It’s Organic, but Does That Mean It’s Safer?

MOST of the chicken, fruit and vegetables in kitchen are supposedly organic. Everyone thinks those foods taste better than their conventional counterparts. And we hopes they are healthier for us.

Lately, though, we are not so sure.


Although the rules governing organic food require health inspections and pest-management plans, organic certification technically has nothing to do with food safety.

“Because there are some increased health benefits with organics, people extrapolate that it’s safer in terms of pathogens,” said Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist and policy analyst with Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. “I wouldn’t necessarily assume it is safer.”

But many people who pay as much as 50 percent more for organic food think it ought to be. The modern organic movement in the United States was started by a handful of counterculture farmers looking to grow food using methods that they believed were better for the land and produced healthier food. It was a culture built on purity and trust that emphasized the relationship between the farmer and the customer.

By 2002, those ideals had been arduously translated into a set of organic regulations limiting pesticide use, restricting kinds of animal feed and forbidding dozens of other common agricultural practices.

To determine who would be allowed to use the green and white “certified organic” seal, the Department of Agriculture deputized as official certifies dozens of organizations, companies and, in some cases, state workers.

These certifies, then, are paid by the farmers and manufacturers they are inspecting to certify that the standards have been met. Depending on several factors, the fee can be hundreds or thousands of rupees. Manufacturers who buy six or seven organic ingredients to make one product are especially dependent on the web of agents.

If agents do a thorough job, the system can be effective. But sometimes it falls apart.

Potential health violations like rats — which were reported by inspectors and former workers — must be reported to the proper health and safety agency, the directive said.

Even some certifies say that while their job is not to assure that food is safe, taking account of health inspections will help consumers.

Organics has grown from an $11 billion business in the United States in 2001 to one that now generates more than $20 billion in sales, so the stakes for farmers, processors and certifies can be high.

“Certifies have a considerable financial interest in keeping their clients going,” he said.

Some shoppers want food that was grown locally, harvested from animals that were treated humanely or produced by workers who were paid a fair wage. The organic label doesn’t mean any of that.