Three years ago, U.S. Department of Agriculture employees determined that synthetic additives in organic baby formula violated federal standards and should be banned from a product carrying the federal organic label. Today the same additives, purported to boost brainpower and vision, can be found in 90 percent of organic baby formula.

The government’s turnaround, from prohibition to permission, came after a USDA program manager was lobbied by the formula makers and overruled her staff. That decision and others by a handful of USDA employees, along with an advisory board’s approval of a growing list of non-organic ingredients, have helped numerous companies win a coveted green-and-white “USDA Organic” seal on an array of products.

Grated organic cheese, for example, contains wood starch to prevent clumping. Organic beer can be made from non-organic hops. Organic mock duck contains a synthetic ingredient that gives it an authentic, stringy texture.

Relaxation of the federal standards, and an explosion of consumer demand, have helped push the organics market into a $23 billion-a-year business, the fastest growing segment of the food industry. Half of the country’s adults say they buy organic food often or sometimes, according to a survey last year by the Harvard School of Public Health.

But the USDA program’s shortcomings mean that consumers, who at times must pay twice as much for organic products, are not always getting what they expect: foods without pesticides and other chemicals, produced in a way that is gentle to the environment.

The market’s expansion is fueling tension over whether the federal program should be governed by a strict interpretation of “organic” or broadened to include more products by allowing trace elements of non-organic substances. The argument is not over whether the non-organics pose a health threat, but whether they weaken the integrity of the federal organic label.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has pledged to protect the label, even as he acknowledged the pressure to lower standards to let more products in.

In response to complaints, the USDA inspector general’s office has widened an investigation of whether products carrying the label meet national standards. The probe is also looking into the department’s oversight of private certifiers who are hired by farmers and food producers and inspect products to determine whether they can use the label.

Some consumer groups and members of Congress say they worry that the program’s lax standards are undermining the federal program and the law itself.

“It will unravel everything we’ve done if the standards can no longer be trusted,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who sponsored the federal organics legislation. “If we don’t protect the brand, the organic label, the program is finished. It could disappear overnight.”

Organic advocates and food marketing experts said the introduction this month of new “natural” products by an organics division of Dean Foods is the latest sign that the value of the USDA label has eroded. The yogurt and milk products will be distributed under the Horizon label and marketed as a lower-priced alternative to organic products.

Congress adopted the organics law after farmers and consumers demanded uniform standards for produce, dairy and meat. The law banned synthetics, pesticides and genetic engineering from foods that would bear a federal organic label. It also required annual testing for pesticides. And it was aimed at preventing producers from falsely claiming their foods were organic.

The USDA created the National Organic Program in 2002 to implement the law. By then, major food companies had bought up most small, independent organic companies. Kraft Foods, for example, owns Boca Foods. Kellogg owns Morningstar Farms, and Coca-Cola owns 40 percent of Honest Tea, maker of the organic beverage favored by President Obama.

That corporate firepower has added to pressure on the government to expand the definition of what is organic, in part because processed foods offered by big industry often require ingredients, additives or processing agents that either do not exist in organic form or are not available in large enough quantities for mass production.

Under the original organics law, 5 percent of a USDA-certified organic product can consist of non-organic substances, provided they are approved by the National Organic Standards Board. That list has grown from 77 to 245 substances since it was created in 2002. Companies must appeal to the board every five years to keep a substance on the list, explaining why an organic alternative has not been found. The goal was to shrink the list over time, but only one item has been removed so far.

The original law’s mandate for annual pesticide testing was also never implemented — the agency left that optional.

From the beginning, farmers and consumer advocates were concerned about safeguarding the organic label. In 2003, Arthur Harvey, who grows organic blueberries in Maine, successfully sued the USDA, arguing that the fledgling National Organic Program had violated federal law by allowing synthetic additives.

“The big boys like Kraft realized they could really cash in by filling the shelves with products with the organics seal,” Harvey said. “But they were sort of inhibited by the original law that said no synthetic ingredients.”

His victory was short-lived. The Organic Trade Association, which represents corporations such as Kraft, Dole and Dean Foods, lobbied for and received language in a 2006 appropriations bill allowing certain synthetic food substances in the preparation, processing and packaging of organic foods, creating conditions for a flood of processed organic foods.

Tom Harding, a Pennsylvania-based consultant for small local farmers and big producers, including Kraft, said that broadening the law has helped meet demand by multiplying the number of organic products and greatly expanded the amount of agricultural land that is being managed organically.

“We don’t want to eliminate anyone who wants to be a part of the organic community,” Harding said. “The growth we’ve seen has helped the entire organic food chain.”
Organics for Babies

Today, labels on organic infant formula boast that they include DHA and ARA, synthetic fatty acids that some studies suggest can help neural development. But according to agency records, when the issue came before the USDA in 2006, agency staff members concluded that the fatty acids could not be added to organic baby formula because they are synthetics that are not on the standards board’s approved list.

