Fwd: Fw: Food fascism -Forwarded

sal (sals@rain.org)
Fri, 06 Mar 1998 06:29:19 -0800

>Reply-to: bd-l@biodynamics.com
>Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 22:24:16 -0500
>To: bd-l@biodynamics.com
>From: John Spencer <JSPENCER@FCC.GOV> (by way of BIODYNAMIC MAIL LIST)
>Subject: Fw: Food fascism=A0 -Forwarded
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: MichaelP <papadop@PEAK.ORG>
>To: unlikely.suspects <:;;@earthlink.net>
>Date: Thursday, March 05, 1998 8:53 AM
>Subject: Food fascism
>
>
>>
>>The [London] Guardian=A0 March 5 1998
>>
>>US plans would banish genuine organic produce
>>
>>FOOD FASCISM
>>
>>George Monbiot
>>
>>OPRAH WINFREY is an unlikely hero of the battle against big business.=A0 Yet
>>the case she won last week, in which she established her right to express
>>an opinion about the merits of eating beefburgers, ranks with the
>>McDonald's libel trial as one of the few serious setbacks suffered by the
>>agro-industrial combines seeking to monopolise world food production.
>>
>>She had been sued, by a syndicate of monster cattle ranchers, under the
>>surreal "food disparagement" laws introduced in 14 American states to
>>prevent people from questioning such practices as feeding bovine offal to
>>cows.
>>
>>These laws are a compelling demonstration of the lengths to which US
>>legislators will go to defend the interests of corporations against the
>>interests of the citizen.=A0 We can only be thankful that there's an ocean
>>between us and American plutocracy.
>>
>>Our happy state won't last, however.=A0 Winfrey might have won her battle,
>>but the war waged by an industry that can tolerate no dissent has only
>>just begun.=A0 Its latest attempt to silence criticism and eliminate good
>>practice is already well-advanced, and this time the consequences for
>>Britain are just as profound as the consequences for America.
>>
>>ON MARCH 16, the US Department of Agriculture will close its consultations
>>on a new national standard for organic farming.=A0 Its proposals have
>>horrified small farmers, consumer groups and animal welfare campaigners.
>>If adopted and implemented as protesters predict, they will outlaw genuine
>>organic production all over the world.
>>
>>The USDA would allow fruit and vegetables to be labelled "organic" in the
>>United States which have been genetically engineered, irradiated, treated
>>with additives and raised on contaminated sewage sludge.=A0 Under the new
>>proposals, "organic" livestock can be housed in batteries, fed with the
>>offal of other animals and injected with biotics.=A0 "Organic" produce, in
>>the brave new world of American oligopoly, will be=20 virtually
>>indistinguishable from conventionally-toxic food.
>>
>>The solution would seem to be obvious: genuine organic producers should
>>call their food something else.=A0 But the USDA is nothing if not
>>far-sighted.=A0 The new proposals prohibit the setting of standards higher
>>than those established by the department.=A0 Farmers will, in other words,
>>be forbidden by law from producing and selling good food.
>>
>>The next step, if these standards are adopted in the United States, is not
>>hard to anticipate.=A0 American manufacturers will complain to their
>>government that the European Union is erecting unfair barriers to trade,
>>by refusing to allow them to label the poisonous produce they sell here as
>>organic food.=A0 The US Government will take the case to the World Trade
>>Organization.=A0 The WTO will refer it to Codex Alimentarius, the food
>>standards body dominated by corporate scientists.=A0 The Codex panel will
>>decide that they cannot see -any difference between American organic
>>produce and European organic produce, and the WTO will threaten Europe
>>with punitive sanctions if it continues to maintain the higher trading
>>standard.=A0 This is precisely the means by which European consumers are
>>being forced to eat beef and drink milk contaminated with injectable
>>growth hormones.
>>
>>There's no mystery about why US agribusiness wants its Washington
>>subsidiary, the USDA, to set these new standards.=A0 The consumption of
>>organic food is rising by 20-30 per cent a year and, in some countries, is
>>likely to become the dominant land use.=A0 Organic farming is labour
>>intensive.=A0 It responds best to small-scale production, matched to the
>>peculiarities of the land.
>>
>>Big business simply can't operate in an environment like this.=A0 There is
>>no potential for hegemony.=A0 What it can't control, it must destroy. The
>>United States government claims to be the champion of free trade, but it
>>is, in truth, emphatically opposed to it.=A0 It seeks instead to exercise a
>>coercive power of central control and legislative diktat, on a scale which
>>makes the command economies of the old Soviet Union look like a village
>>paper-round.
>>
>>I've long believed that we should be allowed to vote in US elections, as
>>their outcome affects us almost as much as it affects the Americans.
>>British people now have a brief opportunity to do the next best thing, and
>>demand of the USDA that it drops this attempt to smother the seeds of
>>rehabilitation.=A0 There are no second chances.=A0 Once the new standards come
>>into force, our own Government will be powerless to protect us from the
>>consequences.
>>
>>** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
>>is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
>>in receiving the included information for research and educational
>>purposes. **
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
An organic growers homepage check out
http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html

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