August, 09 2011, 10:36am EDT
International Organic Scandal: Major Canadian Grain Exporter's Certification Suspended
Organic Industry Watchdog Says "System Working as Designed, Albeit Too Slowly"
CORNUCOPIA, Wis.
After two years of speculation by U.S. and Canadian organic farmers, facing below-cost competition eroding sustainable pricing, and even forcing some out of business, an announcement last week, by the Canadian government authority overseeing organics, has finally offered an explanation.
Jirah Milling and Sales, based in Quebec, Canada, has had their organic certification suspended by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The company, annually selling thousands of metric tonnes of organic feed soybeans and grains in U.S. markets, had been under scrutiny for some time. Organic soybean growers, and other crop producers, on both sides of the border had been questioning how Jirah could apparently sell organic beans significantly below what they knew to be the cost of production.
"We have been aware of problems with imported soybeans for years and have been actively investigating this operation for many months," said Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute. "It was obvious, from collaborating with U.S. organic grain producers, and their cooperative leaders, that something was wrong," Kastel added.
Michael Saumur, the National Manager of the Canadian Organic Office at CFIA, said that they had received two formal complaints about Jirah's operations. Jirah then received "multiple assessments," he said. The assessments revealed what Saumur would only term as "deviations" from the company's organic plan. Jirah, Saumur explained, was "given ample opportunity to correct" the deviations. Unable to do so, Saumur said "it was deemed applicable to issue a suspension."
While Saumur expressed the need to maintain confidentiality about further details, one complaint concerning Jirah, filed in November 2010, alleges blending of cheaper conventional grains with organic and then the sale of the adulterated product as certified organic feed.
"Since we have spent years investigating cheap Chinese soybean imports, dominating the West Coast market, we initially thought that Jirah was transshipping beans from China and 'sanitizing' them with a Canadian label," said Kastel of The Cornucopia Institute, a farmer-based organic industry watchdog. "It now appears that any improprieties were homegrown on Canadian soil."
Cornucopia said it is "highly concerned" by reports from Canadian truckers that Jirah is said to be continuing to ship organic grain into the US and has been observed unloading containers of imported soybeans. The Institute has reached out to operations selling organic grain and feed asking that they contact Cornucopia, confidentially, if they have dealt with Jirah in the past.
Michael Saumur, the Canadian regulator added, "We hope potential buyers will be careful."
Jack Erisman, an organic crop producer in Pana, Ill., reported that "Even with growing demand from organic egg and dairy producers, over the past two years, I have had soybeans that I could not sell in the marketplace."
Cornucopia's investigation also brought the group in contact with Canadian farmers familiar with Jirah's activities. "The Canadian farmers' allegations, reported to us, were that Jirah wasbuying a nominal quantity of legitimate organic soybeans but the vast majority of their beans were coming from conventional IP [identity preserved], GMO-free growers," Kastel said. "These Canadian growers are the real heroes; they brought this apparent fraud to the attention of Canadian regulators and Cornucopia and tirelessly pushed for action," observed Kastel.
Cornucopia said it was a grave disservice to all the ethical Canadian farmers to have their reputations besmirched by the action of one greedy marketer. "With the exception of this bad aberration, Canadian farmers can be trusted just as much as U.S. producers," said Kastel.
The CFIA's suspension of Jirah's organic certification took effect on July 25. Ten days after the announcement, the USDA and its National Organic Program alerted the U.S. market to the suspension, noting that this operation could no longer"sell, label or represent their products as organic" due to non-compliancewith organic regulations. Canada and the U.S. have a formal equivalency agreement covering organic food and agriculture.
"This is an excellent example of the system working as it was designed," said Will Fantle, Research Director at the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute. "Our only serious disappointment is that it took so long for Canadian officials to act and over a week for the USDA to publicly warn participants in the organic industry not to purchase suspect products from the suspended Canadian source."
Jirah's most recent in a series of "serial" organic certifiers had been Letis, based in Argentina. Independent third-party accredited operations like Letis are charged with acting as the overseers of organic integrity. "It's very unusual for United States or Canadian farmers or organic handlers to contract with foreign certifiers, who typically work in their country of origin," said Fantle. Letis was ordered by Canadian regulators to pull its organic certification of Jirah.
The owner of Jirah Milling and Sales, Andrew Eastwood, told the editor of Sustainable Food News that the suspension would have a "tremendous impact" on the company. He noted that Jirah's customers "are certainly looking at other options right now." Eastwood indicated that his company will try to remedy the situation with CFIA.
