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UPI, November 2, 2005 Wednesday 1:09 PM EST

Eat To Live: Organic foods may not be so

BY JULIA WATSON

Buying organic food could be said to be a socially dividing act. It's priced so
much higher than conventional food, with producers of necessity passing on
their investment to the consumer, that not everyone can afford it.

But to become organic can cost a dairy farmer, for example, over 400
percent more in organic feed and other expenses to make the transition.

Nevertheless, the Organic Trade Association says sales of organic products
have rocketed from $1 billion in 1990 to $14.5 billion. These are the products
that are identified by the green "USDA Organic" label.

But if Washington lawmakers have their way, we may not be able to rely
upon that seal for a guarantee that a product is 100-percent organic. Members
of a House-Senate conference committee decided last week to override a
court ruling that only allows the "USDA Organic" label on products that are
100-percent pure organic in content, production or distribution.

This amendment to the pending Agricultural Appropriations Bill would allow
various synthetic food additives and processing aids to be used in organic
foods. It would also be permissible to treat young dairy cows with antibiotics
and raise them on genetically engineered feed up to the point when they are
converted to organic production.

And "emergency decrees" would allow non-organic ingredients to be
substituted for organic ingredients without any warning to the public.

So why pay more for organic if it no longer is?

Even in its original form, the Organic Foods Production Act was not a
foolproof guarantee of purity. The label "organic" only meant "minimal use of
off-farm inputs" and "management practices that restore, maintain and
enhance ecological harmony," leaving the level of stringency of application to
the individual farmer or farming business.

What the lawmakers' amendment would do, according to the OTA, is protect
the organic food trade from 25 percent of its major manufacturers (not the
individual small organic farmers) abandoning the industry, with a
corresponding loss to the business annually of around $758 million in sales.

This is apparently what they would have done in response to a ruling earlier
this year by the First Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of a Maine organic
blueberry farmer.

He had filed suit in 2002 against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for
allowing products containing synthetic ingredients to be sold as organic.

The court decided synthetic substances had no place in products officially
labeled "Organic," though a "Made With Organic" label could be applied. The
USDA was given one year to close the loopholes in the regulations.

Instead this new legislation is an effort to temper the appellate court's ruling,
returning the guidelines for "organic" designation closer to the looser original
1990 definitions.

Who benefits? Consumers don't have to buy organic if they don't want to.

By relaxing the purity rules, the food giants already in the organic business
could make greater profits with lesser investment. The OTA says the additives
concerned are no more than commonplace ingredients like baking powder and
bleach we already store in kitchen cabinets.

The answer to whose side the OTA is on seems clear.

In the United Kingdom, organic labels are granted solely by the Soil
Association, an independent body not aligned with any government
department. Perhaps small organic farmers should band together and create
their own labeling standards.