Organic Food Under Attack

[CasparJalen]

Brothers and sisters, this issue is extremely important to many of the members of the family. Some of our family work at and operate the leading organic farm organizations listed in this article. Congress is screwing up organic food. Here is the article:



The 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 & 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 in 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.



This week, 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.



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 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.





__________________________________________________ ____

Another Article:



Call Congress Tell Them Not to Weaken the Organic Food Law!



Call the Following Offices to Say No to Dangerous Organic Amendment

Backed by the Organic Trade Association!



At 4 p.m today, Oct. 25 Congress will consider an amendment to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill sponsored by the Organic Trade Association (OTA) that would weaken the organic food law. The amendment would allow:



numerous synthetic processing aids to be used in organic food without any public review;



could allow young dairy cows to be treated with antibiotics and fed genetically engineered feed prior to being converted to organic production;



create a loophole in which organic ingredients could be substituted with non-organic ingredients without any consumer notice based upon “emergency decrees.”





The amendment was stopped in the Senate by consumer pressure two weeks ago but industry pressure has brought in back! We need your help again!!!



Call the following offices now and tell to reject the OTA Organic Amendment from Agricultural Appropriation Bill.





U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies

Member State District Phone (202)

Republicans

Henry Bonilla (Chair) TX 23d 225-4511

Ray LaHood (Vice chair) IL 18th 225-6201

Jack Kingston GA 1st 225-5831

Tom Latham IA 5th 225-5476

Jo Ann Emerson MO 8th 225-4404

Virgil Goode VA 5th 225-4711

John Doolittle CA 4th 225-2511

Rodney Alexander LA 5th 225-8490

*Jerry Lewis CA 41st 225-5861



Democrats

Rosa DeLauro CT 3d 225-3661

Marcy Kaptur OH 9th 225-4146

Maurice Hinchey NY 26th 225-6335

Sam Farr CA 17th 225-2861

Allen Boyd FL 2nd 225-5235

*David Obey WI 7th 225-3365





U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development and Related Agencies

Switchboard: 224-3121

Member State Phone (202)

Republicans

Bob Bennett (Chair) UT 224-5444

Thad Cochran MS 224-5054

Arlen Specter PA 224-4254

Kit Bond MO 224-5721

Mitch McConnell KY 224-2541

Conrad Burns MT 224-2644

Larry Craig ID 224-2752

Sam Brownback KS 224-6521



Democrats

Herb Kohl (Ranking) WI 224-5653

Tom Harkin IA 224-3254

Richard Durbin IL 224-2152

Byron Dorgan ND 224-2551

Dianne Feinstein CA 224-3841

Tim Johnson SD 224-5842

Mary Landrieu LA 224-5824

*Robert Byrd WV 224-3954



*ex officio

From: http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/102505.cfm



___________________________________________



This is really important, Please make some calls if you can.

[teepi]

Thank you Caspar for bringing this up.

A few years back the dept. of Agriculture made it a tremendous hardship to be certified Organic. The rules and practices were stiffened, and the price to be legally certified rose to such an amount that it priced smaller farms out of being able to label their goods "Organic".
Now this...organic has become such a trend(albeit a good one) that common farmers who have used questionable practices for decades now want to jump on the bandwagon and the rules will be so relaxed as to let them use their influence to sway the lawmakers to jump to their side of the fence.

Another example of your goverment looking out for the best interests of "the people".