The fatty acids in formula are often produced using a potential neurotoxin known as hexane, prompting many organics advocates to conclude that the board would not approve their use if it took up the matter.

In a rare move, Barbara Robinson, who administers the organics program and is a deputy USDA administrator, overruled the staff decision after a telephone call and an e-mail exchange with William J. Friedman, a lawyer who represents the formula makers.

“I called [Robinson] up,” Friedman said. “I wrote an e-mail. It was a simple matter.” The back-and-forth, he said, was nothing more than part of the routine process that sets policy in Washington.

In an interview, Robinson said she agreed with Friedman’s argument that fatty acids were not permitted because of an oversight. Vitamins and minerals are allowed, but “accessory nutrients” — the category that describes fatty acids — are not specifically named.

As for hexane, Robinson said the law bans its use in processing organic food, but she does not believe the ban extends to the processing of synthetic additives.

“We don’t attempt to say how synthetic products can be produced,” she said.

Manufacturers say the fatty acids are safe and provide health benefits to infants.

“We test every lot that comes out for hexane, and there is no residue,” said David Abramson, president of Maryland-based Martek Biosciences, which produces the fatty acids used by formula companies.

Several groups have filed complaints with the USDA saying they think that the inclusion of the fatty acids in organic products violates federal rules and laws. And they say that Robinson did not have the authority to make the decision on her own.

“This is illegal rulemaking — a complete violation of the process that is supposed to protect the public,” said Gary Cox, a lawyer with the Cornucopia Institute, an organics advocacy group.

Cox and others make the same argument about other decisions by Robinson and several members of her staff.

In 2004, Robinson issued a directive allowing farmers and certifiers to use pesticides on organic crops if “after a reasonable effort” they could not determine whether the pesticide contained chemicals prohibited by the organics law.

The same year, Robinson determined that farmers could feed organic livestock non-organic fish meal, which can contain mercury and PCBs. The law requires that animals that produce organic meat be raised entirely on organic feed.

After sharp protests from Leahy, Consumers Union and other groups, Ann Veneman, then agriculture secretary, rescinded these and two other directives issued by Robinson.

The orders were signed by a staff member, but Robinson took responsibility, saying she had made the decisions unwisely without consulting organics experts, certifiers or the standards board.

“I failed, and take this as a learning experience and do not want it to happen again,” she told board members in 2004.

Earlier this year, however, Robinson issued a series of directives without consulting experts, certifiers or the board. She said that because the issues were urgent, including one on food safety, she had to act quickly.

In an interview, Robinson said she believes the federal program’s main purpose is to “grow the industry,” and she dismissed controversies over synthetics in organic foods as “mostly ridiculous.”

Joe Smillie, a board member, said he thinks that advocates for the most restrictive standards are unrealistic and are inhibiting the growth of organics.

“People are really hung up on regulations,” said Smillie, who is also vice president of the certifying firm Quality Assurance International, which is involved in certifying 65 percent of organic products found on supermarket shelves. “I say, ‘Let’s find a way to bend that one, because it’s not important.’ . . . What are we selling? Are we selling health food? No. Consumers, they expect organic food to be growing in a greenhouse on Pluto. Hello? We live in a polluted world. It isn’t pure. We are doing the best we can.”
Waiting for Standards

Under Robinson, the National Organic Program has repeatedly opted not to issue standards spelling out how organic food must be grown, treated or produced. In 65 instances since 2002, the standards board has made recommendations that have not been acted upon, creating a haphazard system in which the private certifiers have set their own standards for what products can carry the federal label.

The agency has not acted, for example, on a 2002 board recommendation that would answer a critical question for organic dairy farmers: how to interpret the law requiring that their cows have “access to pasture,” rather than be crowded onto feedlots. The result has been that some dairy farms have been selling milk as organic from cows that spend little if any time grazing in open spaces.

“This is really a case of ‘justice delayed is justice denied,’ ” said Alexis Baden-Mayer, national political director for the Organic Consumers Association. “The truly organic dairy farmers, who have their cows out in the pasture all year round, are at a huge competitive disadvantage compared to the big confinement dairies.”

Robinson has blamed the delays on the program’s small staff, saying that “we have to prioritize.”

Without specific standards, the wide discretion given to certifiers has invited producers and farmers to shop around for the certifiers most likely to approve their product, consumer groups say.

Sam Welsch, president of the Nebraska-based OneCert, said his company this year has lost as many as a dozen fruit and vegetable farmers seeking other certifiers that allow the use of certain liquid fertilizers, which most organics experts believe are prohibited by organics laws because they are unnaturally spiked with high levels of nitrogen.

