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 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

 AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (AMS)

 NATIONAL ORGANIC PROGRAM (NOP)

 + + + + +

 MEETING OF THE NATIONAL ORGANIC 

 STANDARDS BOARD (NOSB)

 + + + + +

 MONDAY

 APRIL 26, 2010

 + + + + +

 The National Organic Standards Board

convened at 3:00 p.m. in the Heidrick Ag

History Center located at 1962 Hays Lane,

Woodland, California, Daniel G. Giacomini,

Chairperson, presiding.

MEMBERS PRESENT:

 DANIEL G. GIACOMINI, Chairperson

 TRACY MIEDEMA, Vice-Chairperson

 KRISTINE ELLOR, Secretary

 STEVE DeMURI

 JOE DICKSON 

 JAY FELDMAN 

 BARRY FLAMM 

 JOHN FOSTER 

 WENDY FULWIDER 

 JENNIFER M. HALL 

 KATRINA F. HEINZE 

 JEFFREY W. MOYER 

 ANNETTE RIHERD

 JOE SMILLIE

STAFF PRESENT:
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 MILES McEVOY

 JUDY RAGONESI

 VALERIE FRANCES

 ARTHUR NEAL

 MARK BRADLEY

 LARS CRAIL

 SHANNON NALLY

 DR. KERRY SMITH

 DR. LISA BRINES
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 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

Approval of Agenda and Introductions, . . . . .4

Dan Giacomini, Chairman

Vision and Mission Statement of NOSB, . . . . 25

Dan Giacomini, Chairman

Secretary's Report, Tine Ellor. . . . . . . . 27

Report from National Organic Program, . . . . 29

Miles McEvoy

Report on Corn Steep Liquor and Nutrients . . 96

Lisa Brines

Report on Materials, Katrina Heinze . . . . .131
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 3:02 p.m.

3 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Can the

4 Board members please begin getting up to the

5 table, the last of the Board members?

6 Can we bring the meeting to order,

7 please? Thank you.

8 Good afternoon, everyone. I

9 officially call this meeting of the National

10 Organic Standards Board to order. Board

11 members who are able to be with us today, all

12 of us finally here, thank you, Joe, are

13 seated, and we have a quorum.

14 First meeting and you are late,

15 Joe, this is really classic. I love it.

16 I'd like to move directly into the

17 business of the Board. The first business is

18 the agenda, the agenda for the meeting. It's

19 been posted to the public and presented to the

20 program and the Board.

21 After we have a motion to accept

22 the agenda we can deal with any motions to
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1 amend.

2 Do we have a motion to approve the

3 agenda for this meeting?

4 MR. MOYER: I make a motion we

5 approve -- that the agenda be approved.

6 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Motion

7 made by Jeff, second from Jennifer.

8 Mr. Maker of the Motion, do you

9 have any discussion?

10 MR. MOYER: No.

11 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Is there

12 any further other discussion on this motion?

13 Seeing none, we'll proceed to

14 vote.

15 Those in favor say aye.

16 (Chorus of ayes.)

17 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Opposed?

18 Motion passes.

19 I would like to take a brief

20 moment to begin by welcoming you all to

21 California. This is the last time the

22 National Organic Standards Board met outside
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1 of the D.C. area, which we all include as the

2 Baltimore, was the first NOSB meeting, and it

3 was my first NOSB meeting in the spring of

4 2006. That meeting was held in conjunction

5 with the Pasture Symposium, held at Penn State

6 University in central Pennsylvania, and,

7 interestingly, it has now been four years and

8 the first meeting since the Pasture Symposium

9 in 2006, to be held outside of the D.C. area,

10 it is the first meeting since the new Final

11 Rule for the Access to Pasture has finally

12 been published.

13 For those of us on the West and

14 the left coast, it's been a long time since

15 the Board, this body, has had a meeting in

16 this Time Zone. We appreciate the opportunity

17 for the shorter travel schedule, and now you

18 all have a greater opportunity to see what we

19 go through at every meeting.

20 MR. SMILLIE: A historical

21 comment, Mr. Chair. It was -- it used to be

22 scheduled, there was a meeting in D.C. in the
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1 spring, or in the fall, and then a meeting

2 outside of D.C., and the last one outside of

3 D.C., and Arthur will remember this, was

4 proposed by the current head of the Washington

5 State Department of Agricultural Programs, who

6 was going to host it, and, actually, that one

7 was the first one that was canceled for

8 budgetary reasons and we moved to D.C. sort of

9 semi permanently.

10 But, now that that person has

11 moved to D.C., it looks like we're getting

12 back out to the West Coast.

13 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Thank you. 

14 So, as one of the members from the State of

15 California, residing here, I welcome all of

16 you to California. The weather report is for

17 continuing nice weather today, but there's

18 supposed to be some inclement weather coming

19 in tonight and tomorrow, which is pretty

20 typical for the weather we've had this spring,

21 of two and three days of spring, and then two

22 or three days that feel like winter again.
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1 But, we hope you enjoy your visit.

2 We have some interesting

3 arrangements regarding the food, lodging and

4 the meeting facilities, and we hope that

5 everything will work out. And, while this is

6 not the 12th floor of the ACME building, to

7 borrow from Mr. Noir, we are all here to find

8 the answers to some of life's more -- or

9 organic's more persistent questions.

10 We are continuing to look at

11 clarity on issues we have dealt with over the

12 past meetings, from allowing indoor growing

13 conditions, animal welfare, particularly,

14 related to animal density standards,

15 nanotechnology, product labeling, and

16 classification of materials, and the main

17 thrust of the entire year of this Board is

18 dealing with the Sunset Review of substance

19 and agricultural process on the National List

20 for 2012. Then there are other numbers that

21 will be discussed.

22 The current Board, we welcomed
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1 five new members in January, and we have been

2 hard at work on each committee's plans. I

3 have not had a chance to check with Valerie,

4 but we put hundreds of hours into conference

5 calls that we would deal with on a weekly

6 basis. Almost all of us are probably on one

7 t one and a half hour conference calls two,

8 three, four times a week. So, the work and

9 effort that's put forth by the members of this

10 Board is definitely appreciated by this Chair,

11 and I hope by the entire organic community. 

12 It is a great responsibility and a great

13 commitment that we put forth, that takes away

14 time from our regular work, our family, and

15 other free time that we used to fulfill this

16 responsibility.

17 It's an honor for me to work with

18 the Board as Chair, and I would like now to

19 begin on my far left with one of our new

20 members, to go around and introduce each

21 member of the Board.

22 MR. DICKSON: Hi, thank you. My
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1 name is Joe Dickson. I am the Organic

2 Certification Coordinator at Whole Foods

3 Market. I've been watching the work of this

4 Board for the last six years from the other

5 side of the table, and I've just been in

6 absolute awe of the amount of hard work, and

7 dedication, and ingenuity, and cluck that this

8 Board has shown over the years. It's an honor

9 to be at this table today.

10 Thanks.

11 MS. HEINZE: I'm Katrina Heinze. 

12 I am the Scientist Rep on the Board, and Chair

13 of the Materials Committee, and Chair of the

14 Joint Materials and Handling Committee.

15 My background is chemistry, but

16 for the last 15 years I've been in food

17 manufacturing. I currently lead Food Safety

18 and Regulatory Compliance for Small Planet

19 Foods, makers of Cascadian, Muir Glen and

20 Larabar, and folks who have been watching me

21 for the last few years know that I am a

22 dedicated organic consumer, and my focus is
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1 really making sure that consumers who like me

2 choose to make this choice are making a choice 

3 that they have great confidence in, and I'm

4 excited about a lot of the things that we are

5 going to be talking about this week.

6 MR. DeMURI: Thank you. My name

7 is Steve DeMuri. I work for the "Mmm Mmm

8 Good" Campbell's Soup Company. I direct the

9 company's Organic Program, all facets

10 throughout the United States and Canada, and

11 a little bit of Mexico, and am Chairman of

12 the Handling Committee on NOSB, and Joint

13 Chair with Katrina of the Joint Committee for

14 Handling and Materials.

15 I live here in California, about

16 20 miles down the road, so I greatly

17 appreciate having the meeting right here in

18 Woodland, California this time.

19 So, welcome, everybody.

20 MR. FOSTER: Hello, my name is

21 John Foster. I am Senior Manager of Organic

22 Integrity at Earthbound Farm, an all organic
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1 produce company, grower, packer, shipper.

2 It's been a pleasure to watch the

3 Board work for many years, and it is, like

4 with Joe, a little bit different to see it

5 from this side of the table, but I'm very much

6 looking forward to the next five years.

7 I am Vice Chair of the Handling

8 Committee, also sit on the Crops, the Joint

9 Handling and Materials Committee, and, of

10 course, the Materials Committee.

11 It's a real pleasure and a

12 privilege to be here.

13 Thanks.

14 MR. SMILLIE: My name is Joe

15 Smillie. I'm the Senior Vice President at

16 Quality Assurance International. I'm the

17 Accredited Certifier Representative on the

18 Board, and I'm Chair of the Certification,

19 Accreditation, and Compliance Committee, and

20 serve on the Handling Committee and the Joint

21 Committee, who are dealing with the

22 classification of materials documents, which
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1 eats up a lot of my time.

2 But, it's time well spent, and I

3 hope that a lot of you will get a chance to

4 look at all of our recommendations. We've

5 gotten a lot of great comments, and we look

6 forward to pursuing with you to find

7 recommendations to send to the NOP, to make

8 this industry work better.

9 I live in Burlington, Vermont,

10 which is often called the "West Coast of New

11 England," and, basically, it's my last year on

12 the committee. I'll be turning -- this will

13 be my second to last meeting. I've really

14 enjoyed it. It's been a lot of work, but I'm

15 very much looking forward to moving it

16 forward, and I have some concerns about where

17 we are headed, and I think some of the

18 documents that will be presented over the next

19 three days address directly those concerns,

20 and I look forward to a very active

21 participation in my last two meetings, and

22 look forward to passing on the work that the
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1 NOSB has done on behalf of the industry to my

2 successor.

3 MS. MIEDEMA: Good afternoon,

4 everyone. My name is Tracy Miedema. I am one

5 of the three Consumer Reps on the Board. I'm

6 also Vice Chair of the Certification,

7 Accreditation and Compliance Committee, and a

8 member of the handling Committee.

9 I was driving out here thinking,

10 wow, we are really out here, and then

11 realized, of course, I live two miles up a

12 dirt road in Philomath, Oregon, so I don't

13 know what I was thinking there.

14 My approach to the work here of

15 the Board is really to synthesize information

16 from as diverse an opinion as I can possibly

17 gather, and really cast a wide net, and it's

18 a privilege. I enjoy the work of the Board,

19 and I really try to do my best to listen to

20 the public, the private sector, and all here

21 in the context of this Government framework.

22 MS. ELLOR: I am Tine Ellor, from
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1 the mushroom cap of the world, Kennett Square,

2 Pennsylvania. I'm sitting in one of the

3 environmentalist seats, chairing the Crops

4 Committee, and while I'm on that subject I

5 just want to thank the new members of the

6 Crops Committee, who have really hit the

7 ground running, and done a tremendous amount

8 of work this last midterm.

9 Everyone had homework, you know,

10 that I assigned every week, and everybody got

11 their homework in on time. We did a

12 tremendous amount of work, and I'm looking

13 forward to hearing the comments.

14 I also am tolerated on the

15 Livestock Committee, which is, you know, a

16 little bit strange for me, but I do try hard,

17 and because no one else would do it I'm

18 Secretary of the Board this time. So, I'll be

19 in charge of the timer, you know, and I might

20 take bribes.

21 Thank you very much.

22 MR. FELDMAN: I'm Jay Feldman,
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1 with Beyond Pesticides, which is an

2 organization some of you may know, have known,

3 as the National Coalition Against the Misuse

4 of Pesticides, and I've been doing that for

5 about 30 years, and had the privilege of

6 working with many of you on drafting the

7 Organic Foods Production Act, but I won't take

8 any blame for that.

9 And, I am, like the other new

10 members, I am honored, really, to sit on this

11 Board. I sit in the Environmental slot, and

12 serve on the Crops Committee, the Policy

13 Committee, the Materials Committee, and the

14 Joint Materials and Handling Committee, I

15 think that's all I'm serving on, is that

16 right?

17 Thank you.

18 MR. MOYER: I'm Jeff Moyer. I'm

19 the Farm Director for the Rodale Institute,

20 and I'm the owner/operator of Sky Hollow Farm

21 in Southeastern Pennsylvania. That's my family

22 farm.
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1 I'm a Past Board Chair of this

2 Board. I'm on the Crops Committee. I'm Co3 Vice-Chair of the Livestock Committee, and sit

4 in on the Handling and the Joint Handling and

5 Materials Committee, and I hold the producer

6 position on the Board.

7 MS. FULWIDER: I'm Wendy Fulwider,

8 and I was a dairy farmer until 1994, and my

9 son is now on our farm, which is a pastured

10 livestock farm, and I work for Organic Valley. 

11 I've been there for three years, and I am

12 their Livestock Care Specialist, and I have

13 helped them with their outcome-based standards

14 for the livestock for our farmers.

15 I am currently the Vice Chair on

16 the Livestock Committee, and I'm also on the

17 Materials Committee and the Joint Handling and

18 Materials Committee.

19 MS. HALL: Good afternoon. I'm

20 Jennifer Hall, and I am a consumer

21 representative on the Board. I sit on both

22 the Certification and Compliance Committee and
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1 the Livestock Committee. It is my final year,

2 along with several others here.

3 It has been a great honor to serve

4 on the Board, and bring what I believe is,

5 actually, a fairly good consumer

6 representative, that's not being my total

7 mainstay every day, there are several

8 positions I've held professionally while being

9 on the Board that have, really, I think,

10 evoked different -- different perspectives on

11 the work we are doing here.

12 I originally began working for an

13 NGO that promotes educating chefs around the

14 country about eating and sourcing more locally

15 and sustainably, and then worked for a

16 developer and headed up their farmer's market. 

17 And, just three months ago, I am proud to

18 report that finally opened a food co-op in

19 Spokane, Washington, which despite its size

20 has never had one. And so, it's a pretty

21 great moment, and it has also brought me to a

22 whole other group of people, and the type of
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1 feedback that the consumers who shop with us,

2 or don't for whatever reason, have begun to

3 ask me different kinds of questions than they

4 had before, so it's nice to funnel those

5 questions and that curiosity into a direction

6 that can have some meaning at that level.

7 So, thanks for being here.

8 MS. RIHERD: Hi, my name is

9 Annette Riherd. I fill a producer slot. I am

10 an organic fruit and vegetable producer. I'm

11 really excited to work on the Board. 

12 I am Vice Chair of Policy. I also

13 serve on Crops and Livestock. I promote local

14 grown food in my home state of Oklahoma. I'm

15 an advocate for farmer's market, and I'm

16 really excited to be here.

17 MR. FLAMM: I'm sure glad I picked

18 Annette to be Vice Chair for the Policy

19 Committee. She's been helping me out through

20 all these gadgets ever since I sat down here,

21 including this computer.

22 I'm Barry Flamm. I was appointed
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1 to the Board in the environmental position in

2 January of '08, and I was the baby on the

3 Board for a while, but these newcomers usurped

4 me a few months ago. So, I don't have anymore

5 excuses for not knowing things.

6 I'm Chair of the Policy Committee,

7 and also serve on the Crops Committee, and on

8 the Certification Committee with Joe.

9 I'm from Polson, Montana, and it's

10 still not too easy to get to a place like

11 this. I've got to fly almost as many hours,

12 at least the travel hours, almost as much as

13 going to Washington, D.C., but I'm sure glad

14 to have this visit here in California.

15 My background was in forestry and

16 biodiversity conservation. That's what my

17 advanced degree is in.

18 But, one of the things I'm most

19 proud of is that I was the first certified

20 organic cherry grower on the Flathead, in the

21 Flathead, and in the whole State of Montana. 

22 So, it's -- I've been really involved in the
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1 state in organic matters for a number of years

2 now, and it's something I'm very devoted to,

3 and I've been really happy to serve on this

4 Board.

5 Thank you.

6 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Thank you.

7 My name is Dan Giacomini, I serve

8 as Board Chairman. I was Vice Chair last year. 

9 This is my final year on the Board. I've

10 served on Livestock. I was Chairman of the

11 Materials Committee for three and a half

12 years, and I also serve on the -- which I

13 still serve -- and I also serve on the Joint

14 Committee for Materials and Handling.

15 I have a consumer seat on the

16 Board. I live and work just north of the San

17 Francisco Bay area, and I've been an organic

18 consumer for over 15 years. I work as a

19 consultant, I'm an animal nutritionist, and

20 I've worked with organic dairy farmers since

21 the first dairy farmer west of the Mississippi

22 converted to organic in the early 1990s. 
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1 Since then I've worked with farmers,

2 certifiers, feed industry suppliers,

3 inspectors, all different aspects, from all

4 different parts of the industry.

