Your comments needed today!
Having dropped the plans for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), USDA is back again for Round Two. The agency has proposed a rule that would require livestock producers, related businesses, and state livestock agencies to incur significant expense tracking animals that cross state lines—with few tangible benefits to farmers or their American customers.
National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement Comments: Due July 28
Action Alert
Corporate agribusiness wants to tell the rest of us how to farm, and shut anyone out of the market who does not follow their one-size-fits-all “food safety” standards for leafy green vegetables. The USDA is supporting their plan, which, if accepted, will allow a committee of industry representatives, lobbyists and other officials to write a set of so-called food safety standards for the entire leafy green farming community—this could competitively injure smaller, local and organic producers.
If passed, leafy green handlers/marketers who sign on to this agreement will require every grower they buy from to follow a uniform set of standards, which will be written with large-scale, monoculture, chemical-intensive farming methods in mind. Farmers do not sign on to the agreement – their buyers (brokers, distributors and supermarket chains) do. Sustainable organic and local growers who take different approaches to food safety will likely be shut out of the market when buyers refuse their buy their crops. Read Full Article »
The USDA is seeking nominations for five upcoming vacancies on the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). Appointees will serve a five-year term beginning Jan. 24, 2012. Vacancies for the 15-mem¬ber organic advisory board must represent a particular constituency as identified by Congress, and the particular openings are for: Read Full Article »
Protect Babies/Children’s Health—View Video—Sign the Petition
Organic foods provide a refuge from the toxins, synthetics, and chemically processed ingredients that masquerade as food in the conventional food supply.
Through corruption at the USDA some questionable ‘nutrient’ ingredients—produced by Martek Biosciences Corporation’s (DHA/ARA oils from algae and soil fungus) — have illegally found their way into organic foods, including organic infant formula, baby food and milk. And they are making some children very sick.
Send Your Comments to the National Organic Standards Board
- Comments Due April 10! -
The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), which advises the Secretary of Agriculture on organic policy and rulemaking, is considering several changes to the USDA’s organic standards that would water down organics, catering to corporate interests.
We cannot allow corporate-backed members of the NOSB to chip away at the integrity of the label. The following proposals are highly objectionable. The comment period has closed, but you can sign Cornucopia’s petition, which will be delivered at the meeting in Seattle. Read Full Article »
