What’s in ‘Organic Food’? Still Plenty of Controversy

The organic foods industry is sprouting in Southern California and across the country. Sales of $173 million in 1980 have exploded to $3.5 billion a year now. What are these growers using for fertilizer?

Not until Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman released the nation’s first regulations for organic foods this week has there been hope that consumers of organic foods could know exactly what they are buying. The new regulations--to be implemented after a 90-day period for public comment--will override the chaotic patchwork of labeling laws in the states.

The confusion, however, is not entirely over, for rather than accepting the carefully deliberated recommendations of the National Organic Standards Board, Glickman declined to definitively prohibit three practices from being used in producing organic foods. The secretary should ban each of these practices.

* Fertilizing with sewage sludge. When cities were barred in the 1970s from discharging the runoff from their sewer systems, some cities began selling the material to farmers as fertilizer. Its use in any kind of agriculture is questionable, given the toxic industrial waste it often contains, including cadmium and lead.

* Irradiation. Irradiation appears to be a safe way of preventing hazardous bacteria from infecting beef and poultry. Organic foods are just as vulnerable. The National Organic Standards Board, however, sensibly argues that most Americans would not expect foods advertised as organic to be irradiated.

* Genetic engineering. This is a growing practice wherein, for example, a bacterium gene is injected into tomatoes, turning them into 24-hour-a-day anti-pest factories. This yields a large volume of unspoiled tomatoes in the short term. But in the long term insects develop resistance to the super-tomatoes, leaving farmers scrambling to find ever new strains of protective bacteria.

By next February, Glickman will have to decide whether to indeed allow these three controversial practices to be covered by the nation’s definition of “organic.” If he bases his decision solely on known dangers to consumers, he will not have to ban irradiation and genetic engineering. But Glickman should take a broader view, basing his decision also on what most Americans expect of organic foods. And genetic engineering, irradiation and certainly sludge hardly fit that expectation.