5 Also related to the matter of

6 introductions, Board member Kevin Engelbert

7 won't be able to join us for this meeting. He

8 sends his apologies. He is Chairman of the

9 Livestock Committee. He is also on Crops and

10 Policy.

11 Jeff Moyer will be acting as Chair

12 for the Livestock -- in the capacity of Chair

13 for the Livestock Committee at this meeting. 

14 Normally, that is a position taken over by the

15 Vice Chair, but in her very first meeting

16 Wendy Fulwider is the Vice Chair for

17 Livestock, and the plea, the threat, I'm not

18 sure what you would best call it, Jeff was

19 more than generous to step in and help her out

20 on that. I hope and encourage Wendy to -- to

21 participate in that position as much as

22 possible, tag team, however you are
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1 comfortable. You are certainly welcome to do

2 that.

3 A little bit of housekeeping. I

4 would like to ask everyone to please turn all

5 their cell phones off, or at least on silence. 

6 Any rings that go off during the course of the

7 meeting, we do not have a lounge in the hotel

8 across the way, but you will be on the hook

9 for one round for all members of the Board if

10 your cell phone goes off.

11 Also, internet services in this

12 building, please sign up on the wireless under

13 the guest network. The password is old

14 tractor, singular, oldtractor, one word, all

15 lower case.

16 So now, we'd like to turn to the

17 program for introductions. Miles, as leader

18 of this intrepid group, if you would please

19 introduce yourself and your staff.

20 MR. McEVOY: Okay. Hi, Miles

21 McEvoy, Deputy Administrator, National Organic

22 Program. We have a number of staff members
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1 here with me today.

2 If I can start with Mark Bradley

3 on my right, Division Director of

4 Accreditation and International Activities. 

5 I have Judy Ragonesi, Trading Manager with the

6 Office of the Deputy Administrator. Valerie

7 Frances, the NOSB Executive Director. This is

8 her last meeting as Executive Director. We

9 have a new executive director coming in on May

10 10th, Lisa Ahramijan, and Valerie is moving on

11 to the Standards Division to help out with the

12 writing of the program handbook. We have

13 Arthur Neal on my left here, coming back to

14 the program after a few years of absence. 

15 He's the new Associate Deputy Administrator

16 for the National Organic Program, and I am

17 very, very happy that he's with us, a great

18 asset for the program, and just a thrill to

19 have him working with us. And then back on

20 the left here we have Lars Crail. He's with

21 the Accreditation and International Activities

22 team. He's a technical expert for the
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1 National Organic Program, inspector from CCOF

2 before we stole him away. Then we have

3 Shannon Nally, the Acting Director of the

4 Standards Division. Then we have Dr. Kerry

5 Smith, who has been on detail with the

6 program, and has done a lot of the work on the

7 Access to Pasture, was the main presenter,

8 trainer, for the Access to Pasture training,

9 and we have Dr. Lisa Brines, who we stole from

10 Washington State Department of Agriculture,

11 who is our new National List Coordinator.

12 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Thank you,

13 Miles.

14 It has become a tradition at the

15 start of these meetings, this meeting, for the

16 Board Chairmen to read the Vision and Mission

17 Statement of the Board, and I would like to do

18 that at this time.

19 The vision of the NOSB is an

20 agricultural community rooted in organic

21 principles and values that instills trust

22 among consumers, producers, processors,
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1 retailers, and other stakeholders.

2 Consistent and sustainable organic

3 standards guard and advance the integrity of

4 organic products and practices.

5 The NOSB Mission Statement is to

6 provide effective and constructive advice,

7 clarification and guidance to the Secretary of

8 Agriculture, concerning the National Organic

9 Program, and the consensus of the organic

10 community.

11 In carrying out the mission, key

12 activities of the Board include assist in the

13 development and maintenance of organic

14 standards and regulations, review petition

15 materials for inclusion on or deletion from

16 the National List of Approved and Prohibited

17 Substances, recommend changes to the National

18 List, communicate with the organic community,

19 including connecting public meetings,

20 soliciting and taking public comments,

21 providing timely information and education on

22 the NOP, making reasonable use of a variety of
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1 communication channels, and to communicate,

2 support and coordinate with the NOP staff.

3 So, that is the mission of the

4 Board, that is what we strive to meet as a

5 directive, and, hopefully, that is what -- we

6 can use that to keep us -- as a little of a

7 compass as we continue in this meeting this

8 week.

9 Next on the agenda is the

10 Secretary's Report. Madam Secretary Tine,

11 would you give your report, please?

12 MS. ELLOR: The only small matter

13 of business that we have to take care of at

14 this point is to approve the November, 2009

15 meeting transcripts and the voting results for

16 November, 2009.

17 The link right now is not working

18 for the voting results, but I sent everyone

19 out a copy this morning, just to make sure

20 everybody has it.

21 I think we usually vote on that as

22 a bundle, correct? 
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1 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Do we vote

2 that separately or -- both the voting and the

3 transcripts, Valerie? Just shake your head. 

4 I'll report it.

5 MS. FRANCES: Whatever you want to

6 do.

7 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Okay, I

8 just want to make one motion then.

9 MS. ELLOR: Okay. So, we would

10 entertain a motion for the --

11 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: You can

12 make it.

13 MS. ELLOR: -- oh, I'll make a

14 motion that we approve the November, 2009

15 meeting transcripts and the voting results for

16 November, 2009.

17 MS. MIEDEMA: Second.

18 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Motion

19 from Tine, seconded from Tracy.

20 Any discussion?

21 Steve?

22 MR. DeMURI: The new members that
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1 weren't here for the last meeting, should they

2 vote on that or not?

3 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: If they

4 have absolutely no awareness of it, I would

5 suggest that they could abstain, but if they

6 were at the meeting, sometimes they were

7 probably more awake than we were.

8 So, if they were there, that's

9 fine by me.

10 So, those in favor of accepting

11 the motion for that we accept the transcripts

12 and the voting results for the November, 2009

13 meeting say aye.

14 (Chorus of ayes.)

15 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Opposed?

16 Motion passes.

17 Okay, continuing on. Next on the

18 agenda is the Report from the National Organic

19 Program. Miles, the show is yours.

20 MR. McEVOY: Well, we have a lot

21 of things to report, and I'm sorry I have to

22 have my back to the rest of the crowd here,
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1 but I think that's the way it's going to be.

2 Okay, so nice to be here, outside

3 of Washington, D.C. We have a lot of to

4 report, so I'm just going to get started, so

5 let's go to the first slide here.

6 So, what I'm going to talk about

7 today, priorities of the program,

8 accomplishments over the last six months, the

9 Office of Inspector General Audit, a little

10 bit of details on pesticide residue testing,

11 what we are thinking about that. We've had a

12 lot of questions on that. A little bit about

13 personnel and budget, strategic planning,

14 activities of the Accreditation Division,

15 equivalency, what we are doing with

16 enforcement, what we are doing with the

17 program handbook, response to the November

18 NOSB recommendations, and then we'll get into

19 the interesting topics of Corn Steep liquor

20 and nutrient vitamins and minerals.

21 Dr. Lisa Brines is going to give

22 the presentation on Corn Steep liquor, and
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1 then I'll come back for the nutrients,

2 vitamins and minerals.

3 Okay, so the priorities of the

4 program. First and foremost is to uphold and

5 enforce the standards. That is our focus,

6 everything else kinds of supports that

7 overarching goal.

8 Then there's implementing and

9 enforcing the Access to Pasture Final Rule. 

10 When I was here in November, when we met in

11 November, it was to publish the Final Rule,

12 now that it's published there's still a lot of

13 work to do, in terms of implementation and

14 enforcement. We are through the first stage

15 of that, in terms of doing the basic outline

16 of what the rule entails, doing some training,

17 but we still have a lot of work to do in terms

18 of implementation and enforcement of that

19 rule.

20 Developing a strategic plan for

21 the program is a priority. You'll see some of

22 the initial stages of that this afternoon. 
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1 Website revision and improvements, we've done

2 some, there's more to do there.

3 Implementing the NOSB

4 recommendations is a very big priority for the

5 program. You guys have done a lot of work

6 over the last five to ten years, that we have

7 a lot of work to do to catch up with you.

8 Peer review, the National

9 Institute of Standards and Technology, ISO

10 compliance, quality system management, they

11 kind of all kind of fit together. Those are

12 priorities for the program.

13 Program handbook, to clarify and

14 have consistent standards that certifiers and

15 certified operations can operate under.

16 Increased training, and then an

17 organic database to have a live database of

18 all certified operations, with the current

19 products that they are certifying.

20 Accomplishments over the last six

21 months, we published the Access to Pasture

22 Final Rule, providing guidance and training to
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1 certifiers and certified operations, clarified

2 the requirements for liquid fertilizers with

3 over 3 percent nitrogen with a clarification

4 on that in December. We issued instructions

5 on the eligibility of yeast for organic

6 certification, provided instructions

7 concerning the allowance of green waste

8 compost with the issue of bifenthrin

9 contaminants in compost. We kind of clarified

10 that through these instructions that we just

11 put out in the last couple of weeks.

12 We moved the NOSB meeting out of

13 D.C. This is where we are supposed to get

14 people cheering a little bit.

15 (Laughter and cheering.)

16 MR. McEVOY: We published a

17 tetracycline/sulfurous acid proposed rule. We

18 have increased training. We've done trainings

19 in Savannah, Denver, Albany, LaCrosse,

20 Nuremberg and Woodland, and we have more

21 planned for later this year.

22 We've strengthened enforcement
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1 procedures, in terms of adverse actions and

2 civil penalties. You'll hear a little bit

3 more about that later.

4 And then, increased transparency

5 through publishing an NOP monthly report that

6 you can find on the website, and we are now

7 starting to publish all suspended, reinstated

8 and revoked operations.

9 Okay, Office of Inspector General

10 Audit, the National Organic Program, when I

11 got here, got to USDA in October, this report

12 was winding up. It has a lot of pretty

13 serious findings in there and recommendations,

14 but it really provides a road map for the

15 program, in terms of how to -- what are the

16 areas that we need to focus on to improve the

17 program.

18 First of all, more timely

19 enforcement, that was in a number of the

20 findings around the timeliness and the follow

21 through with enforcement, both on complaints

22 and violations. They found that the oversight
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1 of the California State Organic Program was

2 lacking. They found that pesticide residue

3 testing had not been implemented as outlined

4 in the Organic Foods Production Act. 

5 Accreditation and peer review needed

6 improvement. 

7 Overall improvement of the quality

8 management system, providing clarity and

9 consistency to certifiers, the Office of

10 Inspector General found that different

11 certifiers were implementing the rules in

12 different ways, so providing consistency is

13 very important. And then, not all the audits

14 of foreign certifiers had been completed.

15 So, in terms of recommendations,

16 there's 14 recommendations in the Office of

17 Inspector General Report. Recommendations one

18 to six have to do with compliance and

19 enforcement, and follow through with

20 violations. So, there's a number of things

21 that we've done to start to address that and

22 resolve those issues, our Corrective Action
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1 Plan. Enforcement actions are being pursued

2 on those parties that were identified in the

3 report that had not been pursued.

4 We are in the process of

5 evaluating the civil penalty procedures, and

6 updating those. We are also evaluating them

7 to see if there's the need for regulatory

8 change for civil penalties.

9 The administrative sanctions

10 policy has been developed. We have issued one

11 $6,000 civil penalty, under a settlement

12 agreement. We've improved the complaint

13 reporting and timeliness. We have procedures

14 for monitoring continued compliance. So, one

15 of the findings of the report was that there

16 was a complaint that was closed, violations

17 were found, but then when they went back later

18 they found that that operation was still in

19 violation of the standards.

20 So, now we have procedures in

21 place that, once we close out complaints we

22 will be looking back at these operations in
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1 the next -- over the course of the next year,

2 to see that they continue to be in compliance.

3 And then, we've also resolved or

4 referred to the Office of General Counsel some

5 old complaints for potential adverse actions.

6 In terms of the California State

7 Organic Program, we conducted an audit in

8 December of 2009, and California has responded

9 with the findings. They have a new quality

10 manual, a new program that they are in the

11 process of implementing, and it includes

12 corrective actions for the eight findings that

13 we have had on the program.

14 Periodic residue testing, we plan

15 to require sampling later this year.

16 We'll talk a little bit more about

17 that periodic pesticide residue testing. 

18 There's a lot of different components to

19 pesticide residue testing that need to be part

20 of the overall plan, sample collection

21 procedures, what type of sample is going to be

22 collected. Is it going to be a spot sample,
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1 representative sample, random sample, is it

2 going to be farm samples, is it going to be

3 market-based samples? So, we are working out

4 the details of how that's going to happen.

5 So, who is sampled, are the

6 certifiers going to be collecting the samples,

7 are AMS personnel going to be collecting the

8 samples, how do we include foreign operations

9 in the residue testing program? Sample

10 analysis, we are pretty sure we are going to

11 use the AMS lab in Gastonia, North Carolina,

12 and it will be a multi-residue type of sample

13 analysis.

14 And, once we get the analysis of

15 the samples that are collected, what do you do

16 with them? How do you get the information

17 back to the certifier, and the certified

18 operation, and then what do you do with the

19 results, because we are certainly going to

20 find positive residue results. So, different

21 procedures need to be in place for residues

22 that are under 5 percent of the tolerance
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1 level versus results that have over 5 percent

2 of the EPA tolerance level.

3 And, there's also going to be

4 times when you are finding residues of

5 substances that don't have any tolerances. 

6 So, all those types of procedures need to be

7 worked out. We are working on those

8 specifics.

9 And then, so we have these results

10 that we get back to individual operations, we

11 also need to have a way of reporting this back

12 to the public and to the NOSB, in terms of the

13 summary of the results. So, all those things

14 are being worked on.

15 Okay. Other things that we are

16 doing for the Corrective Action Plan from the

17 OIG report, we are revising the audit review

18 criteria. These are the criteria that the ARC

19 branch uses when they do the accreditation

20 audits of the accredited certifiers, and that

21 will include a greater focus on materials,

22 labels and Access to Pasture. We also will be
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1 providing an annual summary of the audit

2 findings for continual improvement to the

3 audit process, to the accreditation process.

4 So, that report, I think we'll be

5 able to make that available to the public, to

6 the National Organic Standards Board, in terms 

7 of what we are finding, in terms of common

8 violations of the standards to the

9 accreditation process.

10 All foreign audits of accredited

11 certifiers are now complete, so we are up to

12 date there, and then we are in the process of

13 having an assessment conducted by NIST, the

14 National Institutes of Standards and

15 Technology, and that should be completed by

16 the end of this fiscal year.

17 The program handbook, this is one

18 of the areas, the findings that they had was

19 that lack of consistency and clarity, in terms

20 of specific areas of the standards. So, we

21 are working on a program handbook to provide

22 guidance to certifiers and certified
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1 operations. We plan to have the first edition

2 out this summer, it will be issued as a draft

3 guidance.

4 We are also working on a quality

5 management system, document control, records

6 management, notification procedures to ACAs,

7 and notification to certified operations. So,

8 lots of things going on to address the

9 findings of the OIG audit.

10 So, age of enforcement, we talked

11 about this last time, talking about the Deputy

12 Secretary, Kathleen Merrigan's focus on the

13 age of enforcement for the organic food

14 industry, for the National Organic Program,

15 civil penalties that will continue to be a

16 focus of the program, clarification and

17 enforcement on Access to Pasture and labels,

18 looking at increased market surveillance, to

19 see that there's compliant labels in the

20 marketplace, increased use of unannounced

21 inspections, pesticide residue sampling, as I

22 just talked about, and then developing a
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1 system of risk-based inspections to put our

2 resources where they are really needed.

3 So, we have some certifier

4 initiatives. As I said, an up-to-date database

5 of all certified operations. I think this is

6 really important. It's going to take us a

7 while to develop this database, but we need to

8 have one source where you can find the current

9 status of the certified operation.

10 It's very interesting, when we

11 published that list of suspended operations on

12 the website, we found that one of the

13 suspended operations was certified by another

14 certifier. So, what had happened there, if

15 you look at that list of suspended operations,

16 I think 99 percent of those suspended

17 operations were suspended because of

18 administrative problems, they didn't pay their

19 fees, or they didn't submit their annual

20 update.

21 So, one of those operations, who

22 had been suspended, another certifier, without
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1 their knowledge, had certified them. So, you

2 had an operation that was both suspended and

3 certified. So, by making this information

4 transparent, we are resolving that particular

5 situation. We need one list of certified

6 operations.

7 Qualifications and accreditation

8 of inspectors and auditors, to make sure that

9 inspectors and auditors are meeting certain

10 standards of qualification, and, possibly, an

11 accreditation system, bringing them into the

12 accreditation system.

13 ISO Guide 65, Compliant NOP

14 Accreditation Program, to align the NOP

15 accreditation with ISO criteria. 

