The organic food industry is booming, and that may be bad for consumers

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Organic food watchdogs get rich when it comes to certification -- at times by greenlighting bad practices on big farms

Boehning Dairy Farm and Hilltop Dairy in Earth, Tex., are USDA-certified organic by the Texas Department of Agriculture, which is in the yellow"caution" section of Cornucopia Institute's scorecard. Many are in the caution section because they did not submit information about the companies they certify. By Laura Reiley March 14 at 12:58 PM As organic food shifts from utopian movement to lucrative industry, a war is being waged for its soul.

Certifiers are paid by the farms and food businesses they certify, which can make for cozy and in many cases unscrupulous relationships. But more important, the scorecard found, the kinds of businesses being greenlighted are at odds with consumers’ understanding of organics. People come to organics because of what the food doesn’t contain, said Cornucopia’s executive director Mark Kastel, and also because they think they are doing something good for society, animal welfare, soil health and economic justice for the small family farmer.

“I can only presume that this organization’s rating of us is [because of] our certification of hydroponic operations. We are a federally accredited certifier and cannot deny certification based on philosophy or values alone. This scorecard is showing that they have an issue with the National Organic Program’s allowance of hydroponics, not with CCOF. We did advocate for a labeling of hydroponics.

This is big food companies hedging their bets and adopting the General Motors marketing model, according to Kastel: We have Chevys, we have Buicks, whatever you want.

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It's only bad because they charge more money for them.Even though it doesn't cost as much.They don't use pesticides & chemicals on their products.Which saves much more than it costs on the large commercial farms.The organic farmers price poor people from having a chance to eat it

Why for years organic farmers said prices would lower when there was more desire for their products that’s why they said the price was higher before so wtf!

Consumers are always the ones that get shafted what else is new!

Really everything is bad then good then bad on and on

Honestly, that's a bad lead. Organic farming can only be good for everyone, as they reduce the chemicals used & improve the purity of goods available. We all carry a ridiculous body burden of chemical contaminants, we need to move toward a cleaner food supply.

Yeah lack of pesticides is super bad

...for fuck's sake. Is there NOTHING left that isn't corrupted? organic organicfood

“Organic” food is a scam. Conventional farming (GMOs and all) produces more food with less impact on the environment, including less pesticide used.

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