Diet, Nutrition and SupplementationPost here for supplement reviews or nutritional advice. If you're trying to get "ripped abz" THIS is where you should be.
Will Fantle, at an organics gathering
Dispatch from a contentious meeting of the USDA's National Organic Standards Board
Will Fantle is director of research for the Cornucopia Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to the fight for economic justice for the family-scale farming community. The group's Organic Integrity Project acts as a corporate watchdog monitoring the credibility of organic farming methods and the food it produces. Today, he's at a meeting of the USDA's National Organic Standards Board.
Friday, 30 Apr 2004
CHICAGO, Ill.***The weakening of federal regulations governing organic food standards and farming practices came under fire at the semiannual meeting of the USDA's National Organic Standards Board in Chicago. Today, the last day of the NOSB's three-day meeting, 50 consumers, organic farmers, processors, and organic certifiers and inspectors voiced their displeasure with the direction of the national organic program during an unprecedented four hours of public testimony.
According to the Cornucopia Institute's Mark Kastel, much of the public testimony expressed a common theme: "Large corporate interests are working to hijack organic foods and the USDA is helping them do it." The Cornucopia Institute's Organic Integrity Project helped organize the testimony, working to partner organic farmers who couldn't attend the meeting with supportive consumers willing to read brief statements on their behalf.
The NOSB is empowered by law to oversee the USDA's organic food-labeling and farm-certification programs. But Kastel and other critics contend that its recommendations are being uniformly ignored or dismissed by USDA bureaucrats. Two recent examples illustrate the drive to water down organic standards.
USDA staff reversed a decision made by an accredited organic certifier who had denied organic certification to a factory farm raising chickens because the birds lacked access to the outdoors. Organic standards for dairy operations are also threatened by a staff decision allowing large organic dairy farms to purchase conventional heifers and phase them into their organic operation. Previous precedent demanded that all replacement milkers come from certified organic operations.
Kastel, in his testimony, told the NOSB that "many of the staff directives make it possible to operate organic 'factory farms,' dumbing down the standards."
Other critics echoed the charges. Larry Gilbertson operates a 40-head organic dairy farm near Marshfield, Wis. His statement to the NOSB, read on his behalf, noted that all of his herd's replacement cows came from births on his farm. "There is little need," he stated in his testimony, "for a national organic standard if favoritism and exemptions are granted to large, influential, deep-pocket farm operations that do not want to or can not follow the standards set by the National Organic Rule."
Another farmer, Rufus Yoder of Belleville, Penn., told the board through his proxy statement that the lowered dairy-herd standard "clearly puts sustainable farmers like us who make extra efforts to care for their animals at a competitive disadvantage -- we do not want this to happen."
Jim Koan grows organic apples at AlMar Orchards in Flushing, Mich. Koan's statement, again read by another consumer, declared: "If you lower the standards for organic certification, or change the rules to make it easier to grow organically, you'll substitute chemical power for manpower and brain power. Factory farms and corporations will overpower the family organic-farming operations ... Please don't listen to big business, but instead listen to the simple little organic farmer, for he is the meek of this earth."
Organic vegetable grower Jon Cherniss, who made the drive to Chicago from the central Illinois town of Urbana, focused on potential consumer impacts from weaker standards: "Every time the National Organic Program grants an exception that violates the spirit of the rule, it degrades the term 'organic' and chips away at its legacy and erodes its traditional base of support. What are consumers supposed to think? How can I convince my colleagues, experienced organic practitioners, not to walk away from organic?"
The loss of consumer confidence in the organic label could prove devastating to farmers. The organic food biz is one of agriculture's rare bright spots; it's growing at a rate of 20 percent a year and totals about $12 billion in annual sales.
Many of the statements presented at the meeting were addressed to USDA Secretary Ann Veneman. According to Kastel, there is no longer reason to believe that the management and federal staff at the USDA's National Organic Program can be swayed by logical arguments and negotiation.
Staff, insists Kastel, "has created an adversarial environment and has lost the respect of the organic community." Instead, the institute is calling for "regime change" in program management and directly asking Veneman to make the needed changes.
