Urgent! Take Action to Save Organic Standards

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Thought you might find this interesting.

 

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) needs your

immediate help to stop Congress and the Bush

administration from seriously degrading organic

standards. After 35 years of hard work, the U.S.

organic community has built up a multi-billion dollar

alternative to industrial agriculture, based upon

strict organic standards and organic community control

over modification to these standards.

 

Now, large corporations such as Kraft & Dean

Foods--aided and abetted by the U.S. Department of

Agriculture (USDA), are moving to lower organic

standards by allowing a Bush appointee to create a

list of synthetic ingredients that would be allowed

organic production. Even worse these proposed

regulatory changes will reduce future public

discussion and input and take away the National

Organic Standards Board's (NOSB) traditional lead

jurisdiction in setting standards. What this means, in

blunt terms. is that USDA bureaucrats and industry

lobbyists, not consumers, will now have more control

over what can go into organic foods and products.

 

This week, acting in haste and near-total secrecy, the

U.S. Senate will vote on a " rider " to the 2006

Agriculture Appropriations Bill that will reduce

control over organic standards from the National

Standards Board and put this control in the hands of

federal bureaucrats in the USDA (remember the USDA

proposal in 1997-98 that said that genetic

engineering, toxic sludge, and food irradiation would

be OK on organic farms, or USDA suggestions in 2004

that heretofore banned pesticides, hormones, tainted

feeds, and animal drugs would be OK?).

 

For the past week in Washington, OCA has been urging

members of the Senate not to reopen and subvert the

federal statute that governs U.S. Organic standards

(the Organic Food Production Act - OFPA), but rather

to let the organic community and the National Organic

Standards resolve our differences over issues like

synthetics and animal feed internally, and then

proceed to a open public comment period. Unfortunately

most Senators seem to be listening to industry

lobbyists more closely than to us. We need to raise

our voices.

 

In the past, grassroots mobilization and mass pressure

by organic consumers have been able to stop the USDA

and Congress from degrading organic standards. This

time Washington insiders tell us that the " fix is is

already in. " So we must take decisive action now. We

need you to call your U.S. Senators today. We need you

to sign the following petition and send it to everyone

you know. We also desperately need funds to head off

this attack in the weeks and months to come. Thank you

for your support. Together we will take back citizen

control over organic standards and preserve organic

integrity.

 

Take action here:

http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1242

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005