Environmental certifications and labelling on food

There are a number of calls in the environmental community to make the environmental taxes that have gone into producing food more visible to the average consumer.

Organic certification is only the first of these that has been implemented and gone into the mainstream. If the EU is any indication, we should start to see emissions labeling on food, including its food miles, the energy taken to plant, harvest, and process, etc. Sustainable and other environmental certification programs are also growing increasingly in the mainstream.

I'm interested in how this community views these impending requirements? Do you see them as long needed transparencies into the previous black box of the produce aisle? Or are they needless overhead for the small farmer?

What types of labeling and certifications do you see providing the most value? The least?

I think the most important thing, by far, is to replace "organic" vs. "not organic" with something that represents a spectrum of organic.    Perhaps "organic-10" can mean what the organic label of today means.  So if consumers are shopping and their options are "organic-2" (meaning "not really organic at all") for 89 cents, "organic-9" for 99 cents and "organic-12" for $3.99, perhaps they will choose "organic-9". 

I think this will give an opportunity for smaller farmers to get into the market without having to meet all of the rigid USDA requirements.  And, I think, we can see a ramp to people choosing more organic foods - thus driving the market.

(This is non-organic but, really, all farm yield is organic... at least so far) Distinguishing one type of organic from another with a label is pretty much a marketing ploy that makes it harder for both sets of farmers to raise and sell their produce and easier for marketers and regulators to get a cut of the proceeds. It also gives rise to another whole group of middle-men; those who would regulate the organic farms to make sure the produce "was really grown organic" forcing organic farmers into the same regulatory quandary of farmers (if they even manage to get their organic business going). And the stuff needed for "organic farming" is, for some reason, more expensive then that needed for "non-organic farming" making the produce more expensive to raise, replace if lost and thus more expensive to sell. That makes it more expensive for us to buy. It goes against the entire concept of sustainable agriculture and sustainable community to make it more expensive for farmers wanting to grow naturally organic produce to do so and to make it almost impossible for farmers that don't grow "organic" to produce healthy crops. Sustainable communities work on growing their own produce so who is really purchasing "organic"? Those who are not in sustainable community who can afford exorbitant produce prices and as you can see the result does not contribute to the expansion of sustainable community within the larger community.

Really, farming as a whole is necessary for community on any level with any name on it. To make divisions between farming communities and sustainable communities, between organic and non-organic for the same produce that we all need to live just doesn't make sense and it hurts us all.

Genetic modification. Bees spread that stuff around - they don't know the difference between organic fruit and genetically modified fruit. The wind blows that stuff around - it doesn't know the difference between "organic" seeds or genetically modified seeds. Animals eat that stuff and scat it all over their territories - they don't recognize a difference. The earth grows those plants - it doesn't recognize a difference. We are the only ones that recognize the difference and that is why we need to start addressing the issue. Not with more legislation on labels and growing methods but with some consideration for why we are messing around in genetic modification when we haven't figured out how to beat the Aztecs at keeping a sustainable civilization going (they exceeded their local resources, too). If you are an organic farmer your produce is vulnerable, too, label or no...


Farmers and ranchers have been under increasingly heavy financial restrictions as farmland is reduced, farm subsidies come with strings attached, farming initiatives are side-lined or quashed by corporate interest, yield is more and more regulated and the buying and selling situation for farmers, especially small family or group farms, is heavily controlled. Check out some of the websites on what the government pays to purchase farm produce or livestock only to destroy the "overproduction" created by the forced requirements for production. Thieving prices that make it difficult for a farmer or rancher to stay in business or stay ethical about their business.

Farmers and ranchers have been complaining about this for years but, as they point out it also affects the ethical practices used in the raising of the product. For example Mad Cow Disease has been shown to come from the feeding of diseased or elderly and infirm slaughtered cattle back to healthy cattle. This is a recycling method ranchers use to save money since they are not subsidized for things like the loss of cattle to unexpected disease or the not unexpected aging of herds that are too expensive to replace. So the lost cattle are sold to slaughter and the slaughtered product sold back to the ranchers to fatten herds.

