The United States organic industry is calling for action to end what
it calls massive fraud involving imports of “organic” corn and soybeans from
Eastern Europe and
China.
It says the cheap imports are driving U.S. growers out of business and
says the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been negligent in failing to
enforce regulations.
It has written to the new Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue
recommending that he fire the National Organic Program managers.
The organic industry’s watchdog, The Cornucopia Institute, says it has
been filing complaints about organic fraud for more than a decade without
making much progress.
It says the U.S. officials even recognize some organic-certifying
bodies that have been banned in Europe and that it renewed a
licence for Jirah Mills after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency investigated
the Quebec company in 2011, resulting in Jireh Mills surrendering its organic
certification.
Cornucopia’s letter to Perdue follows the release of a
new investigation by The Washington
Post documenting massive shipments of fraudulent organic grains
entering the U.S. from China and Eastern Europe.
"This is the second organic major-league scandal uncovered this
month by The Washington Post,
and it confirms a longstanding pattern of negligence and corruption
documented by our researchers," said Will Fantle, Cornucopia's co-director.
Cornucopia says that ‘all too often the complaints” it has been filing
for more than a decade “have been dismissed without investigation, or, when
found meritorious, penalties have been negotiated down to a ‘light slap on
the wrist’ for offenders, with the details of the deals cloaked in secrecy.”
Fantle said “consumers are being cheated and ethical farmers are being
robbed of income while the U.S.D.A. fails to vigorously defend—as they were
charged to do by Congress—organic integrity."
Mark A. Kastel, Cornucopia’s senior farm policy analyst, says “organic
stakeholders need the Trump/Purdue administration to step up and exert authority
over the NOP, which has been unduly influenced by the leading industry lobby
group, the Organic Trade Association.”
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