Washington - Two bipartisan congressmen urged Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman to revise the department's proposed standards for organic foods and ban the use of irradiation, sewage sludge or bioengineered technology.
"I think the USDA needs to listen to consumers," Reps. Jack Metcalf, a Republican from Washington state, and Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, said in a letter.
"They need to find out what organic means to the consumer now -- and it doesn't mean radiated engineered and sludge-fertilized food," the letter said.
Their letter to Glickman joins more than 23,000 other public comments that have been sent to the USDA on its controversial proposals for organic food. The vast majority of the comments are opposed to the proposed rules, which asked if irradiation, sewage sludge and biotechnology should be permitted in the production of food labelled as organic.
Organic farmers across the United States asked the USDA to set national standards for labelling and marketing food as organic, to end a patchwork of more than two dozen state and private sector regulations.
Organic foods are one of the fastest-growing segments of the food industry, with sales expected to top $3.5 billion this year.
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