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Analysis: USDA does not always enforce organic label standards
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/15116903.htm
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/nation/15116903.htm
By Paula Lavigne The Dallas Morning News
(MCT)Posted on Tue, Jul. 25, 2006

DALLAS - More and more shoppers are forking out extra money for organic
foods to avoid chemicals, eat healthy and to support the environment.

But the USDA Organic label, stamped on everything from chocolate chip
cookies to milk to mangos, may not be a mark the public always can trust.

Organic food is supposed to be free of most chemical pest killers,
fertilizers, antibiotics, hormones, and genetic engineering. Organic
farmers
and ranchers must enrich the soil and be kind to animals; chickens should
strut outside and cows should regularly graze.

But a Dallas Morning News investigation has found that the United States
Department of Agriculture does not know how often organic rules are broken
and has not consistently taken action when potential violations were
pointed
out.

"The USDA has failed to enforce the regulations," said Jim Riddle, former
chairman of the National Organics Standards Board and an appointed adviser
to the USDA when the organic standards were enacted in 2002. "There have
been no prosecutions of violations for the organic law yet. ... They've
failed to take action."

Though a small slice of the overall food market, organics is growing at 16
percent a year, while overall food sales are rising only 3 percent. They
are
forecast to continue that pace as big grocers, most recently Wal-Mart,
expand their organic offerings.

Barbara Robinson, the USDA executive who oversees the National Organic
Program, said her small staff struggles to keep up with the booming
industry.

"When you have eight or nine people and everybody wants something, you try
to do a little bit of everything."

She said the label is as good as the people who are growing and monitoring
the products.

"I don't think there are any absolutes in the world anywhere. I think
that's
kind of a ridiculous question," she said.

Robinson acknowledged that the agency hasn't fined anyone for misuse of the
label, but she said certain products have been ordered to yank it.

Retailers say the label is their cue that products are authentic.

"If you buy an organic product at Wal-Mart, you can trust that it is
USDA-certified. But I would not be able to speak to whether those are the
right standards or the wrong standards. We are retailers; we are not
agronomists or scientists," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Gail Lavielle.

The organic program monitors at least 20,000 organic growers, ranchers,
processing plants and others worldwide.

Texas looms large in organics with more organic land than any other state.
It is also home of one the nation's biggest organic companies, Dean Foods
in
Dallas, which distributes Horizon Organic dairy products and Silk soymilk.
Whole Foods of Austin is the largest organic retail chain. Representatives
from both companies say they take measures to make sure their products are
organic.

USDA officials say the organics label is a selling point rather than a mark
of nutrition. The dietary benefit of organics is the subject of dueling
debate. However, shoppers often view organic food as an investment in their
health.

About 66 percent of U.S. consumers buy organic products occasionally,
according to a 2004 survey by the Hartman Group, a consumer research
company. Almost half said they bought organic for their health and
nutrition.

Those surveyed said having children was the most significant reason to go
organic, and that's exactly what prompted 28-year-old Megan Stewart of The
Colony, Texas.

Her 1-year-old daughter was recently strapped into a shopping cart filled
with organic baby food in an aisle at Whole Foods in Plano, Texas.

"I only get the USDA-certified, rather than just packages that say
all-natural or organic," Stewart said. "They are really under tight
regulations."

But the Dallas Morning News found the following reasons that organic
shoppers may not be buying what they think:

_A review of 216 internal USDA audits shows several examples of violations
at organic farms and production plants. However, reports about problems
that
are supposed to filter up to the agency from on-the-ground monitors are
incomplete.

_Much organic food is produced overseas where there is even less oversight.
Inspectors in China, for example, describe obvious violations that are not
well-tracked or known by the agency.

_Vague rules leave much to interpretation, especially when it comes to
treatment of animals.

Organics is full of true believers, farmers and food processors who go
above
and beyond what they're required to do. But they worry about organic
scofflaws making a bad name for the whole industry.

