Organic Farms Got Phony Fertilizer

Organic farmers in California, including some of the largest producers in the country, have been unwittingly using a synthetic fertilizer for up to seven years. The product, made by California Liquid Fertilizer, was cheap, effective and certified organic. It captured a third of California's organic farming market by 2006.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture had been notified of the problem in 2004, but didn't order the company to remove its product from the market until January 2007. It didn't notify the company's clients until a year and a half later.

Another major producer of liquid fertilizer pulled its product from the organic market in November 2007 after regulators initiated an investigation.

The organic produce market has grown from small farmers to a multi-billion dollar megabusiness, but regulation hasn't kept pace. State regulators only initiate inspections after receiving a complaint. Most of the regulation falls on the industry certification groups, but they often rely on company-provided information to determine if products meet federal standards.

From the Sacramento Bee:

For up to seven years, California Liquid Fertilizer sold what seemed to be an organic farmer's dream, brewed from fish and chicken feathers.

The company's fertilizer was effective, inexpensive and approved by organic regulators. By 2006, it held as much as a third of the market in California.

But a state investigation caught the Salinas-area company spiking its product with ammonium sulfate, a synthetic fertilizer banned from organic farms.

As a result, some of California's 2006 harvest of organic fruits, nuts and vegetables – including crops from giants like Earthbound Farm – wasn't really organic.

According to documents obtained by The Bee through a Public Records Act request, California Department of Food and Agriculture officials were notified of the problem in June 2004 but didn't complete their investigation and order the company to remove its product from the organic market until January 2007.

State officials knew some of California's largest organic farms had been using the fertilizer, the documents show, but they kept their findings confidential until nearly a year and a half after it was removed from the market. No farms lost their organic certification.

The rest of the story (a very interesting read) is here.

Beware the White Rabbit - Tainted Candy Found in US Stores

The tainted Chinese dairy product scandal has finally hit the U.S. Bags of the popular Chinese White Rabbit candy tainted with Melamine have been found on store shelves in Connecticut.

According to the International Herald Tribune

Melamine is a chemical additive at the heart of China's contaminated dairy scare. It is used to make plastics and fertilizers, but it is sometimes illegally mixed into food products, including milk, because its high levels of nitrogen can help fool tests that measure protein levels.

In September, Chinese authorities acknowledged that more than 53,000 Chinese infants had been sickened after consuming powdered baby formula that had been contaminated with melamine. Of that total, 13,000 were hospitalized and four have died.

Please don't feed your head.