The organic label is meant to signify that a food is relatively environmentally friendly: Organic producers are forbidden from using many synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. When that organic food comes from China, that label may not mean much.

“When I see organic food from China, I question,” environmental journalist Michael Pollan told PRI’s The World, “how organic is it?” Organics are a $26 billion industry in the United States, and an increasing amount of that is coming from China. Pollan points out, “organic is a very big global business now. People don’t realize it.”

“In 2006 alone, China added a staggering 12 percent to the world’s organically farmed land,” Global Post reports. With the market growing that quickly, regulations are lax at best. A Chinese grocery chain owner who spoke with Global Post estimated that “maybe 30 percent of farms that put the organic label on their food produce the real thing.”

“I think in the future the government will improve testing,” the grocery store owner told Global Post. “But now, hygiene officers have so much work to do with essential food safety that they don’t worry about organic.”