“The rules should be clear enough that there is just one right answer,” Welsch said.

Consumer groups and organics advocates are hopeful that the Obama administration will bolster the program. In his proposed budget, the president has doubled resources devoted to organics and installed USDA leaders who support change.

Vilsack’s deputy, organics expert Kathleen A. Merrigan, told consumer groups three weeks ago that she intends to heighten enforcement. Merrigan helped write the original organics law and get the federal program off the ground in 2002.

And Vilsack said he wants to protect the organic label. “That term, ‘organic,’ needs to be pure,” he said in an interview. “You can’t allow the definition to be eroded to where it means nothing. . . . We have to fight against that kind of pressure.”

Still, at the standards board’s meeting last month, Chairman Jeff Moyer noted the growing tension. “As the organic industry matures, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find a balance between the integrity of the word ‘organic’ and the desire for the industry to grow.”

BOULDER, CO: A division of Dean Foods, the organic industry’s largest namebrand manufacturer, rocked the organic world this week when it was reported that the agribusiness giant intended to create an entirely new, lower-priced, product category, “natural dairy,” aimed squarely at pirating away organic customers. If successful Dean, the largest milk processor in the United States, will add to the pain many organic farmers are feeling due to slowing sales caused by the economic downturn.

For the first time the Horizon namebrand will market products that are not certified organic. Horizon has had the highest dollar volume of any organic industry brand.

Dean’s WhiteWave-Morningstar division, which controls the Horizon, Organic Cow, Silk, and other specialty brands and is based in Longmont, Colorado, has launched their “alternative to the organic label” at a time when sales in the industry have flattened after averaging 20% per year growth rates for more than a decade. Recent articles in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and the Associated Press have profiled falling prices and production caps now being placed on farms producing organic milk—with many of these family farmers now facing financial ruin.

“This move by Dean Foods comes at a time when organic dairy farmers around the country are in financial crisis due to a glut of milk,” said Mark A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute. “Responsible participants in this industry are using their marketing strength to ramp up organic demand. Dean has instead chosen to profiteer at the expense of the hard-working family farmers who have built this industry.”

This move comes on the heels of the recent decision by Dean/WhiteWave to switch almost the entire product offerings of their Silk soymilk line to “natural” (conventional) soybeans. Many consumers and retailers have expressed outrage when the switch to conventional soybeans was quietly made in Silk products without lowering the price. Industry critics have referred to the move as “sheer profiteering.”

“They are handling the introduction of natural products under the Horizon label a little bit differently than they handled their switch to conventional soybeans sourcing in Silk,” Kastel stated. “With their soy products the appearance of their packaging and UPC product codes remained the same.”

Many retailers and consumers around the country, who had been longtime loyal customers, were outraged to find that their favorite organic brand had been switched to conventional, somewhat clandestinely. This has caused some retailers to now drop the Silk products.

Sara Loveday, a marketing communications manager at WhiteWave told the Natural Foods Merchandiser, an industry trade publication: “We’ve only been organic in the past and the majority of our business will remain organic. These are our first natural offerings in the marketplace, and Horizon always tries to provide great-tasting products for moms and for families.”

The Dean/WhiteWave spokesperson continued by saying the natural Horizon products would be “easier on the pocketbook.”

“Many consumers do not understand green terminology,” said Suzanne Shelton, whose firm, the Shelton Group, just released a national survey examining consumer perception about food labeling. “They prefer the word ‘natural’ over the term ‘organic,’ thinking organic is more of an unregulated marketing buzzword that means the product is more expensive. In reality, the opposite is true: ‘Natural’ is the unregulated word. Organic foods must meet government standards to be certified as such,” Shelton concluded.

“It is apparent to us that moves toward “natural” dairy products offerings will have a negative impact on the organic category,” said Jack Lazor a certified organic dairy farmer from Westfield, Vermont. “It is now more important than ever that consumers of organic dairy products understand the benefits of organic foods and farming. We need to cultivate meaningful relationships with our customers so that we can cut through the veil of corporate greed where natural is easily mistaken for organic.”

Lazor and his wife, Anne, widely respected as one of the first organic dairy farmers in the United States, founded Butterworks Yogurt in 1984, a leading organic brand in the Northeast.

Organic food has grown from a small niche to a successful $24 billion market category fueled by consumers desire for a safer and more nutritious food supply.

“When the first Horizon natural products are introduced—a yogurt aimed at children and single-serve milk—they will promote them as being without growth hormones. But Dean Foods will not be able to mention that the products are produced without pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and other drugs, and genetically modified feed crops, or that the cows are required to graze in pastures rather than confined to factory farm feedlots. These are all factors that truly differentiate organic production from natural/conventional agricultural and livestock production,” explained Kastel.

