In 1997, there was an immediate and strong reaction against the ruling, resulting in a change that most people who use organics found acceptable. It seems that the same thing is happening again this time, only much more quickly. About two weeks after the Deal/Fairfield/Hastert rider passed, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman issued a statement in support of keeping the USDA organic standards as they were originally enacted in October 2002. House of Representatives and the Senate have also moved to pass bills to overturn this rider. The Senate bill looks like it will pass very easily, having more than 60 sponsors. The House bill currently has 46 sponsors.

So it looks like the word "organic" is likely to survive this challenge, as well. Hopefully, Nathan Deal and Fieldale Farms will be so disgraced by this episode that future "organic"-language tinkerers will be leery about risking their reputations. That’s the hope, but I think it’s unlikely. Instead, I think that challenges will become more and more common, and that supporters of organics and other forms of sustainable agriculture will need to be all the more vigilant. There are all sorts of new things on the horizon. Last winter, for the first time in this country, fresh produce was legally irradiated prior to customer sale. We have also recently seen the approval of the first GMO (genetically modified organism) "corn."

Another Way?

In this country, there is a movement that I would compare to the organic movement. It’s made up of people who want food treated in a fairly specific way. An industry much larger than the organic industry caters to these people. It involves not only producers, but also a number of private certification agencies that give their stamp of approval to various producers, allowing them to put the certification agency’s symbol on their products. Since these certification agencies are privately held (most are actually not-for-profits), politics — and those who donate money to campaigns — is not a factor in their rulings. These certification companies live and die on their reputations, and most try very, very hard to keep a clean reputation.

At the same time, since there are numerous certification agencies, rather than one monolithic government agency making one-size-fits-all rules, this allows for a certain degree of flexibility about the rules. Agency A might be stricter than Agency B, but people who are interested in this sort of thing generally know this — and people who desire a great deal of strictness will avoid products certified by Agency B.