The New York Times had a great editorial yesterday on the efforts of the U.S.D.A. to weaken organic standards. (Bold, mine.)

Organic food has become a very big business, with a 20 percent annual growth rate in sales in recent years. But popularity has come at a price. Ever since 2002, when the Department of Agriculture began its program of national organic certification, there has been a steady lobbying effort to weaken standards in a way that makes it easier for the giant food companies, which often use synthetic substances in processing, to enter the organic market.
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In part, this is a battle over a label. The big producers, which often use synthetic materials in processing, want to call their processed foods organic because that designation commands premium prices. They do not want to say their products are made with organic ingredients - a lesser designation that allows more synthetics. This is also a cultural battle, a struggle between the people who have long kept the organic faith - despite the historic neglect of the U.S.D.A. - and industry giants that see a rapidly expanding and highly profitable niche that can be pried open even further with lobbying.

"Organic" is not merely a label, a variable seal of approval at the end of the processing chain. It means a way of raising crops and livestock that is better for the soil, the animals, the farmers and the consumers themselves - a radical change, in other words, from conventional agriculture. Unless consumers can be certain that those standards are strictly upheld, "organic" will become meaningless.