Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #122: Government Kowtowing & Alleged Industry Corruption in the Organic Label

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Episode #122: Government Kowtowing & Alleged Industry Corruption in the Organic Label · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: There are CAFOs with um, I wish I was making this up, 1,500 to 20,000 milk cows, uh, a million laying hens, as many as almost 200,000 per building in aviary systems stacked, stacked up floor to ceiling, uh, not going outdoors.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: I they've they've just kind of betrayed our values.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Some certifiers would never certify those because they're not organic.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: And if you read the language and the law, they don't comply.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's others that are more than happy to take the money from the big food players, which are mostly conventional businesses, and uh and bless them with the organic seal.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: So we're trying to do two things ferret out the um uh disingenuous labeling, mislabeling of um livestock products like that, and then also address fraud because uh most organic farmers are very honest and voluntarily honest.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, when we catch the fraud, it's not the USDA catching the fraud, it's investigators like me.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and uh that really places honest farmers at a competitive disadvantage and obviously um defrauds consumers.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we won't stand for that.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Stina McCullough here with my favorite co-host, Joel Salatin.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Today we have an action pack show for everybody.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: We have with us the one and only Mark Castell.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: He is the founder and executive director of Organic Eye, which is an organic industry watchdog.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: They have done some amazing things.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't checked them out, um go to their website after this podcast.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: We'll put the link in the description box.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're lucky to have them as our watchdogs.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna share with us today some of their investigations that have happened.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about potential corruption in the organic label, how consumers may be getting duped by their label.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but first, a little about Mark.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: He spent most of his professional life advocating for farm uh family farms and working to ensure the integrity of organics.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: He actually spent his early career working for agribusiness giants, but he made a paradigm shift to organic agriculture in the early 1980s after suffering a debilitating illness.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: His adherence to an exclusively organic diet was instrumental in restoring and maintaining his good health.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he actually has started um his own industry-related consultancy.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: He is president of MA Castile and Associates.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the program.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited for today's show, and I think we have a lot to cover, so I'm gonna jump right in.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Some of our listeners may not already be aware of how organic food is actually certified.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So before we jump into potential corruption, you know, misleading labels, let's start there.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Does the USDA certify organic foods?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is it independent certifiers?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or walk us through that process, please.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Back in the 1980s, when uh we didn't found uh the organic farming movement, but we certainly helped commercialize it.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, there were there was kind of this Byzantine network of independent certifiers, and none of them recognized each other's standards.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was really hard to do products where you had a combined ingredients.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: And in California, um, they had a state statute, you could nuke the ground one year with herbicides, be organic the next, and then uh rotate herbicides back and forth.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: So uh silly folks like me who were burning gasoline or diesel fuel to uh cultivate or hiring people with a hoe, uh uh we couldn't compete with that.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: So we actually asked the Congress to enshrine a law, enshrine the USDA's responsibility.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know the saying, be careful what you ask for, you might actually get it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so they harmonize the theory that they would harmonize the standards.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: So the USDA does not inspect any farms, they don't certify any farms, they basically certify the certifiers.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's an accreditation system.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: There are over 40 certifiers just in the U.S., let alone ones that are operating internationally.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: And they range quite a bit.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: So this harmonization never worked.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: So some of them certify corporate agribusinesses uh growing, quote, organic produce in sealed greenhouses uh hydroponically, not in rich soil that uh imparts a diverse microbiome and uh nutritional density, but in liquid fertilizer solutions in a hydroponic greenhouse, or there are some certifiers that will uh certify just the opposite kind of operation that uh uh Mr.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Joel Salton runs.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so there are CAFOs with um, I wish I was making this up, 1,500 to 20,000 milk cows, uh, a million laying hens, as many as almost 200,000 per building in aviary systems stacked, stacked up floor to ceiling, uh, not going outdoors.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: I they've they've just kind of betrayed our values.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: There are other certified, well, I I can't remember where I left off, but some certifiers would never certify those because they're not organic.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if you read the language and the law, they don't comply.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's others that are more than happy to take the money from the big food players, which are mostly conventional businesses, and uh and bless them with the organic seal.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: So we're trying to do two things ferret out the um uh disingenuous labeling, mislabeling of um livestock products like that, and then also address fraud because uh most organic farmers are very honest and voluntarily honest.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, when we catch the fraud, it's not the USDA catching the fraud, it's investigators like me.