In a letter today to Dean Foods’ chairman Greg Engel, The Cornucopia Institute, widely recognized as the nation’s preeminent organic farming industry watchdog, suggested that in order to preserve the integrity and shareholder value in two of the nation’s leading organic brands, Horizon and Silk, that the corporation reconsider its new tactical direction. It questioned why a company, after substantial investments, would want to alienate a market demographic that has proven, over the years, to be highly dedicated and passionate.

“Dean Foods has just declared war on the organic industry. Although the first shot has been fired it will not be the last,” Kastel lamented. We hope they will reevaluate this ill-advised product launch.”

In addition to reformulating the previously exclusive domestic organic brands Horizon and Silk, Dean Foods also “converted” the UK’s leading organic dairy brand to conventional milk when introducing the product line to United States consumers. “In England the Rachel’s organic brand is widely respected as a pioneer in the industry. When they launched Rachel’s yogurt in the United States they did so exclusively utilizing conventional milk,” stated Kastel.

Both Dean Foods CEO, Greg Engels, and the chief executive officer of their WhiteWave-Morningstar division, Joe Scalzo, had both referred to their company as a “consumer packaged goods” marketer. At one point Engels said that only 3% of their dairy sales were organic. Dean Foods controls 50 different dairy brands in the country, Horizon and Organic Cow are their two organic offerings. Scalzo, who had no dairy or organic industry background when he was hired to run WhiteWave, was previously a high-ranking executive with Gillette and Procter & Gamble.

“Many of Dean’s competitors in this industry, including the second-largest organic marketer, Organic Valley, a farmer-owned cooperative, are exclusively organic,” Kastel noted. “Like their farmers, they will live or die by the value and reputation the organic label holds with consumers. Dean Foods can afford this dangerous experiment. If it fails, they can just walk away. But how many competitors and lives of farmers might they destroy in the process?”

Due to the generous support of one of its prime funders, the Jesse Noyes Smith Foundation, The Cornucopia Institute is a shareholder of Dean Foods in good standing and has, over the years, engaged in shareholder activism, within the democratic process, at the investor-owned corporation.

GIBBON, Minn (AP)- It has all the markings of a working farm — 70 milk cows, crop fields, tractors, hay baler, combine.

But there is so much more on the Martin and Loretta Jaus farm northwest of Gibbon. Marshes are humming with the spring nesting activity of wood ducks, teal and mallards, while toads make loud mating croaks.

In the prairie-plant pastures and stands of trees, there’s a constant flitting of bobolinks, bluebirds, swallows, yellowthroat warblers and mourning doves.

“When we first moved back here (in 1980), we had maybe a dozen species of birds,” Loretta said. “Now we have about 200 species that either migrate through or live here.”

The Jauses organic dairy farm is a lush haven for wildlife amid a sea of row-cropped corn and soybean fields.

For Martin, whose great grandfather homesteaded the farm in 1877, having it look largely like farms would have a century ago is rewarding.

But he feels a sense of loss for what has been changed and can’t be replaced.

“I heard the stories of how it used to be around here and wish it was more like that. The prairies had maybe 10,000 (plant) species.

“Now we restore prairies with 10 or 20 species,” Martin said. “There was a big lake over there. My dad used to catch sunfish on a little lake over there. There’s no water (bodies) any more.”

After college, Loretta, with a wildlife biology degree, and Martin, with a wildlife management degree, went to work at a wildlife research center near Chicago. In 1980 they returned to the family farm in Sibley County to work with Martin’s father and take over the operation.

“We came back in the middle of the ag crisis, so our timing wasn’t the best,” Loretta said.

They had no specific intent of becoming an organic operation, but the farm was already being run with low chemical use after Martin’s father had seen increased abortions in his herd and believed it was linked to pesticide use.

“With our training in biology and knowing how natural systems work, we were philosophically leaning that way anyway,” Loretta said.

“One day someone said to us, ‘Do you know you’re farming organic?’ We really didn’t realize it,” she said.

The Jauses got the farm officially certified organic in the early 1990s. “It was close already, so it wasn’t hard to do,” Martin said.

To qualify, farmland can’t have had any chemicals used in at least three years, the livestock can’t be given antibiotics or hormones, and their feed must be organic.

They market their milk through the Organic Valley Co-op, a farmer-owned cooperative started by a few farmers in Wisconsin but now with 1,300 members across the nation. The Jauses send their milk to the Twin Cities for processing and sale under the Organic Valley brand.

“The co-op organizes the processing and distribution in regionalized centers, so the economic benefits are staying in those local communities where the farmers are,” Loretta said. “That’s part of their philosophy.”

Prices paid to farmers for organic milk are usually about double that of conventional milk.

The 350-acre farm is a largely self-contained operation with all of the feed and hay for the herd grown on the farm.

The 105 acres of pastures are planted with a variety of grass and clover species.

