Can organic labels be trusted?

by Nicole Weston, Posted Jul 28th 2006 @ 6:58AM

In an investigation done by the Dallas Morning News (DMN), it was discovered that the USDA does not always enforce its organic standards, or at least, they have taken no action against people who violate the standards except to ask a few products to remove the label. There have been no fines or legal action taken against scofflaws, which ultimately hurts the many organic farmers who passionately support their choice to produce organic goods and often go far above and beyond the industry standards.

Among 268 reports that were reviewed by the DMN, there were 50 products that claimed to be organic and were not or were using the label to misrepresent themselves. Information about violations is supposed to be made public, but very little has come to light since 2002, the year that the label and the organic standards were officially set forth. Discussions with auditors revealed that there were flaws in the certification process, with some inspectors overlooking problems, not conducting inspections or having their reports overlooked when they recommended revoking the organic certification of a farm. Problems like these extend beyond the small number of reports that were reviewed.

Other problems come from foreign producers, especially in China, where the organic acreage is almost quadruple the amount in the US. 90% of that land was "converted" to organic in 2004 - a problem according to many, since the land could have been transitioned that quickly, especially since the Chinese agricultural industry has had a history of liberal chemical use on their crops and workers have been documented saying that they have use illegal (by organic standards) fertilizers.

So, what can a consumer do if they want to know if what they're buying is truly organic? Some retailers, including Whole Foods, make it a part of their mission to do background checks on the farms and suppliers they use, in order to be able to assure consumers that they are getting exactly what they think they're getting. But until the USDA starts to call attention to the violating companies and suppliers, either revoking their certification and/or making them known to the public, it may be difficult to know for certain.

Source

Filed Under: Farming, Business, Ingredients
Tags: certification, certified, certified organic, CertifiedOrganic, dallas morning news, DallasMorningNews, false organics, inspections, organic, organic certification, usda