That is something sustainable communities must recognize - recycling is not always in the best interest of either the recycled or the recyclers (yes cattle are fed other cattle meat in a weird sort of cannibalism even though they are grazers)

So recycling isn't always good and "going organic" when it is just a purchasing term isn't doing us as much good as it might if it became something we gave more than lip service to...and vegetarian, vegan and carnivore all have something  to worry about, none of us are safe from the loss of ethical practice within our chosen communities locked as they within larger community - something to think about in how we are going to decide to raise our food.

Problem is we end up cutting down to trees to make room for farmland where we are not and then we lose our air supply...that makes population a concern and we are back at genetic modification and thinking about what we are doing with these fabulous brains we have been gifted with.

But at least we are thinking about it...

Yeah, it's an interesting argument. The more sliding scales you introduce, the more complex it gets for the consumer to figure out what they're really getting. But without those sliding scales there's the possibility of strangling small farms.

Alexis - you talk a lot about the dangers of genetic engineering in plants. Can you educate me about that more? I've read a little bit about how making plants pest-resistant has also done the same to the weeds, and certainly when we play God, there can be unintended consequences.

But I've also read about scientists figuring out how to make rice that thrives without nitrates in the soil. The greenhouse gases that would be prevented by the world adopting this type of rice would be extraordinary, and could pull us back from the brink of climate change.

How do we balance the risks of genetic engineering with the other risks of climate change and food shortages?

Actually, all this messing about with genes to modify food to grow in what ever conditions exist and making them pesticide resistant and for what ever reason Monsanto and others come up with for their Frankenstein science are all a lie.
  Presently the world produces enough food for everyone living.  It's the social and economic systems we have in place that cause famine and pestilence to rage around the globe, and it all boils down to greed.  The distribution of wealth in the world has been out of balance for along time and it's getting worse and people are siffering everywhere because of it.
  We need no further contamination of our food supply with GMO foods to solve the problem of world hunger.  We don't need to add growth hormones to our cows to produce more milk at a time when milk prices are so low that governments are required to subsidize it's production to keep farmers from going out of business because there's a glut of milk in the market that poor nations can't even afford to buy.
The gigantic corporations use compassion as their reason for all the experiments but really it's greed.  GMO foods and terminator seeds are all just a means to an end and the end is higher profits.

I have heard that - that we have enough food to feed the world, but social and economic policies get in the way. One of my favorite books is Jeffrey Sach's "The End of Poverty". If you haven't checked it out, do so - it proposes a framework for how we might end those policies and get the bottom fifth of the world out of their dirt-poor state.

To play devil's advocate a bit, what about the environmental impact of GMO? If all large-scale farming adopted organic practices and stopped using nitrogen fertilizer, would we still have enough food to feed the world? Or would production go down?

Put in another way, is looking at a GMO grain of rice that grows in less nitrogen unnecessary because nitrogen isn't necessary in the first place? I'm asking purely for educational value - I'm pretty naive on this subject overall...

I can pretty much guess if it says Kraft or General Foods or Kellogg or (fill in the blank of large food distributor) That the food miles are many for ingredients and where it was mixed together and where it was bottled and came to my grocery store in my town. So its not that important to me to know the amount it traveled. I know it traveled a long way.
What I would like to se is what foods have Genetically Modified Ingredients in them.
This would give me the option as to buy them or not. I also want to know what percent of the item is GMO and what ingredient in the item is GMO.

There's a big one!  Just a big notification:  "this product contains GMO foods."

Here's a link to an article I think you all should read.  It explains a lot.  http://www.dirtworks.net/Images/downloadables/Iraq-Seed.pdf

GMO crops are not being invented to help solve the problem or poverty or hunger.  They have only one motive.  To enrich the corporations who invent them and they actually produce the opposite result.  They will produce more poverty, more hunger and more dependence.  In Iraq, some of the people our sick government calls insurgents are people fighting just for the right to decide what they will grow and what they will eat.

http://www.dirtworks.net/Images/downloadables/Iraq-Seed.pdf

First, we need to scrap the existing organic certification program and get it out of the government's hands completely.  Our government is typical of most governments, and are owned by the folks with the deepest pockets. Our government has no interest in representing the people or the health of the people, only their own personal agendas, and they have screwed up everything they've touched. 

