Sacramento, Calif.-A state senate committee wasted no time convening hearings last week into why it took nearly three years to take action against a producer illegally spiking organic fertilizer with ammonium sulfate. Just a little over a week after disclosure of a possible second “spiking” case, the Food and Agriculture Committee started uncovering the reasons behind the slow response by state inspectors who knew about the violations by California Liquid Fertilizer in 2004 and didn’t pull the product from the market until 2007. The panel also indicated interest in the FBI raid on Port Organic Products in Kern County Jan. 22 (GM Jan. 26, p. 11; Feb. 2, p. 11), although there are still no specific charges. Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, who represents the Shafter farming country, indicated the panel will be questioning California Food and Agriculture Dept. witnesses, along with those who certify farms as organic, on how such a fraud could have gone on for so long. Other witnesses will include fertilizer producers and organic growers looking for avenues to renew confidence in their products. At the same time, organic producer and distributor Earthbound Farms of San Juan Bautista, Calif., disclosed it has been working with an independent lab to develop a nitrogen ratio test that could identify fertilizer with non-organic nitrogen. “The ratio test serves as an indicator to the source of the nitrogen in the fertilizer,” explained spokeswoman Samantha Cabaluna. “We’ve had the lab do testing on some blind samples with synthetic nitrogen which produced different results from what would be shown by organic nitrogen.” She didn’t have all the technical details, but said Earthbound has been working on the test since last fall and has deployed it in some cases.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain