All About Organics
OCA's Organic Resource Center
Organic Consumers Association Campaigns, Essays, Headlines, Action Alerts, Downloads and Videos on Organic Food.
Organic food is pure food. It's safer, more nutritious and free of chemical additives. Organic crops are grown without chemical pesticides or fertilizers and organic livestock are raised without antibiotics, growth hormones or other drugs. Organic food isn't genetically modified or irradiated.
News
June 30, 2006
Hill, of Blacksburg, is retired from the University of Maine's Department of Chemical Engineering.
We know that American manufacturing jobs have been going overseas. Jobs making clothing and textiles are among those vanishing from the United States. Making matters worse, the jobs going to China, Vietnam, El Salvador and other nations, are not helping to pull abjectly poor people in those countries out of poverty. Rather, the workers often receive wages that barely sustain life.
Often, children or very young women are exploited in sweatshop conditions for very long hours
Read more News
June 23, 2006
Mayor Gavin Newsom swore in eleven members of the Sweatfree Procurement Advisory Group yesterday at City Hall.
Newsom and Supervisor Tom Ammiano introduced a Sweatfree Procurement Advisory Ordinance in June 2005 to ensure San Francisco does not purchase goods produced in sweatshops. The ordinance will guarantee products the City procures are produced under safe, fair, and humane working conditions.
"It's not just a promise on paper," said Mayor Newsom
Read more News
June 25, 2014
DERIDDER, La. -- Ted Williams likes thinking differently, and he's hoping he can persuade others to do the same.
The Singer native has worked across the United States as an organic consultant and even helped professors at the University of Minnesota set up the school's organic education program. Now he's planting his knowledge in Harvest Organics Co-op, an organic farm and education resource center that he and wife Louise are opening in Beauregard Parish later this year.
The Williams plan to run the co-op on 330 acres they purchased eight miles south of DeRidder. They're Read more
The Singer native has worked across the United States as an organic consultant and even helped professors at the University of Minnesota set up the school's organic education program. Now he's planting his knowledge in Harvest Organics Co-op, an organic farm and education resource center that he and wife Louise are opening in Beauregard Parish later this year.
The Williams plan to run the co-op on 330 acres they purchased eight miles south of DeRidder. They're Read more
News
June 29, 2006
Big-name supermarket chains nationwide are offering more organic and health-oriented foods to consumers, in a move to capture some of the success enjoyed by natural markets such as Whole Foods, Wild Oats and Trader Joe's.
According to supermarket consultant Phil Lempert, Whole Foods "changed the game" for "Big Middle" traditional supermarkets. They are now seeking ways to grab a piece of the 11.1 percent annual growth Whole Foods has experienced in the past five years. The Big Middle -- a major part of the $480 billion grocery industry -- has more or less been stagnant in recent Read more
According to supermarket consultant Phil Lempert, Whole Foods "changed the game" for "Big Middle" traditional supermarkets. They are now seeking ways to grab a piece of the 11.1 percent annual growth Whole Foods has experienced in the past five years. The Big Middle -- a major part of the $480 billion grocery industry -- has more or less been stagnant in recent Read more
News
June 29, 2006
Most people who shop at Whole Foods are liberal yuppies.
They have enough money to spend $9 on a pound of cherries.
They believe that shopping for groceries at Whole Foods instead of Safeway or Food Lion or Giant or Wal-Mart is the politically correct thing to do.
They probably believe that the President and CEO of Whole Foods is a liberal like themselves.
They of course would be wrong.
John Mackey is instead a libertarian with right-wing tendencies.
Mackey says that Milton Friedman is his hero.
He's a devotee of Ayn Read more
They have enough money to spend $9 on a pound of cherries.
They believe that shopping for groceries at Whole Foods instead of Safeway or Food Lion or Giant or Wal-Mart is the politically correct thing to do.
They probably believe that the President and CEO of Whole Foods is a liberal like themselves.
They of course would be wrong.
John Mackey is instead a libertarian with right-wing tendencies.
Mackey says that Milton Friedman is his hero.
He's a devotee of Ayn Read more
News
World Watch Magazine/World Watch Institute
Now, in the midst of so much unnecessary human and ecological destruction, we are facing the necessity of a new start in agriculture. The story of agriculture is usually told as an epic struggle between people and nature. Ten thousand years into this narrative, it looks to some as if people have the upper hand. After all, food production is keeping up with population growth. But others say that this productivity comes at too high a cost. Industrial agriculture is laying waste to soil, water, forests, wildlife, and the life ways of traditional farming communities.
Conventional and Read more
Conventional and Read more
News
June 27, 2006
Dear Aurora Dairy,
I'm just an ordinary urban middle-class consumer who finds this statement to be patronizing, insulting and dismissive:
"Aurora spokeswoman Amy Barr said organic standards shouldn't be based on an 'image of Old MacDonald's Farm' held by people who may never have been on a farm." (source: Yahoo article - 06/27/06)
Nor should organic standards be based on an image of living beings as just another profitable renewable resource to be factory-farmed like the poultry industry. People don't need to visit a farm to know that living beings need Read more
I'm just an ordinary urban middle-class consumer who finds this statement to be patronizing, insulting and dismissive:
"Aurora spokeswoman Amy Barr said organic standards shouldn't be based on an 'image of Old MacDonald's Farm' held by people who may never have been on a farm." (source: Yahoo article - 06/27/06)
Nor should organic standards be based on an image of living beings as just another profitable renewable resource to be factory-farmed like the poultry industry. People don't need to visit a farm to know that living beings need Read more
News
June 16, 2006
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Orlando, FL—Retail sales of organic dairy products grew 24 percent last year to “a little over $2 billion,” according to Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA).
That category includes milk, cream, cheese, butter, eggs, yogurt and ice cream, DiMatteo explained at the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association’s (IDDBA) annual seminar and expo here this week.
While the “ Read more
Orlando, FL—Retail sales of organic dairy products grew 24 percent last year to “a little over $2 billion,” according to Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA).
That category includes milk, cream, cheese, butter, eggs, yogurt and ice cream, DiMatteo explained at the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association’s (IDDBA) annual seminar and expo here this week.
While the “ Read more
News
June 27, 2006
Web note: Click here for MSNBC's online survey: Vote: Are big feedlots a threat to organic farming?
The cows on Pam and Jeff Riesgraf's farm chomped happily away on lush green grass on a warm, sunny afternoon. Their milk would soon find its way to grocery stores, where organic dairy products are a hot item.
The Riesgraf farm represents one vision for organic dairy - small- and medium-sized family farms where the cows have names and spend the growing season on Read more
The cows on Pam and Jeff Riesgraf's farm chomped happily away on lush green grass on a warm, sunny afternoon. Their milk would soon find its way to grocery stores, where organic dairy products are a hot item.
The Riesgraf farm represents one vision for organic dairy - small- and medium-sized family farms where the cows have names and spend the growing season on Read more
News
June 26, 2006
Today an Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) panel released a report entitled Antimicrobial Resistance: Implications for the Food System. Because the report and IFT's accompanying fact sheet contained erroneous information about organic, OTA has prepared the following facts for you to use as needed. OTA is receiving press calls indicating that reporters have a high interest in the few statements about organic in the 180+ page report. Troubling statements from IFT's press releases include:
"Organic meat production may involve potentially higher safety risks due to prohibition of Read more
"Organic meat production may involve potentially higher safety risks due to prohibition of Read more
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