16 Increased use of training modules,

17 and then kind of a new initiative is that we

18 are looking at providing technical assistance

19 to certifiers through our Compliance and

20 Enforcement Branch, regarding adverse action

21 procedures.

22 What we are finding is that with
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1 some certifiers they are not following proper

2 procedures, and cases are being lost, or

3 there's just not the proper adverse action

4 procedures. So, we are going to provide more

5 assistance to certifiers to make sure that

6 they are doing those things correctly.

7 Okay, a little bit about the

8 organizational structure of the program. We

9 have the Office of the Deputy Administrator,

10 with three divisions, Standards Division,

11 Compliance and Enforcement Division, and

12 Accreditation and International Activities. 

13 We work very closely with the Audit Review and

14 Compliance Branch of Livestock and Seed. They

15 are the ones that do -- are the lead on the

16 audits of the accredited certifiers.

17 NOP appeals is a separate program

18 in another part of AMS. They are the ones

19 that hear all the appeals for adverse actions

20 that the NOP has taken, and certifiers are

21 taking, and then we are also working very

22 closely with AMS Compliance, to do
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1 investigations on complaints.

2 Budget, this is similar to what

3 you saw in November, except we have a 2011

4 proposed budget, moving the program from about

5 $7 million up to $10.1 million.

6 And then the next slide kind of

7 shows, I think I still left this slide in, if

8 you'd go to the next slide, it shows kind of

9 graphically what we are looking at, in terms

10 of staff and budget. So, you have a very flat

11 funding from 2002 to 2007, and then it starts

12 to grow over the last couple of years, and

13 then a big leap in the number of staff,

14 especially, for 2010, which we still are

15 working towards 31.

16 So, a little bit about the budget. 

17 This just gives you a little bit of a sense of

18 where the money is going. NOP salaries and

19 benefits, the vast majority of the budget goes

20 there, about $3.9 million, administrative

21 support for the program, another $300,000

22 there. There's overhead for being in the
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1 agricultural marketing service, about $700,000

2 there. NOP appeals, even though we don't

3 oversee that program, we still pay, part of

4 our budget is used to staff that program. 

5 That's about $300,000. AMS compliance is

6 about $200,000. NOSB is about $100,000. 

7 Travel $200,000. Goods and services another

8 $300,000. The technical reports that the

9 Board uses for your work on petitions and the

10 National List, that's about $200,000 there,

11 and that's not enough, so we need more money

12 to be put into that with all the technical

13 reports that are going to be happening. 

14 $300,000 for the database, that's probably not

15 enough either. Residue testing, another

16 $300,000 there. And then, some additional

17 projects, the NIST assessment, the training

18 and the program handbook, another $200,000

19 there. Just kind of an overview of where some

20 of the money goes in the program.

21 In terms of personnel, the staff

22 is much larger than it was in November. In
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1 the Office of the Deputy Administrator,

2 there's myself, Arthur Neal is the Associate

3 who started in March, Katherine Bennum, the

4 Advisory Board Specialist and Office Manager,

5 that keeps everything running back in D.C., a

6 very critical part of the program. Valerie

7 Thorne is the Secretary. Lisa Ahramijan is

8 our new -- your new Executive Director. 

9 Unfortunately, she wasn't able to come to this

10 meeting, but I think you'll find that she's

11 really going to be a wonderful asset for the

12 Board. She starts on May 10th, and we are

13 really excited about having her come to the

14 program. She comes from National Institute of

15 Health. She has an agricultural background. 

16 She's very comfortable with technical and

17 scientific literature, and she's also worked

18 as a kind of for a FACA board in the past. 

19 So, she has a lot of experience working with

20 similar types of advisory boards.

21 Judy Ragonesi is the Training

22 Manager. We have a grant specialist position
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1 that is unfilled, that that position closed,

2 we haven't quite filled that position yet,

3 that's the person that will oversee the cost

4 share program, and then we'll be hiring a

5 quality manager to oversee the quality

6 management system.

7 In the Accreditation and

8 International Activities Division, Mark

9 Bradley is the Directly, JD Melvin mostly

10 focuses on international issues, Bob Pooler is

11 now in that division working on accreditation,

12 as well as Mary Lou Lusby, and then we have

13 three NOP technical experts, Meghan Kuhn, Lars

14 Crail and Catherine Cash. These are all

15 highly-seasoned, highly-experienced organic

16 inspectors that we've brought into that

17 division to help out on the audits and the

18 oversight of certifiers.

19 They each have one third of the

20 globe as their purview. Meghan Kuhn has

21 Eastern United States and Europe. Catherine

22 Cash has the Midwest and South America, and
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1 Lars Crail has the West Coast, except for

2 CCOF, and Asia.

3 Okay, Compliance and Enforcement

4 Division, Ruihong Guo is the Director, and

5 Valeri Schmale, Tammie Wilburn, Andrew

6 Regalado, Kristin Thornblad, Lorraine Coke and

7 Renee Mann, the last two are West Coasters

8 that we got. Lorraine Coke comes from an

9 organic farm in California. We are really

10 pleased to have her, and Renee Mann comes from

11 OMRI, so we are very pleased to have her to

12 bring some more material specialists into the

13 program.

14 Standards Division, we still have

15 an unfilled director position. Shannon Nally

16 has been gracious to be the Acting Director

17 for the last six months now. Toni Struther,

18 Valerie Frances, Stacy Jones, Lisa Brines,

19 Emily Brown Rosen, Mark Keating, those are the

20 folks that are in the division, and we still

21 have two unfilled positions. We are looking

22 for a food scientist and a livestock
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1 specialist to kind of round out the Standards

2 Division.

3 And then, we have some folks on

4 details. This is a nice feature that USDA

5 has, of allowing people from other programs to

6 work in other programs to gain experience and

7 to help out the program. So, we have Dr.

8 Kerry Smith, she's been helping with the

9 Access to Pasture training. Soo Kim is a

10 writer, helps out with a lot of the briefings

11 and control correspondence that we have to do. 

12 Lee Cliburn comes from the Cotton Program, and

13 she's doing -- helping out with some rule

14 writings, National List rule writing. And,

15 Dana Stahl is with the ARC branch, Livestick

16 and Seed Program, has a lot of experience in

17 quality management and ISO systems. She's on

18 a half-time detail to help us with putting our

19 quality manual together.

20 There's a lot of things going on

21 at USDA. It's very exciting. With the

22 leadership of Deputy Secretary Merrigan, she's
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1 implementing a USDA organic plan, it's under

2 development, it should be released some time

3 in the next, oh, I don't know, month or so. 

4 We are trying to wrap up our piece of that

5 this month, and what it will have is a -- it

6 will be a plan for the whole department, all

7 USDA agencies and mission areas are

8 contributing to the plan.

9 There's a lot of things going on

10 within the department to support organic

11 agriculture. In the past, a lot of that fell

12 on the shoulders of the NOP, and so this

13 allows the NOP to really focus on the

14 regulatory mission, and allow these other

15 programs to support other aspects of organic

16 agriculture.

17 So, there's the Agricultural

18 Marketing Service, Organic Market News, they

19 have a new feature that's out there for you in

20 the marketing realm, Natural Fruit & Vegetable

21 Organic Summary, it's available every Tuesday

22 on line. It gives you specific information
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1 about market data, wholesale and shipping

2 point prices and movement data.

3 NRCS does a lot of things for

4 organic agriculture. They have the Organic

5 Transitions Program, and EQIP funding. 

6 We are in the process of entering

7 into a Memorandum of Understanding with

8 Foreign Ag Service. This is to provide

9 greater oversight or, basically, information

10 about what's going on with foreign organic

11 operations.

12 And then another initiative that

13 we have is to establish HTS codes, which are,

14 if I get this right, Harmonized Trade System

15 codes, and this will -- currently, we really

16 don't know how much organic product is being

17 imported into the U.S., and this will allow

18 that to be tracked by Department of Commerce,

19 so we'll really know both the quantity and the

20 types of products, organic products, that are

21 coming into the U.S. So, hopefully, that will

22 get established in the near future.
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1 There's also a USDA Organic

2 Coordinator position that's been established,

3 and this is to coordinate organic activities

4 throughout the department. That will be in

5 the marketing and regulatory program's mission

6 area.

7 And then, of course, there's lots

8 of research that supports organic agriculture,

9 the Organic Research Education Initiative, the

10 Sustainable Agricultural Research and

11 Education Program, and the Agricultural

12 Research Service. Lots of things out there to

13 support organic agriculture.

14 Okay. Strategic planning update,

15 we are currently engaged in a strategic

16 planning process. We are conducting -- it's

17 being conducted in segments between March, is

18 when we started, and we'll finish up in July. 

19 The objectives of the planning process are to

20 reaffirm the NOP mission and the shared sense

21 of purpose, to identify the key customers and

22 audiences of the NOP and the NOSB, and their
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1 respective needs and interests, to develop and

2 prioritize clear goals, objectives and

3 actions, to develop performance measures that

4 will assess success, establish a communication

5 plan as we move our plan into operation, and

6 to align the NOP with critical goals in USDA

7 and AMS strategic plan.

8 I sent a copy of the Executive

9 Summary to the NOSB last week. I have copies

10 of the Executive Summary with me here today. 

11 I'll give you a hard copy of that Executive

12 Summary, and for the other folks in the

13 audience, those copies are available. We will

14 put this up on our website, I think, tomorrow. 

15 We are really looking for feedback into that

16 process.

17 So, in terms of an initial draft,

18 our strategic goals include developing

19 publishing and maintaining a documented

20 quality management system for the efficient

21 and effective operation of the NOP, develop,

22 communicate and apply clear and consistent NOP
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1 standards in a uniform manner across all

2 stakeholder groups, enhance compliance and

3 enforcement of the organic label, improve NOP

4 communication with internal and external

5 stakeholder groups, and continue to build and

6 develop an effective and well-trained NOP

7 team.

8 So, these are our five goals that

9 we came up with in March, and we are looking

10 for input on that, and further collaboration

11 with NOP. I know we had a plan to have a

12 retreat together in mid-February. It's good

13 that it didn't happen, because that was the

14 snowstorm week. Even if we had gone forward

15 with it, it would not have happened.

16 I apologize for getting

17 everybody's hopes up on that retreat. We have

18 some possibilities of getting -- inviting a

19 few people to our retreat in June, but because

20 of the FACA restrictions we can't have the

21 Board meet as a -- separate from a public

22 meeting. So, we'll see what we can do to
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1 collaborate with the Board, get input into the

2 strategic plan, and, yes, we'll just keep

3 working on that.

4 So, we are inviting your input,

5 NOSB's input, and also the public's input. 

6 The first step was that strategic planning

7 session that we did in March. We are looking

8 for feedback from the NOSB and other

9 stakeholders, and then we are having a two-day

10 internal planning session in June, and then

11 we'll do the review and roll out in June and

12 July.

13 So, the feedback goes to the

14 meeting facilitator. We'll give you copies 

15 of that, and you can send your comments

16 directly to her.

17 All right, a little bit about

18 what's going on with accreditation and

19 international activities. As I said, Mark

20 Bradley is the Director. We are now requiring

21 audits prior to new accreditations, so that we

22 can review the capacity of an operation of a
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1 new certifier to do quality work, before we,

2 actually, grant the accreditation.

3 The plan is to have NOP technical

4 experts on all audits to accompany the ARC

5 auditors. We are doing, in addition to the

6 regular audits, we'll be doing some foreign

7 assessments in Ghana, Argentina, Israel and

8 India. They are already planned for 2010.

9 And then, we are looking at --

10 well, we are already implementing increased

11 accountability for certifiers. So, annual

12 updates, which are required by all certifiers,

13 we are insisting that certifiers -- assistants

14 to certifiers, but we are also insisting that

15 certifiers follow proper adverse action

16 procedures. And then, they are also required

17 to provide a list of certified operations. 

18 Now, in the past, certifiers would

19 not always get their things in on time, so

20 what we have done is, if they don't get their

21 reports in on time we issue notices of non22 compliance, and that seems to work. Once they
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1 get one of those, they get it in on time. We

2 see it pretty quickly.

3 So, we are trying to hold

4 certifiers accountable, to make sure that they

5 are protecting organic integrity.

6 Recognition agreements, we

7 assessed Denmark in March, Israel is scheduled

8 for May. These are the foreign accreditation

9 or foreign recognition agreements. India is

10 scheduled for September, and we have a new

11 application from Thailand that we are in the

12 process of evaluating.

13 There are six recognition

14 agreements that the program has, so if

15 Thailand goes through the process they would

16 be number seven.

17 Equivalency, we have equivalency

18 with Canada, mutual assessment of the programs

19 will occur later this year, so we'll be

20 working with Canada on a mutual assessment, to

21 see that their system is equivalent to our

22 system, and they'll see that our system is
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1 equivalent to their system.

2 We are also working with the

3 European Union. We've expressed an interest

4 in establishing an equivalency agreement with

5 the European Union, and we will be conducting

6 meetings with them later this year to see how

7 well that proceeds.

8 So, a little bit about

9 harmonization or this concept of equivalency. 

10 The things that we are looking at, when we are

11 looking at equivalency agreements, there's

12 three components, the standards themselves,

13 the certification requirements, and then the

14 accreditation systems. So, a lot of times we

15 focus on the standards, but the differences,

16 in terms of materials, between the European

17 system and our system.

18 But, what we are looking at there

19 in equivalency is that their equivalent

20 standards, they don't have to be identical. 

21 The materials list does not have to be exactly

22 identical to have an equivalency agreement. 
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1 And, if you look at this, the

2 materials, there's very limited differences in

3 organic standards around the world. Sodium

4 nitrate, of course, antibiotics are looked at

5 differently. We have some allowance in terms

6 of tree food production, and they have some

7 allowance for use in livestock, and then the

8 way that inert ingredients are looked at is

9 very different in Europe and the U.S.

10 Certification requirements is

11 another thing that we have to focus on and use

12 equivalency discussions and in harmonization. 

13 What kinds of inspections are required during

14 that transitional time period, that's

15 different between Europe and the U.S., and

16 then the U.S. requires organic system plans,

17 that's not a European requirement. So, those

18 things need to be looked at, and then the

19 accreditation system. Who is doing the

20 oversight? Is it a private or a government

21 organization? What's the quality of that

22 organization in Canada? It's very different
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1 than what we have. They have a number of

2 different evaluation bodies that they've

3 accepted to do the accreditation work. Here

4 we have one, we just allow the ARC Branch to

5 do the audits of the accredited certifiers.

6 So, we need to evaluate all three aspects when

7 we are looking at equivalency.

8 So, the benefits of equivalency,

9 they are especially beneficial to small

10 producers. Organic producers can have

11 expanded market access. Small producers are

12 the ones that really have a hard time with the

13 additional certifications. They can't afford

14 those multiple certifications, so we see that

15 as very beneficial to the smaller producers.

16 Certifiers have less audits. One

17 audit suffices for providing them both access

18 to the U.S. and Canadian market, and then

19 certifiers can choose an accreditation system,

20 whether it's NOP or CFIA, Canadian Food

21 Inspection Agency. So, it reduces paper work

22 and cost.
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1 Some of the other things to think

2 about, in terms of equivalency, though, is it

3 does have the potential to reduce direct

4 oversight of certifiers. So, certifiers that

5 in the past had to be accredited by two

6 systems are now only accredited by one.

7 Also, the accreditation system

8 relies on multiple evaluation bodies, rather

9 than one. So, currently, we have the NOP

10 accreditation system that oversees all the NOP

11 accredited certifiers, but with the

12 equivalency agreement with Canada now we have

13 all the Canadian accreditation bodies that are

14 also doing this oversight.

15 And then finally, USDA organic

16 that you see in the marketplace, it may be NOP

17 certified, but it also may be certified by

18 CFIA, and not NOP certified. So, that's just

19 kind of an odd thing to think about, that USDA

20 organic in the marketplace could be not NOP

21 certified.

22 So, but it's equivalent, so it's
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1 all good.

2 Okay. State organic programs, a

3 little update there. Utah has withdrawn from

4 being a state organic program. They did that

5 in the wintertime. California is under

6 review. They've corrected seven out of their

7 eight findings.

8 One thing to keep in mind with

9 California State Organic Program, they do have

10 additional requirements. In California you

11 are required to be registered with the state

12 as a certifier, and also as an organic

13 operation. So, we look at that as additional

14 requirements in California, and we have not

15 received any new inquiries from any other

16 states.

17 Okay. Compliance and Enforcement

18 Division. A lot of work in this area, in

19 terms of new and revised procedures, complete

20 handling procedures. They have a new goal,

21 and this is a very ambitious goal, to close

22 cases within 180 days. They have a lot of
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1 work to do to get to that goal, but that's

2 their goal, 180 days to close cases.

3 New enforcement procedures, new

4 enforcement action follow-up monitoring

5 procedures, these things have been posted on

6 the website, I think, at this point. I think

7 they were posted on Friday.

8 Civil penalty procedures, we are

9 evaluating NOP's authority. There's a

10 possibility for a rule change around the civil

11 penalty procedures in the rule, and

12 publication of suspensions, revocations,

13 reinstatements and civil penalties, and we are

14 also in the process of developing a penalty

15 matrix. This is taking some of the work that

16 the NOSB did years ago on the penalty matrix,

17 and expanding it a little bit.

18 For the last six months, between

19 October and March, we had 70 complaints that

20 were carried over from the previous year,

21 received 86 new complaints, total of 156

22 complaints. Sixty-two complaints have been
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1 closed. We still have 94 complaints. 

2 Eighteen of those complaints are over 270

3 days, and 16 are over 180 days, so a total of

4 34 complaints are over 180 days. So, that's

5 why I'm saying we have a lot of work to do to

6 meet that goal of 180-day turnaround, and our

7 average time for case closure is 186 days. 

8 So, lots of work to do there.

9 And, by the way, I will -- this

10 will -- this Power Point will be posted on the

11 NOP website, I think, tomorrow, so people will

12 see that.

13 Okay, so 28 warning letters, one

14 notice of non-compliance, one case collecting

15 a civil penalty through settlement agreement,

16 12 cases resulted in product label changes,

17 123 product labels were changed, eight cases

18 resulted in production process changes, 20

19 cases resulted in website changes, and three

20 operations became certified. So, they are

21 doing a lot of work, and there's a lot of work

22 involved in doing these complaint
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1 investigations.

2 Moving on to the Standards

3 Division, this is the division that does

4 rulemaking on both the practice standards and

5 the National List, is working on the NOP

6 program handbook, both instructions and

7 guidance, and the National List petition

8 process.

9 Under development, we talked about

10 in November the concept of made with organic

11 and some of what we call misrepresented labels

12 out there, and we do have a guidance, a draft

13 guidance, that's in the clearance process

14 currently. When that is published, there will

15 be a 60-day comment period. We'll consider

16 the comments before we come out with the final

17 guidance. This is guidance, because we -- it's

18 just clarification of existing rules, it

19 doesn't require any rule change, and it will

20 be three components to that draft guidance.

21 One is the use of the term organic

22 when branding company names on the principal
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1 display panels. The use of non-organic

2 ingredients and made with organic specified

3 ingredients or food group products, and the

4 use of a percentage of organic ingredient

5 statements within the made with organic

6 labeling category. So, those three components

7 will be in that one -- in that one piece of

8 guidance.

9 Okay, the program handbook, we are

10 looking at this in two different arenas, in

11 terms of things that we consider instructions

12 or procedures, which are really directions to

13 certifiers of how to do the work of certifying

14 organic operations, and guidance.

15 So, examples of instructions or

16 procedures would be the accreditation

17 procedures, the enforcement procedures, the

18 things that certifiers need to know in order

19 to do their work.

20 Guidance, there it is more policy,

21 and it's clarification of the existing rule,

22 the existing regulation, and those are -- a
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1 lot of the NOSB recommendations are what we

2 would consider guidance, that will go through

3 this draft guidance procedure.

4 We'll publish them in the Federal

5 Register with a 60-day comment period, and

6 they include things like the outdoor access

7 for poultry and commercial availability of

8 seeds.

9 Anything that has a potential

10 economic impact will go through this type of

11 guidance process through the Federal Register.

12 So, in terms of the handbook, in

13 terms of the first edition, this is some of

14 the things that will be included. It's not an

15 exhaustive list, but these are the types of

16 things that we will include in the first

17 edition. Things that were identified in the

18 OIG findings, the periodic residue testing,

19 outdoor access for livestock, organic

20 certificates, that portion of the

21 clarification on organic certificates that we

22 can do without doing rule changes, changes in
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1 ownership, preventing commingling, non2 compliance procedures, organic system plans

3 and inadequate records.

4 And then, in terms of the NOSB

5 recommendations, the commercial availability

6 of seeds, biodiversity, grower groups, organic

7 research, compost, chlorine, and private

8 labels.

9 National List rulemaking, that's

10 in process, in progress. We are working on

11 the final rule for sulfurous acid and

12 tetracycline, working on the final rule for

13 606, that's an interim rule currently, and a

14 final rule on the TM-08-06 docket, which

15 includes potassium silicate, sodium carbonate,

16 peroxyhydrate, gellan gum, cooking wine and

17 tragacanth gum. I don't know how to actually

18 pronounce that, but something like that.

19 And then, there's a number of

20 proposed rules that we are working on, NOP

21 0902, 0903, and 0904, lots of different

22 materials, National List recommendations that
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1 the Board has made that we are still working

2 on the proposed rule.

3 So, when I was here in November, I

4 was relatively new at the USDA, and I thought

5 that we could get a lot done. And, we are

6 getting a lot done. We have a lot of new

7 staff, but it takes a while. There's a lot of

8 steps involved in getting these rules done,

9 and even though we have a lot of new staff

10 it's going to take them a while to get up and

11 running.

12 So, I just want you to keep in

13 mind that we are working hard, but you've

14 given us a lot of work to do, and we have a

15 lot to do.

16 Okay, practice standards. So,

17 same list that you saw in November, marginal

18 livestock, we do plan to have a proposed rule

19 out this year, apiculture mushroom,

20 standardization of certificates, pet food,

21 aquaculture and greenhouses. So, they are on

22 the list, but we haven't figured out how to
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1 get them done.

2 We have -- the program handbook is

3 a priority for the Standards Division. We

4 have a lot of new staff. At some point, we

5 will start to assign staff to start working on

6 these practice standards, but we are not quite

7 there yet.

8 NOSB nominations are now open. 

9 There's five openings for the NOSB, two

10 producers, two consumer public interest

11 groups, and one certifier. Nominations are

12 due by July 17, 2010, and the five-year term

13 starts in January of next year. So, just

14 encourage people to apply for these positions,

15 the work of the Board is really, really

16 critical to the success of the industry. We

17 really rely on the Board for guidance and your

18 recommendations, so anyway, that's happening

19 currently.

20 So, our plans for next year are

21 somewhat resource dependent. We do have a $3

22 million enhancement in the President's budget. 
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1 We'll see what happens as it works through

2 Congress. We hope to have proposed rules for

3 apiculture, mushrooms, pet food, standardized

4 certificates and civil penalties, support ISO

5 accreditation for all NOP accredited

6 certifiers, so the idea is to get all NOP

7 accredited certifiers ISO compliant. We want

8 to align the NOP regulations with ISO Guide

9 65, expanded oversight of foreign accredited

10 certifiers, and recognition agreements, and

11 pursue additional equivalency arrangements.

12 So, if we don't get the additional

13 funding, the likelihood of getting all these

14 things done diminishes, even with $7 million

15 you can only do so much.

16 Okay, now we get to the part where

17 we are going to respond to the NOSB

18 recommendations, and we are going to start

19 doing a new process, where we'll give you a

20 written response to your recommendations.

21 The first one is a recommendation

22 from a few years ago, expiration dates on
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1 certificates and standardized certificates. 

2 These are two recommendations. One was made,

3 I think, November of 2006, and one in

4 November, 2007, so we have an official

5 response to that, and, basically, what we are

6 saying is that we will begin to clarify what

7 we can through guidance, and then work on

8 rulemaking changes for the things that have to

9 be done through rulemaking. 

10 So, we accept your recommendations

11 on expiration dates on certificates and

12 standardized certificates, and we'll be

13 working on that.

14 In February, we provided some

15 clarification on the Sunset Review of how the

16 NOP views Sunset Review. There were a lot of

17 discussions in November about whether Sunset

18 Review was an Evergreen process or not. 

19 Basically, we reject the idea that Sunset

20 Reviews is an Evergreen process. The Board

21 has broad authority in terms of Sunset Review,

22 to renew or reject the continuation of
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1 materials on the National List. So,

2 hopefully, that gave you some clarification of

3 where the program is, in terms of Sunset

4 Review.

5 In terms of annotations, there

6 were a lot of questions about annotations in

7 November. Your current policy in the NOSB is

8 that you don't provide for changes to

9 annotations during the Sunset process, and you

10 need to abide by your procedures. But, from

11 the Office of General Counsel, from the

12 program's position, if you want to consider

13 changes to annotations that's your

14 prerogative. The Board has authority to make

15 changes to annotations during the Sunset

16 Review process.

17 You may choose not to do that, and

18 if you choose to do that, you might want to be

19 very, very careful, because you have such a

20 large workload to do, that you might want to

21 be very -- very careful in terms of what you

22 choose to do.
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1 But, there are some annotations

2 that need some work, chlorine in particular. 

3 The annotation on chlorine is really not

4 accurate, and really needs to be looked at. 

5 So, anyway, that's our opinion.

6 November, 2009 material

7 recommendations for Sunset 2011 and petitions

8 and annotation changes, we, basically, concur.

9 We will be working towards implementing that

10 through rulemaking, all those National List

11 decisions that you all made in November.

12 On Excipients, we concur with

13 adding or approved by APHIS, the annotation,

14 but we find that your animal healthcare

15 products to be a vague term, and we await

16 further clarification that I think you are

17 working on at this meeting.

18 Vaccines, our vaccine

19 recommendation, we are seeking legal review

20 from the Office of General Counsel on that

21 particular recommendation, and also a

22 technical review to report on the status of
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1 GMO vaccines and the economic impact of using

2 commercial availability criteria for vaccines. 

3 A little more details in our full response to

4 the Board on that, and these responses to the

5 Board will be posted on the website tomorrow,

6 so everybody will have a chance to look at

7 what our responses to the Board on vaccines

8 and all these other issues are.

9 The shellfish recommendation is

10 accepted, we'll be incorporating that into the

11 aquaculture work.

12 Animal welfare, very important

13 area. Obviously, more work is needed. You

14 are doing more work on that at this meeting. 

15 We would like you to consider the impact of

16 the Pasture Rule on that recommendation animal

17 welfare, because you did not have the Access

18 to Pasture Final Rule when you did that work

19 in November, and we also suggest that you

20 include transportation and slaughter handling

21 in the recommendation. That was not included

22 in your November recommendation, to make it a
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1 full animal welfare recommendation we would

2 encourage you to look at those two areas.

3 Classification of materials, this

4 is a lot of great work has gone on in this

5 area, very important, very complex. As being

6 somewhat familiar with materials review, what

7 gets really difficult is drawing that line

8 between synthetic and natural, and I think we

9 end up spending way too much time trying to

10 determine whether something is synthetic or

11 natural, and not just looking at the material

12 itself. Does it make sense in an organic

13 system? Does it make sense in biological

14 agriculture? And, I think sometimes that this

15 whole concern of whether it's synthetic or not

16 is really not the issue, it's really how does

17 that material fit into an organic biological

18 agricultural system.

19 We do support the two vote system

20 to clarify decisions, because that's the way

21 OFPA set up, it is set up in a way that,

22 first, you have to determine whether it's
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1 synthetic or non-synthetic, and then determine

2 whether or not to prohibit it if it's natural,

3 or to add it if it's synthetic, or to not add

4 it if it's synthetic. And, we do believe that

5 your definitions need some additional work.

6 NOSB policy manual changes, those

7 changes have been made to the policy manual. 

8 I think that's up on the website now with the

9 new changes.

10 Retail certification, good work in

11 that area. It didn't seem that there was any

12 specific work for the NOP to do on that. It

13 looked like -- our understanding was we were

14 going to do additional work on the retail

15 certification, so there's really nothing for

16 us to do at this particular time. So, we thank

17 you for that work, and look forward to more

18 work in that area.

19 And then, our favorite, or my

20 favorite, cosmetics, let's go to the next

21 slide. So, we do have an official response as

22 a separate memo to the Board on cosmetics.
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1 So, what our plan is, is to

2 collaborate with FDA and FTC to understand the

3 issues associated with the use of the term

4 organic in personal care products. So, we

5 have met with FDA, we have another meeting

6 next month. It will be collaborative and

7 comprehensive approach that will be aligned

8 with each respective agency's regulations.

9 So, they don't really understand

10 the NOP regulations. We, certainly, don't

11 understand the FDA regulations. Our initial

12 meeting with them indicated that there's

13 things in the recommendation that conflict

14 with FDA regulations. One in particular is,

15 they don't really have a category personal

16 care products, they don't -- it's not really

17 a definition that they relate to, but our plan

18 is, is that we will collaborate with them and

19 work with them closely.

20 The other thing that we are

21 looking at is gathering information on this

22 whole issue, what are consumers' expectations,
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1 in particular, around organic labeling of

2 cosmetics and personal care products, so we

3 are looking at doing a public survey to try to

4 gather that information, and we may look at

5 doing an Advanced Notice of Proposed

6 Rulemaking, as a way of gathering information

7 about this area. 

8 It's very complex. There's lots of

9 different claims out there. There's lots of

10 different standards. We want to be very

11 careful as we move into this area. We

12 understand its importance to the integrity of

13 organic -- of the organic label, but we want

14 to be very careful and deliberate as we go

15 through this process of looking at cosmetics.

16 The other thing we are a little

17 concerned about, in terms of cosmetics, is the

18 resources that could be devoured in terms of

19 working in this area. It's a huge area, and

20 we have a lot of work to do on agricultural

21 products. So, we are definitely concerned

22 about that.
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1 Deputy Secretary Merrigan is

2 concerned about that, of not losing sight of

3 some of the other core work that the program

4 has to do, but we will move forward in this

5 area.

6 Okay, so that's the end of my

7 report. Do you want -- do you have any

8 questions about that, before we get to Corn

9 Steep liquor?

10 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Yes, if we

11 could -- the Board has some questions.

12 Joe?

13 MR. SMILLIE: Yes. The periodic

14 residue testing, that's the big ticket item.

15 MR. McEVOY: Right.

16 MR. SMILLIE: We've got to be

17 really careful with this, so we don't drive

18 the price of organic beyond the ability of the

19 consumer to pay, and at the same time keeping

20 organic integrity. So, we have to move

21 forward.

22 My first question is, have you
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1 received a legal opinion from OGC that the

2 current regulation does not -- is not in

3 compliance with OFPA?

4 MR. McEVOY: No.

5 MR. SMILLIE: But, you are moving

6 ahead as if you would have received that it

7 seems.

8 MR. McEVOY: Yes, we are moving

9 ahead, because we believe it's a critical part

10 of a good comprehensive oversight of organic

11 agriculture, to improve the integrity of the

12 whole system, of having pesticide residue

13 testing as a component to the system is an

14 important component.

15 MR. SMILLIE: Is there a role for

16 the NOSB in this -- in the current thinking of

17 the program?

18 MR. McEVOY: Is there -- in what

19 way?

20 MR. SMILLIE: Well, is there any

21 part of this that you want us to start to look

22 at and work with the public in making this --
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1 making your program work? Are we going to be

2 formally or informally invited to collaborate

3 on this?

4 Our committee is Certification and

5 Compliance Enforcement.

6 MR. McEVOY: Right. So, you'd

7 like to be involved in the development --

8 MR. SMILLIE: I didn't say that, I

9 just wondered what your intentions were.

10 MR. McEVOY: Yes.

11 MR. SMILLIE: I wasn't asking for

12 work, I was just, you know -- 

13 MR. McEVOY: Thanks for the offer,

14 I think that might be a good thing to work

15 very closely with your committee on the

16 development of this program.

17 MR. SMILLIE: Well then, we'll

18 look forward to seeing what your current

19 thinking is on it, too.

20 MR. McEVOY: Okay, sounds good.

21 MR. SMILLIE: Does some of that

22 current thinking include the $300,000 budget
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1 item? Is that -- 

2 MR. McEVOY: Yes. That's some of

3 the current thinking, that we would cover the

4 cost of the residue testing.

5 MR. SMILLIE: That sounds like a

6 good current thinking, I like that current

7 thinking.

8 No. 2, I really -- I really --

9 certify our CFOs back there, you know.

10 MR. McEVOY: Yes.

11 MR. SMILLIE: I really like the

12 idea of using FAS for foreign oversight. I

13 think that's a brilliant move. I really think

14 that we need to pay attention on what the USDA

15 seal means, not only in the U.S., but all

16 around the world, and FAS should be able to do

17 those market surveys, and I think that that

18 will be great.

19 The HDS codes I think is great. I

20 really encourage the program to work very --

21 because that will show where the -- you know,

22 that's a key one.
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1 No. 3, we are working sort of in

2 parallel on the made with organic seal. As

3 you will hear over the next three days, we

4 floated a discussion paper out, and the

5 response we got from the sectors was

6 overwhelmingly pointed. And, I think we'll

7 share that with you.

8 You seem to be heading in the same

9 direction, we need to educate people on that

10 seal.

11 Finally, I had a question, you put

12 something about final 606 rule, and I have no

13 idea what you were talking about.

14 MR. McEVOY: Yes, the 606 rule is

15 an interim rule. It was published as an

16 interim rule, interim final rule.

