When is organic not organic? Don't trust the label.........Michael Eliasohn, Business Editor
Merrill Clark helped write federal government standards to ensure that when consumers bought organic food it truly was organic. |
| But now that those standards are close to becoming final, she is very unhappy with the result. |
| Merrill and her husband, John, operate Roseland Organic Farms near Cassopolis. Their farm totals 1,800 acres. Antibiotics and hormones aren't used on the cattle they raise, which are fed grain grown with out chemicals on the farm. |
| Merrill served on the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) from 1992-1996. The board was formed under a 1990 law mandating the federal government to establish standards for organic foods. |
| The board finished its recommendations in 1995 but it took until Dec. 16, 1997, for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to publish its proposed rules defining what is and isn't organic. |
| The public has until May 1 to comment, after which the USDA can make changes before the rules become final. |
| The idea behind the law is to protect the public from fraud and inconsistency. In short, if someone believes food grown or raised without use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers or additives is safer to eat, he or she should be ensured that is what they are getting when they buy food labeled "organic." |
| Clark says "organic" isn't what they will be getting. |
| The proposed standards, she wrote in a commentary, "would rip the very foundation out from under the time-honored methods of organic farming." |
| "Most if not all, organic food consumers view foods grown without pesticides and synthetic fertilizers .... as far safer to consume than the chemical alternative," Clark wrote. |
| But according to her, the proposed rules defining what is organic would allow use of pesticides, even synthetically derived, "here and there". Use of de-worming medicines and antibiotics in treating animals, as well as non-organic feed, would be allowed. |
| Clark suggests that the federal agency, in writing the rules took the position that "All the food was safe...and organic was just a "different way to grow or process it." |
| U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman said the rules would be "helping organic farmers sell their products, both at home and abroad." |
| Clark said organic growers are already successfully selling their products and that the 1990 law dealt with growing and handling, not marketing and promotion. |
| She is especially upset with how the rules deal with livestock. "Much of what I wrote or helped to write as the NOSB Livestock Committee chair was butchered, with allowances for antibiotics, parasiticides, non-organic feed and animal confinement practices," she wrote in her commentary. "None of this represents commonly accepted organic livestock production practices, either in the view of the producer or the consumer, and not in the view of the law either". |
| "It is more maddening that animal producers who proceed to use all the materials and methods mentioned above will be allowed to put the term "organic" on their label, while those of us who have steadfastly avoided such non-organic material in the past have never been allowed by the USDA to put "organic on their labels." (The Clarks on rare occasions must use antibiotics to treat an animal, but its meat isn't sold as organic.) |
| She said speculation among organic livestock producers is that the USDA succumbed to big livestock producers who want to sell meat labeled "organic" without having to do much to meet that standard. |
| Clark received a note from the staff of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, which wrote the rules, thanking her for her service on the National Organic Standard Board and expressing the hope she was "as proud of the rule as they were." |
| But Clark wrote in her commentary, "I certainly did not work to make this rule possible." |
| She concludes, "With the release of this rule, it appears the work of many honest organic farmers, troubled food consumers and dedicated environmental stewards of the land during the NOSB recommendation process has been for naught. We will now need to gear up all over again to repeat everything we already said." |
Herald-Pallidium
April 30, 1996
Author: Michael Eliasohn
