Fresh food flown to UK to lose "organic" label

While this issue is in the news across the pond, I'm posting it because the definition of "organic" has been so front and center here in the Aurora Dairy lawsuits.  The label has both input and process implications.  From the Daily Telegraph:

Organic air-freight food will lose status

Harry Wallop

THREE quarters of the organic food flown in to Britain from overseas could be stripped of its valued status as part of a plan to reduce carbon emissions. Only those farmers or processors able to prove they meet stringent ethical standards would be allowed to keep their organic status, the Soil Association announced yesterday. Lord Melchett, the environmental charity's policy director, estimated that only about a quarter of all exporters of organic food met high enough ethical standards to keep their organic label. Farmers must start investing in local communities, allow their workers to form unions and fund education schemes by 2009 if they want to keep their status. "Some will find it impossible, I suspect,'' Lord Melchett said. Sweet potatoes and salad leaves flown from America would be the most likely foods to lose their organic status. more