17 MR. SMILLIE: Oh, okay.

18 MR. McEVOY: So, we will have a

19 final rule on that.

20 MR. SMILLIE: So, we are just

21 going to finalize it, there's no anticipated

22 changes.
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1 MR. McEVOY: No.

2 MR. SMILLIE: Okay.

3 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: All right. 

4 Jeff?

5 MR. MOYER: Thank you, Mr.

6 Chairman.

7 Miles, I wanted to follow up on

8 Joe's comment about residue testing. One of

9 the concerns that I have is, how we are going

10 to set up a baseline to compare to, because

11 when you talk to -- I think we are opening the

12 door in one regard to the conventional

13 industry, which has always argued that there

14 should be a residue testing program, and if

15 their -- if you test dimensional products side

16 by side with organic, and the conventional

17 tests with a lower residue, then their

18 products should be equal to or greater than

19 the organic product. And, I'm curious how the

20 program is going to view the outcome of that

21 residue testing in light of that argument.

22 MR. McEVOY: Well, I think it's an
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1 argument that won't hold true.

2 Washington State Department of

3 Agriculture, we always did residue testing as

4 a significant part of our program. And, for

5 the most part we mostly did field samples, but

6 we also did processed products and handlers

7 from grocery stores, from packing sheds, and

8 most of the time we didn't find any residues.

9 And, when we found residues, then

10 we wanted to know why are those residues

11 there. Rarely would we find residues above 5

12 percent EPA tolerance level, but still you

13 find residues, and when you occasionally find

14 those residues you find out why they are

15 there. Are they there from drift? Are they

16 there from residual soil contamination? Are

17 they there because of lack of a breakdown in

18 the system in a handling facility, where

19 there's not adequate barriers between organic

20 and conventional handling?

21 And, in almost all, you know,

22 well, in most cases the finding of a residue
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1 led to improvements of the system. And, by

2 doing that residue testing, you are -- it

3 really helps to keep people on their toes,

4 because they know you are going to be out

5 there sampling, and occasionally you do find

6 the fraudulent product that we need to

7 eliminate from the marketplace.

8 So, I don't think it's going to be

9 a problem. I think what we'll find is, we'll

10 actually have the data to show that most

11 organic food products don't have any residue. 

12 That's been our experience.

13 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: I think

14 we're borderline getting some feedback. Did

15 everybody check that their mics are off, if

16 you are not speaking?

17 Any other questions on this from

18 the Board?

19 I have a couple that I'd like to

20 touch on with you, Miles.

21 We are in the middle of Sunset

22 2012. We are dealing with probably 90 percent
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1 of all the substances on the National List in

2 this block.

3 A number -- one of the things that

4 we've done in the last six months, since the

5 November meeting, is to go through that list

6 and identify the ones which we felt needed a

7 new TAP review.

8 Could you sort of give us the

9 current status of the relationship and the

10 responsiveness of science and technology, in

11 being able to achieve and accomplish this

12 before our next meeting?

13 We also, in the submission of the

14 nanotechnology document, we've -- we are

15 wondering -- we are concerned that if this

16 responsiveness is not adequate we are going --

17 it could create some tremendous problems in

18 the industry.

19 MR. McEVOY: Yes.

20 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Or we'd

21 have to take action without the information.

22 MR. McEVOY: Okay, I'll have
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1 Shannon answer the question about the status

2 of the technical report.

3 MS. NALLY: Shannon Nally,

4 National Organic Program.

5 There is a considerable amount of

6 work for Science and Technology to do, to have

7 the technical report, I guess, ideally

8 completed by August, so that you can review

9 those, so that you have time to review those

10 for the fall meeting.

11 We are considering other

12 alternatives to supplement Science and

13 Technology's capacity to be able to handle all

14 those reports.

15 MR. McEVOY: So, it probably

16 doesn't give you a lot of confidence. We are

17 working on it. You've got a lot of requests,

18 and there's a lot of work to do.

19 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Does the

20 program have a plan in place to take that

21 step, to find that supplemental health if

22 necessary, and an expectation of what may kick
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1 you into that process?

2 MR. McEVOY: Arthur, help me out

3 here.

4 MR. NEAL: Arthur Neal, National

5 Organic Program.

6 We are looking at -- we are

7 looking at touching base -- well, we've

8 already started touching base with some of the

9 contractors we have used in the past, to look

10 at them picking up some of the workload.

11 One of the things we don't want to

12 see have happen is that our -- well, the

13 Sunset Review process take longer than

14 necessary. The OPFA says five years, and if

15 it's not reviewed in five years you can't use

16 it.

17 So, if we run up in a situation

18 where, you know, we don't finish our review,

19 what alternative do we have, in terms of

20 extending the use of a substance.

21 So, we are looking -- we've

22 already started contacting folks, and just, we
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1 started a conversation about, you know,

2 potentially, being able to pick up some

3 technical reviews.

4 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Any other

5 comments for the program on their presentation

6 or these issues?

7 Okay, seeing none, I think there

8 is an interim job for you to do right now. I

9 think you have an introduction to make.

10 MR. McEVOY: Okay. Yes, we have a

11 distinguished guest here, A.G. Kawamura, from

12 -- the Director of the California Department

13 of Food and Agriculture.

14 (Applause.)

15 MR. McEVOY: I first met A.G. in

16 Seattle at a National Association of State

17 Departments of Agriculture meeting, and had

18 the chance to learn that he has an organic

19 farm, or part of an organic farm, in southern

20 California, so that was great.

21 So, welcome, thank you.

22 MR. KAWAMURA: Just real quick,
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1 welcome to California for everybody who is out

2 of state, and welcome to this neck of the

3 woods from people who are around the state,

4 and I wanted to say thanks for all your

5 dedication on being a part of this Board, and,

6 really, trying to make sure that we move the

7 industry forward.

8 I know there's a lot of jeopardy

9 to the program, and I'm going to speak a

10 little bit about that later today, when we get

11 back over to the Hampton Inn. But, these are

12 interesting times, where the public confidence

13 can go quickly one direction or another, and

14 I know it's more important than ever then to

15 look for consistency, look for focus on your

16 vision of where you want to go, and,

17 certainly, in this arena, with this Board and

18 with the organic program nationally and in our

19 state, it requires a lot of attention, a lot

20 of partnership. So, I wanted to just say

21 thanks so much for all you are doing for

22 helping create that kind of consistency and
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1 that kind of vision.

2 And, anything we can do as a

3 state, of course, we are here to help, and we

4 are here to be a partner with you, and we

5 continue to look at an amazing rebirth of

6 agriculture all over our state, and, really,

7 all over the country, where people are getting

8 very, very excited about regional food sheds

9 and the kinds of things that can take place

10 when you really link a food shed together with

11 a water shed, and link it together with an

12 energy shed, interestingly. These are all

13 nice exciting ways to take a look at what

14 synergy can do towards building a better

15 future for ag.

16 So again, thanks so much. I know

17 you guys have a lot of stuff going on, so it's

18 just a pleasure to be here, and, more

19 importantly, I look forward to meeting with

20 many of you over the next days.

21 Thanks.

22 (Applause.)
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1 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Any

2 questions?

3 Thank you for visiting us. Thank

4 you for your time.

5 I think -- what are we up to? We

6 are up to those two?

7 MR. McEVOY: Are you ready for

8 Corn Steep liquor?

9 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: The Corn

10 Steep, yes.

11 MR. McEVOY: Okay. I'll introduce

12 Dr. -- 

13 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: A

14 discussion on Corn Steep and nutrients.

15 MR. McEVOY: -- introducing Dr.

16 Lisa Brines. She's been with the program for

17 three weeks. This is her third week, start of

18 her third week, so be easy on her. She comes

19 from the Washington State Department of

20 Agriculture. We stole her from my old place

21 of employment, and she ran -- well, didn't

22 run, but was the materials specialist at the
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1 Washington State Department of Agriculture.

2 So, thank you, Lisa.

3 MS. BRINES: Thanks, Miles for the

4 introduction. So, I'm just going to be giving

5 sort of an overview of Corn Steep liquor

6 today.

7 There is a technical advisory

8 report that will be posted on the website, as

9 well as a White Paper in the next couple of

10 days, and there is some animation in these

11 slides, so I apologize. Try and follow me as

12 best you can.

13 So, in general, to start with,

14 Corn Steep liquor is a byproduct of the corn

15 wet milling process, and it's currently been

16 used as an input, a liquid fertilizer, for

17 organic crop production. So, this was --

18 material was brought up at the last NOSB

19 meeting, there's been some concern over

20 whether -- what the classification of this

21 material has been or should be.

22 So, in years past, it's been
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1 considered a non-synthetic material, a natural

2 material, by accredited certifying agents, and

3 also by OMRI, and as a non-synthetic natural

4 material it is an allowed input fertilizer for

5 organic crop production, if that

6 classification is accurate.

7 So, it was recently reevaluated by

8 OMRI, and they came to the determination that

9 it is no longer -- should be considered a non10 synthetic or natural material, but it is

11 considered synthetic because it's synthetic,

12 it's not on the National List 205.601, so if

13 that determination is correct it would not be

14 allowed as an input for crop production.

15 So, at the last NOSB meeting,

16 Miles touched on this. There was a policy

17 notification that was put out in November from

18 the NOP, saying that until the NOSB looks at

19 this material to make a determination on the

20 classification, is that it would be --

21 continue to be allowed as an input for organic

22 crop production, as it's been used for a
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1 number of years.

2 So, I'm just here today to give

3 you sort of an overview of what this material

4 is and where it comes from. So, as I

5 mentioned, it's a product of the corn wet

6 milling process, and I'll take you through

7 probably the simplest flow diagram you'll see

8 on corn wet milling.

9 So, the incoming corn is initially

10 soaked in a tank of water, which has some

11 sulfur dioxide added to it. So, the corn

12 takes in a bunch of water, and it softens the

13 kernels, you know, in a couple days at 120 to

14 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

15 So, the steep water is taken off,

16 and the corn solids, the stuff that's not

17 soluble in the water, that's sort of the

18 purpose for this corn wet milling process, is

19 to take the corn and separate it into those

20 four components, the germ, the bran, the

21 starch and the gluten, to make higher-value

22 products.
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1 So, the steep water does contain

2 all the soluble nutrients from the corn, so

3 soluble proteins, carbohydrates, amino acid,

4 so it does have some nutrient value.

5 So, the steep water is evaporated

6 and concentrated to make what's known as Corn

7 Steep liquor, or condensed fermented corn

8 extractives, depending on where you are

9 looking at it from.

10 So, the Corn Steep liquor is about

11 50 percent solid, so it contains a substantial

12 amount of protein and nutrients and other

13 materials.

14 The majority of Corn Steep liquor

15 from the corn wet milling process is sent to

16 the conventional livestock feed markets, so

17 must of it is fed to conventional livestock,

18 but it is used, a certain portion of it, for

19 other applications, including, in this case,

20 liquid fertilizer.

21 So, Corn Steep liquor is about

22 maybe 23 percent protein, depending on how
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1 it's processed. So, using your rule of thumb,

2 if you divide it by 6-1/4 it's about 3-1/2,

3 3.6 percent nitrogen, for the high nitrogen

4 liquid fertilizer if used as is.

5 So, the remaining parts of the

6 corn, the solids, the germs, the bran,

7 everything that's insoluble in that steep

8 water, goes on for further processing. So,

9 through a variety of processes, makes more

10 higher-value products, say your ethanol,

11 cornstarch, high fructose corn syrup, corn

12 oil, maltodextrin, dextrose. So, a full

13 variety of products as shown on that diagram

14 there.

15 And, as a note, there's an

16 asterisk next to the cornstarch, and this is

17 a material that has been previously reviewed

18 by the Standards Board, and the native, non19 GMO cornstarch is currently listed as an

20 agricultural product on 205.606, it's been

21 allowed as a product, when not available

22 commercially in an organic form.
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1 Okay, so the question of whether

2 the Corn Steep liquor is a natural synthetic,

3 the reason that OMRI has provided publicing,

4 in terms of how they made this decision, is

5 that it comes down to the use of sulfur

6 dioxide, which is initially added to that

7 steep water. So, the very first step in corn

8 wet milling is soaking the corn in this water

9 solution, that's got sulfur dioxide in it.

10 So, sulfur dioxide is a gas that's

11 soluble in water. So, in solution it forms

12 sulfuric acid, it really exists in solution as

13 an equilibrium solution between the disulfite

14 and sulfite, so that's how you get sulfite

15 from sulfur dioxide. So, it's a part of the

16 water at .1 to .2 percent.

17 And so, with the literature view

18 of the function, and not all the details are

19 known, it's not entirely clear, but it is

20 added to the water, first to prevent excessive

21 bacterial growth, so that first step, the

22 soaking process, it's in a warm environment,
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1 it's for a couple days, so it's a good

2 environment to grow the bad bugs, so it helps

3 prevent those putrefactive micro organisms

4 from growing.

5 But, it also serves another

6 function, which is to help separate the starch

7 from the insoluble protein, and the way that

8 does that is by reducing the disulfite bond,

9 so sulfur dioxide is a good reductant, and it

10 can help cleave the response to help separate

11 the starch from the protein for those

12 components to go on for further processing.

13 So, some of those materials that

14 were shown on the flow diagram are also

15 available in certified organic form. So, for

16 that process the certified organic processors

17 can't use sulfur dioxide, it's not on the

18 National List, except for one. So, they have

19 to use alternatives. So, there are some

20 materials on 205.605 and 606 that might be

21 available as alternatives.

22 So, enzymes are an option, lactic
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1 acid, that's both non-synthetic, ozone,

2 there's a research paper out there that

3 reports that ozone could be a viable

4 alternative, so that's a synthetic on 605, and

5 other materials might be used in the

6 processing of organic corn products that might

7 be on 605 as well.

8 So, it all sort of boils down to a

9 couple questions, is the process made --

10 process that's used for this Corn Steep

11 liquor, does it make it a synthetic or non12 synthetic process, if it's used sulfur dioxide

13 during processing?

14 So, OMRI made a decision, if you

15 look at their latest newsletter, they go into

16 some detail about how they came to that

17 conclusion. It wasn't a unanimous decision,

18 so we are asking for the NOSB to look at this

19 material.

20 We are not asking for a decision

21 at this meeting, but after review of the

22 technical information it's to weigh in on the
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1 decision, whether it should be classified as

2 a synthetic or non-synthetic material.

3 The other part of that question is

4 that, given that cornstarch, non-GMO

5 cornstarch, is on 606, is that whether that

6 production process would also render anything

7 else that's a product of the corn wet milling

8 process also synthetic, or whether that

9 classification would be limited to Corn Steep

10 liquor.

11 So again, as I mentioned, so we

12 are asking for a formal recommendation on

13 whether Corn Steep liquor should be classified

14 as synthetic or non-synthetic, and not a

15 decision at this meeting, but at the fall 2010

16 meeting.

17 So again, if it's non-synthetic,

18 if that's the determination the Board makes,

19 it would continue to be allowed as an input or

20 fertilizer for crop production, but if the

21 determination is that it is a synthetic

22 substance, then future use would be prohibited
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1 unless it's petitioned and recommended for

2 addition to the National List.

3 And, I'm happy to answer any

4 questions that you might have.

5 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Yes. 

6 First of all, I would just like to remind the

7 Board that we won't be solving this today. 

8 Please try to, if possible, focus to best

9 clarify and understand the problem we are

10 looking at, and I would like to request the

11 program, in one form or another, either this

12 presentation or a PDF version of this

13 presentation, two or three, three to four

14 slides on a page, whatever, as quickly as

15 possible. 

16 To the Board, do we get that? No,

17 not that, I want that.

18 MR. McEVOY: We'll be happy to

19 provide that to you.

20 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Yes.

21 So, Steve?

22 MR. DeMURI: Thank you for the
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1 update. That was very interesting and

2 helpful.

3 The technical review, is that

4 going to address some of these other corn

5 products, like cornstarch, or is it specific

6 to Corn Steep liquor?

7 MS. BRINES: It's, primarily,

8 specific to Corn Steep liquor.

9 MR. DeMURI: Because it appears

10 that this is going to have ramifications for

11 handling as well, and would it be possible to

12 get a technical review for the other -- the

13 other corn products as well, as quickly as

14 possible?

15 MS. BRINES: That's a good

16 question.

17 I'll mention the technical report,

18 the original one on native cornstarch, does

19 mention the use of sulfur dioxide. The

20 reference that the reviewer made on the form,

21 which is available on the petition substance

22 database, is that the sulfur dioxide is added,
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1 it's a temporary preservative to avoid

2 putrefaction, I think is what was said.

3 MR. DeMURI: Okay. We'll go back

4 and review that.

5 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Tine? 

6 Or, Miles, do you have a

7 statement?

8 MR. McEVOY: Yes, we'll try to

9 provide you with the information that you need

10 to make a good decision. So, you are looking

11 for more information about how other products

12 are made through the wet milling process, and

13 we'll see what we can do in terms of

14 gathering that information for the Handling

15 Committee.

16 MR. DeMURI: That would be

17 helpful, thank you.

