Does the current organic practice standard adequately address GMO contamination?
EARLY BEGINNINGS IN THE 80’s Widespread development and use of organic standards began in the 1980’s to safeguard and systematize an alternative way (organic) of agriculture and handling food. Among a detailed list of prohibited substances in organic systems are chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers. Because the organic system recognized from the start that it would likely remain a small component of agriculture, and that contamination would inevitably happen through background pollution such as polluted water, air and drift, it proposed a system based on a “practice standard,” rather than on measuring the purity of an end product. This practice standard defines and prescribes certain methods that are designed to eliminate (or minimize) the potential for contamination from the list of prohibited substances. Thus testing has not been relied on as a primary method to verify organic integrity, and instead a system and philosophy of following an “organic practice stan
