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Re: [SANET-MG] The Slow Dearth of "Organic"
Hi Alan Ismond,
I agree with your analysis of the organic definition.
I am even more bothered by the ease with which politicians like the
Dane EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel automatically
push off the cost of GM pollution on the organic producers who are
polluted not polluters. EU like any other government should insure that
the polluter bear the costs of measuring the pollution and compensating
the injured producer. EU could and should insure that licenser and
producers of GM crops provide for the costs of analyzing GM pollution
and compensating injured organic or conventional producers whose crops
suffer loss of sale or revenue due to GM pollution.
EU seems to be poised on the brow of a slippery slope by accepting the
principle that the polluted must pay. Europe should remember crystal
night (Reichskristallnacht) a Pogrom conducted throughout Germany and
Austria on November 9-10, 1938. Nazi thugs destroyed the lives and
property of individuals. The Nazi government confiscated the insurance
payments, and, at the same time, maid the Jewish store owners liable
for the repairs. EU making organic growers pay for the damage to their
crops by corporations may be the beginning of conditioning citizens to
blindly accept unfair demands from corporate friends of the politicians.
sincerely,Joe Cummins
Aquatfs@AOL.COM wrote:
In a message dated 1/24/2006 21:00:46 Pacific Standard Time,
LISTSERV@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU writes:
From the press release:
> "We live in the real world. The lower we go (on a threshold),
> the more expensive it will be for organic producers. We have
> to find the right balance," she said.
This is a wise strategic adjustment given the legal realities. And
biologically speaking, the previous limit was not zero. I believe it
was 0.1%. It seems to me that the difference between 0.1 and 0.9 is
not all that large. But 0.9 is much easier to achieve in practice.
This is the tail wagging the dog. The ends are used to justify the
means. Until there are metrics that can be applied to quantify organic
food quality and attributes, we will continue to have silly
discussions like this. I find it outrageous that negative
externalities from one industry or group are foisted on others with
complete disregard for their interests. This is a classic case
of corporate interests buying regulatory compliance from the
government and then being foisted on others as part of the "greater
good". Thalidomide was government approved, hence "safe", however, the
negative externalities became too obvious. I can only hope that the
impact of GM pollution comes to light before we experience similar
consequences.
Equally silly is deciding how much organics makes an organic product:
95%? 94.93%? 95.1096%? Also insane is the question of an acceptable
time period for deviating from organic regs because of an "emergency"
lack of supply of feeds / ingredients, etc.: 3 months? 3 months 2 days
and 1 hour?
I would also like to add an interesting experience I had working for a
major food corporation and reformulating products for cost reduction.
It was found that each reformulation resulted in a seemingly identical
product to the previous one. However if you did a side by side
comparison of the original product and the multiple reformulated
product years later, there was a significant difference in some cases.
The moral of the story is that one insignificant compromise may or may
not be acceptable, but cumulative compromises may leave you in a
surprising place. Each dent on the organic armor may look
insignificant, but we need to look at the cumulative dents.
Like I said before, by the time we finish eroding the definition and
content of organics we will be a great distance from where the
consumer expected to be.
Alan Ismond, P.Eng.
Aqua-Terra Consultants
 
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