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Web Note: Will Allen is a leading organic farmer in the U.S. and a member of the Policy Advisory Board of the Organic Consumers Association.
Will Allen grew up on a small farm in southern California and served in the Marine Corps between the Korean and Vietnam wars. He received a PhD in Anthropology (focused on Peruvian tropical forest agriculture) and taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, before being fired and sentenced to a year in jail for civil rights and antiwar activism. He Read More
Im Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association. On behalf of our quarter of a million active members, I would like thank you Chairman Moyer and each member of the National Organic Standards Board for bringing a number of important issues to the attention of Director Robinson and the USDA National Organic Program staff at this meeting. Of particular interest to organic consumers are seven things:
1. Food Packaging (disagree): We join Jim Riddle and others in urging you to reject the use of carbon dioxide, and other inert atmospheric gases or Read More
The US House Agriculture Committee has submitted a Climate Change Questionnaire to groups, including the Organic Consumers Association, that are interested in the agriculture and forestry sectors' emissions of greenhouse gases and the potential of these sectors to mitigate the climate crisis. I'll be posting the Organic Consumer's Association responses to the Committee's 30 questions here and I encourage you to give us your feedback and take the readers' poll in our forum: Read More
The following note is typical of the calls and e-mails Organic Consumers Association has been receiving this week:
"Do you know anything about HR 875, a 'food safety' bill that was written by Monsanto, Cargill and ADM? I've heard a few individual activists scream about this as the death of farmers markets, CSAs and local organic food, yet have seen no alerts from any of the reliable groups, including OCA. Any idea what's up with this?"
HR 875 is a food safety bill that, as it is Read More
On Sunday, March 1, 2009, I attended an extraordinary event organized by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Artists for the Climate. Before the main event, I attended a more intimate gathering where I had the opportunity to meet Wendell Berry. I asked him about the next day's Capitol Climate Action, a direct action to shut down the coal plant that fuels the Capitol. He said he joined Bill McKibben in organizing the protest Read More
On February 28, 2009, OCA's DC intern Chantal Clement spoke at Power Shift '09, a gathering of 12,000 young climate activists, on a panel about the film Food Inc.:
"Our food system is an extremely outdated one. Created in the post-war 1950s, agriculture’s industrialization was meant to increase food production to provide Americans with cheap, easily accessible and abundant food. Its main tool was mass production to create economies of scale. Decades later, it has left us with a legacy of terrible food industry labor rights issues, overproduction, waste, excessive pesticide use, Read More
On February 25 and 26, 2009, OCA's Political Director Alexis Baden-Mayer was in Lacrosse, WI, attending the U.S. National Organic Action Plan summit where a grassroots group of organic producers and consumers are discussing a coordinated plan to work proactively, rather than merely reacting to policy, programs and industry changes. Countries all over the world have developed and implemented national organic action plans with clear targets, benchmarks,
and protocols to improve public health, preserve the environment, protect biodiversity, dramatically reduce fossil fuel use, and Read More
On February 5, 2009, Alexis Baden-Mayer, the Organic Consumers Association's Political Director, participated as a panelist in the national Green Jobs, Good Jobs conference in Washington, DC, a joint effort of the labor, consumer, and environmental movements.
The U.S. system of petroleum-based, bio-tech, and chemical-intensive agriculture produces an enormous amount of relatively inexpensive food, at least if you ignore the huge hidden costs to taxpayers and damage to public health, the environment, and climate stability; not to mention the routine Read More
The Organic Consumers Association's Washington DC office, led by Alexis Baden-Mayer, participated in the Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States, by organizing a roving band of dancing polar bears. The Polar Bears Against War & Melting Ice (PAWMI) carted a mobile disco and distributed 6,000 free commemorative postcards and calendars to crowds that celebrated by dancing in the streets.
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