Food fraud remains a pressing issue in the agriculture industry, especially for foods marketed as “organic” or “USDA Organic,” such as corn and soybeans. Most foods labeled “USDA Organic” are grown in the US, but roughly 50% of these organic-labeled foods come from up to 100 overseas countries. According to USDA guidelines, any company importing an organic product is required to prove that it has come from a supplier that is “USDA Organic” certified; however, companies are not required to trace the food back to the farm that it came from, which can lead to discrepancies within the classification of the food as “organic” or not. Some farms hire third-party inspection companies that give ample notice of their arrival, leaving no element of surprise to the inspection. Moreover, pesticide testing has yet to become a standard and requirement for the industry.

Labeling goods as “organic” without adequate proof can easily be done by the middleman companies involved in imported products, and the profit can be up to two times more than a non-organic-labeled product. The USDA has yet to take proper action on these products. Within the last few years, the amount of soybeans and organic corn imported into the US has more than tripled, but the USDA has yet to issue any major sanctions for importing fraudulent grains. The US is actually an extremely easy market to infiltrate with fraudulent grains and foods due to a lack of rigorous import rules, as in Canada and Europe. When the Agency receives complaints about potentially fraudulent products, its response is too slow and the products tend to reach consumers before any action is taken.

Testing for pesticide residue has proven that products imported to the US from many countries, such as China and Turkey, are not as organic as they are labeled to be. This indicates that the USDA is in need of streamlining the importation process and enforcing stricter pesticide testing laws.

Source: The Washington Post