Home Pesticide Manufacturer Misrepresenting Products as Certified “Organic”

The Cornucopia Institute has filed legal complaints with the USDA alleging that Wal-Mart, and a North Carolina-based company, HOMS LLC, are violating the USDA organic standards by using conventional agricultural oils, and other ingredients, in pest control products that bear the word organic and the green “USDA organic” seal.

The pest control products in question are marketed under the Bio Block label (see front of bottle, back of bottle, and company webpage product screenshot).

A debate has been raging for years whether non-food products, such as pet food and personal care products, are included in the strict regulations that determine the use of the word “organic” on packaging. Most of those products at least had organic ingredients involved in their manufacture, whereas Bio Block pest control products contain not a single organically produced ingredient. Read Full Article »

Posted in Cornucopia News

San Francisco Chronicle
by Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer

Vegetable gardens will soon be sprouting in unlikely places throughout San Francisco including a building that produces steam to heat the Civic Center, Department of Public Works land in the Bayview, outside McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park and at the San Francisco Police Academy in Diamond Heights.

The public library has installed gardens outside its Mission and Noe Valley branches with plans for more and is leading classes for teens on how to cultivate them.

And the city may soon adopt proposals from private groups to install easy-to-assemble chicken coops in its gardens and send mobile vegetable markets to school pick-up zones and other busy destinations.

It’s all the result of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s executive directive eight months ago to reshape how San Franciscans think about food and choose what to eat. Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

AgriNews
By Carol Stender

STAPLES, Minn. — Despite challenging growing conditions, bad weather and a lackluster economy, many direct marketers had a good year last year.

How did they do it?

Good advertising, including use of Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Good demand for locally grown foods helped sales, said direct marketing expert Jane Eckert. Eckert was the key presenter at the recent Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s “direct marketing in a lackluster economy” workshop last week. Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

Cattle Network

Whether you’re a foodie or just a food lover … Whether your tastes lean towards comfort food or haute cuisine, the POV (Point of View) series invites you to get your pots, pans, televisions, computers and friends ready for the special broadcast of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Food, Inc., on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 9 p.m. on PBS, in celebration of Earth Day. (Check local listings.) Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

The Energy Collective
by Marc Gunther

Google is exiting China for a number of reasons, including the hacking of its data, but fundamentally, Google found that it couldn’t live up to its values of openness in a repressive society. Whole Foods Market has a different China problem: The company imports lots of organic food from China, but it’s hard to know whether the state run system of agriculture and organic inspections can be trusted.

The “natural and organic” supermarket chain has been generating unwanted attention for the foods that it sources from China for at least a couple of years. The most recent bit of news is a Florida lawsuit that adds an incendiary charge–that one of Whole Foods’ big suppliers relies on forced labor. This is only an allegation, and the evidence is skimpy, to say the least, but it’s another reason that branded companies like Whole Foods had better fully understand their supply chains, wherever they may lead. Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News