Panel: Alaska salmon can't be called 'organic'

ANCHORAGE -- Alaska has suffered a major blow in its efforts to win the federal government's official organic label for wild salmon.

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An advisory panel to the U.S. Department of Agriculture decided Wednesday the state's salmon and other wild seafood don't qualify as organic food.

The National Organic Standards Board, meeting in Washington, D.C., voted 14-0 against developing a set of national organic standards for wild fish. The board, however, said such standards could be developed for some farmed fish, but did not mandate them. That wouldn't help Alaska, where state law bans fish farming.

The Agriculture Department last year adopted national organic standards for land animals and crops, but left the issue of organic seafood to further debate.

Many in the established organic foods movement say they don't think wild fish should qualify as organic because their diet and possible exposure to contaminants can't be controlled.

Alaska's salmon industry wants to win the government label to boost sales and focus marketing. It is expected to be a valuable ticket into the growing organic foods market, which had sales of an estimated $7.8 billion last year.

Wednesday's defeat was expected, according to Glenn Haight, fisheries development specialist for the Alaska Department of Community and Economic Development. The board is dominated by people familiar with production, processing and retailing of land foods, he said.

"We had little confidence in the board to review the material that we sent to them and make a thorough decision," Haight told the Anchorage Daily News.

The board's vote is advisory only, said Richard Mathews, manager of the National Organic Program, a wing of the Agriculture Department. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman has the final say.

Haight said the state will continue to press the National Organic Program to certify Alaska's wild fish. A big worry is that other proteins such as chicken and beef are now eligible for the organic label but not fish, a potential disadvantage for salmon in the marketplace.

"It's a bit of an uneven playing field," Haight said.

U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, and six other lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary Veneman protesting the possible exclusion of seafood, both wild and farmed, from using the government organic label.

Congress passed an organic food production act in 1990 to reconcile a patchwork of private organic labels.