Milk Drinkers of OH 1, Monsanto 0

Organic dairy products produced free from synthetic growth hormones- Consumers Win Right to Know

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals invalidates key portions of Ohio Dept. of Agriculture rule and protects consumers’ and producers’ rights to truthful information on organic product labels

Washington, D.C. (Sept. 30, 2010)—The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit today ruled in favor of the Organic Trade Association (OTA) in a landmark case that would have prevented consumers in Ohio from knowing whether products on grocery store shelves were produced without synthetic growth hormones.

“OTA believes consumers have a right to know how their food was produced, and organic farmers and manufacturers should be allowed to tell them,” said Christine Bushway, CEO of OTA, the leading voice for the $26.6 billion organic industry in North America. “We are pleased the court agrees,” added Bushway.

In order to qualify for the organic label, organic farmers are prohibited from using synthetic growth hormones (rBGH), genetically engineered organisms (GMOs), antibiotics and toxic, persistent, synthetic pesticides. The standards also mandate a rigorous system for inspection, certification and verification of organic practices, all of which protect consumers who choose organic foods.

The court’s decision upholds consumers’ rights to receive truthful information about organic production practices on the labels of their milk and other dairy products. Additionally, it recognizes the rights of organic dairy farmers and processors to communicate truthfully with consumers regarding federally regulated organic production practices under the USDA Organic seal. As a result of this victory for organic, consumers will continue to see truthful information on organic product labels in Ohio and across the country.

The Organic Trade Association and its members, including Horizon Organic®, Organic Valley®, and Stonyfield Farm®, filed the appeal in conjunction with the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA).

The overwhelming majority of Americans seeks this information on product labels. The Consumer Reports National Research Center polled more than 1,000 people nationwide on various food labeling issues; some 76% of those polled were concerned with ‘dairy cows given synthetic growth hormones’ and 88% agreed that ‘milk from cows raised without synthetic bovine growth hormone should be allowed to be labeled as such.’

The United States is in the minority among industrialized nations by allowing the use of synthetic growth hormones to artificially stimulate milk production in dairy herds. The practice is already prohibited in Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and in the 27 countries of the European Union.

The best way for consumers to be sure they are choosing products produced without the use of synthetic growth hormones (rBGH), genetically engineered organisms (GMOs), antibiotics and toxic and persistent pesticides is to look for the organic label.

The Organic Trade Association (OTA) has 1200 members, across 49 states, representing over 4500 certified organic operations. OTA members include growers, shippers, processors, certifiers, farmers' associations, distributors, importers, exporters, retailers and other allied organizations.

A Response to Another Blog

On the Cincy Locavore listserv I spotted this question:

Hey Everyone,

I put a post on our blog today about buying local over organic when you have to choose. I thought folks on this list might be interested, and I wonder if people agree with my current assessment.

Here is the link.

Any comments - here or on the blog - would be great!

Thanks,

Gavin DeVore Leonard

And here is my answer:

I prefer local over Organic and I am one of those growers who is not certified Organic but grows that way. But by no means are all the local growers growing Organically, even if they say they are. My farm was certified organic by OEFFA for over 6 years back before the USDA took over. I learned an awful lot about organic farm management and Organic growing during that time and find it to be vitally important to keep growing that way. But I also know that before I went through the process of transitioning to Organic and Organic Certification I would tell my customers when asked, "Yes we grow Organically" because I really thought how I was growing was Organic. I was dead wrong. I found out that Organic really doesn't have much to do with avoiding pesticides and fertilizers. As a matter of fact both are used on well managed Organic farms certified or not. What I did fond out is Organic is all about soil management and it is this facet of Organic farm management that puts us apart from the conventional farmers. I also learned that it takes around 7 to 15 years to get one's soils healthy after decades of abuse from conventional salt based fertilizers and pesticides, not the 3 year transition period used by the USDA (which is an arbitrary number that was used by many pre USDA Organic certifiers that would allow some recovery by the soils but not keep farmers waiting so long to get certified that it would make any economical sense to 99% of them).


Most people, including many farmers, believe that Organic farming is all about avoiding certain inputs (pesticides and fertilizers and hormones for livestock). They simply do not understand the processes that must happen to make one's farm truly Organic and thus see no problem with using a bit of RoundUp on "really bad" weeds or some sort of chemical and very toxic insecticide like Sevin dust because they think without it they will lose their crop(s). My point is that a lot of the farmers/growers at farmers markets who are not certified Organic are also not growing Organically, even though they say they are and may believe they really are (as I used to as well until I found out I was anything but Organic at the time) so do not fool yourselves into thinking that all local farm are organic farms. Yes there are those of us who really are Organic and no longer feel the need to have papers that say we are and I do know a few farmers who have never gone through Organic cert. but are indeed deeply Organic in how they grow (generally because they worked on a certified Organic farm for a few years before going out on their own or because they are the type of person who loves to do research and have taken the time to learn what Organic farm management entails). But I find from talking to farmers at markets that most are at best quasi Organic, especially the livestock people who rarely feed Organic feed and thus are feeding GMO's to their stock (which in my mind is NOT Organic and for me is a deal breaker).

But all that said I would rather support quasi Organic farms and conventional farms that are local to me than buying Organic from who knows where

That's my 2¢

The Selling of Organic

THE SELLING OF ORGANIC
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3066
Newsletter 38

Organic farms have historically been small, family-run mixed farms
producing for local markets, but this story is starting to change as
conventional agribusiness and the supermarkets move in. Organic
shops, too, are expanding, or being bought up, and increasingly
resembling their non-organic counterparts.

ORGANIC POT NOODLE ANYONE?
Multinational food corporations have developed organic versions of
their best selling brands, some have been pushed into it by WalMart;
which has put pressure on the big food corporations to produce
organic versions of their big brands. The big food companies with
organic ranges include: Heinz, General Mills, Kellogg's, Groupe
Danone, Nestle, Unilever Bestfoods, RHM, Mars/Masterfoods, Kraft,
Premier Foods, Northern Foods and Pepsi-Co. You can now get all your
favourite processed foods in organic versions: ketchup, baked beans,
rice crispies, creamed rice,custard, ready meals and, for a brief
while, an organic version of Pot Noodle (though that's now been
discontinued) What started out as a method of producing healthy and
nutritious food is now turning out highly-industrialised multi-
ingredient (but organic) products.

The large food manufacturers are careful not to make their non-
organic foods look unhealthy. Organic foods are instead being 'niche'
marketed along with vitamin-enriched products and functional foods,
in the eyes of General Mills [a US food corporation], 'organic is
not a revolution so much as a market niche'.

ORGANIC SALAD MIX GOES INDUSTRIAL
In the late 1980s organic salad mix (a mix of baby lettuce and other
salad leaves) was a niche product served in upmarket restaurants in
San Francisco and produced by small local farmers like the Goodmans
at Earthbound Farms. The Goodmans hit on the idea of bagging the
salad mix in resealable bags, this innovation allowed them to sell
their salad to supermarkets throughout the US. They bought more
land, as well as produce, from other smaller producers. Demand for salad
mix grew, prices rose and that drew in new converts to organic
farming, prices then fell squeezing the smaller growers out. New
post- harvest washing and sorting processes were also developed which
required capital, again squeezing out the smaller growers. But
Earthbound Farms formed a partnership with Tanimura and Antle (the
biggest conventional lettuce grower in the US) and continued to grow.

But as one critic says, 'Earthbound's compost is trucked in, the
farms are models of West Coast monoculture, laser-levelled fields
facilitate awesomely efficient mechanical harvesting and the whole
supply chain from California to Manhattan is only 4% less gluttonous
a consumer of fossil fuel than that of a conventionally grown head
of iceberg'. Earthbound Farms is now the largest organic vegetable
producer in the US, controlling 26 thousand acres of organic land
and producing and distributing 22 million servings of organic salad
across the US each week. Some of this Californian salad even reaches
the UK, when UK organic salad is in short supply.

RACHEL'S DAIRY SELLS OUT
The dairy set up by Rachel Rowland's grandmother was the first
certified organic dairy farm in the UK, and has always promoted
itself as a family firm based in rural Wales. To maintain this image
there is no mention on product labels or on Rachel's website that
the company is now owned by Dean Foods, the largest dairy corporation in
the US. Dean Foods operates more than 120 processing plants and
employs 28,000 people. Dean Foods' main shareholders include some of
the biggest corporations in the world: Microsoft, General Electric,
Philip Morris, Citigroup, Pfizer, Exxon/Mobil, Coca Cola, WalMart
and PepsiCo. Dean is busy increasing its share of the organic dairy
market with their brand - Horizon, dubbed the 'Microsoft of organic
milk', already controlling over 55% of the US retail organic milk
market. To increase this further, it has teamed up with WalMart to
sell Horizon products in large volumes at low prices, pushing
smaller cooperative and family-owned organic dairies out of business.

