Wal-Mart gets into organics

There was a story in the Wisconsin State Journal saying Wal-Mart is going to start offering more organic products in an attempt to attract higher-income shoppers to their stores. Overall, it's good news that a large store like Wal-Mart is expanding organic products. It will help encourage more farms to get into organic farming and reduce the total level of pesticides used in our country. It will probably help bring down prices of organic products as well.

The only concern I have is that Wal-Mart may use their strong-arm tactics to weaken organic regulations to lower prices in the same way we have seen them encourage companies to move American jobs overseas to cut production costs.

I will have to put my faith in the well-organized organic community to stop any attempts to weaken the organic regulations. When I worked for Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), the author of the bill that created the federal organic program, the federal government was finally getting around to putting out regulations for a uniform federal organic label. The Clinton Administration was trying to allow things like genetically modified items into the organic label. The organic community organized a massive effort to beat back all of the horrible items the feds were trying to allow and they were successful.

Hopefully they can also keep Wal-Mart in check as they venture into the world of organics.