Make Certified Organic truly organic, keep it relatively simple, and inexpensive enough for small farmers to compete.  Prevent corporate farmers from lowering the organic standards so they can call their products organic when they aren't. Make the food labeling clear and obvious: organic or non-organic; GM; state and/or country of origin. Period. KISS:  "O-WA-USA" or "NO-GM-MEX".

Chemical farmers are subsidized because their farming methods aren't financially sustainable.  Stair-step the subisidies out of existence.  Even now, chemical farmers are realizing that their organic neighbors who are using manures and rock dusts and getting better results. Give them one-time grants to change over to organic.

Next, people need to realize that genetically-modified foods (DNA altered through genetic engineering) are NOT the same as hybridized plants (cross-pollinated by man or animals). You just don't find pig DNA in corn plants in nature, folks.

Everything Monsanto said about their GM plants has been a lie: it's NOT cheaper, it's NOT better, maximum downwind contamination is NOT limited to 1/8 mile.  Animals won't eat GM feed if they've got a choice.  American and Canadian farmers are discovering that GM-fed hogs aren't conceiving, and if they do conceive, they give 'birth' to sacks of water.  Returning to natural feed (even chemically grown), conception rates went back to normal and live births returned to normal.

As Dirtworks said, GM food were never intended to improve food, only to control the supply.  Even now, the U.S. government is INSISTING that Third World countries plant only GM seed, FORCING them against their will.  WHY?  Well, why do you think?

In Mexico and Haiti (for example; it's not limited to just them) have had their food supply manipulated to the extent that many, many people are literally starving.  Haiti used to be able to grow enough rice to feed itself.  And Mexico grew enough corn and beans to do the same.  Then came NAFTA.  The U.S. buys grain from American farmers at an artificially low price, and sells it to Haiti and Mexico.  These low prices force the local farmers out of business because they can't compete with the heavily-subsidized American sources (paid for by the taxpayers, twice). The farmers go broke and their farms sit idle, and they join the already starving masses in the cities.  [Read National Geographic, "Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt" at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080130-AP-haiti-eatin.html]
The income level of the average citizen drops, and soon they can't afford any grain at all. Then the price starts to go up.

One thing you may have noticed:  America doesn't want poor countries actually growing their own food.  They could send a good, suitable variety of open-pollinated seeds, so the farmers could grow their own crops and save some seed for next year, but they absolutely don't want to do that. They want either to force them to BUY expensive GM seed EVERY YEAR, or they want to send edible food for immediate consumption.  Either way, when a country like ours makes poorer countries dependent on us, WE OWN THEM.  Get it?

The brilliant Japanese farmer and genius Masanobu Fukuoka suggested that people collect OP seed and drop it in bags from small airplanes over poor countries, so the farmers can bypass U.S. "aid" and grow their own food.

From Alexis:  "... all farm yield is organic... Distinguishing one type of organic from another with a label is pretty much a marketing ploy..."

I think you must be misunderstanding the basic concepts here. 

Here's a common definition of organically-grown food from Wikipedia:  Organic foods are produced according to certain production standards, grown without the use of conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, human waste, or sewage sludge, and that they were processed without ionizing radiation or food additives. Livestock are reared without the routine use of antibiotics and without the use of growth hormones. In most countries, organic produce must not be genetically modified.

Conventional chemical farmers depend heavily on expensive chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and animal factory farms that would have put them into bankruptcy long ago if the subsidies paid for by the taxpayers weren't keeping them in business.  Farmers were sold a real bill of goods over sixty years ago, they fell for it, and now they're choking on it. It was their decision, and they refused to change. Now they want the world to change to suit them.

The average American conventional farm lasts about forty years. Organic farms have lasted forty centuries.  And the soil and the plants DO know the difference, as tissue analysis shows.

"Farmers and ranchers have been under increasingly heavy financial restrictions as farmland is reduced, farm subsidies come with strings attached, farming initiatives are side-lined or quashed by corporate interest, yield is more and more regulated and the buying and selling situation for farmers, especially small family or group farms, is heavily controlled."

None of that is caused by either growing organically or growing conventionally, as much as it is strictly political.  And many of the regulations regarding protection of water sources (reducing usable farmland) wouldn't have been necessary if chemical farmers hadn't been the Number One source of chemical contamination of groundwater and rivers.

