Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>]

Bush Administration moving to allow corporate takeover of organics
http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm#action

Over the past few weeks America's organic standards have once again come 
under heavy attack. First the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP) announced 
on April 14 that they would no longer monitor or police "organic" labels on 
non-agricultural products, literally opening the door for unscrupulous 
companies to put bogus organic labels on products such as fish, body care 
products, pet foods, fertilizer, and clothing.

In the case of seafood and body care products, the marketplace is already 
starting to become flooded with products bearing the organic label, even 
though the production methods (industrial fish farms) or content ("organic" 
shampoos with organic claims based upon added water) in many of these 
products violate traditional organic principles. Besides giving the green 
light to bogus organic labels the new USDA "scope policy" penalizes genuine 
organic companies that have begun sourcing, certifying, and labeling their 
products as organic.

Corporate agribusiness and the biotech lobby have apparently decided that 
strict organic farming practices and the booming organic market constitute a 
threat to their bottom line, and have called on their friends in the Bush 
administration USDA to degrade organic standards and prepare for a 
restructuring of organic production so as to facilitate the use of industrial 
agriculture practices such as pesticides, antibiotics, non-organic feed, 
growth hormones and even genetically engineered animal drugs.
(For more info on corporate agribusiness control of U.S. government, click 
here)

USDA's NOP announced on April 28 controversial new directives/guidance 
statements on national organic standards including:

"Organic" Crops Raised with Pesticides?
The USDA has now stated that as long as the farmer and the organic certifier 
don't know the specific ingredients of the pesticides applied to the 
"organic" plants, the crops can be sold as "organic". To make matters worse, 
it is not required by law for pesticide companies to list the ingredients on 
their products (it's considered proprietary information), so the farmers 
rarely know what the specific ingredients are.
(Read full USDA pesticide statement here)
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/Compliance/PesticidesCompliance.pdf


"Organic" Dairy Cows Injected with Antibiotics and Synthetic Hormones?
The USDA has announced that individual cows can be treated with any kind of 
drug at any time, including synthetic growth hormones, but milk can only be 
sold from that cow 12 months after that treatment. The problem with this 
directive is that it opens up the door for split operation factory style 
dairy farms, whereby organic and non-organic dairy operations are carried out 
simultaneously, and hundreds if not thousands of "organic" dairy cows are 
kept in intensive confinement. Not only are industrial sized dairy farms bad 
for the environment, but they inevitably give rise to sick cows who have to 
be treated with drugs. Of course many of these drugs build up in the body fat 
and are released in the milk and meat from these animals.. If this new 
directive is allowed to stand, organic milk could potentially contain 
residues of drugs and hormones.
(Read full USDA dairy statement here)
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/NOP/GuidanceStatements/AntibioticGuidance041304.pdf


Mercury and PCBs Allowed in "Organic" Beef?
The USDA also stated on April 28 that non-organic fishmeal can be fed to 
cattle and the beef can still be sold as "organic". Fishmeal is used as a 
protein supplement on conventional cattle ranches, but it frequently contains 
mercury, PCBs and other synthetic chemicals. Mercury and PCBs are 
"bioacculmulators" meaning they are concentrated and stored in the "meat" of 
the animal.
(Read full USDA livestock feed statement here)
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/NOP/GuidanceStatements/FishmealGuidance041304.pdf