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WASHINGTON — Amid growing tumult over whether the “USDA Organic” label really guarantees that a product is grown as advertised, Congress is weighing legislation that would roughly double the budget for the USDA’s oversight of the organic industry. The bill, introduced by Rep. John Faso, R-N.Y., has 33 House cosponsors, and its backers hope that its bipartisan support will enable its passage next year. The USDA’s National Organic Program is supposed to protect consumers from food that is advertised as organic but that does not meet organic standards. This year The Washington Post has published several stories casting doubt on the authenticity of the products from some of the largest “organic” producers of milk, eggs and imported grains.“There’s a growing concern about the capacity of the Agriculture Department to accurately monitor products that are labelled organic but may not actually be,” Faso said, citing the shipments of bogus organic soybeans from the Ukraine through Turkey to the United States, which was reported in The Post in May.“Because you can get a premium price, there are inevitably going to be people who will try to trick the [organic] system,” Faso said. |
