Organic Food May Become "Franken" Food

On December 15, the U.S. Department of Agriculture published the Proposed National Organic Standards. Under the new proposed federal regulations, the USDA alone will decide what can and cannot be legally certified and labeled as organic. There will most likely be no explicit prohibitions against using any of the following: genetic engineering; inhumane, intensive confinement factory farm-style production methods on farm animals; spreading toxic sewage sludge and industrial wastes, often disguised as fertilizer; feeding back diseased and waste animal body parts, organs, manure, and blood to farm animals; or using radioactive nuclear wastes to "kill bacteria." Foods that use any of these methods in production or processing could still be labeled as organic.

To gain a government seal that a product is organic or natural, the proposed regulations require that: raw products be 100 percent organic, processed foods contain 95 percent organic ingredients, processed foods with 50 percent to 95 percent organic content could be labeled as "made with certain organic ingredients", processed foods with less than 50 percent organic content must specify the organic ingredients, and imported items sold as "organic" must meet the same standards as domestically produced foods. As in Washington, Oregon, and California, cropland must be free of prohibited pesticides for at least three years before harvest and there would be a prohibition on the use of antibiotics or hormones to stimulate growth in livestock.

According to Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, these standards were requested by the foods industry. Organic foods have become big business, so now big business wants a chunk of it. Standardization is the first step to having this growing industry fit into the world economy--as dominated by big business. Back in 1980, organic agriculture earned roughly $78 million. Last year, it was $3.5 billion. Agriculture Department officials forecast a fourfold increase in sales during the next decade. The organic production and distribution community, which now encompasses a multitude of small to moderate size private enterprises, has grown at a rate of 23% per year for the last five years.

Genetically engineered foods (sometimes called "franken foods") are already on the shelf. Monsanto has had many problems with their franken foods. For example, field tests in Europe have shown that genetically engineered rapeseed plants are causing "biological pollution" and spreading their mutant DNA characteristics to neighboring plants. Other tests have shown that gene-spliced crops are harming or killing beneficial insects and pollinators such as ladybugs and honey bees, and that pests are rapidly developing resistance to gene-altered crops. Once released, a genetically engineered crop cannot be recalled: the action is irreversible.

In 1990 cesium-137 leaked from an irradiation plant in Georgia; the whole building was eventually abandoned in 1992. Food irradiation will use "mobile irradiation facilities" that travel around from farm to farm to "treat" foods, thereby posing an unlimited radiation risk. The process itself slightly alters both the flavor and color of ground beef. The concept is simple: irradiation can kill bacteria that causes food poisoning by shattering their genetic material. Radioactive rays from sources such as cobalt rods are aimed at containers of food, killing the bacteria, yet leaving no residual radioactivity behind, scientists say.

Irradiation was authorized for spices, fruits, and vegetables in 1986, and for chicken in 1990. While the irradiated food itself is not radioactive, it does cause chemical changes in the food. Studies have shown that irradiation destroys many essential vitamins and nutrients and that it produces carcinogenic by-products. The long-term effects of eating irradiated foods are not known. Animals fed irradiated foods have developed testicular tumors, kidney disease, shorter life-spans, sterility, and other reproductive difficulties.

The Grocery Manufacturers of America, representing the makers of name-brand foods and packaged goods, called the new uniform standards "a great service to America's consumers and the food-producing industry." This should send up a red flag. The standards have been watered down so that agribusiness, factory farms, and chemical and genetic engineering companies can take over a $4 billion dollar organic food industry that has been painstakingly built by natural food consumers, organic farmers, and cooperative retailers over the past three decades.

The proposed rules should include an absolute prohibition on the use of irradiation, genetically modified organisms, and the use of so-called "organic" (i.e., toxic) waste. How can municipal waste be "certified" organic? If the organic food industry is doing so well and growing so fast, why bother with these new and improved rules? It's because big agribusinesses are licking their chops at the opportunity to bite into the profits of the organic food industry. The result will be that 12,000 truly organic farms (which average 250 acres each) will be chewed up and spit out. And, as a result, we will be eating "organic" franken foods grown with toxic sludge and cleaned up by irradiation.

The public comment period on these proposed rules ends on March 16, 1998. Send written comments to: Eileen S. Stommes, Deputy Administrator, Agricultural Marketing Service, USDA, Room 4007-S, Ag Stop 0275, P.O. Box 96456, Washington, DC 20090-6456. Comments also may be sent by fax to 202- 690-4632, or to http://ams.usda.gov/nop/.

To get a copy of the proposed rules, more information, or a list of organizations working on this issue, contact NW Forest Action Group, 206-632-1656, e-mail can@scn.org.