Organic inconsistencies
Brick Burner
By Joshua Frank
|  Healthy
living has become the national obsession these past
few decades. As the rate of cancer continues to escalate,
and with the obesity epidemic as it is in the United
States, people are turning toward healthier diets and
lifestyles in hopes of enhancing their longevity. Awareness
about food's nutritional content is also on the rise
-- many health conscious Americans are concerned with
the quality and content of the food they are scarfing
down every day. As these interests have grown, so has
the organic food movement. Organics, as the general
definition puts it, are products that are not grown
genetically, and are developed without the use of synthetic
pesticides, herbicides or hormones.
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In 1973, after the United States banned the perilous DDT,
the underground organics industry grew almost overnight, due
in part to the expanding consumer opposition to chemical pesticides
as well as the desire to eat foods that were produced without
negatively impacting the environment. Many people feared that
conventional store bought food was not as safe to eat as chemical
produced goods and with the growing awareness of what DDT
did to human and environmental health, consumers were growing
weary of the corporate agricultural industry. So people hastily
flocked back to the land and planted crops on their own, or
joined food co-ops where they could grow and trade products
among a community of like-minded comrades. The market soon
reacted to this growing demand of organic foods and in the
1990s companies that produced organics estimated sales of
more than $1 billion annually. Organic food was here to stay.
Congress soon followed and passed the Organic Foods Production
Act (OFPA) in 1990, which was attached to the Farm Bill and
established the initial framework to create National Organic
Standards which set the legal standards for organic foods.
OFPA mandated the formation of the National Organic Standards
Board (NOSB), which was organized to advise the Secretary
of Agriculture in setting the standards for the United States
Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program (NOP).
NOSB based its recommendations on industry consensus an organic
advocates were pleased. The next step, however, was a bit
more cumbersome. Turning USDA's organic standards into rules
and regulations, took some intense lobbying. Americans didn't
seem ready to put the food they ate to the test. But in October
2002, USDA officially began labeling foods that met the agency's
definition of 'organic' products with 95% organic content
or higher.
Attempting to define what USDA considers "organic"
is like trying to figure out which lie George W. Bush told
last -- it is a difficult, if not impossible task. Since 2002,
USDA has changed their definition almost every year. So today's
products labeled "organic" by the Agency may not
have been labeled the same in 2003. This sort of wavering
has been met with much criticism from many organic food advocates
who believe USDA should stick to the standards it agreed upon
in 1990. Others, mostly industry suit coats, still believe
USDA's labeling is too stringent. And why wouldn't they? The
lesser the standards, the fatter their bottom-lines. And here
is where the lobbying efforts on the part of the agriculture
giants come into play.
"Certification is becoming big business," writes
Hilary Chop for the Alternatives Journal, "Accredited
certification agencies are becoming for-profit enterprises
instead of farmer and consumer run organizations. This
raises the potential for conflict of interests, particularly
since farms pay the certifying agency based on their acreage.
If a mega-farm wants an exception from the rules, it can be
all too tempting for the enforcing officer who receives a
commission, to make allowances."
Case in point: In 2002, shortly after USDA announced its
labeling policy, a controversy bubbled over when an accredited
USDA-certifier allowed Georgia chicken producer, Fieldale
Chickens, to label its products organic while only having
to use ten percent organic feed instead of 100 percent required
by the NOP under USDA's guidelines. Fieldale spent tens of
thousands of dollars to hire a prime time Washington lobbyist
to help change organic standards at USDA. And with the help
of the Georgia delegation in Congress, they were successful.
Later in April 2004, after intense lobbying efforts by ag-industry
giants like ConAgra and Monsanto, USDA proposed new rules
that would have allowed USDA-certified organic farms to use
fertilizers and pesticides that contain "unknown"
ingredients, or rather, ingredients that could not be identified
by either the grower or the inspector. Also on the butcher
block were USDA-certified organic dairy cows. Up until 2004,
organic certified cows could not be fed any antibiotics or
non-organic feed. That changed fast, as the desire for organic
products grew publicly, so did the awareness among the big-agriculture
folks who lobbied until they succeeded. Luckily, organic activists
didn't back down from the fight. There was a public outcry,
and in May 2004, USDA retracted the proposed changes they
had put forth a month prior. If they hadn't reversed their
plea, USDA-certified cows could have been administered antibiotics
or fed non-organic fishmeal -- made with synthetic preservatives
and potentially contaminated by mercury and PCBs, which is
a known carcinogen.
Nonetheless, if industry giants are anything, they're persistent.