"There's definitely people who don't follow the rules," said Conner Updike,
who grows organic beans and squash in central Florida. He uses chicken
manure to fertilize his crops, but he has heard that some people cut
corners
and use ammonium nitrate - a banned fertilizer - that costs half as much
and
is hard to detect.

"It's not fair to me," he said. "I'm trying to obey all the rules and then
someone else cheats."

The Washington State Department of Agriculture, for example, discovered a
fruit farmer who applied banned chemicals to his orchard and a mint grower
selling regular mint under the organic label.

A Canadian certifier cried foul when inspectors found chickens at a
Manitoba
poultry producer that had no access to the outdoors, as required in organic
laws.

Among 268 complaints released by the USDA, about 50 were products
erroneously claiming to be organic or falsely using the label. The USDA
ordered them to stop.

Problems continue to crop up, but there's no way for the public to know how
many cheaters there are.

The Dallas Morning News requested in April records of all violations
regarding individual farms, ranches and handlers. USDA officials said they
could not provide the documents for at least six months.

Officials said it would take that long to collect and organize the
information, though organic program rules mandate the USDA make violation
information available to the public on the program's Web site. But after
four years, Robinson said her staff hasn't had time to make that happen.

The USDA does not know how many violations there are because it is missing
information from those who are supposed to police the industry at the
ground
level.

The agency collects information from 56 certifiers in the United States and
40 in foreign countries, usually state-run agencies or private companies.
Farms and processing plants can choose any USDA-approved certifier.

A banana from Ecuador or rice from southeast Texas can carry the USDA label
only if a certifier has given approval. Certifiers hire inspectors to walk
through fields, interview plant workers and comb through records. The
certifiers are then supposed to notify the USDA when there are problems.

However, The Dallas Morning News reviewed hundreds of audits of certifiers
that show many violations. Yet the USDA has never yanked or suspended a
certifier's accreditation, despite auditors' recommendations to do so.

Auditors, from a separate USDA branch, wrote that certifiers approved food
producers despite evidence that banned chemicals were used. Some gave
approval without conducting inspections. USDA officials would not discuss
the individual audits. It's unclear whether officials addressed problems
auditors pointed out. But several audits note the same problems with the
same certifiers year after year.

Inspectors, organic farmers and certifiers themselves say they know some
cut
corners.

Sam Welsch, owner of OneCert, a certification agency in Lincoln, Neb., said
some companies hire the cheapest inspectors, not the most qualified.

"Even if one organization is doing a bad job, and a fraud issue would come
up, that's bad for the whole industry," he said.

Big companies, such as Dean Foods, say they protect their consumers by
going
with reliable, trusted certifiers.

"A lot of certification agencies have been doing this for decades. I see a
lot of integrity in the certifiers and think they really have been working
hand-in-hand with the USDA," said Kelly Shea, vice president of organic
stewardship for WhiteWave Foods, a Dean Foods subsidiary.

Shea said the industry would benefit if the USDA spent more money on
enforcement.

Whole Foods took another route to assure customers, and is a certified
organic retailer. This special status requires the chain to make sure
labeled products have documents to back them up. Whole Foods also tracks
food back to its producers, said Joe Dickson, organic programs coordinator
for the company.

About 40 percent of organic farms and handlers are in foreign countries,
including 300 farms and processing plants in China.

Wal-Mart used some Chinese organic soybeans in its private label soymilk.
They've also been in Silk, the popular soymilk brand from WhiteWave.

The United States has 2.2 million organic acres; China has 8.6 million.
Almost 90 percent was certified in 2004, which raises a red flag with
Riddle, who said it's questionable that China could have transitioned
farmland that quickly.

China has a history of dousing fields with chemicals.

Fred Gale, a senior USDA economist who has researched Chinese agriculture,
said it was "almost impossible to grow truly organic food in China.

"The water everywhere is polluted, and the soil is contaminated from
industry and mining, and the air is bad."

