Street Roots • August 4-10, 2017
ORGANIC, fro m page 4
adhering to them, van Saun said, there are a
handful of “bad actors” producing organic
eggs with industrial-model infrastructures that
don’t want to change.
“It’s a small number of producers,” she
said, “but because they are massive, they do
produce a fair amount of eggs that are labeled
organic.”
The USDA considers less than 1 percent of
producers to be “large,” but they are
responsible for 25 percent of all organic egg
production.
A Cornucopia Institute investigation found
that Cal-Maine and Herbruck’s Poultry were
among the largest egg producers to oppose
the new rules requiring outdoor access and
limits on population density in organic eggs
and poultry.
Both of these companies sell eggs under
several brands, including Eggland’s Best.
They also sell eggs to store-brand organic
labels such as
Safeway (0
Organics), Kroger
(Fred Meyer’s
Simple Truth
Organic) and
Trader Joe’s.
“When people
think organic, they
don’t think of
three birds
crowded into one
square foot of
space or no
outdoor access for
c h ick en s and
News
or present proposed organic rules for
animal welfare. Pigs are one of the most
intelligent animals in the world, ranking
somewhere between the fourth and 10th
smartest, depending on the source.
“I think what people would want is for
pigs to be able to engage in their natural
behaviors,” van Saun said. “If sows are in
gestation crates where they can’t move
around much to keep them from biting
each other or attacking or hurting each
other because they are so overcrowded, that
is a pretty terrible practice that a lot of
people are rightfully upset about.”
However, a side effect of not being able to
use antibiotics and hormones makes keeping
overcrowded pigs in confinement more
difficult.
“They rely on those drugs to be able to
keep the animals from dying,” van Saun said.
But her firm would like to see rules requiring
access to outdoors and ample space to move
around, like the poultry rules would require.
“Pigs are the last frontier,” she said.
There are animal welfare labels, such as
Animal Welfare Approved and Certified
Humane, that consumers can look to when
seeking humanely raised food. However,
because they are private labels, the
inspection and certification process isn’t as
transparent and reliable as the USDA Organic
label.
But, van Saun said, she would choose a
product with one of those labels over one
without, and consumers can visit each label’s
website to find out what producers have to do
to earn their certification, including sp ace
re q u ire d p e r anim al, a c c e ss to o u td o o rs, and
a n im a l h e a lt h a n d w e ll-b e in g .
poultry,” van Saun
said.
S h e said th a t
while the rules are
now slated to go
into effect in
November, she
isn’t sure if it will happen without more
pushing from the public or additional
litigation.
Connie Karr, the certification director at
Oregon Tilth, is strongly supportive of the
new animal welfare standards and that most
operations in Oregon are already following
the new guidelines. She said the delay is
unfortunate. “It’s a real bureaucratic mess
right now,” she said.
Oregon Tilth is the third-largest organic
certifier in the U.S., and it certifies organic
growers across the nation and advocates on
their behalf. Karr said that in Oregon, while
there are some mid-sized to large producers,
the majority are “the smaller, family-sized
What’s in the compost?
For five years starting in 2011,
unbeknownst to consumers, pesticide-
contaminated compost was allowed in organic
farming.
An engineer and concerned citizen living in
Banks, Ore., at the time, Rich Wallick,
uncovered this quiet change in federal policy
when he made a series of records requests.
Wallick had read about how some large
organic food growers were using synthetic
nitrogen fertilizers.
“It piqued my curiosity,” he said. It
prompted him to seek documentation from
various government agencies through the
Freedom of Information Act to find out why
The Organic Food Production Act of 1990
specifically prohibits the use of: “Any fertilizer
or composted plant and animal material that
contains a synthetic substance not included
on the National List of synthetic substances
this was happening.
allowed for use in organic crop production.”
In response, he was sent a document dump
As a result, California banned those
- more than 10,000 pages of mostly irrelevant
compost products for use in organic farming.
information. But he found something else
The USDA initially agreed. But according to ,
among the many pages, he said. It had to do
attorneys at the Center for Food Safety, that s
with compost, which is crucial to organic
when some of the larger organic companies
farms.”
...
farming.
While the new rules will make conditions
that were relying on yard waste compost
In the earlier years of organic, most
for birds better than the status quo, there are
interjected, arguing they needed this large
producers made their own compost. The idea
additional issues around poultry the Center
scale source of compost to operate.
of a sustainable, closed-looped system is one
for Food Safety would like to see addressed.
Rather than conducting a formal rule
of the key principles behind organic
For example, there are no organic
change to allow for contaminated compost,
production.
hatcheries where producers can get non
which would have required public notice and
But as food-industry giants began to
commercial chicks. This means that the same
an open public comment period, the USDA s
establish their own organic labels, they
breed of bird that’s been bred to grow fast in
National Organic Program issued a guidance
needed a compost source. That’s when yard
confinement with enlarged breasts - a breed
document that changed the definition of the
waste compost largely entered the organic
that doesn’t do well outdoors - is the same
word “contains” as it refers to synthetics.
market. The only problem is that urban yard
breed organic farmers often purchase.
waste contains all sorts of synthetic chemicals
This opened the door for use of
Additionally, hatcheries typically trim
contaminated fertilizers and compost in
that people apply to their lawns, trees and
chicks’ beaks and inject them with vaccines
organic agriculture without notifying the
gardens.
and other drugs. The organic label provides
In 2009, the California Department of Food
public.
for this “first day of life” exemption from
Through emails obtained in his records
and Agriculture discovered three compost
organic rules, but advocates say organic
products used to grow organic wheatgrass
hatcheries are needed for organic poultry and
were contaminated with bifenthrin, a common
See ORGANIC, page 7
household insecticide.
egKg™however, are not included in any past
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