Yeah, it's...Organic, yeaaah that's the ticket

May 21, 2004 12:05 PM

"The directives have not changed anything. They are just clarifications of what is in the regulations that were written by the National Organic Standards Board" Think your "organic" food is pesticide free? Not if the Bush Administration has their way. War is Peace and all that jazz... via Grist Magazine
posted by Windopaene (10 comments total)

This has been a long fought battle, well below the radar of the average consumer. What the agribusiness lobby wants to do is two-fold:

•To be able to expand into the "Organic" market without changing any of their environmentaly destructive practices.
•To render the term "Organic" so meaningless that consumers will be deprived of the opportunity to make free choices in the free market. (Heh.)

Agribusiness, not happy that it has destroyed family farming, is now setting its sights on sustainable agriculture and the communities it supports. The current administration, though following a long trend toward helping Agribusiness while undermining smaller operations, is deeply in the pocket of huge companies like Monsanto, ADM and others.

These changes won't change what most organic farmers currently do, but what the large factory farms do. These new "directives" are a cynical attempt to drive good, responsible producers out of the market and allow companies exploit a consumer movement for their own profits.

These people don't understand that organic food is part of a movement - they just see it as marketing.
posted by elwoodwiles at 12:28 PM on May 21, 2004

Think your "organic" food is pesticide free?

That would be a dumb thing to think in any case. Lots of organic produce is laden with pesticide, except that it happens to be pesticide generated by bacteria instead of synthetic reactors. Or, to put it differently, organic farmers routinely spray their fields with unregulated nanotechnological pesticide factories that mutate themselves with great gusto.

Which isn't to say that these changes are at all useful.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:46 PM on May 21, 2004

This year, I got my farm certified Naturally Grown. Not because my customers demanded certification -- by getting to know me and my growing personally they "certify" my produce themselves -- but because having the big CNG logo hanging in my farmers' market stall invites questions and gives me an excellent opportunity to explain how industrial farms have co-opted the term "organic" for marketing purposes.
posted by ewagoner at 12:46 PM on May 21, 2004

As someone who waded through organic chemistry, I've tended to find the 'organic' term to be a bit of a misnomer anyway. On the other hand, this does not surprise me.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:07 PM on May 21, 2004

This is revolting. Not terribly surprising from this regime...but revolting none the less. Grrr...this just makes me so mad.

And good on ya Ewagoner...if I lived near you, I'd be buying your produce. :)
posted by dejah420 at 1:29 PM on May 21, 2004

> That would be a dumb thing to think in any case.

...considering how really meaningful "free range" is on a package of chicken...
posted by jfuller at 3:48 PM on May 21, 2004

thank you very much for this depressing but needed information.
posted by jann at 4:31 AM on May 22, 2004

Well, this blows. Brings to mind this brief New Yorker Piece regarding Bush's mercury emissions cap-and-trade system. I can't help but feel like we're in a tailspin toward that point when we all have every disease in perfect balance ("So what you're saying is, I'm indestructible!" "Oh, no, no, in fact, even slight breeze could --" "Indestructible!").

jfuller: ...considering how really meaningful "free range" is on a package of chicken...

The American Humane Society has trademarked "free farmed" as a seal of approval akin to the Certified Naturally Grown label ewagoner mentioned above.
posted by rafter at 10:46 AM on May 22, 2004

The "Organic" tag is a way for consumers to buy goods from farmers they don't know and have some level of trust. As we are finding, we can't trust the government. Big suprise.

An even better way is what ewagoner said.. get to know the source of your food personally. It goes way beyond Organic. Shopping at the grocery store is for lazy people who deserve what they get. Sure its better than nothing but even better is trust yourself and the people you know. Big networks of local food sources out there.
posted by stbalbach at 1:24 PM on May 22, 2004

Little baby Orwell is rolling over in his grave.
posted by darukaru at 8:02 AM on May 24, 2004