[compost_tea] USNOP From The Back Seat - More Questions

From: Kirk Leonard <kirk_at_oregonatural.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 13:47:56 -0800

An offlist talk with Bob made me clarify why and what's most important on
USNOP and compost teas and I want to share as it creates more questions for
Cong reps and may make things clearer.

ACRES USA conference news today is uplifiting, too. Thanks Ray and Kevin
and company. Let's build road shows, definitely.

> Sometimes I really feel like a lone ranger... I just want USDA to get out
of the way, at minimum, and better yet, put their money where their NOP
mouth is, fund positive ACT research instead of secret tests designed to
discredit it, which seems to be all they are trying to do today. <

Clearly, ACT and all compost/plant teas and preps are excellent, promising
organic materials, yet none are supported by USNOP. Zip-zero as far as I
can tell. The NOSB Compost Tea Task Force seems stumped - and will not, no
matter what, provide any conclusions anytime soon. USDA has successfully
throttled CT there, in secret, skewed deliberations, consistent with their
apparent desire to either ban ACT et al or delay approval as long as
possible.

We gotta get USDA off their dumb dime, push for conditional if not outright
approval.* Conditions could be pathogen testing, since that seems to be
their principal (concocted) problem, compost testing, material
certification, content constraints, whatever, but they must move forward,
and conditions are clearly manageable, eh? (I gave my molasses away so it's
easy not to use it anymore..:-)

COMPOST TEAS AND PREPS WILL BE KEY ORGANIC PRACTICES IN THE FUTURE,
notwithstanding USDA's neurotic schtick. They need to facilitate rather
than impede.

USDA/NOP should be conditionally approving and funding positive compost tea
research, at minimum. Why are they not doing this?

Have you called your US Rep yet? Easy to do. If they respond, great. If
they don't, take comfort in trying... takes ten minutes to find out. If
they (and you) do respond, another bit of light will be cast on USDA's murky
machinations, hmm?

-- Kirk

*NOSB's Compost Task Force recommended conditional support of compost teas
in April 2002 but USNOP said no way anyway... I have the record if you want
to see it.




To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com

 

Yahoo! Groups Links

To visit your group on the web, go to:
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/compost_tea/

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
 compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
 http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/




Received on Tue Dec 16 2003 - 20:17:01 EST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:14:56 EST