“To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.”

Sounds good right? Not when you learn that the bill was introduced by Rose de Lauro whose husband, Stanley Greenberg, once worked for Monsanto, the chemical-pesticide and GMO (genetically modified organism) powerhouse. Monsanto countered with this blog posting. Also rumored to be behind the bill include Tyson, ADM, Cargill, and a host of other agribusiness giants.

I’m not arguing against ANY food regulation — we still need recalls of tainted food, better regulation of slaughterhouses / food manufacturers, fining of regulation offenders, etc. We also need this bill (and all future foods bills) to take into account the unreasonable costs (time and money) that such bills / regulations place on smaller farms that don’t have the same economies of scale enjoyed by larger (often government subsidized) agribusinesses. If passed, this bill will likely curtail organic farming and the ever-popular neighborhood farmers’ markets by requiring organic farmers to pay large fees to register their products and have them inspected by federal agents. Thus, this bill will disincentivize farmers from pursuing organic farming methods if the costs of registering their organic foods becomes price prohibitive. And this is likely exactly what Monsanto (and other agribusinesses) want — fewer competitive organic farms and greater dependence on their chemical fertilizers.

I also think baked into this bill should be an improved system of food labeling. I want to know EXACTLY what I’m eating! People have a right to know what’s in their food — down to the last pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, hormone, antibiotic, or genetically-modified ingredient that went into its creation. I wonder what would happen to sales of processed foods if people knew exactly what they were eating…

Scary stuff. Please write your local leaders and urge them to oppose HR 875 (“Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009″) and S 425 (“Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act”). Both bills create unreasonable burdens on local production and sale of organic livestock & agriculture.

From OrganicConsumers.com:

“Of course, Monsanto and large corporate agribusiness are out to destroy traditional farming. Unfortunately, while many people have been distracted by HR 875, the biotech companies have been hard at work pushing their agenda (see below). We need to keep working together to work towards positive alternatives, such as organic agriculture and the green economy.”

A ban on rBGH-free labeling from Monsanto’s successor Eli Lilly
A bill that is working its way through the Kansas legislature would prevent farmers from labeling any dairy products sold in Kansas as being “free” of genetically modified bovine growth hormone (rbST or rBGH). Farmers could say that the product comes from cows that haven’t received injections of the artificial bovine growth hormone, which stimulates milk production (and increases the use of antibiotics and the presence of pus in milk). However, such products would also be forced to include disclaimers saying that the federal government has found no significant difference between milk from cows injected with rbST and milk from those that have not received the hormone. While there is an exemption for certified organic milk, OCA opposes this law. It has Monsanto’s fingerprints all over it. The revolving door that brought Monsanto executives through the FDA is the reason the federal government took the position that there’s no difference between milk produced with or without rbST. Monsanto sold rbST to Eli Lilly in August 2008, but the pro-rbST strategy hasn’t changed much.
http://www.hutchnews.com/Localregional/milklabeling




Monsanto uses closed-door lobbying to block Montana bill that would protect farmers
Montana Senators sidelined a seed bill that sought standards for how biotech companies test crops for patent infringement, burying the bill after getting a private dinner with Monsanto representatives.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/03/25/ap6213818.html




Epitopix’s E. coli vaccine
A vaccine for E. coli has been conditionally approved by the USDA. Now the USDA can force this new animal drug on all beef and dairy producers rather than focus on the cause of E. coli and its spread, feeding cows grain instead of grass, confining cows in pens where they wade in manure their whole lives right up to slaughter, and the manure lagoons that leak into the water and onto nearby vegetable farms.
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=75&SubSectionID=767&ArticleID=49767&TM=58133.16


Monsanto’s gene-altered drought-resistant corn
The chemical companies have yoked farmers with increasingly expensive and ineffective fossil-fuel-based inputs that contribute to global warming. Now they propose another techno-fix: gene-altered drought-tolerant crops. Trouble is, the crops don’t do well under non-drought conditions. Monsanto invests $2.6 million daily in its research. Think how many people could be eat healthy food on long-term, sustainable basis if Monsanto and its partner the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $2.6 each day in organic agriculture!
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5950
http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/02/agriculture-res.html
http://www.planetark.com/enviro-news/item/51966




Indian farmers protest Monsanto seed experiments that threaten their farms
One farmer said, “Monsanto is a criminal corporation known to have sued or sent to jail scores of farmers elsewhere for doing what farmers around the world have done for millennia — saving their seeds.”
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/farmers-protestmonsantos-gm-seed-experiment/352673/

THANK YOU GreenerPrinter.com — I LOVE my new “GREEN” business cards, and I loved doing business with you.






