• Common Ground •

Hello and Happy April Fools Day. Throughout the years I recall spoofs perpetrated on this day that really caused a stir and chuckle. National Public Radio always participated and part of the fun is deciphering which headlines and stories are real and which are not. Stretching the boundaries of plausibility makes for fun when there are no consequences other than a laugh.

I was approached by a number of "conventional" growers at a Board of Agriculture meeting who were very dismayed at the portrayal of their chemical agriculture as evil in a video. One person commented that these assaults on "traditional" agriculture by fringe radicals was really a problem and needs to have something done about it. The 'tradition' of reliance on chemical fertility (to me an oxymoron) and a petrochemical based agriculture started about 75 years ago. By comparison domesticated livestock, sheep as the first, have been around for about 15,000 years. The video? STORE WARS [Type that into your browser to view this video done in 2005 by the Organic Trade Association.] In spite of this film and the 'Meatrix' series I'm not sure about the OTA and their shift to the dark side last year by supporting an assault on the Organic Food Production Act rules regarding synthetic chemical use. If you recall, that resulted in the passage of legislation that gave authority to the Secretary of the USDA to allow exceptions; authority specifically designated to the National Organic Standards Board in the OFPA. I am sure that the issue of what ORGANIC means is under assault and the picture becomes muddier by the moment when you consider the impact of big business on organic agriculture.

The USDA, behind closed doors, recently announced several highly questionable appointees to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). Despite calls from the organic community to let the public know ahead of time who the nominees were, the USDA kept the names of the nominees secret. The NOSB advises the USDA on how to interpret and implement national organic standards. Despite federal law that mandates that the 15-member NOSB must be broadly representative of the organic community, the USDA's recent appointees are all notable for their past or present ties to corporate agribusiness. For example the appointee for the seat reserved for a "Consumer and Public Interest Group Representative" was given to Tracy Miedema, who works for Stahlbush Island Farms, a split-farm operation with 3/4 of its acreage non-organic. Miedema, who previously worked for a subsidiary of General Mills (Small Planet) freely admits that Stahlbush utilizes Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, as well as other chemical pesticides and fungicides. The USDA's appointee for the seat reserved for a scientist is Katrina Heinze, who works for Small Planet/General Mills, a company with a hardball reputation for selling sugar-laden cereals to kids, supporting GMOs, and industrial agriculture. Heinze was forced to resign from the NOSB last year, under pressure from the OCA and the Consumer's Union, after being appointed "consumer representative" to the NOSB. Another one of the "organic experts" appointed to this powerful government board is a representative of Campbell's Soup. Please tell the USDA that organic consumers want all nominees and future appointments to be made in a fair and transparent manner and that we believe the current crop of pro-industry appointees are completely unacceptable. For more detail please check out the information at the Organic Consumers Association

It won't be our common ground if we stand idly by and allow the same industry we strive to liberate ourselves from to pirate our movement.

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