T R A N S I T I O N S
Steve Sprinkel
TDA certified organic farmer
McDade, Texas
national organics editor, ACRES, USA
July, 1998
Forks in the Road
It’s not that the organic farming movement had not faced large challenges
before the USDA released the Proposed Rule on the National Organic Program at
the end of 1997.
Corporate farmers entering the organic produce market provoked some hardships
which we were able to overcome in the mid-1980s. In the 1990s consolidation in
wholesale and retail distribution followed suit, and most small farm organic
producers capably responded by selling closer to home by building a consumer
base through farmer’s markets, community supported agriculture and direct
marketing to the gourmet trade.
The challenges the organic movement faces in mid-1998 are more complex and
troublesome than anything we have faced before, and they make the aborted
false-makeover of federal organic standards look like much smaller potatoes.
Take for example “globalization” as a metaphor, not just as a marketing and
communication concept, but as a biological imperative. We may be able to keep
genetic engineering out of US or Codex Alimentarius ( international) organic
standards on paper, but, knowing what we do about nature, will it be possible
to sequester our growing areas from genetic contamination while the wind
drifts and bees and other pollinators fly?
Welcome to the Sci-Fi Movie
Fact we wish was still fiction: also known as the 21st century, and seemingly
scripted by Robert Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke, we are about to merge into a
new century and a new millennium bracketed by scientific discoveries that are
being commercialized before the test tubes have dried on the rack. The
business community generally , and some health consumers, long had railed
against the FDA and EPA’s long evaluation periods before releasing new
products for use. When it took office, the current federal administration
promised to speed up that process, and they did, right when the most
threatening technology of all was poised to go online: genetic engineering.
We’re not talking about Rhone-Poulenc’s new formula for another
organophosphate pesticide, or an arthritis remedy based on the synthetic mimic
of an obscure plant from Sri Lanka. Take patent number 5,723,765 for example.
The Terminator
The ability of seed manufacturers ( we can’t really call them “growers” for
very much longer ) to produce seed that will grow a crop but will produce seed
that is sterile was briefly discussed here during the spring’s myopia over the
NOP. Monsanto/Delta Pine and Land Co. and the USDA ( well, what do you know?)
are the co-owners of this technology. ( please see separate commentary by
Guidetti)
An article in the New Scientist of June, 1998 stated: “ Terminator technology:
that's what farmers are calling a breakthrough in genetic engineering designed
to prevent the seeds of agricultural crops from germinating. They fear it
could spell the end of the tradition in poorer countries of saving seed from
one season’s crop to replace the next.
The patent owners expect the technique to be adopted within the next five
years by all the major seed companies, which have been looking for ways to
prevent farmers from recycling seeds from their crops for many years.
"It's terribly dangerous," says Hope Shand of the Rural Advancement
Foundation International, a pressure group based in Canada. "Half the
world's farmers are poor and can't afford to buy seed every growing season.
Yet they grow 15 to 20 per cent of the world's food."
The technology depends on a promoter sequence from a gene calle llate
embryogenesis abundant (LEA) that activates the gene to which it is attached
only when the plant's seeds are maturing. The researchers attached the LEA
promoter to a gene that
produces a protein which prevents germination.
Melvin Oliver of the USDA's labs in Lubbock, Texas, who invented the
technique, claims that seeds manipulated in this way will grow into healthy
plants that produce sterile seeds. He anticipates that it will be welcomed by
seed companies, who regard the replanting of seeds as theft of their
intellectual property. "Our system is a way of self-policing the unauthorized
use of American technology," says Oliver. "It's similar to copyright
protection." Willard Phelps, a spokesman for the USDA, predicts
that the new technique will soon be so widely adopted that farmers will only
be able to buy seeds that cannot be re-germinated. "
But Camila Montecinos of the Center for Education and Technology in
Santiago, Chile, which works with local farmers, is calling on governments
to outlaw the new technology. "This is an immoral technique that robs
farming communities of their age old right to save seed," she says. "It
should be banned." ( New Scientist, June 1998)
It is possible to mitigate and prevent pesticide drift, to site an organic
farm where there is not water pollution that would compromise the integrity of
the product, and we have devised a system that provides for the segregation
of organically produced products to protect consumers.