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and uh that really places honest farmers at a competitive disadvantage and obviously um defrauds consumers.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: So we won't stand for that.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wait, so you're saying Mark, as someone who was involved in those early days, I was I sat on the very first certification committee in Virginia when the Virginia Association of Biological Farmers uh jumped into that that uh uh position.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when San Senator Patrick Leahy, I think I'm right on that, was the uh proponent of the National Organic Programs Act uh back at that time.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that act actually uses the uses terms like soil.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's the vision, the vision of that was a was a labeling, um, a labeling standard that would create um you know create consistency among all these various you know certifying agencies.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that when I went to the store and bought organic, I would know that it came up to a certain minimum standard, uh, regardless of whether it was California organic, Oregon Tilth, uh Virginia Biological Farming, Carolina Farm Stewardship, or you know, whatever the agency, whatever the the primarily nonprofits, primarily uh what they were.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and as you have so um um eloquently explained, what what started with a lot of um enthusiasm and sincerity in the uh in in the organic uh uh organic sphere um gradually has has eroded through the corporatization, if you will, the corporatization of of not only the uh the fraternal revolving door between the USDA and industry, but but but industry within the within the organic movement itself.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: It moved out of the individual farms uh that that that that envisioned it uh originally.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh I I don't think you can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think anybody when Senator Patrick Leahy put the bill in, I don't think anybody at that time would have thought that an outfit like Driscoll's would 20 years later be certifying uh hydroponic strawberries.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, we in fact we just flew under the radar screen in the end of the 1980s before the Organic Foods Production Act was passed in 1990.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it incidentally, the USDA actually testified against passage of the bill.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't want it.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because of all the agribusinesses hated organics.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: As organic food was better, it must mean our food is bad.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Let's kill it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh then somewhere during the 90s, they decided we're not gonna beat this thing.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: We might as well join them because consumers, eaters were smart enough to say we don't really want uh agrochemical residues and drugs and genetically engineered experiments on our children.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so they started buying up all the original brands.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: So today, their lobbyists are all over this thing.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: We'll never fly under the radar again.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so it's$60 billion.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Money speaks very loudly.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: And in Washington, the lobbyists and the campaign contributions, whether it's in at the House AG or the Senate AG Committee or at the in the halls of the USDA, they have a voice that's generally louder than ours.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I should just say that there's still an opportunity for consumers to really connect with the local food shed where they live, where they can buy uh a great percentage of their food.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: In many cases, year-round uh produce creative farmers at either greenhouses or hoop houses and extend the seasons.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: They can certainly buy all their milk, meat, and eggs uh from local farmers who they'll meet and know.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: And in the 20 years I've been doing this uh organic watchdogging, I have found virtually no fraud on a local basis.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: And and these are the people who really understand soil stewardship and its relationship to nutrient density and and in turn our health.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, so if you buy, it might be your local member-owned food co-op or the farmer's market on Saturday, or the farm store at the at the farmer's uh home in operation, it your food might have been uh harvested 10 hours ago rather than 10 days ago from California or Mexico.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: So it's flavor nutrition, it's really unparalleled.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and so uh I I I love the fact that you have just pointed out that you have found very little fraud uh at the local level and at the individual farm level.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I remember in early discussions here in Virginia uh regarding, you know, uh certification, I was a little bit of a maverick.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I wasn't too uh I I envisioned, I was concerned about what I, you know, what what has actually happened uh at the early days.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I said, you know, if we're gonna certify something, let's go certify what the guy's reading uh on his uh uh by his toilet magazine rack.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, because because what we were actually trying to we're actually trying to certify, we're we were trying to certify a thought process, uh an ideology, a paradigm, a worldview.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and as this, as as you've described so uh beautifully, as the as the corporatism uh came in in the 90s when they decided to kind of let's let's join them and not fight them, suddenly, suddenly the movement was inundated by people who were coming for financial interests, not philosophical and and paradigmatic interests.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and so so that was a huge change in the organic movement.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Joel, as long as we had, by the way, you go upstairs to the bathroom, you'll find Akers USA and some other periodicals that you'll be familiar with and you might read if you want to trade or anything.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um MA Castellone Associates uh went out of business 20 years ago when I uh started doing the organic watchdog work.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't have a relationship financially with with the corporate sector.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I take that knowledge, that that industry knowledge and the farming knowledge and combine that to be a good private, well, not a private eye, a public eye.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: But um, in terms of people coming for the money, I do not fault farmers for that.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: One of the reasons that we founded this movement was that we were just hemorrhaging farmers off the land.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if uh if Earl Butts, the USDA secretary during the Nixon administration, didn't coin uh didn't originate the term, he coined or popularized the term, get big or get out.