“It’s nice to have native plants and variety in the pasture,” Martin said. “Cows know what they need and they get it from different plants.”

The pastures are divided into 25 paddocks with large cows rotated to different pastures daily to give the grasses and clovers time to regrow. A 60-acre field is planted in three crops rather than one.

“We break up all of our fields,” Martin said. “It slows down rodent problems or diseases if they hit and it creates edge effects, which are important to the animals.”

The Jauses say the years of organic farming have physically changed the soil, from fine granules that easily blew away with the winds to a thicker, richer loam that clumps together.

“You have more organisms, the worms, and even microbes that work like glue to hold the soil together,” Loretta said.

Martin said the soil absorbs and holds moisture better. While his field tile lines stop flowing with water a few days after a rain, their neighbors’ tile will continue to flow for weeks, removing moisture from the soil.

When the Jauses aren’t milking and doing other chores, they are usually enjoying and helping the wildlife.

There are about 100 bluebird houses on the property. This year nine pair of bluebirds are nesting while the other houses are used by other birds.

“It’s still not a lot of bluebirds, but when we came here, there were none,” Loretta said.

“One of the things that continues to amaze us is that our wildlife projects tie in so nicely with the organic farm,” she said. “You need the diversity.”

The Jauses said a key to increasing bird and wildlife numbers across intensively farmed corn and soybean land is to have many land owners create a number of small natural areas over long corridors.

“If you have that corridor of small plots, the animals and birds can move from one to another,” Loretta said. “There are farm conservation programs to help do it. People want to do the right thing. They just need some help and encouragement.”

Click here to watch the video.

Mark Kastel of the Cornicopia Institute on Live from the Heartland Radio  5/16/09
from Loyola University’s Community Radio Station, WLW 88.7 fm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iilSkzIwj5k&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAEY4JiRKk8&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-d2h0n35Q4&feature=channel

BOISE, IDAHO — Federal regulators said Thursday an Idaho mine that Monsanto Co. depends on to make its Roundup weed killer has violated federal and state water quality laws almost since it opened, sending selenium and other heavy metals into the region’s waterways.

The Environmental Protection Agency said problems at the St. Louis-based company’s South Rasmussen Mine near the Idaho-Wyoming border were first documented in April 2002. That’s just 15 months after the mine won Bureau of Land Management approval, according to documents released by the EPA to The Associated Press.

More recently, the mine has been unable to stop discharges of heavy metal-laden water from a waste dump, despite BLM conclusions nearly a decade ago that precautions wouldn’t “allow selenium or other contaminants to migrate from the lease.”

Monsanto takes phosphate ore from the mine and turns it into elemental phosphorous, a key Roundup ingredient. Toxic selenium and other heavy metals are also exposed during open pit mining and dumped in waste rock piles, where they can concentrate and be carried away by runoff or natural springs.

Disclosure of South Rasmussen’s problems comes at a sensitive time for Monsanto: It’s seeking federal approval for a new mine nearby, Blackfoot Bridge, to supply the Roundup component once Rasmussen is played out in 2011. But environmentalists contend the company’s assurances that cutting-edge measures will keep naturally occurring selenium from spreading remind them of earlier promises long since broken.

In 2007, the EPA ordered Monsanto to stop releasing selenium-tainted water from South Rasmussen’s Horseshoe Dump. Though the company has tried to remedy the problem, it’s still violating the federal Clean Water Act, federal officials said.

“The measures they have implemented aren’t working,” said Eva DeMaria, an EPA enforcement official in Seattle. Monsanto “is aware of our concerns. They are trying to address it.”

Asked if EPA plans further action, DeMaria declined comment. “It’s under investigation,” she said.

In the 1990s, sheep and horses died from selenium poisoning related to mining elsewhere in southeastern Idaho’s rich phosphate belt. At least 17 phosphate mines here are now under federal Superfund authority.

Just this May, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality added Sheep Creek, a Blackfoot River tributary being polluted by South Rasmussen, to its list of waterways that don’t meet state standards due to selenium contamination.

State scientists now say at least 15 streams in southeastern Idaho exceed selenium standards, up from six in 2002. Monsanto must satisfy the concerns of federal regulators _ and eventually judges, in the event of lawsuits _ that operations like Blackfoot Bridge won’t exacerbate pollution.

“You’re going to have to have assurances that there’s not going to be an increase,” said Greg Mladenka, a DEQ water quality scientist in Pocatello.

Monsanto lobbyist Trent Clark in Soda Springs, Idaho, said the company has resolved issues raised by two EPA violation notices.

In the latest, from September 2007, EPA inspectors found water containing “very high levels of selenium” flowing from the mine’s Horseshoe Dump even in dry weather, “unlawful under the Clean Water Act,” the agency said.