The very best thing we can all do after we call our chosen number off the above list and do some bitchin......get out a piece of paper, grab a pencil and write down what seeds we need to get for our OWN garden next spring!!

teepi

[shameless_heifer]

Tipi is right, we all can do our own part and grow organic ourselves. The govn trys to run every aspect of our lives. This is only the beginnig of the distruction of all that is wholesome to us. It just has to stop!! If we don't all pull in the same direction nothing will ever get accomplished. It's time to STOP the injustic and REVOLT, RESIST and GO FORWARD into creating a better enviroment for us to live in. They can't tell us what or how to eat. Next they wil be monitoring our bathroom habits and tell us when to poop.
Somethings gotta give. It can only work with everyone on board tho, no slackers.
I don't think that it affects the city dwellers as much as the organic farmers themselves. The farmers reley on the crops for their livelyhood as well as their food. Not to mention CURING everybody from disease. I think that is where the trouble is. The drug companies. If they posion our food, well there they get to make all the pills that will make us feel better, but usualy creates a much worser problem for the human body.
Think about it.They are changing us geneticaly with their posion chemicals, they have us all brainwashed into thinking their pills are better then what nature has provided for us. Does this sound familier, does it remind you of anything, like perhaps when the proverbal Serpent told Eve that his way was better then Creators.
Another thing I have noticed, The major drugs are out of Canada and Germany. Is this some vile plot to overthrow the US. Most Europian countries don't use this medication..
(more later gotta go)
sh

[Sus]

Yup, it is time to put stop to this...they govt. has been working on lowering the organic standards for years, not to mention taking our herbs and supplements away, and trying to force us to by the stupid pharmaceuticals, when we would rather use natural means. Growing our own gardens, being as self sufficient as possible, that is the key. And, hoping the madness of govt. control, with our help, ends soon.

[Lodui]

Organic agriculture is horrible for the enviornment, it requires many more resources to grow making it terribly inefficient and cavemanish.

Then they try to make up for it by claiming some horrific 'unknowable' side effects from industrialized agriculture.

I try to get everything I can GM, and I'm healthy as a clam.

They tend to forget that most people around the world have a hard time feeding themselves using organic methods. These people are arrogent and eletist.

Chumps have a right to pay more for food at a co-op, but they're all naive.

Embrace the now.

[MikeE]

Hey dude, you sound very anti-organic. I'd suggest that you support higher standards for the "organic" label to make it easier to avoid the food you don't want. Wouldn't it be horrible if you avoided food labled "organic" only to find that it was realy a GMO?

Write your congress-critter. Keep food labeling accurate!

[Lodui]

I'm not anti-organic, it's just carrots. A wasteful way of growing carrots, but if someones been brainwashed enough to buy it, then good for that fringe market.

But I find the need for strict legislative labeling for something as asanine as organic food to be a waste of congressional time. It should be in the hands of the USDA.

[MikeE]

Currently the precise meaning of "organic" on a label is decided by the Standards Board (the same folks who define "Grade A" on eggs). Legislation would move this authority to the USDA, which is much easier to manipulate politicaly.

The issue is not whether organic is good or not. The issue is whether the label "organic" should have a fixed, useful meaning. Deeper is the question of whether government required labeling should be for the public good or for ease in marketing.

Should "organic" be as meaningless as "new & improved"? If not, speak up now.

[teepi]

food labels are good...IF they are truthful....being allowed to say "fat free" while still having fat is not truthful.
There are all kinds of names for sugar...yet they can get away with "sugar free".

But still growing your own can't be beat. These departments set up to 'protect'us are full of corruption.

Some say hybridixzation is a form of genetically altered.
While I prefer heirloom varieties of what I grow hybrids do have their place. And I have no problem with taking good qualities of different plants and getting them rounded up to produce another. But as far as laboratory altercations between different breeds of plants all the while altering the best qualities out ie:taste mainly...is crap.
This is why alot of people have no idea what a real tomatoe tastes like.
As long as people accept the crap that is put on the markets shelves that is what they will have. No better.

I think community gardens are the answer for inner cities and CSA's for suburbs and out lying areas. Or just forget the city, and come out here in the woods and get naked and plant something.

[Gerva]

Another thing I have noticed, The major drugs are out of Canada and Germany. Is this some vile plot to overthrow the US. Most Europian countries don't use this medication..
(more later gotta go)
sh
I didn't get this statement.what do you mean?

[Gerva]

I agree with you for the rest