Amended U.S. Department of Agriculture rules announced last month suggest the agency has high hopes for plans to crack down on fraud in the organic food sector.
The amended rules have some producers and sellers concerned they will increase costs for them and consumers. That’ll mean higher prices, and higher prices likely mean more incentives to cheat.
A more glaring problem is this: the USDA has been aware for many years that its oversight of organic food has been a massive failure—but that knowledge hasn’t spurred the agency to act. For example, a 2010 report by the USDA Office of Inspector General found the agency’s “enforcement of federal laws governing organics is abysmal,” Food Safety News reported at the time. A subsequent USDA OIG report in 2017—this one focusing on organic-food imports—found (per Buzzfeed) that “consumers who make a point of buying organic food may be getting ripped off” due to lax USDA oversight and other problems.
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As I’ve proposed before, a better plan than allowing the USDA more power over organics would have Congress rescind the agency’s oversight over organic foods entirely. With that change, the private, state-based bodies (such as CCOF and Oregon Tilth) that have been responsible for certifying producers as organic since the 1970s would continue to verify a producer’s organic status.
