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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

The many meanings of 'organic'

# Demand for certified produce is up, but so is confusion over farming 
standards. Here's a look at what it all means.

By Max Withers, Special to The Times

Shoppers swarm around the farmers market stall. After the rainy California 
winter, strawberries, peas and fava beans, those heralds of spring, are hot 
sellers. Some customers move in for the kill, brandishing their trophy 
produce in one hand and exact change in the other. Others hold back, trying 
to remember what looked good at the last stall. Weren't those favas a 
little smaller? But these favas say "pesticide-free." And the guy at the 
other end of the market might have organic ones. Are they any better?

More and more people seem to think so: One-quarter of all Americans now eat 
fresh organic produce at least once a week, according to the Hartman Group, 
a consumer research firm — and the market continues to grow by 20% a year.

For many consumers, the "organic" label is a passport to a place where 
safer food, better flavor and a healthier environment all intersect. By 
buying from farms that have been certified organic, they imagine that 
they're getting the best-tasting produce while helping the environment, 
supporting small producers and safeguarding their health.

But it's not as simple as that. Some of the farmers most respected by chefs 
for the quality of their produce are eschewing organic farming. At the same 
time, mainstream supermarkets overflow with organic fruits and vegetables 
from huge agribusiness conglomerates. And the jury is still out on whether 
organic produce is healthier or tastier, although some studies point in 
that direction.

So what does organic really mean? Government standards are arbitrary and 
incomplete, critics say, and, ironically, the standards support big 
producers over smaller ones. And higher prices charged for certified 
organic produce don't guarantee that you're getting better food.

Nationwide, organic farming standards are set by the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture. The USDA rules are administered through non-governmental 
agencies — certifiers — who do annual inspections and charge a fee for the 
process.

The cost of certification is surprisingly modest. California Certified 
Organic Farmers, or CCOF, the largest of California's 11 certifiers, 
charges fees on a sliding scale, and other certifiers are competitive. The 
real hurdle for farmers, after they complete a three-year "transitional" 
period during which they must farm organically, but aren't allowed to label 
their produce "organic," is the paperwork.

"It's amazing how much paperwork we have to do. We have to keep track of 
everything," says administrative director Matthew Logan of Fairview Gardens 
in Santa Barbara, a chefs' favorite (they sell at the Wednesday Santa 
Monica, several Santa Barbara and the San Francisco Ferry Building farmers 
markets). Logan says Fairview's paperwork quadrupled when it started 
certifying under the USDA's National Organic Program, or NOP, which was 
instituted in 2002.

Santa Monica farmers markets manager Laura Avery estimates that as many as 
100 farmers at her markets who are not certified do not spray pesticides. 
For the most part, these farmers say that they have not sought organic 
certification because they have no problem selling their produce without 
going through that hassle.

Even if they don't seek certification, many of California's smaller 
conventional farms employ a variety of organic practices, such as cover 
cropping and composting. And not every conscientious farmer agrees that all 
pesticide use is a bad idea.

Fitz Kelly, well known for the superb stone fruit he grows on 35 acres in 
Reedley (Fitzgerald's Premium Ripe Tree Fruit is at the Wednesday Santa 
Monica and the San Francisco Ferry Plaza farmers markets in season), says 
that judicious use of synthetic pesticides means he can spray less than 
organic farmers, who have to rely on a small list of approved substances. 
And that, along with other careful farming practices, makes his farm 
environmentally friendly.

"We've even had damage to the fruit from ladybugs, we have so many of 
them," he says.

Demand for certified organic produce remains strong, and market managers 
all over the state confirm the statistics showing growth in sales. But some 
market managers think consumers are fixating too much on the label, at the 
expense of small farmers who haven't certified. "As soon as you get a label 
for something, people get stupid about it," Avery complained about the USDA 
regulations. "They stop educating themselves."

Of course, without certification, you have to take the farmer's word for 
it. Hand-lettered signs reading "no pesticides" are almost as common as 
"certified organic" signs in some markets. Certified farmers are 
understandably suspicious of their competitors' claims.