"Mad Cow Disease has been shown to come from the feeding of diseased ... cattle back to healthy cattle. This is a recycling method ranchers use to save money since they are not subsidized for things like the loss of cattle to unexpected disease or the not unexpected aging of herds that are too expensive to replace."

These same farmers knew the cause of BSE for TEN YEARS  before the first case showed up in N. America!  They simply thought they could get away with it. When you make bad business decisions and fail, it costs you. Why on earth should you think that farmers should be any different? "Aging herds too expensive to replace?"  They MADE the decision not to sell them when they were younger.  What do you think they were saving them for, posterity???

:... we end up cutting down to trees to make room for farmland ..."

Yes, and that is because we've ruined the good land we started with, and think moving on to fresh soil is going to solve the problems we're already bringing with us.  Stupid, don't you think?  And when we've moved on, and cut down all the trees, and all the water and air is fouled beyond redemption, where do we go then?

How about we stop vandalizing what we've got now, have everyone go organic, and watch the food prices level out so everyone can eat good, nutritious, clean food?

Sue

That's great stuff.  Thanks for writing it and fighting the good fight.
We send out a news letter which in time we hope to make a part of a regular web site, blog about organic farming, all things natural, clean energy etc..
Would it be okay if we used some or all of your content for the news letter and gave you credit?  I have some similar material already posted at dirtworks.net but since I'm selling product that I want everyone to have access to I try to keep the political message a little quieter than I might in other formats.

It's fine with me, take any part or all.  Note the change on the definition of organic, I forgot to change that when I posted.  I was getting close to foaming at the mouth... 

Sue

Hoooooo doggy!

I have so much to say:

they have screwed up everything they've touched

I like to think that some folks are open to changing their minds about some things, and I think your message is loaded to the gills with excellent info.  But a lot of folks will tune out the rest of the message if you have one spec of exaggeration in there.  And some folks that might be up to no good might say that your whole message is wrong and use the exaggeration as proof. 

Just thought I would take a chance in pointing this out in the hopes that your otherwise excellent message will be better digested.  Please don't be mad at me.

First, we need to scrap the existing organic certification program and get it out of the government's hands completely.

I think we should leave it and we should augment it.  Let's have trusted bodies offer up their own certification. 

The brilliant Japanese farmer and genius Masanobu Fukuoka

R.I.P.

Excellent stuff Sue.

I'm not mad, Paul.

But I would like you to point out one single thing that the federal government hasn't made a mess of.  Really.

Sue

dirtworks wrote:
  It's the social and economic systems we have in place that cause famine and pestilence to rage around the globe, and it all boils down to greed.  The distribution of wealth in the world has been out of balance for along time and it's getting worse and people are siffering everywhere because of it.
 

It’s been more than a long time. It’s been forever. It pays to note that the "distribution of wealth" has never been equal and it has nothing to do with greed or money. Different areas of the planet are more suitable for agriculture and have more natural resources than others. Serendipity has played a part to. I love the book "guns germs and steel" by jared diamond.

I am personally very suspicious of any legislation regarding food labeling. some is necessary but too much opens the door wider for more money to be milked from taxpayers. It is not just the cost of a sticker on the product. It is paying people to monitor all aspects of it. It is passing legislation that has piggy back ideas in it that fill peoples pockets unethically. 

Recently I ran across an article pertaining to vit d. New recommendations are out for infants regarding vit d requirements. hmmmm interesting that they only recommend supplements for breast fed infants. Infants on formula don't need it. Sure enough the panel that made the recommendations has people on it that are associated with the formula companies. its not about generously helping children be healthier its about countering the trend that is recognizing how bad formula is for infants by waving a paper in their hand that appears to be from a credible source that says “well if you breast feed you need to give vitamin supplements, it might be easier to just feed our brand of formula”.

What is stopping that from happening with food labeling? Nothing, effectively right now. And the more labeling that is required the more people are going to use it to line their pockets not save the world. This needs to be a grass roots effort or I should say should remain one. I can just hear "such and such can be labeled organic or not due to the findings of this committee"...that was paid gobs of money for their bogus greed founded opinion.

Actually, as long as government insists on wasting so much money, how about they waste it on an investigation of Who Stands to Profit by This Law?  And listing the names of the people and companies who are backing it would be nice, too.

