New Standards for Organic Fish

  • Farmed fish, such as salmon, eat a lot of wild fish that happen to swim into their pens. And that means they could be eating over-fished species. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service)

To be labeled organic, animals
have to be fed all organic food. But
under the new proposal that won’t be
the case for fish. Julie Grant reports
that in the recommendations for organic
fish, the standard is much lower:

Transcript

To be labeled organic, animals
have to be fed all organic food. But
under the new proposal that won’t be
the case for fish. Julie Grant reports
that in the recommendations for organic
fish, the standard is much lower:

Some fish is raised in huge net-pens in the ocean. Farmed
fish, such as salmon, eat a lot of wild fish that happen to
swim into their pens. And that means they could be eating
over-fished species.

New recommendations by the National Organic Standards
Board would go ahead and allow farmed fish to eat up to
25% wild food – as long as it’s not from endangered species.

George Leonard is director of aqua-culture with the Ocean
Conservancy. He says these standards would weaken the
organic label.

“You don’t change the organic standard to be consistent with
current practices, you hold the organic standard steady and
you allow or you incentive the industry to change their
practices to reach that standard.”

The new “organic fish” recommendations still need final
approval from the USDA.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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