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I after a certain scale, you can't do this kind of um uh curation of soil and animals.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so we wanted family-scale farmers to make an honest living.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I've seen many times over the years people come for the money.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: But if there's the right oversight between, let's say, who they're um selling to, like an organic value, which is a cooperative, or there's a great one in Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, uh, and the certifiers doing their job, and the USDA is doing their job.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Even if their motivation is profit, they have to toe the line.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And but but so often, Joel, I get people came in, they were career agriculturalists, multi-generational farmers, and they were going to lose their farm, and they convinced the rest of their family, I've done the research, we should be organic, and they become true believers.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: They see their animal, the animal health.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: They I have dairy farmers say, uh, geez, we used to have a vet on our farm every week.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't seen one uh for uh six months, and that was for a prolapse after birth.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so they take great pride in what they've learned, and usually it's from other farmers, it's a real peer-to-peer education.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: I know you've been personally hands-on involved in that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, so here we are.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so see now, I think we've laid a good foundation here for everybody to understand that the USDA doesn't personally send um agents into the field onto the farms to look at anything.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, so this is this is rarely, rarely.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, they can, but uh, this is not like, for example, we've we've done a lot of programs on, for example, uh the Meat and Poultry Inspection Act, where there are actually government agents in a slaughterhouse looking at the carcass, looking all at that that is extremely different, and mark you're nodding.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm on safeguard here.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: That is an extremely different um uh kind of kind of organizational chart, if you will, than what is ha what is under than the way the administration is of the uh National Organic Program Standard.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um uh Sena, what prompted us to to get the guru on here today with us was some recent developments that have happened in this space, especially the international space, that I think we'd like Mark uh uh to shed light on today.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Seno, so what what have you seen that made you, you know, say, hey Joel, we got to get Mark on here?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one is in his latest newsletter, this great diagram he has where he's following the money, right?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Joel and I have done in the past is when we're trying to look for potential corruption or potential fraud, we tend to follow the money, you know, things like look for the revolving door.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was wondering if Mark, if you'd be so kind as to walk us through some of what you guys have found out with the transfer of funds, let's just say, between um USDA organic, um or certifying organizations like CCOF, the Organic Trade Association, and then these farms that we're talking about.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how's they all related?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: We started digging by trying to figure out why are some uh certifiers upholding our values and this true spirit of organics, and why are others selling out, literally selling out?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so CCOF in California started as one of these nonprofits that Joel referenced and morphed into this multimillion dollar business enterprise certifying multi-billion dollar corporate agribusinesses.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so they do hydroponics, they've done CAFOs and quote organic CAFOs.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so when we uh started doing the in-depth research, the USDA uh uh uh wants to eliminate any potential for conflict of interest.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: So they took the uh they these nonprofits that were doing certifying, they said, well, you have to have separate the certification.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: It can't have anything to do with lobbying and advocacy for farmers or education.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: It has to strictly be the referees objective.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then we find that CCOF has three different corporations, the foundation, their advocacy group, and CCOF certification services LLC, Limited Liability Corporation.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Why would you want to proclaim that that's your protective structure?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and but so they they're separate, right?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: On paper.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: They all are in the same office.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's combined$27 million a year worth of revenue.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: They report to the same CEO, they share board members, they share revenue.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so these big outfits like Driscoll's or Grimway, which you might better know as Bunny Love or Cal Organics, it's the largest organic farm in the country, 60,000 acres.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure how you do organics at 60,000 acres.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: You can do our organics by virtue of what we call organic by substitution.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: You take away a toxic material and then you substitute it with something probably less toxic, approved by a corporate funded uh review operation.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: So uh they they separated all these, but then uh Driscoll's or Grimway gives hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, all these outfits to the nonprofit wing.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: But they're sitting right across the desk in the same office with who's in charge of their certification, and they're buying advertisements in the magazines, and they're they're uh paying for sponsorships of the CCOF conferences.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: So they're our friends.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: How how hard do we want to crack down on them if we find a problem?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: So this is an inherent conflict of interest.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's illegal under the law.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the USDA is not enforcing the law.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh so does that mean all CCOF farmers are cheating?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely not.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Most of them are honest farmers.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we have a campaign that we're suggesting CCOF certified farms really uh scrutinize uh the behavior of their certifier and decide if they want to switch to a more ethical operation, something they're more comfortable with.