How Much of Your Food Labeled as Organic is Actually Organic?
Posted by Unknown in Organic Farming, USA on Friday, 25 January 2013
Barry Estabrook
(The Atlantic) When
is “USDA Organic” not organic? More often than you probably realize.
The USDA keeps a “National List” of inorganic products that can legally
go into foods labeled as organic. The casings for those tasty USDA
Organic sausages can come from conventionally raised animals that have
been fed antibiotics. The hops in your favorite organic beer can be
sprayed with all manner of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Strawberries can be labeled as organic even if they had their start in a
conventional nursery.
According
to USDA rules, if 95 percent of a product is made up of organic
ingredients, it can be called organic. If it’s 70 percent organic, the
label can read “made with organic ingredients.”
For
the past several years, public interest groups such as the Cornucopia
Institute have complained that the National Organic Standards Board
(NOSB), which has the power to determine what materials can — and cannot
— be used in organic production, too often weakens regulations in the
face of intense lobbying by corporations who are more interested in the
higher profits conferred by the word “organic” than in strong and
meaningful standards.
Recently,
five new members were nominated for five-year terms to the 15-member
board. The Obama administration has had a schizophrenic relationship
with agriculture, on one hand cozying up to the likes of Monsanto Co. by
advocating for GM crops, and on the other hand winning plaudits from
small farm and organic advocates for programs like Know Your Farmer Know
your Foodand the White House organic garden.
So
I was interested to see what type of NOSB appointees were selected.
Fortunately, for a firsthand look all I had to do was get in my car and
drive 20 miles up the road to Shelburne Farms, where Jean Richardson, an
organic inspector, was conducting the annual inspection of O Bread
bakery one recent afternoon.
For
the past 10 years, Richardson, whom I know personally, has worked
primarily for the Vermont Organic Farmers (VOF) certifying organization,
which is part of Northeastern Organic Farming Association-Vermont
(NOFA-VT). That will change in January: As one of the new NOSB members,
her decisions and suggestions will affect any American who grows,
produces, processes, or buys organic products.
Clad
in well-worn jeans, a denim vest over a salmon-colored turtleneck
sweater, and a pair of scuffed work boots, Richardson, whose inspections
do occasionally lead to a company or a farm losing its certification,
snooped from one end of the bakery to the other, and from floor to
ceiling, at times jolly, at times serious, getting down on her hands and
knees to peer under counters, running her hands over cooling racks
(“What do you clean these with?”), flipping over 50-pound sacks of
flour, and peering into mixing machines. Regulations required her to
document that every ingredient in the bread met organic standards,
following a paper trail that led all the way back to the mill where it
was processed and the field where it was grown. It also required her to
ascertain that the bakery maintained adequate standards of cleanliness
and that there was no chance that food would be contaminated by mice,
moths, flies, or other pests.
O
Bread’s co-owner, Carla Kevorkian, provided Richardson with a fat sheaf
of certificates, invoices, and lot numbers proving that the ingredients
she used met organic standards — all except for the raisins in her
raisin bread. Kevorkian couldn’t find the invoice for the raisons. She
had the box — clearly labeled organic — from which they had been
scooped, but that wasn’t enough. Organic guidelines demanded a document
with a lot number verifying that the specific raisins used in that batch
of bread were organic.
“It
must be at home,” Kevorkian said. “My husband’s coming in. I’ll have
him bring the invoice.” Richardson smiled, showing her jolly side. “I
like to find errors, Carla,” she said, then paused for a flawlessly
timed beat, “It’s my raison d’être.”
In
addition to being a hands-on organic inspector for the last decade,
Richardson is a professor emerita of natural resources and environmental
studies at the University of Vermont and an organic maple syrup
producer.
“My
experience in Vermont has been with small farms, and as an inspector, I
work with grassroots producers,” she said, while Kevorkian telephoned
her husband. “I want to be sure that the voice of the small growers and
processors get heard at a national level. There are times when a
regulatory template that works for a large farmer or processor simply
cannot work on a small scale. We need regulations for both. And we need
clear labels for the consumer to understand.”
Other
newly appointed NOSB members include Harold Austin of Zirkle Fruit Co.,
a Washington state fruit tree grower; Carmela Beck of Driscoll’s, a
California berry producer; Tracy Favre of Holistic Management
International in New Mexico, a non-profit group that educates about how
to manage land sustainably; and Andrea Sonnabend of the California
Certified Organic Farmers.
After
two and a half hours, Richardson’s inspection of O Bread was complete.
Her report would go to VOF, which would make the decision on whether or
not O Bread had any “non-compliances.” Richardson had little doubt that
the bakery would pass muster. “This company does a good job. They leave
themselves a lot of leeway,” she said.
Still, I’ll wager that next year when Richardson comes around, Kevorkian will have an invoice ready for her raisins.