Rachel's says it is passionate about natural and nutritious food.
Dean Foods has repeatedly been criticised for using genetically
engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH), which increases milk
production, but also causes mastitis in cows. Though it has recently
converted to rBGH-free production on some of its farms. Horizon's
organic milk is ultra-pasteurised, a high-heat treatment that kills
the enzymes and many vitamins, reducing the milk's nutritional
value, but allows the company to deliver its milk all over the US.

Rachel's may assure consumers that all its milk is from UK farms,
certified by the Soil Association, but the same high standards do
not apply to Dean's organic brands in the US, which in a recent survey
were found to be 'ethically challenged' and scored zero points.
Horizon still buys half of its milk from small family organic dairy
farms, but the rest comes from huge factory farms. US organic
standards, created under pressure from US big agribusiness, are
'scale neutral' - there is nothing in the standards that prevents
the operation of organic dairies with thousands of cows in confined
feedlots. While animals must have 'access to pasture', how much is
not spelled out. Dean Foods of course has no commitment to organic foods per se, only
to the profits that adding a portfolio of successful organic
companies to its business can bring. Rachel's grandmother is lucky
that so far the more stringent UK organic standards are still
protecting her ideals.

BERNARD BUYS THE BIRDS
Cherryridge Poultry, a struggling organic turkey farm in Norfolk,
was bought by Bernard Matthews, the UK's biggest turkey producer, in
December 2006. It is not alone: other conventional poultry companies
like Lloyd Maunder have also gone into organic. Undercover
investigations at Bernard Matthews' plants have shown crowded, dirty
conditions with severely injured, diseased and dead birds. During a
major bird flu outbreak in 2007 government investigators found
serious bio-security shortfalls, including holes in the turkey sheds
where birds, rats and mice could get in, leaking roofs, and
uncovered bins where seagulls were seen carrying off meat waste. Many
consumers will never know they are buying their organic turkey from Bernard
Matthews, however, as it will be sold behind a supermarket own label.

NOT SO WHOLESOME FOODS
From one store in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods Market has grown
through a series of acquisitions and mergers to become the largest
natural food supermarket in the US, with 250 stores. Recently the
company won a legal battle with the US competition watchdog over its
planned merger with its biggest rival Wild Oats. The watchdog tried
to block the merger arguing that consumer choice in the natural and
organic sector would be undermined if the deal went through.

Whole Foods Market has also come to the UK, first buying up the
Fresh and Wild chain in 2004, and in 2007 opening the first Whole Foods
Market store in London's Kensington. Company blurb talks about
offering 'an engaging shopping experience', but many say it's too
glitzy, there's also not much organic produce in evidence and its
difficult to tell how local it is. Prices are also high; in the US
the company has earned the nickname 'Whole Paycheck'. With respect
to UK expansion, Whole Foods has implied that it may try to open as
many as 45 stores.

Despite its humble beginnings, Whole Foods Market has bought into
the capitalist agribusiness model and has played an important part in
the industrialisation of organic food production in the US. While US
Whole Foods Market stores may buy some fresh produce locally, many
of the largest organic farms (Earthbound Farms and Cal-Organic) supply
it and hence much produce is shipped to its stores from these big
producers in California. As Michael Pollan says, 'whilst growing the
rocket is organic, everything else is capitalist agribusiness as
usual'.

John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market is an admirer of
WalMart and says 'What a great, great company! WalMart has single
handedly driven down retail prices across America.' He also approves
of WalMart's policy of 'crushing the parasitical unions'. Despite
being in Fortune's '100 Best Companies to Work For in America', Whole

Foods Market is as anti union as WalMart, and has been criticised
for firing two workers involved in unionising the Madison, Wisconsin
store. With respect to its suppliers, Whole Foods stores in the US
stock tomatoes from one of the most notorious Florida sweatshop
producers and has ignored an appeal from the Coalition of Immokalee
Workers to pay an extra penny a pound for these tomatoes.

Wholefood's expansion plans in the UK and its business practices
essentially mirror those in the conventional retail sector, so we
can expect more small organic suppliers and wholefood retailers and
distributors disappearing as big organic takes over.

See our forthcoming publication Eating up the Alternatives for more
information on corporations and organic food.

Wake Up America

This is written by a cyber friend and fellow farmer Alan Bishop who has a diversified farm in Southern Indiana. You can respond directly to him (and visit one of the better farm/garden forums on the world wide web at Home Grown Goodness

Wake up America!
Your local farmer, produce suppliers, and mom and pop stores need you more than ever, and chances are your going to need them!

A call to end “Big Box” mentality in America!
Written by: Alan Reed Bishop of Bishop's Homegrown and Hip-Gnosis seed development.
February 28, 2008


Hey America, it’s time to wake up! Your dollar value is dropping, your waists are expanding and you’re a generally unhappy bunch of folks from what I have seen. And that my friend is from the mouth of an American himself. Alan Reed Bishop.

I’m not here to berate anyone, surely what I’m about to say even applies to myself and I’ve got a lot to learn so that I too don’t sound like a hypocrite. What I’m here to say is something that probably won’t set so well with many blue collard American folks, but it is the truth. A hard truth that if not faced will bare the consequences of an even more uncertain future.

What I’m here to ask, is just exactly how long will it take the fact that we are destroying our own culture, food supply, and future by shopping at the corporate owned big box stores, to set in? You may not realize it, but every time you drive to your local Wal-Mart, Meijers, K-mart, Home Depot or whatever and drop one of those dirty dollars on the counter, you are further eroding the very culture and substance of the American way of life. How many news reports about poisonous toys and unsafe food do you have to hear before you get it? It seems so obvious. Many of you may think that loosing the mom and pop owned five and dimes is of little consequence to your bread and butter, but look what happened to their bread and butter when you took your dollar elsewhere, and guess what, other consumers suffer due to your bad decisions as well, being forced to pay higher prices for lower quality products and food. A damn shame if I do say so myself.

In my profession I’ve seen it time and again. The local produce business can be quite fickle at times, particularly when it comes to un-informed customers. Now, don’t get me wrong, people will have to eat regardless, and I will be able to stay in this business on that fact alone, however the hurt is really being put on the local farmers and co-ops by the Wal-Marts and Jay-C-Food stores of the world and their supposedly “organic” produce, and perhaps more importantly, you the consumer are feeling the burn as well. Prices on organic food keep on sky-rocketing while quality keeps sinking. Perhaps you believe that the much coveted “organic” label actually means something to the big companies who use different names to market “organic“ versions of their products? If so, you‘d be dead wrong. You see, the USDA and the Corporations of the world don‘t care about what the word “organic“ means as long as it equals money in the pocket. That‘s why there are 35 non-organic substances allowed in the production of USDA “Certified Organic“ food production. Thirty five substances which may or may not be any better for you than conventional products. Thirty Five substances which may or may not have been outlawed in other countries around the world due to their links with rates of cancer and environmental damage. Thirty five substances that mono-culture farms half the world away and in your own backyards would rather you never know about.

I’m not here to bash “Organic farming” at all, as a matter of fact I consider myself to be an Organic farmer in the truest sense of the word. In that my produce and products are produced and protected using only the most natural of methods and minus gas to local venues and diesel for my tractor, my carbon foot print on this farm is pretty small. The USDA, big box stores, and corporate agriculture however don’t see “Organic” in this way, as a matter of fact their measure of the word “Organic” would be much easier summed up in monetarily inspired numbers. As anybody knows, self sustainable, nutritious, and organic food is right up my alley and I try my hardest everyday of my life to further improve my systems of delivery, production, and self sustainability in an attempt to treat the earth and it’s inhabitants with the utmost respect and dignity while also providing a premium product LOCALLY, and therein lies the problem.

