Jack Burns Lives!

The Pollution of Organic Foods

Let your guard down for a minute, and this is what you get.

Thanks to some Republican meddling, closed door meetings and corporate influence (business as usual in the United States), the Organic Trade Association has successfully lobbied for significant changes to the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA). In doing so, they “retained the allowance for synthetics that previously existed in the regulation, added a potential loophole for non-organic ingredients, added ambiguity on the issue of processing aids, removed authority from the NOSB, and failed to strengthen dairy standards.”

The dispute started after a lawsuit filed by an organic blackberry farmer correctly pointed out that USDA organic regulations were inconsistent with the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA). But instead of using the apparently stronger USDA requirements as the standard, OTA lobbying has resulted in the adoption of the weaker OFPA standards, including changes that add potentially damaging loopholes. The bottom line is organic foods in the United States, especially those from major producers, may become less “organic” in the near future.

What’s driving this is a “good news, “bad news” story. The good news is that organics are enjoying overall growth of over 25% in sales, by far the fastest growing segment in the food industry, which means more people are demanding good food, not the chemical laden crap we’ve been fed for years. The bad news is this hurts the traditional suppliers.

Their answer is to buy the smaller organic producers, water-down the standards, therefore lower the cost of production and still market the product as if it was the same old product when it’s not.  One example of this is Dean Foods. Dean Foods was getting killed by Horizon in the market, so they bought them. And now Dean Foods is a major lobbyist working for the new standard.
If anything, this shows the need to support locally grown produce and dairy products from known producers, not nationally based, unsustainable producers. Think about this the next time you reach for a Horizon or Tom’s (recently purchased by Colgate) on the store shelf.