Custom Clothes: Usda Organic Standards

Usda Organic Standards

We believe certified organic produce should be handled with the same level of protection and care required to grow it. Many retailers offer organically grown produce without handling their product in a manner that ensures the integrity used in its growing practice, but we do.

Each and every one of our produce departments are certified as organic handlers by the Washington State Department of Agriculture. This means we have continual third-party monitoring of our handling practices and records in order to safeguard the integrity of our organic products. From newly sewn seeds to fresh harvest fruits and veggies, our produce is handled the way you want it: 100% Organic.Last week, the USDA announced their first organic guidelines for fish. The new guidelines uphold some of the traditional mainstays of organic agriculture, like banning the use of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides and GMO feed in some instances while weakening other provisions at the same time.Most notable in the new guidelines is the inclusion of a loophole that allows aquaculture farms to obtain up to 25% of their feed from unregulated wild seafood stock (see the NOSB draft literature). The loophole does specify that organic producers use ‘sustainable’ wild seafood as the feed for their fish stocks but does not go so far as to require 100% organic feed. This is the first time ANY livestock producer (NOTE: the USDA classifies fisheries as ‘livestock’) has been allowed to include any non-organic feed into their own animal’s feed.Additionally, these new guidelines allow all types of fish to be raised in open-water pens in the ocean which allows water from the fish farms to filter into neighboring aquatic environments, a move that could allow both species and disease to jump from the farms into the ocean.