You see, when you walk into Wal-Mart and see those big blue organic labels, your looking at a lie. Your looking at a money grubbing scheme to both take your money for a sub-par product, run local farmers out of business, and further erode the meaning of the “organic” label, while at the same time making you feel all warm and fuzzy inside because you just bought something “organic”. So, what’s the problem with that organic food? Well there are a lot of problems with it. Much of that “organic” food comes from other counties around the world, particularly third world countries where “organic” standards are much less observed and regulated. Another problem is that there are several organically approved, yet none the less dangerous chemicals that are allowed to pass as suitable for “organic” production systems and in the preparation and processing of those foods, mostly because the USDA Organic law is catered to large mono-culture farms. And last but not least, most of the “organic” food that your buying on those nasty, dollar inflated Wall-Mart shelves that is actually grown in the USA is grown by large corporate farms, owned by multi-million dollar companies that you already know well by their more common brand names, in systems that would make a septic sludge pond look organic, by folks who have little to no respect for local farmers and business and the local economy,environmental concerns and health of the consumer, and to boot the food is then shipped hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away to those big ugly boxes, effectively leaving a carbon foot print so large it should immediately affect the value of that food as “organic” to any clearly thinking human being. And yet many people continue to shop in these huge emporiums of low-grad crap.

Do you know how many times that market farmers hear the phrase, “well, I’ll go to town and buy that at Wal-Mart cheaper.” ? Does that even make sense to anyone? You’d rather eat poisonous food from 1,000 miles away than to pay an extra $0.25 for quality, local products that you know support the local economy and that you can trust? Not to mention the fact that you are only lowering the value of the dollar and putting wealth and power in the hands of countries which are not exactly on friendly terms with us? I mean to me it doesn't make any sense, you would rather buy food from someone you don't know from a thousand miles away than to actually talk to and see the face of the very person who grew the food? This country is a long strange trip indeed!

I can understand now why so many little mom and pop stores have shut down. People stop supporting them and drive to town, paying more for gas, inflating the economy of the rich corporate stockholders and countries with horrible track records like China, while depleting our own country of natural resources, a healthy lifestyle, community, and yes even culture. For as much as a mom and pop store, a farmers market, or a local feed mill is a source for material goods it is also a source of knowledge and local and regionalized culture. Not only that, but I get a distinct impression that the materialism of this country drives one even more so to go out and buy the latest fashions and gas guzzling vehicles, so one can be trendy and “fit in” while at the same time pretending to “know“ and “care“ about global warming, politics, and the economy. Well America you go ahead and keep drowning our economy, keep pumping yourself full of dangerous chemicals, keep saying that the big box stores are good for us, keep thinking that you need all that crap that you waste your money on, keep playing into the game, keep destroying your history and culture, just keep right on conforming. Soon we can just go ahead and close down all the mom and pop stores, replace everything with “organic” McDonald’s and Taco Bells, put a big Wal-Mart on every street corner and change the name of the United States of America to The Amalgamated states of Conformity. Me, well, I’m going to do the best I can to inform myself and those around me to make the right decisions while meanwhile continuing the god given work that I am doing and not pretending to be anything I am not. I’ll be your valuable market farmer, the source for your healthy food and lifestyle, your alternative to “New America”, I’ll just keep right on being the plant breeding, worm ranching, truly organic, seed saving, hill-Billy, ridge running farmer that I have been, and when the shit hits the fan, I’ll be sure to plant a little more for the extra needy and pray that those of you that have caused this can take the crash course in survivalism to protect yourselves and your families from the terrorism that you have inflicted on your own country.

So, here is my question, who are you going to turn to when things take the deep downturn we are headed towards? Is it going to be the mom and pop stores you put out of business? The farmer that couldn’t afford the tools he needed to get the job done?

Really, we have no one to blame for our health, our economy, our loss of morals and our horrible leaders other than ourselves. We have lost sight of what made this country great. Local culture and ideas. Self sustainable family owned business that care as much about the community as they do the money that they make. Independent people with independent ideas who stand up for what they believe in! When the last family farm falls, will you be there to say, this is our fault?


P.S. If you don’t believe that this country is in a sad state then take the time to rationalize that instead of working on national issues, congress is currently more interested in holding hearings regarding steroids in sports. You tell me, where are the priorities?

Who Owns What

This is the best summery of who owns what in the industrial organic world
http://www.msu.edu/~howardp/organicindustry.html

Industrial Organic Fraud

*12/13/07*
*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

*Contact: Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042*



*Nation's Largest Retailers Accused of Organic Fraud* *Class Action Suits
Seek Damages from Wal-Mart, Target, others*



*SEATTLE, WA/ DENVER, CO/MINNEAPOLIS, MN* – In a scandal now ensnaring some
of the nations leading retailers, a series of lawsuits have been filed accusing Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, Safeway, and Wild Oats of consumer fraud for marketing suspect organic milk.

The legal filings in federal courts in Seattle, Denver, and in Minneapolis, against the retailers, come on the heels of class action lawsuits against Aurora Dairy Corporation, based in Boulder, Colorado. The suits against Aurora and the grocery chains allege consumer fraud, negligence, and unjust enrichment concerning the sale of organic milk. This past April, Aurora officials received a notice from the USDA detailing multiple and "willful" violations of federal organic law that were found by federal investigators.

"This is the largest scandal in the history of the organic industry," said Mark Kastel of The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group. Cornucopia's own investigation and formal legal complaint, in 2005, first alerted USDA investigators to the improprieties occurring at Aurora. "Aurora was taking advantage of the consumer's good will in the marketplace toward organics, and the USDA has allowed this scofflaw-corporation to continue to operate," Kastel added.

Law firms based in Seattle, St. Louis, and New York, in addition to other cities, have filed at least eight lawsuits against Aurora, representing plaintiffs in over 30 states. Five lawsuits against the retailers have been filed so far.

Attorneys are seeking damages to reimburse consumers harmed by the company's actions. Some of the lawsuits request that the U.S. District Courts put an injunction in place to halt the ongoing sale of Aurora's organic milk in the nation's grocery stores until it can be demonstrated that the company is complying with federal organic regulations.

Aurora, with $100 million in annual sales, provides milk that is sold as organic and packaged as private label, store-brand products for many of the nation's biggest chains. In addition to Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, Safeway, and Wild Oats, Aurora serves as supplier to 15 other national and regional chains.

Independent investigators at the USDA concluded earlier this year that Aurora—with five dairy facilities in Colorado and Texas, each milking thousands of cows—had 14 "willful" violations of federal organic regulations. One of the most egregious of the findings was that from December 5, 2003, to April 16, 2007, the Aurora Dairy "labeled and represented milk as organically produced, when such milk was not produced and handled in accordance with the National Organic Program regulations."

Cornucopia's own research, since confirmed by the two-year investigation by federal law enforcement agents, found that Aurora was confining their cows to pens and sheds in feedlots rather than grazing the animals as the federal law requires. Furthermore, Aurora brought conventional animals into their organic milking operation in a manner prohibited by the Organic Food Production Act, a law passed by Congress in 1990 and implemented in 2002 by
the USDA.

The stores sell Aurora's milk under their own in-house brand names, such as Costco's Kirkland and Target's Archer Farms, in cartons marked "USDA organic," typically with pictures of pastures or other bucolic scenes.

"That's not even close to the reality of where this milk was coming from," said Steve Berman, a Seattle lawyer whose firm is among those suing. "These cows are all penned in factory-confinement conditions."

"This is the perfect example of modern-day Agri-business bullies literally stealing the milk money from an unsuspecting public," said Washington state consumer Rachael Doyle. "We have been willfully deceived by corporations motivated solely by greed."

Cornucopia points out that Aurora is a "horrible aberration," and that the vast majority of all organic dairy products are produced with high integrity. In a scorecard published last year, and available on their web site, Cornucopia rates over 90% of organic name-brand dairy products as truly subscribing to the letter and spirit of the law (available at www.cornucopia.org).

"Aurora's actions have injured the reputation of the more than 1500 legitimate organic dairy farmers who are faithfully following federal organic rules and regulations," noted Kastel. "We cannot allow these families to be placed at a competitive disadvantage."

Mark Pepperzak, Aurora CEO, said, "The allegations in this smear campaign against AOD are based on false information and, therefore, completely unfounded." The company has said that their business has yet to be affected by the high-profile controversy. However, some of Aurora's largest customers have now switched to alternative suppliers.

"We have learned that Wild Oats and the Publix supermarket chain in Florida are no longer buying milk from Aurora," stated Kastel. "In addition, the nation's largest distributor of natural and organic products, United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) has also secured an alternative source for their Woodstock Farms brand." Kastel also said that although he was unable to publicly disclose the names of retailers at this point in time, a number of others have contacted Cornucopia for their listing of six other private-label organic milk processors.

