AlterNet: Is Your Organic Food Really Organic?

Is Your Organic Food Really Organic?

By Jill Richardson, AlterNet. Posted August 7, 2008.

Half of federally accredited organic certifiers recently audited were put on probation after foods were found with unacceptable pesticide levels.



When you buy food with a "USDA organic" label, do you know what you're getting? Now is a good time to ask such a question, as the USDA just announced Monday it was putting 15 out of 30 federally accredited organic certifiers they audited on probation, allowing them 12 months to make corrections or lose their accreditation. At the heart of the audit for several certifiers were imported foods and ingredients from other countries, including China.

Chinese imports have had a bad year in the news, making headlines for contaminated pet food, toxic toys, and recently, certified organic ginger contaminated with levels of a pesticide called aldicarb that can cause nausea, headaches and blurred vision even at low levels. The ginger, sold under the 365 label at Whole Foods Market, contained a level of aldicarb not even permissible for conventional ginger, let alone organics. Whole Foods immediately pulled the product from its shelves.

Ronnie Cummins, the national director of the Organic Consumers Association, emphasizes that most organic farmers "play by the rules." They believe in organic principles and thereby comply with organic standards. Unfortunately, Congress' pitifully inadequate funding for enforcement, including for organic imports from countries like China, "guarantees it'll be easy for unscrupulous players to cheat, and that's obviously what's going on here."

Farms that produce USDA-certified organic food are not personally inspected by anyone from the USDA National Organic Program (NOP). As a small and underfunded agency within the USDA (it has fewer than a dozen employees), NOP relies on what it calls Accredited Certifying Agencies -- ACAs -- to do the legwork. The ACAs take responsibility for ensuring that any farm or processor bearing the organic label meets the strict requirements for certification.

Since the Chinese government does not allow foreigners to inspect Chinese farms, an extra step is involved for oversight of organics from China: Chinese companies, which are allowed to inspect Chinese farms, subcontract with foreign ACAs. Cummins believes "the safest course of action is ... to say we won't certify imports from China because their law won't allow inspections." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/94146/is_your_organic_food_really_organic/

It is just so much easier to Say it is Organically grown then to actually grow it organically. I was wondering how all those supposed organic farmers were able to produce such abundantly good looking vegetables.

I grow my own vegetables and have been getting quite good at it. It's all organic and it mostly looks a lot less pretty than veggies in the Grocery. The bugs are everywhere. There is a specific insect for every vegetable and then there are the viruses, fungi and bacterial blights. Of course I also have bunnies, birds, dogs and cats that are intent on digging up or eating my hard work. But the bugs, diseases and invaders don't get it all.

So I spray organic, natural, soaps and plant extracts mixed with water on my veggies. I pick off bugs and set up homemade bug lures. But all my efforts don't get rid of all the bugs, diseases or hungry wildlife and it doesn't last as long as those smelly chemical sprays that kill everything.

So most of my veggies have spots and bumps and bad parts. I just cut them out before I eat them.

But not so the store bought veggies. No, they were just saying they were organic. No wonder the supposed "Organic" food in the stores looked so picture perfect, the cheats.

That alone would have made me walk away from it. Another reason to buy locally produced
veggies.