This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, July 9, 2012. I'm Caleb Brown.

What is organic and why has the process of certifying methods and products organic been handed over to the USDA, an

agency that is to say the least, very sensitive to the demands of so-called big food.

Peter Van Doren, editor of Regulation magazine, comments.

Well, there's lots of money to be made in organic food.

Any trip through Whole Foods versus a trip through a normal supermarket will tell you there's

some substantial price difference and the question is most people think there's a

substantial price difference because of the small scale of organic agriculture mandates inefficiencies

and thus the prices are much higher when something is called organic.

Most people are unaware of that small scale organic production would yield so little

produce that the prices would be absurdly high and you couldn't have something called Whole Food.

So what we have in the United States is a compromise that no one really knows much about,

except when the New York Times writes an article every now and then, which they did in yesterday's newspaper.

Turns out there's a National Organic Standards Board.

It exists because of a law passed passed and the USDA gets to declare what is or is not

organic or what in interstate commerce what you can use the word USDA certified organic on your package if and only if you

comply with a list of dues and dones that this regulatory board determines.

It shouldn't be surprising that when the federal government gets itself into the role of

allowing or disallowing these use of these terms in labeling on food

products that the people with the most interest in having that label applied to

their products and the people with the most clout with the government

will come to dominate the process that determines what qualifies and what doesn't qualify.

...