Despite concerns about China, Robinson said the USDA only is responsible
for
approving the certifiers and it is their job to check on Chinese farms or
handlers.

The Organic Crop Improvement Association, a certifying agent in Lincoln,
Neb., has given USDA Organic certificates to about 200 operations in China.
Executive director Jeff See said his company has built trust with its
producers since it started in China more than 12 years ago.

At Rizhao Huasai Foodstuffs Co., in China's Shandong province, sales
official Cui Min said workers sometimes use a fertilizer mix that includes
human waste on their crops. It's a common practice in China, but a clear
violation of the USDA rules.

See, whose company certified Rizhao Huasai, said workers there signed an
affidavit stating they follow the rules, including those regarding
fertilizers.

Simply trusting the word of a farmer might not be fail-safe, said Gale, of
the USDA.

In China "there have always been laws and regulations on the books, but you
find a way around them," he said.

Mutsumi Sakuyoshi, a Japanese inspector who has checked Chinese soybean
fields for many of the world's largest certifiers, said she confronted one
farm's workers after finding an empty plastic bag of herbicide.

Workers told her wind must have blown it from a neighbor's field.

Another farmer gave her an affidavit stating the land under inspection
hadn't been used for at least three years. Sakuyoshi found the government
official who stamped it and questioned its accuracy.

"He said, `No. I don't know. I don't care. They just asked me to stamp it,
so I stamped it,'" she said.

See said American farmers are more skeptical of Chinese organics because
they're a competitive threat to domestic producers.

"I wouldn't say there's probably never any problem with what OCIA has going
on in China, but we find problems all around the world, even in the U.S,"
he
said.

Even when standards are upheld, there are concerns throughout the industry
that rules are unclear.

One of many examples is a rule that livestock must have "access to
pasture."
It doesn't say how much, for how long, or how much of a cow's meal has to
come from leisurely munching.

Big dairies, such as Aurora Organic Dairy and Horizon Organic, were
criticized by activist groups for running "industrial-scale" feedlots,
where
they said cows rarely roamed on acres of dry, stubbly grass. Both companies
insist their cows do graze and met the requirements.

The debate triggered boycotts, and led to a lengthy discussion during the
Dean Foods shareholders meeting in Dallas in May.

The National Organic Standards Board stepped in, and offered more detail,
including a provision that cows must be on pasture for at least 120 days
each year. It's now up to the USDA whether to make the recommendation law.
Representatives of both dairies said they support the precision.

Chris Grotegut is a farmer in the Texas panhandle who grows corn, wheat,
soybeans and other organic crops used in products distributed nationally.
He
said enforcing clear rules is the only way to make consumers trust the
organic label.

"That is a concern ... that credibility is maintained and people don't look
at (organics) as a way to turn a conventional product into a fast buck to
cheat the system."

---

COST OF ORGANIC

Consumers will sometimes pay twice as much for an organic product. Below
are
comparisons taken from local stores, including Tom Thumb, Whole Foods and
Wal-Mart.

Product, Organic price, Regular price

Raisin bran, 29.3 cents per ounce, 16 cents per ounce

Chicken breast, $8.99 per pound, $4.99 per pound

Strawberries, $4.99 per pound, $2.99 per pound

Baby food, 21 cents per ounce, 14 cents per ounce

Milk, $3.50 per half-gallon, $2.47 per half-gallon


This message originated from or was forwarded by:
Chrys Ostrander
Chrysalis Farm @ Tolstoy
Organic Micro-permaculture
33495 Mill Canyon Rd.
Davenport, WA 99122
509-725-0610
chrys@thefutureisorganic.net
http://www.thefutureisorganic.net

"From each according to their ability to each according to their need"
Karl Marx - "Critique of the Gotha Program" 1875

"The purpose of agriculture is not the production of food, but the 
perfection of human beings"
Masanobu Fukuoka - "One Straw Revolution" 1978