New York Times on the Problem with Organic Certification

A recent New York Times article "How to Add Oomph to 'Organic'" talks about the dismal reality of the current organic certification program:

THE organic industry has gone wild in the last decade, but you wouldn’Äôt know it at the Department of Agriculture. Despite year after year of double-digit growth, organics receive a pittance in financing and staff attention at the department, which is responsible for writing regulations about organics and making sure that they are upheld.

The National Organic Program, which regulates the industry, has just nine staff members and an annual budget of $1.5 million. A Florida real estate developer named Maurice Wilder received more than that in farm subsidies in 2005, some $1,754,916, to be exact, according to a subsidy database maintained by the Environmental Working Group.

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