Despite Monsanto’s efforts, the problems have continued, EPA officials said. Significant concentrations of selenium, cadmium, nickel and zinc continue to be measured downstream.

Monsanto is committed to resolving the issue, Clark said.

“The permit requirements were that Monsanto would leave no selenium problems when we’re done mining,” he said. “We have not finished our mining in that area, and our commitment is, we will be addressing these issues.”

And, he said, Blackfoot Bridge’s pollution-control measures will be much improved from South Rasmussen.

“It’s a completely different process,” Clark said.

Phosphate mined in southeastern Idaho is key to his company’s stable of “Roundup Ready” seeds for everything from corn to cotton and sugar beets. The herbicide kills weeds; Monsanto’s genetically altered plants survive.

This week, Monsanto reported its fiscal third-quarter profit fell 14 percent and it disclosed plans to cut 900 jobs, after competition from generic herbicides dented Roundup sales.

It’s asked southeastern Idaho residents to support its Blackfoot Bridge proposal, urging them to send letters to BLM managers now preparing a draft environmental impact statement, due for release in July. Monsanto employs 700 in the region, with a payroll and benefits of nearly $30 million.

In January 2001, BLM officials who approved South Rasmussen wrote that Monsanto’s mine wasn’t likely to contaminate surrounding waterways.

“The South Rasmussen Mine site has no perennial streams and limited intermittent drainages that might serve as conduits to selenium transport,” BLM officials wrote in their decision. “Monsanto has committed to implement operational practices and best management practices to minimize and control selenium generation.”

Asked what went wrong, Bill Stout, a BLM geologist in Pocatello, said problems sometimes occur despite the best intentions of his agency and mining companies.

South Rasmussen, Stout said, was the last new Idaho phosphate mine where only a less-stringent environmental analysis was required; after the livestock were killed in the late-1990s by selenium poisoning, a more rigorous analysis is now mandatory.

“There’s never any guarantee,” Stout said. “But we do the appropriate analysis, to try and incorporate the newest and best mitigation measures.”

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, which is fighting phosphate mining expansion, said it’s reserving judgment on Monsanto’s Blackfoot Bridge project until after the BLM analysis is released. The coalition’s Idaho Falls director, Marv Hoyt, said he’s skeptical of Monsanto’s promises.

“This is the not the first time we’ve been told a phosphate mining company has all the answers,” he said.

The organic dairy industry was thriving when Allen and Jean Moody bought a 200-acre Wisconsin dairy farm in 2006 and joined the ranks of farmers churning out milk raised without growth hormones, pesticides or other chemicals.

Three years later, the good days are gone and the Moodys aren’t alone in wanting out.

A growing number of farmers who went all-natural in the years when organic food sales were growing at a double-digit pace are giving up their organic certifications. Organic farming is costly and labor-intensive, and many consumers are no longer willing to pay the price in a recession.

Sales in the U.S. of organic foods sold mostly at supermarkets are expected to drop 1.1 percent to $5.07 billion this year, according to the Chicago-based research firm Mintel. While the drop is small, it is the first in an industry that has seen annual growth of 12 percent to 23 percent since 2003.

The organic dairy industry has been the hardest hit, with farmers squeezed by soaring feed costs and plummeting milk prices.

The soured market has been particularly bad news for Moody, 53, and his 51-year-old wife, who put their farm in La Farge, Wis., up for sale last summer after deciding that running a dairy was too much work at their age. The credit crunch has left a string of would-be buyers unable to seal the deal even as the Moodys’ milk buyer has cut his rate roughly 10 percent.

“We’re kind of in limbo land right now. It’s just really tough — I told my wife we may be here another two or three more years before things turn around and the money supply loosens up,” Moody said.

The recession and credit crisis also have made times uncertain for George Mears, who raises organic corn, buckwheat, wheat and soybeans on 140 acres near Delphi, Ind. Much of it becomes feed for livestock that produce organic eggs, milk and beef.

Some buyers are no longer willing to purchase grain on contract because of uncertainty about the economy. And one company that buys Mears’ grain has been slow to pay — Mears suspects because it can’t get credit to buy grain up front.

“We’re usually smaller farmers and you send a semi load or two of grain and that’s like a quarter of your income for the year,” he said. “You just don’t drop a fourth of your income on the farm without some hardship.”

A growing number of farmers are losing their certifications in the nation’s two top organic states, California and Wisconsin.

In a typical year, the California Certified Organic Farmers, one of the nation’s largest certifying groups, sees about 20 farms among its roughly 2,000 certified farms and processors lose their certification because of nonpayment of fees.

But two weeks ago, letters went out to 100 farms warning that their organic status would be revoked because of nonpayment, said Peggy Miars, the group’s executive director. She blames weak sales and the state’s lingering drought.

