PAKISSAN.com; Organic labeling process unnatural, growers declare

Alan Trout used to hang a banner on his farmer’s market stand, advertising his produce as organic. This year, the 50-year-old farmer left his banner at home in Goodman. “I’m sure not gonna pay the USDA for a piece of paper,” he said. And this year, that is what Trout would need to legally call his farm organic.

As of Oct. 21, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will regulate commercial use of the word “organic.” Only those growers, handlers and processors who are certified according to national standards will be eligible to profit from a term that has come to mean significant price increases for consumers. At one local grocery, a 5-pound bag of conventional potatoes retails for $1.99 while a similar bag of organic potatoes costs $4.99.

Until now, a hodgepodge of private and state-run organizations provided organic certification based on varied requirements, and those using the term without certification, like Trout, faced no repercussions. As of October, organic will have a standardized meaning nationally, and those using the word otherwise will be breaking the law.

Law or no law, none of the eight southwestern members in the Missouri Organic Association’s most recent listing will seek certification because they can’t afford, don’t need and don’t entirely trust the costly and time-consuming certification process.

But certification is a vital part of East Wind Nut Butter’s business, said Anna Young, the Tecumseh-based processing facility’s sales and marketing manager. East Wind has been independently certified since 1994 and had organic sales in excess of $600,000 in 2001.

Without certification, “how will people know you’re not just saying you’re organic and getting a great big markup on stuff that’s not really organic?” she said. But East Wind is going against the Ozarks’ grain in this.

Sonja Lallemand, who owns Cafe Du Nord on Commercial Street in Springfield, tries to buy organic — she says such food tastes better — but certification is not important. Certification “doesn’t matter because one can grow organic without spending $500 for a seal of approval,” Lallemand said. Growers in the area are with Lallemand.

With certification, “there is an expense, plus you’re entering a bureaucracy, which, in the Ozarks, we tend not to like. We tend to believe the less government, the better,” said Roland Netzer, a 72-year-old Springfield farmer, who does not plan on getting certified.

“I think for most of the local growers, certification is not going to be economically beneficial,” said Rick Hopkins, president of the Missouri Organic Association.

The USDA estimates certification costs will range from $579 for a 25-acre farm to more than $33,000 for 3,000-acre farm. Actual cost will depend on facility size, income, commodity and location. Cost also depends on the certifying agency.

Gov. Bob Holden is expected to sign legislation this week allowing the Missouri Department of Agriculture to seek USDA accreditation to become a certifying agency, a step the Missouri Organic Association supported. Having a state-run agency “will automatically reduce the cost of certification and it’s my belief it will be more fair,” Hopkins said.

Although the program’s fee structure has not yet been established, Sue Baird, coordinator for Missouri’s 6-month-old organic program, said the state-run agency will economize by tapping into existing infrastructure and by training existing inspectors. Other state agencies have been able to keep costs down in this way, she said. “The state agencies have just stepped up to assume the cost (of certification) for their organic producers,” she said. The USDA has accredited 42 certifying agencies, 10 of which are state-run.

Farmers will also have access to some federal help: The 2002 Farm Bill allocated $5 million to help farmers with up to 75 percent, but no more than $500, of their certification costs. Missouri’s organic program will not be ready to certify facilities until 2003, but at that point “we’re hoping to have a lot of transition into organic,” Baird said.

Despite the expense of certification, one of the main incentives to transition is money, she said, citing price increases of more than 300 percent in some cases. “There’s a real potential for our farmers to maybe even make a little money, let alone survive out there,” she said.

Consumer demand for organic products seems to be growing nationally. The industry reports the market grew by over 20 percent annually during the 1990s, from $1 billion in 1990 to $7.8 billion in 2000.

“Where organic is growing is in the heartland, and I think Missouri is well-positioned to take advantage of that,” said Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation, a Santa Cruz, Calif.-based nonprofit. But Rose Atchley thinks “it’s all a great big joke.”

Organic’s financial magic did not transform her herb farm into a money tree. Atchley, who has been farming organically in Branson since 1993, is so disenchanted she may stop selling herbs entirely. “I hear people say they want organic, they want organic, but they really don’t,” she said, referring to customers’ unwillingness to pay more for organic products.

East Wind Nut Butter, however, has found customers willing to pay more for organic. The company, which only sells wholesale, recommends that its conventional peanut butter retail for $2.99 for 16 ounces, compared with $3.69 for its organic peanut butter. A third of the product the company sells is organic.

But farmers like Netzer who are already surviving without certification see no reason to change. “The reason for the certification is to gain a marketing advantage, but we’re selling all we can produce right now, so what’s the advantage of the extra expense, the extra paperwork, the extra bureaucracy?” he said.

The Organic Farming Research Foundation estimates there are about 8,000 certified organic farms nationwide and between 12,000 and 15,000 growers like Netzer, who farm organically but are not certified.

The road to certification is indeed a paper trail, Baird said. “You have to be able to maintain the integrity of the organic product all the way from the field to shipping to retail,” she said.

Integrity is especially important because the national standards were created to prevent fraudulent claims, Scowcroft said. “People were cheating, slapping the organic label on food that wasn’t” and then charging higher prices for it, he said. “We live by consumer trust ... and we couldn’t afford that anymore.”

The paper trail is particularly important to East Wind Nut Butter because “we’re a third layer of certification,” said Young, the company’s sales manger. East Wind does not grow nuts, so it relies on the certification process to be sure the New Mexico peanuts and Mexican sesame seeds it uses are grown, shelled and packed according to organic regulations.

East Wind ships its nut butters nationwide, so it also depends on certification to assure its customers they can trust the end product. Although the company spent more than $3,500 on certification in 2001, Young said it is worth it. “Organic peanut butter and organic tahini are a big part of our business,” she said.

It is exactly for these types of impersonal, interstate transactions that certification is important, said Alan Trout, whose transactions are anything but impersonal. He has been farming organically for 25 years, growing vegetables and herbs on his farm, Whippoorwhill Hill, and selling them exclusively at farmers markets.

If anyone ever asks Trout whether he is certified, he has a simple answer: “I always say, ‘I’m farmer-certified,’ and look ’em in the eye and say, ‘You’ll just have to take my word for it.’” His customers usually do, and given that, Trout sees no need for formal certification.

“My customers know me. They know how I grow things, and that’s enough,” he said.
But Trout’s lack of interest in certification has deeper roots than the financial and paperwork burden that accompanies it.

Like many area farmers, Trout is skeptical of the standards: “I think they were diluted for the benefit of the big agribusiness companies.” The Missouri Organic Association’s Hopkins goes even further: He says the industry has “stolen” the organic label from family farmers.

To counteract this, Hopkins, who raises organic beef in Marionville, has developed another label entirely, one that focuses on the producers rather than the methods of production. He calls it American Homestead Foods, a designation he says will be reserved for family farms.

With the $30 membership fee comes listing in an Internet directory and a sign bearing the American Homestead logo for the farm. Though the site lists only eight farms in Missouri as yet, Hopkins is optimistic.

“I want to see that label on every gate in America,” he said, pointing to the Homestead logo already on his truck. Whatever labels identify them, area organic growers do not plan to change how they farm because, in the end, their farming practices mean more than mere financial gain to them.

For Netzer, who has always farmed organically and who says he will do so “till they carry (him) out of the field someday,” organic is a healthier way of farming, both for the Earth and for people.

It is also the only way he has ever known. “I would be as afraid to start using pesticides — not only from a financial perspective but an environmental one — as some people would be afraid to stop,”

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