Press Release of the Organic Consumers Association
on the USDA's Final Regulation on Organic Standards

Dec. 22, 2000

For Further Information Contact: Ronnie Cummins ( Tel. 218-226-4164)
<ronnie@organicconsumers.org>

Moving Beyond the Niche Market of "USDA Organic"

Although the new federal regulations on Organic Food and Crops put out
by the USDA on December 20 basically meet the demands of the organic
community in a technical sense, the USDA's so-called National Organic
Program (NOP) is a joke. The NOP is designed to placate the organic
community while withholding the necessary funds from the organic sector
so that organic agriculture remains a small niche market, posing no real
threat to the "business as usual" practices of corporate agribusiness and
genetic engineering. The USDA will hand out $30 billion dollars in taxpayers'
money to conventional (non-organic) agribusiness over the next 12 months--
while investing a tiny sum, less than $10 million dollars, in organic. A full $17
billion of our tax money will be handed over in the form of corporate
welfare to the nation's largest (the top10%) factory farms this year. Until
billions, not millions, are allocated for helping hundreds of thousands (not
just a few thousand) of US family farmers convert to organic, the organic
food system will remain a small niche market in the USA. While current
rates of growth in the US indicate that 10% of our agriculture will be
organic by 2010, a number of European nations are expecting 30-50% of
their farms to be organic by 2010. The Organic Consumers Association calls
for an end to the corporate welfare policies of the USDA and for $20 billion
dollars a year to be used to help family farmers make the conversion to
organic, and to help school districts, hospitals, and food shelves buy
and serve organic food. With the elimination of subsidies for factory
farms and biotechnology, and the transfer of these funds into the organic
sector, the US can easily see 30% or more of its farms convert to organic
by the end of the decade.

Obviously the so-called Organic Trade Association does not speak on
behalf of organic consumers and family farmers. Of course organic food is
safer and more nutritious than chemical-intensive and genetically engineered
agriculture's "industrial food." Not only does organic food contain more
trace minerals and other valuable nutrients, but of course it's not laced
with pesticide and drug residues, nor is it generally engineered. And of
course it's not riddled with e-Coli 0157, salmonella, listeria, campylobachter,
or any of the other filth and pathogens which are routinely found in factory
farm meat and animal products. Health and safety considerations are the
major reason why 10 million organic consumers are buying organic food
every week. It's a cop-out and an insult to America's organic consumers
when Katherine DiMatteo and the Organic Trade Association, commenting
on the new organic standards in the Washington Post, state that organic is
better for the environment but not necessarily for public health.