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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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