Last week I drove to GreenerPrinter’s Berkeley office to pick up my business cards — even though delivery is available, I was in the area and figured I could reduce my ‘carbon footprint’ that much more by picking them up vs. having them delivered. They are fabulous — 100% recycled, 50% post-consumer paper waste, processed chlorine-free paper using soy-based inks.

To create my business cards, I:

• Used GreenerPrinter’s “self-service business card” option.
• I then downloaded their Adobe Illustrator business card template (readily available on their website).
• I then downloaded an Adobe Illustrator 30-day trial membership for free, and set about creating my business cards.

I then uploaded my design to GreenerPrinter’s website and soon received a soft-copy proof via email (which I actually changed a couple of times until the card/proof was to my liking — the changes were made at no additional charge). Once I accepted the proof, my credit card was billed and a week later I had my cards! FYI: they also offer 3- and 5-day turnaround times for a slight premium. HERE THEY ARE!


Front of Business Card
Back of Business Card

I encourage all companies (sustainably-minded or not) to support businesses such as these that are focused on creating high-quality products out of recycled (preferably post-consumer) and reclaimed materials. There are many such companies out there…Interface makes carpets out of recycled carpets, Bottlestone creates surface materials (think countertops) out of recycled glass. And both companies are committed to using sustainable business practices and to minimizing their impact on the environment. The onus is on us as consumers to seek out companies like these and to support them.

We Are What We Eat

Questions asked and answered about how our food is and can be grown

“Healthy nutritious food should not be an elitist privilege; it should be an inalienable right.”

- Aaron Lucich

Thank you, Aaron Lucich, for taking the time to make a documentary about the ills of industrialized agriculture — or agriculture that is defined by the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified seeds (GMOs), among other things.

Although Aaron’s documentary is still a work in progress, he has shared with us a “15 minute teaser”* of the film that includes interviews with some of the bigger names in sustainable agriculture.

I’ve listed below my favorite quotes from Aaron’s film-in-progree. To watch the teaser* online, click here.
*Aaron’s Disclosure: “The clips are not necessarily indicative of where I’m going but they are from the raw stock that I have been accumulating. At best they are meanderings in my process of clarification. They may have some intermittent value.”

My Favorite Quotes:

• “The collapse of soil as the basic resource has led to the decline of societies for the last twelve thousand years.”
• “We live in the most ecologically illiterate civilization that has ever existed.”
• “When a culture worships at the altar of fatter bigger faster cheaper, that food system mantra will express itself in the population.”
• “We’ve unlearned our connection to a healthy nature and a healthy environment.”
• “Conventional petrochemical agriculture has existed for less than a century. In that time we have seen the advent of a national health care crisis, new food borne pathogens, and bottled water, to name a few.”
• “In 1972, 1 out of 4 people got cancer. In 2007, 1 in 2 got cancer.”
• “The chemical solution is NOT the solution. More chemicals have been applied every year since we started this ‘experiment.’ We’ve gone from 1.0mm tons of chemicals up to 1.1mm tons just in the past 14 months. Never since we started [using chemicals] 70 yrs ago has there been a reduction in pest or in disease. You can’t get a less sustainable scenario.”
• “When EPA tests agriculture chemicals’ [affect on humans], they test one chemical at a time. When you combine things together, the negative affects are enhanced.”
• “Leukemia is linked to chemical residues [like petrochemical fertilizers & pesticides]. It’s the largest killer of children.”
• “We’ve had our FDA ratify GMOs [genetically modified organisms] for human consumption without any testing or any readout of what the consequences are.”
• “Cows were designed to eat grass [not grain]. Grain – production of corn & soybeans- is killing America. 75% of our topsoil is gone… Jared Diamond said that every culture that collapses has killed its topsoil…and [our topsoil is now] all down in the Gulf of Mexico.”
• “You cannot rely on the government to protect the integrity of organic standards. [The standards] will inevitably be diluted by political and commercial forces.”
• “Governments have a role, but we have to take the future into our own hands and take the responsibility on ourselves.”
• “You vote with your fork. When you buy food, you vote for that type of food production.”
• “We have power as consumers to shift things faster than the government, the regulators, the health authorities, etc.”