Bonnie Wideman, director of the Midwest Organic Services Association, expects about 80 of the group’s roughly 1,200 certified organic farms in Wisconsin and several Midwestern states to surrender their certifications this year, up from about 60 in years past.

Still, the California and Wisconsin groups said interest in organics remains strong because the industry is not as bad off as others.

“In this depressed economy, when you’re looking at bankruptcies and layoffs — we’re just not seeing that in organics. Even though it’s slowed down, there continues to be strong demand,” Miars said.

Wideman’s group issued 200 new organic certifications this year, mostly to vegetable, corn and soybean farmers. Some believe organics still have a greater potential for profit than conventional farming, she said. Others are simply committed to chemical-free farming.

That’s the case for Jeff Evard, who once maintained golf courses heavily reliant on chemicals to stay green. He now raises tomatoes, onions, eggplant, broccoli and other crops on a 10-acre organic farm in south-central Indiana.

Half of his produce goes to about 65 families who pay up front for a season’s worth of fresh vegetables and fruit. The rest heads to farmers’ markets in Bloomington, Ind., about 30 miles away or is sold to organic wholesale stores.

Mindful of the recession, the farm’s business manager recently lowered the price of the farm’s top spring seller — cherry tomatoes — from $4 to $3.50 a pint to stave off a drop in demand. That seems to have done the trick.

“I’ve sold out of tomatoes every week for the past three or four weeks,” the 36-year-old Evard said recently.

Consumers concerned about food quality have kept demand for organic vegetables and meat strong even as they’ve sacrificed organic snacks and other less nutritional items, said Marcia Mogelonsky, a senior research analyst for Mintel.

That should give the Moodys reason for hope. Committed to natural farming, they plan to buy a small organic beef farm whenever their dairy finally sells.

By Crystal Gammon
Environmental Health News

Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.

The new findings intensify a debate about so-called “inerts” — the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides. Nearly 4,000 inert ingredients are approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, is the most widely used herbicide in the United States. About 100 million pounds are applied to U.S. farms and lawns every year, according to the EPA.

Until now, most health studies have focused on the safety of glyphosate, rather than the mixture of ingredients found in Roundup. But in the new study, scientists found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns.

One specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself – a finding the researchers call “astonishing.”

“This clearly confirms that the [inert ingredients] in Roundup formulations are not inert,” wrote the study authors from France’s University of Caen. “Moreover, the proprietary mixtures available on the market could cause cell damage and even death [at the] residual levels” found on Roundup-treated crops, such as soybeans, alfalfa and corn, or lawns and gardens.

The research team suspects that Roundup might cause pregnancy problems by interfering with hormone production, possibly leading to abnormal fetal development, low birth weights or miscarriages.

Monsanto, Roundup’s manufacturer, contends that the methods used in the study don’t reflect realistic conditions and that their product, which has been sold since the 1970s, is safe when used as directed. Hundreds of studies over the past 35 years have addressed the safety of glyphosate.

“Roundup has one of the most extensive human health safety and environmental data packages of any pesticide that’s out there,” said Monsanto spokesman John Combest. “It’s used in public parks, it’s used to protect schools. There’s been a great deal of study on Roundup, and we’re very proud of its performance.”

The EPA considers glyphosate to have low toxicity when used at the recommended doses.

“Risk estimates for glyphosate were well below the level of concern,” said EPA spokesman Dale Kemery. The EPA classifies glyphosate as a Group E chemical, which means there is strong evidence that it does not cause cancer in humans.

In addition, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture both recognize POEA as an inert ingredient. Derived from animal fat, POEA is allowed in products certified organic by the USDA. The EPA has concluded that it is not dangerous to public health or the environment.

The French team, led by Gilles-Eric Seralini, a University of Caen molecular biologist, said its results highlight the need for health agencies to reconsider the safety of Roundup.

“The authorizations for using these Roundup herbicides must now clearly be revised since their toxic effects depend on, and are multiplied by, other compounds used in the mixtures,” Seralini’s team wrote.

Controversy about the safety of the weed killer recently erupted in Argentina, one of the world’s largest exporters of soy.

Last month, an environmental group petitioned Argentina’s Supreme Court, seeking a temporary ban on glyphosate use after an Argentine scientist and local activists reported a high incidence of birth defects and cancers in people living near crop-spraying areas. Scientists there also linked genetic malformations in amphibians to glysophate. In addition, last year in Sweden, a scientific team found that exposure is a risk factor for people developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Inert ingredients are often less scrutinized than active pest-killing ingredients. Since specific herbicide formulations are protected as trade secrets, manufacturers aren’t required to publicly disclose them. Although Monsanto is the largest manufacturer of glyphosate-based herbicides, several other manufacturers sell similar herbicides with different inert ingredients.