Common sense is not an issue in politics.

Sue

That is a great idea sue. Maybe people will use their brain a bit more when at the end of whatever propaganda they are using, includeing news outlets, they have a list of those who have something to gain monetarily from it. 

SueinWA wrote:
I'm not mad, Paul.

But I would like you to point out one single thing that the federal government hasn't made a mess of.  Really.

Sue

Fire department.  Police department (granted, some are better than others).  Roads.

I do think there are lots of things that can stand a lot of improvement.

A year or two ago I had a bit of an epiphany about people in general - driven a lot by having a teenager in my house, and some young adults.  It is amazing that we don't live in a Mad Max world.  While the systems that are in place are less than optimal, I am grateful that they are in place because I don't want to live in a Mad Max world. 

I'm a product of public schools.  And while I would make a lot of changes, I shudder to think how I might have grown up if those schools were not in place.

I think that big gobs of our government systems are first rate.  And ... if you take any system and fill it to the gills with corrupt people, it will do icky things.  Fortunately, there are still some good people in office trying to battle it out with the bad guys. 

So ....  back on topic:  I think the next step is to have a trusted organization give us a ramp into what is GOOD organic and that that ramp goes way BEYOND that.

Actually, none of those things are really federal, they're local. They're getting a lot of their money from the feds, but the locals are mostly left to handle it their own way.  Unfortunately, the smaller fire departments that depend on volunteers and finding fewer and fewer people willing to help.

The educational level of Americans went DOWN with the public schools.  In the early 1880s, something like 93 or 97% of the white population could read and write.  The same cannot be said today.

Without the current "educational system" you would very probably be pretty well educated, Paul!  Your parents would have taught you, just like their parents would have taught them. That's the way it was before Big Daddy stepped in.

I think the big problem here is not only ignorance, but sheer apathy.  I know many people who think our country is beyond help.  Until more people step up to the plate and DEMAND changes, they aren't going to happen.  Let Big Daddy take care of all our problems.... sigh.

One thing I think any organic organization needs is people who actually know what they're doing. We need people in there who are the farmers that farm organically, the people who sell organic food, the people who eat organic food. It shouldn't be controlled behind the scenes by companies like Monsanto, Dow, and a host of others with vested interests that only suit themselves.

As the man in a well-known movie said, "Get busy living or get busy dying".

Sue

there are already regulations in place that determine what constitutes organic. Maye those need to be revised some but the organic labeling crap is just a new way of advertising.  and all "levels" would do is get the people producing the product to jump through a bunch of hoops and fight through red tape to get certified to a another level for advertising purposes, with the whole indstry blowing billions on it without the product  actually changing one iota. I think everything should listed on the ingredients of a food and people should figure it out for themselves!!! don't expect big bro to hand you the food you want to eat! why do you need some stamp on the front that says organic? pick up the label and check out the ingredients if it says organically raised chicken, organically raised carrots and organically raised rice. bingo, its organic and if you want "more" organic than check out the farm for yourself or raise the product yourself. If you want the organic regulations changed then fight for that but don't make the certification more complicated, that won't help the industry that will hurt it. what this boils down to is people wanting someone else to take care of them. to decide what is good for them and what is not. that is not the governments job.

It is true that the organic standards we have today are being sullied by corporations and government officials that let the lobbyist in the door.
  However, it's all we have.  Just reading the label isn't enough because that standard is too low too. Some ingredients aren't required to be listed at all and others aren't listed unless they are above a certain level of part per million and such things as that.
  Not only that, there's an educational component to organic standards and labeling that needs to be addressed.  Just because something is on the label in plane sight doesn't mean people will know what it is or understand it.  We have to have some type of certification people can count on and the only way I know is to keep on your politicians and local standards boards and make sure they aren't caving in to Monsanto and they keep improving and refining what they do. 
Not everyone has the time or know how when it comes to talking with folks who work on organic standards so it's up to those who do not to give up and stay engaged in the process.  It's another way of looking out for one another.
There are resources like ATTRA(http://attra.ncat.org/), OCIS(http://www.ocia.org/)  and OMRI(http://www.omri.org) and local and regional standards boards like NOFA (http://www.nofavt.org/) out here in the east and others like it across the country.

