If You Think 'Organic' Food is 'Organic', Think Again

The last decade has witnessed an increased interest in
things "organic" as more and more consumers seek out
products that are healthy, ethical, and environmentally
friendly. Nowhere is this more evident that in the food
industry.

In fact, the organic food industry has gone from a cottage
industry start up to a multi-billion dollar business in
less than a decade. Global sales of organic food were
estimated to be $40 billion in 2006 with the world organic
market growing rapidly by about 20% annually. In the US,
organic food products are the fastest growing sector of the
food marketplace.

Because of the rapid growth of the organic food industry,
it is no surprise that big food companies and retailers
have joined the act. Because of these alliances, unlikely
organic products are sprouting up everywhere including
organic cheetos and organic McDonalds coffee. The new movie
FOOD INC eloquently speaks to this issue. Hershey Foods
owns Dagoba, Kraft owns Boca Foods and Back to Nature, and
Heinz is a big investor in Hain Celestial which is
connected to many small organic companies including Earth's
Best, Spectrum Organics, and Frutti di Bosco.

So who standarizes and regulates this burgeoning worldwide
industry? Every country has its own regulations in labeling
organic products.

In the USA, the Organic Food Production Act was passed in
1990 giving mandate to the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA) to set national standards and in 2002, the USDA set
up the National Organic Program (NOP) to regulate organic
food products. The USDA regulations cover issues such as
genetic modification, radiation, bioengineering,
pesticides, fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics, and other
man-made chemicals but they do not cover some environmental
as well as ethical and social issues.

Certification covers all processes involved from production
to processing, packaging and transport. The products that
fall under NOP jurisdiction are fresh and processed
agricultural food products, including dairy products, meat
and livestock and food crops. It covers food products only
and does not include non-food organic crops such as cotton
and plants for cosmetics and personal care products.

Because the NOP is a very small understaffed subagency it
cannot undertake inspection of food producers to verify
organic claims and thus is dependant on no less than 54
accredited agencies within the US in addition to 44
accredited foreign agencies for products produced outside
the US.

In the US, the following terminology is allowed on organic
food products.

"100% organic" - single ingredient such as a fruit,
vegetable, meat, milk and cheese (excludes water and salt).

"Organic" - multiple ingredient foods which are 95 to 100%
organic.

"Made with organic ingredients" - 70% of the ingredients
are organic. Can appear on the front of package, naming the
specific ingredients.

"Contains organic ingredients" - contains less than 70%
organic ingredients.

To say the least, organic labeling is both complicated and
confusing. However, only those products that meet the '100%
organic' and 'organic' criteria are allowed to carry the
USDA Organic seal and the USDA emphasizes that the term
'organic' is not synonymous to 'natural' or 'all-natural'.

In addition to the labeling conundrum and the dependancy of
the NOP on other entities for certification, all is not
well in the organic realm. Several well-publicized events
point to the fact that current regulation by the NOP may
not be effective.

(1) In 2005 The Cornucopia Institute filed a complaint
against Aurora Organic Dairy for multiple violations of
federal organic regulations. Aurora is the supplier to big
supermarket chains like Safeway, Wal-Mart, and Costco.

(2) In January 2007 The Cornucopia Institute reported that
the retailer giant Wal-Mart was mislabeling certain
products organic. The product packaging says "all natural"
but Wal-Mart added the word organic to its price labels.

(3) August 2008. The USDA announced that 15 of its
accredited certifying agencies had been placed on probation
due to various violations of the NOP organic standards,
according to AlterNet. The violations included several
certifying agencies from outside the US and included
agencies in China, a country which has recently been
implicated in toxic contaminations, including lead to
melamine. One product concerned an organically certified
ginger which contained a non-allowable pesticide called
aldicarb. The ginger, sold under the 365 label at Whole
Foods Market, contained a level of aldicarb not even
permissible for conventional ginger, let alone organics.
Aldicard causes nausea, headaches and blurred vision even
at low concentrations.

