Organic Agriculture Products

• Organic produce is strictly regulated in the United States. tomato #2 image by Adam Borkowski from Fotolia.com

  Organic agriculture offers consumers an alternative to heavily processed and heavily chemically treated food, both in terms of produce and livestock. Standards for organic foods vary between countries, but the United States has a stringent series of regulations that must be met in order for food to be marketed as organic. These regulations are distributed under the supervision of the National Organic Program, which is a subdivision of the US Department of Agriculture.

Comparing Standard and Organic Agriculture

• Organic agriculture is based on a philosophy of unmodified, naturally grown food; this means that many chemically based preemptive efficiency measures are not taken in the interest of preserving quality over efficiency. For produce, this philosophy means forgoing the use of harsh chemical pesticides in favor of either no pesticides at all or naturally-produced alternative pest deterrence. Livestock raised using standard farming procedures are often given low doses of preventative antibiotics, meaning that a certain background level of antibiotics will be present in both meat and milk products. Organically raised livestock only use antibiotics when it is absolutely necessary to treat the animal, thereby reducing if not entirely eliminating the presence of antibiotics in the product. The reasoning behind using antibiotics therapeutically in what is still technically considered organic livestock is that it lessens the suffering of the animal.

Types of Organic Agriculture Products

• Organic agriculture products technically include all the first stage products associated with the raising of both produce and livestock; however, the term can also be applied to processed goods which exclusively use these ingredients in their production, as well as adhering to a lengthy list of procedural guidelines put in place by the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. Under the act, products like bread, cheese or juice can be identified as organic as long as specific production requirements are met. Among other things, these guidelines specify which types of additives are unacceptable for organic products.

Organic Agriculture Standards in America

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program oversees the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act, which outlines the specifics for determining whether foods are legitimately organic or not. The role of the USDA's Compliance and Enforcement Division is to ensure that producers and manufacturers adhere to the standards put in place by the 1990 act. The Compliance and Enforcement Division handles proactive outreach activities as well as complaints filed against organic producers.