NYT Editorial: Keep Organic Organic

[nosmokes]

original

New York Times Editorial: Keep Organic Organic

>From The New York Times
November 4, 2005
Editorial

An Organic Drift

Organic food has become a very big business, with a 20 percent annual growth
rate in sales in recent years. But popularity has come at a price. Ever
since 2002, when the Department of Agriculture began its program of national
organic certification, there has been a steady lobbying effort to weaken
standards in a way that makes it easier for the giant food companies, which
often use synthetic substances in processing, to enter the organic market.
That's exactly why many organic farmers greeted the U.S.D.A.'s organic seal
with real trepidation. They know that the one thing the department has
always done especially well is to capitulate to the lobbying pressure of big
food and big agriculture.

Last week, an amendment was slipped into the agricultural spending bill
without meaningful debate in a closed-door Republican meeting. It would do
two things. It would overturn a court decision reinstating the old legal
standard that prohibits synthetic substances in organic foods. And it would
allow the agriculture secretary to approve synthetic substances if no
organic substitute was commercially available.

In part, this is a battle over a label. The big producers, which often use
synthetic materials in processing, want to call their processed foods
organic because that designation commands premium prices. They do not want
to say their products are made with organic ingredients - a lesser
designation that allows more synthetics. This is also a cultural battle, a
struggle between the people who have long kept the organic faith - despite
the historic neglect of the U.S.D.A. - and industry giants that see a
rapidly expanding and highly profitable niche that can be pried open even
further with lobbying.

"Organic" is not merely a label, a variable seal of approval at the end of
the processing chain. It means a way of raising crops and livestock that is
better for the soil, the animals, the farmers and the consumers themselves -
a radical change, in other words, from conventional agriculture.
~snip~
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. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Metta]

1. Too little, too late. Isn't it already over, for now?

That's my understanding.

[nosmokes]

2. pressure can still be put on the NOSB and congress

and this can issue can be revisited, especially when they realise that we'll remember their votes come november. it's an uphill battle though, for sure. contacting the companies that support these changes wouldn't hurt either.

[Metta]

3. I appreciate your words.

I already belong to a couple of organic groups so let's see what we can do.