Hey Mr. Green,

I try to buy organic produce because it’s better for the environment and better for my health. A local produce seller said all produce coming from Mexico has to be fumigated so it’s pointless to buy organic. Is this true?

—Lisa Cozzetti in Phoenix

The US Department of Agriculture policy makes clear that any fumigated product may not be sold as “organic” in the United States. Violations of that policy do occur; if you’re interested, the USDA publishes a fairly long list of sketchy operations that break the rules. The roster includes Mexican farms as well as farms from the United States, Ukraine, Egypt, Guatemala, Brazil, Morocco, and other countries. 

Your produce dealer may have been reacting to some very big busts in 2017 of fake organic corn and soybeans grown in Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine, shipped to Turkey, and then to the United States.

As for nonorganic produce, in 2015 the USDA found that 9.4 percent of nonorganic imported fruit samples violated federal standards for pesticide residues, compared with 2.2 percent of domestic samples. For vegetables, the figures were 9.7 percent for imported and 3.8 percent for domestic.

So no, it is not pointless to buy organic.