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ISIS Report 29/11/07
Transparent Label An Alternative to Organic Certification
Organic food flown in from poor African countries to the UK has triggered
debate over organic certification; the solution may be a transparent voluntary
label that directly informs consumers. Dr.
Mae-Wan Ho
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Is airfreight organic food really organic?
The organic market grew
by 25 percent in the UK to £1.97 bn in the year 2006-2007, but
more than 30 percent of organic products is imported, some even flown in from
sub-Saharan Africa [1]. Does that make sense in the cost in CO2
emissions? Especially when so many hungry people there are too poor to buy
the food grown in their own countries?
After months of consultation
on the issue, the Soil Association, which certifies 70 percent of organic
food in the UK, published its recommendations based on more
than 200 written submissions. The details of the proposal will be up for
further consultation in 2008, and new certification rules are expected to
come into effect January 2009.
The impact on the
organic market may be relatively small, as less than one percent of organic
imports enter the UK by air. But 80 percent of airfreight organics
comes from low or lower-middle income countries.
The Soil Association is proposing [2] that any airfreight
products should meet its own ethical trading standards or the Fairtrade Foundation’s
standards by 2011. It wants businesses dependent on airfreight organic products
to develop initiatives to reduce airfreight, and is encouraging people and
businesses to be less reliant on fossil fuels for their livelihood.
The proposal
to have ethical trade standards mandatory in its organic certification is
new, as they are now voluntary. The standards entail “fair and ethical tradition
relationships”, “socially responsible practices” and “fair and ethical employment”
throughout the entire organic food chain, from producer to retailer and in
both developing and developed countries.
The association is
also looking into reliably and fairly assessing the full carbon footprint
of organic products, and wants “all organic products to have a minimal or
even mitigating contribution to climate change.” It is reviewing standards
for heated glasshouse production and actively encouraging people to eat less
meat.
The Soil Association’s
discussion document set out other options for reducing carbon emissions including
the possibility of labelling organic food products with the number of air
miles they have travelled, or a programme whereby the carbon produced by airfreight
is offset.
Mixed reactions
Oxfam welcomed the emphasis
of the new proposals on fair trade standard, but warned that change in policy
should be phased in over a suitable period to minimize negative impacts on
the most vulnerable producers and to provide support for them [3]. Oxfam spokesperson
Duncan Green pointed out that if everyone in the UK replaced one 100 W light
bulb with a low energy equivalent, it would reduce UK’s CO2 emissions
by five times the amount that would result from not buying airfreight fresh
fruit and vegetables from sub-Saharan Africa. “It is essential that our responses
to climate change should not harm the people who are least responsible for
the environmental damage in the first place.”
The International
Trade Centre (ITC) is altogether unconvinced. It says that organic exporters
now face new costs to enter the UK, and poor African farmers
will therefore find it harder to enter the markets. Moreover, the ITC claimed
that most of the food grown in the UK and continental Europe produce more
greenhouse gases than organic exports air-freighted by poor African farmers
[1]. ITC trade and development expert Alexander Kasterine said, “Food transport
has nothing to do with working conditions of farm workers, and only a small
proportion of these exporters are currently using fair trade or ethical trade
standards.”
Cost of organic certification prohibitive
UK ’s Minister
for Trade and Development Gareth Thomas said he was “disappointed” with the
Soil Association proposal to withdraw certification from airfreight products
that are not additionally certified to ethical trade standards [4]. He was
worried about the costs of additional certification, pointing out that, “certifying
new products can take from six months to several years and costs between tens
and hundreds of thousands of Euros.”
He also said
that airfreight ban “does little to solve climate change”, as less than one
tenth of one percent of UK greenhouse gas emission come from airfreight fruit
and vegetables from Africa; and driving six and a half miles to buy from a
shop emits more carbon than flying a pack of Kenyan green beans to the UK.
“There can be no denying that food transport
has an environmental and social cost, but most of this (about 85%) comes from
UK roads,” he said.
