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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] America's Organic Standards Under Attack
  • Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 17:01:14 -0400


Subject: ALERT (US): America's Organic Standards Under
Attack
From: "GRACE Public Fund" <alerts AT gracepublicfund.org>
Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 12:51:19 -0400

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

USDA'S NATIONAL ORGANIC PROGRAM (NOP) HAS ANNOUNCED
CONTROVERSIAL NEW DIRECTOVES ON NATIONAL ORGANIC STANDARDS.

Over the past few weeks America's organic standards have
once again come under heavy attack. First the USDA's 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 addition, the USDA will now permit pesticides on crops,
artificial growth hormones to be injected into cows, and
mercury and PCB's in fishmeal fed to cattle.

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.

ARTIFICIAL GROWTH HORMONE
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.

MERCURY AND PCB'S IN FEED FED TO CATTLE
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.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm
Click above to go to the Organic Consumers Association to
send a letter to Secretary Anne Veneman, voicing your
concerns over the degradation of our organic standards.
These changes were made without any public comment period,
so now is the time to voice your concerns!


==============================================
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http://www.gracepublicfund.org/farming/

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