Subject: A Call For a New Food Movement
Date: April 29, 1998
From: Paul Fleckenstein <paul.fleckenstein@uvm.edu> and dbriars@sover.net
Beyond Organic
Rejecting National Organic Standards and A Call For a New Food Movement
By Michael Colby
The U.S. Department of Agricultures (USDA) unseemly foray into the world
of organic agriculture became official last December with the release of
its National Organic Standards, a dismal and dumbed down 600 -plus page
document that has one ultimate purpose: the further industrialization of
organic agriculture. This USDA power grab set off an unprecedented amount
of hand-wringing in the safe food and sustainable agriculture communities
that, unfortunately, focused almost exclusively on how to incrementally
modify a set of standards that are rotten to the core. Lost amid the flurry
of "action alerts" demanding that we all "politely and unemotionally" beg
the USDA to do a little bit better, was any contemplation of the fact that
so much of the organic-related "movement" has been co-opted by traditional
market forces and largely reduced to just another business in the nearly
single-minded pursuit of profits.