Many industry observers feel that the USDA's enforcement mechanism broke down in the Aurora case. After career USDA staff drafted a Letter of Proposed Revocation, seeking to prevent Aurora from engaging in organic commerce, political appointees at the agency intervened, crafting an agreement allowing the politically connected company to remain in business.

"It is unconscionable that the USDA allowed Aurora to continue, after making millions of dollars, in this 'ethics-based' industry, when they had concluded that Aurora willfully violated the law," Kastel added. "However, there is a higher authority in terms of organic integrity than the USDA—that's the organic consumer. And they are about to make their voices
heard through the courts."


*MORE: *

"I feel cheated by Aurora's organic misrepresentations," said Sandie Regan, an organic consumer from Crown Point, Indiana, and one of the parties to the lawsuits. "I am willing to pay more at the grocery store for organic milk because I believe the milk is healthier for me. But it doesn't look like I was getting what I paid for," Regan added.

"Although the USDA did not strip Aurora of their right to engage in organic commerce, between the consumer fraud lawsuits, and the exodus of a growing number of their customers, it looks like consumers and retailers might strip them of their ability to continue in the marketplace," Kastel observed. "

Copies of the lawsuits are available upon request. A photo gallery of the Aurora factory-farm operation can be viewed at the Cornucopia web page at www.cornucopia.org.

*The Cornucopia Institute, **a nonprofit farm policy research group, is dedicated to the fight for economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Their Organic Integrity Project acts as a corporate and governmental watchdog assuring that no compromises to the credibility of organic farming methods and the food it produces are made in the pursuit of
profit.*

OCA Threatened with Lawsuit

This I guess this can go under money talks and all the whistle blowers need to shut up of face the consequences. I am soo damned glad the USDA NOP is looking out for the consumer (she says with dripping sarcasm).

ALERT OF THE WEEK:
AURORA THREATENS ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION WITH LAWSUIT
Just when we thought it couldn't get any hotter (or any more mind-boggling), the "organic" dairy factory farm controversy reached a new level of intensity over the past week. The USDA announced, to the disappointment of the organic community, that they were not going to take further disciplinary measures against Aurora Organic Dairy, a company that just a few weeks ago had a portion of its organic certification suspended by the USDA for "willfully" violating National Organic Standards since 2003 by failing to pasture its animals and by bringing conventional calves onto its feedlots and then declaring them organic. But caving in to pressure from Aurora and other big corporate players in the organic sector , the USDA now says the #1 organic private label dairy processor in the U.S. can continue selling milk produced on its factory farms as "organic" to its longstanding customers including Target, Wal-Mart, Costco, Safeway, and Woodstock Farms.

In a mind-twisting manipulation of logic, the new acting Secretary of Agriculture, Chuck Connors, a notorious cheerleader for biotech and corporate agribusiness, announced last week that this issue, regarding Aurora's violation of the USDA National Organic Standards, falls outside the scope of the USDA National Organic Standards. "I know there is controversy out there on a number of issues that really fall outside the bounds, if you will, of what constitutes that organic standard that is necessary in order for the product to have our seal," said Connors.

Now that they have the USDA in their pocket, Aurora is threatening to sue the Organic Consumers Association and Cornucopia Institute for educating and mobilizing consumers to oppose Aurora's blatant violations of organic integrity. In related news, the recent issue of Fortune Magazine reports Aurora's factory farms generated a record 100 million dollars in "organic" dairy sales to consumers this year. In other words, when it comes to suing the OCA, Aurora has plenty of money, from selling its cheap "organic" factory farm milk to Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and Safeway . So given this David versus Goliath situation, OCA needs your financial support today, more than ever, to defend ourselves from this attack by Aurora and to expose the ongoing negligence of the USDA.

Organic Loopholes

More efforts to weaken organic standards to the low corporate levels. This is yet another sterling example of why we at Boulder Belt opted out of the USDA NOP. To us organics is a way one farms, not a markeing gimmick. We would like to see higher standards, not lower. Buy local folks, buy local.

"Organic" food rule could have up to 38 loopholes
By Scott J. Wilson
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003741899_organic1...
Los Angeles Times

With the "USDA Organic" seal stamped on its label, Anheuser-Busch calls its

Wild Hop Lager "the perfect organic experience."

But many beer drinkers may not know Anheuser-Busch got the organic blessing

from federal regulators even though Wild Hop Lager uses hops grown with
chemical fertilizers and sprayed with pesticides.

A deadline of midnight Friday to come up with a new list of nonorganic
ingredients allowed in USDA-certified organic products passed without
action
from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), leaving uncertain whether
some foods currently labeled "USDA organic" would continue to be produced.

The agency is considering a proposal to allow 38 nonorganic ingredients to
be used in organic foods. Because of the broad uses of these ingredients -
as spices, colorings, and flavorings for example - almost any type of
manufactured organic food could be affected, including organic milk,
cereal,
sausages, bread and beer.

Organic-food advocates have fought to block all or parts of the proposal,
saying it would allow food makers to mislead consumers.

"This proposal is blatant catering to powerful industry players who want
the
benefits of labeling their products 'USDA organic' without doing the work
to
source organic materials," said Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the
Organic Consumers Association of Finland, Minn., a nonprofit group with
850,000 members.

USDA spokeswoman Joan Shaffer declined comment.

Food manufacturers said last week that they were hoping the agency would
act
by Friday to allow labeling of organic products to continue.

A federal judge had given the USDA until midnight Friday to name the
nonorganic ingredients it would allow in organic foods, but the agency did
not release a list.

"They probably don't know what to do" Cummins said. "On the other hand,
it's
hard to believe they're going to make people change their labels, although
that's what they should do."

Demand for organic food in the United States is booming, as consumers seek
products that are more healthful and friendlier to the environment. Sales
have more than doubled in the past five years, reaching $16.9 billion last
year, according to the Organic Trade Association in Greenfield, Mass.,
which
represents small and large food producers.

But with big companies entering what was formerly a mom-and-pop industry,
new questions have been raised about what goes into organic food.

Supporters dismayed

For food to be called organic, it must be grown without chemical
fertilizers
and pesticides. Animals must be raised without antibiotics and growth
hormones and given some access to the outdoors.

Many nonorganic ingredients, including hops, are already being used in
organic products, thanks to a USDA interpretation of the Organic Foods
Protection Act of 1990. In 2005, a federal judge disagreed with how the
USDA
was applying the law and gave the agency two years to fix it.

Organic-food supporters had hoped the USDA would allow only a small number
of substances but were dismayed last month when the agency released the
proposed list of 38 ingredients.

"Adding 38 new ingredients is not just a concession by the USDA, it is a
major blow to the organic movement in the U.S. because it would erode
consumer confidence in organic standards," said Carl Chamberlain, a
research
assistant with the Pesticide Education Project in Raleigh, N.C.

In addition to hops, the list includes 19 food colorings, two starches,
sausage and hot-dog casings, fish oil, chipotle chili pepper, gelatin and a

variety of obscure ingredients (one, for instance, is a "bulking agent" and

sweetener with the tongue-twisting name of fructooligosaccharides).

The proposed rule would allow up to 5 percent of a food product to be made
with these ingredients and still get the "USDA Organic" seal. Even hops,
though a major component of beer's flavor, are less than 5 percent of the
final product, because the beverage is mostly water.

Organic beer, though still a small portion of total beer sales, has been
growing even faster than overall organic-food sales, reaching $19 million
in
2005, a 40 percent increase over the previous year (2006 figures were not
available).

In addition to hops, two other items on the USDA list have attracted
particular attention: casings for sausages and hot dogs, and fish oil.

Casings are intestines from cows, pigs or sheep, and have been used for
centuries to wrap meat into sausages and frankfurters.

While the casings are a tiny portion of the overall sausage, organic
purists
object to eating anything from animals raised on conventional farms, where
animals may be housed in tight quarters and given antibiotics and growth
hormones. Further, they note that the USDA's food-safety division has
identified cow intestines as a possible source of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease.

Fish oil's presence on the USDA list has drawn objections because it could
carry high levels of heavy metals and other contaminants, said Jim Riddle,
a
former member of the National Organic Standards Board. But fish-oil
producers said such contaminants can be screened out.

USDA doesn't enforce

The USDA rules come with what appears to be an important consumer
protection: Manufacturers can use nonorganic ingredients only if organic
versions are not "commercially available."