“Soil science is the foundation of protective medicine, the medicine of tomorrow.”

– André Voisin

In addition to increasing economic woes, California is also currently facing “water woes” as it enters its 3rd year of “one of the worst droughts on record, with reservoirs holding as little as 22% of capacity” [WSJ, Shrinking Water Supplies Imperil Farmers, 2/10/09]. Drought, compounded by court-ordered environmental regulation limiting the use of water for crop irrigation, is affecting California’s $20B/year agriculture business and forcing more and more farmers to leave their fields fallow.

THE PROBLEM
Although farmers have limited control over rainfall, they have greater control over the ability of their soil to retain the water it does receive. The healthier the soil, the better its ability to retain moisture. Unfortunately, the use of chemical / synthetic fertilizers (N-P-K) and pesticides strips the soil of the GOOD bugs (or microbes), which leads to hard, compacted soil that is unable to retain moisture. So the water that the crops do receive washes off the land and takes the pesticides and chemical fertilizers with it (and into our groundwater, streams, etc.)

Reducing chemical run-off from fields is yet another reason to “go organic,” as organic farming (vs. conventional farming) improves water quality and reduces soil erosion / topsoil loss. The loss of topsoil, a precious yet limited natural resource, is accelerating in the US and abroad — it’s a huge issue to which I will dedicate an upcoming blog post.

THE SOLUTION
Reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and adopting more sustainable, organic land management programs will dramatically improve soil health. This includes the use of the 4 ‘Ms:’ moisture, microbes, mulch, and mineral fertilizers, such as Eco-Min®. This will create stronger, healthier plants with more robust root systems, which in turn reduces soil erosion and compaction and increases water retention.

To quote David Hall’s book, Soils or Spoil, “There can never be too many beneficial microbes in the soil…Their role is to produce humus -the perfect plant food- which is water-absorbing, carbon-filled organic matter. It is also nature’s way of recycling calcium and carbon back into the soil. More microbes [in the soil] mean less disease, stronger and larger root systems, which means more organic matter until equilibrium is achieved as deep, fertile soil.”

BOTTOM LINE
● Larger plant root system = increased return of organic matter to the soil.
● Increased organic matter in the soil = increased carbon.
● Increased carbon = increased moisture retention.
It can be argued that salvation for farmers can be found as much in the sky from rain clouds as it can beneath the ground in the soil.

• Biotech seed companies have genetically modified seeds and plants to do unnatural things, such as (1) kill the insects that eat them and (2) accept more of the fertilizer (ie. “RoundUp” and other known toxins) that are sprayed on them. Not healthy.
• Taking it a horrific step further, Monsanto has created something called a Terminator Gene that makes seeds infertile to ensure repeat business. Basically, “genetically engineered seeds self-destruct after on planting. Farmers in third world countries must then continue to depend of Foreign companies like Monsanto for their seeds. Yes that right, Monsanto owns the patents to the food that the world eats.” (link)
• Genetically modified organisms (GMO) –like seeds– can spread through nature and interbreed with natural organisms, thereby contaminating non ‘GE’ environments and future generations in an unforeseeable and uncontrollable way. Their release is ‘genetic pollution’ and is a major threat because GMOs cannot be recalled once released into the environment.
• Because of commercial interests, the public is being denied the right to know about GE ingredients in the food chain, and therefore losing the right to avoid them despite the presence of labelling laws in certain countries.
• More info on the ills of GMO (Greenpeace): Say No to Genetic Engineering

Food Security & Climate Change: The Answer is Biodiversity
Greenpeace | December 2008 | 8-page report

“A review of recent scientific literature underlines that the most effective strategy to adapt agriculture to climate change is to increase biodiversity. A mix of different crops and varieties in one field is a proven and highly reliable farming method to increase resilience to erratic weather changes. And, the best ways to increase stress tolerance in single varieties are modern breeding technologies that do not entail genetic engineering, such as Marker Assisted Selection. In contrast, there is no evidence that genetically engineered (GE) plants can ever play any role to increase food security in a changing climate.”

Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research

By: Andrew Pollack | February 19, 2009 | link

Biotechnology companies are keeping university scientists from fully researching the effectiveness and environmental impact of the industry’s genetically modified crops, according to an unusual complaint issued by a group of those scientists.

Ken Ostlie, an entomologist, said Syngenta had withdrawn its permission and a study about corn and rootworms had to stop.

“No truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions,” the scientists wrote in a statement submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency. The E.P.A. is seeking public comments for scientific meetings it will hold next week on biotech crops.

The statement will probably give support to critics of biotech crops, like environmental groups, who have long complained that the crops have not been studied thoroughly enough and could have unintended health and environmental consequences.

The researchers, 26 corn-insect specialists, withheld their names because they feared being cut off from research by the companies. But several of them agreed in interviews to have their names used.

The problem, the scientists say, is that farmers and other buyers of genetically engineered seeds have to sign an agreement meant to ensure that growers honor company patent rights and environmental regulations. But the agreements also prohibit growing the crops for research purposes.

So while university scientists can freely buy pesticides or conventional seeds for their research, they cannot do that with genetically engineered seeds. Instead, they must seek permission from the seed companies. And sometimes that permission is denied or the company insists on reviewing any findings before they can be published, they say.

Such agreements have long been a problem, the scientists said, but they are going public now because frustration has been building.

“If a company can control the research that appears in the public domain, they can reduce the potential negatives that can come out of any research,”
said Ken Ostlie, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota, who was one of the scientists who had signed the statement.

What is striking is that the scientists issuing the protest, who are mainly from land-grant universities with big agricultural programs, say they are not opposed to the technology. Rather, they say, the industry’s chokehold on research means that they cannot supply some information to farmers about how best to grow the crops. And, they say, the data being provided to government regulators is being “unduly limited.”

The companies “have the potential to launder the data, the information that is submitted to E.P.A.,” said Elson J. Shields, a professor of entomology at Cornell.

William S. Niebur, the vice president in charge of crop research for DuPont, which owns the big seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred, defended his company’s policies. He said that because genetically engineered crops were regulated by the government, companies must carefully police how they are grown.

“We have to protect our relationship with governmental agencies by having very strict control measures on that technology,” he said.

But he added that he would welcome a chance to talk to the scientists about their concerns.
Monsanto and Syngenta, two other biotech seed companies, said Thursday that they supported university research. But as did Pioneer, they said their contracts with seed buyers were meant to protect their intellectual property and meet their regulatory obligations.

But an E.P.A. spokesman, Dale Kemery, said Thursday that the government required only management of the crops’ insect resistance and that any other contractual restrictions were put in place by the companies.

The growers’ agreement from Syngenta not only prohibits research in general but specifically says a seed buyer cannot compare Syngenta’s product with any rival crop.

Dr. Ostlie, at the University of Minnesota, said he had permission from three companies in 2007 to compare how well their insect-resistant corn varieties fared against the rootworms found in his state. But in 2008, Syngenta, one of the three companies, withdrew its permission and the study had to stop.

“The company just decided it was not in its best interest to let it continue,” Dr. Ostlie said.
Mark A. Boetel, associate professor of entomology at North Dakota State University, said that before genetically engineered sugar beet seeds were sold to farmers for the first time last year, he wanted to test how the crop would react to an insecticide treatment. But the university could not come to an agreement with the companies responsible, Monsanto and Syngenta, over publishing and intellectual property rights.

Chris DiFonzo, an entomologist at Michigan State University, said that when she conducted surveys of insects, she avoided fields with transgenic crops because her presence would put the farmer in violation of the grower’s agreement.

An E.P.A. scientific advisory panel plans to hold two meetings next week. One will consider a request from Pioneer Hi-Bred for a new method that would reduce how much of a farmer’s field must be set aside as a refuge aimed at preventing insects from becoming resistant to its insect-resistant corn.

The other meeting will look more broadly at insect-resistant biotech crops.

Christian Krupke, an assistant professor at Purdue, said that because outside scientists could not study Pioneer’s strategy, “I don’t think the potential drawbacks have been critically evaluated by as many people as they should have been.”