The UK
government is encouraging more efficient distribution within the food and
drink sector, and proposed that the food industry trade bodies look into achieving
a 20 percent reduction in the social costs of transporting food in the UK
by 2012.
The food and drink
manufacturing, food retail and catering sectors are currently responsible
for approximately 4 percent of UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions of about
26Mt CO2e (CO2 equivalent) per year [5]. The food chain
as a whole from farm to plate, which includes transport and distribution,
domestic energy use from storage and cooking, is around 111 Mt, or approx
17 percent of UK’s emissions.
The Food Industry
Sustainability Strategy (FISS) published in April 2006 [5], is considering
a 3.5 percent reduction a year over 5 years from a 2006 baseline, by improving
the efficiency of product manufacturing, and by reduce waste.
Global trade and poverty
But it is trade that’s uppermost
in the mind of the Minister of Trade and Development. British shoppers spend
over £1 million a day on imported fruit and vegetables from Africa;
and in addition to the very small minority of organic farmers, almost a million
conventional farmers and their families depend on airfreight fruit and vegetables
from Africa to the UK.
“Trade is fundamental
to development.” He said [6], “To beat world poverty, it is essential that
economic growth is encouraged in the world’s poorest countries. They must
be able to trade on the global market, exporting their goods freely and getting
a fair price for them.” Unfortunately, it is precisely a fair price that the
poor farmers everywhere cannot get without mandatory ethical trade standards.
It is precisely this misplaced emphasis on export trade in the aftermath of
the Green Revolution that has resulted in poverty and hunger [7] (see
Beware the New “Doubly
Green” Revolution, SiS 37).
India,
the home of the Green Revolution in Asia, is a major food exporter, and its
26 m ton grain surplus in 2006 could feed the 320 million of it population
that go to bed hungry. But the starving villagers are too poor to buy the
food produced at their doorstep. India is also caught in a worsening epidemic
of farmers’ suicide largely as the result of subsidized dumping in the global
‘free-trade’ market. Debt-ridden farmers are caught in a downward spiral of
rising costs of fertilizers and pesticides and diminishing income due to plummeting
commodity prices, falling yields from unsustainable cultivation practices
and recently, massive crop failures for those who have been deceived into
planting GM crops. An estimated 100 000 farmers have taken their own lives
between 1993 and 2003 and the introduction GM crops has escalated the suicides
to 16 000 a year.
Only organic agriculture of the right kind can feed the world
Organic agriculture can
feed the world [8] (see Scientists Find
Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World and More, SiS 35). But it is becoming especially clear
that only the right kind of
organic agriculture can feed the world, an organic agriculture that supports
local production and local consumption, and protects the livelihood of farmers
[7].
There is indeed growing
concern over ethical trade standards and carbon footprint in organic certification.
Consumers are buying into fair trade products from Third World
countries, but they generally also prefer locally produced fresh fruits and
vegetables, not only because that cuts down on carbon emissions and helps
mitigate climate change, but also because it supports local farmers whose
farms they can visit at any time.
Conscientious consumers
are demanding more information about the food they eat, especially as different
certification schemes are not all the same.
The Pianesi food label
Mario Pianesi, founder of
the highly influential macrobiotic association in Italy, Un Punto Macrobiotico
(UPM) (see Box), has initiated just the kind of transparent, comprehensive
label that gives all the information the most discerning organic consumer
might want.
Pianesi’s label
has information on the entire food chain from farm to shop shelf. It tells
you the location of the farm that grows the food, the area and amount harvested,
the year of the harvest, the number of people employed, and the specifics
of the farming method, such as the origin of the seed, how the sowing is done,
what kind of organic fertilizer used (if any), energy used, whether irrigated
and amount of water used, weed control, and details of processing (if any)
(see photo).
