The US press has recently been filled with stories of battles between “big business” wanting to water down the organic rules so that synthetics can be used in the production of organic products and the organic consumer fighting Goliath to protect the purity of organic products. As a new member of The Organic Trade Association, the natural products industry organization that spent 15 years crafting the organic regulations with the US Department of Agriculture, I’ve been shocked to discover that the fight is actually between natural foods organic products manufacturers and organizations that purport to represent the best interests of the organic consumer.
In the middle of all this, Teeccino has been caught up in its own organic trials and tribulations trying to certify under the National Organic Program (NOP) organically grown carob in Spain where it is already certified organic by European standards. How can something seemingly so simple become so impossible?? If you’ve been wondering about why the new Organic Teeccino Maya flavors have been delayed or if you’re concerned about the standards for the US organic regulations being maintained, you’ll be interested to know that these two seemingly unrelated issues are intertwined in the same structural problem with the Organic Foods Act of 1990. Read on to learn the real story behind NOP organic certification problems that need to be resolved for the benefit of those of us committed to buying organic!
First, let me announce one thing: all carob used in any flavor of Teeccino is organic. Why? Because carob (Ceratonia siliqua) is a native tree to the Mediterranean and the graceful carob tree with its thick, evergreen foliage and deep chocolate brown pods dots fields and hills all over Spain, Italy, Greece, and the Middle East where it originated. No carob tree is fertilized, sprayed, or in any way in need of active cultivation since it is naturally adapted to its environment and produces an abundant crop of carob pods each year without interference by humans.
Farmers in Europe obtain organic certification for their carob trees along with the rest of their crops because the carob trees are growing in their fields. European certified organic carob is available and although it is no different than carob that hasn’t been certified, only certified organic carob can be used in organic products. Of course, certification makes this carob more costly but that is the price that we consumers pay to make sure our food has been grown organically.
Now for the NOP certification problems: When our government set about creating its set of organic rules, it decided to ignore the many years of experience that Europeans have in organic certifications and the USDA set down its own rules that do not recognize any other country’s certification procedures. Before 2002, when the NOP rules were implemented, the organic certification groups in the US and Europe used to recognize each other’s certification after a process called “document review”. Now, if American and European farmers want to sell their certified organic crops in each other’s countries, they must go through organic certification all over again to meet the regulations of the NOP or EU certification. Guess what? That means twice the cost and many growers simply don’t want to be bothered with all the trouble.
Nevertheless, here at Teeccino, when we started to design the Organic Teeccino Maya line, we managed to convince our group of European carob growers and processors to go the extra mile and get certified under the NOP regulations. According to the NOP rules, we had to wait for new crop carob because no crop can be retroactively certified even if it is already certified organic in another country. OK. So we waited all year until September for the 2005 harvest. The copious NOP paperwork was filed with an organic certification group that is accredited under the NOP rules because the small local European organic chapter where our carob grows hasn’t gotten NOP accreditation themselves yet.
Now comes the Catch 22. While waiting for someone to fly in from Switzerland to make the inspection, the pods fell off the trees as they do every year all by themselves. Whoops! It is no longer possible to certify the crop this year since the inspector never saw the pods on the trees! Never mind that the pods were seen on the trees by local inspectors when they were certified organic for the Europeans this year. The NOP rules are inflexible on this account. So we can’t have NOP certified organic carob for the new Maya line until the fall of 2006 when we hope the inspector will get there in time!
And here is where our problems intersect with the national controversy over the organic certification rules. There is no such thing in the USA as a document review process for the organic industry. If you have EU certified organic product, the NOP doesn’t care. IFOAM, the oldest organic standard for international certification, and the EU have a reciprocal relationship where the certification from one standard can be reviewed and accepted by the other. The NOP rules in the US are black and white and don’t accept IFOAM, EU or any other standard’s documents for review. The double organic certification necessary in the US causes all kinds of delays and problems with the supply for organic ingredients and thus the manufacturer is prevented or delayed in marketing organic products using those ingredients. This of course means that it is ultimately the consumer who is denied the right to buy organic.
However, the NOP did institute a review board for the use of non-organic substances used in post-harvest processing of organic foods. It is called the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) and it has approved of 38 ingredients that were vetted over 10 years of public discussions for use in organic products. We’re talking about non-organic ingredients like baking powder in bread, lime in the production of sugar, and alcohol in the extraction of natural flavors plus cleansers and inorganic minerals that are necessary for good manufacturing practices. A very vocal minority in the organic world would like to do away with the NOSB review board and all approved non-organic products under the name of fighting “big business”. They successfully fought a court case that concluded that the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act didn’t properly authorize these substances to be used in organic products. If Congress doesn’t act to amend the law, hundreds of organic products will have to be taken off the shelf or relabeled without organic claims. The result will be a dramatic reduction of demand by manufacturers for organic ingredients. This could be the death knell of the organic industry as we know it today.
Under the guise of “sneak attacks” on the organic laws, consumers have been convinced by these radical organic purists that “big business” is trying to co-opt the organic laws and push all kinds of terrible things past the NOSB. The Organic Trade Association has been characterized as wanting to gut the organic laws in favor of profits instead of the steadfast partner it has been for 20 years in creating and protecting organic regulations in this country. Hundreds of thousands of consumers thinking that they are battling the Monsantos of the world have written their congress members telling them to fight against the reinstatement of the NOSB and its power to review applications for the inclusion of non-organic ingredients in organic products.
The point is the world isn’t black and white. Without review boards, you get the absurdity that Teeccino is currently experiencing with carob certification. No one is so prescient that rules can be written that don’t require interpretation and adjustment from time to time as conditions change. Bureaucracy without flexibility becomes a strangler not a protector. As consumers we must listen carefully past the hysterics to get the facts. Otherwise we become dupes who are working against our own best interests.
In the meantime, Teeccino will bring out the Maya flavors under the “made with” organic category which says that if you have 70% of your ingredients certified organic, you can write on the front label “Made with organic x, y, and z ingredients”. As I write this newsletter, we are revising our labels to meet this law so we can finally produce and sell our first cans of Teeccino’s Maya Herbal Coffee line in January despite the organic carob certification delay until fall 2006!
For more information on restoring the organic regulations as they have been in force since 2002, click on the following links:
Just The Facts from the Organic Trade Association.
Press Release from the Organic Trade Association regarding congressional action on the review process.
The following is an example of the type of inflammatory writing that incited consumers to act against the organic industry. But watch out, just the way it is worded will lead you to believe that the organic industry is under attack and only a lonely blueberry farmer is fighting back! Click Here
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