Can you trust organic food from China? It's a question that's plagued organic consumers for years, as demand has outpaced the ability for U.S. farmers to supply Americans with organic food. Between food safety problems in China and the inability of U.S. regulators to reliably inspect imported food (just 2 percent of all imported food is inspected), few people trust the "Product of China" label when it appears on their food. Whole Foods even stopped stocking Chinese organic produce in most of its 365 store brand products in 2010.

After a year of yet more problems with Chinese organic products, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided to step up its visits to the third-party certifying agents that certify Chinese goods as organic, according to a recent report in The Seattle Times. Rather than certify all organic products itself, the agency outsources the task to 91 certifying agents that operate in the U.S. and abroad, and those agents get audited regularly to ensure they're following the rules. And the Times report says that USDA agents are planning to devote much more attention than that to Chinese certifiers in the coming year.

In September 2010, the agency banned one organic certifier, the Organic Crop Improvement Association, from operating in China after discovering that the certifier was allowing government officials, rather than the certifier's third-party agents, to inspect government farms selling USDA Organic–certified products, and the USDA's organic program uncovered four Chinese companies that were using fake organic certificates to sell produce, a crime punishable by fines up to $11,000 per violation.

Also, according to the article:

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for checking most imported foods, samples less than 1 percent of all regulated products. It regularly refuses shipments of purportedly organic foods because of pesticide residues or unsafe food additives—not because the food does not meet organic standards, but because they do not meet standards for any food. For example, organic soybean meal coming through the Port of Seattle in 2007 appeared to contain 'a poisonous or deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health,' according to an FDA report."

There aren't many reliable numbers on the amount of organic foods imported from China, but the total of all organic exports from China, whether they're shipped to the U.S. or Europe, has risen to $500 million in 2008, up from just $300,000 in 1995.

For more info:
"Questions remain about organic foods grown in China," The Seattle Times