Conscious Choice: “Earth Friendly,” Buyer Beware

May 2004

“Earth Friendly,” Buyer Beware

Conservative label would compete with organic

by Elaine Lipson

Taking a page from the organic playbook, the Center for Global Food Issues (CFGI), a Churchville, Va.-based project of the Hudson Institute (www.cgfi.org), announced last year that it is developing an “Earth Friendly, Farm Friendly” seal for dairy farmers and processors using high-production, conventional agriculture practices.

Positioning these methods as “leaving more room for nature,” CGFI will grant the seal to farmers who manage part of their herds intensively. CGFI claims that intensive herd management results in fewer acres of land being farmed. Alex Avery, director of research and education for CGFI, said applicants will be evaluated on a menu-based point system that includes the use of synthetic bovine growth hormone (prohibited in organic agriculture) and other productivity supplements, the milking of cows three times daily instead of two, and conservation tillage technology, which relies on chemicals for weed control.

The Earth Friendly, Farm Friendly project is in its early stages, Avery said, with no timeline for the seal’s appearance on supermarket shelves.

The initiative follows on the heels of CGFI’s aggressive “Milk is Milk” campaign. Aimed at retailers and consumers, that project calls for boycotts and complaints against what CGFI’s Web site calls “false and misleading label and marketing practices” by dairy companies with “production-oriented claims relating to pesticides, antibiotics or hormones.”

Avery denied that the new seal is intended to compete with the organic label. “It’s a low-cost alternative to, perhaps, organic, where many of the practices increase production costs,” he said.

“I think it really is a very strategic effort to confuse the public,” said Theresa Marquez, director of marketing and sales for Organic Valley, a Wisconsin-based organic dairy cooperative. Marquez said those newly entering the organic marketplace may not realize that CGFI’s definition of “Earth Friendly” is substantially different from that of organic.

Kelly Shea, director of organic agriculture for Boulder, Colo.-based Horizon Organic, agreed: “When you hear ‘Earth Friendly,’ it sounds very good. But when I look at this type of certification, I don’t know that this is at the request of consumers. What we do on the organic farm mirrors the concerns of consumers.”

“In my opinion, this is solely to undermine organic and other alternative efforts, to create confusion and continued uncertainty among consumers about what happens on the farm and what doesn’t,” added Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association.

Organic advocates also counter CGFI’s “leaving more room for nature” argument. “In organic farming practices, nature is incorporated onto the farm. You don’t have to choose between food production and nature,” Shea said.

“The definition of sustainability is a concern, and I think this label gets right to those concerns,” said Liana Hoodes, organic policy coordinator for the nonprofit National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture coalition. “It’s easy to say that using less land to produce the same amount or more of milk saves land, but as with other pollution issues, we have to let the public know what happens when you concentrate a lot of animals on a small amount of land.”

Elaine Lipson is the author of THE ORGANIC FOODS SOURCEBOOK (McGraw-Hill Contemporary). This article is excerpted from the January 2004 issue of Natural Foods Merchandiser, a publication of Penton Media.

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