Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The USDA's “streamlined” certification process for international and domestic trade in organics means
that organic food and ingredients can be sourced from anywhere in the world. Imports of organic foods
and ingredients have increased dramatically. The USDA reports that half of the foreign-sourced organic
products come from China, Turkey, Mexico, Italy, and Canada. The agency has certified 27,000 producers
and handlers worldwide—approximately 16,000 in the United States and 11,000 in other countries. 4
According to the 2009 Cornucopia Institute report Behind the Bean , when the USDA first traveled to
China to audit organic certifiers in 2007, the federal inspectors audited only four and visited just two farms.
The limited audit found multiple problems with compliance with U.S. organic standards, raising questions
that have never been answered about China's ability to maintain the integrity of organic products.
Unsurprisingly, the outsourcing of organic production and the transformation of organics into big busi-
ness has been a stealth operation: few consumers know that the hundreds of brands they see at Whole
Foods are controlled by a small group of companies, often owned by conventional food processors. The
parent companies of organic brands rarely use their name in advertising their organic subsidiary. As expert
marketers, the giant food corporations understand that organic consumers do not trust them. And for good
cause.
As the industry became more consolidated, the companies' ability to weaken the organic standards in-
creased. The Organic Trade Association, founded in 1985 to lobby on behalf of the industry, increasingly
came to be controlled by the largest players in the industry—companies that had no commitment to the
spirit of organic agriculture. In October 2005, at the behest of its large corporate members, the OTA suc-
cessfully lobbied Congress to weaken the standard by allowing the use of nonorganic and synthetic addit-
ives in foods labeled organic.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search