Letter from OTA’s Maggie McNeil to CBS news anchor Lisa Bell
From: Maggie McNeil
Sent: Wednesday, October 9, 2024 1:55 PM
To: lbell@wkmg.com
Subject: CORRECTIONS in your organic piece
Hi Lisa,
I’m recently back from vacation and just saw your Oct 1 report on Organic https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2024/10/01/is-organic-food-worth-it-for-safety-heres-what-to-know/.
The Organic Trade Association greatly appreciates your interest and coverage of Organic, as organic agriculture and food offers many benefits for our nation’s farmers, consumers and our environment. However, there are a few inaccuracies in your piece to which we’d like to bring your attention.
First, you quote Hugh Kent of King Grove Organic Blueberry Farms saying: “Only in the U.S. is hydroponic allowed to be sold as organic…You can’t do (hydroponic organic farming) in the EU, you can’t do it in South America, you can’t do it anywhere in the world but the U.S.”
That statement from Mr. Kent is inaccurate:
Organic hydroponics/aquaponics and container production is allowed by Canada – US’s largest organic trading partner and the combined largest market for organic products in the world.
Second, Mr. Kent is quoted as saying: “There’s a big industry growing hydroponic tomatoes in the Netherlands purely for export to the U.S. to be sold as organic. They can’t sell it in the Netherlands or anywhere else in Europe as organic, but they can send it over here and label it as organic.”
That statement from Mr. Kent is also inaccurate:
Zero dollars of organic tomatoes were imported from the Netherlands to the United States (FAS GATS – attached Organic Tomatoes Imported)
In fact zero dollars of conventional tomatoes were imported from the Netherlands to the United States in the last 7 years (FAS GATS – attached Conv Tomatoes Imported, attached Tomato Import Netherlands)
Third, the report states that “Kent is hopeful the USDA will one day adopt the recommendations from its own National Organic Standards Board which supports banning hydroponic farms.”
The link in the article was to a presentation to the NOSB not a recommendation of the NOSB. To the contrary, the last NOSB vote was on Nov 2, 2017 in which it voted 8 to 7 against prohibiting hydroponics. It would take 10 votes for this motion to pass, so it failed by 3 votes.
Finally, your report quotes Mr. Kent as saying: “I don’t have a criticism of them as a farming system per se. The criticism is that they shouldn’t be lumped in and hide behind the organic label…Organics is something that was established by some very dedicated farmers over decades and this is now a growing system which is coming in and basically sleeping in the bed that somebody else made and confusing people.”
It needs to be noted here that contrary to what Mr. Kent is saying, the very first USDA organic standards and very first NOSB recommended hydroponics be covered under organic: “The 1995 NOSB recommendation Standards for Greenhouses contains the statement: Hydroponic production in soilless media to be labeled organically produced shall be allowed if all provisions of the OFPA have been met.”
Since the report was done over a week ago, we are not requesting an official correction, but we did think it was important to inform you of these inaccuracies. We also appreciate that the inaccuracies were largely made by Mr. Kent, but this fact will hopefully inspire more extensive fact checking by your team on what your sources are saying.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and the Organic Trade Association with any questions. We’d be delighted to assist in any way on any future stories you’re doing on organic.
Regards,
Maggie McNeil
Maggie McNeil, Director of Media Relations
Organic Trade Association (OTA) | www.ota.com
Letter from Hugh Kent to CBS news anchor Lisa Bell
Although critical of me as a source for your October 1, 2024 story on organics, the Organic Trade Association (OTA) did not provide the courtesy of copying me on their email to you of 10/09/24. Nor did they notify me of any of the other media outlets they apparently shared their criticisms with. (I learned of their email when it was forwarded to me by another media outlet.) Regardless, I am copying the author of the OTA criticisms here and will also respond to her directly.
First, I would note that OTA has presented the only negative response I have received to date.