However, a lawsuit filed in the United Kingdom last month underscores how
organic farming is now exposed to technology that may lead to contamination we
may not be able to plan for: Guy Watson, an organic farmer there, contends
that a genetically modified rapeseed test field will put his adjacent organic
farm at risk and cause him to lose his certification should wild cruciferae
become contaminated from that experiment in the event of cross pollination.
Watson has filed a lawsuit to protect his land from the unpredicted
consequences of the GE plantings. ( Watson later was rebuffed, when the
judicial panel reviewing his suit said that it was without merit.)
“M O N S A N T O: Food.Health.Hope”
That’s what that rug-making, Agent Orange spewing, poison spreading giant
wants Wall Street to believe it stands for now. I’d like to know when the
Department of Justice or the Securities Exchange Commission is going to
formally question the legality of monopolizing US ( and world) agriculture.
The con Monsanto is now running is the most evilly cynical bit of propaganda.
Even a conventional agriculture magazine as careful as Progressive Farmer is
willing to bite the hand that feeds. PF’s July cover story is at least willing
to ask the question:" Should growers be concerned?"
After getting a surprising public spanking during the USDA comment period on
the NOP, when the conventional wisdom put thumbs down on GE in organic
production, the St. Louis-based company is now obliged to spend millions here
and overseas to undo the ill will generated by their partners in crime at the
FDA, USDA and the White House.
That’s right. Way back in 1996 the President provided Monsanto an info-mercial
on the floor of the US Congress during his State of the Union speech when he
told us that he had “Monsanto onboard.”
Or maybe it is Mr. Clinton who Monsanto has onboard the Silver Bullet Express:
GE is touted as the miracle technology that will wean agriculture from
synthetic chemicals.
Once Again, Where is Consumer Protection?
Add the concerns of consumers to this micro-view. As Monsanto conglomerates
much of this technology in a global race against Novartis, DuPont, AgroEvo,
and Pioneer, the St. Louis based manufacturer is spinning off its home and
garden division ( Ortho, etceteras), then merging with American Home Products
so Monsanto will be too big for DuPont to swallow, and then buys Cargill’s
1.4. $B overseas seed production and distribution system to sell their
product in the third world, where the negative news may not have spread and
the World Bank is willing to pay for it routinely. Why isn’t this a monopoly?
These things are important to organic farmers and consumers everywhere because
it further limits our choices in where to plant, what to plant and where to
obtain the seed.
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Last fall we reported that international organic certifier Oregon Tilth, was
working on a program to assure that seed used by the farmers in their program
was not GE contaminated. Soon, we may have to ask ourselves very vexing
questions about the suitability of using cotton seed meal, compost from cotton
gin trash, or alfalfa meal, or fish emulsion, or blood, hoof and horn meal, on
an organic farm when such fertility inputs are potentially a product of
genetically engineered species. Just asking..........
Or, hold on to your hat, what about manures and compost from conventional
livestock operations where GE produced feeds are utilized. Uh-oh. I think I
see a legume-based crop rotation in my farming future. I think I also see a
much more sophisticated market for certified organically produced seed and
planting stock, particularly open pollinated varieties. Such negative
developments end up encircling organic producers, providing fewer and fewer
choices in seed or fertility selection, and they may create opportunities to
innovate. But this is one challenge most of us would rather not have had to
face.
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The UK: Action and Concern
In a recent poll held in the UK, 91% of farmers are very nervous about growing
GM crops.
Activist groups, like the Lincolnshire Loppers, are pulling up GE trial
plantings or scything them down. Such acts of civil disobedience are practical
( people just don’t want plants modified by viruses living near them) and the
actions also contribute to press coverage of the issue. In response, Euro-
based international agribusiness AgroEvo called on the British government to
cease publication of the locations of their test sites.
Alun Rees, writing in The Express (UK) on Tuesday June 30th, reported that
Britain's leading organic farmer has called for an end to all experiments
with genetically modified crops in this country.
Helen Browning, newly appointed chairwoman of the Soil Association ( a private
certification and advocacy organization on par with Oregon Tilth here in the
US) called for the British Government to declare Britain a GMO-free zone.
She believes that this will not only protect our environment but provide a
profitable future for our farmers. In an uncompromising interview with the
Express, Ms Browning gave a stark warning of the global implications of GM
agriculture. She said the danger is that non gm(GM) crops will cross pollinate
with gm(GM) ones.
