Sneak Attack on Organic Standards

[Guest guest]

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, Wal-Mart, & Dean

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

Agriculture (USDA) are moving to lower organic standards by

allowing a Bush appointee to create a list of synthetic

ingredients that would be allowed organic production. Even

worse these proposed regulatory changes will reduce future

public discussion and input and take away the National

Organic Standards Board's (NOSB) traditional lead

jurisdiction in setting standards. What this means, in blunt

terms. is that USDA bureaucrats and industry lobbyists, not

consumers, will now have more control over what can go into

organic foods and products.

 

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 20, acting in haste and near-total

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

Agriculture Appropriations Bill that will reduce control

over organic standards from the National Standards Board and

put this control in the hands of federal bureaucrats in the

USDA (remember the USDA proposal in 1997-98 that said that

genetic engineering, toxic sludge, and food irradiation

would be OK on organic farms, or USDA suggestions in 2004

that heretofore banned pesticides, hormones, tainted feeds,

and animal drugs would be OK?).

 

For the past week in Washington, OCA has been urging members

of the Senate not to reopen and subvert the federal statute

that governs U.S. Organic standards (the Organic Food

Production Act - OFPA), but rather to let the organic

community and the National Organic Standards resolve our

differences over issues like synthetics and animal feed

internally, and then proceed to a open public comment

period. Unfortunately most Senators seem to be listening to

industry lobbyists more closely than to us. We need to raise

our voices.

 

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

 

Take action now at

http://www.democracyinaction.org/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1242