Re: Join the SOS-Save Organic Standards Campaign -Reply
Sal (sals@rain.org)
Sat, 12 Dec 1998 06:48:37 -0800
Thanks for the replay and thanks for being here. I feel that paper No. 3
not letting the certifier decertify is a back door way of taking the right
of Certifiers to certify to a higher standard away from the organic
movement. It is nailing our foot to the floor. I will admit I am not that
good at legal ease and maybe I read the paper 3 wrong but to me this is a
step backwards. It puts the USDA in charge of what we growers and
Certifiers can do. Now look at all the new stuff we organic growers have to
deal with in just the last few years. Gene altered life made in a lab,no
label of milk who cows are injected and a fight to reverse label .
irritation etc. it seem like every other week something comes up where the
USDA is fighting the natural food folks. I feel in my heart that if it was
up to the USDA no one would know what food has been lab altered and what
food is natural. This seems like a way the USDA can stop organic folks that
want natural food when the next poop hits the fan. This is a way to lock
us in to what the USDA wants not what the people want. ok so you give us
no gene altered food or the big three for now but who know what abominations
the USDA will come up with the week after this law passes. I am a grower
and I want due process as much as any man or woman but when you say to get
due process we have to give up our Certifiers right to progress you are
stopping the clock . We at CCOF are democratic and it seems like a lot
comes up all the time we have to decide. Like how to be IFOAM certified and
is this organic or that . every year things come up and we the people in
the movement have to some time go against even the USDA. We have spent
years protecting our label and for you to tell us we can not decertify you
stop this progress cold and the power switches over from the people to the
head of the USDA. We just wanted a standard, a definition of organic not a
federal takeover of our label. We don't trust the USDA to know what organic
is and with good reason . In 8 years they have not be able to come up with a
definition and instead keep us occupied with head trips. You only have to
look at what they ask on their little papers to know they are not to be
trusted when it comes to organic growing. We have to pay for all this and
we get the short in of the stick every time. We the grower give up a buffer
zone. What do you think the big farmers would do if they had to give up
land because of what is going on next to them? We have to pay for
inspections and certifier, pay the State and so forth. Every time some one
else gets into the act we end up paying them. the growers will pay for
every thing don't worry is the cry of all these bureaucrats. I think paper
# 3 is a sneaky way to take certification out of the hands of the people in
the name of due process. Now maybe I am wrong because I am a grower not a
lawyer. you have to forgive people for thinking the USDA is out to screw
the organic folks but that is the way it appears to simple folks watching
this fiasco.. We should not have to fight the USDA tooth and nail just to
do the good we know. And we should not pay extra just to do the good we
know. This is why I vote for getting the USDA monkey off our backs. There
are enough folks with their hand in our pockets now. I don't want to have to
fight them for the rest of my life just to grow food organic. I say we
don't need the USDA to tell us what organic is. I am all ready paying the
certifier,the inspector, the state of Ca. etc. now . enough is enough. how
can we stop this law now and get on with life. I am for getting the USDA
monkey off our backs. This is not what we all thought it was going to be
when we started 8 years ago and it is getting old. you stop the USDA
wickedness one way and they come back at you 3 more ways. We can not win
with these folks because they don't love organic as we do I say lets take
our ball and go home. The NOSB and the USDA have not given us cause for
Optimism. If one cares about the future of the organic program we have to
get this USDA monkey off our backs. I feel after the good folks comment on
these three papers there will be more papers and more papers and this will
space the organic growers out for years. I feel the grower should only have
to pay one party be it the state or the certifier and no more. How many
bureaucratic pencil pushers does one have to pay off to prove we are telling
the truth? Can you tell us that? we have a life to plan and live and your
wasting our time. The organic grower is guilty and has to prove he is
telling the truth every year, year after year after year after year after
year etc. to as many people as ask whatever they ask just for doing the
good we know. And the farmer hauled another load away and from the smell you
can tell it was not hay. The USDA is just trying to ware us down with this
paper after paper to where no one talks back any more. look for more and
more papers after these three till no one cares anymore. It has been 8 long
years of us against the USDA and we can not win so lets take our ball and go
home. I am getting tired of hitting the tar baby.
check out a organic growers web page
http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Grace J Gershuny <Grace_J.Gershuny@usda.gov>
To: Receipt Notification Requested <owner-sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu>; Receipt
Notification Requested <safefood@cp.duluth.mn.us>; Receipt Notification
Requested <sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu>
Cc: Mike I.Hankin@usda.gov (Receipt Notification Requested)
<Mike_I.Hankin@usda.gov>; Receipt Notification Requested
<briant@earth.goddard.edu>
Date: Friday, December 11, 1998 10:58 AM
Subject: RE: Join the SOS-Save Organic Standards Campaign -Reply
>Dear SANETERS,
>
>The misinformation about the proposed organic standards continues
>unabated, and Ronnie Cummins is among the worst perpetrators. I have
>heard that he is claiming to funders that all the people who responded to
>the proposed rule are members of his organization.
>
>Unfortunately, the particular issue that John emphasizes is one that has
>been outrageously twisted to imply all sorts of things that are totally
>false. I have been working on a long rebuttal to the charges made by the
>Pure Food Campaign in an article published in the fall issue of The
>Ecologist. What follows is an excerpt from that (still ufinished)
letter,
>which represents my own knowledge and experience as one of the
>authors of the proposed rule that was pubished last year, and as a
>twenty plus year veteran of the grassroots organic movement (not an
>official USDA position or communication). I wrote it because of my own
>need to set the record straight, and will be glad to post the whole thing
>once it goes out.
>
>organically yours,
>
>Grace Gershuny
>USDA National Organic Program staff
>
>[segment of letter to The Ecologist magazine]
>
>Confusion about label claims and *higher* standards
>