DECEMBER 1997 · VOLUME 18 · NUMBER 12
T H E F R O N T
DECEMBER 1997 · VOLUME 18 · NUMBER 12
T H E F R O N T
Now, in a remarkable turnabout, the rules proposed by the USDA in December (and open to public comment for 90 days) threaten the very credibility and future of the organic and natural foods industry. At stake in finalizing the new "organic" standards is the fastest growing and most profitable segment of the food market. The U.S. organic food industry has grown from $78 million in 1980 to an estimated $4.2 billion in 1997, and is expanding by nearly 20 percent each year. The proposed Department of Agriculture rules degrade current standards, open the door for large agribusiness companies, processors and supermarket chains to enter and dominate the organic food market and preempt natural food consumers, independent retailers and farmers' involvement in future rules regarding organic food.
The proposed USDA organic standards would permit:
Glickman goes to especial pains to defend irradiated food and genetic engineering. "It's a well known fact that the very best science has proven the products of biotechnology and the process of radiation are not only safe, but beneficial," he asserts.
Currently, the labeling of organic food is dictated by varying, but relatively strict, standards used by 17 states and 33 private certifying agencies. None of these agencies allow genetic engineering, irradiation, intensive confinement, rendered animal protein or toxic sewage sludge within their definitions of organic food.
Besides lowering pre-existing standards, the new Department of Agriculture rules would prevent states and localities from setting tougher organic food standards, without first being approved by the USDA.
Consumer, environmental and organic farmer critics of the rule say it fails to comply with the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, which is the legislative basis for the rule. The Act established the National Organics Standards Board (NOSB) -- composed of industry representatives, farmers, environmentalists and food processors -- to recommend a definition of "organic."
The NOSB recommendations would have explicitly banned genetically engineered foods, irradiation, farming with sewage sludge and intensive confinement factory-farm-type animal husbandry practices.
The USDA proposal is "a disappointing effort that will have the effect of undermining organic farming practices, environmental protection and consumer support for the organic label in the market place," says Jay Feldman, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, an organization representing consumers, farmers, environmentalists and labor.
"Implementing the proposed organic rule as is, without radically rewriting it so that it conforms to the OFPA, will result in the devastation of consumer trust in the term organic," warns Cissy Bowman, a certified organic farmer and secretary of the Organic Farmers Marketing Association.
The USDA is caught in a familiar predicament given the agency's dual role. On the one hand, its responsibility is to protect consumers by ensuring a safe food supply and to guarantee the economic livelihood of U.S. farmers, the majority of whom continue to operate small and medium-sized farms. On the other hand, USDA also sees as its role to promote the industrialization and globalization of U.S. agriculture -- which means working closely with large agribusiness, chemical and biotechnology corporations.
The natural food industry, with its small stores, small family farms and discriminating consumers, has begun to pose a direct threat to the market share of large-scale agribusiness. Agribusiness would like nothing more than to infiltrate this burgeoning market.
The strength of the organic food market can be seen in the growing number of organic sections appearing in major supermarket chains. A quarter of all shoppers buy "natural" or organic foods in supermarkets at least once a week, according to the Organic Trade Association. In a February 1997 industry poll, 54 percent of U.S. consumers said that they preferred organic production.
In addition to the weak rules on controversial practices, the proposed standards solidify the power of the USDA for future decisions on organics. The Organics Food Production Act intended for any additions to the organic rules, such as the inclusion of new synthetic or genetically engineered crops, to go through the National Organics Standards Board (NOSB). But the preamble to the new rules and the USDA's redefinition of substances such as sewage sludge as "natural" rather than "synthetic" seem to open the door for the USDA to make the final decision on new additions on its own.
The new rules would also give government officials (under North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) regulations, the Labor Department) unilateral authority to declare the "equivalency" of organic food standards in other nations such as Mexico. Given the lack of current regulations and enforcement in Mexico over agricultural production, this could mean a flood of supposedly "organic" products crossing the border which would undermine U.S. organic farmers operating under stricter standards and higher production costs.
-- Ronnie Cummins and Ben Lilliston Cummins is national director of the Pure Food Campaign/SOS (Save Organic Standards). Lilliston works with Sustain.
Denounced in the Irish parliament as a "criminal" corporation, it has been subjected to a protracted court battle that could eventually lead to the revocation of its operating license. Then, to add expensive injury to insult, eco-saboteurs destroyed the corporation's first trial crop of genetically altered sugar beet.