And by June 2004, USDA had reinstated one of the directives
from April of that same year. Today all seafood, body care
products, and clothing, fertilizers and pet food can be labeled
"organic" regardless of how they were manufactured.
And on December 13, 2005, the U.S. Senate passed the 2006
Appropriations bill, which included language that weakened
even more USDA organic labeling standards.
Young dairy cows can now be treated with antibiotics and
can also be fed genetically engineered feed. Not only that,
numerous synthetic food additives and processing agents can
now be used in USDA approved organic foods. And in case of
"emergency decrees," or rather, in case of a shortage
of organic goods (shortage is determined by USDA, not the
U.S. public) loopholes now exist in the federal statutes,
which allow for the substitution of non-organic ingredients
without any public notification or oversight. The new changes
are a result of recent fight over USDA standards that began
heating up in 2002 when organic blueberry farmer Arthur Harvey
of Maine filed a federal lawsuit against the United States
Department of Agriculture for allowing products containing
synthetic ingredients to be sold as 'organic'. Mr. Harvey
contended that USDA's organic standards were ambiguous, which
undermined consumer organic goods and confidence in USDA's
labels.
In January of 2005, the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
in Harvey's favor. The court mandated that USDA had one year
to re-write their regulations. It looked like a win for the
organic community. "The decision said that synthetic
substances were not permitted in any type of product labeled
as 'organic,'" Joe Mendelson, legal director for the
Center for Food Safety told reporters after the decision.
Such products could not be labeled with the official green
USDA 'Organic' stamp of approval.
But when big money is involved, justice won't often prevail.
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who has stood
up for organic standards in the past, inserted the language
in the Agriculture Appropriations Bill of 2006, countered
Mendelson, "The Harvey case could have major impacts
on the future of the organic industry, both for producers
and processors. That is why I added language to the Senate
bill instructing USDA to study the implications of the decision
and report back to Congress. I believe a deliberative process
to achieve consensus within the organic community would have
been more appropriate." Leahy received over $32,000 from
the agribusiness sector during the 2004 election cycle.
The Senator's amendment now forces the U.S. Agriculture Secretary
to analyze, within 90 days of the bill's passage, whether
reinstating the organic labeling standards set in 2002 "would
adversely affect organic farmers, organic food processors,
and consumers." The secretary also has to analyze "issues
regarding the use of synthetic ingredients in processing and
handling" certified organic products.
This is where the Organic Trade Association (OTA) comes into
the picture. The OTA represents virtually all the companies
hoping to turn a profit in the organic foods market, regardless
of their size. By and large the OTA was not in the least bit
happy with the court's ruling in the Harvey case. They want
to make money for their clients. The amendment had been opposed
by many organic food growers, as well as public health officials,
environmental organizations, including National Grocers Association,
National Organic Coalition and Rural Advancement, Beyond Pesticides,
National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, Organic Consumers
Association among others.
According to the OTA's number crunching, had rules of the
Harvey case gone into effect, 25 percent of organic manufacturers
would have left the business, which they estimated would account
for almost $758 million in lost sales per year. Clearly the
OTA was putting potential profits over consumer and environmental
health. The group also argued that 20 percent of organic farmers
would have had to abandon their farming methods. So in effect,
Harvey's case will have no real impact on the way USDA manages
and labels organic food. Not surprisingly, it wasn't small
organic farmers who opposed the Harvey ruling, but rather
it was industry Goliaths like General Mills and Dean Foods,
who, along with others, hold considerable sway over the OTA.
The entrance of such big names into the organic market is
a good indication that organic foods have been corporatized.
Of course, the fear is that such companies are more concerned
with fattening their bottom lines than to adhering to any
sort of environmental ethic. They are in it to make big money
and there are billions to be made. An example of corporate
influx: McDonald's restaurants in the North East will be carrying
organic fair-trade coffee. General Mills owns Cascadian Farms
and the popular organic Muir Glen brand. Kraft, which is owned
by Phillip Morris, owns Boca, a popular soy burger company.
And as mentioned above, Dean Foods, the dairy giant, owns
White Wave and Silk soymilks, as well as Horizon Organic milk.
And this is just the tip of the ever-expanding iceberg.
As the organic food industry has matured, USDA standards
have waned. Consumers can no longer be confidant that their
foods meet organic standards, even if USDA gives it is green
mark of approval.
Joshua Frank
is the author of the brand new book, Left Out!: How Liberals
Helped Reelect George W. Bush, which has just been published
by Common Courage Press. You can order a copy at a discounted
rate at www.brickburner.org.
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