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: And we're not at CCOF is our first target because they're the largest domestic certifier.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: They will be by no means our last target.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: So certification needs to mean something.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: And this coming year in 2024, we will help educate consumers.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: So uh what's our ace in the whole is every container of organic food by law has to have a disclaimer who certifies it.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: So some of those seals will be really worth something in doing your food research.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them, it you know, it doesn't mean that it's fraudulent, but you just can't take the word of the certifier.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: So so what is what is your uh initial remedy?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: What what is what is your goal?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, are you are you wanting CCOF to cease and desist?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Are you wanting them to change?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Are uh what's what's the what's the remedy here?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: What are you what are you after?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's twofold.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: One, we f filed a formal legal complaint with the USDA, and because the USDA isn't doing their job, we uh sent a letter to the Office of Inspector General asking them to investigate the USDA's lack of enforcement.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: So at a minimum, USDA should, or I'm sorry, CCOF should be forced to restructure and truly spin off these separate organizations instead of it just being on paper.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: That will be painful because they're on a gravy train right now.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and if the farmers can prevail, and these companies are multi-billion dollar companies like Grimway and Driscolls, and they're not the only ones contributing money.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Taylor Farms, another big one that owns earthbound farms now.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: They're a donor.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um so they need to say uh hydroponics isn't legal.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I think they're this would be very hard for CCOF to do until the point where there's enough attrition.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: That they're feeling economic pain.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, at a minimum, we'll be able to uh do this end run around the USDA instead of them deciding who a good certifier is, we are the farmers and the eaters.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so if we've got 10 really great certifiers and four that are uh betraying our values, we're gonna make sure that everybody who goes to a food co-op or Whole Foods or Piggly Wiggly or Costco or wherever they're buying their quote organic food, that they're really getting organic food because it's got the name of a really reputable certifier.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: So this isn't a a short process.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: We're in this for the long run.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: So this is I I would call what you're what you're trying to do is going beyond the label.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I can't I can't help to uh bring that in, Cena.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is truly beyond labels because when the label becomes untrustworthy, then you have to go to a higher a higher plane of uh whatever informational authenticity to force you know the label to mean something.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Mark, in your opinion, is CCOF the most egregious, the most egregious um uh whatever, candidate for scrutiny here?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm choosing my words carefully.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is CCOF the the most egregious candidate for scrutiny, in your opinion, at this time?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you if you read the organic law that says before you're certified, you have to, I'm paraphrasing, but you have to illustrate how you are going to maintain or improve soil fertility.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Joel, how do you maintain or suit improve soil fertility without soil?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd say that um they're the biggest, so are they the baddest?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, in scale, uh, but they're not the only ones who certify hydroponic or KFOs.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them are state agencies, like in California and Texas.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so um we're out to create uh uh knowledge within the organic community so we can make knowledgeable, informed decisions.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, I say there's there's a higher authority than the USDA.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: There's a higher authority than the courts.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the people who are spending their money when they're shopping, buying something that they want to buy with credibility.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: They understand the downside to the food that agribusiness is producing.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's not labeled conventional, but it's quote, what we call conventional.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: They want, they don't want their kids to be laboratory animals on the on the newest herbicide or the newest genetically engineered uh seeds or animals or uh food, you know, uh uh meat, dairy, and egg analogs that are uh cell cultured with genetically engineered yeasts.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: And in some, we don't need farmers like you anymore, Joel, because we'll have stainless steel sterile laboratories to produce our food.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: They don't want that.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: They want something better, and we want to make sure that they are empowered to make really good informed decisions.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Cena, I know that one of the things that uh catalyzed you into this uh interest uh for today was the international sector.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Mark, uh, you know, as somebody who you know, we have uh um poultry and pork, which uh we feed a lot of grain to.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: We buy uh GMO-free.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Every every batch is certified, you know, is uh checked for glyphosate residues.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh it's not necessarily organic certified, but it is all local.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: We can all, you know, we know these farmers, we visit them.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I think it's something like 80% of all imported grain is uh of all organic grain sold in the U.S.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: is imported.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I may be a little wrong on that, but I think I'm in a ballpark.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what you you you you've been great at walking us through some of those domestic issues.