Via The Packers:

AMS questions state’s handling of fertilizer issue

By Don Schrack

(Jan. 22, 4:52 p.m.) The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating why California officials took more than two years to force the removal from the market of an organic fertilizer that used a synthetic material.

The complaint that California Liquid Fertilizer, Gonzales, Calif., was using ammonium sulfate first reached the California Department of Food and Agriculture in June 2004. The state department, which is tasked with ensuring the USDA’s National Organic Program standards are enforced, ordered the fertilizer’s removal in January 2007.

The failure of the state agency to act quickly against the supplier could lead to federal disciplinary action. A complaint was filed with the USDA over the state’s handling of the probe, said Joan Shaffer, a spokeswoman for the Agricultural Marketing Service. As a result, she said, AMS requested the state provide a history and timeline of the investigation.

“AMS continues to investigate the state’s handling of the issue,” Shaffer said.

The National Organic Program staff also is working with California to review and strengthen the state’s organic program, she said.

Grower-shippers who used the tainted fertilizer remain intact, Shaffer said, because they were unaware of the banned substance.

Well damn!  They were putting ammonium sulfate in the fertilizer which was then being sold as organic.   Apparently this ‘tainted’ organic fertilizer has gotten out and there’s no way of being sure that it hasn’t gotten into other ‘organic’ mixes of fertilizer or other products.   Why?   Because, as it turns out, it’s indistinguishable from the non-’tainted’ variety.

Confused?

Well, here’s the deal.  Ammonium sulfate is not organic, not in the chemical sense at least.   Ammonia compounds are commonly found in organic chemistry but strictly speaking, they are not organic unless they are at least partially based on the covalent bonding of carbon.   However, the term “organic” as placed on a food item has nothing to do with the actual chemical definition, which is strict and certain.   When the word ‘organic’ is stamped on food, it means that it conforms to certain arbitrary restrictions on how it can be grown.

These criteria do not stop ‘organic’ fertilizer from containing ammonium sulfate.   Ammonium sulfate is naturally occurring in the form of a mineral called mascagnite.   Mascagnite is relatively rare, occurring mostly around volcanic vents and occasionally in other geological settings.   If you can find a deposit of mascagnite then you can use it in fertilizer and sell it as “organic.”    However, if you actually make the ammonium sulfate by reacting ammonia and sulfuric acid then it’s not organic.

Worst still, since ammonium sulfate is ammonium sulfate there’s no way of really knowing if your ammonium sulfate is ‘organic’ or not.   You just have to take the word of your fertilizer supplier that they plundered the ammonium sulfate from a fumarole at Yellowstone and didn’t do anything ‘unsustainable’ like resort to atmospheric nitrogen fixation.

The article continues:

Grower-shippers who used the tainted fertilizer remain intact, Shaffer said, because they were unaware of the banned substance.

“This one instance is not indicative of the entire industry,” said Peggy Miars, executive director of California Certified Organic Farmers, Santa Cruz. “Buyers should not bash all of organics because of one instance.”

Well, I’m not bashing organic foods over this one incident, but I will bash them over their general inflated and inaccurate claims and the fact that they’re nothing more than a restrictive and less efficiently grown product that can actually increase enviornmental impact and decrease safety, at least in some circumstances.

At the center of the dispute is California Liquid Fertilizer, Gonzales, Calif. In January 2007, the California Department of Food and Agriculture ordered the company to halt sales of a fertilizer with synthetic nitrogen.

The time lag concerns California’s organic grower-shippers, Miars said, but most want to focus on the future of the program.

“Most people would reasonably expect a quicker turnaround,” she said. “But we don’t want to put any blame on CDFA for things that have happened in the past. We want to focus on the future.”

To be fair, the nitrogen is not synthetic.  The compound it is in is synthetic, although indistinguishable from the non-synthetic kind.

To that end, the organization is working with state officials to improve the organic program and to help avoid similar issues, Miars said.

A former California Liquid Fertilizer employee brought the matter to the state’s attention, which Bob Scowcroft said points to weaknesses in enforcement. Scowcroft is executive director of the Santa Cruz-based Organic Farming Research Foundation, a national lobbying organization.

“It’s sad that it took an individual to push for enforcement,” he said. “I think that’s worthy critique of the state’s organic program and indicative of how little the state is invested in organics.”

Gee, that’s exactly what I want: more enforcement of the fertilizer’s source by the government, and paid for by my tax dollars. Since the stuff is chemically identical, I wonder how they plan to enforce this. They can either put inspectors at every fertilizer plant and examine the entire supply chain to find any synthetics getting into the mix, or perhaps they can try to distinguish the natural kind by measuring the isotopic composition via neutron activation analysis. That shouldn’t be more than a few hundred million a year.

And finally:

The Organic Trade Association, Greenfield, Mass., issued a statement that read, in part:

“Shoppers can rest assured that organic farmers work in good faith to adhere to stringent federal standards that prohibit the use of toxic and persistent pesticides and fertilizers. The organic farming community has taken these revelations seriously.”

The disclosure spurred quick action by many organic grower-shippers. Among them is Natural Selection Foods LLC, San Juan Bautista, Calif.

“We have instituted a testing program for all liquid fertilizers to ensure that the ingredients are coming from appropriate sources,” said Samantha Cabaluna, communications director for Natural Selection Foods. “Consumers who purchase organic foods purchase them because synthetic chemicals are not used in the production of the produce.”

Okay, shoppers can indeed rest assured that there are no toxic chemicals in their organic foods that will kill them.   This also applies to the regular, less expensive and just as good stuff.   Organic farming, by the way, does not strictly forbid chemical pesticides in all situations, and the idea that standard agriculture involves dumping copious amounts of toxic chemicals on food crops is a myth.  Any insecticide used is heavily regulated and residue is minimal and well tested for health effects.

I’m just left with one question:  if consumers really do buy organic products because they don’t contain synthetic chemicals then why?  Why the hell do you care whether your ammonium sulfate was ripped off the side of a pristine geological formation or synthesized in a factory?  Are you just stupid?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 at 1:49 am and is filed under Agriculture, Bad Science, Enviornment, Just LAME, Misc, Obfuscation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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