Still Time for you to Act Cornucopia, the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, and other groups have sent out several alerts regarding the food safety bills in Congress. We are continuing to monitor the situation with S. 510, the Senate's version of the bill. As written, this bill would impose extremely burdensome and unnecessary requirements on the thousands of small farmers and food processors who are producing safe, nutrient-dense foods for their local communities. It's critical that the bill be amended or stopped! The bill's progress has been slowed by controversial proposed amendments. The first controversy is over Senator Tester's (D-MT) proposed amendment, that we strongly support, and that would exempt small-scale processors and direct-marketing farmers from the most onerous requirements.

Posted in Action Alerts, Cornucopia News

We join the National Organic Coalition in encouraging you to contact your senators and congressmen asking them to support farmers and consumers in their attempt to convince the USDA that once the genie is out of the bottle we might never have alfalfa, or livestock products, in the future that is not contaminated with novel genetically engineered material. The Cornucopia Institute is proud to have been one of the plaintiffs that brought the suit in federal court mandating an environmental impact study, the first-ever, for this genetically engineered crop… STOP! GENETICALLY ENGINEERED ALFALFA! Senator Leahy and Representative DeFazio are circulating a Congressional sign-on letter in the House and Senate "Asking USDA to Maintain the Ban on Genetically Engineered Alfalfa" Contact your Senators and Representative Today

Posted in Action Alerts

Urgent -- Call Your Senator Today The U.S. Senate is expected to vote soon on a sweeping overhaul of federal food safety law – S. 510. The House food safety bill passed last year (HR 2749) included several measures that threaten small-scale organic producers, including a registration fee of $500 and blanket application of complicated monitoring and traceability standards -- regardless of one's farm size. There's no doubt that industrial agriculture needs better oversight. But, family-scale local and organic farms are probably the safest in the nation --they are part of the solution, not part of the problem -- and need to be protected! Now is your chance, as a supporter of sustainable family farming, to help fix these problems! Senator John Tester (D-MT), a certified organic farmer himself, is proposing an amendment to S. 510 that would exempt small-scale farmers and food processors from the most burdensome regulations.

Posted in Action Alerts

Cutting through the confusion of the different food safety proposals Our food safety system is broken. Toxic food-borne pathogens like E. coli O157:H7 and salmonella are no longer just contaminating meat and eggs, but have caused outbreaks in traditionally safe foods like spinach, peppers, tomatoes, and nuts. Yet instead of addressing the root of the problem, lawmakers and regulators in Washington, D.C. have rushed to action, proposing to fix our food safety system with band-aid solutions that may actually threaten the small-scale, organic and local farms that are part of the food safety solution. We cannot let this happen!

Posted in Action Alerts

UPDATE: The Alfalfa EIS docket comment period has been extended 15 days until March 3rd. Send Your Comments to USDA on Draft Environmental Impact Statement Late last year, the USDA released a court-ordered Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on Monsanto's new genetically engineered Round-up Ready Alfalfa. A federal lawsuit, led by the Center for Food Safety and joined by The Cornucopia Institute and other plaintiffs, was won in 2007 compelling the USDA to conduct their first-ever environmental impact statement on a genetically engineered (GE) crop, alfalfa. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the USDA's assessment approves of releasing a new genetically modified crop into the environment, despite the known risks this version of alfalfa poses to organic livestock agriculture. Public comments are being accepted until February 16. Please let the USDA hear your voice.

Posted in Action Alerts