The term “inert ingredient” is often misleading, according to Caroline Cox, research director of the Center for Environmental Health, an Oakland-based environmental organization. Federal law classifies all pesticide ingredients that don’t harm pests as “inert,” she said. Inert compounds, therefore, aren’t necessarily biologically or toxicologically harmless – they simply don’t kill insects or weeds.

Kemery said the EPA takes into account the inert ingredients and how the product is used, whenever a pesticide is approved for use. The aim, he said, is to ensure that “if the product is used according to labeled directions, both people’s health and the environment will not be harmed.” One label requirement for Roundup is that it should not be used in or near freshwater to protect amphibians and other wildlife.

But some inert ingredients have been found to potentially affect human health. Many amplify the effects of active ingredients by helping them penetrate clothing, protective equipment and cell membranes, or by increasing their toxicity. For example, a Croatian team recently found that an herbicide formulation containing atrazine caused DNA damage, which can lead to cancer, while atrazine alone did not.

POEA was recognized as a common inert ingredient in herbicides in the 1980s, when researchers linked it to a group of poisonings in Japan. Doctors there examined patients who drank Roundup, either intentionally or accidentally, and determined that their sicknesses and deaths were due to POEA, not glyphosate.

POEA is a surfactant, or detergent, derived from animal fat. It is added to Roundup and other herbicides to help them penetrate plants’ surfaces, making the weed killer more effective.

“POEA helps glyphosate interact with the surfaces of plant cells,” explained Negin Martin, a scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, who was not involved in the study. POEA lowers water’s surface tension–the property that makes water form droplets on most surfaces–which helps glyphosate disperse and penetrate the waxy surface of a plant.

In the French study, researchers tested four different Roundup formulations, all containing POEA and glyphosate at concentrations below the recommended lawn and agricultural dose. They also tested POEA and glyphosate separately to determine which caused more damage to embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells.

Glyphosate, POEA and all four Roundup formulations damaged all three cell types. Umbilical cord cells were especially sensitive to POEA. Glyphosate became more harmful when combined with POEA, and POEA alone was more deadly to cells than glyphosate. The research appears in the January issue of the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.

By using embryonic and placental cell lines, which multiply and respond to chemicals rapidly, and fresh umbilical cord cells, Seralini’s team was able to determine how the chemicals combine to damage cells.

The two ingredients work together to “limit breathing of the cells, stress them and drive them towards a suicide,” Seralini said.

The research was funded in part by France’s Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering, a scientific committee that investigates risks associated with genetically modified organisms. One of Roundup’s primary uses is on crops that are genetically engineered to be resistant to glyphosate.

Monsanto scientists argue that cells in Seralini’s study were exposed to unnaturally high levels of the chemicals. “It’s very unlike anything you’d see in real-world exposure. People’s cells are not bathed in these things,” said Donna Farmer, another toxicologist at Monsanto.

Seralini’s team, however, did study multiple concentrations of Roundup. These ranged from the typical agricultural or lawn dose down to concentrations 100,000 times more dilute than the products sold on shelves. The researchers saw cell damage at all concentrations.

Monsanto scientists also question the French team’s use of laboratory cell lines.

“These are just not very good models of a whole organism, like a human being,” said Dan Goldstein, a toxicologist with Monsanto.

Goldstein said humans have protective mechanisms that resist substances in the environment, such as skin and the lining of the gastrointestinal tract, which constantly renew themselves. “Those phenomena just don’t happen with isolated cells in a Petri dish.”

But Cox, who studies pesticides and their inert ingredients at the Oakland environmental group, says lab experiments like these are important in determining whether a chemical is safe.

“We would never consider it ethical to test these products on people, so we’re obliged to look at their effects on other species and in other systems,” she said. “There’s really no way around that.”

Seralini said the cells used in the study are widely accepted in toxicology as good models for studying the toxicity of chemicals.

“The fact is that 90 percent of labs studying mechanisms of toxicity or physiology use cell lines,” he said.

Most research has examined glyphosate alone, rather than combined with Roundup’s inert ingredients. Researchers who have studied Roundup formulations have drawn conclusions similar to the Seralini group’s. For example, in 2005, University of Pittsburg ecologists added Roundup at the manufacturer’s recommended dose to ponds filled with frog and toad tadpoles. When they returned two weeks later, they found that 50 to 100 percent of the populations of several species of tadpoles had been killed.

A group of over 250 environmental, health and labor organizations has petitioned the EPA to change requirements for identifying pesticides’ inert ingredients. The agency’s decision is due this fall.

“It would be a big step for the agency to take,” said Cox. “But it’s one they definitely should.”

The groups claim that the laws allowing manufacturers to keep inert ingredients secret from competitors are essentially unnecessary. Companies can determine a competitor’s inert ingredients through routine lab analyses, said Cox.

“The proprietary protection laws really only keep information from the public,” she said.