LOS ANGELES-Organic grower Phil McGrath plays by the rules to keep his Ventura County strawberry and vegetable farm certified organic. So suspicions that at least two fertilizer companies have been peddling synthetic fertilizer as the natural stuff makes him fear they may cheapen the "organic" label he grows under.
"It brings the term and the industry down a couple notches," he said.
The state's major organic certifier, the California Certified Organic Farmers, said it won't penalize farmers or revoke their endorsements because it recognizes none had knowingly used the spiked fertilizer.
But the situation has resulted in a blow to the integrity of the organic market, prompting new industrywide efforts to test and verify fertilizers.
"The oversight of the organic industry from a fertilizer perspective is kind of like the wild West," said Dean Florez, D-Shafter, chairman of the state Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture.
As the organic produce market expands from a cadre of small conscientious growers to a massive industry, some farmers are turning to low-cost and highly potent organic fertilizers to make up for shrinking margins.
That demand has resulted in allegations of products being marketed that are too good to be truly organic. Their use threatens a market based on consumers' willingness to pay a premium for products seen as better for their health and the environment.
The two products implicated had been popular fertilizers among organic growers, though information on the amount produced is not publicly available, said Michael Jarvis, spokesman for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. "This is a great example of a gross violation of the rules in which case consumers aren't getting what they expected," said Urvasi Rangan, a senior environmental health scientist with Consumers Union.
Full story: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_11624319
