For nearly eight years, U.S. consumers have had the option to buy U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified organic produce, dairy and meats. But not seafood. Not today, or next year and probably not even the year after. Maybe, if all goes well, USDA-certified organic farmed seafood will hit the market in 2013. Cross your fingers.
The development of organic standards for farmed seafood is moving along a painstakingly slow pace. But at least they’re moving.
The ball is now in the court of the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP). For more than five years, members of the Aquaculture Working Group, 12 people who work on some aspect of aquaculture — feed scientists, environmentalists, industry groups and veterinarians — have written, hashed out, defended and otherwise shepherded organic standards for finfish and bivalve mollusks through approval by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), which advises the NOP.
The next step, according to George Lockwood, chairman of the Aquaculture Working Group, is for the NOP to proceed with final rulemaking, an 18-month process that’s not expected to begin until 2011.
Applying the definition of organic to aquatic systems has certainly been a tall order. The definition of organic alone was clearly written with agriculture in mind.
The NOSB, created by the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act, defines organic as an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. The system is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices to restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony. The primary goal of organic agriculture is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil life, plants, animals and people.
Lockwood and his group have been in the trenches of figuring out what these principles mean in the raceways, ponds and tanks of an aquaculture operation.
But by the time USDA-certified organic seafood reaches the market, will there still be demand? Lockwood thinks so. He predicts organic farmed seafood will ultimately capture a 5 percent market share, following the same market trajectory as organic meat.
“I expect we’re going to see a significant amount of fish going into the natural food market that’s labeled with the USDA national organic label,” said Lockwood, pointing to Whole Foods and other specialty retailers who will be able to charge a premium to pay for the additional production costs. And he predicts a healthy market for certified organic farmed seafood will develop in foodservice.
The latest figures released in April by the Organic Trade Association indicate he’s probably right: Organic food sales are now 3.7 percent of all U.S. food sales. Fruit and vegetables make up nearly 40 percent of the USD 26.6 billion in organic sales, and organic produce is now 11.4 percent of total produce sales.
Here’s the kicker: In 2009, when Americans cut way back on all kinds of spending, organic food sales still grew by 5.1 percent, outpacing the 1.6 percent growth in overall U.S. food sales.
Still, you have to wonder about the relevance of standards for organic aquaculture, which essentially adds a third set of standards on top of aquaculture processing, farm and feed standards from the Global Aquaculture Alliance and the World Wildlife Fund’s Aquaculture Dialogues (AD), with a new Aquaculture Stewardship Council forming by next year to manage certifications to the AD standards.
Will organic aquaculture matter?
You bet your sweet abalone it will. While 2013 is a long ways off and a lot can happen between now and then, here are two predictions:
First, the market for third-party certified farmed fish will shake out into a “good, better and best.” I don’t dare yet guess which program will become the “gold standard.” Lockwood predicts the proposed bivalve/mollusk organic aquaculture standards, as written now, will be doable for 5 to 10 percent of current operations. Even fewer finfish operations will be able to meet the standards as currently written and proposed, he said.
When standards from WWF’s Tilapia Dialogue were finalized, the leader of the dialogues estimated certification was within reach for 10 to 25 percent of current tilapia market production. GAA has already certified shrimp representing about 60 percent of the market.
All of these efforts are pushing ecological improvement in aquaculture, clearly a good thing now that farmed seafood is half the supply. We all have to ensure aquaculture is environmentally responsible.
Yet, sustainable seafood is still largely the realm of buyers, not consumers. Here’s prediction No. 2: USDA-certified organic seafood will change that. This is what will bring mainstream consumers into the conversation about eco-purchasing of seafood in a big way, over time.
While the other aquaculture programs are certainly farther along, no seafood eco-label we’ve seen so far in the U.S. market has the brand equity of the USDA organic seal of approval.
May 12, 2010
