Revised Code of Washington
Chapter 15.86 - Organic Products.
15.86.020 - Definitions.

RCW 15.86.020
Definitions.

The definitions in this section apply throughout this chapter unless the context clearly requires otherwise.
(1) "Certification" or "certified" means a determination documented by a certificate of organic operation made by a certifying agent that a production or handling operation is in compliance with the national organic program or with international standards.
(2) "Compost" means the product of a managed process through which microorganisms break down plant and animal materials into more available forms suitable for application to the soil.
(3) "Crop production aid" means any substance, material, structure, or device that is used to aid a producer of an agricultural product except for fertilizers and pesticides.
(4) "Department" means the state department of agriculture.
(5) "Director" means the director of the department of agriculture or the director's designee.
(6) "Fertilizer" means a single or blended substance containing one or more recognized plant nutrients which is used primarily for its plant nutrient content and which is designed for use or claimed to have value in promoting plant growth.
(7) "Handler" means any person who sells, distributes, or packs organic or transitional products.
(8) "Label" means a display of written, printed, or graphic material on the immediate container of an agricultural product or any such material affixed to any agricultural product or affixed to a bulk container containing an agricultural product, except for package liners or a display of written, printed, or graphic material which contains only information about the weight of the product.
(9) "Labeling" includes all written, printed, or graphic material accompanying an agricultural product at any time or written, printed, or graphic material about the agricultural product displayed at retail stores about the product.
(10) "Livestock production aid" means any substance, material, structure, or device that is used to aid a producer in the production of livestock such as parasiticides, medicines, and feed additives.
(11) "Manufacturer" means a person that compounds, produces, granulates, mixes, blends, repackages, or otherwise alters the composition of materials.
(12) "Material" means any substance or mixture of substances that is intended to be used in agricultural production, processing, or handling.
(13) "National organic program" means the program administered by the United States department of agriculture pursuant to 7 C.F.R. Part 205, which implements the federal organic food production act of 1990 (7 U.S.C. Sec. 6501 et seq.).
(14) "Organic certifying agent" means any third-party certification organization that is recognized by the director as being one which imposes, for certification, standards consistent with this chapter.
(15) "Organic product" means any agricultural product, in whole or in part, including meat, dairy, and beverage, that is marketed using the term organic or any derivative of organic and that is produced, handled, and processed in accordance with this chapter.
(16) "Organic waste-derived material" means grass clippings, leaves, weeds, bark, plantings, prunings, and other vegetative wastes, uncontaminated wood waste from logging and milling operations, food wastes, food processing wastes, and materials derived from these wastes through composting. "Organic waste-derived material" does not include products that contain biosolids as defined in chapter 70A.226 RCW.
(17) "Person" means any natural person, firm, partnership, exchange, association, trustee, receiver, corporation, and any member, officer, or employee thereof or assignee for the benefit of creditors.
(18) "Pesticide" means, but is not limited to:
(a) Any substance or mixture of substances intended to prevent, destroy, control, repel, or mitigate any insect, rodent, nematode, mollusk, fungus, weed, and any other form of plant or animal life or virus, except a virus on or in a living human being or other animal, which is normally considered to be a pest or which the director may declare to be a pest;
(b) Any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant;
(c) Any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used as a spray adjuvant; and
(d) Any other substances intended for such use as may be named by the director by rule.
(19) "Postharvest material" means any substance, material, structure, or device that is used in the postharvest handling of agricultural products.
(20) "Processing aid" means a substance that is added to a food:
(a) During processing, but is removed in some manner from the food before it is packaged in its finished form;
(b) During processing, is converted into constituents normally present in the food, and does not significantly increase the amount of the constituents naturally found in the food; and
(c) For its technical or functional effect in the processing but is present in the finished food at insignificant levels and does not have any technical or functional effect in that food.
(21) "Processor" means any person engaged in the canning, freezing, drying, dehydrating, cooking, pressing, powdering, packaging, baking, heating, mixing, grinding, churning, separating, extracting, cutting, fermenting, eviscerating, preserving, jarring, or otherwise processing of an organic or transitional product.
(22) "Producer" means any person or organization who or which grows, raises, or produces an agricultural product.
(23) "Registrant" means the person registering a material on the brand name materials list under the provisions of this chapter.
(24) "Represent" means to hold out as or to advertise.
(25) "Sale" means selling, offering for sale, holding for sale, preparing for sale, trading, bartering, offering a gift as an inducement for sale of, and advertising for sale in any media.
(26) "Soil amendment" means any substance that is intended to improve the physical characteristics of the soil, except for fertilizers and pesticides.
(27) "Spray adjuvant" means any product intended to be used with a pesticide as an aid to the application or to the effect of the pesticide and that is in a package or container separate from the pesticide. "Spray adjuvant" includes, but is not limited to, wetting agents, spreading agents, deposit builders, adhesives, emulsifying agents, deflocculating agents, and water modifiers or similar agent with or without toxic properties of its own intended to be used with any other pesticide as an aid to its application or to its effect. "Spray adjuvant" does not include products that are only intended to mark the location where a pesticide is applied.
(28) "Transitional product" means any agricultural product that meets requirements for organic certification, except that the organic production areas have not been free of prohibited substances for thirty-six months. Use of prohibited substances must have ceased for at least twelve months prior to the harvest of a transitional product.

[ 2021 c 65 § 12. Prior: 2010 c 109 § 2; 2002 c 220 § 2; 1992 c 71 § 2; 1989 c 354 § 32; 1985 c 247 § 2.]
NOTES:

Explanatory statement—2021 c 65: See note following RCW 53.54.030.

Severability—1989 c 354: See note following RCW 15.36.012.