Meanwhile , material from GM crops, whose new genes are often inserted by
means of a bacteria of virus, could enter the microbe life of the soil,
changing it irrevocably. Browning warned this would mean that eventually all
crops would contain genetically altered material.
The 36 year old mother, who runs an organic farm in Wiltshire said "The
problem is that we do not know and no one knows, what might happen if this
goes wrong.
"The Soil Association would like to see Britain declared a GM free area. It
would be difficult to uphold with GM food already being imported, but at
least we could try. We could find ourselves one of the few places producing
natural crops that would be in demand all over a world dominated by GM foods.
It would be a tremendous selling point."
French Confederation Paysanne Calls for GMO Destruction
In Bagnolet, France on 23 June 1998, the French countrypeoples group
Confederation Paysanne called for the destruction of GE ( or GMO) corn
plantings there. Noting the “ exceptional gravity of the health, social-
economic and social questions posed by the dissemination of GMOs ....and that
consumers have never demonstrated any demand for GMO food and fiber products”,
they conclude that the French farming community now stands at a pivotal fork
in the road.
In their communique, the Confederation saij that, “ the GMO process threatens
the independence of farmers with regard to the multinationals' marketing of
health products and seeds: The Confederation believes that GMO technology
offers " an advantage only to the pharmaco-chemical-seed firms and
industrialized agriculture. Nobody else: neither consumers nor farmers have
any need for it.”
An embargo on $200M of GE corn is also leveraging this action at the
grassroots level. Consumers and farmers are strengthening their collaborative
efforts in order to put the brakes firmly to the GE juggernaut.
The Final NOP Count: 275,000
Far outpacing any previous comment on a USDA Proposed Rule, 275,000 formal
comments were received by the National Organic Program staff, according to
their final and official count. NOP Director Keith Jones, says that it will
take until the end of July to fully “characterize the comments” so that public
input can be used in the drafting of a revised Proposed Rule. We can guardedly
assume that the “ BIG THREE” of Genetic Engineering, Irradiation and Sewage
Sludge will not be included in the revision, which is expected sometime in the
next 6-8 months. Judging from how far off the mark the USDA was in the first
go-round, nothing can be taken for granted. The waste-treatment sector was the
only group in favor of anything that the overwhelming majority of respondents
opposed. Though organic acreage is only 2-3% of the US total in cultivated
farmland, the Bio-solids industry didn’t want anyone casting their “ product”
in a bad light, which is what happened, once John and Jane Consumer realized
for the first time that vast areas of conventional farms receive this
material.
Over 200 members of the US Congress also wrote to USDA Secretary Glickman to
protest the unworkable proposed standards. Now if we can just link that
interest to a complete overhaul of the genetic engineering issue.
Congratulations Consumers
In an article penned for the Albuquerque Journal by Joran Viers , agency
director for the New Mexico Organic Commodity Commission, the state-run
organic certifier in the “ Land of Enchantment”, consumers were highly
praised for the volume and quality of their response to the USDA.
Joran Viers says that Organic is much strengthened and better understood by
virtue of the NOP comment process, and believes that organic agriculture will
continue to expand for the following reasons:
1. People are demanding more control over how and with what their food is
produced. Stories like the recent Wall Street Journal article on the use of
toxic industrial byproducts as unlabeled, unregulated fertilizer ingredients
get people concerned, and they see organic as an alternative based upon a
philosophy of working in a biologically responsible way.
2. The availability of toxic chemicals as pesticides will be increasingly
restricted as the EPA implements the Food Quality Protection Act. For example,
the commonly used soil sterilizer methyl bromide is coming under increasing
fire in California and Florida over potential links to cancer. It doesn't take
a rocket scientist to figure out that a substance toxic to all soil life is
going to be toxic to humans, too. Unfortunately, as evidenced by two
editorials in the most recent issue of New Mexico Farm and Ranch publication,
mainstream agriculture is loath to give up the use of known toxic chemicals.
3. More and more farmers want to take control over how they farm, and to do it
in a way that doesn't leave them worried about their children’s' health.
Farmers can see that the chemical farming treadmill is mostly a benefit to
the companies that manufacture and sell all these products. Science is
beginning to look at organic methods, and it's no surprise that they are
found to be effective.
