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Re The labels said 'organic.' But these massive imports of corn and soybeans weren't.

From: "Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>
Date: Sat, 13 May 2017 16:49:26 -0400



Begin forwarded message:


From: Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com>
Date: May 13, 2017 at 4:42:53 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: ip <ip () listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] The labels said 'organic.' But these massive imports of corn and soybeans weren't.

This is a good practice that should be encouraged. Organic food is basically a scam because it’s not more nutritious 
that conventional GMO food, and it’s much worse for the environment that food grown with modern methods. Stanford did 
a monster analysis on the nutrition issues, and there have be numerous studies on the environmental impact. 

It comes down the fact that organic is less productive than conventional farming, so it takes more acres of land for 
organic to produce the same output. This means more water, more CO2 from tractors, and more runoff. Organic food has 
to be fertilized with manure, which doesn’t have precise doses of nutrients. So farmers have to over-apply, which 
leads to runoff. Modern farming methods called “precision agriculture” apply water, pesticides, and nutrients 
on-demand and in the doses needed. This stuff is all enabled by IT, GPS, and networking in general.

Organic is also horrible at carbon sequestration because its only effective weed control methods are manual pulling 
and plowing, while GMO farmers can use zero-till methods with herbicide-tolerant plants. 

Many people mistakenly believe that organic food is pesticide-free, while it isn’t. Organic farmers are permitted to 
use a broad panoply of pesticides from the OMRI registry and even to use synthetic pesticides in low doses when all 
else fails. As one would expect, naturally-derived pesticides are less effective than synthetics, hence higher doses 
and greater environmental impact. 

So the best solution for people who want to eat organic is to apply the organic label to conventional foods. This 
allows consumers to overpay and enjoy the placebo effect without harming the planet.  

Bravo.

RB



On May 13, 2017, at 10:34 AM, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:




Begin forwarded message:


From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: May 13, 2017 at 12:15:01 PM EDT
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The labels said 'organic.' But these massive imports of corn and soybeans weren't.
Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com

The labels said ‘organic.’ But these massive imports of corn and soybeans weren’t.
By Peter Whoriskey
May 12 2017
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-labels-said-organic-but-these-massive-imports-of-corn-and-soybeans-werent/2017/05/12/6d165984-2b76-11e7-a616-d7c8a68c1a66_story.html>

A shipment of 36 million pounds of soybeans sailed late last year from Ukraine to Turkey to California. Along the 
way, it underwent a remarkable transformation.

The cargo began as ordinary soybeans, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Like ordinary 
soybeans, they were fumigated with a pesticide. They were priced like ordinary soybeans, too.

But by the time the 600-foot cargo ship carrying them to Stockton, Calif., arrived in December, the soybeans had 
been labeled “organic,” according to receipts, invoices and other shipping records. That switch — the addition of 
the “USDA Organic” designation — boosted their value by approximately $4 million, creating a windfall for at least 
one company in the supply chain.

After being contacted by The Post, the broker for the soybeans, Annapolis-based Global Natural, emailed a statement 
saying it may have been “provided with false certification documents” regarding some grain shipments from Eastern 
Europe. About 21 million pounds of the soybeans have already been distributed to customers.

The multimillion-dollar metamorphosis of the soybeans, as well as two other similar grain shipments in the past 
year examined by The Post, demonstrate weaknesses in the way that the United States ensures that what is sold as 
“USDA Organic” is really organic.

The three shipments, each involving millions of pounds of “organic” corn or soybeans, were large enough to 
constitute a meaningful proportion of the U.S. supply of those commodities. All three were presented as organic, 
despite evidence to the contrary. And all three hailed from Turkey, now one of the largest exporters of organic 
products to the United States, according to Foreign Agricultural Service statistics.

Agriculture Department officials said that they are investigating fraudulent organic grain shipments. But the 
agency declined to identify any of the firms or shipments involved.

“We are continuing the investigation based on the evidence received,” it said in a statement.

The imported corn and soybean shipments examined by The Post were largely destined to become animal feed and enter 
the supply chain for some of the largest organic food industries. Organic eggs, organic milk, organic chicken and 
organic beef are supposed to come from animals that consume organic feed, an added expense for farmers that 
contributes to the higher consumer prices on those items.

While most food sold as “USDA Organic” is grown in the United States, at least half of some organic commodities — 
corn, soybeans and coffee — come from overseas, from as many as 100 countries.

USDA officials say that their system for guarding against fraud is robust.

Under USDA rules, a company importing an organic product must verify that it has come from a supplier that has a 
“USDA Organic” certificate. It must keep receipts and invoices. But it need not trace the product back to the farm. 
Some importers, aware of the possibility of fraud, request extra documentation. But others do not.

Regardless of where organics come from, critics say, the system suffers from multiple weaknesses in enforcement: 
Farmers hire their own inspection companies; most inspections are announced days or weeks in advance and lack the 
element of surprise; and testing for pesticides is the exception rather than the rule.

These vulnerabilities are magnified with imported products, which often involve more middlemen, each of whom could 
profit by relabeling conventional goods as “organic.” The temptation could be substantial, too: Products with a 
“USDA Organic” label routinely sell for twice the price of their conventional counterparts.

In recent years, even as the amount of organic corn and soybeans imported to the United States has more than 
tripled, the USDA has not issued any major sanctions for the import of fraudulent grain, U.S. farmers said.

“The U.S. market is the easiest for potentially fraudulent organic products to penetrate because the chances of 
getting caught here are not very high,” said John Bobbe, executive director of the Organic Farmers’ Agency for 
Relationship Marketing, or OFARM, a farmer cooperative. In Europe and Canada, he said, import rules for organics 
are much stricter.

Moreover, even when the USDA has responded to complaints of questionable imports, action has come too late to 
prevent the products from reaching consumers.

[snip]

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