18 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Yes, I

19 think, Miles, in some cases, in the requesting

20 of those technical reports, it comes down to

21 the question asked. If the question is, Corn

22 Steep liquor in relation to -- as a crop
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1 input, it would be completely -- we'd need to

2 request another one for the Handling Committee

3 to look at and consider what that might mean

4 for them.

5 Tine?

6 MS. ELLOR: Yes, so where we left

7 this on the Crops Committee is, we -- we had

8 a meeting partly devoted to the sufficiency of

9 the technical review, and as a committee we

10 pretty much reached a consensus. John is our

11 point guy on Corn Steep liquor, he might have

12 more to say about this, but we found it not to

13 be sufficient, and we do have additional

14 questions, which we were waiting to forward

15 until we, you know, heard your presentation. 

16 So, that's where it stands now.

17 And, Hoe just mentioned that

18 possibly we might need to collaborate on this

19 between the two committees, and maybe have a

20 joint meeting or two. So, that might be

21 somewhere we want to go.

22 So, we will get those questions
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1 together, dig them out of our archive, and

2 send them back to you.

3 MR. McEVOY: The other thing that

4 we heard from the Board is requesting that the

5 NOP have a staff person for each of the

6 committees, and we are in the process of

7 implementing that.

8 So, you will have a point person

9 for each of the committees to work with, and

10 can help to coordinate this information that

11 you need on Corn Steep liquor.

12 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: And, you

13 know, to follow up what Tine is saying, you

14 know, looking down the road, down the road,

15 there could certainly also be possibilities of

16 having an impact on livestock.

17 So -- any other comments on this

18 topic?

19 Seeing none, move on to the next

20 topic.

21 MS. BRINES: Thank you.

22 MR. McEVOY: Okay. We also have a
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1 memo for you on nutrient vitamins and

2 minerals.

3 Okay, we might as well just --

4 just go to the next slide, see what happens

5 here. 

6 Okay, 1995, the NOSB made a

7 recommendation that upon the implementation of

8 the National Organic Program, the use of

9 synthetic vitamins, minerals and/or accessory

10 nutrients in products labeled as organic must

11 be limited to that which is required by

12 regulation, or recommended for enrichment and

13 fortification by independent professional

14 associations.

15 So, the Board worked on this many

16 years ago, 1995, and then the next slide,

17 these are the regulations that were put into

18 place in relationship to that particular

19 recommendation. 7 CFR 205.605(b), nutrient

20 vitamins and minerals, in accordance with 21

21 CFR 104.20, nutritional quality guidelines for

22 foods. So, that's the reference.
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1 So, the question is, partially,

2 what does that mean? What does that reference

3 on the National List mean?

4 In 2006, the NOP received a

5 complaint alleging violations of the National

6 Organic Standards for certified organic

7 products that contained accessory nutrients.

8 The NOP determined at that time

9 that accessory nutrients were allowed, based

10 on an interpretation of 7 CFR 205.605(b), 21

11 CFR 104.20, and passed NOSB recommendations.

12 That NOP determination was never

13 publicly disseminated, and it was not done

14 through a transparent process. It was a

15 letter to a certifier, or a letter to a

16 certifier to a party. 

17 So, nutrient vitamins and

18 minerals, as I already said, nutrient vitamins

19 -- the reference is nutrient vitamins and

20 minerals, in accordance with 21 CFR 104.20,

21 nutritional quality guidelines for foods. What

22 does that mean?
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1 First of all, that if that states

2 that only vitamins and minerals are allowed,

3 nutrients that are not vitamins or minerals

4 are not referenced in the National List. So,

5 if you look at how that's written, it doesn't

6 say nutrients, vitamins and minerals, it says

7 nutrient vitamins and minerals. So, vitamins

8 and minerals are allowed, but other nutrients

9 are not listed.

10 So, in 205.605(b), it references

11 the FDA regulation 21 CFR 104.20, and under D3

12 there's a specific list of substances, that

13 includes a number of vitamins and minerals,

14 and also protein, and protein is not a vitamin

15 or a mineral, so, therefore, it's not -- is

16 not referenced by the National List. Okay.

17 Then there's the question comes

18 down to another part of 21 CFR 104.20, which

19 is (f), which states that nutrients may be

20 added to foods as permitted or required by

21 applicable regulations established elsewhere

22 in this chapter. And, that's kind of the part
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1 that the NOP kind of hung its hat on, in terms

2 of saying, okay, accessory nutrients, it's

3 kind of part of the NOSB recommendation. This

4 is saying other chapters, other parts of the

5 FDA regulations, so, therefore, it kind of

6 opened it up to many other materials.

7 We recently consulted with FDA,

8 Office of Nutrition Labeling and Dietary

9 Supplements, and we learned that that

10 interpretation was incorrect, that according

11 to FDA that 21 CFR 104.20(f) includes only

12 nutrients that are listed in 104.20(d)(3),

13 except for foods with a standard of identity,

14 21 CFR, 130 through 169, which includes things

15 like enriched flour.

16 21 CFR 104.20 does not include

17 fatty acids, like DHA and ARA, taurine,

18 choline, carnitine, phytochemicals. It does

19 not include nutrient vitamins and minerals

20 used in pet food.

21 FDA does not define accessory

22 nutrients. Accessory nutrients are not on the
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1 National List. So, we have an issue here.

2 So, what we plan to do, first of

3 all, our previous interpretation was 

4 incorrect, nutrient vitamins that we had

5 previously allowed, or believed that were

6 allowed under 205.605(b) was incorrect. We

7 recognized that many certifiers, and certified

8 operations, have made business decisions based

9 on that 2006 NOP interpretation. We plan to

10 public draft guidance later this year that

11 will clarify that the FDA interpretation of 21

12 CFR 104.20, that only nutrient vitamins and

13 minerals listed in 104.20(d)(3), and those

14 with standards of identity in 21 CFR Parts 130

15 through 169, are allowed under the NOP

16 standards. Okay?

17 We plan to provide a transition

18 time for businesses to reformulate their

19 products to comply with the regulations as per

20 the FDA interpretation.

21 The draft guidance will be

22 published in the Federal Register with a 60-
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1 day comment period for the draft guidance, and

2 then we will publish final guidance after

3 considering the comments received.

4 We request that the NOSB

5 reevaluate the recommendation for nutrient

6 vitamins and minerals, or what's also been

7 called the accessory nutrients recommendation,

8 during the 2012 Sunset process. We understand

9 this might add a lot of work to your workload.

10 And then in the future, the NOP

11 will not be making policy decisions in

12 letters.

13 (Applause.)

14 MR. McEVOY: The plan is, all

15 policy decisions will be handled through the

16 Federal Register and in compliance with

17 Executive Order 12866, and the NOP advises

18 companies that they may petition to add

19 substances to the National List, including

20 nutrients, vitamins and minerals that are not

21 allowed under 21 CFR 104.20.

22 So, there's a lot of products out
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1 there that have these substances in them, and

2 our understanding, in consultation with FDA,

3 is that was an incorrect interpretation of the

4 standard. So, there's -- we will provide

5 plenty of time for businesses to make the

6 changes, plenty of time for the NOSB to

7 respond to petitions that I'm sure you will

8 receive, to adding additional substances to

9 the list, but FDA's clarification, as 104.20,

10 is a very limited list of substances that are

11 allowed. It's not this broader arena of

12 substances that has been kind of allowed by

13 certifiers and businesses over the last number

14 of years.

15 And, I think that's kind of the

16 summary of nutrient vitamins and minerals. We

17 have a technical report on this, and we have

18 a memo to the Board that will be posted on the

19 website tomorrow, press release is going out

20 on this tonight. Deputy Secretary Merrigan,

21 I think, is speaking to Wall Street Journal

22 about this this evening.
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1 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Relative

2 to the question that we are trying to

3 understand, Katrina?

4 MS. HEINZE: Similar to the Corn

5 Steep liquor, would it be possible for us to

6 have a copy of the presentation in addition to

7 the memo?

8 MR. McEVOY: Yes.

9 MS. HEINZE: Thank you.

10 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Tracy.

11 MS. MIEDEMA: Yes, Miles, what

12 does reevaluate the recommendation mean here,

13 where you say reevaluate the recommendation

14 for nutrient vitamins and minerals? Are you

15 talking about an expedited five-year

16 sunsetting period?

17 MR. McEVOY: Well, on the Sunset

18 Review, nutrient vitamins and minerals is on

19 the list, and what it references is specific

20 substances, vitamins and minerals under

21 104.20.

22 So, you want to look at that, and
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1 is that -- is that the substances that you

2 want to be the reference for the materials

3 that -- the substances that are allowed in

4 organic foods, or do you want to reconsider

5 that to -- to look at things beyond that short

6 list of vitamins and minerals?

7 So, you want to look at what the

8 National List says, what's included in that

9 list, what the meaning of 21 CFR 104.20 is,

10 and then go back to the 1995 recommendation

11 and say, okay, are those things aligned? If

12 they are not aligned, how do we make them

13 aligned, or do we want to change our

14 recommendation to include other things beyond

15 what's listed in 104.20.

16 MS. MIEDEMA: So, you are not

17 making a suggestion about this sunsetting

18 cycle, this is just for the next one?

19 MR. McEVOY: No, we are making a

20 suggestion about this sunsetting cycle.

21 MS. MIEDEMA: For this one, okay.

22 MR. McEVOY: This is a -- this is
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1 a big deal. This is going to take a lot of

2 your time to take a look at this.

3 It may require even additional

4 meetings to take a look at this. There's a

5 lot of products that include substances beyond

6 what is in 104.20.

7 MS. MIEDEMA: Thank you.

8 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: So, where

9 -- Joe?

10 MR. SMILLIE: In publishing our

11 first Sunset Review of this, we said that we

12 were taking into account the current thinking

13 of the NOP on this. And, what you are clearly

14 telling us is that, your thinking on this has

15 changed, and now this is your thinking.

16 So, if we move forward on this

17 Sunset item next meeting, basically, we have

18 to reference this document and not any

19 previous documents.

20 MR. McEVOY: Yes, it's not my

21 thinking, it's FDA's clarification of what the

22 actual meaning of 104.20 is.
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1 So, if we are going to reference

2 another agency's regulations, we better make

3 sure that we understand what they are, to make

4 sure they are -- they are what the intent of

5 the NOSB is, in terms of those substances that

6 should be on the National List.

7 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Valerie?

8 MS. FRANCES: I just wanted to

9 remind folks that, just as in November, when

10 Miles made this presentation we posted on the

11 website, this will also be posted on the

12 website. So, you are asking for an official

13 copy, it will be posted up there for the

14 public for everyone as it is.

15 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Steve.

16 MR. DeMURI: Is there a technical

17 review for this subject that will delve into

18 it in a little more detail?

19 MR. McEVOY: Yes, there is a TAP

20 review that's going to be published, will be

21 on the website tomorrow.

22 I think -- do they have a copy of
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1 that? Did we bring copies for the Board? No.

2 It will be up on the website tomorrow.

3 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Okay.

4 MR. McEVOY: I think -- did we --

5 is this one of the ones that the Board has

6 seen the drafts of the accessory nutrient TAP

7 review? 

8 MR. FELDMAN: No.

9 MR. McEVOY: The Board has not,

10 okay.

11 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: So, where

12 we stand on this one right now is, according

13 to our current Board policy for Sunset is,

14 reviewing the current listing under -- within

15 the current interpretation, correct?

16 MR. McEVOY: Under the FDA

17 interpretation of what's included.

18 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Right.

19 And then, after that, or possibly

20 in the same time frame, and it's something

21 that I don't want to get into right now

22 because of time, but I would like us to put on
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1 the list to sit down and really look at where

2 petitions can come from.

3 You previously made a mention of

4 the chlorine annotation. If the program

5 really had a problem with the chlorine

6 annotation, you know, it seems like there

7 should be a mechanism where you can feed that

8 back to the Board, and the Board can look at

9 it.

10 MR. McEVOY: Yes, we'll get there.

11 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: That's the

12 value of saving the Board all the potential

13 work of opening up that annotation process

14 during Sunset, but the petition process to

15 change annotation has to be a functional

16 process, and a better understanding, I think,

17 on all sides would be helpful.

18 MR. McEVOY: Yes, I think that's a

19 good point, Dan. I think maybe that -- the

20 reason why the chlorine thing comes up is

21 because we are -- there's an NOSB

22 recommendation on chlorine, to provide
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1 clarification on what the meaning of the

2 listing is in the National List, and we are

3 working on that to implement those NOSB

4 recommendations as part of this program

5 handbook. And, we're seeing, wow, the way

6 this is written it's really kind of quirky.

7 So, I think you just -- that idea,

8 of let's do that through working with the

9 Board, not through the Sunset process, but if

10 we find that there needs to be maybe changes

11 to an annotation, we can bring it to the Board

12 and work it through a different mechanism than

13 just through the Sunset process.

14 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Because

15 like you said, dealing with the problem of the

16 way it's specifically listed could go way

17 beyond you being able to get it posted before

18 it expires.

19 MR. McEVOY: Right. Yes, that's a

20 good point.

21 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Any other

22 questions? We have Miles on the hook and on
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1 the microphone, any other questions for the

2 program from members of the Board at this

3 time?

4 MR. McEVOY: Yes, the memo that we

5 have is -- goes into a lot more detail on the

6 background on this nutrient vitamins and

7 minerals that both the TAP review, the

8 technical report on it, and the memo to the

9 Board. I think we just passed out the memo to

10 the Board, and that also will be posted

11 tomorrow.

12 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Jay.

13 MR. FELDMAN: Yes, let me change

14 subjects here for a second.

15 The memo dated April 19th, the

16 allowance of green waste in organic production

17 systems, I have a process question, and then

18 a substantive one.

19 Is this considered a final

20 interpretation of the, I guess, I mean this is

21 just sort of a systemic issue, but it's

22 specific to bifenthrin and compost, would this
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1 be an official -- what standing does this memo

2 have in terms of interpretation of this

3 current or existing situation, as well as

4 future?

5 MR. McEVOY: Yes, the bifenthrin

6 issue came up last year, where compost was

7 tested in California, and it ended up with

8 three municipal waste composts, green waste

9 composts that were prohibited due to

10 bifenthrin residues.

11 We discussed this in November. We

12 sent out a draft policy that would have

13 established a tolerance level that was

14 something like 5 percent of the EPA tolerance

15 level, or at the EPA tolerance level for the

16 lowest -- the lowest tolerance level set for

17 that particular compound, bifenthrin.

18 We got feedback from -- mostly

19 from accredited certifying agents, and also

20 from OMRI, from some scientific organizations,

21 I guess. And so then, based on all that

22 information, we came out with these
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1 instructions on what certifiers -- what

2 certified operations need to look at when they

3 are looking at green waste and green waste

4 compost.

5 That's what they are, they are

6 instructions to certifiers and certifying

7 agencies, of how they can look at green waste

8 and green waste compost.

9 We will be putting that into the

10 program annual that will be going into a

11 guidance type of document, that there will be

12 the opportunity for public comment. But,

13 because of the prohibition on those three

14 compounds last year, and looking into the --

15 looking into the issue and lots of questions

16 coming into the program about what's the

17 status of pesticide residues in green waste

18 compost, we felt like putting out those

19 instructions to certifiers was necessary.

20 But, we will be putting that also

21 into the guidance, the draft guidance that

22 will go out in the summer.
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1 MR. FELDMAN: Appreciate that, and

2 I think the opportunity for public comment on

3 this is critical. For me, this is one of

4 those integrity issues, given that my view of

5 the unavoidable residual contaminant is -- and

6 I think if you look at the history, the

7 legislative history on the phrase in the

8 Statute, that there was not an intent for an

9 ongoing pesticide registration to contribute

10 to ongoing contamination, but rather, that

11 there were residuals that were remaining in

12 the environment from previous uses of now

13 canceled or banned materials.

14 And so, I realize that this has

15 implications for ongoing uses of composted

16 materials, which I think we have to deal with,

17 But, my hope is that we can

18 somehow influence the registration program of

19 these pesticides, you know, the pesticide

20 registration issues, so that we are not seeing

21 off target contamination and residual

22 contamination on an ongoing basis, and
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1 accepting that as part of organic production.

2 So, I hope there's a public

3 comment period, where we can maybe flesh out

4 some of these issues and bring some of the

5 core values of the organic program over to the

6 EPA registration program, so that we are not

7 allowing chemicals used on the conventional

8 side to contaminate products that we need in

9 organic production.

10 MR. McEVOY: Right, and the

11 instructions do not provide for contamination

12 of soils, crops or water by green waste or

13 green waste compost, that makes it clear in

14 the instructions that if there is a

15 contamination of the soil, or the crops, or

16 water, because of the application of green

17 waste or green waste compost, that would be a

18 violation.

