AMS No. 051-10

Sam Jones-Ellard (202) 720-8998

Billy Cox (202) 720-8998

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2010 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture has publish an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to initiate the public comment period concerning 232 materials on the National Organic Program’s National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances (National List), which are due to sunset in 2012.

The National List identifies synthetic substances which are exempted (allowed) and non-synthetic (natural) substances which are prohibited from use in organic production and handling, as recommended by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). Pursuant to the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, substances cannot remain on the National List for more than five years without being reviewed and recommended for renewal by the NOSB and adopted by the Secretary of Agriculture (§6517(e)). The NOSB will begin to review materials due to sunset in 2012 at the next public meeting of the full Board, April 26-29, 2010, in Woodland, Calif.

NOP is seeking comments at this time to provide the public with ample opportunity to respond to the continued need, or lack thereof, for the allowances and prohibitions under review and to avoid significant disruption of well-established and accepted organic production, handling and processing systems. The comment period is scheduled to close May 25, 2010.

For a list of the materials that will be reviewed for the 2012 sunset and guidelines on submitting comments, interested parties should visit www.regulations.gov, and search for AMS-NOP-09-0074. More information can also be found at: www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/April2010Agenda.

#