Federal food policy: Organic inconsistencies

[Clara T]

Federal food policy: Organic inconsistencies
By Joshua Frank
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Dec 16, 2005, 00:35

In 1973, after the United States banned the perilous DDT, the underground organics industry grew almost overnight, due in part to the expanding consumer opposition to chemical pesticides as well as the desire to eat foods that were produced without negatively impacting the environment. Many people feared that conventional store bought food was not as safe to eat as chemical produced goods and with the growing awareness of what DDT did to human and environmental health, consumers were growing weary of the corporate agricultural industry. So people hastily flocked back to the land and planted crops on their own, or joined food co-ops where they could grow and trade products among a community of like-minded comrades. The market soon reacted to this growing demand of organic foods and in the 1990s companies that produced organics estimated sales of more than $1 billion annually. Organic food was here to stay.

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Attempting to define what USDA considers "organic" is like trying to figure out which lie George W. Bush told last -- it is a difficult, if not impossible task. Since 2002, USDA has changed their definition almost every year. So today's products labeled "organic" by the agency may not have been labeled the same in 2003. This sort of wavering has been met with much criticism from many organic food advocates who believe USDA should stick to the standards it agreed upon in 1990. Others, mostly industry suit coats, still believe USDA's labeling is too stringent. And why wouldn't they? The lesser the standards, the fatter their bottom lines. And here is where the lobbying efforts on the part of the agriculture giants come into play.

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Later in April 2004, after intense lobbying efforts by ag-industry giants like ConAgra and Monsanto, USDA proposed new rules that would have allowed USDA-certified organic farms to use fertilizers and pesticides that contain "unknown" ingredients, or rather, ingredients that could not be identified by either the grower or the inspector. Also on the butcher block were USDA-certified organic dairy cows. Up until 2004, organic certified cows could not be fed any antibiotics or non-organic feed. That changed fast, as the desire for organic products grew publicly, so did the awareness among the big-agriculture folks who lobbied until they succeeded. Luckily, organic activists didn't back down from the fight. There was a public outcry, and in May 2004, USDA retracted the proposed changes they had put forth a month prior. If they hadn't reversed their plea, USDA-certified cows could have been administered antibiotics or fed non-organic fishmeal -- made with synthetic preservatives and potentially contaminated by mercury and PCBs, which is a known carcinogen.

Nonetheless, if industry giants are anything, they're persistent. And by June 2004, USDA had reinstated one of the directives from April of that same year. Today all seafood, body care products, and clothing, fertilizers and pet food can be labeled "organic" regardless of how they were manufactured. And on December 13, the U.S. Senate passed the 2006 appropriations bill, which included language that weakened even more USDA organic labeling standards.

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