19 The evidence is, is that there is

20 no contamination, in terms of the testing that

21 has occurred. You can test and find the

22 bifenthrin in the compost, but once it's
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1 applied and incorporated into the soil it

2 dissipates, it degrades, it's not present.

3 MR. FELDMAN: Thank you.

4 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Thank you,

5 Jay.

6 I realize we are pushing time, but

7 since I have you in this position, Miles, I

8 can't quite let this one go, and I'll try and

9 be as evasive as possible.

10 You brought up a lot of issues in

11 the yeast statement. We've discussed some of

12 those as a personal individual, not as a Board

13 member, not with Board discussions, but there

14 are a lot of issues, a number of issues that

15 are brought up in that document.

16 Do you have any further statement

17 that you would like to make on that?

18 MR. McEVOY: On yeast? Well, I

19 think we issued that for -- to close out a

20 complaint. There is an old complaint that we

21 had, that we were unable to close.

22 We have Office of Inspector
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1 General that's saying that you have these old

2 complaints, you've got to deal with them, you

3 got to close them out. So, it was a way to

4 clarify, a way of not requiring organic yeast

5 for livestock production, but not preventing

6 organic yeast from being produced.

7 So, we felt that it was a

8 compromise and a need for clarification, that

9 there is organic yeast, it is accepted in the

10 world market, why not just accept it here.

11 So, that's why we did that.

12 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Anything

13 else for the program?

14 Thank you, Miles, very much.

15 MR. McEVOY: Thank you.

16 (Applause.)

17 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: We have

18 one further presentation on this afternoon's

19 agenda. We are already pushing a two hour

20 break -- two hour time frame, normally, in an

21 hour and a half we'll, generally, take a brief

22 break. 
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1 Does anyone -- is anyone

2 interested in that, or do we just proceed on?

3 Seeing some extreme hesitation,

4 but no major statements, proceed on.

5 Chairman of the Materials

6 Committee, Katrina, would you please make your

7 Materials presentation?

8 MS. HEINZE: Thanks for that fine

9 send up. There's nothing like having to do

10 the Materials presentation at the end of the

11 day, especially, following a very good

12 presentation by the NOP.

13 So, with that, it has become the

14 practice over the last several years for the

15 Chair of the Materials Committee to do a

16 refresh on the National List and our role with

17 regards to that Lists, as the NOSB.

18 So, since I'm the only thing

19 standing between folks and work or

20 entertainment, I'll see if I can proceed

21 quickly through this.

22 So, there are some perennial
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1 topics that are on this -- part of this

2 presentation, and then there are some final

3 notes that I'll include.

4 Okay, so just a reminder about the

5 National List. There are six sections. For

6 crops and livestock there are two sections for

7 each, one that is synthetic substances allowed

8 for use in production, and a second that is

9 non-synthetic substances that are prohibited.

10 So, important to note for crops

11 and livestock is that non-synthetic, or

12 natural substances, are allowed, unless they

13 are on the prohibited portion of the National

14 List.

15 Things are a little bit different

16 for handling, which also has two sections of

17 the list, but everything that is used that is

18 not an organic ingredient must be on the

19 National List.

20 So, the two sections for handling

21 are one that is non-agricultural, non-organic

22 substances, which are allowed, and the second
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1 is non-organically produced agricultural

2 products that are allowed.

3 That second list, 606, is unique

4 on the National List, in that commercial

5 availability applies to it. So, for a handler

6 to use the materials on 606, they must

7 demonstrate to their certifier at the time of

8 their certification audit that the

9 agricultural material is not available in

10 organic form commercially on the market.

11 Okay, so the material review

12 process, we have a robust material review

13 process. It is used to add a new listing to

14 the National List, to change annotations to an

15 existing listing, or to remove a material

16 currently on the list, and there are

17 guidelines available through a Federal

18 Register Notice, as well as in our policy

19 manual.

20 The material review process is a

21 minimum of 145 days. I could not emphasize

22 enough that is a minimum process, certainly
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1 not a maximum process, and it does not include

2 time for rulemaking, so this is just to get

3 you to an NOSB recommendation.

4 What should be emphasized is, the

5 time frame is dependent on the completeness of

6 the petition on initial submission, that

7 varies widely, and very definitely on the

8 manpower within the specific reviewing

9 committee and the Board overall.

10 My experience says this time frame

11 is getting longer as time passes, because we

12 have more things on our work plans and more

13 Sunset materials.

14 There is also a time frame

15 relative to NOSB public meetings, and

16 completion and review of the technical

17 reviews, and how long it takes us to get those

18 back in a complete form.

19 And, I know this is an eye chart,

20 and I apologize for that, but to try to boil

21 the material review process down to one page

22 there's four steps, with really kind of a gap
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1 between number two and number three.

2 So, the first step, a petition is

3 sent to the NOP. The NOP does a review to

4 ensure that they have all the information they

5 need, and it is complete.

6 If it's determined not to be

7 complete, the NOP will send that back to the

8 petitioner. If it is determined to be

9 complete, that is forwarded to me, the NOSB

10 Materials Chairperson. 

11 There's a minimum of 14 days, but

12 again, this is very dependent on what else is

13 on the desk of the person receiving that

14 petition.

15 Once I receive it, I forward it to

16 the appropriate NOSB committee chair, whether

17 that be Crops, Livestock or Handling. The

18 NOSB then does a second completeness and

19 sufficiency review, and determines if there's

20 additional information they need, whether it

21 be a standard technical review, or whether

22 they have specific questions that they need.
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1 So, it's just kind of the

2 committee review.

3 At that point, if additional

4 information is needed, it goes into what

5 should have been a big, kind of, yellow dot

6 that says, wow, this could take a really long

7 time, but that's gathering of technical

8 information.

9 Once all that technical

10 information has been acquired you go to step

11 three, which is that NOSB goes through a full

12 review of the technical information, using the

13 technical review, the petition, and they issue

14 a recommendation, on which we receive public

15 comment prior to an NOSB meeting.

16 And then finally, at the NOSB

17 meeting, there's full Board discussion of

18 those committee recommendations, further

19 comment from the public, and action by the

20 full NOSB.

21 So, that's kind of the whole

22 process in a nutshell.
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1 I wanted to emphasize, this

2 question does come up periodically, that if

3 folks in the public do have comments that they

4 want to forward to the NOSB, those need to go

5 through the National Organic Program. They

6 should not be sent to individual Board

7 members. And, that's so we can make sure that

8 the information gets to the right folks. So,

9 please, continue to do that.

10 I'm going to briefly go over the

11 National List criteria. So first, in general,

12 the general criteria we would look at to put

13 something -- or as we consider putting

14 something on the National List, whether it be

15 something that's allowed or prohibited, we

16 are going to look at interactions with other

17 materials used in an organic farming system,

18 an emphasis on the effect to the environment,

19 including contamination during manufacturing,

20 the effect of the substance on human health,

21 animal health, and then interactions within

22 the agroecosystem, and then finally, we are
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1 going to look at what alternatives already

2 exist, whether those be specific practices

3 that would make use of that material not

4 necessary, or other materials. And then, its

5 compatibility, which is a subjective thing,

6 but the role of those of us on the Board.

7 Okay, for a processing aid or

8 adjuvant, there are other specific things that

9 come from 205.600(b). Here you would look at

10 whether the synthetic substance cannot be

11 produced from a natural source, and there's

12 not an organic substitute, how the substance

13 is manufactured. Again, its effect on the

14 environment and human health, whether it's

15 recognized by FDA as generally recognized as

16 safe, and whether or not it is essential.

17 Specific to the handling materials

18 on 205.606, so these are the agricultural not

19 commercially available as organic. We look

20 at two factors. Why should the substance be

21 permitted in production or handling, so is it

22 essential, and then second, what information
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1 exists on the fragility of supply?

2 We get muddled up on the second

3 one sometimes. This doesn't mean that,

4 perhaps, there's not a little bit of it

5 available, but that over time it may or may

6 not be available, whether that be to weather

7 factors, or regional factors, the number of

8 suppliers that exist, up to and including

9 things like wars, trade barriers, things like

10 that. So, whatever it is that would make the

11 supply fragile.

12 Okay, Sunset Review criteria. I

13 know that this topic is up for discussion for

14 us as a Board. I'm going to focus on what our

15 current process is.

16 As we all know, all the exemptions

17 to the organic rule, and the National List, as

18 exemptions to that rule, need to be reviewed

19 every five years.

20 What we want to focus on is that

21 these National Listings were accepted by

22 Boards such as us, because there was evidence
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1 for that Board that the material was found not

2 be harmful to human health or the environment,

3 the material was necessary because of

4 unavailability of a wholly non-synthetic

5 alternative, and use of the material was seen

6 as being consistent and compatible with

7 organic practices.

8 So, Sunset is our opportunity to

9 revisit whether that exemption, that material,

10 should continue in the rule.

11 So, we would vote to Sunset if it

12 determines that those conditions that were

13 relevant to accepting the exemption have

14 changed, or rather we would change -- we would

15 Sunset the material off if those original

16 conditions had changed, or if review finds

17 that those conditions still exist, then the

18 material is listed for another time.

19 The Sunset Review process is not

20 where we add new substances to the List.

21 Currently, we have not been changing

22 annotations during it, and it's not the time
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1 to re-interpret information that hasn't

2 changed.

3 So, any of those issues would be

4 dealt with during our petition process.

5 In previous presentations, there's

6 a been a list of all the materials. I thought

7 given the lateness of the hour, I would skip

8 that. I'm pleased I did that, given how much

9 everyone wants to listen to us.

10 So, summary of active petitions,

11 the Chairs of the Crops, Livestock and

12 Handling folks will do that during their

13 presentations if they have materials that they

14 want to highlight for you. We only have one

15 petitioned material on our agenda, that's

16 methionine, which is the change of annotation

17 that's for this meeting.

18 For Sunset 2011, you can see the

19 Federal Register Notice. I have it listed

20 there, and that is true for 2012 as well.

21 Final notes, okay, I have three

22 topics that I've been asked by various members
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1 of the Board to talk about before we wrap up

2 tonight.

3 So, first one, the first one is

4 public comment. This is really a review of our

5 public comment process. It's on

6 regulations.gov. That was implemented to make

7 sure that there's an effective and equal way

8 for folks from the public to give us public

9 comment.

10 I wanted to, particularly,

11 highlight for the public, and we'll talk about

12 this several times during this meeting, that

13 the Sunset 2012 Federal Register Notice, due

14 to some procedural hiccups, came out later

15 than we would have liked, and we are very well

16 aware that that public comment period closes

17 after this meeting. So, we didn't want you to

18 think we were ignoring that.

19 It is our intention to continue

20 with our debate and vote on the materials on

21 our agenda at this meeting. We will then be

22 monitoring and reading all the public comment
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1 submitted to the Sunset 2012 Federal Register

2 Notice that will done by the appropriate

3 committees.

4 At our fall meeting, we will then

5 affirm the votes that we took at this meeting,

6 so that we have a transparent public record

7 that we have read those public comments.

8 If there are materials for which

9 we receive public comments that would cause us

10 to relook at the vote we took at this meeting,

11 those materials will be pulled back at the

12 discretion of the appropriate committee. We

13 will not take an affirmation vote, and those

14 materials will be directed back to their NOSB

15 committee. So, we are very committed to

16 reading those public comments, and believe

17 that we have a process that we will talk about

18 more this week.

19 That's it on public comment,

20 unless there's questions from Board members. 

21 Okay.

22 Classification of materials, as
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1 you know we've been working very hard and long

2 on this topic.

3 I just wanted to highlight that

4 there are some procedural upgrades that we've

5 implemented as a result of that, and I thank

6 the Policy Committee for formalizing, or

7 having a recommendation that would formalize

8 the first of these. We are going to go back

9 to a historical Board practice of taking two

10 votes for materials, so, fortunately, we don't

11 have that on this meeting's agenda, but,

12 certainly, at our fall meeting, so I would

13 remind the chairs of the Crops, Livestock and

14 Handling Committees, that your recommendations

15 for the fall meeting should have two votes on

16 them, not one, how is it classified, and then

17 should it be allowed or prohibited.

18 Now just a reminder, I'll remind

19 you of that as the summer proceeds.

20 Use of annotations, again, a

21 reminder as you review those materials, we

22 want to thoughtfully use annotations as needed
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1 to clarify the material's source and process

2 that you reviewed. 

3 So, just some thought starters, as

4 you think about that. Does the material

5 resulting from that annotation exist in the

6 marketplace? That's one of the questions that

7 has come up, is that we don't want to place an

8 annotation on a material, and, therefore, have

9 a theoretical material on our list.

10 Is the annotation realistic? And

11 then, can ACA's reasonably verify that that a

12 specific material meets the annotation? 

13 That's something that we've heard from the

14 certifiers quite a bit, that, you know, at the

15 end of the day they are the ones who have to

16 make sure that producers and handlers are

17 meeting the regulations, so they need to be

18 able to verify it in some reasonable way.

19 Finally, technical reviews of

20 materials, just a reminder that we recommitted

21 ourselves to really understanding all the

22 variations of source and process when we are
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1 reviewing a material, and not to limit

2 ourselves to, perhaps, specifically, what the

3 petitioner petitions, but to broaden ourselves

4 and say, are there other ways to make this

5 material that, perhaps, we would or wouldn't

6 want on the list, not just this specific one.

7 Any questions about that? Okay.

8 My last topic, I was asked by a

9 couple different folks on the Board to speak,

10 specifically, to the role of the NOSB

11 reviewer. So, this is the person who at our

12 public meetings will often present materials,

13 and we have received some public comments that

14 that person is advocating for a material, and

15 we just wanted to clarify what their role is.

16 So, it is our practice when we get

17 a -- when we are doing a Sunset Review, or

18 reviewing a petition material, that the

19 committee chair will assign that material to

20 a committee member to lead the review. That

21 person is often chosen because of some area of

22 expertise that they have that they can bring
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1 to bear to the material.

2 The role of this what I'm calling

3 the lead person is to find the relevant

4 information on the material, develop an

5 initial perspective for the recommendation,

6 but then to make sure that all perspectives

7 are provided to the rest of the committee, and

8 then lead the committee debate.

9 That person will also write the

10 committee recommendation, but then get input

11 from the rest of the committee, and will often

12 then at this NOSB meeting present the

13 committee recommendation, and then will often

14 write the final recommendation.

15 It is really important for the

16 public to know that this reviewer is

17 representing their committee. Sometimes they

18 may or may not be representing their own

19 personal opinion. It's their job they have. 

20 So, you know, we would politely ask that you

21 refrain from saying that that person advocated

22 one way or the other. They are really trying
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1 to represent the broad discussion that that

2 committee had.

3 Any questions on that topic? 

4 Okay.

5 A little bit hard to see, but just

6 a reminder, there's three main websites we

7 use, the NOP website, the NOSB website, and

8 regulations.gov, for public comments, and that

9 is it.

10 Thank you.

11 (Applause.)

12 MS. HEINZE: I'll take questions

13 if there are any.

14 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Any

15 questions for Katrina?

16 Just one sort of further

17 clarification when you were talking about

18 handling of Sunset, we are planning to vote on

19 these recommendations here at this meeting, as

20 appropriate, pulling out anything that has

21 significant problems from public comment.

22 We will then evaluate public
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1 comment as it continues to come in on the

2 Sunset Federal Register Notice, vote to

3 reaffirm or not reaffirm at the fall meeting,

4 and anything that is not reaffirmed will be in

5 the mix for review and vote at the spring

6 meeting.

7 We don't plan to pull out and

8 immediately bring right back in at the fall

9 meeting. It will be -- it will receive the

10 full time frame of the Board's consideration

11 to finish up anything that we pull out of here

12 that doesn't receive an affirmative vote.

13 If we pull it out at this meeting,

14 it can go on the fall agenda, but if we pull

15 it out sort of at the fall time, then it goes

16 up for spring, it won't come right -- it won't

17 be on the agenda for that same meeting.

18 So, just to clarify, yes, Katrina?

19 MS. HEINZE: On a separate topic,

20 I just wanted to remind the Joint Handling and

21 Materials Committee that we have a meeting

22 right after this, so don't forget.
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1 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: I can

2 forget really quickly sometimes. No.

3 Yes, Valerie?

4 MS. FRANCES: Just a housekeeping

5 thing for the audience. The public comment

6 book is out on the table where people were

7 coming in for the pasture training. I'm

8 assuming it's still there, and everyone is

9 finding it.

10 And then, there is an additional

11 book that is the daily registration book, not

12 really registration, but we need to account

13 daily for the attendance, and so we have to

14 keep a record. So, every day that you are

15 here, if you could just sign that you are

16 here, that would be super.

17 Thanks.

18 CHAIRPERSON GIACOMINI: Okay. Any

19 other business or announcements at this time

20 before we call this meeting for a recess for

21 the evening?

22 seeing none, I think we are off to
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1 a great start this afternoon. This meeting is

2 now in recess until 8:00 tomorrow morning for

3 public comment. Everyone have a safe evening.

