theory
04-02-2003, 12:25 PM
Many angry over loophole in organic food standards
Rob Hotakainen
Published March 26, 2003 ORG26
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Even though it's more expensive, Gene Condiff buys organic feed for the chickens and turkeys he raises on his 80-acre farm near Browerville, Minn.
"I would think that if you're going to claim the animals are organic, you've got to feed them organic feed," said Condiff, 51.
Well, not necessarily.
Last month, Congress voted to create a loophole in the nation's organic food standards, saying farmers might be allowed to give conventional feed to their livestock and still call the food organic.
Organic farmers are steamed, and they say consumers should be, too.
"This is a good way to ruin the organic meat market, because now organic doesn't mean anything," said Douglas Gunnink, 50, who raises organic beef on his 170-acre farm near Gaylord, Minn.
Allan Routh, president and chief executive officer of Sunrich Food Group in Hope, Minn., said Congress "destroyed the credibility of 20 years of work" by the organic food industry.
"It just slid through," said Routh, whose company produces nearly half of the nation's soy milk. "Nobody paid any attention."
President Bush signed the measure into law after it was attached to a $397 billion bill that increased spending on defense and education, among other things.
Under the new law, producers could give their animals conventional feed with antibiotics and pesticides and still label the meat organic -- if a federal study shows that organic feed is twice as expensive as conventional feed. If that condition was met, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would not be allowed to enforce its organic food labeling standards.
The USDA is studying the price of feed and should release its findings in a matter of weeks, a spokesman said.
Effect at home
Much is at stake in Minnesota, which has 421 certified organic farms, ranking fourth in the nation. In addition, the state ranks first in the nation in the production of organic corn, soybeans and rye, according to the state Agriculture Department.
Officials in Minnesota are eagerly awaiting the study to see whether the new provision will take effect.
"Anecdotally, I have been hearing that the feed is available at less than twice the price, that it should not be an issue," said Meg Moynihan, agriculture diversification specialist with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. But she said that no such study has been done in Minnesota, adding: "A lot of the pricing information just isn't collected."
The new law came after Fieldale Farms, a large poultry grower in Georgia, complained that it was having a hard time finding enough organic grain and that it was too expensive.
Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., added the language to the spending bill at the request of Fieldale, which is in his district.
"The all-vegetable diet is extremely burdensome for chicken producers," said Tom Hensley, Fieldale's vice president.
Gunnink, who has 40 head of steer, said such talk would only come from a factory farmer.
"If you come from that mindset, then organic probably isn't for you, and people shouldn't be fooled in the grocery store that it's organic food," he said. "That's something that the consumers that are interested in organic food should be scared . . . about."
Routh said he was "appalled that Fieldale would go ahead and do that, just strictly for economic gain."
But Hensley said Deal did "a great job" for the company by getting the language in the bill at the last minute.
"What's that old saying? The two things you don't want to see made are sausage and laws," he said. "You can make an argument that that's not right, but that happens all the time. That's the way laws are done."
'Shame on us'
Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said the new law is the result of a "contemptible" act by a special interest.
"Somebody slips something in and nobody's aware of it," Dayton said. "And shame on us for not being aware of it, as we should. . . . It's one of those things that gives sausage a bad name."
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said the new law "doesn't pass the smell test and will be corrected." He noted that the Bush administration wants to change the law as well.
Rather than waiting for the USDA pricing study, Dayton and Coleman, both of whom are members of the Senate Agriculture Committee, are cosponsoring a bill that would repeal the law.
"There's enough of a furor raised over this. . . . It should be repealed," Coleman said.
Dayton said that although "repealing is not an easy matter" Congress never intended to gut the standards.
Even if Congress does not repeal the law and the study shows that organic feed is twice as costly, the legislation would expire in October, at the end of the current fiscal year.
Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association, said the group has launched a national campaign to fix the situation now, urging people to call their members of Congress to get the law overturned.
"Organic feed is one of the critical ingredients in organic husbandry," said Randy Duranceau, sales and marketing director for California-based Petaluma Poultry, which produces organic chicken. "You can't be half-organic. You either are or you aren't."
Duranceau said the entire organic foods industry is based on trust and confidence among consumers.
"We need purity and clarity, not deception," he said.
Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, called the vote by Congress "a slap in the face for the 30 million American organic consumers and family farmers genuinely committed to purchasing and growing organic food."
Organic farmers
That includes farmers such as Condiff, who doesn't want his chickens raised in confined quarters. Rather than putting them in pens, he lets them run free outside, and he wants them to be free of chemicals.
"I don't like packing the animals full of hormones and medicines," said Condiff, who raises a couple thousand chickens a year, on average. "I raise it and sell it, but I also eat it."
He gets his feed at a co-op in Aldrich, Minn., and says he has no problem finding it. But he agrees it's costly, roughly twice as expensive.
"I'd just as soon use all-natural," said Condiff, who also raises rabbits and uses their manure as fertilizer on his six acres of vegetables. He's vice chairman of the Whole Food Coop, a group of 30 families that sells much of its meat to religious congregations in the Twin Cities area.
"They want the stuff that's raised by Minnesota farmers," he said.
Gunnink said there's "no question" that organic animals should be fed organic feed, which is grown without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, a basic tenet of organic farming.
"If people are going to buy organic meat, they expect it to be from farms that are farming without those things," he said. "I think that there is a lot of truth to the old saying that you are what you eat."
