NOC Members Meet with USDA on Organic Fraud & More
On May 21, twenty five members, staff, and advisors from the National Organic Coalition (NOC) held a meeting (virtually) with Dr. Jennifer Tucker, Deputy Administrator for the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP), to discuss (1) the impact of the pandemic on USDA’s accreditation and enforcement activities, (2) the need for action on how inert ingredients used in organic pesticide products are reviewed and approved, (3) progress made by USDA in strengthening enforcement to prevent fraud, and (4) several other important topics. Sixteen members of the USDA’s NOP team joined NOC and Dr. Tucker for the conversation, including Betsy Rakola, who directs the Compliance and Enforcement Division at NOP, and Jonathan Veley, who directs the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Trade Systems Division at NOP.
In this blog post, we focus on key takeaways from our conversation about the need to strengthen enforcement domestically and internationally. NOC thanked the NOP for the enforcement update from February of 2020, which details some of the actions the NOP has taken to address fraud in the organic sector.
Actions Taken by NOP
The NOP highlighted these areas of progress during our conversation:
- Expanded capacity: Too few accreditation audits for certifiers’ foreign satellite offices was highlighted as an area of weakness in the 2018 Peer Review Audit of the NOP’s accreditation system. The NOP now has a much larger staff team thanks to funding increases that allowed the NOP to hire in areas with limited capacity. For example, the NOP hired new auditors to ensure that audits, especially of foreign satellite offices, occur on a frequent basis. The NOP will continue to hire additional auditors in the coming months. In addition, NOP has expanded their Compliance and Enforcement team – there are currently 21 staff on this team. NOP has a total staff team of about 55 individuals and will continue to expand their team over the next several months.
- Partnerships: NOP has partnered with the Office of Inspector General, the Foreign Agricultural Service, and the International Organic Accreditation Service (IOAS) to obtain country-level data, conduct country commodity audits in areas with long-standing concerns, and have boots on the ground in certain countries where the NOP would otherwise not reach.
- USDA-CBP Interagency Working Group: An interagency working group between USDA (NOP and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the USDA Department responsible for fumigation at ports of entry) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is up and running and has been meeting on a monthly basis since June of 2019. NOP has increased access to data from the CBP system, and has briefed CBP staff six times this past year to make sure ports of entry are aware of the need for increased enforcement and communication with NOP related to organic imports. CBP and NOP are now piloting the electronic Organic Import Certificate. Importers are not yet required to use this certificate (the requirement will be part of the Strengthening Organic Enforcement proposed rule), but may do so on a voluntary basis as part of this pilot project.
- Enforcement actions: Increased audits and investigations have resulted in non-compliances and proposed actions against certifiers. In some cases, international certifiers are pulling out of certain countries, where it is clear they do not have expertise or capacity to certify operations. Operations in the Black Sea region and in South America have also surrendered organic certificates in recent years.
- Dairy Compliance Project: In early 2020, NOP conducted a training focused on pasture rule compliance with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, County Staff, USDA auditors, and certifier auditors. NOP was able to conduct some surveillance of organic dairies in early 2020 before the pandemic began, and has continued to conduct desk audits over the past several months. In the unannounced inspections NOP has conducted to date, all dairies have been in compliance with pasture requirements.
Additional Actions Needed
It is clear that more work is needed to fully address cases of fraud domestically and internationally. The NOP noted several times that the Strengthening Organic Enforcement (SOE) rule is essential to codify new requirements and authorities that will help the USDA more fully combat fraud in the organic sector. NOC made the publication of the long-delayed SOE rule a priority during our virtual fly-in and meetings with Members of Congress in May 2020, and we have continued to press for its publication since then. The rule has been stuck at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for more than six months, where it is undergoing review. NOC has been clear in our communications with USDA and Congress that its publication should not be delayed by the pandemic – having a level playing field in the organic sector is crucial for organic operations that are also hard hit by the global pandemic. These operations should not be made to compete with fraudulent product in the organic marketplace. Finalizing the Origin of Livestock rule is also essential for the economic well-being of organic dairy operations.
The NOP identified the following as additional areas for further work to address fraud:
- Electronic Import Certificates and Organic Data: The SOE rule will require electronic import certificates, which will provide the NOP with much needed organic data to identify fraudulent activity. The NOP’s Betsy Rakola noted that the SOE rule, once implemented, will truly be a game changer. NOP is also seeking to improve reporting in the organic integrity database – in particular, more complete reporting of acreage data by certification agencies will allow NOP and certification agencies to do more complete yield analyses (i.e. to determine if the volume of production from a specific operation, region, or country matches the predicted output based on expected yields and acreage data). NOP is also in the process of training more certification agencies to conduct yield analyses.
- Trademark for organic seal: NOP is exploring how using a trademark for the organic seal will give NOP and CBP more authority to crack down on fraud in the organic sector.
- Fumigated products: While fumigation of organic products is relatively infrequent (according to NOP, in 2019 fumigation only happened about half a dozen times), products fumigated with prohibited substances are still making it into the marketplace and being sold as organic. The requirement for electronic import certificates (through the new SOE rule) will be important for addressing this issue.
- Dairy Compliance Project: In some cases, inspectors and certification agencies are not sufficiently demonstrating that pasture rule requirements are being met and that farms are being held accountable to these requirements. The NOP is providing additional training to certification agencies on this topic, and has a course on Dairy Compliance in the Organic Integrity Learning Center. The NOP also expressed the need for inspectors to have specialized training to inspect dairy operations.
Contact NOC if you have questions or comments about efforts to fight organic fraud domestically and internationally. NOC has made additional recommendations on actions needed to address fraud in the organic sector starting on page 9 in the comments we made to the National Organic Standards Board in the Spring of 2020.