4 (Whereupon, the meeting was

5 recessed at 5:28 p.m., to reconvene the next

6 morning at 8:00 a.m.)

7

8

9

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22
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abide 74:10

ability 81:18

able 4:11 22:7 40:5

47:9 84:16 89:11

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absence 24:14

absolute 10:6

absolutely 29:4

abstain 29:5

ACAs 41:6

ACA's 145:11

accept 4:21 29:11

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accepted 61:3

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139:21

accepting 29:10

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access 6:11 25:7,8

31:9 32:21 39:22

41:17 50:9 61:11

61:17 68:6,19

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111:7,9 113:2,21

113:22 115:7

121:6

accompany 57:4

accomplish 89:11

accomplishments

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account 119:12

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accreditation 12:19

14:7 24:4,21

30:14 35:5 39:19

40:3,9 43:7,11,12

43:14,15 44:12

48:7,11 56:18

57:2 58:8 59:14

60:19 61:3,19

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accreditations

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accredited 12:17

39:20 40:10 44:16

61:5 62:5,6,11

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accurate 75:4 97:6

achieve 89:11

acid 33:17 69:11

99:3 101:12 103:1

acids 113:17

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acquired 136:10

Act 16:7 35:4

acting 22:11 25:3

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43:20 44:3 57:15

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activities 24:4,21

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actual 119:22

add 78:3,3 115:9

115:18 133:13

140:20

added 98:11 101:6

101:20 106:22

112:20

adding 75:13 116:8

addition 57:5 105:2

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additional 46:16

61:13 63:10,13

72:11,12 78:5,14

108:13 116:8

119:3 135:20

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address 13:19

35:21 41:8 106:4

adequate 87:19

89:16

adjuvant 138:8

administrative

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Administrator

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44:9 47:1

advance 26:3

advanced 20:17

80:5

adverse 34:1 37:5

43:20 44:3,19

57:15

advice 26:6

advises 115:17

advisory 47:4,20

96:7

advocate 19:15

advocated 147:21

advocating 146:14

affirm 143:5

affirmation 143:13

affirmative 149:12

afford 61:13

afternoon 4:8 14:3

17:19 31:22 151:1

afternoon's 130:18

ag 1:10 52:8 94:15

age 41:10,13

agencies 51:7 126:7

Agency 61:21

agency's 79:8

120:2

agenda 3:6 4:18,18

4:22 5:3,5 27:9

29:18 130:19

141:15 142:21

144:11 149:14,17

agents 97:2 125:19

ago 18:17 20:4

64:16 72:22

110:16

agreement 36:12

59:4,22 62:12

65:15

agreements 58:6,9

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agricultural 1:1

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46:1 47:15 51:17

53:10,11 77:18

80:20 100:20

133:1,9 138:18

agriculture 1:1

25:10 26:8 51:11

51:16 52:4 53:8

53:13 77:14 82:11

87:3 92:13,17

94:6 95:20 96:1

agroecosystem

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ahead 82:6,9

Ahramijan 24:10

47:7

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Albany 33:19

align 43:14 54:6

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aligned 79:7

118:11,12,13

alleging 111:5

allow 51:14 52:17

61:4

allowance 33:7

60:5,7 124:16

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100:21 104:19

111:9 112:2,8

114:5,6,15 115:21

116:11,12 118:3

132:7,12,22 133:2

137:15 144:17

allowing 8:12 50:5

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alternative 91:19

103:4 140:5

alternatives 90:12

102:19,21 138:1

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ambitious 63:21

amend 5:1

America 48:22

amino 99:3

amount 10:6 15:7

15:12 90:5 99:12

AMS 1:1 38:7,11

44:18,22 46:5

54:7

analysis 38:10,13

38:14

Andrew 49:5

and/or 110:9

animal 8:13,14

21:19 75:14 76:12

76:16 77:1 137:21

animation 96:10

Annette 1:21 19:9

19:18

annotation 75:3,8

75:13 122:4,6,13

122:15 123:11

141:16 145:5,8,10

145:12

annotations 74:5,6

74:9,13,15 75:1

133:14 140:22

144:20,22

announcements

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annual 40:1 42:19

57:11 126:10

answer 90:1 105:3

answers 8:8

antibiotics 60:4

anticipated 85:21

anymore 20:4

anyway 71:18 75:5

APHIS 75:13

apiculture 70:19

72:3

apologies 22:8

apologize 55:16

96:11 134:20

appeals 44:17,19

46:2

appears 106:9

Applause 92:14

94:22 115:13

130:16 148:11

applicable 112:21
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applications 99:19

applied 129:1

applies 133:5

apply 54:22 71:14

appointed 19:22

appreciate 6:16

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appreciated 9:10

approach 14:14

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Approval 3:6

approve 5:2,5

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approved 5:5 26:16

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aquaculture 70:21

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ARA 113:17

ARC 39:18 50:15

57:4 61:4

archive 109:1

area 6:1,9 21:17

53:6 63:18 76:13

77:5 78:11,18

80:7,11,19,19

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areas 34:16 40:18

40:20 51:7 77:2

arena 93:17 116:11

arenas 67:10

Argentina 57:7

argued 86:13

argument 86:21

87:1

arrangements 8:3

72:11

Arthur 2:13 7:3

24:13 47:2 91:2,4

Asia 49:2

asked 107:21

141:22 146:8

asking 83:11

103:18,20 104:12

120:12

aspects 22:3 51:15

61:6

assess 54:4

assessed 58:7

assessment 40:13

46:17 58:18,20

assessments 57:7

asset 24:18 47:11

assign 71:5 146:19

assigned 15:10

assist 26:12

assistance 43:18

44:5

assistants 57:13

Associate 24:15

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associated 79:3

Association 92:16

associations 110:14

assuming 150:8

Assurance 12:16

asterisk 100:16

attendance 150:13

attention 84:14

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audience 54:13

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audiences 53:22

audit 30:9 34:10

37:7 39:17 40:1,3

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133:8

auditors 43:8,9

57:5

audits 35:13 39:20

40:10 44:16 48:17

56:21 57:4,6 61:5

61:16

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authority 64:9

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availability 68:7

69:5 76:2 133:5

available 40:5

51:21 54:13

100:21 102:15,21

106:21 133:9,17

138:19 139:5,6

average 65:7

avoid 107:1

await 75:15

awake 29:7

aware 142:16

awareness 29:4

awe 10:6

aye 5:15 29:13

ayes 5:16 29:14

A.G 92:11,15

a.m 151:6

B

baby 20:2

back 7:12 24:13,19

29:22 31:1 36:17

36:22 38:17 39:10

39:11 47:5 84:9

93:11 107:3 109:2

118:10 122:8

134:18 135:7

143:11,14 144:8

149:8

background 10:15

20:15 47:15 124:6

bacterial 101:21

bad 102:2

Baltimore 6:2

banned 127:13

barriers 87:19

139:9

Barry 1:17 19:22

base 91:7,8

based 111:9 114:8

125:21

baseline 86:10

basic 31:15

basically 13:11

52:9 73:5,19 75:8

119:17

basis 9:6 127:22

Bay 21:17

bear 147:1

began 18:12

begun 19:2

behalf 14:1

believe 18:4 78:4

82:9 143:16

believed 114:5

beneficial 61:9,15

benefits 45:19 61:8

Bennum 47:3

best 14:19 22:18

96:12 105:8

better 13:8 94:14

120:2 122:16

beyond 16:1 81:18

118:5,14 119:5

123:17

bifenthrin 33:8

124:22 125:5,10

125:17 128:22

big 32:4 45:13

81:14 119:1 136:5

biodiversity 20:16

69:6

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15:16 23:3 30:10

30:12 33:14 34:2

37:16 44:7 45:16

45:17 56:17 59:8

64:17 93:10

132:15 139:4

145:14 148:5

blame 16:8

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board 1:5,10 4:4,5

4:10,10,17,20

5:22 6:15 8:17,22

9:10,18,21 10:4,8

10:12 12:3,18

14:5,15,18 15:18

16:11 17:1,2,6,21

18:4,9 19:11 20:1

20:3 21:4,8,9,16

22:6 23:9 25:16

25:17 26:12 27:4

40:6 46:9 47:4,12

47:18 55:21 56:1

70:1 71:15,17

73:20 74:14 76:4

76:5,7 78:22

81:11 88:18 93:5

93:17 100:18

104:18 105:7,16

109:4 110:15

116:18 121:1,5,9

121:13 122:8,8,12

123:9,11 124:2,9

124:10 129:12,13

134:9 136:17

137:6 138:6

139:14 140:1

142:1 143:20

144:9 146:9

boards 47:20

139:22

Board's 149:10

Bob 48:10

bodies 61:2 62:8,13

body 6:15

boil 134:20

boils 103:8

bond 102:8

book 150:6,11,11

borderline 88:14

borrow 8:7

Bradley 2:14 24:2

48:9 56:20

bran 98:20 100:6

branch 39:19 43:20

44:14 50:15 61:4

branding 66:22

break 130:20,22

breakdown 87:17

bribes 15:20

brief 5:19 130:21

briefings 50:10

briefly 137:10

brilliant 84:13

Brines 2:19 3:20

25:9 30:21 49:18

95:16 96:3 106:7

106:15 109:21

bring 4:6 18:4

49:12 121:1

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bringing 43:11

broad 73:21 148:1

broaden 146:3

broader 116:11

brought 18:21

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budget 30:13 45:2

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bugs 102:2

build 55:5

building 8:6 23:12

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bunch 98:12

bundle 27:22

Burlington 13:9

business 4:17,17

27:13 114:8

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businesses 114:18

116:5,13

byproduct 96:14

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5:21 7:15,16

11:15,18 20:14

35:1 37:6,8 49:9

63:5,9,10,14

92:12,20 93:1

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call 4:9 22:18 66:11

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called 13:10 115:7

calling 147:2

calls 9:5,7

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Canada 11:10

58:18,20 60:22

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Canadian 61:18,20

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canceled 7:7

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cap 15:1

capacity 22:12

56:22 90:13

carbohydrates

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carbonate 69:15

care 17:12 27:13

79:4,16 80:2

careful 74:19,21

80:11,14 81:17

carnitine 113:18

Carolina 38:11

carried 64:20

carrying 26:11

Cascadian 10:19

case 23:15 65:7,14

99:19

cases 44:2 63:22

64:2 65:16,17,19

87:22 107:19

Cash 48:14,22

cast 14:17

catch 32:7

category 67:6

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Catherine 48:14,21

cause 143:9

CCOF 25:1 49:2

cell 23:5,10

Center 1:11

central 6:6

certain 43:9 99:18

certainly 23:1

38:19 79:10 93:17

109:15 133:22

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certificates 68:20

68:21 70:20 72:4

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certification 10:2

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20:8 33:6 59:13

60:10 78:10,15

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certifications 61:13

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certified 20:19

32:15,18 33:1

38:17 40:22 41:7

42:5,9,13 43:1,3,5

57:17 62:17,17,18

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102:15,16 111:6

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38:17 42:3,14,22

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32:14 33:1 35:9

35:11,14 38:6

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43:19 44:1,5,16

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67:18 72:6,7,10

114:7 116:13

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certify 84:9

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67:13 97:2 125:19

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CFOs 84:9

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111:10,11,20

112:11,18 113:11

113:14,16 114:12

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17:15 19:12,18

20:6 21:8 22:11

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chairing 15:3

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11:11 21:8,10

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Chairperson 1:12

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7:13 21:6 25:12

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88:13 89:20 90:19

92:4 95:1,9,13

105:5,20 107:5,18

109:12 117:1,10

119:8 120:7,15

121:3,11,18

122:11 123:14,21

124:12 129:4

130:12,17 135:10

148:14 150:1,18

chairs 141:11

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change 36:8 64:10

66:19 118:13

122:15 124:13

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74:13,15 75:8

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changing 140:21

channels 27:1

chapter 112:22

chapters 113:4

charge 15:19

chart 134:19

check 9:3 88:15

cheering 33:14,15

chefs 18:13

chemicals 128:7

chemistry 10:15

cherry 20:20

chlorine 69:7 75:2

75:3 122:4,5,20

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choline 113:18

choose 11:2 61:19

74:17,18,22

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chosen 146:21

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41:15 64:8,10,13

65:15 72:4

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clarification 26:7

33:3 41:16 66:18

67:21 68:21 73:15

74:2 75:16 116:9

119:21 123:1

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clarified 33:1,9

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77:20 105:9

114:11 130:4

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12:22 77:3 96:20

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101:19 128:13

clearance 66:13

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Cliburn 50:12

close 36:21 63:21

64:2 129:19,21

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65:1

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closure 65:7

cluck 10:7

Coalition 16:3

coast 6:14 7:12

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Coasters 49:7

codes 52:13,15

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collaborate 56:1

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127:2 128:3

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comments 13:5

15:13 26:20 56:15

66:16 92:5 109:17

115:3 137:3 143:7

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Commerce 52:18

commercial 68:7

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commercially

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138:19

commingling 69:1

commitment 9:13

committed 143:15

committee 10:13

10:14 11:12,13

12:8,9,10,19,20

12:21 13:12 14:7

14:8 15:4,6,15

16:12,13,13,14

17:2,3,5,16,17,18

17:22 18:1 19:19

20:6,7,8 21:11,14

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107:15 108:2,7,9

131:6,15 134:9

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146:19,20 147:7,8

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committees 108:19

109:6,9 143:3

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25:20 26:10,18

companies 115:18

company 11:8 12:1

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compass 27:7

compatibility

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complaint 36:12,16

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129:20,20

complaints 34:21

36:21 37:5 45:1

64:19,21,22,22

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complete 40:11

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135:5,7,9

completed 35:14

40:15 90:8

completely 108:1

completeness 134:5

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completion 134:16

complex 77:5 80:8

compliance 10:18

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32:10 35:18 36:14

37:2 43:19 44:11

44:14,22 46:5

49:3 55:2 57:22

63:17 69:2 82:3

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compliant 41:19

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comply 114:19

component 82:13

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components 37:18

59:12 66:20 67:6

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compost 33:8,9

69:7 124:22 125:6

126:4,8,18 128:13

128:17,22

composted 127:15

composts 125:8,9

compound 125:17

compounds 126:14

comprehensive

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compromise 130:8

computer 19:21

concentrated 99:6

concept 59:9 66:10

concern 77:15

96:19

concerned 80:17

80:21 81:2 89:15

concerning 26:8

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conclusion 103:17

concur 75:8,12

condensed 99:7

conditions 8:13

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conducted 37:7

40:13 53:17

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confidence 11:3

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conflict 79:13

Congress 72:2

conjunction 6:4

connecting 26:19

consensus 26:9

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conservation 20:16

consider 66:15

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considerable 90:5

consideration

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considered 97:1,9

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considering 90:11

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consistency 35:9,12

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consistent 26:2

32:14 54:22 140:6

constructive 26:6

consultant 21:19

consultation 116:2

consulted 113:7

consumer 10:22

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19:1 25:22 79:22

contacting 91:22

contain 99:1

contained 111:7

contains 99:11

contaminant 127:5

contaminants 33:9

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contamination

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127:22 128:11,15

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context 14:21

continual 40:2

continuation 73:22

continue 27:7 37:2

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97:21 104:19

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continues 149:1

continuing 7:17

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contractors 91:9

contribute 127:9

contributing 51:8

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convened 1:10

conventional 86:12

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conversation 92:1

converted 21:22

cooking 69:16

coordinate 27:2

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Coordinator 10:2

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copies 54:9,13

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1962 1:11

1990s 21:22

1994 17:8

1995 110:6,16

118:10

2

2 84:8 101:16

20 11:16 65:18

2002 45:11

2006 6:4,9 73:3

111:4 114:9

2007 45:11 73:4

2009 27:14,16

28:14,16 29:12

37:8 75:6

2010 1:8 45:14 57:8

71:12 104:15

2011 45:3 75:7

141:18

2012 8:20 88:22

115:8 141:20

142:13 143:1

205.600(b) 138:9

205.601 97:12

205.605 102:20

205.605(b) 110:19

111:10 112:10

114:6

205.606 100:20

138:18

21 110:20 111:10

111:20 112:11,18

113:11,14,16

114:11,14 115:21

118:9

23 99:22

25 3:10

26 1:8

27 3:13

270 65:2

28 65:13

29 3:16

3

3 33:3 85:1

3-1/2 100:2

3.6 100:3

3:00 1:10

3:02 4:2

30 16:5

31 45:15

34 65:4

4

4 3:6

5

5 38:22 39:1 87:11

125:14

5:28 151:5

50 99:11

6

6-1/4 100:2

60 114:22

60-day 66:15 68:5

605 103:4,7

606 69:13 85:12,14

102:20 104:5

133:3,6

65 43:13 72:9

7

7 110:19 111:10

70 64:19

8

8:00 151:2,6

86 64:21

9

90 88:22

94 65:1

96 3:19

99 42:16