ACTION: Speak Out Against the LGMA!

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 11:58:33 AM PDT

Please give a quick phone call to the committee at 202-225-6427 or fax them at 202-225-2392. The good news is that the subcommittee chair is Dennis Kucinich. If you call, tell the briefly that you oppose the LGMA and any expansion of it because it is harmful to the environment and sustainable agriculture and it is also ineffective. If you want to give them a longer message, either send a fax, or call and ask for an email address you can write your comments to.

Please, Uncle Sam, Leave Our Salad Alone!

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

The part where this analogy breaks down is that E. coli comes from manure, and spinach doesn't poop. Cows do. Also, E. coli dies at 165F and whereas we (usually) cook beef, we don't always cook leafy greens. At the time of the spinach/E. coli outbreak, somebody jokingly said to me that this was meat-eaters way of killing off the vegetarians (i.e. having their food taint our food, which we would then eat uncooked while they would cook theirs and avoid getting sick).

Obviously, having repeated E. coli outbreaks from leafy greens isn't acceptable. But it's no more acceptable to put in place measures that are bad for organic producers and the environment, which appears to be a distinct possibility in our near future.

Our next step on this will be to wait for a post on the Federal Register from the USDA, and we can send comments there. For now, the only action we can take is to inform ourselves and spread the word.

New USDA Appointment - Organics Has a New Boss

by: Jill Richardson

Tue May 12, 2009 at 09:42:36 AM PDT

I don't have much info on her besides what you see below in the USDA's press release. However, based on that information, I'm not a fan. She's got two strikes against her. One is her participation in the WTO and free trade negotiations. Maybe it was just her job and it doesn't mean that she's pro-free trade. I don't know. It's an area where I'll be looking for more information, and that's probably all I can say for now.

The second strike is the California Leafy Greens Product Handler Marketing Agreement. This was one of the stupidest, most counterproductive, idiotic "food safety" reforms ever made. The basic idea was to attempt to make farm fields sterile like hospitals and laboratories. Here's an excerpt from a statement by the Cornucopia Institute about the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement:

[In California] farmers have been asked to take extreme measures with little or no scientific justification. While the rules themselves do not directly eliminate biodiversity on farms, they discourage wildlife and vegetation. As a result, some large produce buyers, such as processors, supermarkets and fast food chains, are using those rules as a precedent to come up with their own standards-often extreme measures without scientific backup.

For example, farmers have been told to destroy hedgerows and other non-crop vegetation around farms that provide important habitat for beneficial wildlife, and to erect fences around their fields, which negatively impacts wildlife corridors. Such measures have not been shown to eliminate or reduce the likelihood of E. coli contamination. "We know natural vegetation surrounding farm fields, which is excellent habitat for birds and beneficial insects, reduces dependence on chemical pesticides and decreases possible ground- and surface-water contamination," Vallaeys stated.

Many growing practices that are the cornerstone of organic and sustainable agriculture would also be discouraged or banned.  In California, the rules discourage the development of microbial life in the soil, an outcome that has not been shown to reduce the risk of harmful bacterial contamination. In fact, sustainable farming methods, which promote healthy microbial life in soil, have been shown to reduce E. coli 0157, a deadly variant of the microbe, because the organism has to compete with other microbes and is therefore less likely to thrive.

Farmers already report demands by large corporate buyers not to use certain organic fertilizers. "The aim of these rules seems to promote sterile fields that support few forms of life, except for the leafy greens," added Vallaeys.

After the fact, it was shown that the vast majority of wild animals shot in the name of safe leafy greens were not carrying E. coli 0157:H7 anyway, and posed no danger to safe food. Let's hope this is not they type of "reform" Pegg brings to the USDA.