"When they walk into a farmers market, consumers assume all kinds of 
things," says Warren Weber, who founded Star Route Farms in Bolinas, 
California's oldest certified farm, in 1974, and sells at the Ferry Plaza 
and Marin County farmers markets. "It's kind of medieval, like going to a 
bazaar. You get the feeling that people say whatever to sell their product 
sometimes. And that's unfortunate."



Organic goes big time

Farmers markets are no longer the only places where you'll find large 
selections of organic produce and products. Mainstream supermarkets are 
plentifully stocked with organic products from publicly traded behemoths 
such as Dean Foods and General Mills.

Once seen as the province of wild-eyed hippies and dedicated idealists, 
organic farming was domesticated in 2002 when the USDA began setting the 
standards through the National Organic Program. With predictable rules and 
regulations, organic farming was suddenly safe for big business.

But some organic activists have questioned whether the big boys are really 
delivering the organic goods. Several news organizations reported in 
February that a Wisconsin nonprofit, the Cornucopia Institute, complained 
to the USDA that three certified organic dairies selling milk to Horizon 
Organic were actually factory farms that violated NOP rules.

From the start, the USDA rules were controversial. Reviewing the NOP, 
activist and former Columbia University nutrition professor Joan Dye Gussow 
wrote in Organic Gardening magazine, "This isn't what we meant. When we 
said organic, we meant local. We meant healthful. We meant being true to 
the ecology of regions."

The USDA pays lip service to these ideas by defining organic farming as a 
system designed to "foster cycling of resources, promote ecological 
balance, and conserve biodiversity." But there is no enforcement mechanism 
for these abstractions.

The regulations "focus too much on the materials and not on the biological 
processes of farming," says UC Santa Cruz Community Studies professor Julie 
Guthman, author of "Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in 
California." For example, fallowing and on-farm composting, key components 
of the theory of organic farming since J.I. Rodale started "Organic Farming 
and Gardening" magazine in 1942, are not required by the USDA.

The heart of the USDA program is the "National List," a document developed 
by the USDA after years of public comment and controversy about everything 
from irradiation to chicken feed. It lists approved and forbidden 
fertilizers, pesticides, soil amendments and other agricultural inputs. 
These substances are judged not only by toxicity, but also by 
"naturalness," a quality that is not easy to define.

Nor does the relative degree of "naturalness" necessarily correspond to a 
product's effect on human and environmental health. For example, Chilean 
nitrate is allowed (with restrictions) because it is mined from a natural 
source, even though its environmental effects are similar to synthetic 
fertilizers.

"And the definition of allowable materials is highly politicized," Guthman 
says.

On Chilean nitrate and other points, the USDA differs from the European 
standard. "Ninety-five percent of the time we agree, but then we get to a 
single material" that causes problems, says Jake Lewin, director of 
marketing and international programs at CCOF, which offers a different 
certification for farmers who export to Europe.

Despite these limitations, the current guidelines at least prevent the use 
of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides — from the relatively benign 
Roundup to Category I poisons such as methyl bromide — on California's 
170,000 acres of organic-certified land (around 1.5% of the state total).

For its defenders, numbers such as these outweigh the NOP's flaws. "USDA 
has not watered down the standards," says department spokeswoman Joan Shaffer.

Jim Riddle has been an organic farmer in Minnesota for 25 years and a 
certifier for 18. As the chairman of the National Organic Standards Board, 
an advisory body with which the USDA consults, he's had some run-ins with 
the USDA, but he vehemently defends the National Organic Program.

"It's one thing to make accusations, but I'd like to see proof. We do need 
continual vigilance to protect the standards, but they're not weaker" than 
before the USDA got involved.

"Organic has never been the whole answer to sustainability, but even at its 
worst, it's a very important form of damage control," says Monica Moore of 
the Pesticide Action Network, a nonprofit organization that tracks 
pesticide use.

And there's no other government-sponsored program that assesses farmers' 
practices to help consumers make informed decisions. Certification requires 
annual third-party verification of compliance, with a clear standard. It's 
not just a marketing ploy for vendors seeking to cash in on the latest 
craze. With the three-year transition period and the paperwork and 
inspection hurdles, it requires a serious commitment to earn that 
"certified organic" label.

