Hi Dale, Buying organic is a good idea and I certainly urge everyone to do it.However, the USDA management of Organic has begun to put "organic" into question.As the quote and my comments below show ,USDA/APHIS has begun to add a caveat to current approvals of petitions for non-regulated status of all GM crops. That caveat is that organic crops polluted by genes from nearby GM crops will not effect the organic certification of the farm or the crop. It seems to me that USDA is just too corrupt an organization to regulate organic and they will keep trying to palm off GM polluted organic as "organic". Organic farmers should be controlling what USDA calls organic not just obeying the USDA bureaucrats dictates. USDA/APHIS Environmental Assessment Monsanto Company and KWS SAAT AG Petition 03-323-01p for Determination of Non-regulated Status for Roundup Ready® Sugar Beet Event H7-1 October 2004 http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/aphisdocs/03_32301p_pea.pdf "The presence of a detectable residue of a product of excluded methods alone does not necessarily constitute a violation of the National Organic Standards. The unintentional presence of the products of excluded methods will not affect the status of an organic product or operation when the operation has not used excluded methods and has taken reasonable steps to avoid contact with the products of excluded methods as detailed in their approved organic system plan. Organic certification of a production or handling operation is a process claim, not a product claim”(1)". USDA/APHIS seems to be saying that avoiding transgenic pollution of organic products rests solely with the organic producers and USDA/APHIS does not give a darn for those producers. However, when transgenic pollution is inevitable, as it is in sugar beet production, the organic producers may claim that the polluted crops are “organic”. USDA/APHIS seem to be pushing for a declaration that transgenic crops can bear the “certified organic” label. Exporters of transgene polluted crops will probably experience a viewpoint different from USDA/APHIS among importers."
Dale Wilson wrote:
Hi Joe,In Canada and US GM food producers argued that labeling GM food would increase food costs to consumers by 15% to 20%.I guess I don't understand why this is such a big deal. It is safe to say that pretty much all food (food that has been at all processedanyhow) includes ingredients from transgenic crops or microorganisms. So the backdrop is that essentially everything is GM. There already isa label and a system that includes certification that food is *not* GM, USDA certified organic. It seems like this presents a win-win situation: 1) consumers who don't want GM can buy organic 2) organic food producers potentially get a boost. What remains to be done is to promote organic food along these lines, and consumers who care will buy organic. Dale __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!?Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com******************************************************** To unsubscribe from SANET-MG: 1- Visit http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html to unsubscribe or; 2- Send a message to <listserv@sare.org> from the address subscribed to the list. Type "unsubscribe sanet-mg" in the body of the message. Visit the SANET-MG archives at: http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html For more information on grants and other resources available through the SARE program, please visit http://www.sare.org.
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