It's Not Easy Buying Green

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Consumers Union is also concerned about the lack of USDA standards for organic seafood. Currently, the seafood industry is entirely unregulated by the National Organic Program, though some seafood marketers still proudly display the word. The same discrepancy applies to body care products. According to the National Organic Program's Web site, 'USDA has no definition . . . as to what constitutes an organic health care product or organic cosmetic.' As for shampoos that call themselves organic, Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association, contends, 'People are making organic claims based on counting added water as organic, and, to put it bluntly, that's fraud.'

If some producers are sinking low, others are going above and beyond organic standards. Europe-based Nature & More is a new label designed to reward growers who not only meet the European Union's organic standards but also show themselves to be 'caring stewards of the land and responsible employers to the people who work for them.' The Fair Trade label, another standout, is recommended by both the Organic Consumers Association and Consumers Union. The Fair Trade mark on coffee, tea, and chocolate ensures that farmers have been fairly compensated for their products.

Not to be outdone, the right-wing Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues wants to put its own label on food. Their proposed 'Earth Friendly, Farm Friendly' campaign looks benign enough until you read the fine print. The Earth Friendly program purports to offer farmers 'more choices -- rather than limiting them,' a philosophy that amounts to endorsing antiorganic practices like the use of growth hormones and synthetic pesticides. As Urvashi Rangan, director of Consumers Union's Eco-labels.org project, points out: 'It's shrouding industrial factory farming in a nice environmental wrapper.' (Check out the handy ecolabel 'report card' search system on the project's Web site: www.eco-labels.org.)

One thing is for sure: Our national food system is a recipe for supermarket confusion. With such a huge gap between producers and consumers, qualities like integrity and honesty are reduced to hearsay. It seems that no label can substitute for the face-to-face assurance of the farmer growing your food, which is why many people choose to buy their produce at farmers' markets and through subscriber-supported farms.

'If you know your farmer, if you believe and trust your farmer, that's the best assurance you can get,' Rangan says. Take her good advice to its logical extreme, and you just might end up growing your own.

Andi McDaniel is an editorial intern at Utne.

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