But food makers have found their way around this barrier, in part because
the USDA doesn't enforce the rule directly. Instead, it depends on its
certifying agents, 96 licensed organizations in the United States and
overseas, to decide what it means for a product to be unavailable in
organic
form.

Despite years of discussions, the USDA has yet to provide certifiers
standardized guidelines for enforcing this rule.

"There is no effective mechanism for identifying a lack of organic
ingredients," complained executives of Pennsylvania Certified Organic, a
nonprofit certifying agent, in a letter to the USDA. "It is a very
challenging task to 'prove a negative' regarding the organic supply."

Almost Famous

Wednesday after a final push to get everything covered and ready for the hard freeze we took a trip down south to pick up our allotment of raw milk for the week. Because we had not been to the post office in many days and I had a catnip order to send out from an order recieved from my Local Harvest virtual store front we went to the PO to get the mail out of the PO Box we have.

In the PO Box was a large envelope with 2 copies of the April edition of the Country Folks Grower (Midwest edition) that has Boulder Belt Eco-Farm as the featured farm. This article was from an interview I did with the author Kelly Gates about 6 weeks ago. It should be on the web in a month or so, maybe less.

Also in the PO box was a yellow card telling us we had something too big for the box to pick up at the front counter. So while I was mailing a package of catnip to Manassas, VA I also picked up the package that was from Seattle but not from my sister. Inside the package was a book, "To Buy or Not to Buy Organic" by Cindy Burke (available on Amazon, Barnes and Nobel and at some local book sellers) and a letter thanking me for for my time. I was puzzled by this. I did not remember at the time being interviewed by this person. But there was a pink post-it in the book and it was marking a nice profile of the farm plus some of my rantings on why Boulder Belt is no longer certified organic by the USDA. I later read through the end notes and found the date of the interview and it all came back to me.

Talk about short to medium memory loss...

The other thing that happened on Wednesday before we got on the road to pick up the milk and mail was I got two phone calls. One from a loyal blog reader from Loveland, OH (I am sorry I did not get your name, feel free to leave it in the educations) asking if his garlic would be okay during the hard freeze. I said I thought so but putting down some extra mulch won't hurt anything.

The other was from some woman from Youngstown looking for organic farms/CSA's in her area. This woman got my name from my GreenPeople listing and seemed to be of a mind that the only good food was industrial organics and if a farmer was not certified than by default they are using chemicals and GMO's. I tried to explain to her this is not usually the case with us small farmers but she seemed to have her mind set about this opinion. I believe she needs to buy a copy of Ms Burke's book and learn more. At any rate, I gave her the OEFFA web address and assured her that NE Ohio has more than its' fair share of sustainable and organic farms and CSA's as she was convinced that NE Ohio was a wasteland as far as organic foods are concerned. I hope she finds the farm of her dreams and buys the book too.

So Wednesday was a day of a me distributing information to people I have never met or a series of coincidences, but since I do not believe in coincidences there had to be a cosmic reason for the calls and the mail.

How should We Relate to our Food?

Since civilization began, food and farming have told a story of our society, our values, and our relationship to the Earth. Today, we are witnessing unprecedented impacts as a result of food being seen primarily as a commodity. In contrast, a local food system that values sustainability and balance has the potential to reconnect us to each other and to the land. This in turn helps shift our focus to understanding food as an integral part of community and family life. Let's start here to bring about a healthier future.


Food For Community:

is a basic human need and right. It keeps our bodies going and it is also the common thread that brings together families and friends and shapes our traditions and cultural identity.

Farming connects people to the land. It can provide meaningful work for many and is the foundation for many rural economies and communities.

Diversified family farms tend to be small enough that the farmer has an intimate knowledge of the land. Farms that produce a variety of crops provide benefits including improved farm profitability, water quality, fish health, and carbon sequestration, and decreased greenhouse gas emissions and soil erosion.^a

The market is where people purchase food, learn about its origin, interact with community members and meet the farmers who grow their food.

In the ten years leading up to 2004, the number of farmers' markets in the U.S. more than doubled, adding almost 2,000 new markets.^c

Labor in a local food system can be meaningful and fulfilling. There are strong relationships between producers and consumers and a greater proportion of people running their own businesses. Young people are eager to work on sustainable farms, at farmers' markets, and in local food businesses.

"Working at the farmers' market is a blast - I wouldn't do anything else. I love answering questions about the produce and seeing the satisfaction on peoples' faces when they learn about my farm." - Farm intern, Vacaville, CA

In the local food system, the average meal travels 45 miles.^f

Eating is an act of communion with the Earth. Preparing and eating food rejuvenates our spirits and nourishes our bodies.

Communities participate in making decisions about their food supply.

Food As Commodity:

Food is a commodity. It is typically produced in large-scale monocultures and processed and distributed by large food manufacturers. The food industry exists primarily to generate profit.

Farming that takes place on a large scale functions more like factory operations than like farms.

The annual toll of conventional farming includes $12 billion in environmental and health costs from pesticides, fishery deterioration and aquatic "dead zones" caused by chemical fertilizers and manure, and $45 billion for environmental and human health care caused by soil erosion.^b

The market is a means through which food is sold, traded, and distributed in large supermarkets.

In the United States, the 5 biggest supermarket companies are responsible for almost half of all retail food sales.^d

Labor in an industrial food system often means laboring on an assembly line. Jobs in industrial food production and processing can be dangerous and are often considered to be work that Americans aren't willing to do.

Industrial farmworkers suffer a range of work-related health problems, such as pesticide-related illnesses, reproductive health impacts, eye and ear problems and musculoskeletal disorders.^e

In the conventional food system, the average meal travels 1,500 miles.^g

Eating is largely an unconscious act aimed at refueling our bodies. It must be quick and convenient, sometimes at the expense of nutrition and flavor.

Large corporations control the food supply at the expense of communities.

* References

Where to Buy (and not buy) Seeds

Found a nice article on the site Groovy Green called Where to Buy your Seeds and Where Not To. The only problem I had with the article was there was no mention of the fact lots of small farmers using organic methods are selling seeds over at Local harvest. In the past I have listed my seeds for sale there but moving the farm has meant putting the breaks on seed saving for the past couple of years. But 2008 should be the year we get back into the swing of saving seed for sale to the public.

Where To Buy Your Seeds, & Where Not To

By Sharon Astyk

If we're to become a nation of farmers, and a nation of people who take home and small scale agriculture seriously, I think it is important to think about our seed sources. After all, without good, safe, reliable sources of seed, there is no agriculture - period.

I'm a big advocate of buying locally, but as I just told a friend, seeds are one thing that I don't always purchase from my local retailer. There are several reasons for this. The first is that my local retailer tends to carry commercial garden center varieties of seed, which come from very far away. There are good reasons to want to buy local seed, from plants that have already adapted to your particular climate. Often the seed I mail order from far away is more local than the seed that I would buy from my neighborhood garden shop. The second reason is that I can often get organically grown seed if I buy by mail - and even though you don't eat the seeds themselves, there are excellent reasons to want to avoid drenching the field your seeds are grown in with pesticides and chemicals. Also, small seed companies often struggle to get along, and they need all the business they can get. Finally, there is so much variety out there in food plants that buying locally simply wouldn't allow me to try as many different things - if I had to rely on local sources there'd be no Glacier Tomatoes coming early, no Stein's Late Flat Dutch Cabbage hanging on in my garden until December.

There has been a heavy consolidation of the seed industry in the last few years, to its detriment.

The darkest force here has been the evil Montsanto, the Satan of agricultural corporations (and that's saying something since there are quite a few other dark angels out there), who bought up Seminis a couple of years ago. Now Seminis is the wholesaler that provides much of the seed for the seed trade, including many classic hybrids and non hybrid varieties. And recently, I've just learned that Seminis has bought Burpee seeds - the largest single mail order supplier. http://groovygreen.com/groove/?p=868. Now I have a fondness for the Burpee seed catalog, and there are a couple of non-hybrid varieties of theirs I love - a red french marigold, a cherry tomato. But I won't be buying there again. Pity, but I have no desire to support Montsanto's chemical agriculture, their attacks on farmers, their attempts to patent seeds created through laborious home breeding. And I try very hard to avoid Seminis varieties of seed. Because Seminis is a wholesaler, and sells to many of the seed companies that send out your catalogs, it can be difficult to tell where your seed originated. That means that I'm pretty much limited to some of the funkier catalogs out there. The good thing about that is that those catalogs have a large selection, a lot of neat stuff, and are usually good stewards of the environment. Giving them my money is an excellent thing....

