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Calif.  Aims to boost enforcement of organic rules

It's been barely a year since Luis Miranda began selling organic produce at farmers markets near his home in California's Central Valley, but he's already seen every trick in the book.

Scanning the stands recently at a market in downtown Sacramento, Miranda pointed out a half-dozen examples of misleading signs and labels. One of the most common tricks is posting a banner with the California Certified Farmers' Markets seal — which closely resembles the marks bestowed by state-recognized organic certifiers, but means only that the produce was grown by the farmer selling it.

"You see banners that say 'certified' or 'pesticide-free,' and it's either not true or it doesn't mean what customers think it means," Miranda said. "I see farmers do it all the time, and it hurts real organic farmers like me."

Higher prices for organic produce give farmers an incentive to look for ways around the costly and time-consuming organic certification process. The result can be shoppers who don't get what they pay for and true organic producers who are undersold by conventional farmers with lower production costs.

To cut down on such fraud, California is launching a new effort to boost enforcement of rules governing the fast-growing, $1.1 billion organic industry that many say has thus far been a poorly regulated free-for-all.

"Enforcement is critical, because right now no one's watching the store," said Al Montna, president of the state Board of Food and Agriculture.

"Organic produce is difficult to raise, it's expensive, and the guy that's short-circuiting the process is taking away value on the market."

In fact, the 40-year-old Miranda was the only vendor at the market that day whose squash, bell peppers and tomatoes bore the seal of an accredited organic certifier. To keep that seal, he pays about $250 in annual fees to the certifier and the State Organic Program, which oversees at least 2,800 farms and ranches in the largest organic farming community in the country.

"They're supposed to use the fees to make improvements, but every market where I go, the state has never shown up," said Miranda, who lives about 40 miles south of the state capital in Lodi and sells at six farmers markets each week. "I feel like I'm just donating some money to the state, and I don't know what they do with it."

The State Organic Program proposed new rules in June aimed at creating more consistent oversight.

They would, for the first time, outline specific procedures for investigating complaints and collecting samples to check for use of unauthorized pesticides and fertilizers. They also would allow the state to establish a spot inspection program to ensure Californiamade products carrying the organic label are authentic.

In addition, later this month, state agriculture officials will begin training county officials to weed out organic impostors.

Rick Jensen, chief of inspection and compliance for the California Department of Food and Agriculture, said officials would focus on areas where they know there are problems.

That will include farmers' markets, where many organic sellers are allowed to skip certification because their gross sales bring in less than $5,000 per year.

The small farms are expected to obey the same rules as larger, certified ones, but officials acknowledge they've had difficulty enforcing that.

 

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