Organic Food 101

Lesson 1: Organics: Some Background

Who's Watching? Who Cares?

The organic certification process focuses on the methods and materials used in production. There are three main requirements:

• The methods and materials used in production must meet organic standards.
• There must be clear and ongoing documentation of these methods and materials.
• There must be a paper trail tracing a product back to its production site, in order to verify the methods and materials used in its production.

The above three points, and the preceding language, are taken from the Organic Trade Association's web site. From the previous section of this lesson we know that organic standards can be detailed, carefully thought out, and demanding for farmers, processors, and handlers of organic foods.

We also learned that companies choosing to obtain organic certification are inspected by third party inspection agencies. Those agencies are not associated with either the company producing the product or the people who will buy the product. They are essentially independent auditors. The inspectors have to recertify companies every year. They look at actual field and production conditions. And they carefully go over a farmer's, or company's, records.

Records are particularly important in organic certification. Below are the record keeping requirements from the proposed organic fiber processing standards. Records must be kept for five years.

8.2.2.1. All activities of and transactions of the certified operation shall be disclosed in a manner sufficient to be readily understood and audited.

8.2.2.2. Results of water tests shall be maintained for inspection.

8.2.2.3. Valid organic certificates from a USDA accredited certification agency must be maintained for all purchased organic fiber or fiber product.

8.2.2.4. Individual lots of “100% organic,” “organic,” or “made with organic” fiber products shall be traceable from initial processing (post harvest handling) through final assembly stage.

8.2.2.4.A) All non-retail boxes or containers of fiber products labeled “100% organic,” and “organic,” shall be labeled with lot numbers. The actual individual product is not required to be lot tracked.

8.2.2.4.B) At final assembly and shipping, all “100% organic”, “organic” or “made with organic (specified fibers)” fiber products shall be linked to date of production by lot number, date code or other tracking system which covers all facets of production.

8.2.2.4.C) The final handling operation shall be certified and the certifying agent identified.

These record keeping requirements are fairly standard for most organic products. Section 8.2.2.4.A is disappointing because if I buy a certified organic t-shirt I can't trace it back to the manufacturer or farmer because no lot number is required.

But what happens when an inspector, farmer, or processor inadvertently goofs or, worse, covers up less than organic practices?

"Any person who knowingly mislabels a product as organic can be fined a maximum of $10,000 and may be disbarred from the Organic Program for five years. Persons who make false statements to the Secretary of Agriculture, a state official, or a certifying agent are subject to penalties under Federal law, and may be disbarred from the program for five years," writes OTA's web site.

Those are pretty severe penalties for a company that has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in market development for an organic product!

But who's watching?

It was the media that blew the whistle on irrigation water laced with rocket fuel being used to water organic crops in California's San Joaquin Valley, according to Steve Sprinkel in the July, 2003 issue of Acres USA. The proposed fiber standards require that water be tested regularly and that records of those tests be kept. Sprinkel's article points out that farmers were concerned about the water problem but were likely still selling produce labeled as "certified organic" after they had been irrigated with perchorate, or rocket fuel, laced water.

"We are kind of in a bind on the deal, because I have an idea that we could be contaminated, since our district does obtain water we use in irrigation that is known to contain perchlorate," Sprinkel reported one organic farmer as saying.

Although the U.S. military, and not the farmers, caused the contamination the result was that crops were being sold as organic when they had been irrigated with a dangerous chemical. That is not consistent with either the spirit or the letter of organic certification. Sprinkel does not report if the farmers growing vegetables with the contaminated water, and the processors using those vegetables, have been required to discontinue their organic labels.

In a somewhat similar case, reported by Sprinkel in the same issue of Acres, as well as the August 2003 issue of Consumer Reports, chicken eggs are being labeled organic under questionable circumstances.

"In October, The Country Hen, a Massachusetts egg producer, applied to its local organic certifier for permission to use the organic label. But to meet the rule that its chickens would be able to go outside, the producer indicated that it planned to put a few porches on its hen-houses which held thousands of layers. Did this promise fulfill the requirement for access to the outdoors? The local certifier said no. But on appeal, the USDA overruled the certifier and said The Country Hen could use the USDA's and the certifier's organic labels. The certifier has since filed suit against the USDA, and Consumers Union has urged the USDA to change its ruling. In the meantime, Country Hen eggs are on the market with the organic labels," Consumer Reports writes.

How is an organic consumer to know that the "certified organic" label on Country Hen eggs is dubious. It's encouraging the media such as Acres USA and Consumer Reports are serving as watch dogs. But to date there is very little that an individual can do to actually assure that companies and farmers are held accountable when they assert their products certified organic. The Organic Trade Association's web site has a place that says, "If you have a complaint about the organic status of a product, go here." When I clicked on "go here" in early July, 2003 the link was inactive.

As of this writing the best thing a consumer can do to assure that organic standards are being met for the products they buy is read labels carefully, ask questions of grocers, call consumer phone lines and ask hard questions, educate themselves, and demand accountability at all levels. There's a lot at stake for consumers who care about how their food is grown as well as all other sectors of the organic industry.

Note: There are three levels of labels for organic foods:

• Products labeled "100 percent organic" must contain only organically produced raw or processed products excluding water and salt.
• Products labeled only "organic" must contain 95 percent organic raw or processed ingredients.
• Products containing more than 50 percent organic ingredients can be labeled as "made with organic ingredients"

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