Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Not so organic now
In the US, Congress, bowing to corporate pressure as ever,is ready to pass a law that will allow certain artificial ingredients to be included in "organic" products so that the food conglomerates can get in on the act. The organic consumers association has put out an SOS.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 Bush appointees in the USDA National Organic Program to create a broad list of synthetic ingredients that would be allowed in 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.
via CityHippy
Technorati tag: OrganicFood
posted by I at 6:20 am
