PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The organic apples you buy in the grocery store will soon be free of a widely used antibiotic.
The National Organic Standards Board late Thursday rejected a petition to allow growers to use the antibiotic oxytetracyline beyond the existing expiration date of Oct. 21, 2014.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's labeling standards generally prohibit food from being certified organic if antibiotics were used during production. But the threat of fire blight — a bacterial pathogen that infects flowers and trees — led to an exception for growers of apples and pears.
That exception was revisited in Portland this week as consumer groups and concerned citizens urged the board to maintain next year's deadline.
"If organics is going to market itself as a more responsible type of agriculture, then they need to live up to it," said Patty Lovera, the assistant director of Food & Water Watch, a Washington-based consumer group.
Farmers were already granted a two-year extension in 2011, and opponents worried that yet another delay would be sought two years from now.