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um Cena, I think you were interested uh also in the in the international scene.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a little more to ask about that?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Mark, if you could just tell us what you have seen, like what you found in your investigations in terms of uh, like Joel mentioned, we know we have a lot of imports coming into the country, um organic, uh, you know, labeled organic imports.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so what have you discovered?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Are we are we really having fraudulent, potentially fraudulent grains, for instance, coming into the country?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Have you seen that yourself?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, how can we actually stop that from happening?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is that uh I'm assuming it's again not going to be the like the USDA or, you know, we're not gonna be able to rely on the government to stop that, right?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna need people like you.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: But please enlighten us.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we need their help.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, our our ultimate goal is to get the USDA to fly right.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: They work for us.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, uh, people I I organic eye is a public charity.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: People contribute money to make sure we can operate and do this work, but we're already paying our taxes.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: We shouldn't have to do this.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so, Joel, I'll correct you a little bit.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: The the imported soybeans might be at 80%, corn might be more like 50%.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's still a tremendous amount.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we busted uh some true very large rings coming from Canada, coming from former Soviet states and Eastern Europe and Asia.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh we partnered, uh I partnered with the Washington Post at one point that really broke this open.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: So they the USDA created a bunch of new rules.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see how uh efficient they are at the oversight, because the you know the problem is that the people who are perpetrating these frauds are smarter than uh the inspectors, they're smarter than the certifiers, they're started at the USDA, these are career people involved in agribusiness, they can write some pretty creative paperwork.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: But um so we are watching very carefully.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: We think that if if shoppers can depend on their local markets, can depend on if farmers can uh like Joel uh procure their feed sources as locally as possible, um, that we can be our own police force.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the things we did just recently is partner with an organic eye farmer member uh in Oregon who grows uh hazelnuts.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he was trying to figure out why can't I compete with uh hazelnuts from Turkey?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it ends up that unlike um Bruce in Oregon and everybody else growing hazelnuts in the United States, who are inspected every single year, that the people in in uh Turkey that grow hazelnuts are part of what they call a group.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: And these groups were devised so that small landholders in developing countries, Turkey is really an agricultural giant, not really a developing country, but they let's say if they were in Africa growing she grown coffee or chocolate, that they might be so small that it'd be hard to certify.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: So an elder in their local community or the cooperative they're a member of, these are it's like peer certification.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: They all know each other, they can hold each other accountable because if one person cheats, they're out of the market.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but that morphed now that real money is involved, where um one of the members of the groups that we found in these nut projects in um in Turkey, one of the members doesn't grow anything, but they're certified by the certifier in the USDA as a grower.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: They're the handler, they're the processor.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and forget about this local community and forget about uh an indigenous community or cooperative.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: The only thing all these growers have in common is they sell to the same buyer.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: And we're allowing the buyer to certify, to self-certify all their farmer suppliers.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Don't worry, we've checked them out, they're all fine.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: That is not, uh, first of all, it's not legal according to the law.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's the basis of the lawsuit, the claim in the lawsuit.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's certainly unethical because uh consumers have always thought independent third party, so independent, not like big certifiers taking money, but independent third party.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: Third party means not the people of an economic interest are the ones overseeing this process.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so this was startling.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: But when we really shook up the industry, so the lobbyists at the Organic Trade Association held a teleconference.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: There were 100 people interested.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: What are we going to do if we lose this gravy train of group certification?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Joel, there were a bunch of grain buyers from the United States on that call.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: So this was supposed to be there's no minimum size for these farms.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was supposed to be small.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now we see maybe the grain trade is involved.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: So can we trust any of these imports?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we need to have a USDA that has teeth, and that's what we're trying to force them to do in the courts.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my guess is that uh the lobbyists at the Organic Trade Association will go to Congress and try to enshrine this workaround that they have, which is currently illegal.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: And our challenge will be to motivate, mobilize the organic community to say, we're not inherently against helping small farmers, but there has to be a maximum size.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: There has to be one of the largest European certifiers is doing well, what's a community?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Anything within the country, you can be a group member.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: How do you do that?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: It it wouldn't work.