Sneak Attack on Organic Standards

[Guest guest]

Hi,

When I saw this alert, I thought of you. I hope you don't mind me sending it

your way...

 

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