The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) needs your immediate help

[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. (*Send a quick

letter to your Congressperson online here:*

http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm)

 

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. (*Send a quick letter to your Congressperson online here:*

http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm)

 

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 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.

 

- For more information go to the

SOS<http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm>section on our website

- Click here to donate

<http://www.organicconsumers.org/donations.htm>money to OCA's SOS—Save

Organic Standards—Campaign

- Call the Capital Switchboard here: 877-762-8762

- *Send a quick letter to your Congressperson online here:*

http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm

 

Thanks,

 

ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION

6771 South Silver Hill Drive

Finland, MN 55603

Phone: (218)-353-7454 Fax: (218) 353-7652

 

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