In a report that echoes the concerns that many consumers have, the Washington Post is questioning the integrity of the USDA Organic label. The organic industry has been growing at a rate of about 20 percent in recent years (although that rate is sure to drop this year), and large corporations have decided to get in on the action. Instead of adhering to the organic regulations, several companies have successfully lobbied the USDA to permit certain conventional and synthetic ingredients under the "organic" label, and the USDA has generally accommodated them.

That corporate firepower has added to pressure on the government to expand the definition of what is organic, in part because processed foods offered by big industry often require ingredients, additives or processing agents that either do not exist in organic form or are not available in large enough quantities for mass production.

Under the original organics law, 5% of a USDA-certified organic product can consist of non-organic substances, provided they are approved by the National Organic Standards Board. That list has grown from 77 to 245 substances since it was created in 2002. Companies must appeal to the board every five years to keep a substance on the list, explaining why an organic alternative has not been found. The goal was to shrink the list over time, but only one item has been removed so far.

When I spoke with brewer Alec Stefansky earlier in the week, he told me that he chooses to display the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) label on his beer instead of the USDA Organic logo," because we believe the CCOF logo really means something." That's a sentiment that many organic producers share, as concern mounts that the USDA is watering down the organic certification process.

According to the WaPo article, "Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has pledged to protect the label, even as he acknowledged the pressure to lower standards to certify more products as organic." When she delivered the keynote address at the All Things Organic Expo in Chicago last month, USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan also stressed that USDA would be entering an "era of enforcement," but we're still waiting for a signal that that will be the case.

-Mark