To submit your comment electronically:

http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=AMS-NOP-10-0083-0029

For the required field “Organization Name,” please enter “Citizen.”

To mail your comment:

Toni Strother, Agricultural Marketing Specialist
National Organic Program, USDA-AMS-NOP
1400 Independence Ave. SW.
Room 2646-So., Ag Stop 0268
Washington, DC 20250

Include the following docket number in your mailed comment: AMS-NOP-10-0083

Comments must be received by the USDA no later than December 26, 2012.

Sample Letter

(Please note that your personalization of this sample letter will increase its impact)

To the USDA:

Synthetic nutrients have no place in organic foods. As an organic stakeholder, I expect nutrients in my food to be either naturally occurring or from organic sources.

This expectation is backed by federal law, which requires that synthetic ingredients may be added to organic foods only if they are essential to making organic products, and only after each one has been carefully reviewed and approved by the National Organic Standards Board.

The National Organic Standards Board (the expert panel set up by Congress) has rightfully upheld organic integrity and followed the law by recently rejecting numerous petitions for synthetic nutrients in organic foods. Rather than remove their synthetics from organic foods, corporations have instead turned to the USDA, asking that the agency keep open a loophole and delay any enforcement action.

Please end these violations now. As an organic stakeholder, I ask that you take immediate enforcement action against any food manufacturer adding a synthetic nutrient that is not considered essential by the Food and Drug Administration and/or has been explicitly rejected, after review, by the National Organic Standards Board.

I also ask that you close the loophole in the organic standards—the reference to FDA regulations (21 CFR 104.20) that allow any synthetic nutrient—and start the process of reviewing and listing each individual synthetic nutrient, as required by federal law.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]