Ask Professor Produce

Why does organic have to mean dirty? -Anonymous.

How curious! We always thought organic meant, "fewer pesticide residues than the other leading brand." We thought organic meant, "no hormone-inhibiting fungicides or pesticides appear systemically in this product." We thought it meant "no heavy elements that might impede our children's brain's synaptic growth." Hmmm. Just goes to show ya. One person's clean is another person's dirty.

But without much to go on here, we suppose the real question must be, "Why is organic produce some times grittier than conventional?" A legitimate concern.

This question got asked much more frequently back in the early nineties when post-harvest handling (cutting, chilling, and cleaning) of organic product was a place for cash-strapped farmers to cut costs - this still happens, though more frequently with local veggies. The Professor is nostalgic for those good ol' days, actually. Most organic farms were low-tech, meaning that salad mixes didn't get triple rinsed as they do now, potatoes often had the roots and dirt still clinging to them, and after cleaning, you received a memento from the farmer's land in the bottom of your kitchen sink. But these days, post-harvest handling washes away any reminder of the farmer's great work.

To a certain degree, organic might always mean dirty, Anonymous. All the Professor can say is, clean all your produce very carefully - not only from the chlorine baths that "finish" the post-harvest handling of conventional produce, but also from the well-nurtured topsoil that sometimes gets in the stems of your organic spinach.

When farmers pay for organic certification, what happens to this money? Is it used to support the examination and certification process? If so, do smaller (less acreage, less output, etc.) farms pay less? -Dr. Dynamo

As you may have read elsewhere in this issue, "Dr. Dynamo" (if that is your real name), the Wedge recently had a number of our departments organically certified by Midwest Organic Services Association. MOSA certifies organic farms, too, so we took the opportunity to pose your question to Stephen Walker, MOSA's Certification Programs Manager a.k.a., High Minister of Red Tape.

Walker tells us that, actually, smaller farms are often more difficult to inspect and certify than large farms are. Large farms aren't usually "family farms" so they frequently grow only a few mono-cropped products for commodity sales. Meanwhile, smaller vegetable farms usually grow a wider variety of items - for the family, the farmer's market, the local co-op, etc. Since certification is based on the number of products grown, a 5-acre multi-veggie farm can some times cost more to organically certify than a 200-acre farm growing corn only.

This is not to say that large farms don't pay their fair share. The additional yearly fee that organic farms pay is based on organic sales, so large farms pay more based on their higher volume.

As for what the money is used for, the various fees to MOSA keep their operation running. Money is divided between staff wages (data entry, tracking, filing, and database maintenance), materials, and on-site inspection. Some certifiers have a volunteer certification review committee, the "jury" that reviews an applicant's petition for certification, but MOSA's review committee is paid.

At first glance it might seem that certifiers must be rolling in dough when you consider the increasing number of organic farms in recent years, but a very droll Walker assures us, "No one is getting rich off of certification."

As a cystic fibrosis sufferer, I'm concerned about the use of Burkholdria cepacia in organic farming. Do you know which produce items B. cepacia might be used for? -Jenny, AOL

For those of you who may not be familiar with this issue (Professor Produce wasn't familiar with it until he turned to his good buddy Google), Burkholderia cepacia is a beneficial bacterium that has found an agricultural niche for itself in fighting certain plant and soil borne diseases (rhizoctonia, fusarium, and pythium for those of you who simply must know). Moreover, it's naturally occuring, so organic farmers especially like B. cepacia because this wonder bug actually degrades chlorinated hydrocarbons and herbicides in farm soil and groundwater. Organic farming refers to this use of microbes in agriculture as "biocontrol."

Unfortunately, use of B. cepacia has a huge drawback, as Jenny from AOL points out. Cystic fibrosis sufferers are vulnerable to lung infections from B. cepacia - so vulnerable that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation had to issue a statement in 2000 saying that folks infected with B. cepacia were not allowed to attend CFF functions for fear of spreading the bacteria to other cystic fibrosis sufferers. Scarier still is this microbe's strong resistance to antibiotics, making it a particularly deadly bacterium for that population.

But before anyone flies off the handle, please take note: There is considerable disagreement about how much of a threat using B. cepacia as biocontrol poses to vulnerable cystic fibrosis patients. Burkholderia cepacia is abundant in nature, with at least nine different species swimming in the Earth's topsoil. Because of this prevalence, it's been difficult for researchers to determine what a safe or dangerous amount might be for use in biocontrol. Just this year, the Environmental Protection Agency has launched a major assessment of B. cepacia's real effect on public health, placing a moratorium on any new significant uses for B. cepacia in the meanwhile.

The average shopper has absolutely nothing to fear from B. cepacia, but CF sufferers might want to take extra care in washing produce - particularly items like bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, and potatoes. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation recommends washing hands (and, we can conclude, produce) for at least 15 seconds, and we here at The Prof Produce Institute for Clean Veggies always recommend a cap full of hydrogen peroxide in a quart of water for washing produce. We keep this mixture in a plastic bottle by the sink when we wash veggies for dinner.