There’s a long list of farming and ranching practices and requirements necessary to bear a USDA organic label. Growers, processors and distributors follow these lists of regulations to ensure accurate organic production and labeling compliance.
On the heels of an October National Organic Standards Board meeting, organic policy leaders approved two additional substances as acceptable for use in organic production under the National Organic Program. This means growers, producers and handlers of organic products now have two more tools in their toolkit when producing products that wear the organic seal.
The USDA updated the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances, also known as the National List, to include two more substances:
- paper based planting aids, known as paper pots
- low acyl gellan gum
The addition of paper pots means growers searching for a planting aid to transplant thousands of starts into the soil quickly and efficiently now have paper pots as a tool for planting starts in organic production. According to the USDA’s final rule, “paper-based crop planting aids (e.g., individual pots, chain pots, seed tape, collars) provide an alternative to slower and more costly method of planting or transplanting individual crops by hand.”
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Low acyl gellan gum — a thickener used in supplement capsules and to gel dessert icings and confections, also has been added to the National List as allowable for use in organic production.
The final update is a corrected spelling error. The item once listed as “wood resin” has been corrected to now read “wood rosin” in the National List.
About the National List
Organic operations must comply with the USDA organic regulation when using ingredients and substances, which includes the National List. The National List applies to organic crop, livestock and handling production. According to the USDA, “the National List is an optional list of generic substances that an operation may use in their products.”
It’s a comprehensive list of ingredients that organic producers and handlers have available to use, as needed. The updated list reflects past rulings along with NOSB recommendations from 2020 and 2021 meetings, along with public comment on proposed rules.
See the complete final rule from the USDA’s view on the National Archives. To review the complete list of all substances that have been considered for addition in to the National List, see the Petitioned Substance Index.
