Consuming ethics: Voluntary certification vs. mandated uniformity. Lessons from the organic food industry

In 2002, the National Organic Program replaced a collection of privately administered "Certified Organic" schemes with federally mandated uniform standards. Mandated uniformity was a poor choice for the organic food market because it took away the variety consumers and producers in the organic food market valued. When purchasing organic products, consumers not only spent money on groceries, but also used their purchasing power to support some social or environmental goal such as endorsing small farms, promoting humane treatment of animals or preserving biodiversity. In building the National Organic Program, the United States Department of Agriculture had difficulty fitting these ethical characteristics of organic agriculture into the agency's usual regulatory mold. Alternatively, a comparison of the competing private organic standards, which served the US organic market before 2002 shows that private certifiers incorporated the "ethical" goals valued by consumers and producers in their definition of "organic," thereby creating a system of competing standards that collectively served a large, heterogeneous consumer base without limiting the ethical scope of the organic market.