Whole Foods / China update

[Guest guest]

Is Organic from China Possible?

by Joe Dickson, June 6th, 2008

http://blog.wholefoodsmarket.com/2008/06/is-organic-from-china-possible/

Update: June 13, 2010

Since I wrote this post about two years ago, we've had a few changes and I

wanted to make sure anyone reading this is up to speed on current

information.

As of this summer (2010), we are no longer sourcing any of our Whole Foods

Market 365 Everyday Value food products from China EXCEPT for frozen edamame

(shelled and unshelled, organic and conventional). This means that out of

more than 2,000 365 Everyday Value products right now, only ten are from

China. These products include tea and frozen vegetables. We will be selling

through the remaining stock of six of those over the summer, and the edamame

will be the only one remaining at that time.

I want to be really clear that we didn't stop sourcing from China because of

quality or food safety concerns. As I explain in the post below, we have

always had great confidence in our vendor partners in China, and we have

taken great steps - including visiting farms and processing facilities

ourselves, in addition to organic certification - to verify that those

suppliers have the same level of integrity and commitment to quality as the

rest of our partners across the world.

Our move to other sources is simply that through a routine bidding process,

we found several suppliers in other countries, including the U.S., that

offered the same or better quality at better prices. This was primarily a

business decision - changing vendors was a good decision for our customers

right now. As mentioned, we will continue to source edamame from China

because we are not able to find the same high quality edamame for the same

price anywhere else. (In order to provide our customers with a choice, we

also stock a premium, domestic frozen edamame from Columbia River Organics,

a family-owned farm in Washington State.)

While some of our customers have questioned our sourcing from China,

ultimately this was a business decision based on maintaining or improving

both the quality and price of our private label products. It's possible that

we will source more products from China again in the future. The bottom line

is that beyond quality and price, we give our customers many choices in the

products we offer and where they are sourced.

Another important clarification: it has always been our policy and practice

to clearly label fresh produce with its country of origin. While we do not

purchase fresh produce from China for national distribution, in some

circumstances stores may bring in Chinese products such as edamame, ginger,

shiitake mushroom and garlic. For example, in the Vancouver market items

with origins in Asia are very common and in high demand. Product of China

may be among our offerings in select markets such as Vancouver BC. Again,

there is always country of origin labeling by all fresh produce.

We appreciate all of your feedback. Read on for more details.

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Original Post

I spend more than half my work time thinking about, researching and talking

about organic food. As part of my job as Quality Standards and Organic

Programs Coordinator, I work with our stores and suppliers to help them

understand and follow the National Organic Standards, to ensure that what

they're selling as organic truly is. I also work with non-profit

organizations, certifiers and others to support organic agriculture, and I

carefully follow the USDA's National Organic Program and their ongoing work

on the standard. Given all my work with organics, the Whole Story Blog

powers-that-be asked me to answer one of the more perplexing questions that's

been floating around lately: Can organic food from China truly be organic?

The short answer is " yes, it can, " but the long answer is far more complex

and interesting. Let me take a few minutes to lay out some of the basic

issues around organic agriculture in China, go over just what " organic "

means in the US (or any country), talk to some leading organic experts and

certifiers, and then let you decide whether organics from China are truly

legit.

News stories about products from China have been largely negative over the

past year: Dog food tainted with toxic melamine, fake pharmaceuticals, toys

with lead paint, contaminated crops. All of these very serious safety issues

have raised serious red flags about the quality of everything coming out of

China. Shoppers, retailers, food makers and the media have all wondered: " If

pollution is this rampant, and oversight is this lax, how can we trust

anything grown or made in China? "

(Read a point by point response to a very misleading WJLA news story from

May of 2008.)

With organic food, the answer is complicated, but there are number of

reasons we at Whole Foods Market feel good about our organic private label

products from China. You can read more about some of the specific ways we

make sure our organic private label products from China meet our standards

here. Read on past the fold for more information about how U.S. law applies

to organics grown outside the U.S., and what some experts see as

opportunities to strengthen the system.