Read the rest at: http://groovygreen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=328&Itemid=58

Wal-Mart Still Misrepresenting Organic

http ://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_3836.cfm

More on Wal-Mart Defrauding Organic Consumers & OCA Boycott

• Press Release
• By MarK Kastel
• The Cornucopia Institute, Jan 17, 2007

Organic Fraud: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Accused of Widespread Distortion
Nonorganic Food Products Misidentified as "Organic"

CORNUCOPIA, Wisconsin - January 17 - When the staff at The Cornucopia Institute surveyed Wal-Mart stores around the country last September, analyzing the giant retailer's pronouncement that they would begin selling a wide variety of organic food at just a 10% mark-up over similar conventional products, they were surprised to discover widespread problems with signage misrepresenting nonorganic food as "organic."

Now, Cornucopia, one of the country's most prominent organic watchdogs is even more surprised that more than four months after informing the company of the problems, which could be interpreted as consumer fraud, and two months after filing a formal legal complaint with the USDA, the federal agency regulating organic labeling, many of the deceptive signs at Wal-Mart stores are still in place.

"It is unconscionable that rather than correct these problems, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. instead responded to our concerns by attacking our comparatively modest public interest group in an effort to discredit our organization in the media," said Mark Kastel, codirector of the Wisconsin-based Institute. "It is not as if a product recall or store remodeling would have been required to correct Wal-Mart's deceptive consumer practices. They could have simply sent out an e-mail to store managers and corrected the problem instantly."

New store inspections throughout Wisconsin have found that Wal-Mart stores are still selling nonorganic yogurt and sugar identified as organic, and designated organic produce sections continue displaying many nonorganic items, among other widespread abuses. The Cornucopia Institute again contacted the USDA about the ongoing problem but the agency could not confirm that any enforcement action was imminent on the federal level. Cornucopia then filed a consumer fraud complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection on January 13.

"We were very impressed with the immediate and professional response we received from the Wisconsin regulators," stated Will Fantle, Cornucopia's research director. "Within hours officials from the state contacted us to confirm some of the information we submitted and we verified our past interactions with the USDA for them."

The USDA's organic program has been widely criticized for, among other management problems, not attending to questions of improprieties in a timely manner. In one case a certifier decertified a Florida orange grower who could not document that the oranges and orange juice he was selling were produced organically. More than two years later, pending USDA action, the products were still on the market and being purchased by unsuspecting consumers.

"The vast majority of all organic farmers and food marketers operate with a high degree of organic integrity. These abuses, and the lack of responsible enforcement by the USDA, endangers the credibility of the organic label for all of us, said Tom Willey of T & D Willey Farms of Madera, California, an organic fresh market vegetable producer.

"Wal-Mart cannot be allowed to sell organic food 'on the cheap' because they lack the commitment to recruit qualified management or are unwilling to properly train their store personnel. This places ethical retailers, their suppliers, and organic farmers at a competitive disadvantage," Kastel said.

A number of other organic food retailers throughout the country, including Whole Foods Markets and many of the nation's member-owned grocery cooperatives, have gone to the effort to become certified organic in terms of the handling of their products and have invested heavily in staff training to help them understand organic food production and merchandising concerns.

"Our management and our employees know what organic means," said Lindy Bannister, general manager at The Wedge Cooperative in Minneapolis, Minnesota. "If Wal-Mart intends to get into organics, they can't be allowed to misidentify 'natural' foods as organic to unsuspecting consumers." The Wedge, the largest single store food cooperative in the nation, was one of the first retailers to go through the USDA organic certification process.

Cornucopia's complaints ask the USDA and Wisconsin regulators to fully investigate the allegations of organic food misrepresentation. The farm policy organization has shared their evidence, including photographs and notes, from multiple stores in Wisconsin and in many other states, with the agency's investigators. Fines of up to $10,000 per violation for proven incidents of organic food misrepresentation are provided for in federal organic regulations.

"The business practices at Wal-Mart are quite disturbing and certainly incompatible with the values that have transformed the organic food industry into a lucrative marketplace," said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association ( www.organicconsumers.org). "We have called today for a boycott of Wal-Mart by organic shoppers until such time as the integrity of their merchandising and product line can be ascertained."

This past September, The Cornucopia Institute also accused Wal-Mart of cheapening the value of the organic label by sourcing products from industrial-scale factory-farms and Third World countries, such as China.

The Institute released a white paper, Wal-Mart Rolls Out Organic Products‹Market Expansion or Market Delusion?, that concluded that Wal-Mart was poised to drive down the price of organic food in the marketplace by inventing a "new" organic‹food from corporate agribusiness, factory-farms, and cheap imports of questionable quality (available at www.cornucopia.org).

"If unchecked, Wal-Mart's alleged misrepresentation of organic food, along with their procurement practices, and cheapening the meaning behind the organic label, could endanger the livelihoods of many farmers and family business owners who have labored to build organics into a lucrative $16 billion a year industry," Kastel lamented.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Cornucopia Institute's White Paper, Wal-Mart Rolls Out Organic Products: Market Expansion or Market Delusion?, along with a photo gallery containing images of some of the violations observed and of organic items now being offered for sale at Wal-Mart stores, can be found on the organization's web page at http://www.cornucopia.org as can Cornucopia's legal complaint filed with the USDA regarding Wal-Mart's alleged organic product misrepresentation.

High-resolution files of these photographs and/or a head shot of Mr. Kastel are available electronically upon request.

Farmers Fear Livestock ID Mandate

http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&artic

Farmers Fear Livestock ID Mandate
Tracking animals with RFID could prove pricey, they say
Marc L. Songini

January 15, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Independent livestock ranchers last
week were quick to criticize signals that the new Congress may soon
mandate implementation of the RFID-based National Animal Identification
System.

Signing on to the NAIS program has been voluntary since it was first
proposed in 2003, but Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), the new chairman
of the House Agriculture Committee, said last week that he may soon push
for the program to become mandatory.

“The voluntary approach is a good steppingstone in the process of
achieving a functioning animal ID system,” Peterson said. “But full
participation may ultimately be necessary in order to ensure that we
have a system that meets the needs of livestock producers and the
public.”

The farmers and ranchers, and the industry groups that represent them,
contend that a mandatory NAIS program would impose unnecessary costs and
technical challenges on their businesses.

NAIS calls for using technology to tag and track cattle and other
livestock from birth to the slaughterhouse. No technology has yet been
chosen for the effort, though analysts expect that most farmers would
use radio frequency identification tags.

The program aims to track animals through the supply chain to help
health officials find the source of meat-borne diseases such as bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the
program, last week insisted that participation in NAIS will remain
voluntary and that the agency won’t limit participants to using a
specific technology.

But Peterson argued that the effort has yet to see much success and
needs a boost.

“USDA’s success in implementing the NAIS to date has been limited at
best,” Peterson said. “Nearly $100 million has been spent to establish
the system, and yet we still do not have a functioning system.

Many other countries, including Canada and Australia, established
functioning programs at a lower cost than we have already spent.”

Frank Albani, president of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of
Massachusetts, an organization based in Barre, Mass., that counts 900
small farmers among its members, argued that NAIS will benefit only RFID
gear vendors and large meat producers and retailers while hurting small
farmers. “They have [tracking] systems in place in Ireland and
Australia, and they cost an exorbitant amount of money,” Albani said.

Large agribusinesses have already installed systems to track animals or
meat that is shipped cross-country or internationally, he noted. On the
other hand, smaller farmers generally sell their wares locally, so such
a program isn’t needed for them, Albani said.

‘Points of Failure’

Karin Bergener, founder of the Hollow Rock, Tenn.-based Liberty Ark
Coalition, said that the exact cost of using RFID chips on animals
remains undetermined. However, she said that her group, which was
established to fight NAIS, has estimated that costs in countries such as
the U.K. and Australia can run as high as $69 per head of cattle, a
total that could erase the profit margin for some species.

She also noted that “the points of failure involved with such a database
are almost impossible to count.” Bergener also raised privacy concerns,
contending that the technology could also be used to track animal owners.

Pushback from producers prompted the USDA in November not to switch from
a voluntary program to a mandatory one, an agency spokesman said. At the
time, the USDA also shifted technical and implementation responsibility
to state governments. “We believe the best program respects states’
rights,” he said. “It’s up to the states [to determine] if they want
to
make it mandatory.”

So far, only Michigan has moved to require mandatory compliance with the
rules. All cattle in that state must have RFID tags by March 2007.