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: So we we want some real regulatory teeth before uh any groups would be uh legally approved.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so we got our work cut out for us because right now it's an untrustworthy system.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: So so the remedy, uh the remedy, when you say independent third party uh certifiers, that's what the law requires, independent third-party certifier.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the the the um the actual practical outworking, the protocol surrounding what is a third-party independent certifier.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there are there are certainly protocols.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um I assume the courts, uh even even uh to up to today, the courts have ruled on what is the definition of a third-party independent certifier.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, you already showed that that the California uh outfit with you know the fundraising, the magazine, and the certifiers all in the same room is not enough to qualify as a third-party independent.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, in the Turkey situation, where you have the brokers basically though, the brokers being the the certifiers, what would be a proper third-party certification uh agency in that scenario?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that would be the actual certifier, the agent or the inspector from the certifier visiting every one of these farms, not the buyer or the commodity.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I can't do that.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm not convinced that it's necessary.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, based on scale, I'm not convinced that, you know, we're talking about billions of dollars being exchanged here.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: So the nuts might cost two cents a pound more if we were going to just pass that along to the consumer.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm not convinced that that can't be done.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: And if if you're in in countries in Africa or Central America, some of these other commodities that are grown by very small landholders, I'm not convinced that you can't employ people at the local wage scale and still be cost effective doing an independent uh um you know, independent inspection.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, you know, having people take money, uh, you know, I I I don't think this has ever been tested in the courts before, Joel.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we're pressing.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: But it is in the regulatory language.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's just not being enforced by our employees that work for us at the USDA.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that we will change.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it might take the courts to intervene, uh, court intervention before um before we do turn things around.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: But hopefully, people, uh, you know, government officials will recognize something's wrong here.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we've already had letters from Congress uh to USDA Secretary Vilsack um asking him to uh look into this.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we we've gotten scrutiny.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_02: We're we're gonna need more pressure, I'm gonna suggest, before we turn things around.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And real quick, I got a question.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: So on this program before, we've talked about uh government delegating authority.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um, for instance, we've talked about Congress delegating authority over to a bureaucracy.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the pro one of the problems with that is that we the people really can't hold that bureaucracy accountable, right?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Unlike we can we can hold Congress accountable to a certain extent because we can we're trying, we're trying.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: They do have to follow the law.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, they do.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: The bureaucrats, you mean the bureaucrats, yes, yes.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've um you had a quote recently that I'd love for you to discuss with us, where you talk about you say with the USDA delegating so much authority to certifiers, there are now effectively two organic labels.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I love this because as I said, we've talked about this.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think our audience can understand this delegating of the authority because we've talked about Congress, like Congress creating um, you know, when everybody, a lot of people got excited that we were gonna have this new federal label for bioengineered foods, like for GMOs.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh my gosh, like they just put the veil down over your eyes, right?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And what did they do?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: They punted, right?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Congress didn't actually come up with the requirements, they punted it over to the bureaucracy.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and now we've got lots of loopholes in that, and in my opinion, no more transparency, right, than we had before.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't matter.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's why we need the organic label where uh uh GMOs are patently banned in every level of production from the farm to processing.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, because they're not, right?
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Can you can you dive into that before you answer my two organic label question, or maybe it's part of it?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: So can you expand on that?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, sure.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's let's get into you know, first this delegation.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there are a lot of laws in this country, and there are 535 members of Congress.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: They're not gonna go check out the farm.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we need these bureaucrats.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, in my career, most of them are really dedicated to what they do.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's the political appointees that run these regulatory agencies and the top staff that sometimes have to be taken to the tool shed.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Mr.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Vilsack, uh, prior to his first shift as USTA secretary under President Obama had been named the biotechnology industry governor of the year.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: What was his qualification?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: He's the governor of Iowa, which is the most uh corporate agribusiness intensive state.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: He's trained as a lawyer, he was a small town mayor, but now he's in charge of our food production.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll tell you, his philosophies aren't consistent with mine, and he's just too cozy with the agribusiness sector to understand.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, the uh Upton Sinclair, who, like Joel Salton, was a muck re muck-raking journalist, once said, it's very hard to convince a man of something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: So some of these people we're gonna never convince.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's why we have to take the law into our own hands.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: So the delegation to the uh the USDA, instead of creating tighter regulations to control what the certifiers are doing, you know, again, how can one certifier say hydroponic with a liquid solution of conventional uh soybean meal as nitrogen source in water, that that's commensurate with a tomato that somebody is uh uh uh growing in soil that they've worked on building the organic tilt of for generations?