For their part, the NOSB responded to the strong public testimony and passed their own resolution, one condemning the USDA's National Organic Program for bypassing the board's legal authority.
from Grist magazine, April 2004
__________________
"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument." William Gibbs McAdoo. US Vice-President under Woodrow Wilson.
Subject: Bush Officials Weaken Organic Food
> Standards: Public Shut Out
> May 21, 2004 |
> Bush Officials Weaken Organic Food Standards: Public
> Shut Out
> The Bush Administration is giving Americans new
> reason to watch what they eat. Over the course of 10
> days last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
> (USDA) issued three "guidances" and one directive --
> all legally binding interpretations of law -- that
> threaten to seriously dilute the meaning of the word
> organic and discredit the department's National
> Organic Program.
>
> The changes -- which would allow the use of
> antibiotics on organic dairy cows, as well as
> synthetic pesticides on organic farms, and more --
> were made with zero input from the public or the
> National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), the
> advisory group that worked for more than a decade to
> help craft the first federal organic standards, put
> in place in October 2002.
>
> The USDA insists the changes are harmless: "The
> directives have not changed anything. They are just
> clarifications of what is in the regulations that
> were written by the National Organic Standards
> Board," stated USDA spokesperson Joan Shaffer. "They
> just explain what's enforceable. There is no
> difference [between the clarifications and the
> original regulations] -- it's just another way of
> explaining it."
>
> But Jim Riddle, vice chair of the NOSB and endowed
> chair in agricultural systems at the University of
> Minnesota, argues that what the USDA is trying to
> pass off as a clarification of regulations is in
> fact a substantial change: "These are the sorts of
> changes for which the department is supposed to do a
> formal new rulemaking process, with posting in the
> federal register, feedback from our advisory board,
> and a public-comment period. And yet there is no
> such process denoted anywhere."
>
> Organic activists suspect that industry pressure
> drove the policy shifts. They point out that the
> USDA leadership has long-standing industry
> sympathies: Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman served
> on the board of directors of a biotech company; both
> her chief of staff and her director of
> communications were plucked right out of the
> National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
>
> One practice favored by large agribusiness is the
> use of antibiotics on cows. A USDA guidance issued
> on April 14 will allow just that on organic dairy
> farms -- a dramatic reversal of 2002 rules. [1]
> Under the new guidelines, sickly dairy cows can be
> treated not just with antibiotics but with numerous
> others drugs and still have their milk qualify as
> organic, so long as 12 months pass between the time
> the treatments are administered and the time the
> milk is sold.
>
> "This new directive makes a mockery of organic
> standards," said Richard Wood, a recent member of
> the FDA's Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee and
> executive director of Food Animal Concerns Trust.
>
> Another new guidance put out on the same day would
> allow cattle farmers to feed their heifers
> non-organic fishmeal that could be riddled with
> synthetic preservatives, mercury, and PCBs, and
> still sell their beef as organic.
>
> And the following week, on April 23, the USDA took
> the startling step of issuing a legal directive that
> opens the door for use of some synthetic pesticides
> on organic farms.
>
> Last but certainly not least, another guidance
> released on April 14 narrows the scope of the
> federal organic certification program to crops,
> livestock, and the products derived from them,
> meaning that national organic standards will not be
> developed for fish, nutritional supplements, pet
> food, fertilizers, cosmetics, or personal-care
> products.
>
> Despite the USDA's demurrals, activists view the
> department's changes as a serious threat to hard-won
> standards for organic products. The National
> Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture and other
> groups are investigating possible industry influence
> into the USDA's process, and some environmental
> groups are preparing to take legal action.
>
> ###
>
I remember reading a piece that discussed how the definitions were going to be changed since the mass production industry was losing 'the hearts and minds' of consumers in regards to organic issues. Instead of changing their practices, they found it easier to change the rules.
We have joined a local small cooperative and get meat from a local farm that is certified organic. Actually, the cooperative verifies it as well, sending out members to see the farm and the slaughter. The bad part is that we are paying 25-50% more than we would for supermarket mass produced meat. But since those prices are probably so low due to the practices, which we believe lead to less healthy meat and that's why we switched to organic in the first place....well, you can see what I am saying.
Linear Mode