The USDA spokesman noted that the department has spent about $84 million
thus far to implement NAIS.

Meanwhile, Peterson is calling on his colleagues in Congress to seek
ways of making NAIS implementation cheap, efficient, secure and
mandatory. No timeline has been set to discuss his proposal.

Links, Links and More Links

I was over at Small Meadow Farm's blog and found all sorts of interesting things to read and links to surf. I especially like the rant "Food for Thought". There is also an entry about The Rodale Institute's challenge to the NBC biased reporting on organic foods last month which you can read here. It's nice that an entity with a lot of clout is going after NBC. Maybe NBC will be courageous enough to do a segment using the Rodale take on organics vs conventional. We can only hope.

In my email inbox I found this interesting set of links from the OEFFA list serv:
1. THE MYTH:
Industrial food is safe, healthy, and nutritious.
http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth1.html
2. THE MYTH:
Industrial food is cheap.
http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth2.html
3. THE MYTH:
Industrial agriculture is efficient.
http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth3.html
4. THE MYTH:
Biotechnology will solve the problems of industrial agriculture.
http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth4.html
5. THE MYTH:
Industrial agriculture benefits the environment and wildlife.
http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth5.html
6. THE MYTH:
Industrial agriculture will feed the world.
http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth6.html
7. THE MYTH:
Industrial food offers more choices.
http://www.keepmainefree.org/myth7.html

festivus time

While not making Christmas cookies I found myself surfing blogs and found a great festivus post over at Slowly She Turns..

I had forgotten all about Festivus despite several stories on NPR the past 2 weeks

My grievances are as follows:

Any and all news stories that involve puppies or kittens or small children or women riding mopeds who end up in wells or storm drains and are not from the area covered by local news should be banned from the airways

I am on the do not call list so telemarketers quit calling me

People who drive while talking need to have their vehicles taken away. either drive or talk but not both

The Ohio smoking ban is simply stupid and unenforceable. Not to mention it is prohibiting a legal substance from being used on private property.

Anything Bush has done in the past year pisses me off. Same with Cheney

I buy raw milk but why do I had to fill out a 14 page contract to buy it legally. Why do I have to do this for a pure product but milk that is factory farmed and pumped full of drugs is sold over the counter? Pisses me off!

This fear leading to hatred of Muslim Americans pisses me off. Hey we are all human beings here!

I have a real problem with Industrial organics. More so if they are being sold by Wal-Mart

Ads in movie theaters. I do not go to many movies (maybe 1 a year) and this trend of commercials in the previews is sick and wrong. I pay good money to see a movie ad free.

Now I do not have an unadorned alumunim pole set up not any dinner planned. And I probably will not do feats of strength (unless with Nate the dog).

But to those of you who will respect the entire ritual I bid you a Happy Festivus

So What's the Big Deal?

December 18, 2006

"A National Pattern of Disregard"
So What's the Big Deal, If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake?
By JIM GOODMAN

That was the question asked by the host on a recent Public Radio
call-in show. Her question to her guest from the Cornucopia Institute
was in regard to recent charges that Wal-Mart was passing conventional
grocery items off as USDA certified organic.

A mistake? I doubt it. Seriously, think about it, you start a big push
in marketing a new line of high profit products and one of the first
things you do is mislabel your products, "accidentally"? As Jim
Hightower would say "Do they think we were born with sucker wrappers
around our heads?"

Ever since Wal-Mart announced earlier this year that they planned to
greatly increase their organic offerings at a cost of only ten percent
more than their conventional foods, those of us who grow organic food
have been skeptical.

Now it appears our skepticism was well placed. I personally felt the
worst we might expect would be imports of cheap "organic" food from
China, but hey, why not go for the gold, just sell conventional food as
organic.

There was much excitement about Wal-Mart expanding their organic sales
and how it would do so much to help organic farmers, huh? did Wal-Marts
entrance into the conventional grocery business help conventional
farmers, did their profits go up? Hardly, but it did put lots of small
grocery stores out of business and certainly added more black ink to
Wal-Marts multi-billion dollar bottom line.

In its short history as an organic retailer Wal-Mart is already under
scrutiny for sourcing its organic milk from a factory scale dairy that
is under investigation by the USDA for failing to comply with federal
organic regulations. It would also appear that they have no qualms
about selling organic produce from China as long as it's cheaper and
more profitable than sourcing from the U.S, but then Wal-Mart is an old
hand at offshore sourcing, just ask the U.S textile industry they
helped ruin.

I wonder if a Wal-Mart mistake was the reason 1.6 million women have
joined in a civil rights lawsuit against Wal-Mart? This action, now the
largest class-action lawsuit in history charges Wal-Mart with sex
discrimination in pay and promotions.

When an Oregon jury found Wal-Mart guilty of systematically forcing
workers to work overtime without pay, the evidence obviously pointed to
more than just a "mistake" on the part of Wal-Mart.

On ten separate occasions the National Labor Relations Board has ruled
that Wal-Mart broke the law when it fired union supporters. A mistake,
or are they just slow learners?

"A pattern of national disregard by Wal-Mart" was how Connecticut
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal described the company's adherence
to environmental protection laws. More mistakes, or just their way of
doing business?

In Wal-Marts tightly structured business model everything is controlled
down to the temperature and in-store music) from the head office in
Bentonville Arkansas. The home office knows exactly whats going on in
the stores and they certainly didn't become the worlds largest retailer
by making mistakes.

Everyday Low Prices, the Wal-Mart slogan, wins the hearts of many
because "poor people can afford to shop there". Those low prices are
kept low by the exploitation of international sweatshop laborers,
driving competitors out of business and paying their associates wages
so low they must turn to Medicaid for health insurance and often buy
their cloths at Goodwill.

Wal-Mart does have a history, a history of low wages, union busting,
sweatshop exploitation, discrimination and doing whatever it takes to
make a profit. So what's a little mislabeling? Like many of their
business practices, a big mistake, but their most consistent mistake is
thinking they can get away with it.

A caller to that same radio program asked the guest why he was picking
on Wal-Mart. While the guest correctly focused on examples of Wal-Marts
unethical and illegal behavior, in particular their flouting of organic
standards, my answer would have been shorter, we're not picking on
them, they're picking on us.

JIM GOODMAN is a dairy farmer from Wonewoc Wisconsin

A Rebuttal to NBC's Biased Organic Segment

This is my brother Scott's reply to NBC's segment on organic chicken being more contaminated than conventionally raised without broaching the 1001 other issues we face with agriculture. NBC's simplictic organic has more bacteria according to one small sample and therfore industrial chicken must be better/safer. Anyhoo, my brother's take on this.

Those annoying radiclibs* touting the virtues of vinegar as the answer to clean their libertine filth when we all know they need a bath in Clorox straight up. Now they want you to be nice to an industry that refuses to advertise with you. Unfair! But I'll tell you this much, When the rising price of oil makes the cost of fertilizer and fuel intensive farming, processing and distribution too high for for affordable food, with intrepid reportage such as the Today Show is capable of, we'll hold the course not to invest in local sustainable economies because that would just encourage them to continue not to use your vox populi (a service, that is, by the way, so reasonably priced for the deserving sponsors 'Americans need to hear most' (TM) and so sugared with compelling socially conscious programming).

What are they griping about?! Don't they know if the death rate from pesticide induced cancers or infant mortality went down, our population growth would look like Sudans! That's where the the Darfur region is? Hmmm. Well they probably (when they have food at all) are forced to eat organic. This just proves my point. Anyway, it's so boring TV, all those browns and tan, against stark blue skies especially those earnest appeals (yo Mr. Clooney., Whassup with that?) to acknowledge legions of starving innocents stuff makes a mockery of the pleasantness of our (well at least your) world that could be shown instead, it's just about as lame (and unAmerican) as a PSA to eliminate bread from our diet. This is not to mention that conventional farming contributes to the the obesity and neurological conditions
and a host of other maladies manifest from chemical contamination (from ingestion, handling and food chain accumulation from run-off), and lack of nutritional value from vegetables grown in mineral depleted soil, that will also contribute to weed out the weakest and most undesirable to, among other social solutions, give exurbia back to to those McMansion moguls who fought so hard to create it.

It sucks that a only a slightly elevated incidence (from the purest research that I'm sure had no financial incentive to be biased, right?) of bacterial contamination is reported when organic food is compared to conventionally grown. It's time to become motivated and haul out the yuck factor: compost, soiled clothing, manure, and hand painted signs. And they want to do it in your back yard!