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how could that be?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's because the USDA gives them too much authority.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: So go back to these groups in the foreign countries.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: These are countries that uh with these former Soviet states and China.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: We don't trust them because of intellectual property law uh violations, uh counterfeit name brand consumer goods, adulteration of food.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: We don't trust them after the melamine scandal in China with uh with our our pet food for our dogs and cats, let alone what we're feeding our children.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: But the USDA trusts them and trusts the certifiers.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: So in these group settings, the what the lobbyists at the OTA are saying is don't worry, it's a bulletproof system that that all these group members and the and the business that administrators they have to adhere to a really um judiciously tight um internal control system.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: Internal control.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: Who develops that?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's developed by the for-profit certifier based in France in kind in conjunction with the for-profit buyer and processor of the uh nuts in Turkey.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: They're the ones we're supposed to trust.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh well, we have a word for what the uh comes out of the back end of male cattle on Joel's farm.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's what it is.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes those, you know, large like Grimway, for instance, you mentioned they have an employee on the National Organic Standard Board, right?
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there's also that isn't that sweet interaction.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, six 60,000 acres, and they're they're representing the average uh organic grower in this country.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: But the only reason they can legally do that is that uh I orchestrated a lawsuit against the USDA back when there was somebody from Driscolls on the board while they were uh considering whether hydroponics should be legal.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: She there are four seats that Congress, when they passed the law, set aside.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: This was supposed to be a really diverse board.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Two of the members were supposed to be from handlers or agribusinesses that buy crops, but there was somebody from Driscolls.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: Driscolls doesn't even grow berries, they purchase them under contracts from independent growers.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: So this wasn't somebody who Congress designated would uh hold the seat who owns or operates an organic farm.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: That was illegal.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we sued.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: There was another uh egg company that competes with uh Joel's Eggmobiles, and uh she was on the board, she was a corporate employee.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: We sued, and the plaintiffs were two farmers, one dairy farmer who's a longtime friend, another uh beef producer from from uh Ohio, my friend was from the Wisconsin.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: They had both applied to the board and been passed over.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: They were highly qualified, highly experienced, and they owned and operated an organic farm.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the the USDA used our tax money to hire their own lawyers, to fight us, and they won not on the merits, but they decided the court decided that these farmers had no standing.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: So if they couldn't sue, who could?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: But to vindicate us, to prove that we were right in our legal premise that it was illegal for Driscolls and Arkansas Egg to have employees on the board, uh, very quietly in the dark of night, somebody secretly went to Congress and they attached a writer onto an appropriation bill, no hearing, no author, and they now make it legal so that the Grimway person is now legally on the board.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: It can be an employee of an organic farm.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that's who's representing uh Joel or uh Joel, you're not certified.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're you're certified by your local uh consuming eaters.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: But uh representing all of your neighbors in Virginia and my neighbors in Wisconsin who uh really care about the regulations, they're now represented by Grimway Farms.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, not that they shouldn't have a seat at the table, but they should have one of the handler seats, one of the seats that are designed for people because they also buy and Driscoll's buys, obviously.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, you know, we're allowing the certifiers to write their own rules, and and then in the bigger picture, we're allowing the corporate agorisms to unduly influence the regulatory language.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: So uh our analysis, which is available at organiceye.org, looked at who's on the National Organic Standards Board, and it's always been a problem with too many corporate people.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, now under Secretary Vilsack, he has the power to make the appointments.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's about 85% of them either have a personal affiliation or their employers are members of the Organic Trade Association.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we have way too much lobbyist power and not enough in the hands of people who get their hands dirty and crack a sweat to produce organic food.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: And just so that our listeners really understand the significance of having this board loaded with people who we may not want.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Be on there.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Can you explain to us what does the National Organic Standards Board do?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what it's supposed to do.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, let's start there.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: Congress set it up at our bequest uh to be a buffer between the inf be to come at the corporate agribusinesses influencing organic rulemaking.