The head of the National Organic Program, Miles McEvoy, said on Friday that enforcing testing rules was one of several steps the agency was taking to improve oversight of the industry. It will also require unannounced inspections of organic producers and processors and start regular reviews of organic products in stores to make sure they are correctly labeled and meet federal regulations, he said.

"There’s a real commitment from this administration to improve the integrity of this program," Mr. McEvoy said.

WALA, a medium-sized company based in the sleepy German village of Bad Boll near Stuttgart, rose to fame after Hollywood star Julia Roberts and pop stars like Madonna and Kylie Minogue discovered its Dr. Hauschka natural cosmetics.

Surfing on a green wave of growing demand for organic products from food to furniture, WALA's natural remedies and beauty products are now available in more than 30 countries and keep attracting interest from distributors across the world.

"We have many requests, but we turn down most of them," WALA Chief Executive Johannes Stellmann told Reuters in an interview.

WALA uses predominantly pure organic raw ingredients for its medicines, cleansers, toners, moisturizers and the like. Some of which it plants in its garden in Eckwaelden, while importing others like the essential oil of roses from Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran and Bulgaria for example.

"We are real nerds when it comes to quality," Stellmann said. "We have consciously foregone opportunities to develop distribution channels or new markets because we would have had to compromise on the quality."

"We're so 21st century doll-good for the body, good for the planet and good for the soul," says Fran. And what's better, a portion of the proceeds from FranBrand products will benefit Cancer Schmancer, Fran's cancer organization that is dedicated towards diagnosis of all women's cancer in Stage 1. Fran, who beat uterine cancer in 2000, has dedicated her life to teaching women how to live preventatively.

"The FranBrand is a natural extension of my mission and my story. I'm not glad I had cancer, but now my life has a purpose." The FranBrand consists of cleanser, toner, serum, body and facial creams, eye treatments for both day and night and lip balm. In 2010 the brand will expand to hair care, make-up, sun care and bath and body. Fran will appear on HSN -- makeup free -- on November 10 to sell her skincare line. Items will from $16 lip balm to $32 facial cream and be available on HSN.com.

Despite the downturn, a moneyed class of people are still buying luxury goods—and they're doing it by the mini Cooper–load. While Wall Street's hedge-funders have become whipping boys, those who have mastered the art of inconspicuous consumption are living as large as ever. But they're not easy to spot, resembling, as they do, Trotskyite grad students—a look that doesn't come cheap: $300 Acne jeans, $175 hand-stitched guayabera shirt, $150 mussed haircut with beard trim (not too short, please). This brand of consumerism escapes condemnation—it's okay to be a capitalist pig as long as you're the sort who roots around in your organic garden for truffles.

*****

Yet for the poorgeoisie, every cushy expenditure is justified. According to Jennifer O'Brien, a luxury-branding consultant who's worked with Gucci and Donna Karan, among others, some high-end companies have successfully tailored their products to the shifting times and tastes (e.g., De Beers' "Fewer, better things" campaign). "A product needs to have a story that intrigues people about how it was made or what's gone into it," she says. And that's particularly true for the under-the-radar rich, who tend to practice what Thomas Frank calls "virtuous consumption" of pricey handmade clothes and locally farmed foods. "This shadow class of wealthy aren't working in silly jobs downtown," O'Brien says.

"Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States," said Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University's extension center in Riverhead, New York.

She said the fungal disease, spread by spores carried in the air, has made its way into the garden centers of large retail chains in the Northeastern United States.

"Wal-mart, Home Depot, Sears, Kmart and Lowe's are some of the stores the plants have been seen in," McGrath said in a telephone interview.

Sales of organic milk have plunged and farmers who got lucrative deals from a dairy industry that was thirsty for the stuff now can't get rid of it. The volume of organic milk sold nationwide is projected to drop nearly 15 percent this year compared with 2008, according to some industry estimates. Already, one Vermont farm has closed its organic business and others are expected to follow, threatening what was one of the few bright spots in the state's struggling dairy industry.

Some say the allure of organic milk - from cows that munch on expensive organic grain and aren’t injected with hormones - evaporated when the financial crisis hit and the price of conventional milk sank. In some regions, organic milk is $7.50 per gallon compared with around $2.50 per gallon for nonorganic milk.

Others blame the influx of organic farmers: Vermont, which supplies much of the organic milk for the Boston market, saw the number of organic dairy farmers grow to 201 from 114 in the past three years. Now, some farmers, many of whom incurred big debt to convert their farms to organic, can barely pay their bills.

She said: "We are trying to promote growing your own food and vegetables, getting families and children involved, getting their hands dirty. "It's a growing movement throughout the country and we're just hoping to encourage that." This is the first time vegetables have been grown in the backyard of the monarch's London residence since World War II. Then, as part of the Dig for Victory campaign, royals and others produced 1.3m tons of food.