Tell the USDA what’s what.
Remember the USDA Organic Standards debacle? (Summary: the USDA took over the organic “brand” and made it easier for industrial agriculture to make money on it.)
Guess what? They’re after the word “natural” this time.
The Ethicurean has a post about this nefarious business from Walter Jeffries of Sugar Mountain Farm in West Topsham, Vermont (and a lovely place that is, too).
I’d encourage everyone to check out Walter’s post and to register an official comment on the matter with the USDA. (The last day to comment is January 28.)
(Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the “Commonsense Eating” series. I’ll post the next installment shortly.)
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Sam said,
January 14, 2008 @ 11:34 pm
The good news is that, at least where I live (Minneapolis), local coops that actually have a commitment to things like local, organic, natural food aren’t in the least fooled by the government’s “official” standards. I suppose it’s possible that there are untold thousands of Americans being fooled into buying nasty processed corporate food because the USDA has made a mockery out of a couple of key words, but I tend to think that for the most part, American consumers still don’t really take the time to seriously consider where their food is coming from, anyway. For those of us who actually care, even a quick Google search can make it clear that what the USDA says about food is roughly as reliable as what the FCC says about media…
crabappleherbs said,
January 15, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
Hi Sam.
Yes, I think people who are really interested will always be able to figure it out somehow. But the “nefarious business” I was referring to is this: A group of small “real organic” farmers who couldn’t afford the fees/paperwork involved in the big-industry-favoring USDA organic program got together and created their own label: “Certified Naturally Grown.” And now the USDA is refusing to allow the use of that label on packages because it’s in the process of officially defining what “naturally raised” means. So all that work those farmers did, setting up this grassroots system… is it out the window? That’s the nefarious part.
What’s next? Someone said that they’d seen local meat advertised as “beef with no weird stuff.” It’s become a bizarre marketing cat-and-mouse game. I imagine you’re aware that Pennsylvania is making it illegal to label milk from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones. I guess the strategy is to keep preventing small farmers from telling customers why their food is better than big agribusiness’s “food.” Muzzling the competition in the marketing arena is key when a package label is all a “consumer” has to go on… The real way around that is to create local systems (farmers’ markets, etc.), in which people have more than a label to rely on for information about their food.
Marketing wars… how very American, really.
Emilie said,
January 15, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
And today the USDA officially cleared the use of milk and meat from cloned animals. Why? On top of all the scary ick– it doesn’t seem very cost effective.
crabappleherbs said,
January 15, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
Cost-effective, of course, is often a question of scale… “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations” (aka CAFOs, aka Factory Farms) expect a significant percentage of their animals to die early due to the conditions — but that’s just factored into the cost of doing business. Somehow it’s still profitable.
Emilie said,
January 16, 2008 @ 9:44 am
Maybe I just don’t understand the science of cloning but it seems to me that it has to be more expensive than some good old fashioned sperm. And cloned animals would be significantly more susceptible to disease.
Kevin said,
January 16, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
You beat me by a couple of days. I should have visited your site earlier. I just blogged on this exact topic as well. I also have a link to sign a petition in my post. So, I don’t know if I add anything to the discussion, but you can check out my post here.
This is a serious case of deception. It is an attempt to place profit before health. And, we have to stand up against it. I fear government involvement in issues such as these since powerful industries have been spoonfeeding politicians for years.
crabappleherbs said,
January 16, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
Emilie — Sperm is just another commodity for CAFOs. They use artificial insemination rather than “good old fashioned breeding,” so I suppose there might come a point when cloning would be more “economical” in corporate terms. Of course, that’s time’s not here yet. Though the FDA approved it, the USDA has asked farmers to continue their “voluntary moratorium” on cloned meat sales “to give the market time to get used to the idea” (paraphrased from the radio last night).
Kevin — The weird thing now is that in trying to strengthen (in their way) the official definition of “natural,” the USDA is preventing truly natural farmers from using the label. Ugh.