But all those standards, demanding as they are for farmers, have nothing to 
say about the final product — the food. Is it healthier? Does it taste 
better? The USDA isn't making any such claims.

Although the National List prohibits the use of synthetic pesticides, 
organic certifiers do not routinely test produce for pesticide residues. An 
"organic" label does not mean that your produce is free of pesticides, only 
that the farmer hasn't applied any. Residues from neighboring fields or 
contaminants acquired between field and market are always possible. Even 
though it was banned in 1973, DDT is still routinely detected in soil 
samples. Still, scientific studies do show much lower levels of pesticide 
residue on organic produce. (These same studies also show that pesticides 
in conventional produce are within the EPA's maximum residue limits.)

"Health concerns" are the most important reason consumers say they buy 
organic food, according to the Hartman Group. So if the health concern is 
pesticide exposure, they're getting what they pay for. But many people also 
think that organic produce has more vitamins and minerals than conventional 
produce, and that is not true. Scientific studies consistently fail to find 
any difference in the vitamin content of organic and conventional food.

In a well-designed study that has not yet been published, Dr. Alyson 
Mitchell's UC Davis lab found higher concentrations of antioxidants in 
organically grown tomatoes than in conventionally grown tomatoes. A French 
study published last September found similar results in tomatoes. But the 
link to better health was not clear: Study participants who ate the organic 
tomatoes for three weeks had the same blood level of the antioxidant 
lycopene as those who ate conventional tomatoes.

Overall, 13 of 15 studies recently reviewed by the Organic Center, a 
nonprofit research institute, found higher levels of antioxidants in 
organic produce, but none could explain why. "I don't think that research 
is even in its infancy yet," says Bob Scowcroft of the Organic Farming 
Research Foundation, a Santa Cruz nonprofit.



It comes down to flavor

What about flavor? Scientific tests so far cannot distinguish between the 
flavors of organic and conventional food. But many chefs tout their use of 
organic produce on menus and agree with Alice Waters, who says, "The finest 
food is produced and grown in ways that are ecologically sound."

How produce is handled and marketed profoundly affects its flavor. Food 
that suffers the indignities of the commodity supply chain on its way to 
the supermarket is picked earlier, and processed more, than what farmers 
can sell direct to the consumer. Farmers who sell direct also have the 
freedom to experiment with varieties bred for flavor, instead of the 
commercial cultivars developed to survive the journey to the supermarket.

"I'd rather buy the commercial broccoli grown down the street than the 
organic that was shipped halfway around the world," says Michael Ableman. 
It's a startling sentiment coming from a pioneering organic farmer (he's 
Fairview Gardens' farm manager). "People are starting to get it," he says. 
"They go down to the farmers market and the food just tastes different — 
it's fresher."

Nationwide, roughly 4% of certified organic produce is purchased directly 
from farmers, at farm stands and farmers markets. That may not sound like 
much, but the number for conventional produce is 0.4%, according to the 
USDA's agricultural census. And the percentages are higher for California, 
which grows 50% of the country's fruits and vegetables. Some of the flavor 
edge people attribute to organic produce may simply be a result of freshness.

This is especially true at restaurants, many of which establish direct 
relationships with local suppliers. For decades, Chez Panisse had a 
dedicated forager, whose job was to track down produce that met the 
restaurant's high standards. Today, the restaurant has so many sources of 
consistently high-quality produce, the chefs do the foraging themselves. 
Chef Cal Peternell says that part of his job is pretty easy these days. And 
it's easier for the rest of us too.

"You might get lucky at the grocery store once in a while, but the farmers 
market is the place where you're going to get the quality that we have," he 
says.

"Freshness is really the key," agrees Jeff Jackson, executive chef of A.R. 
Valentien at the Lodge at Torrey Pines in La Jolla. "Just because 
something's organic doesn't necessarily mean it tastes great. Mother Nature 
throws curveballs too."

But for the most part, Jackson loves the organic produce he gets from the 
local and Santa Monica farmers markets, and he applauds the farmers who 
grow it for him.

"It is really, really hard to grow food organically," says Jackson. "I 
can't have enough respect for what these guys do."

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-organic4may04,0,5293592.story?coll=la-home-food