Organic in name only

Consumers of organic foods need two basic characteristics: money and faith. They need faith to believe the food they are buying is actually free of chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and all sorts of other bad things; and money - a lot of money - to pay for the goods.

Organic consumers pay about 60 percent more for fruits and vegetables. Nevertheless, they face a big question: Are the fruits and vegetables really chemical-free?

To help those who believe in buying organic, but have doubts about the reliability of the marketing claims, TheMarker and the Israel Consumer Council sent 33 samples of so-called organic produce for laboratory testing. The fruits and vegetables were purchased from three organic food shops and two regular supermarkets.

The results are not very encouraging: Of the 33 samples, five - 15 percent - had herbicide or pesticide residues.

The tainted produce included parsley, tomatoes, dill and apples. Two of the products, parsley and dill, also had traces of pesticides banned in Israel - even for non-organic produce.

Another worrying finding is that the five tainted samples were bought at the organic food stores - Teva Castel, Eden Teva Market and Nitzat Haduvdevan. However, all the samples bought at Super-Sol Big and Mega were found to be chemical-free.

All the produce we tested was marked clearly as organic and included mint, basil, cilantro, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, apples, grapes, dill and lettuce. We also verified with the sales staff that unpackaged produce was organic.

"It turns out that consumers are being cheated twice," says attorney Ehud Peleg, the head of the Consumer Council. "Once about the quality of the product, and again about the price, since organic foods are much more expensive than regular food, but the consumers are not getting the value for their money."

A survey TheMarker conducted three months ago showed that a typical household pays NIS 231 a month for organic vegetables, while regular produce costs only NIS 145. The figures are similar for fruit: NIS 175 a month for organic fruit, compared to NIS 110 for regular fruit.

A product described as organic that contains pesticide residue is basically defective, says Dr. Uri Golner, the head of the Pesticides Residue department at Aminolab, which conducted the testing.

Aviv Lavi, one of the authors of "The Israeli Guide to Organic Food" (in Hebrew), notes that in the past, such tests did not find residues, and that this change may come from the rapid growth of the organic food market: The organic food sector grew 25 percent in the last year, outpacing the 20-percent growth in Western countries.

"In my experience, most of the farmers in the organic farming sector are in it due to their worldview and their belief that this is the right way to grow produce," said Lavi. "But as the market grows and offers more financial temptations, many newcomers are more motivated by financial considerations."

To sell organic produce in Israel, farmers must be supervised by one of three certified supervisory organizations: Agrior, IQC and Skal Israel.

In addition, 450 of the 500 organic farmers in Israel are members of the Israel Bio-Organic Agricultural Association (IBOAA), whose symbol, "Tov Hasadeh" in Hebrew and IBOAA in English, is stamped on their organic products. The IBOAA symbol means that the farmer is supervised and aided by a certified organic advisor throughout the production process. In total, 80 percent of organic Israeli produce is exported.

All five of the products we found to have pesticide residues were supervised by Agrior, Israel's largest organic supervision firm, which is certified by the Agriculture Ministry. Agrior also supervises the three stores where we found the defective produce.

Supermarket chains do not only rely on the certification companies, and conduct their own tests. Super-Sol, for example, is not currently selling organic cucumbers due to deviations it found, and the chain has decided to switch its supplier.

Does the presence of pesticide or other residues mean the farmers are cheating and spraying their fields with forbidden substances? Not necessarily.

"Pesticides can enter the produce indirectly, for example when pesticides are wafting in the air from a non-organic field to an organic one," Golner says. "Other problems can occur during marketing: When organic vegetables are displayed for sale next to non-organic ones, some pesticides can leak from one to another."

Lavi says this is a common problem: "There is often confusion in stores about what is organic and what is not, where every product came from and what the quality of unpackaged products is. There are almost no stores that inform consumers which farmers produced which products. The employees also are not always experts in the matter, and often provide inaccurate information."

All these problems are supposed to be prevented by the supervisory bodies, which are supposed to distance organic fields from regular fields, or by separating between organic and non-organic produce in stores, for example.

Golner says the main problem is the side-by-side transportation and storage of regular and organic produce: "Separate means of storage and transport are rather expensive," he says.

Peleg says the Agriculture Ministry is partly responsible: "The results show us that the Agriculture Ministry, which is supposed to protect us, has fallen asleep. The results join previous ones documenting excessive pesticide levels and the use of banned chemicals."

Responses

Ministry of Agriculture: "The ministry has certified three supervisory bodies for organic producers to approve the use of the organic logo. The ministry will follow up on how the certification bodies deal with the farmers sampled in the article. There is no place for pesticide residues in organic produce. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that these are tiny quantities and may come from storage or transport of organic produce with regular produce. Direct use of pesticides on plants leaves significantly higher quantities." The ministry added that regulations for producing and selling organic produce locally are now in the process of legislative approval.

The Israel Bio-Organic Agricultural Association: "The apple grower from the Golan was removed from the organization after his actions did not meet our standards. As to the other findings - the matters will be thoroughly investigated with the farmers, and we will draw conclusions and take action. Anyone who does not meet our standards will be immediately removed from the association." Moshav Keshet, the apple grower, said it had decided to leave the association because it was not satisfied with its services.

Agrior: "After receiving the complaint, we sent supervisors to conduct tests. Samples were sent to the laboratory, and no pesticides were found. One sample had a chemical that seems to have come from the ground. These samples were only some of the steps we take to determine the truth. If any of those involved violated the organic approval conditions, we will apply sanctions as necessary."

Eden Teva Market: "The chain is supervised by Agrior. We are careful to buy only from approved suppliers. We have passed on the test results to the dill grower and are waiting for his response. Until the matter is concluded, we have stoped buying the product from that producer. The farmer is a member of the IBOAA and certified by Agrior. Other products from this grower met standards."

Teva Castel: "The chain works with the leading suppliers in Israel, with Agrior's approval. All our produce remains in the store for one day only and is thrown out the next day. It should be made clear that we buy only organic produce, and organic and regular produce cannot mix."

Nitzat Haduvdevan: The chain sent us to Agrior and stated that Agrior approved the sale of the apples from Keshet.