RSN Fundraising Banner
FB Share
Email This Page
add comment

writing for godot

Fed Shutdown Forces Ceasefire in Organic War: USDA Louisville Meeting Canceled

Print
Friday, 11 October 2013 00:57
Organic Advocates Railing Against Industry/Obama Administration Power Grab

http://www.cornucopia.org/2013/10/fed-shutdown-forces-cease-fire-organic-war-usda-louisville-meeting-canceled/
CORNUCOPIA, WI: As collateral damage spreads, with Congress continuing at
loggerheads over a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government, the
newest victims include farmers and consumers who depend on the USDA to
oversee the propriety and integrity of the organic industry.

In a unique regulatory structure, Congress created the National Organic
Standards Board
(NOSB)(http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateQ&navID=NationalOrganicProgram&leftNav=NationalOrganicProgram&page=NOSBHome&description=NOSB&acct=nosb)
to advise the USDA Secretary on policies impacting the organic industry and
to specifically oversee and carefully review for approval any synthetic and
non-organic material and ingredient used in organic farming and food
production. Additionally, the NOSB reviews the approved substances that
"sunset," as the law governing organics requires that the materials be
reevaluated every five years.

Now, the semiannual NOSB meeting, scheduled for the week of October 21, in
Louisville, Kentucky, has been canceled. An e-mail distributed October 1 by
Miles McEvoy for the National Organic Program, stated the meeting would be
cancelled if a budget was not put in place by Thursday, October 10 at 5 p.m.
EST.

"Progress in managing the organic industry, enforcement and oversight have
all come to a screeching halt with the gridlock in Washington," stated Mark
A. Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst for the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia
Institute (http://www.cornucopia.org/).

The organic industry has been engaged in their own battle, pitting
agribusiness interests and their lobby group, the Organic Trade Association
(http://www.ota.com/index.html), in frequent conflict with public interest
groups representing the farmers, consumers, environmentalists and co-op
retailers who helped build what is now a vibrant $30 billion industry.

The latest dustup concerns a power grab by the USDA that arbitrarily changes
the rules for approval of synthetic and non-organic materials used in
organics. When Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990,
it created a diverse 15-member NOSB with a minority of corporate
agribusiness representatives. And in an attempt to push the oversight of
the industry towards consensus, the regulations require a two-thirds
majority for "decisive" votes like reapproving a synthetic material for use
in organics after it sunsets.

"The USDA has now turned the entire sunset process on its head," said Barry
Flamm, former NOSB chairman and chair of the policy development subcommittee
for four years. "The Board’s Policy and Procedures Manual, revised over the
past few years, requires a vigorous sunset review which is beginning to show
in the decisions. The USDA's National Organic Program's (NOP) recent action
disregards the Board’s policies and the Organic Act. Importantly, instead
of needing a super-majority of the Board every five years to continue using
a synthetic in organics, the NOP has, without the legally required
consultation with the NOSB, published an edict in the Federal Register
(http://69.175.53.6/register/2013/Sep/16/2013-22439.pdf) requiring a
two-thirds vote to instead remove a material," Flamm explained.

Another highly respected former NOSB chairman, James Riddle, commented on
the unilateral switch in policy by the USDA's National Organic Program.
"The use of synthetic substances in organic production and processing is an
exception, not an entitlement," Riddle said. "There must be an affirmative
decisive vote of the NOSB for substances on the National List to be renewed.
Without affirmative decisive votes of the NOSB, substances sunset after five
years."

In 2012, The Cornucopia Institute published a report entitled The Organic
Watergate
(http://www.cornucopia.org/2012/05/the-organic-watergate-advocates-condemn-corruption-and-usdas-cozy-relationship-with-corporate-agribusinesses-in-organics-2/),
profiling what it called a corrupt relationship between giant agribusinesses
that had invested in organics and USDA officials. The report exposed the
existence of biased technical reviews of synthetic materials considered by
the NOSB and the stacking of the Board with agribusiness executives in seats
that Congress reserved for farmers, scientists and other independent
stakeholders.