I admire your courage in sticking to your corporate bottom-line to maximise
profit by coercing consumers purchasing habits in face of the ever-present
pressures of fairness and truth

Sincerely, Scott Owsley

*(S. Agnew circa 1970)

NBC Airs Biased Segment on Organics

This came in my inbox this morning. I saw this segment and It was pretty one sided. I guess this is to be expected as there seems to be yet another attack on organics from the anti-organics crowd that started with the e-coli contaminated spinach this past October that was not organic spinach but early on was thought to be. And of course the organic opponents such as the Hudson institute and the father/son team of Dennis and Alex Avery took the opportunity to build up some negative momentum and it seems the Today Show has been swept up somewhat by this momentum.

There is so much to be said about organics and so few competent people in the news on any level (including almost all agricultural reporters) that rarely good information is reported so it is up to us in the know to set the record straight. Below is all the information you need to send NBC the message that we will not put up with half assed, biased reporting and information.

Take Action: NBC's "Today Show" and organic misinformation


Dear friends,

We asking for NBC's "Today Show" to give equal time on organics. The show ran a piece yesterday, which paints organic food as unsafe, leaving the impression that conventional chemically grown food is better. Please join us in asking the Today Show to get the facts right. See video clip below, how to contact the Today Show, and our abbreviated comments (which you can use) below. You can also view our longer letter to the Today Show at http://www.beyondpesticides.org/today_show_organic.pdf.


Thanks.
Beyond Pesticides

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=18cf1bd8-4c53-4cee-b6de-c625b114d0ce&f=05&fg=rss


Viewer Comment Line: 212-664-3499
General Number 212-664-4249
today@nbc.com

Sample letter/email. Simply cut, copy and paste into your email body or word processing app.=, Change where appropriate, or not

December 5, 2006

Today Show
NBC Universal
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
(212) 956-2395

Re. How Fresh Is Organic Food?
A Call for More Truthful & Accurate Reporting

Dear NBC Today Show Producers:

I appreciate your attention to organic food in your December 4, 2006 segment How Fresh Is Organic Food?, but I am troubled by the serious lack of focus on the hazards of chemical-intensive agriculture and food commodities. The piece glosses over key organic issues and leaves viewers with the impression that chemically-treated food is safer. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a disappointed viewer and concerned consumer, I am writing to ask you to do a follow-up story, giving equal time and consideration to the value of organics. Please take the following into consideration:

1. Your piece does not articulate effectively the hazards of pesticides and the importance of curtailing their use. The key issues for concern are pesticide residues in and on food commodities and agricultural practices that hurt the environment and those working on farms. Pesticides found in and on food are known to cause cancer, birth defects and other serious health effects.

2. Creating a false choice between chemically-treated food with less bacteria and organic. Because of the hazards of pesticides, the Today Show piece created a false choice between what you characterized as safer chemically-grown food and more dangerous organic food. Instead, the choice is to adopt adequate cleaning practices, recognizing the important role that bacteria plays in digestion and the environment.

3. Additionally, no mention was given to other health concerns resulting from conventional agriculture, such as use of antibiotics in animal production. Antibiotic use in animal production has been linked to antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

4. Your piece also glosses over a key issue when it comes to the freshness of organic. People increasingly want fresh food, rather than food preserved by chemicals for lengthy periods. Buying organic and local is increasingly an option consumers are turning to, and in turn, are supporting their local economy.

Thank you for your attention to this issue.

Sincerely,

Industrial Organics Are Going Too Far

I have been blog surfing this afternoon and among other things I found a post about organic Kraft Mac & Cheeze . Puleeze...

I guess my joke about the organic Twinkie is beginning to hit close to reality. I guess in the era of processed industrial organic food (as opposed to whole organic foods raised locally) this sort of thing is to be expected. But do not confuse this processed crap with something that is good tasting and good for you. Just because it sez its' organic does not mean it is not crap.

Click here to read this person's account of eating the stuff (ugh)

ABC News Running Series on Organic Foods

Organic Food Really a Better Buy?
'World News' Launches Organic Food Series as
Industry Moves From Small Farms to Major Retailers
By BETH TRIBOLET

MARIN COUNTY, Calif., Nov. 22, 2006 - - Marin
County organic beef rancher Dave Evans stands in
a pasture calling his cows, and it's a sight that
could make an old cowhand cry.
Watch "World News" Nov. 27, 28 for our special series on organic food

"Hey boys. Hey girls. Come on," he said. They
look and moo, then they come ambling in. No
lassos necessary.
In Marin County, often called the birthplace of
organic food, cows are so happy they come when
they're called.
The lush seaside community north of San Francisco
embraced organic farming decades ago and
continues to promote the foods as the
fast-growing industry expands well beyond the
region.
Propelled by food scares over mad cow disease and
E.coli infection, organics have boomed
nationwide, growing by as much as 20 percent
annually. Americans spent $14 billion on organic
food last year, according to the Organic Trade
Association.
In some regions, the demand for organic products exceeded supply.
"Most people come into the organic marketplace
and the key motivating factors are health and
nutrition. That's the message that is really
getting out to consumers," said Sam Fromartz,
author of "Organic Inc." about the growth of the
organic foods marketplace.

Setting a Good Example for the Industry

In Marin, farmers run successful small organic
operations that sell to local markets and
high-end restaurants, because the Bay Area, home
to fresh California cuisine, takes healthful food
seriously. The major selling point in organic is
the lack of pesticides, fertilizers, growth
hormones, radiation or bioengineered products.
Federal organic standards require that animals
have access to outdoor pasture. Marin farmers are
so committed to organic principles that they
often go above and beyond basic requirements by
giving their cows room to roam in fresh air and
bucolic environs, and providing them with
excellent nutrition and an overall good life.
Anita Sauber, who works for the county to certify
that Marin's farmers uphold U.S. Department of
Agriculture organic standards, said this group
does not require a lot of policing. In fact her
employer, the Marin County Department of
Agriculture, has rarely had to issue sanctions
for failing to meet organic standards.
Six years ago when they began issuing
certifications, there were only a few hundred
acres of organic farms. Today it's pushing 20,000
acres, still only 20 percent of the county but
growing rapidly.

Paying More 'Worth the Money


But who can afford organic food ?
A major complaint about these items is high
prices. By one estimate some organic products can
cost as much as 50 percent more than conventional
grocery products, as the extra time and energy
used to grow organic food combined with
small-scale production leads to higher prices.
But that's not turning away all customers. Los
Angeles resident Nicole Lewis is raising two
boys, ages 1 and 4, and said she first began
buying organic food after her first baby was born.
"Everything changes when you turn into a mother
and you are 100 percent responsible for a human
being," she said.
In a recent shopping trip to natural foods
wholesaler Whole Foods, she discussed the
difference between grass-fed and organic beef
with the butcher before deciding to buy a cut of
organic filet mignon for the holidays.
Looking at baby Isaiah in the stroller she said,
"It's worth the money to know that I'm not going
to be giving him pesticides. If there's an
organic option I'm pretty much always going to
pick the organic option."
Last spring megaretailer Wal-Mart began offering
mainstream brand organic foods, signaling the
products on the shelves with special green signs.
Wal-Mart's idea is to bring the cost down for
those on tighter budgets.
The company promises the best prices in the
organic marketplace. According to Fromartz, this
is evidence that "organic has really gone into
the mainstream."
But megaretailers in the organic family are not
always welcome by the organic diehards.
Dave Evans in Marin favors growing and selling
locally, and worries that when organics go
mainstream quality is lost and the environment
suffers. "Does it make sense to fly an organic
product 2,000 miles when you can buy an equally
good organic product right down the road?" he
asked.
He said local food distribution saves on fossil
fuels both in costs and pollutants released into
the atmosphere. He raises cows at his Marin Sun
Farms, and also sells the beef at his butcher
shop in nearby Point Reyes Station.
He estimates that his beef never travels more
than 200 miles, allowing him to cultivate rapport
with his clients. His farthest customer, Stanford
University, buys hamburger patties
"I am a relationship marketer, which means I sell
to everyone I know. I know my customers," he said.
And he promises that you can taste the difference
in the meat he sells. Holding a slab of rib eye
with a line of flavorful fat intersecting it, he
said he also knows a great organic zinfandel to
go with it. You can bet that with neighbors like
the Napa and Sonoma wine countries, the grapes
were also locally grown.


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