Millions of pounds of corn and soybeans imported to the United States in the past year were labeled “organic” but actually did not meet the requirements of the USDA label, according to an investigation by The Washington Post. The paper highlighted a shipment of 36 million pounds of soybeans that went from Ukraine to Turkey to California last year.
“Like ordinary soybeans, they were fumigated with a pesticide. They were priced like ordinary soybeans, too. But by the time the 600-foot cargo ship carrying them to Stockton, Calif., arrived in December, the soybeans had been labeled ‘organic,’ according to receipts, invoices, and other shipping records,” the Post said.
It said that the broker for the soybeans, Annapolis, Md.-based Global Natural, emailed a statement saying it may have been “provided with false certification documents.” By the time the mislabeling was discovered, about 21 million pounds of the soybeans had already been distributed to customers, the report said.
The Post said it found two other similar grain shipments in the past year, which, with the soybeans, “constitute a meaningful proportion of the U.S. supply of those commodities. All three were presented as organic, despite evidence to the contrary. And all three hailed from Turkey, now one of the largest exporters of organic products to the United States, according to Foreign Agricultural Service statistics.”
Livestock sold as organic must be fed organically grown feed, but as demand for organic livestock products, including milk and eggs, has climbed, farmers have been seeking greater amounts of organic feed for their animals. As a result, an increasing amount of organic corn and soybean feed is being imported to the United States.
In addition, using public-records laws, The Post said it had obtained the results of pesticide residue tests conducted on Chinese farms with USDA organic certification. “The pesticide results showed very high levels of pesticide residue on some ‘organic’ Chinese products. They also showed that the pesticide residue tests are applied unevenly,” the paper said.