Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0522-09.htm  "Outcry Over Rule 
Changes that Allow More Pesticides, Hormones"

http://www.organicconsumers.org/News/foodByt3.html
History of the weakening of the word "organic" after the USDA got involved.

Involvement by the feds has turned factory farms into organic farms.  Free 
range chickens into chickens that are "caged" in warehouses and never see 
the light of day.  Organic dairies into cement pad "caged" cow factories. 
Add in WallyWorld and you might as well hand over the "keys" to organic 
farming to Monsanto!

James and I don't agree on much <g> but we do on what has happened to 
"organic."  Anything the feds touch turned to shit and not the kind we use 
to grow veggies!

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
> Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:
>
> > What has been happening for several years now to pave the way for
> > WalMart to
> >
> > mass market cheap organic produce is a gradual weakening or the definition 
> > of
> > 'organic', not that the USDA definition isn't weak enough already.
> >
> > Back in the unshaven hippie days of organic food a pile of manure was a 
> > good
> > sign and chemical nitrates were completely verboden!    Now the manure 
> > pile
> > does not qualify as organic unless it is turned and mixed in a very 
> > certain
> > unproductive way which is out of the reach of small producers.  Yet 
> > chemical
> > nitrate is permitted since you COULD be using imported and expensive bat 
> > guano; but
> > chemical nitrate produced from fossil fuel is CHEMICALLY the same thing so
> > it's OK to use it (up to 20% of total nitrogen).