Sustainable Living by Shawn Dell Joyce

Surfing the supermarket shelves will yield a mind-boggling array of new labels on our food. But what do these labels mean, and how truthful are their claims? For example, the "organic" label carries the promise that food is grown according to organic farming practices, in which soil is enriched and tested yearly. But what you don't see on that label are the carbon costs to the environment of transporting organic produce from California or (even worse) Argentina. With such transportation, we quickly lose the environmental benefits of organic farming practices. Locally grown organic produce is best. Locally grown produce is better than imported organic produce.

"Free-range" is another popular label you see, usually stuck to meat packaging. The term conjures up images of happy cows grazing in open pastures of knee-high alfalfa with a cozy red barn in the background. Actually, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has no real definition of "free-range" for beef or pork and slight criteria for poultry. According to USDA standards, "free-range" chickens must have "access to the outdoors" in order to receive the "free-range" certification. Egg and poultry producers can call their products "free-range" merely if their cages are 2 or 3 inches bigger than the average size or there is a door to an outdoor pen that the animals can use for a few days of their short lives.

According to the USDA, it relies "upon producer testimonials to support the accuracy of these claims." In other words, the USDA has put the fox in charge of the henhouse. In 2002, USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service proposed "minimum requirements for meat industry production/marketing claims." This proposal would legally define "free range, free roaming or pasture raised" as "livestock that have had continuous and unconfined access to pasture throughout their life cycle," except for pigs, which would have "continuous access to pasture for at least 80 percent of their production cycle." So far, these guidelines remain unenforced.

"Hormone-free," or "rBGH- or rBST-free," is a label you may look for when you buy milk but may not see for much longer in dairy cases.

The reason is that the label has been so successful in changing people's buying habits that it is hurting sales of mega-dairies and Monsanto, a giant producer of synthetic hormones. These genetically engineered hormones (rBGH and rBST) have been banned in other countries and linked to human cancers, cow mastitis and antibiotic resistance by Health Canada in a 1998 study. Monsanto is suing the Food and Drug Administration to remove the label from the marketplace.

Certified Naturally Grown is a nonprofit alternative certification program created for small-scale organic farmers so that they do not have to pay the exorbitant organic certification fees. The label "Certified Naturally Grown" helps identify foods grown on small farms using high organic standards and removes financial barriers that tend to exclude smaller farms that are selling locally and directly to their customers.

"Fair Trade Certified" is a label you find mainly on coffee and other imported commodities. It is more of a social movement than a farming practice and recognizes goods that are purchased for a "fair" price from small producers in other countries. This means that the coffee growers and harvesters can pay their workers living wages for a day's work. In commodities, it's usually the middlemen who make the lion's share of the money. So a coffee grower may get a few cents for a pound of coffee that sells for several dollars, while the middleman pockets the rest. Fair trade certification ensures that the people who grow and harvest our imported foods don't starve to death in the process.

The bottom line is that unless you know the person who grows your food, you can't be sure of where it came from or how it was grown. Play it safe and buy locally grown.

Shawn Dell Joyce is an award-winning columnist and founder of the Wallkill River School in Orange County, N.Y. You can contact her at Shawn@ShawnDellJoyce.com. To find out more about Shawn Dell Joyce and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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