The following excerpt really bothers me because the organic and sustainable
producers, researchers, and supporters don't seem to have much educational
impact and perhaps less media savvy and presence. How do we combat
articles like this one?
It sounds as if it were once two separate publication: The Agricultural
Credit Letter and the Washington Farmletter. It seems to be published
privately by David Swit, James C Webster, email agletter@aol.com.
The April 3, 1998 edition of The Webster Agricultural Letter has as its
first article "New Warning Label? Organic Food May Be Dangerous to Your
Health." It says, "On at least two counts, and likely many more, their
strident insistence on excluding the products of genetic engineering and
irradiation risks creating an organic class of foods with greater food
poisoning risk and less able to promote good health than traditional foods.
. . . their industry would be saddled with a code denying it some of the
most promising nutritional and health (and environmental) advances in human
histroy and refusing techniques to enhance food safety. Unless it adapts,
the 'organic' niche riskes being frozen in time, not competitive with
conventional food marketers in the vanguard of exponential gains in food
science. . . . National Food Processors Association . . . Regina Hildwine
[says], 'there is no scientifically supportable reason to exclude them
[irradiation and genetic engineering].
Karen Mundy
Rural Economics Analysis Program
Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics (0401)
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061
(540) 231-9443
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