When you inflate your monthly grocery bill by choosing organic items, you carry certain assumptions.
You assume produce hasn’t been soaked in pesticides. You assume the farmer relied solely on natural practices to cultivate it. You assume your choices are gentler on the planet.
But the warm feelings you get about how your decisions benefit your family and the environment could be more hopeful than factual.
That’s because it’s disturbingly simple for the “USDA Organic” designation to end up on products that don’t meet the standards established in the Organic Food Production Act of 1990, particularly with imports.
In fact, just last month, a consignment of 36 million pounds of non-organic soybeans and corn from Ukraine was suddenly labeled “organic” by the time it landed in California.
The firm that managed the shipment told The Washington Post it received “fraudulent certification documents,” and the majority of the non-organic soy and corn had already been sold to buyers who paid extra expecting organic goods.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is probing the incident, but according to The Washington Post, this isn’t shocking because gaps in USDA oversight allow misbranded items to slip into your grocery cart.
How Products Earn the “USDA Organic” Mark
The Organic Food Production Act specifies certain criteria for U.S.-grown products to receive the organic designation.
- The item must be produced or handled without synthetic chemical inputs.
- The crop must be cultivated on land that hasn’t been treated with synthetic chemicals or other prohibited substances for the previous three years.
- The farms and processors involved must all commit to following the USDA’s organic labeling standards.
For goods coming from abroad, a USDA-authorized third party must confirm that producers meet these baseline requirements.
Where Organic Labeling Breaks Down
As analyzed by The Washington Post, those third-party certifiers, both domestic and international, make it challenging for the USDA to enforce uniform standards across the foods you purchase.
Although the USDA is charged with overseeing the organic sector, its certifier locator indicates it partners with just 81 third-party certifiers, and most operate within the United States.
For imports, the USDA only recognizes government oversight in Canada, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland. It has authorized just 33 of the 81 organizations to certify what can be marketed as organic elsewhere around the globe.
“In theory, this should all work very well,” The Washington Post wrote. “In practice, ensuring that imports labeled ‘organic’ are actually organic is very hard, because global supply chains are complex and nontransparent. A number of suppliers or organizations may sell the product before they reach the final customer.”
That means the organic designation can appear (or vanish) at multiple points along a product’s path to its final buyer, and once that shift occurs, it can be difficult to ascertain which items are genuinely organic.
Want some more unsettling news?
Limited manpower and inconsistent practices internationally make it tough for the USDA to resolve the issue.
Keep that in mind the next time you weigh whether your organic soybeans deserve the extra cost. If you’re looking for ways to fit organic foods into your grocery budget or want tips on how to save money on organic groceries, there are strategies to help — and if you buy meat, learn more about buying organic meat wisely.
Emma Ruiz is a staff reporter at Savinly. She aims to purchase organic when feasible and is currently rethinking some of her assumptions about what “organic” truly guarantees.
