Advancement of u.s. organic industry imposes new challenges

The organic food industry in the United States, of $ 35 billion, has almost tripled in size over the last ten years, challenging the ability of the u.s. Department of agriculture (USDA) to monitor more than 25 thousand farms and other organizations that sell livestock and organic products.
There are currently 81 "certifying officers" accredited, or groups that chancelam the foods as organic in the us. But of the 37 who have undergone a complete evaluation this year, 23 failed on correct application of audited farms certification requirements, according to an internal report from the USDA. The 23 firms not conducted appropriately in inspections or not evaluated correctly organic certification requests, among other things, according to the report.
A separate investigation conducted by "The Wall Street Journal" in USDA records since 2005, found that 38 of 81 certifying agents have failed on at least one occasion in compliance with the rules of the Department of Agriculture.
During this period, 40% of these 81 were warned by the USDA for certifiers conduct incomplete inspections; 16% of them failed in the indication of the potential hazard of organic farms use pesticides and antibiotics banned; and 5% not warned about the possibility of mixing organic and non organic products, according to the investigation of the WSJ.
Certifying agents-authorised by the USDA to inspect and certify organic farms and suppliers-including small nonprofit groups, State agencies and large multinationals. All are paid by farms or businesses they certify.
The USDA said that require certifying officers to comply with numerous requirements and that the problems encountered by the WSJ and the Agency's internal report reflect "a very rigorous accreditation process that requires compliance with integral [standards] and correcting issues identified". Those who do not meet the compliance rules, as the 23 cited this year, have a chance to solve the problem, but risk being excluded from certification program if the problem is not resolved.
The USDA added that its certifying officers were in agreement with 97% of its regulations.
Organic products can cost up to twice as many produced conventionally, but, except for the tags that identify them, consumers have no way to assess whether they are in fact organic. People have to rely on the guarantee given by the companies and by non-profit groups that food has been produced in accordance with the Federal regulations.
"The whole setup of the system needs to be improved," says Liu Chenglin, a law professor at the University St. Mary in San Antonio, Texas, who has studied the organic certification system and raised concerns about the accuracy of the certifying officers and the absence of frequent checks by the Department of Agriculture of these certifying officers. "This leaves much room for error."
Three agents were excluded from USDA certification sector among the 100 who were approved to operate as certifying officers since the beginning of the program in 2002, according to a spokesman for the USDA. "We use all the tools that we have available, while we also work with the legal parameters of the system of administrative law", said the spokesman for the USDA. "Any question of violation, even minimal, is corrected."
The Whole Foods Market Inc., the leading organic supermarket chain, believes that the organic seal increases the level of "integrity" for retailers and consumers, says Joe Dixon, senior global coordinator of company quality standards. Dickson, who also is a member of the National Council of the USDA organic standards, says the system will improve when the Agency adopt a real-time database of certified organic operations.
The USDA does not currently have a centralized database of farms that were suspended. The USDA reported that it is working to "expand and update the accuracy of our list of certified operations" and is developing a new system that will "serve as a modernized list of certified operations". This system, according to the Agency, will "close all existing holes generated by the constraints of the current database '.
Some farms identified for being in violation of USDA rules were allowed to apply again to participate in the program with reduced sentences.
In 2008, Ryan Fehr was suspended by your certification body for failing in the maintenance of adequate records on his farm in the State of Iowa, according to USDA appeal documents. According to these documents, he was readmitted in 2012, but suspended again last year after they find out that he sold as organic products in 2010, during which was contracting. The USDA closed a deal with producer in 2013, allowing him to run again to the program after payment of a fine of $ 500. Fehr did not return phone calls asking for comment the article.
The Agency has adopted this kind of agreement with certain frequency. In the nine months ended in February 2014, the number of agreements was five times greater than the average for the period since 2005, according to the WSJ's analysis based on USDA documents. USDA spokesman said these agreements allow the agencies "to resolve compliance issues in a way that leads companies to comply with the rules without expensive and lengthy administrative procedures".
The case of Fehr followed "standard process required for suspended operations to analyze a new certification," said USDA spokesman.
Some certifying officers were caught violating the rules of government agencies. In 2012, the USDA reported in an audit that the company Quality Assurance International Inc., of California, the fourth-largest u.s. certifier agent in number of certified operations, failed to give pesticide tests results to the Department of agriculture.
After the USDA have reprimanded the certifying agent, he delivered the results, which showed that an organic cumin from an operation certified by QAI was contaminated with several pesticides, including the carbamate, an insecticide whose use was banned in 2009 by the American environmental protection agency in any type of food.
The QAI reported that the incident was a "unique" exception that the certifier presented the results to the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, the u.s. agency that monitors food and medicine, and the National Organic Program and that sales of this producer of cumin were suspended "until corrective measures were adopted".
The USDA reported that the firm received the notification of non-compliance and corrective measures adopted to solve the issue ".