Organic Bytes
SUBSCRIBE | DONATE Share on Facebook Follow OCA on Twitter OCA on Pinterest Follow OCA on YouTube Instagram LinkedIn RSS Feed

Little Bytes
LITTLE BYTES

Essential Reading for the Week

Syngenta Terrorized Scientist for 15 Years to Quell Concerns About Atrazine

Pope Calls for a New Work of Mercy: Care for the Environment

KFC's 'Secret Ingredient' is a Brain-Frying Neurotoxin

Fish for Dinner? Your Seafood Might Come With a Side of Plastic

No Other Way Than to Struggle: The Farmworker-Led Boycott of Driscoll's Berries

Unique Study Causes Global Concerns over Glyphosate Damage to Freshwater Ecosystems

The Dirty Underbelly of the Dairy Industry


Different colored fish on a yellow and black background
NEW STUDY

‘Deceptive Dishes’

What stinks worse than a dead fish? A dead fish with a false and misleading label.

According to a new report from Oceana, seafood is mislabeled 19 percent of the time. In many cases, escolar, a species of fish with known health risks, was sold as “white tuna” in sushi restaurants in the U.S.  Oceana, an ocean conservation and advocacy group, determined that escolar, Asian catfish and hake are the most commonly substituted species worldwide.

Oceana called on the Obama administration to expand traceability requirements to all types of seafood, not just the 13 types deemed "at-risk" in a rule proposed in February by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In the meantime, consumer beware—or move to Antarctica? Mislabeled seafood samples were found in restaurants, grocery stores and “other retail outlets” in 55 countries representing every continent except Antarctica.

Read the press release 

Read the report 


Hands holding up the planet Earth
VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Cool the Planet. Feed the World.

“We were poor, yes. But we were never food-insecure.”

Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin believes that every community has the power to feed itself—we don’t need to live in a world where people go hungry.

Yet, we do.

In this interview with Regeneration International (a project of the Organic Consumers Association), Haslett-Marroquin explains his model for regenerative poultry systems, and how the model can be adapted around the world.

Watch the video 

Support OCA's Regeneration International Project (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic, regenerative agriculture and climate change)


Fall 2016 Campaign Fundraising Thermometer
SUPPORT THE OCA & OCF

We Get It

Probably not a day goes by that you don’t get at least one email from one group or another asking you for a donation.

It’s exhausting. Annoying, even. Don’t these organizations get it? That you can’t send money to every group that asks, every time they ask?

We get it. Really, we do. And we want you to know that we appreciate each and every donation, from $1 to $10,000—because you really are the engine that powers the work we do.

Four times a year we run an online campaign to help us meet our quarterly budget. It’s that time again. For whatever reason, donations are coming in at a much slower pace than usual—at a time when we are still recovering from enormous expenses associated with the battle against Monsanto for labels on GMO foods.

We get how devastated you are that a corrupt Congress passed the DARK Act. But we also know that deep down, you realize there’s much more at stake here than labels on GMO foods.

Now is not the time to give up on reforming our degenerative food and farming system. On the contrary, now is the time to ratchet up the pressure on every food company that keeps Monsanto in business, whether it’s Coca-Cola buying up high fructose corn syrup, or McDonald’s serving up hamburgers from cattle stuffed full of GMO corn and soy.

We don’t get many corporate donations—most food corporations don’t like our boycotts and lawsuits. And while we do receive grants from time to time, there are some foundations who think OCA is a bit too outspoken when it comes to the truth about our food system.

That’s why about 80 percent of our funding comes from people like you, people we hope will ultimately benefit from the work we do. If you can, please pitch in to help us reach this next quarterly goal?

From all of us, thank you.

Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education)

Donate to the Organic Consumers Fund (non-tax-deductible, but necessary for our GMO labeling legislative efforts)


Monsanto Tribunal logo
MILLIONS AGAINST MONSANTO

Let’s Make It Count!

The International Monsanto Citizens’ Tribunal is shaping up. On October 15 – 16, in The Hague, Netherlands, five international judges will hear testimony from 29 witnesses representing five continents. On October 14, prior to the start of the formal Tribunal, activists, media, witnesses and NGOs from all over the world will convene for a People’s Assembly. 

This citizen’s tribunal represents our best opportunity to expose Monsanto’s crimes to the entire world. All we need are more citizens.

The more people who endorse the Tribunal, spread the word about it, help fund it, organize World Food Day protests—and of course, attend in person—the more impact this citizens’ initiative will have on future legal proceedings against Monsanto and other agribusiness giants.

How can you get involved? So many ways.

