Updates to National List Published

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has published a set of changes to the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances, which documents the synthetic materials allowed or banned in the production and handling of organic agriculture. The amendments include the addition of “elemental sulfur for use as a molluscicide,” the addition of “polyoxin D zinc salt to control fungal diseases” and the reclassification of magnesium chloride “from an allowed synthetic to an allowed nonsynthetic ingredient in organic handling.”

USDA also published a list of proposed changes and will accept comments on the proposal until December 17, 2019. The proposed rule would “add blood meal, made with sodium citrate, to the National List as a soil fertilizer,” “add natamycin to the National List to prohibit its use” and “add tamarind seed gum as a non-organic agricultural substance for use in organic handling when organic forms of tamarind seed gum are not commercially available.”