Federal Appropriations for Organic Production
Liana Hoodes of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture in Pine
Bush, New York, advises that the Senate Agriculture Appropriations
Subcommittee has included the following supportive language in its official
report:
"The Committee expects the Secretary to construct a National Organic Program
that takes into account the needs of small farmers. The Committee directs the
Secretary to establish a progressive user fee scheme so that small farmers,
handlers, and certification agents are not excessively burdened. Furthermore,
the Committee directs that not less than $250,000 of the funds available for
the National Organic Program be used to offset the initial costs of
accreditation services, a subsidy necessary due to the lack of Department
expertise in organic accreditation and insufficient data on the industry.
Also, the Committee directs the Secretary to follow the recommendations of the
National Organic Standards Board, as required by the 1990 farm bill, in
issuing final regulations as to what substances are on the national list."
Organic Field Crops: instability and an answer
Joe Vogelsburg of Kansas, the new Field Crops Committee chair for the Organic
Farmers Marketing Association, has been handed a golden opportunity to build
membership in the cooperative. Early reports from a number of buyers and
distributors note that certain organic grains may not hold on to their high
prices of 1997. Buckwheat will be flooded by Chinese imports, and millet and
milo still lag behind, lacking a federal livestock standard that will amplify
the demand for those grains. And in a letter from American Health and
Nutrition, organic soybean farmers who contracted at $22.00/bu have been
advised that they should accept a new contract at $20.00, due to the Asian
economic free-fall, which AHN calls an “ Act of God.” Unless hail has
flattened all the tofu factories, I don’t think that rationale is going to
wash, and that is where Joe Vogelsburg comes in.
Unless growers have the means to act in concert they will be picked off, one
by one, scattered out as they are across the country. The OFMA marketing
program, while still under development, seems now to be an idea whose time has
come, and Field Crops is the production sector best suited to lead the way.
Dave DeCou, an organic farmer from Eugene, Oregon, is the new OFMA
Produce/Perishables Committee chair. Dave’s principal project will be to
create a better price reporting system, and the committee will begin with
limited reports from the Pacific Coast, Indiana, Iowa and Texas. While
cooperative marketing per se will be much more troublesome for perishables at
the outset, produce growers are much in need of timely price information, and
market availability data. If any organic farmers are interested in an
international organization, built and owned by certified organic farmers, they
can get in touch with the new Organic Farmers Marketing Vice President,
Cecilia Bowman, Organic Farmers Marketing Association Telecommunications
Office. Email: cvof@iquest.net Website:http://www.iquest.net/ofma/. US POST:
8364 S SR 39, Clayton, IN 46118. Telephone:317-539-4317
National Organic Standards Board member Bill Welsh continues as OFMA
President. Other members of the board are: Steve Gilman ( New York), Eric
Kindberg ( Iowa), Marina Buchan ( Canada), Nick Morcenik ( Canada), Paula
Anderson ( Texas) LaRhea Pepper ( Texas), Tom Wittman ( California), Pamela
Saunders ( Wisconsin), Ron Nigh ( Mexico), Jay Feldman ( Washington, DC),
Steve Sprinkel ( Texas ) .
Organic Livestock Standards Under Discussion
Leslie McKinnon, Coordinator of the Organic Certification Program for the
Texas Department of Agriculture, announced at a recent meeting of the TDA
Organic Standards Committee meeting that organic livestock standards will be
reviewed and implemented by the end of 1998. Unlike many states or regions,
Texas still does not have significant organic dairy or egg production, nor
standards for certification that will support the growth of that market. Meat
standards will also be included in those new standards, much to the
satisfaction of organic ranchers like Richard and Peggy Sechrist of
Fredericksburg, Texas, who have been frustrated trying to market their product
in a market flooded by “natural” beef products, for which there are no
standards nor verification. The new standards will govern only Texas-
produced and Texas-marketed livestock, similar to the New Mexico state
program, which utilizes state inspection.