Organic 101

Some quick background: Before 2002, there were no national organic

standards. Some states had their own organic regulations, but there was no

nationally accepted legal definition of the term. As the organic market

grew, so did the potential for fraud and the need for consumer protection.

In 1990, Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act, which directed

the USDA to create a regulation to define exactly what " organic " meant on

food sold in the U.S. Thus the National Organic Standards were born.

The USDA created this standard over the next ten years or so, advised by the

National Organic Standards Board, (NOSB) a multi-stakeholder group made up

of growers, ranchers, environmentalists, consumer representatives,

retailers, and other organic experts. Through a transparent and public

process of meetings and hearings around the country, the USDA's National

Organic Program (NOP) and the NOSB developed a thorough and comprehensive

standard that governs how organic food is grown, raised and processed, and

how it's certified, overseen and marketed. This standard is still managed by

the NOP and advised by the NOSB, who meet about twice a year to work on the

standard and receive input from the public.

Anyone who wants to sell food as organic in the U.S. must be certified by

one of the USDA's accredited third-party certifiers. These certifiers are

approved and supervised through a process called accreditation, by which the

NOP audits and inspects the certifiers to make sure they're enforcing the

standard appropriately.

International Organics

One popular misconception out there is that organic food grown in another

country is grown according to that country's rules (or lack of rules). That's

just not true. Anyone growing food that's going to be sold as organic in the

U.S. is required to follow the U.S. standards and be certified by a USDA

accredited certifier. A number of internationally-based certifiers are

accredited by the USDA, and many U.S.-based certifiers have employees on the

ground in other countries.

To help understand just how certification works on the ground in China, I

talked to Jeff See, Executive Director of The Organic Crop Improvement

Association (OCIA), one of the major U.S. certifiers working in China. " We

follow the same system anywhere in the world. There are language

differences, but we use translators and native speakers. "

Given the recent attention to pollution and food safety issues in China, See

says they've strengthened their work in China. " Since 2005 we've really

stepped up our oversight in China. It's misinformation that the whole

country is unable to be certified because of pollution. It's a very large

country, and there are parts that are largely unpolluted. "

A few of the experts I spoke to pointed out that it's ironic that China is

now so polluted, given that China once was home to one of the oldest

strongest ecological agricultural traditions in the world.

" As the Buddha said, all truth must be paradox, " says Joe Smillie, Senior

Vice President at Quality Assurance International, one of the leading

organic certifiers in the U.S. " I've always believed that China was the

original homeland of organics. The Chinese peasant throughout history is one

of the best organic eco farmers that the world has seen. "

That peasant ecological farming tradition was largely pushed aside as the

rising population in China's cities caused immense pressure to increase food

production starting in the 1960s.

" The move to increase food production dumped a lot of urea (from nitrogen

fertilizers) and other pollutants into the countryside, " notes Smillie.

" Nitrogen fertilizers increase your production at great environmental cost.

A lot of China has been compromised, but at the core, that peasant spirit is

alive and well in some areas. "

Chuck Benbrook, Chief Scientist at The Organic Center, agrees. " I think the

Chinese were growing and consuming high quality organic food several

centuries before we were in the US, so I think high quality organic food can

definitely be grown in China. The real concern now is widespread

contamination of soil, air and water with pollutants and industrial

chemicals. NOP standards provide some guidance regarding how farmers and

certifiers in China are supposed to address environmental contaminants, but

questions persist regarding how effectively they are doing so. "

Another concern with organic production in China is that Chinese culture

just doesn't allow for the type of transparency that business in the US has

gotten used to. Benbrook says that here in the US " there is a high degree of

cultural, professional, economic and corporate pressure to follow the rules.

