Is this your idea of "sustainable agriculture?"

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—A proposed "sustainability" certification is shaping up to be a designation that sounds green but OKs genetically modified crops and food grown with pesticides and chemical fertilizers. This would likely create a general confusion amongst consumers, says a prominent farming expert, who is a voting member of the committee shaping the standards.

"It feels like this is going in the wrong direction," says Jeff Moyer, who's a committee member of the Leonardo Academy, an environmental think tank based in Wisconsin, and chair of the National Organic Standards Board, which assists the United States Department of Agriculture in managing organic certification and implementing the National Organic Program. "There's a lot of agribusiness involved in the setting up of these sustainable-agriculture standards, and they're unwilling to relinquish some of the really important pieces of the puzzle," he says. Moyer is also the farm manager at the nonprofit Rodale Institute, and a Rodale.com advisor. Points of contention include chemical pesticides and fertilizers and genetically engineered crops (that actually are created to withstand heavier doses of pesticides).

THE DETAILS:The Leonardo Academy has been called in to mediate the National Sustainable Agriculture Standards being developed under the guidelines of the American National Standards Institute. The planning of a "sustainable" certification standard started in 2007 to address social issues and workers' rights, and featured strong organic principles, as well. But critics say those aspects have since been deemphasized to satisfy the chemical-agriculture lobby. Moyer says it's now looking like the sustainable certification may be used as a logo consumers will see on food, as they do the USDA Organic label. "If it's used as a point-of-purchase logo, then I have a major problem with it. It's already an intolerable situation, where consumers are label-challenged and label-confused, and not knowing what competing labels mean." What worries Moyer and others the most is that the potentially misleading logo will draw consumers seeking more healthful food away from the organic market. "If that's what happens, the organic label can become lost. Perception is everything," he says. The sustainable certification could be approved by 2012.