In the UK and the rest of Europe, there are strict legal guidelines in place that define what fish can be sold as organic. Organic fish is always from organic fish farms. As such, wild fish can never be labeled as organic - it’s wild.
However, in the USA, buying a pork chop labeled “organic�? is relatively straightforward: it comes from a pig that ate only organic food, roamed outdoors from time to time and was left free of antibiotics. But they’re still debating - what makes a fish organic?
That is the question troubling the US Agriculture Department, which decides such things for America. The answer could determine whether Americans will be able to add fish to the growing list of organic foods they are buying, and whether fish farmers will be able to label their organic fish as such, and therefore charge a fair price for this more expensive and higher quality product.
Organic foods are grown on farms that shun chemicals and synthetic fertilizers and that meet certain government standards for safeguarding the environment and animals.
An organic tomato must flourish without conventional pesticides; an organic chicken cannot be fed antibiotics. Food marketers can use terms like “natural�? and “free range�? with plenty of wiggle room in the US, but only the Agriculture Department can sanction the “organic�? label.
To the dismay of some fishermen — including many in the Alaskan salmon industry — this means that wild fish, whose living conditions are not controlled, are not likely to make the grade. And that has led to a lot of bafflement, since wild fish tend to swim in pristine waters and are favored by fish lovers.
“If you can’t call a wild Alaska salmon true and organic,�? asked Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, “what can you call organic?�?
Instead, it appears that only farm-raised salmon may pass muster, as may a good number of other farm-raised fish.
But a proposed guideline at the Agriculture Department for calling certain farmed fish “organic�? is controversial on all sides. Environmentalists argue that many farm-raised fish live in cramped nets in conditions that can pollute the water, and that calling them organic is a perversion of the label. Those who catch and sell wild fish say that their products should be called organic and worry that if they are not, fish farmers will gain a huge leg up.
Even among people who favor the designation of farmed fish as organic, there are disputes over which types of fish should be included.
Trying to define what makes a fish organic “is a strange concept,�? said George H. Leonard, science manager for the Seafood Watch Program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which offers a consumer guide to picking seafood. “I think the more you look at it, particularly for particular kinds of fish, it gets even stranger.�?
The issue comes down largely to what a fish eats, and whether the fish can be fed an organic diet. There is broad agreement that the organic label is no problem for fish that are primarily vegetarians, like catfish and tilapia, because organic feed is available (though expensive).
Fish that are carnivores — salmon, for instance — are a different matter because they eat other fish, which cannot now be labeled organic.
The Agriculture Department panel that recommended adding farmed fish to the organic roster was willing to work around the issue, and offered various ways that fish-eating fish could qualify.
But those work-arounds have infuriated some environmentalists, who take issue with the idea that a fish could be called organic if it ate meal made from wild nonorganic fish. This constituency complains, among other things, that demand for fish meal is depleting wild fisheries.
“When it comes to carnivorous fish, it seems to be a complete deception of what organic means,�? said Andre