The transparent food label
containing everything that the organic consumer would want to know as an alternative
to organic certification
The label is
already in use, and on natural non-food products as well, though not all information
is available or mandatory. The advantage is that it is not a certification scheme, and hence has
no certification cost attached. But the producer of the item can be taken
to court if something printed on the label turns out not to be true. Consumers
buy it because they have confidence in the brand and approve of the labelling
scheme. This scheme is therefore most likely to work in the local community
or region, and that’s good enough for consumers and farmers who support the
ideal organic food system.
Mario is trying to
get this label accepted by the Italian Senate, where the majority of the representatives
are in favour. But he has yet to convince most of the Italian producers.
Mario Pianesi and Un Punto Macrobiotico
Mario Pianesi
founded the association Un Punto Macrobiotico (UPM) in 1980. With his mother
from Montenegro and his father from the Marche region, Pianesi appreciated the positive sides of the Mediterranean
cuisine.
At the age of 26, he took evening courses in nutrition. When he read
the book, Zen Macrobiotics by Georges Ohsawa, he learned
about the ancient Chinese theories of Yin and Yang and the five Transformations.
He spent the next 10 years studying these ideas, trying to confirm the application
of the theories to various branches of science, and then promoted them within
the UPM centres. After that, he began to organize public conferences that
have continued uninterrupted to the present day. He has given different
courses for doctors, teaching diagnosis and nutrition according to the two
ancient Chinese theories, and he was among the first to become acquainted
with iridology, the diagnosis of illnesses from the appearance of the iris.
In seeking to unite traditional Chinese and modern science, as president
of UPM, he organized a series of conferences on different themes, starting
with “Macrobiotics and Science” in 1995, “Culture” in 2000, “From Ancient
Chinese Theory to the Sustainable Pianesian Development” in 2002, “Rice:
Fundamental Food for Human Health” in 2004, and “Environment, Agriculture,
Nutrition, Health, Economy” in 2006 to coincide with the World Food Day.
All these conferences still take place annually.
In 2001, UPM organized its first initiative at the Senate of the
Italian Republic, presenting the transparent label designed
by Pianesi, and approved so far by 88 senators.
In the same year the Association launched the “Ma-Pi Diabetes
Project” in Asia, South America and North Africa, through which the effectiveness
of Ma-Pi macrobiotic diets has been proven on patients affected with diabetes.
The first documented scientific results of this project were obtained
in Cuba [9]. Today, the “Ma-Pi Diebetes Project”
has expanded to other countries.
For his work in the service of the environment, agriculture and health,
Pianesi has received recognition from various local, provincial and regional
groups, and from the Society of Natural Science in Tunisia . In 2006 he received the award as “Best work in diet therapy”
from the Medical Diet congress in Dijan, China ; and in 2007, he was given the degree “Honoris
Causa” from the Academy of Science in Mongolia . In
2005 he was asked to serve on the UNESCO Scientific Committee for the Decade
of Education for Sustainable Development.
Through the development and growth of UPM, the Marche region in Italy came to have the highest concentration of macrobiotic centres
in the world, with stores, restaurants, food laboratories, factories producing
natural clothing, natural footwear, natural furnishings, natural paint and
construction products.
In UPM stores and restaurants, foods products are sold that adhere to strict
standards and bear the label designed by Pianesi, which is also now being
used on non-food products.
Pianesi directly
stimulated the founding of the first organic farming cooperative in Italy
in 1975, and in 1980, began to recover seeds of plants that have been abandoned
in favour of hybrid seeds or GMOs. Since then, he has continued his research
towards natural agriculture, proposing an original agricultural model of
“policoltura pianesiana” (Pianesian polyculture).
Starting with seeds reproduced in the fields, obtained directly from farmers,
the plants are allowed to revert as much as possible to their wild state,
cereals, beans and vegetables are grown in the middle of fruit or other
trees spaced at about 5 to 6 metres, in combination with hedges to produce
a natural, balanced environment.
With this polyculture system, farmers have reported an increase in production
and a significant reduction in costs, in addition to substantial positive effects
on land previously turned alkaline from monoculture and intensive treatment
with chemicals, achieving a pH reduction from 6.5 to 5.5 in just a few years.
From the UPM Secretariat
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