CFIA's Saumur said that Jirah has thirty days to seek a review of their organic suspension. CFIA, administering the relatively new Canadian organic program, has yet to develop a formal mechanism for fines or additional penalties for Canadian organic regulatory violations.
Cornucopia said that none of the Canadian farmers that they had directly worked with on this investigation were willing to speak on the record due to fear of recrimination or violence. "We had one incident, related to the investigation, reported to us concerning the vandalism of an automobile to the tune of many thousands of dollars," said Kastel.
"Buyers should know," said Merle Kramer of Saline, Mich., Marketing Director at the Midwest Organic Farmers Cooperative, "that when we are in a $24.00 organic soybean market and they get four bids for around $24.00 and one bid for $19.75, it should be obvious that those are not organic soybeans. Unfortunately, for some the main concern is to get cheap organic grains and a piece of paper that says it is organic."
Marvin Manges, a certified organic farmer from Yale, Ill., said, "I have been raising organic crops for 25 years (21 years certified) and there has always been a strong market for what we and other farmers produce. In the last few years we have faced unfair competition from questionable imports from China and Canada. It's good to see that regulators are finally taking our challenges seriously."
In assessing the current regulatory crackdown, Jack Erisman, the other longtime Illinois organic grower, affirmed, "The organic marketplace is only fair when we are all playing by the same rules."
The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit farm policy research group, is dedicated to the fight for economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Their Organic Integrity Project acts as a corporate and governmental watchdog assuring that no compromises to the credibility of organic farming methods and the food it produces are made in the pursuit of profit.
LATEST NEWS
Amid Spying Fight, House Passes Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," said one advocate.
Apr 17, 2024
While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
"The privacy violations that flow from law enforcement entities circumventing the Fourth Amendment undermine civil liberties, free expression, and our ability to control what happens to our data," said Free Press Action policy counsel Jenna Ruddock. "These impacts affect everyone who uses digital platforms that extract our personal information any time we open a browser or visit social media and other websites—even when we go to events like demonstrations and other places with our phones revealing our locations."
"We're grateful that the House passed these vital and popular protections," she added. "The bill would prevent flagrant abuses of our privacy by government authorities in league with unscrupulous third-party data brokers. Making this legislation into law with Senate passage too would be a decisive and long-overdue action against government misuse of this clandestine business sector that traffics in our personal data for profit."
Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," she argued. "That means passing FANFSA and reforming Section 702 authority—and prioritizing everyone's First and Fourth Amendment rights."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
"The passage of the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale underscores the extent to which reining in abusive warrantless surveillance is a bipartisan issue," Scott said. "We urge the Senate to take up this measure and close the data broker loophole."
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a critic of the pending 702 bill and FANFSA's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, called the the House's Wednesday vote "a huge win for privacy" and said that "now it's time for the Senate to follow suit."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leaked Cables Show Biden Pressuring Nations to Oppose Palestine's UN Membership
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," said one former Lebanese diplomat.
Apr 17, 2024
As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough "no" votes so that the United States can avoid resorting to a veto.
Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors."
"We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of 'Palestine' as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks," the document advises.
The U.S. argument essentially is that the U.N. should not create an independent Palestinian state by fiat—even though that's precisely how the world body voted in 1947 to establish the modern state of Israel.
The renewed push for Palestine's U.N. membership comes as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which hasn't controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, rejected the Biden administration's requests to hold off on seeking full membership.
"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Critics pointed to the leaked cables as more proof of U.S. duplicity and double standards on the Israel-Palestine issue.
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," Massoud Maalouf, a former Lebanese ambassador to Canada, Chile, and Poland, said on social media.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Database Exposes 'Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World'
Yanis Varoufakis hailed the effort as "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
Apr 17, 2024
"Coups. Assassinations. Riots. Detentions. Disinformation. We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?"
Progressive International (PI) asks and answers this and other questions with an extensive new database published Wednesday that connects the dots in what the leftist group calls the "Reactionary International"—a loose global network of right-wing leaders and organizations working to subvert democratic institutions.
PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and BrasÃlia's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
From leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former U.S. President Donald Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee—to evangelical Christian groups influencing laws in African countries criminalizing LGBTQ+ people and tech companies empowering ubiquitous state surveillance, Reactionary International is a who's-who of the world's right-wing forces.
A cursory search of the database's contents shows users can:
- Learn about Israel's NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America;
- Meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey's roving death squad with links to President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition; and
- Explore the global network of the Falun Gong, its Trump-connected media outlet The Epoch Times, and its traveling dance troupe known as Shen Yun.
Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
PI invites the public to contribute to the database.
"Together, we will not only name, shame, and expose the forces of the far right—but also dismantle their network of complicity," the group said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular