Credibility an Achilles heel for organic food

[S.Annadana]

Will Verboven, For The Calgary Herald

The organic food business is on the verge of becoming the biggest scam ever inflicted on a gullible public. The latest revelation questions the holier-than-thou attitude of organic food proponents when it comes to accountability and credibility -- does an organic label really mean organic?

The only proof a consumer gets from the organic industry is "trust us." Yet, organic food promoters make sanctimonious pronouncements about the alleged high levels of pesticide, herbicide, hormone and antibiotic residues in normal foods. It's part of their successful marketing approach. The innuendo is that regular food is contaminated and organic food is pristine.

Only the trusting consumer is fooled. Both sides know organic food can just as easily contain banned or unwelcome substances, which can be picked up by accident or design. Some organic foods even contain high levels of copper, sulphur, rotenone and other so-called organic pesticides.


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Font:****Government agencies have done random residue testing and found that up to 25 per cent of some organic foods contained pesticides or other substances. The implication of that finding is there may be some cheating going on by organic food marketers.

That is probably true. Consumers are unaware that 80 per cent of organic food sold in Canada is imported from other countries, including China. Considering its track record on food safety, does anyone believe an organic label from China can be trusted?

The downside of testing organic products is that more residue discoveries would create a negative public perception. That would be bad for business. Better to leave naive consumers in the dark.

Testing also works both ways -- a Canadian government study has also found that close to 80 per cent of regular food products contain no detectable levels of pesticides. That puts those foods on the same plane as organic food.

None of this helps the pristine image organic food proponents have cultivated. Their response has been to lobby against any initiative to establish mandatory testing of organic products, the fear presumably being that testing would prove a lot of foods are not organic and the consumer is being ripped off.

Obtaining organic certification is based on the honour system. If you swear you are carrying out organic production practices, you can become a certified organic producer. It gets even more ridiculous; certification inspectors warn producers when they are coming to inspect and only do a cursory review of a producer's paperwork. Testing for residues to back up organic claims is almost never done. There is room for deception.

To bring credibility to organic food labelling, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has created a "Canada Organic" label. There are provisions for residue testing, but it will be at their discretion. That guts the label's credibility.

Organic proponents need to stand behind their product claims -- the only way to do that is through compulsory, regular, random residue testing with the results publicly available. Those in the organic food industry who are opposed to such accountability need to explain what they have to hide.

Will Verboven is editor of Alberta Farmer, and a frequent contributor to these pages.