PDA

View Full Version : Threat to US organic standards



Michael Benis
Sep 20th, 2005, 10:37 AM
http://www.organicconsumers.org/images/ocaTitle23.gif (http://www.organicconsumers.org/)


Hello Derek,

http://www.organicconsumers.org/images/SOSnew100.gifThe Organic Consumers Association (OCA) needs your immediate help to stop Congress and the Bush administration from seriously degrading organic standards. After 35 years of hard work, the U.S. organic community has built up a multi-billion dollar alternative to industrial agriculture, based upon strict organic standards and organic community control over modification to these standards.

Now, large corporations such as Kraft, Wal-Mart, & Dean Foods--aided and abetted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are moving to lower organic standards by allowing a Bush appointee to create a list of synthetic ingredients that would be allowed organic production. Even worse these proposed regulatory changes will reduce future public discussion and input and take away the National Organic Standards Board’s (NOSB) traditional lead jurisdiction in setting standards. What this means, in blunt terms. is that USDA bureaucrats and industry lobbyists, not consumers, will now have more control over what can go into organic foods and products. (Send a quick letter to your Congressperson online here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm (http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm))

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 20, acting in haste and near-total secrecy, the U.S. Senate will vote on a “rider” to the 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Bill that will reduce control over organic standards from the National Standards Board and put this control in the hands of federal bureaucrats in the USDA (remember the USDA proposal in 1997-98 that said that genetic engineering, toxic sludge, and food irradiation would be OK on organic farms, or USDA suggestions in 2004 that heretofore banned pesticides, hormones, tainted feeds, and animal drugs would be OK?).

For the past week in Washington, OCA has been urging members of the Senate not to reopen and subvert the federal statute that governs U.S. Organic standards (the Organic Food Production Act—OFPA), but rather to let the organic community and the National Organic Standards resolve our differences over issues like synthetics and animal feed internally, and then proceed to a open public comment period. Unfortunately most Senators seem to be listening to industry lobbyists more closely than to us. We need to raise our voices. (Send a quick letter to your Congressperson online here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm (http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm))

In the past, grassroots mobilization and mass pressure by organic consumers have been able to stop the USDA and Congress from degrading organic standards. This time Washington insiders tell us that the “fix is already in.” So we must take decisive action now. We need you to call your U.S. Senators today. We need you to sign the following petition and send it to everyone you know. We also desperately need funds to head off this attack in the weeks and months to come. Thank you for your support. Together we will take back citizen control over organic standards and preserve organic integrity.




For more information go to the SOS (http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm) section on our website
Click here to donate (http://www.organicconsumers.org/donations.htm) money to OCA’s SOS—Save Organic Standards—Campaign
Call the Capital Switchboard here: 877-762-8762
Send a quick letter to your Congressperson online here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm (http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm)

Thanks,

ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION
6771 South Silver Hill Drive
Finland, MN 55603
Phone: (218)-353-7454 Fax: (218) 353-7652


Organic Consumers Association mailing lists are powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV® list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP® mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. More information... (http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html)

FR
Sep 20th, 2005, 10:47 AM
This is insane. What the fuck do I have to do? Move out of the U.S. now? I buy organic, and now, organic isn't going to be organic anymore. Nothing like eating vegetables and fruits polluted with pesticide and grown with sewer sludge. :eek:

What the hell is the big problem with offering an alternative to the conventional crap? Looks like I will be kicking Silk soy products to the side since Dean foods wants to lower organic standards. When too many people start becoming vegan, will they ban vegan food, too?

DianeVegan
Sep 20th, 2005, 05:21 PM
Thanks for that link. I belong to the OCA but didn't recieve that info for some reason (or maybe I'm confused and responded in the past). The U.S. must have some of the lowest quality food in the world because of precisely these types of moves by our government. This all has to do with money for business. Not health, people, the evironment - just money. It makes me sick.

SurfNSun
Sep 20th, 2005, 09:52 PM
how upsetting. thank you Michael for letting us know about this :(

DianeVegan
Sep 21st, 2005, 08:50 AM
I got the e-mail after signing off. OCA is usually on top of these things. Shows you how subversive and secretive our government is becoming when we only find out about something so important the very day it is being voted upon. I don't know about other countries, but the practice of tacking riders onto bills in our government is sometimes way out of control.

Spiral
Sep 21st, 2005, 11:00 AM
When too many people start becoming vegan, will they ban vegan food, too?
Yep. They're terrified of anything alternative becoming the norm. The multinationals want to control everything to keep their profits sky high.

Camyle26
Oct 25th, 2005, 04:42 PM
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/860594522?z00m=59847&z00m=59847&ltl=1130254931

Large companies are trying to weaken the law to add artificial ingredients to 100% organic labels.

Pilaf
Oct 25th, 2005, 07:10 PM
I replied with my typical firebrand rhetoric.