By Mark Alan Kastel Now that annual sales of organic food products have reached $16 to $17 billion, and increased marketplace demand is causing ramped-up offerings by major supermarket chains, can the organic industry retain the meaning behind the organic label? After all, no other product or market sector...
Will the term organic still mean anything when it’s adopted whole hog by behemoths such as Wal-Mart? The San Francisco Chronicle Jake Whitney Marin Sun Farms, in Point Reyes, is a collection of ranches on more than 2,000 acres of rolling, certified organic pasture. All year long, cattle and...
Retail sales of grocery products making ethical claim reach $33 billion NEW YORK: “Conscientious Consumerism,” the trend towards products with an ethical bent, has taken root across America as consumers increasingly preach their social concerns through their pocketbooks. Sales of organic, hormone-free, eco-friendly, locally- grown, cruelty-free, and other ethical...
Between Christmas 2006 and New Year’s day, the Food and Drug Administration released a long-awaited set of documents on animal cloning for food. Now the Organic Center has released a new report, Is the FDA’s Cloning Proposal Ready for Prime Time? The report provides key facts and insightful analysis...
Late last year we learned that the nation’s largest organic dairy processors (Organic Valley, Horizon, Stonyfield, Aurora and Humboldt) collaborated on drafting a secret letter to the USDA Secretary proposing their own “fix” to the controversy regarding factory-farms and whether their cattle are allowed to graze in compliance with...
Wisconsin officials have launched an investigation into the giant retailer’s practices after complaints that it may be misleading consumers BusinessWeek by Pallavi Gogoi A year after Wal-Mart (WMT) laid out ambitious plans to become a much bigger player in the organic foods business, the giant retailer is running into...
Nonorganic Food Products Misidentified as “Organic” Contact: Mark Kastel, 608-625-2000 CORNUCOPIA, WI: When the staff at The Cornucopia Institute surveyed Wal-Mart stores around the country last September, analyzing the giant retailer’s pronouncement that they would begin selling a wide variety of organic food at just a 10% mark-up over...
The New York Times By Dan Barber Tarrytown, N.Y. THERE’S invariably something risky, if not risible, about allowing Congress to decide what’s for dinner. Bad decisions about agriculture have defined government policy for the last century; 70 percent of our nation’s farms have been lost to bankruptcy or consolidation,...
By Judith McGeary Numerous sources have reported that the National Animal Identification System, or NAIS, is voluntary. But is that really true? On November 22, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a “User Guide“ for NAIS. In it, USDA states that NAIS “is voluntary at the federal level.”...
Timing “finally right,” says Idaho dairyman Capital Press Staff Writer Dave Wilkins The time was finally right. Earlier this year, Idaho dairyman David Roberts joined the growing number of American farmers who produce organic milk. The third-generation dairyman and his dad milk about 200 cows near Preston in southeastern...
By Jim Riddle On December 28, 2006, the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Draft Risk Assessment on meat and milk from cloned animals. The FDA concluded that animal cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), “results in an increased...
The Herald by JAMES MORGAN The use of antibiotics on farms should be reduced because of suspected links with a superbug in humans, an organic food group claimed yesterday. A virulent strain of E-coli which has killed at least 57 people in the UK has been found on 10...
The Cornucopia Institute, through research and investigations on agriculture and food issues, provides needed information to family farmers, consumers and other stakeholders in the good food movement and to the media.