Meanwhile, a national effort to adopt interim organic meat standards, formally
proposed to the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service ( FSIS) has been
renewed this summer, lead by the Coulee Region Organic Production Pool in
Wisconsin and backed by NOSB chair Bob Anderson of Pennsylvania and Diane
Bowen, Executive Director of California Certified Organic Farmers. No one can
argue that it is not reprehensible that after 8 years, US organic livestock
producers have been hung out to dry while the natural labels have garnered the
market for healthy meat products. Will FSIS act promptly now while the
National Organic Program is revising the comprehensive federal standards? Tom
Billy, the FSIS director, will hold meetings with industry representatives
this summer, something that might not have happened if the federal organic
program had not engendered such an immense outpouring of consumer comment this
spring.
Organic Livestock Workshop
The above mentioned topic will be covered in depth at the end of July in
Minnesota:
Farmers, marketing experts and organic certifiers will crack open the
mysteries of USDA requirements for the production, processing and marketing
of organic meat July 30 at the Craig and Joanie Murphy farm near Morris,
Minn. The fee for the workshop, which runs from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., is $5
($4 for Land Stewardship Project members). The fee covers lunch and
informational handouts. To register, call the Land Stewardship Project at
(320) 269-2105. The Murphy farm is five miles south on Highway 59, three
miles west on County Rd. 8, three miles south on County Rd. 7 and then 1/2
mile west. The farm is on the south side of the road.
Topics of this workshop will include processing requirements, humane handling
systems, grading, and target pricing to make the most of a farmer’s bottom
line. This farm workshop and tour will clarify livestock’s role in supporting
a healthy organic system, completing the nutrient cycle and contributing to a
complete whole farm plan.
Presenters will include: Pam Saunders, a beef farmer and coordinator of the
Coulee Region Organic Producer Pool (CROPP); Ben and Karen Cook, organic beef
producers from Adrian, Minn., who market through CROPP; and Ken Knight, owner
of
Knightro Powered Marketing and a consultant to CROPP. CONTACT: Marsha Neff,
LSP (507) 523-3366; lspse@rconnect.com
Hugh Lovel for Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture!
Bio-dynamic Farmer (and ACRES author and contributor ) Hugh Lovel recently
filed his intent to run for Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture with that
state’s Secretary of State's office. He and his campaign manager aim to
qualify him for November's election as the Green Party candidate for
Agriculture Commissioner.
Lovel wants to give consumers of Georgia quality farm products that are vital
and untainted and produced to benefit rather than at the expense of the
environment.
"Can we farm without dangerous chemicals?" he asks rhetorically. "You bet!"
he asserts. "We can't make the transition overnight, of course, but
historically, chemical farming is a very recent notion that cannot last. It's
basically untenable, and it's got farmers on a treadmill where they're losing
ground."
Formerly a psychologist, Hugh quit practice twenty-three years ago to found
Union Agricultural Institute on a sixteen acre tract west of Blairsville near
the North Carolina border. Presently he is a leader in the world-wide bio-
dynamic movement, putting farming back in touch with its roots and getting
farmers off the input treadmill. 75 years of implementation world wide shows
biodynamic methods in the long run are much more economical and productive
than the chemical alternatives. Even more importantly, say its boosters,
biodynamic farming regenerates people, the environment and the Earth.
"Our constituency is everyone who wants to live," says Lovel. "Above all we're
realists. We're dealing with the real issues that Tweedledee and Tweedledum
won't touch. Ecological wisdom, human rights, grassroots government, an
economy for all rather than a few, that's exciting stuff. The very fact we're
emphasizing these values shows we're
realistic about not ignoring what's killing us all. And it's essential to be
real about dealing with these things.”
But what sort of chance does a third-party or independent have in the face of
the two-party monopoly?
"Of course its possible, because its so necessary." says Lovel. "Farming is
generally very ill-paid and hazardous. Production is tainted and devitalized,
and the environment is being wrecked in the process. Who gains? A
tremendously small segment of the population, and if these few only realized
it even they don't gain. Everybody loses, and that's a formula for political
change."
http://www.dirtdoctor.com
Frequent ACRES contributing editor Howard Garrett has taken the internet
another step farther with a new automatic service. You ask a question, and the
computer culls the appropriate answer from the good doctor’s growing
encyclopedia of organic answers and automatically send it to you. Give it a
try.
Thanks to SANET, BAN-GEF and many other correspondents for contributing
important information. If you have organic news in your region, touching on
marketing, certification or production innovations, please send to
<sprinkraft@aol.com>
Later.
Steve Sprinkel
Bastrop County Texas
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