US farmers skeptical of organic industry ‘task force’ cracking down on fraudulent imports

[May 2017], The Post reported that three enormous shipments of “organic” corn and soybeans – large enough to constitute a meaningful proportion of the U.S. supply of those commodities – had reached the U.S.

Documents and interviews indicated that the shipments were not really organic – in fact, some had been treated with pesticides en route to the U.S. All three shipments hailed from Turkey, one of the largest exporters of organic products to the United States, according to Foreign Agricultural Service statistics. With the “USDA Organic” designation, the value of the shipments rose by millions of dollars.

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Now comes news of the task force. Some U.S. farmers look skeptically at the effort because, they say, they have been waiting for two years for protection from cheap – and fraudulent – organic imports.

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John Bobbe, executive director of the Organic Farmers’ Agency for Relationship Marketing, or OFARM, a farmer cooperative, declared that he was “amused” by the industry effort. He noted that many members of the Organic Trade Association have benefited from the lower prices on organic corn and soybeans.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Millions of pounds of apparently fake ‘organic’ grains convince the food industry there may be a problem