(4) April 2009: The Cornucopia Institute urged organic food
consumers to petition to the NOSB for the removal of
non-organic soy lecithin from the National List. The
Institute claims organic lecithin is now commercially
available.

(5) June 2009: A federal judge in St. Louis dismissed class
action suits filed by consumers against Aurora Dairy for
organic milk fraud.

Additionally the National List of Allowed and Prohibited
Substances has become a minefield!

To be certified "organic", a product must contain 95%
organic ingredients or materials during its production. The
other 5% should be on the list of allowable synthetic
substances. A National List of Allowed and Prohibited
Substances was prepared in 2002 but has since been amended
because food producers can file a petition to include
substances that are not on the original list but which they
think are essential in their production. In June 2007, a
final amended National List was issued with the number of
allowable substances increasing from 77 to 245, according
to the LA Times. Subsequently, the advocacy group Organic
Consumers Association expressed objections to the inclusion
of some of the new products allowed, especially the food
colorings.

And even organic labeling, itself, has recently come
underfire due to the abovementioned scandals and
controversies involving the NOP. Advocacy groups have put
forward the following objections.

(1) Lax national standards. This has created a
certification procedure that is unreliable, especially
those occurring abroad and to add insult to injury the
original Organic Act's mandate for pesticide testing has
been declared optional.

(2) Loophole in the Act. The ability to petition for
amendments to the National List are being viewed by many as
a big loophole resulting in food producers using the
process to their advantage. The original goal was to shrink
rather than expand the list. So far, only one substance has
been removed whereas more than 60 have been added.

(3) Consumers are not getting what they are paying for. For
paying extra, consumers expect food that is free from
pesticides and chemicals. If the national organic standards
were to be lowered, consumers are actually being "ripped
off."

(4) Watered down. Many believe that with the participation
of corporate giants in the organic food market, the organic
principle has been seriously "watered down". They put this
down to big companies' strong lobbying power, forcing NOP
to make concessions and lower national organic standards to
accommodate them.

(5) Greenwashing. Some groups even go as far as accusing
the NOP of greenwashing, that the organic seal is just a
marketing ploy. Some specific examples of greenwashing
activities include importing organic powdered milk from New
Zealand and keeping a larger number of organic cows in a
smaller space.

Consumer groups and some organic pioneers say they are
concerned that the 'corporate alliance' movement - a
response to the practices of corporate food production that
promotes a natural chemical-free approach to farming - will
eventually create a watered down organic food industry
unless firm standards are maintained by the NOP, which is
unlikely, in view of its past performance.

Other groups feel that conflicts of interest may arise
between conventional and organic food production. Organic
production used to be a niche market for small organic
farmers. As organic production goes mainstream, these small
farmers would be outcompeted and driven out of business.

As people become more and more health and socially
conscious, the demand for organic products is increasing.
However, as economists point out, "as mainstream consumers
are growing hungry for untainted food that also nourishes
their social conscience, it is getting harder and harder to
find organic ingredients." For the purists, however, the
philosophy also requires farmers to treat their people and
livestock with respect and, ideally, to sell small batches
of what they produce locally so as to avoid burning fossil
fuels to transport them.

Economic principles, however, do not coincide with purist
organic philosophy. The whole supply chain of organic food
production is becoming more complicated as the market grows
rapidly. The producers are forced to take short cuts in
order to stay competitive. In the US, for example, there
aren't enough organic cows to produce organic milk. Even if
there were enough cows, there aren't enough grains to feed
them. And it is no longer possible to feed cows with raw
grass to obtain raw grass-fed milk unless the farmer
applies fertilizers to his pasture to make the grass grow
faster. Some companies are forced to look offshore for
organic ingredients, thereby violating several organic
principles, not necessarily in the production process, but
in terms of low labor costs and high transport costs.

The organic food industry has clearly outgrown the original
regulations meant to protect it and its consumers. And the
increased demand for organic food may actually be its own
undoing. How 'organic is organic food' is even more
important now than in the past!

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The article "If You Think Organic Food is Organic, Think
Again" may be found in its entirety on
http://HealthWorldNet.com

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