Watch What You Eat

When German farms were hit last year by outbreaks of foot-and-mouth and “mad cow” disease, Renate Künast — Germany’s newly appointed Minister of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture — had a ready response: increase the country’s organic, nature-friendly agriculture from 2% of farms to around 20% in what she called a drive for “class instead of mass.” But German consumers discovered last week that buying pricey organic products is no protection against tainted food.

Officials reported that large amounts of organic animal feed used by 120 organic farms in Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt had been contaminated with a banned herbicide called Nitrofen. As a result, farmers said, at least 98,000 chickens would be destroyed. Worse, a number of big food chains like Metro announced that all organic products such as eggs, poultry and even beef are being pulled from shelves as a precaution. Uwe Bartels, Lower Saxony’s agriculture minister, described it as “the biggest scandal in organic farming in Germany.”

As if that weren’t bad enough, a squabble erupted in Berlin over the government’s slowness in identifying the problem. According to agriculture officials, the Federal Center for Meat Research in Kulmbach found Nitrofen in organic chicken as early as Jan. 28, but the discovery wasn’t reported to the federal Agriculture Ministry until May 23.”This new scandal marks the final failure of Ms. Künast’s plan to make food production safer with a one-sided policy of fostering organic farming,” declared the opposition Christian Democrat Union. Replied Künast, a former Green Party chairwoman in the ruling coalition: “We must find out who knew what and when and failed to pass on the information.”

Organic farming has surged in the year since the “mad cow” crisis. Bioland, the largest ecological farming association, reported a 15% rise in membership. Still, only about 13,000 of Germany’s 450,000 farms are registered as organic. In order to win that label, farmers must show they have not used chemicals or hormones for at least two years. Because of their supposed purity, meats such as organic sausage can command prices 30% higher than conventional products.

According to Bartels, all the tainted feed came from a single producer in Lower Saxony, GS Agri. Nitrofen, which has been banned in the European Union since 1988 because it is believed to cause cancer, was found in 302 tons of organic wheat and 248 tons of a wheat-rye mixture. The company denies it knowingly delivered tainted feed. Government investigators, however, have alleged that the company knew of the problem as early as March 19 and continued to deliver contaminated products until May 10. Agriculture officials speculated that the wheat used in the animal feed may have come from Eastern Europe, where use of Nitrofen is still permitted as a weed killer. But officials said the concentration of Nitrofen in the feed was too high to have been used as a weed treatment while the wheat was growing. It may have been added during storage, possibly by an outsider. “Sabotage cannot be ruled out,” said Gerald A. Herrmann, head of Naturland, an association of organic producers.

Bioland chairman Thomas Dosch said existing controls on organic farms are insufficient. One problem: the current annual checks don’t look for pesticides or harmful substances because the farms have voluntarily agreed not to use them. “Apparently, the existing controls cannot determine whether feed is tainted or not,” Dosch said. “We need more random testing.” In addition, the reporting process is still weak — despite the outcry over “mad cow” disease and the subsequent foot-and-mouth crisis. Under current law, food-testing agencies need not inform authorities about tainted products, only the farms or companies involved. The food-testing agency in Kulmbach never passed on its discoveries of tainted poultry earlier this year because the company withdrew the contaminated meat from sale. Lower Saxony’s Bartels said Nitrofen had been found as early as March in his state, but he didn’t know about it: “It won’t do that we learn about such things months later. The institutes should have informed state authorities about such findings right away.” Quicker and more complete information is the only way Künast’s dream of more “class” in German agriculture stands a chance of reaching supermarket shelves.