We need help getting out the word. Please email campaigns@organicconsumers.org for a free packet of Tribunal/ Monsanto Makes Us Sick leaflets, posters and stickers.

We need people to help organize protests on World Food Day, October 16, which is also day two of the formal tribunal (in The Hague, Netherlands).
 
Don’t have time to organize a full-fledged public event? How about a house party or potluck where you and your friends and family can tune into livestreamed reports from The Hague?

Here’s a complete list of how to get involved, plus more background on the Monsanto Tribunal.

Sign on as a supporter of the Monsanto Tribunal (no donation required)

Make a donation to the Monsanto Tribunal

Share this post on Facebook.  Post on social media using hashtags #ExposeMonsantosCrimes and #MonsantoTribunal

Email campaigns@organicconsumers.org for help organizing a World Food Day protest or house party

Email campaigns@organicconsumers.org for your free packet of Tribunal/ Monsanto Makes Us Sick leaflets, posters and stickers

Learn more about the People’s Assembly

Register to attend the People’s Assembly and the formal Tribunal

Download the MonsantoTribunal leaflet

Download the Monsanto Tribunal poster

Like Monsanto Tribunal on Facebook

Follow Monsanto Tribunal on twitter

More on the Monsanto Tribunal here and here.


Crushed and broken brown chicken egg shells
ACTION ALERT

Bad Eggs

You buy organic eggs for any number of reasons, probably related to not wanting to support factory farms that mistreat chickens, pollute the environment and produce eggs that are nutritionally inferior.

Unfortunately, not all organic eggs are created equal. You may be surprised to learn that most of the retail grocery chain store-brand “organic” eggs actually come from huge factory farm-type operations that routinely violate USDA National Organic Program (NOP) rules.

We’re talking about brands like Whole Foods 365 Organic; Trader Joe’s; Aldi’s Simply Nature; Sprouts Market; Wegmans; Target’s Simply Balanced—brands that stores claim as their “own” even though they don’t actually produce them

In our alert this week, we target some of the retail grocery “organic” private-label store brands that are produced for stores by one of the three worst industrial-scale “organic” producers (and violators of USDA organic standards) in the country: Cal-Maine Foods, Rose Acre Farms and Herbruck’s.

How do these companies get away with running fake “organic” egg operations? 

In theory, USDA standards for organic eggs dictate that hens should have access to the outdoors. But as this 2015 report by the Cornucopia Institute explains, those standards are unclear and thus open to interpretation. The standards are also largely unenforced. According to the report (p. 39):

Not a single industrial-scale egg producer has come under investigation by the USDA for violating the standards; on the contrary, industrial-scale producers apparently felt shielded from legal action soon after the organic standards went into effect in 2002. 

We would ask you to hound the Big Three fake organic egg producers—but we know they won’t care what you think, as long as stores like Kroger and Target and Safeway and others keep buying up the eggs and slapping their own labels on them.

The only way to make the organic egg industry honest is to get retailers, including the big retail grocery chains like Publix and Giant Eagle and Costco, to stop sourcing their eggs from industrial-scale producers like Cal-Maine Foods, Rose Acre Farms and Herbruck’s. And the only way to do that, is to stop buying the store brands until they switch. 

TAKE ACTION: Tell These Retailers: Stop Selling ‘Organic’ Eggs that Actually Come from Factory Farms!

Read the Cornucopia Institute report on the egg industry 

Good eggs and bad eggs—check out the Cornucopia organic egg scorecard 


Black and white cow on a farm
ESSAY OF THE WEEK

The Lynchpin of It All

After a decade of exposing and demonizing Monsanto and genetically engineered foods, including an intense four-year battle to force mandatory labeling of GMOs (a battle rudely terminated in July when Congress rammed through the outrageous DARK Act), the U.S. food movement stands at the crossroads. 

Should we keep badgering Monsanto’s minions in Washington for the right to know what’s in our food, a sentiment shared by the overwhelming majority of consumers? Or should we focus more on single-issue reforms, such as banning neonicotinoid bee-killing pesticides, better nutrition in schools, taxes on soda, and an end to the reckless use of antibiotics in animal feed? 

A growing number of food activists believe it’s time to move beyond limited or single-issue campaigning and lobbying and take on the entire degenerative food and farming system, starting with the malevolent profit-driver and lynchpin of industrial agriculture, GMOs and fast food: factory farming.

We obviously can’t count on a corrupt Congress or a Clinton/Trump White House to enact significant policy change, no matter how popular or just our demands. So we need to shift our strategy and tactics. We need to aggressively mobilize a full-blown online and on-the-ground food fight, complete with marketplace pressure, popular education, boycotts, litigation, brand de-legitimization, and direct action. 

Read the essay