why can’t the government just enforce some “organic association”'s trademark right to the brand name and then leave the certification job to them?
E.g. suppose I wanted to create the certification brand called “inorganic”. Can’t I just set trademark the term, set up certification procedure and sue those who engage in perfidious blackwashing instead of paying me for a certificate of true inorganicity?
Do you want to throw out all labeling standards, or do you have a particular point about the “organic” term?
Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 - Wikipedia
Also see the USDA’s National Organic Program.
WAG - Because private industry only serves their own interests, and not those of the consumer.
Exactly. They have regulations about what terms like “lite” and “low-fat” do/do not mean, so I don’t see why there’s any surprise at all that they might regulate/define the use of a word like “organic.”
Some research on the topic would have turned that up quickly.
Organic is a philosophy which implies that they are not going to use certain modern items/chemicals in farming, almost as a basic human right, forsaking modernizations that most farmers will use. taken as a philosophy, it’s not so much as a certification that it is organic, but that they are not using anything that disqualifies calling it organic.
As such it’s the government setting a line (arbitrary as it is, but that’s what governments do), where if you cross it your food is a product of modern farming techniques. Or if they can’t find a reason they will accept that your product is organic.
As such it is a reason to disqualify, as opposed as to reasons to qualify and that doesn’t really fit a role of a company.
No. Organic just means grown without pesticides or inorganic fertilizer. They still use modern tools and equipment. They still use organic soil amendments and natural pest control. It has nothing to do with “modernization” and everything to do with not using certain chemicals.
This is correct.
Nitpick: Organic also excludes GMOs.
Yes, you could set up a code_grey certification process and trademark that. The problem with trademarking “organic” is that the term was already in general use.
You wouldn’t be able to trademark “fresh” or “low fat” or “no sugar added”, and sue anyone who used those terms on their packaging without your permission. Likewise you can’t trademark Apple brand apples or Chocolate brand chocolate, even though you could trademark Apple music or Apple computers.
You could set up an organic certification board, and let companies put “Certified organic by Code_Grey” on the box, and sue anyone who put Code_Grey on their package without your approval. But just because you have an organic certification organization doesn’t mean you own the trademark for organic, and I could set up Lemur866 Organic Certifiers and charge people to put “Certified organic by Lemur866”, and there’s nothing you could do about it.
A lot of folks like to think that, but most “organic-only” folks have probably gone their entire life without ever eating a plant that wasn’t genetically-modified. What they’re actually opposed to is just genetic modification done by someone who knows what they’re doing.
Well, by a certain point of view every organism on the planet is genetically modified, because they aren’t anaerobic bacteria.
On the other hand, almost everyone has eaten wild plants that weren’t artificially selected by humans.
On the other other hand, crops like corn and modern wheat are crazy polyploid monsters that are essentially different species than their wild ancestors.
They’re opposed to cut-and-splice genetic modification rather than evolution and selective breeding.
And I’m startled to see you professing such faith in the technique.
That’s because it’s true, your quixotic attempt to broaden the definition of GMO to include selective breeding notwithstanding.
Putting together post #8 & #3. …
Back in the 80s a bunch of different groups tried to create different voluntary certification systems. No one of them was able to dominate the market for certification. So eventually the gov’t stepped in (doubtless prodded by both consumer activists and the more successful private certifiers) and chose one standard.
Because farmers would be required to pay to use the trademark. This would be disastrous to small farms and startups.
In addition, what’s to keep the person with the trademark to use it for any food, organic or not?
How well would the “organic association” police its members? History has shown repeatedly that business groups are slow to apply sanctions and never actually police their members unless prodded to by scandal. Someone could join the association, get the trademark, and then start slathering pesticides on their crops. You can bet no one will check up on it.
Since people pay a premium for “organic” foods, they have a right to get what they’re paying for. And you need this to be policed by an impartial organization. Government is by far the best organization to protect the consumer.
Private labeling doesn’t always work because it’s hard for private orgs to get a monopoly on a certification that broad. Look at all the different sustainable forestry and shade-grown coffee certs; they just add confusion to the marketplace.
Plus, government labels can be backed with the power of law and can include fines for mis-use. I’m not sure if private labels can do the same (unless they wrote it into a contract, but in that case, a more lenient competing certifier would probably offer a label without such terms).
How would the buyer know that you and your suppliers kept to the standards you declared? How would the public know that you did control your suppliers, instead of just making a checkmark?
Why do you think even the US has an FDA that checks to make sure there is no poision in your food? Because the market has proven in history that they don’t care if there is rat poision in your flour, arsenic in your peas, lead in your water, as long as the customers keep buying it. And the customers individually don’t have the resources to test each item and each company for a dozen chemicals.
Because it can.
Eh. People who knew what they were doing can be identified in the after-analyses of most industrial disasters, policy blunders, wars, pollutant releases, accidents, and other crises. What faith you have in the perfectibility of man!
What would prevent this association from agreeing to selling anyone the use their organic certification regardless of what processes were used?
And are you arguing that the government should enforce one company’s monopoly on the sale of the term “organic”? Or would you let rival companies sell their own competing organic certifications?
I’d start a label where “organic” is defined as “possessing a carbon atom in the molecular make-up”. 