The president trotted out his proposed $3.8 gabajillion dollar budget this week, and we should note that the USDA’s National Organic Program is receiving a 44% increase in funding: A $10.1 million budget, with $2.1 million earmarked specifically “for regulatory review and enforcement and to forge agreements with other countries to help expand exports” (Burlington Free Press).
I know, I know. In Washington DC, people don’t even bother to scrape $10 million off their shoes. But it’s a significant increase for a tiny program that has notoriously avoided reviewing, let alone enforcing itscharge since its inception in 2002. Consequently, the organic industry — particularly the organic milk industry — has avoided reprisals for “willfully” violating organic rules. We’re all looking at you, Aurora Organic Dairy.
So this action seems a step in the direction of the promise made by USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack to organic farmers last summer: “We will prosecute the violators of organic rules; I commit to you that we will enforce the rules.”
Love, love, love it. But wait. There’s an eyebrow-raising comment at the end of the Burlington Free Press article, one that shows the USDA has more targets in its sights than just organic factory farms:
Kathleen Merrigan, U.S. deputy agriculture secretary, said the increased funding would go toward stepped-up enforcement not only at farms but at retail establishments, as well.
Kathleen Merrigan has been involved with the development of the USDA’s National Organic Program from the beginning, by helping to write the law that charged the USDA with creating its organic program. In short, it’s her baby — and now she’s a ranking figure in the USDA. So when she throws shoulder at retailers, grocery stores better take note: It’s a $10,000 fine per violation for knowingly selling conventional food as organic.
Gotta pay that $10.1 million back somehow.
