CITY

An organic solution



by Tim Bousquet

What's the definition of "organic?"

If you're like me, you think of "organic" as a series of sustainable 
agricultural practices—growing food without synthetic chemicals or 
genetically modified food, and in a way that takes account of the long-term 
health of the broader environment.

But, I've discovered, when it comes to fertilizer use in Canada, "organic" 
doesn't mean what we think. And, if the multi-billion dollar fertilizer 
industry has its way, farmers may soon be using synthetic fertilizers to 
grow "organic" food.

People are increasingly seeking out organic foods—take a peek inside the 
crowded courtyard of the Halifax Farmer's Market. But, despite popular 
demand for organic products, there's been no nation-wide regulatory 
definition of "organic produce" or "organic meat." To help sort through the 
confusion, and to ensure consumers know what they're buying, the Canadian 
Food Inspection Agency is working to create such a definition. "Organic will 
mean "organic' as certified by the organic standards we're drawing up," 
explains Michel Saumur, national manager of the Canada Organic Office. "It's 
a list of specific practices, controls and substances."

The new organic standards will apply to all organic food that is imported 
from other countries, or that crosses provincial lines. The standards become 
effective December 14, 2008. But CFIA has an older, existing definition of 
"organic" as it applies to fertilizers. "Organic fertilizer is defined as 
"the partially humified remains of animals and plants,'" says Anthony 
Parker, national manager of CFIA's fertilizer section.

As an example of what confusion might result from conflicting definitions of 
"organic," Parker points out that manure collected from a typical feed 
lot—where the cattle are injected with growth hormones and fed genetically 
modified corn grown with synthetic chemicals—now qualifies as "organic 
fertilizer."

Such "organic fertilizer," as well as synthetic fertilizers, won't meet the 
new organic food standards, for obvious reasons. But the fertilizer industry 
is working overtime to get itself exempted from the new standards.

"They've threatened us," Saumur says of the fertilizer industry. "They want 
to be exempted. They threaten to write letters to the minister [of 
agriculture], to the President and Vice-President [of CFIA]." In short, to 
make life miserable for bureaucrats trying to do good. A demonstration of 
the fertilizer industry's clout is that the federal Department of 
Agriculture has spent $707,600 to establish the Canadian Fertilizer Products 
Forum, whose mission is "to build a national consensus on fertilizer...and 
advise government on the policy and regulation of fertilizers and 
supplements." The executive director of CFPF is Clyde Graham, who is also 
vice president of the Canadian Fertilizer Institute, an industry lobbying 
group.

"We do have concerns that the [new] standards are not entirely based on 
science," Graham tells me. "The same basic chemical compounds are found in 
all fertilizers, and there are some implied claims by organic produce 
growers that their processes are more environmentally beneficial than the 
use of traditional products. But the nutrient value is exactly the same."

Graham makes it clear he isn't speaking of manure, which plays a minor role 
in large-scale agriculture. Rather, he means that completely synthetic 
fertilizers—made from fossil fuels, usually natural gas—are exactly the same 
as truly organic fertilizers.

It takes a jaundiced eye to see farm operations as merely the nutrient 
uptake of plants, disassociated from the web of relationships making up the 
natural world.

But if the fertilizer industry successfully gets itself exempted from the 
new organic regulations, that's what "organic" will mean in Canada.


http://www.thecoast.ca/119846.113118body.lasso?-token.folder=2007-10-11&-token.story=150944.113118&-token.subpub=