It all began to go wrong on May 1, when an organization called Genetic Concern obtained an injunction preventing Monsanto from sowing the trial crop of sugar beet, on a state-run farm 50 miles outside Dublin. The sugar beat was to be the first genetically engineered crop ever grown in Ireland.
The crop is similar to the Roundup Ready Soybeans (RRS) developed by Monsanto in the United States, a designer seed intended to be used in conjunction with Monsanto's leading pesticide, Roundup [see "Say It Ain't Soy, Monsanto," Multinational Monitor, January/February 1997].
The trial crop planting was a joint venture between Monsanto and Teagasc, the state agriculture and food development authority.
On May 27, the injunction was lifted. Some press reports claim that Monsanto was so anxious to proceed that it planted the trial crop that very afternoon.
However, the courts did agree to carry out a judicial review of the Irish government's decision to grant the crop trial an operating license. The hearing was set for December 10, but then postponed. The case is not likely to be heard before February at the earliest.
Central to the case -- filed by one individual and supported by Genetic Concern and Ireland's Green Party -- is the claim that official guidelines were breached in the granting of Monsanto's license.
The Green Party has protested the failure to hold an oral hearing into Monsanto's license application, despite the existence of 200 objections.
However, Dr. Clare Butler of the official Environmental Protection Agency claims Irish law does not allow for oral hearings on applications relating to genetically engineered organisms.
A spokesperson for Genetic Concern, Quentin Gargan, says the license had been granted on the basis of information supplied largely by the company itself. His organization is protesting the absence of independent research into the project.
"We're not saying that it's unsafe. We're just saying that we don't know it is safe."
Pointing out that it was unsound practice to rely almost wholly on research conducted by companies like Monsanto, he says, "There's no research that doesn't have a dollar sign at the end of it."
That view was trenchantly expressed recently in the Dail (Irish parliament) by Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party. He characterized Monsanto Ireland as a corporation "driven be greed."
He went on: "The more seeds it sells, the more Roundup it sells, the more profit it makes. This is the only reason for its activity."
Higgins said the company's past transgressions revealed its true nature. "We have allowed this company, which has a criminal record, into this country. It manufactured Agent Orange, which defoliated millions of acres in Vietnam, with horrendous consequences -- 300,000 children suffered the most appalling deformities as a result."
Although no spokesperson was available at press time, the company has in the past defended itself against the Agent Orange charge by saying Monsanto was one of many companies that produced the deadly herbicide, and that it is not appropriate to single out Monsanto from other chemical manufacturers for blame.
As if legal obstruction were not enough, Monsanto's ambitious plans have also been hampered by extra-judicial activities. On the night of September 28, the hitherto unknown Gaelic Earth Liberation Front (GELF) completely destroyed the trial sugar beet crop.
Timing was everything. Interviewed recently in the Irish magazine Hot Press, a spokesperson for GELF said the trial sugar beet crop would have been ready for harvesting long before the scheduled December 10 judicial review began.
Monsanto, therefore, would have been in a position to proceed with its research regardless of the outcome of the case.
The Gaelic Earth Liberation Front spokesperson defended the crop destruction -- in which 25 people reputedly took part -- as an act of environmental "protection," and proclaimed the group's willingness to "continue a campaign of non-violent direct action to protect the environment."
Monsanto must now wait until early 1998 before attempting to plant a second trial crop -- if it wins in court, that is.
The government has been, unexpectedly, a consistent ally of Monsanto in its effort to proceed with the trial crop. During the summer general election, the then-opposition Fianna Fail party included in its manifesto a pledge to ban such crop trials until further research had been conducted. Fianna Fail won the election.
In power, however, Fianna Fail has reversed its stated opposition to genetically altered crop testing.
This may reflect a feeling among Ireland's fledgling biotechnology industry that the country is "being left behind," speculates a campaigner at Genetic Concern.
Irish biotech backers do seem to believe the industry is on the edge of breaking through as a major player in the industry. At a recent conference on the issue in Dublin, Dr. Jim Ryan of Bioresearch Ireland, a biotechnology company founded by Irish universities, told delegates that Ireland was now in a position to "exploit its potential" in this field. Within the last two months, a new umbrella group for the industry -- the Biotechnology Industries' Association -- was formed.
The industry also enjoys a growing level of state involvement -- witness the "joint venture" between the official food development agency and Monsanto.
-- Macdara Doyle