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: And in theory, it works well if it was truly independent.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: But they're supposed to advise the secretary on implementing all aspects of the act.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: God created these creatures to eat grass.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: We can't not be in a feedlot or a giant building pumped for a lot of milk, fed grains and other things that literally make them sick.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: As Joel knows, most of the beef cattle in this country are morbidly obese, diabetic, fatty livers.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: They would never live out their full lifetime.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're eating sick food.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's their job to influence how we make sure organic is better.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: The other role that they have is overseeing every material, either ingredient or farm input used in organic agriculture that's not organic itself, has to be reviewed by the National Organic Standards Board.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: So as an example, I as one of the good examples, uh I like organic cupcakes, but you can't bake them even if you've got an organic sweetener and organic cream cheese to go on top and organic wheat.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: You need a leavening agent.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: There's no such thing as an organic baking powder, baking soda.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so they have to review that to make sure it's safe for human health, safe for the environment.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I trust that baking powder is.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: But they've approved some agribusiness friendly um kind of nutraceuticals and preservative agents that have no business being in our food because they're carcinogenic, but they like them at the agribusiness level.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh we watch the National Organic Standards Board.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's um their composition is a betrayal to the values that we hold and a betrayal to what is legally referred to as the will of Congress.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so we we've challenged this before in court, we'll probably be back.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: We try try to create as much public pressure as we can.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um someday, hey, maybe we'll use the B word.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe there should be a boycott of Grimway if they sell us out.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so I can't individually say that Grimway, other than being part of this corporate fraternity of donating money to their certifier, and what an accident that that Grimway person is on the board for the second time their corporation.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: They had somebody on the board a while back, but they get endorsements from CCOF and endorsements from the Organic Trade Association.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: Who is Mr.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: Vilsack listening to?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it's us on this, uh, the your viewers and listeners.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think they're listening to the people with money, and we have to add in.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: I look at this as an experiment, uh, Joel.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: I I there are a lot of issues, other issues I know you and I care about in government and the way that it's not really serving the citizenry very well.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: So we uh I have farmer, hippie farmers with dreadlocks I work for.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: I have uh third, fourth generation professional agrarians that uh, if you looked at the district they're from, probably voted for Mr.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: Trump.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I have uh, you know, what bonds us together is uh liberal soccer moms in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and conservative moms in in Bethesda, Maryland.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: What we all hold in common is the belief that uh that health does not come from a hospital or a clinic or a pharmaceutical company.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: It comes from uh living a really good life, a spiritually uh healthy life, uh where we respect the earth, we respect the people who produce our food, we have safer, more nutrient-dense food.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in the preventative medicine business, as I know you folks are too.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, but if we can't use that organic label to differentiate what we're buying in the supermarket, we're we're running blind.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's why it's really worth, in my view, the effort that we're all making together to save the organic label and to correct the flaws.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because, as I say, mostly organic farmers are honest, it's voluntary, they believe in uh what we've created.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now we have to wean out the the problems.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably a good a good place to end on.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: We we could talk all day, Mark, and uh, and I know Cena and I are appreciative of you coming on for our listeners.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh for more information, if if this has resonated with you, uh the level of of watchdogging going on here, uh, it's the organic eye.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can get uh you can you can help you can uh provide contributions to Mark and his work at Organic Eye.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I know all of us appreciate having that that watchdog out there.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Joel.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: You can also go to our tips line, our poll-free tips line, or on our email there on our uh website.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's information.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can be one of our intelligence agents.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're a farmer, if you're a broker, if you're if you eat and you see these packaging that doesn't make sense based on what the law is, you can confidentially talk to us.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: We'll protect your identity.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're not in the rumor business.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: We try to triangulate those tips with other sourcing, but but you folks are the eyes and ears.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I say who owns the organic label?
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: We all do.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: So so it's uh incumbent upon us to protect it.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well said, and uh we appreciate the insight and we appreciate your efforts.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I know we all do.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you, Joel.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're really appreciative of you spending this time with us, Mark, and our listeners.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to another episode of Beyond Labels Podcast, and we look forward to visiting with you again next week.