THE SELLING OF THE O WORD

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Bring in the Feds

Isn't it obvious that the federal government needs to get involved? Maybe not. Senator Fowler of Georgia has twice introduced an organic bill, but this document would leave the actual definition of the term organic to the secretary of agriculture. Organic growers cringe at the dangerous prospect that each ag secretary could set the standards as loosely as he or she wants.

Besides, we all know how muddleheaded federal enforcement can be. When Walnut Acres first tried to market a peanut butter in which peanuts were the sole ingredient, the government made the whole-foods company call their product "imitation" peanut butter because it didn't contain any sugar or oil. Boyd Foster of Arrowhead Mills in Texas remembers what happened last summer when he tried to use beneficial flying insects instead of malathion to control bug pests in stored rye: "The federal marshal seized it." As this demonstrates, bad federal regulation is probably worse than none at all.

One grower summed up organic record keeping by saying, "If you spit on the ground, you'd better write it down....

Maybe the organic industry can get its own multiheaded act together. It is trying. The Organic Foods Production Association of North America (OFPANA), a trade group, is working with the various certification groups to create "a threshold definition of organic," a way to accredit certification groups—thereby answering the critics' question, Who certifies the certifiers?—and reciprocity agreements between groups. Judging by the initial pace of that effort, though, OFPANA—led unity may be a few crop rotations down the road.

Perhaps California, the first state to adopt any organic law (back in 1979), can lead the way to an overall standard with the new organic law it's considering. CCOF's Scowcroft points out that the new legislation has been carefully crafted using input from grower groups. "It's 26 pages long. Our old law is just four, while Senator Fowler's bill was just three-quarters of a page."

The proposed bill mandates a three-year transition period before any grower can be certified "organic." To keep that restriction from being a disincentive for conventional farmers to go organic, under the bill some produce could be certified "transition to organic" and, as a result, would probably get a slight markup in the marketplace. The law would also set up an advisory commission to rule on allowable materials.

An Historic Opportunity

Perhaps that California law, if passed, will become a model for a good national law. However order is brought to the organic industry, the sooner it comes the better. Right now, the industry is under great stress. Ever since Alar Sunday (the organic industry's term for the breakthrough day on which "60 Minutes" brought national publicity to pesticides in food), prices have skyrocketed. It's probably only fitting that organic food costs a bit more than conventional food. As North Dakota grain and livestock farmer Fred Kirschenmann puts it, "Organic prices reflect the real costs of producing food. With most food we defer the costs by borrowing from the environment and the future." A fair premium for organic produce may also help keep more small family growers on the farm. But overly high premiums will drive away long-term customers and will increase food fraud.

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