I don't like regulation and government fees anymore than anyone else does but there are times when it's necessary.  Sometimes the government is the only entity that has the size and strength to stand up to corporations like Monsanto and the oil companies. 
The last eight years has been an example of the regulated becoming the regulators and ruining everything they touch, on purpose so the rant about government not being able to do anything at all becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, but it doesn't have to be that way.  I still believe the government can do good work but it's up to us to hold their feet to the fire everyday.  We are the government.

with all the hoops producers already have to jump through to get "certified" I just can't see where any more right now would do anything but stagnate the industry. these things take time...decades....the push for more enviromentally freindly food will shoot themselves in the foot by trying to go to fast and we will back track on the progress that is being made.

The process does need to be easier and cheaper for the small producers.  Unfortunately corporations look for and exploit every loop hole they can so it's really hard to make compromises without a flood of cheating taking place.
The only way to be absolutely certain what's in your food is to grow and raise it yourself.  I encourage people to do this and provide them with the means to do it.  Not everyone can though so the next best thing is a stringent certification process consumers can count on.  It does raise the cost of food and it is a barrier to entry for small producers.  These are two problems that need to be addressed.
  If you'd like to know more about organic standards, their history and current news, here's a link to start with: http://leahy.senate.gov/issues/Agriculture/organicsindex.html

I have a brief rant on my own web site about this issue here: http://www.dirtworks.net/Organic-Natural-Certified-Organic.html

paul wheaton wrote:
I think the most important thing, by far, is to replace "organic" vs. "not organic" with something that represents a spectrum of organic.    Perhaps "organic-10" can mean what the organic label of today means. 

The UK has a system simular to what you are proposing. Each certifying body has their own code and number and their own standards although all of them must comply with the EU regulations on organics. At the moment the systems looks like this:

UK1 - DEFRA (baseline certification)

UK2 - Organic Farmers and Growers (OF&G)

UK3 - Scottish Organic Producers' Association (SOPA)

UK4 - Organic Food Federation (OFF)

UK5 - Soil Association Certification Ltd (SA Cert)

UK6 - Demeter / Bio-Dynamic Agriculture Association (BDAA)

UK7 - Irish Organic Farmers' & Growers' Association (IOFGA)

UK 8 - Food Certification (Scotland) Ltd  (salmon only)

UK9 - Organic Trust Ltd

UK10 - CMi Certification

It is pretty safe to assume that the higher the number, the more organic it is. The highest standard is UK6 - Demeter certification. All numbers after that are additions to the then already existing system.

Pascal

So this is pure fantasy, but I just wanna express it:  if I could change one law, it would be the invert the organic food labeling system.  The idea is that everything that is organic would not need any label.  Other stuff would have to have one or more labels: 

"contains GMOs"
"pesticides were used"
"petroleum based fertilizers were used"

etc.

This is just my thought but I would distance myself from the word organic. Since the FDA took over organic they have redefined and bastardized so far from the original intent that Monsanto could probably get Roundup labeled  organic under federal definition.

Take a walk through Walmart or Costco check out some of the "organic" products and read the label. See how many contain soy lecithin, high fructose corn syrup, dyes, and food color.

But that would require honesty, good faith and truth in labeling. You dreamer you.

paul wheaton wrote:
So this is pure fantasy, but I just wanna express it:  if I could change one law, it would be the invert the organic food labeling system.  The idea is that everything that is organic would not need any label.  Other stuff would have to have one or more labels: 

"contains GMOs"
"pesticides were used"
"petroleum based fertilizers were used"

etc.

I like that approach, I see problem though most food producers would have to use package inserts like pharmaceuticals do now. 

I like Sue's ideas.

With direct consumer marketing labels are unnecessary.  When consumers buy local they can know as much as they want about their food. 

When the product comes from Argentina... who knows?  I'm sure there are good growers in Argentina.  But, I am equally sure there are unscrupulous people who will slap a label on something and export it to the USA.

The great organic food fraud

This article was a great reminder on “grow it yourself the right way is always the best option” and then create local trustworthy connections that you know are true to what organic means to you… viceversa locally creating connections and proving  you’re a reliable source of real organic products can be a great long term income source worthy of the extra price.

(The article is available as an audio narrated at the top for multitasking purposes :) )