Second, I would like to share Dr. Charles Benbrook’s observations as an example of the many unsolicited positive comments I have received concerning your story. (Dr. Benbrook is one of the leading experts on GMO’s and pesticide exposure, and a star expert witness in recent Roundup (glyphosate) litigation.)
He wrote, “I think the CBS segment is the single most technically accurate and compelling I have ever seen presenting the benefits of organic in a way the average viewer will understand.” (Emphasis added.)
As the “average viewer” was the intended audience for this story, I would suggest that OTA’s focus on granular detail is misplaced. More importantly, even their hyper-technical criticisms are themselves subject to correction.
Here are my responses to OTA’s claims of inaccuracy in the order they were presented:
1. That statement from Mr. Kent is inaccurate:
Organic hydroponics/aquaponics and container production is allowed by Canada – US’s largest organic trading partner and the combined largest market for organic products in the world.
In fact, according to the USDA, Canada does NOT allow hydroponics to be sold or marketed as organic in Canada. Specifically, “Agricultural products produced by hydroponic or aeroponic production methods shall not be sold or marketed as organic in Canada.”
Regardless of whether there are nuances involving container production (which I did not mention, but which I am more than willing to cover in detail if asked), my statement was that hydroponics are prohibited to be labelled as organic virtually everywhere else in the world other than the US. If the above USDA site is to be believed, the OTA criticism that I ignored a lone exception (Canada) is baseless.
2. Zero dollars of organic tomatoes were imported from the Netherlands to the United States.
I misspoke here – as it was peppers, not tomatoes, that have been grown hydroponically in the Netherlands and exported to the US where they could be sold as organic (while they must be sold as conventional if they remained in the Netherlands). I used the wrong crop as an illustration; the substantive point was accurate.
3. & 4. (As best as I can tell, the claimed inaccuracy here is that my opinion is wrong.)
Some clarification may be helpful. I did not provide you any links to any NOSB materials that I recall, but there is a standing recommendation by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), passed in 2010, to prohibit hydroponics as organic.
From that 2010 Recommendation:
Observing the framework of organic farming based on its foundation of sound management of soil biology and ecology, it becomes clear that systems of crop production that eliminate soil from the system, such as hydroponics or aeroponics, cannot be considered as examples of acceptable organic farming practices. Hydroponics…certainly cannot be classified as certified organic growing methods due to their exclusion of the soil-plant ecology intrinsic to organic farming systems and USDA/NOP regulations governing them.
I do support that 2010 Recommendation in large part.
I also stand by my statements that hydroponic producers are confusing the public and sleeping in the bed that someone else made. (It is telling to me that you don’t ever see produce labelled as hydroponic; just “organic.” If hydroponics are beneficial and produce comparable food, shouldn’t its defenders be willing to stand on their own two feet and label it as such?)
I also stand by my opinion that the USDA did not establish organic agriculture. Organic farming systems have been around for approximately 10,000 years and the organic movement in the United States was started by farmers (not the USDA) approximately 75-100 years ago in response to the acceleration of chemical agriculture in the 1930’s and 1940’s. This last OTA criticism rests on an assertion that organic was established by a 1995 USDA NOSB recommendation. This is patently inaccurate.
In short, I did my best to be completely accurate in the context of an unrehearsed interview on my farm in the middle of a workday. If I said tomatoes when I meant peppers, I stand corrected. More important than that criticism, or any others contained in the email you received from OTA, is the fact that this trade association, in my opinion, represents the interests of the industrial hydroponic multinationals who are misusing the organic brand, and abusing the public trust, to replace real organic farming in the US with imported produce. According to the USDA’s own statistics, we now import more than 60% of the fruit we eat in this country and almost 40% of the vegetables. OTA’s criticisms should be viewed in that light.
I farm full time, but I look forward to speaking with you about any of these issues, whenever you are available, as I believe farming systems and the food they produce are central to human health, national security, our collective environment, and our planet’s ability to sustain us.
Thank you again for your story on organics and hydroponics.
Hugh
Hugh Kent
King Grove Organic Farm, Inc.