Rob Hotakainen
Published March 26, 2003 ORG26
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Even though it's more expensive, Gene Condiff buys organic feed for the chickens and turkeys he raises on his 80-acre farm near Browerville, Minn.
"I would think that if you're going to claim the animals are organic, you've got to feed them organic feed," said Condiff, 51.
Well, not necessarily.
Last month, Congress voted to create a loophole in the nation's organic food standards, saying farmers might be allowed to give conventional feed to their livestock and still call the food organic.
Organic farmers are steamed, and they say consumers should be, too.
"This is a good way to ruin the organic meat market, because now organic doesn't mean anything," said Douglas Gunnink, 50, who raises organic beef on his 170-acre farm near Gaylord, Minn.
Allan Routh, president and chief executive officer of Sunrich Food Group in Hope, Minn., said Congress "destroyed the credibility of 20 years of work" by the organic food industry.
"It just slid through," said Routh, whose company produces nearly half of the nation's soy milk. "Nobody paid any attention."
President Bush signed the measure into law after it was attached to a $397 billion bill that increased spending on defense and education, among other things.
Under the new law, producers could give their animals conventional feed with antibiotics and pesticides and still label the meat organic -- if a federal study shows that organic feed is twice as expensive as conventional feed. If that condition was met, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would not be allowed to enforce its organic food labeling standards.
The USDA is studying the price of feed and should release its findings in a matter of weeks, a spokesman said.
Effect at home
Much is at stake in Minnesota, which has 421 certified organic farms, ranking fourth in the nation. In addition, the state ranks first in the nation in the production of organic corn, soybeans and rye, according to the state Agriculture Department.
Officials in Minnesota are eagerly awaiting the study to see whether the new provision will take effect.
"Anecdotally, I have been hearing that the feed is available at less than twice the price, that it should not be an issue," said Meg Moynihan, agriculture diversification specialist with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. But she said that no such study has been done in Minnesota, adding: "A lot of the pricing information just isn't collected."
The new law came after Fieldale Farms, a large poultry grower in Georgia, complained that it was having a hard time finding enough organic grain and that it was too expensive.
Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., added the language to the spending bill at the request of Fieldale, which is in his district.
"The all-vegetable diet is extremely burdensome for chicken producers," said Tom Hensley, Fieldale's vice president.
Gunnink, who has 40 head of steer, said such talk would only come from a factory farmer.
"If you come from that mindset, then organic probably isn't for you, and people shouldn't be fooled in the grocery store that it's organic food," he said. "That's something that the consumers that are interested in organic food should be scared . . . about."
Routh said he was "appalled that Fieldale would go ahead and do that, just strictly for economic gain."
But Hensley said Deal did "a great job" for the company by getting the language in the bill at the last minute.
"What's that old saying? The two things you don't want to see made are sausage and laws," he said. "You can make an argument that that's not right, but that happens all the time. That's the way laws are done."
'Shame on us'
Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said the new law is the result of a "contemptible" act by a special interest.
"Somebody slips something in and nobody's aware of it," Dayton said. "And shame on us for not being aware of it, as we should. . . . It's one of those things that gives sausage a bad name."
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said the new law "doesn't pass the smell test and will be corrected." He noted that the Bush administration wants to change the law as well.
Rather than waiting for the USDA pricing study, Dayton and Coleman, both of whom are members of the Senate Agriculture Committee, are cosponsoring a bill that would repeal the law.
"There's enough of a furor raised over this. . . . It should be repealed," Coleman said.
Dayton said that although "repealing is not an easy matter" Congress never intended to gut the standards.
Even if Congress does not repeal the law and the study shows that organic feed is twice as costly, the legislation would expire in October, at the end of the current fiscal year.
Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association, said the group has launched a national campaign to fix the situation now, urging people to call their members of Congress to get the law overturned.
"Organic feed is one of the critical ingredients in organic husbandry," said Randy Duranceau, sales and marketing director for California-based Petaluma Poultry, which produces organic chicken. "You can't be half-organic. You either are or you aren't."
Duranceau said the entire organic foods industry is based on trust and confidence among consumers.
"We need purity and clarity, not deception," he said.
Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, called the vote by Congress "a slap in the face for the 30 million American organic consumers and family farmers genuinely committed to purchasing and growing organic food."
Organic farmers
That includes farmers such as Condiff, who doesn't want his chickens raised in confined quarters. Rather than putting them in pens, he lets them run free outside, and he wants them to be free of chemicals.
"I don't like packing the animals full of hormones and medicines," said Condiff, who raises a couple thousand chickens a year, on average. "I raise it and sell it, but I also eat it."
He gets his feed at a co-op in Aldrich, Minn., and says he has no problem finding it. But he agrees it's costly, roughly twice as expensive.
"I'd just as soon use all-natural," said Condiff, who also raises rabbits and uses their manure as fertilizer on his six acres of vegetables. He's vice chairman of the Whole Food Coop, a group of 30 families that sells much of its meat to religious congregations in the Twin Cities area.
"They want the stuff that's raised by Minnesota farmers," he said.
Gunnink said there's "no question" that organic animals should be fed organic feed, which is grown without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, a basic tenet of organic farming.
"If people are going to buy organic meat, they expect it to be from farms that are farming without those things," he said. "I think that there is a lot of truth to the old saying that you are what you eat."