In China, many people don't feel the same the way about government rules. It's

more accepted to tip one's hat to the rules but do what you need to do. That's

what worries me. "

" Some of the key challenges are that the infrastructure of organic

certification requires a level of transparency and both planned and

unplanned spot inspections; certification also requires an interface with

government and access to government data, and that's where China becomes a

difficult and challenging environment " says Bob Scowcroft, Executive

Director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation. " The government doesn't

handle implied mistrust very well, and that's one basis of organic

certification. Just showing up and saying 'Surprise! I want to see your

garden' is a difficult proposition in China, given that it's half the world

away for US-based certifiers. "

These challenges to certification in China make certification more difficult

for the certifiers, and the integrity of this process depends on the

integrity of USDA's oversight of the certifiers.

USDA Accreditation

Many in the organic community feel that the USDA's accreditation process -

the process by which they oversee and review certifiers - needs to be more

public and open in order to ensure that the USDA is enforcing the standard.

While the certifiers I spoke to said that the accreditation process keeps

them on their toes, others said that they'd feel more confident in the

system if it were more transparent.

" Considering the resources our country has given them, they're doing a good

job, and I've seen them make us make a lot of changes since the

implementation of the standard, very good changes, " says See. " They have

shadowed us in China and visited several of our operations in China as part

of that accreditation, and we've been told they will be coming back again

this year. They have found some points that we have to improve in China, and

we are. "

" They come to our offices and can go through any file they want, a long list

of things they have to do, based on ISO 61 guidelines, which are strict

international guidelines that tell them how to accredit, " says Smillie.

" They have to check us out and make sure we're doing the right thing, and

you have to show improvement. You have to really dance quick or you're

gone. " Smillie noted that USDA accreditation officials had also shadowed

QAI's inspectors on international audits.

Scowcroft believes that the USDA could do more to be transparent and open

the accreditation process to the public: " This was never intended to be a

black hole, it's a public private partnership, and the USDA has done little

to explain how they spot check certifiers and to what extent they enforce

any infractions they do discover. "

" I haven't seen the NOP invest time and political capital needed to enhance

the accreditation process in the ways that are going to be necessary to

bring the process in a country like China or India up to US standards, " said

Benbrook.

The recently passed Farm Bill urged appropriators in Congress to allocate

nearly $2 million a year in additional funding for the National Organic

Program, and I hope that this chunk of this funding will go towards

stronger, better and more public accreditation work at NOP. More resources

and funding can only help the program, which struggles to oversee organic

agriculture in the US on a limited budget.

Within the verification community, everyone's trying to do their best with

the resources they have " notes Scowcroft. " But there's a question as to

whether the resources they have match the incredible magnitude of the

growing organic market. "

The NOP also just launched a new online reading room where they are posting

documents related to certification and accreditation work. This site will

help the organic community keep a close eye on the USDA's work and directly

review NOP accreditation documents. Any member of the public can now review

NOP's accreditation reports for any certifier online.

Scrutiny is a good thing.

Organic certification in China obviously raises some serious questions.

While there's definitely a system of oversight in place, pollution and lack

of transparency in China is just cause to look very closely at all food from

China, organic or otherwise. As I mentioned, we've gone to great lengths to

make sure the organic private label products we import from China meet our

own standards and the National Organic Standards. Our buyers and auditors

visit the farms and facilities we buy from, and we have created testing

protocols that test for pesticide and heavy metal residues. Our quality

systems and test results suggest that the organic certification process is

working well for these products.

So, to (longwindedly) answer the question, " Can organic products from China

truly be organic? " We've found that they can, but we've also found that the

question requires and deserves lots of scrutiny. I expect that this same

question will be receiving a lot of attention in the coming months from

organic shoppers, the media, non-profit groups and the USDA, and this

increased scrutiny and accountability will hopefully lead to improved trust

in organic products from the U.S. and around the globe.

But, in the meantime, we at Whole Foods Market aren't waiting. We've been

taking extra steps to make sure our organic products from all over the world

are organic, and now we're launching a new level of transparency about our

products, where we get them, and how evaluate them. We'll be updating our

website with more info about in the coming weeks, and keeping you updated

via this blog.