Food & Water Watch Urges Consumers to Oppose Organic Label for Fish

The public interest group Food & Water Watch has urged consumers to contact the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to oppose the use of the “USDA Organic” label for farmed fish. Food & Water Watch has accused industrial fish farmers of attempting to “greenwash” aquaculture practices that, according to the group, disrupt ocean ecosystems “by wiping out the fish on the bottom of the food chain” and increase “the amount of dangerous pollutants like mercury and PCBs” that wind up in farmed fish products. The organization warns consumers that feeding wild fish to farm-bred fish in deep-water open pens is not “consistent with [the] organic principles that you have come to trust and that require minimal impact on the environment, control of input and outputs, and animals to be raised on organically-raised feed.”

Food & Water Watch recently initiated several action calls to counteract the final directives of the Bush administration, which the group alleges has “blatantly decided to ignore consumer interest and have one last push at passing rules to further weaken our health, safety and environmental protections.” See Food & Water Watch Blog, November 9, 2008.