Labeling: Organics
Background
Almost as soon as mainstream America adopted chemicals instead of nature as means of providing soil fertility and controlling pests, it left those who continued to believe in working with nature (instead of trying to overpower it) to define themselves as the organic movement. In those days, organic farmers were small, motivated by values and philosophy instead of profit.
Going organic does not mean sacrificing productivity due to losses by pests. Grown in living soil, rich in bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and other organisms, plants generate their own resistance to pests. Furthermore, an environment rich in biodiversity stabilizes populations of individual species - pests included - as beneficial insects, birds, and bats move in to prey on the pest species.
Consumers obtain many benefits from organics, from increased nutrients in their food (as living organisms in the soil make nutrients available to plants) and environments and food containing less harmful agricultural chemicals. When consumers buy organic food from local family farmers, they also stimuate their local economy and promote a healthier community.
Federal Organic Standards
As corporations noticed demand for organics, they wanted to sell to that market. They were not all believers in organic philosophy, but they were willing to play by the rules if only they had rules to play by. And Harry MacCormack, a Harvard-educated organic farmer in Oregon, had written some rules. Specifically, he wrote The Standards and Guidelines for Organic Agriculture, which became the basis for many organic certification programs at home and abroad.
The government first codified the word organic into law with the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act and it has continued to modify organic standards and regulation since then. Thanks to Harry, the standards mostly reflect the purity sought by organic consumers. Of course, as Big Business continues to cash in on organics (as even Wal-Mart is doing), without constant vigilance consumers may someday find their organics produced with sewage sludge and genetically-modified ingredients (when the first set of organic standards included those in 1997, consumers flooded the USDA with over 300,000 angry letters).
Additionally, a Maine blueberry farmer named Arthur Harvey went to court to prevent the inclusion of synthetic ingredients in foods labeled “organic.” In June of 2005, the court upheld Harvey that “organic” means 100% natural ingredients, of which 95% or more are organic. His victory was overturned in a rider on the 2006 Agricultural Appropriations Bill with one change: the non-organics used are now limited to only 38 substances (and one must prove they have no organic alternative before they may use one).
A terrific definition to sum up organics is the one offered on the California Certified Organic Farmers homepage:
"Certified organic food in the United States is grown according to standards set by the National Organic Program.
"According to those standards, organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones."
Problems With Organics
Organics have two areas where problems may emerge: organic producers violating the set standards or organic standards not going far enough to keep harmful chemicals out of certified organic foods. By and large, most of the known violations are limited to enormous dairies (specifically Horizon and Aurora). Other industrial organic producers may violate the spirit of organics, but they tend to stay within the letter of the law.
Even when organic producers fully intend to follow organic standards, problems may occur when farmland used for organic agriculture had agricultural chemicals applied prior to organic certification that are still present in the soil. For example, Oregon Tilth, an accredited organic certification agency, actively researches how different plants take in chemicals from the soil. They found that large plants that are on the field for a long time (like winter squash) often contain high densities of DDT-relatives like chlordane and dieldrin when there are only trace amounts in the soil. As a result, we believe that organic farmers should not be allowed to grow winter squash (or other crops that will take in high densities of pesticides from the soil) in contaminated fields.
Recipe for America supports upholding current organic standards and strengthening them as appropriate in accordance with current research on pesticide uptake in plants.
ACTION: If you wish to become politically active in safeguarding organic standards, join up with the Organic Consumers’ Association at http://www.organicconsumers.org. Sign up for their newsletter on their website to receive the latest news, research, scandals, victories, and outrages going on regarding organics. When an issue comes along that requires sending comments to the government, they help you understand the issue and provide you with an easy method to send in your comment. High volumes of comments from citizens like you has worked in the past to keep sewage sludge and biotechnology out of organics, proving that the few minutes a month of your time required to read the OCA newsletter and make comments as needed really does pay off!
More information
DailyKos: Third Party Organic Certifiers (blog entry)DailyKos: Wal-Mart Declares War on Organics (blog entry) By Will Fantle, researcher at The Cornucopia Institute. September 28, 2006.
Gourmet Mag: Politics of the Plate: David 2; Goliath 0 (article) May 30, 2008. Article about The Cornucopia Institute going after Horizon for its violations of organic standards.
NPR: Grandma's Veggies May Have Been More Nutritious (news piece) November 18, 2006.
Organic Outpaces Conventional in Long-Term Research (news piece) Nov 13, 2007.
SF Chronicle: Organic Erosion - Will 'Organic' still mean anything once adopted by Wal-Mart? (article) January 28, 2008.
SF Chronicle: Organic fruits and vegetables work harder for their nutrients (article) March 25, 2006.
SF Chronicle: The Sad Death of 'Organic' (article) October 13, 2006.
USDA Allows 60-day Comment Period on 38 Proposed Ingredients for Organics (news piece) June 22, 2007.
USDA: Organic Farming Builds Soil Better than Conventional No-Till Farming (article)
What's Really in Your Food? (article)
Why Organics? (SoilDynamics.com) (web site)
Organizations
Organic Consumers Association (organization)Organic Means Organic (organization)
Sunbow Farm (organization)
The Cornucopia Institute (organization)
