- Lance Cheing, U.S. Department of Agriculture/flickr.com
- An aerial view of farms flooded alongside the Mississippi River.
Courtesy of: EarthTalk®
E — The Environmental Magazine
Dear EarthTalk: What will be the effect of all the flooding along the Mississippi River for organic farmers, given all the pollutants in the water? When they recover, can they still certify their products as organic? — Michael O’Loughlin, Tigard, OR
The combination of record floods and record numbers of organic farms has led many to wonder about the safety of even our organic groceries. Luckily for Americans, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a policy in place to govern how farmers respond to such situations and how affected crops and fields are handled to ensure that consumers continue to have access to healthy and safe food.
This article appears in Jun 2-8, 2011.