"We focused sunlight on the fraud and deception in the process. The result
was a turnaround in the NOSB, which has acted more judiciously in preventing
some synthetics from entering the organic production stream," said Mark
Kastel, Cornucopia's Codirector.

Since the release of that report, the NOSB has denied petitions for several
synthetic preservatives proposed for use in infant formula, rejected
unnecessary additives like sugar beet fiber (likely made from GMOs), and
voted to discontinue the use of tetracycline, an antibiotic used to control
fireblight on apples and pears, because of concerns regarding human health
and environmental impact.

"The OTA and its members (WhiteWave, Kellogg's, Smuckers, Safeway, etc.)
have seemingly lost control with the process at the National Organic
Standards Board," observed Cornucopia's Kastel.

"In response it appears that the USDA is changing the rules of the game
making it virtually impossible to remove synthetics from use in organics,"
added Flamm.

In a blog posting
(http://organicmattersblog.com/2013/10/01/stop-the-lies-and-get-behind-your-national-organic-program/)
Melody Meyer, the newly elected board chair of the OTA and the Vice
President of Policy and Industry Relations for United Natural Foods, Inc.
(UNFI), had a decisively different take on the USDA's announced sunset
changes. She called for supporting the "gusto and vigor the program [NOP]
delivers to our growing industry" while simultaneously describing the
concerns by public interest groups as "lies" and "bogus."

In addition to The Cornucopia Institute's concerns about the USDA power
grab, the reaction from some of the most prominent public interest
representatives in the organic arena has been swift in universally
condemning the procedural changes at the NOSB.

The Organic Consumers Association is circulating an electronic petition that
now has over 11,000 virtual signatures condemning the USDA power grab.
Other noted organic advocates, including Consumers Union, Food and Water
Watch, Beyond Pesticides, and Center for Food Safety have issued statements
challenging the reversal in organic governance.

"The USDA might have received a temporary reprieve with the cancellation of
the NOSB meeting this month in Louisville, but the stakeholders who truly
care about the integrity of the organic label, and the principles it was
founded upon, are not going away," affirmed Kevin Engelbert, a certified
organic dairy farmer from New York and another former NOSB member.

Since the release of the Organic Watergate report, the USDA has also taken
away the right of the NOSB to review conflicts of interest from Board
members and technical advisors with corporate entanglements. The USDA has
refused to follow NOSB annotations, or stipulations, governing the use of
synthetic materials such as not allowing the additive carrageenan to be used
in organic infant formula (well documented in independent research to be
injurious to health and banned by other worldwide regulatory bodies).

The Cornucopia Institute has also criticized the USDA for siding with
corporate interests on enforcement actions. When it was learned that giant
factory farms were confining chickens, sometimes 100,000 to a building, and
not affording them "access to the outdoors" as required by organic law, the
USDA sanctioned a loophole allowing the use of tiny porches, only holding a
small percentage of birds, as a legal substitute for outside access.

"The institutional bias at the USDA, in favor of biotechnology and
industrial-scale agriculture, needs to stop at its National Organic
Program," said Flamm, the former NOSB chairman. "It should not take a court
challenge to have political appointees and civil servants uphold the statute
passed by Congress to protect farmers, ethical business participants, and
consumers, engaged in organic commerce."


-30-



The Cornucopia Institute is a nonprofit organization engaged in research and
educational activities supporting the ecological principles and economic
wisdom underlying sustainable and organic agriculture. Through research and
investigations on agricultural and food issues, The Cornucopia Institute
provides needed information to family farmers, consumers, stakeholders
involved in the good food movement, and the media.October 11, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042

Federal Shutdown Forces Ceasefire in Organic War
USDA Organics Meeting Canceled in Louisville

e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
Email This Page

 

THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.

RSNRSN