Feeding Wildlife
January 14, 2021
Farm Animal Welfare
January 28, 2021Food Chain Radio Show #1260
Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist
Guest: Mischa Popoff, Author Is It Organic?
America’s Offshore Organic Food
I remember well how hard organic farmers and their trade groups pushed for government to safeguard their word “organic.” The word was the weapon small family-scaled farms used to compete with the Goliaths of agriculture.
Those organic farmers got their wish when Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. The Act authorized a National Organic Program administered by the Agricultural Marketing Service, which is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture.
The act also called for the establishment of a National Organic Standards Board to assist in the development of standards for the various substances that would be used in organic production.
When the Organic Act passed Congress and was signed into law, the organic farmers were jubilant, believing they had finally safeguarded their word behind the veritable fortress of the United States Government. Their industry was now free to grow.
As a consequence of the Organic Foods Production Act, the market for organic foods boomed into a $50 billion dollar a year industry, and is growing at the rate of 6.4 percent, far-exceeding the 1.1 percent growth in the market for conventional foods. But the farmers who established that market have been left in the dust, as 80% of the organic foods sold in the U.S. came from somewhere else.
Leave a comment below: Did America deliberately off-shore its organic food?
2 Comments
Re: your podcast Food Chain #1260 “Did America deliberately offshore its organic foods?”
I just finished listening to your podcast with Mischa Popoff. There’s another issue I hope you explore: lead (and other heavy metals) found in organic rice ingredients imported from Mainland China.
I was shocked to find out that the organic rice ingredients in two of the plant-based protein powders I depended upon every day (for my vegan diet) actually originated in Mainland China.
I was concerned because lab tests on a dozen kinds of plant-based protein powders discovered that they contained an unhealthy amount of lead and other heavy metals. The reports emerged that about 20% of farmland in Mainland China was found to be contaminated by industrial air & water pollution containing lead and other heavy metals — including so-called organic fields!
The reports said that the USDA doesn’t have any testing for the presence of heavy metals in organic food imported from other nations!
I hope you and people in the organic-food movement can talk about this on future podcasts. I hope it will help influence Congress to pass laws requiring the USDA to test for the presence of heavy metals in organic food imported from other nations.
I am an organic berry grower and regenerative-organic crop consultant. I have grown Blueberries since 1970. I certified my berries in 2006. Since then we added red raspberries, blackberries, black raspberries, and Aronia berries to a total of 200 acres all certified organic. Over the past 4 years, markets of all berries have eroded to the point that if we are not selling directly to the consumer every berry we produce is costing us money. The reason is that the USA is being flooded with cheap foreign berries organic and conventional. The situation is so bad that a year ago I pulled 162 acres of organic berries leaving 18 acres of Blues and 20 acres of Black Raspberry with the idea of matching our production to profitable niche markets.
I realize that your focus is organic, but this is the situation of almost all agricultural crops across the country. I am concerned for my farm and all other farms but more importantly how safe is our food supply as a country. Your listeners need to be aware that many times growers in other countries do not follow the same regulations as American farmers do, especially organic. It is common knowledge that Chilean berry growers many times “self certify ” themselves and have been known to transition their fields in as little as 6 months. In my opinion, the whole organic certification program is a sham when it comes to foreign countries. I feel very strongly that the public needs to be educated on this subject organic is not always organic.