Strengthening Trust in the "Organic" Label

With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I’m Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

Strengthening trust in the organic label.

The Organic Trade Association is now applauding the USDA and the National Organic Program for the new “Strengthening Organic Enforcement Rule.” The new regulation will do a lot to detect organic fraud and protect the integrity of organic agriculture throughout the supply chain. Tom Chapman, CEO of the Organic Trade Association, talks about the new regulation…

“When the standards were first published, they focused on controlling entities that touch the product, so farmers, processors who transform it or are mixing it, making them into finished goods, and anyone who's labeling it. That's really where the standards focused. It didn't focus on the folks who stored products, that maybe didn't process it at all, or all the entities that handled the product on paper - they traded, they brokered them – and, as organic grew from $6 billion to $63 billion, supply chains got more complex, and those entities become much more prevalent, and there's opportunities for them to switch around some paperwork and make something conventional look organic.”

While those fraudulent cases were rare, it was important to get a handle on the situation…

“Organic relies on consumer trust, and any cases of fraud are one case too many.”

Despite recent challenges, Chapman says the U.S. organic industry is still growing.