Although the USDA?s National Organic Program has brought some consistency and order to the U.S. organic industry, a lack of harmonization of organic standards internationally has caused some confusion in the marketplace.

Summing up the problem was USDA Public Affairs Specialist Joan Shaffer, responding in writing to a question about the validity of U.S. organic certification when a U.S. product is sold to the European Union. "The EU does not recognize the U.S. standards as equivalent, and the United States does not recognize the EU standards. The bottom line is that an exporter must always adhere to the importing country?s requirements."

Because neither the United States nor Europe recognizes the other?s standards as equivalent (an important term in this dialogue), some organic certifiers in each country are trained and certified to verify that a product does meet the standards of the destination country. However, that certification does not mean the product?s organic qualifications can?t be questioned when the item reaches its destination.

The issue arose earlier this winter when a Washington apple shipper sold several containers of organic apples to a U.S. exporter. The product went through a number of channels but eventually ended up in the hands of a United Kingdom wholesaler, who sold the fruit to a U.K. retailer. The fruit had been certified organic by the Washington state Department of Agriculture, which is accredited under both the USDA?s National Organic Program and the U.K."s Soil Association Certification Ltd. When WSDA certified the apples, it did so using EU standards.

Brenda Book of WSDA?s Organic Program said there are some crop protection products, such as spinosad, that can be used in the United States but not in the EU. When certifying for shipment to the EU, WSDA makes sure those products are not used.

When the retailer received the apples, he asked his wholesaler to provide him with the spray records from the grower, presumably to validate that the U.S. grower did not use any of those products in question. That request was forwarded through the channels to the shipper.

Representing the Washington grower as the initial procurer of the fruit was Dennis Linden of Salmon Creek Produce Inc., a Washington-based seller of organic apples. Mr. Linden believed the request was unnecessary because of the EU certification by WSDA, which was bought and paid for by the Washington grower. He argued that the certification process brings order to the marketplace and negates the need of every buyer to check every grower?s spray records.

?WSDA does that and charges for it," he said. "It is unreasonable to ask the grower to provide these same records to the retailer."

Mr. Linden further argued that growers consider these records proprietary and they often are scores of pages long, making it impractical to send them to the United Kingdom in any event.

Ms. Book of WSDA agreed that the request for spray records from the retailer on the other end of the transaction was out of the ordinary, and said that she had never been faced with that issue before. She also labeled the request "redundant? as she confirmed that part of WSDA?s EU certification for this specific grower did include reviewing the spray records.

But Ms. Shaffer of the USDA said (again via e-mail) that the retailer was legally allowed to ask for these records. "As a condition of sale, the U.K. retailer is well within his rights to request documentation that gives assurance as to the product?s legitimacy."

In further clarification of that response, she wrote: "The importer may require any documentation he wants, as this is a business relationship between buyer and seller."

The Soil Association Certification Ltd., which accredited WSDA as an EU organic certifier, also did not quarrel with the retailer?s request. Keith Ball of the association said that he had "the greatest respect for the certification process carried out by Washington state Department of Agriculture. We have no concerns over recertifying as organic products certified by them without further requirements to view records."

In fact, he said that in most cases, certification by a soil association-accredited certifier "means that inspection reports and production records do not have to be supplied by producers outside the EU in order to achieve organic certification."

However, with that said, he added that "we can do nothing about the additional requirements placed on the U.S. producers to comply with the EU regulation."

In continuing conversations with WSDA, the U.S.-based Organic Trade Association and others in the organic produce business, it seems clear that the culprit is a lack of international standards. Because the standards are not international and there is no reciprocal agreement between the United States and the EU, these redundancies will occur.

Ms. Book said that there is a reciprocal agreement with Japan which requires U.S. organic certifiers to specifically verify the authenticity of the U.S. organic product destined for that country. Consequently, when WSDA certifies for Japan, the certification is considered legally binding and no further verification is needed. That is obviously not always the case with the European Union.

A U.S. importer of European organic product said that the same is true on the reverse shipment. He said that product labeled organic must have organic certification documents when it hits the U.S. border for compliance reasons. That certification will get the product into the United States but not necessarily onto the shelves of every retail operation. Some savvy retailers know that "compliance? does not mean "equivalent," and they may request further verification.

So seller beware: Organic standards have not been harmonized between the United States and the European Union, so the will of the buyer rules the day. However, in this apple case, as the debate raged on, the spray records never were provided and the fruit was received, sold and paid for.