Dr. Krupke is chairman of the committee that drafted the statement, but he would not say whether he had signed it.

Dr. Niebur of Pioneer said the company had collaborated in preparing its data with universities in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, the states most affected by the particular pest.

Dr. Shields of Cornell said financing for agricultural research had gradually shifted from the public sector to the private sector. That makes many scientists at universities dependent on financing or technical cooperation from the big seed companies.

“People are afraid of being blacklisted,” he said. “If your sole job is to work on corn insects and you need the latest corn varieties and the companies decide not to give it to you, you can’t do your job.”

<<See Pesticide Rankings of 44 Fruits / Vegetables>>

Though governments do attempt to regulate the use of pesticides, several commonly used chemicals have been linked to the following health problems: low birth weight and birth defects, interference with child development and cognitive ability, neurological problems, disruption of hormone function, and the development of cancers, including leukemia, kidney cancer, brain cancer, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Children along with unborn babies suffer more of the effects of pesticides than adults because: (1) children’s bodily systems / neurosystems are still developing, (2) children eat more food relative to their body weight (3) children are much less able to detoxify most pesticides (vs adults).

Exposure to pesticides does happen by routes other than the internalization of food, but reasearch shows that reducing pesticide intake via food has an immediate observable effect on body-burden levels of pesticides. Still, it’s good to be aware of pesticides in all foods, because they can linger in the soil for years after organic production has begun. For that reason, it’s always best to peel fruits and veggies, both organic and conventional, to reduce pesticide intake.

10. Milk

While milk is a natural product, all the antibiotics and hormones that go into high-yield cows most certainly aren’t. Some studies on supplements like recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) used in conventional milk production have suggested links to early puberty and other hormonal abnormalities. Danish studies have shown that not only does organic milk have less of the bad stuff, it has more of the good stuff. Specifically, organic milk has higher levels of vitamin E, omega-3 essential fatty acids and antioxidants.

9. Eggs

Though they are a terrific source of protein, most eggs are produced using a range of antibiotics and hormones on the chickens that bear them. Given this, the health gains of eating organic eggs are similar to those of drinking organic milk. Essentially, organic eggs mean fewer hormones in the chicken and fewer foreign hormones (or chemicals acting as hormones) in your body.

8. Potatoes

Chlorothalonil, often used on potatoes, can be particularly harmful to children. In fact, chlorothalonil was deemed so unhealthy by the state of New York that it was at the center of a lawsuit against the U.S. federal government due to its extensive commercial use. Moreover, in Canada, potato pesticides have been linked to high rates of asthma and asthma-related deaths in farming communities.

7. Spinach

Poor spinach. It’s actually one of nature’s most healthy “superfoods,” one that nutritionists and doctors keep on encouraging us to eat. But it’s not just E. coli scares that have given conventionally grown spinach a bad name. Spinach is another regular feature on pesticide-occurrence lists, with one sample of spinach in a study containing residues of more than 20 different pesticides.

6. Grapes

Grapes from Chile add a load of detrimental fungicides to your diet. Even U.S. grapes contain methyl parathion and methomyl, a carbamate insecticide listed as an endocrine disruptor. Definitely bring in the organics on this one!

5. Pears

No matter how good they taste, conventional pears consistently show up on lists of the most pesticide-rich fruits and vegetables. Though it was banned from use on pears, methyl parathion — the fungicide that contributes significantly to the toxicity of strawberries and peaches — shows up in the fruit’s residues, as does azinphos-methyl, an acutely toxic chemical used on many fruit crops.

4. Strawberries

Strawberries unfortunately show high levels of fungicides, two of which (captan and iprodione) are classified as probable human carcinogens by the EPA. Moreover, vinclozolin, another common fungicide found on strawberries, impedes the normal functioning of the male hormone, androgen. Among other commonly found contaminants on strawberries is endosulfan, a relative of DDT that imitates the hormone estrogen, which ends up interfering with your normal hormone levels.

3. Bell peppers

Typically, green bell peppers are added to diets to provide vitamin C, while red bell peppers enrich meals with vitamin A and a moderate dose of carotenoids. Unfortunately, when it comes to crops, bell peppers are the most heavily contaminated vegetables out there in terms of neurotoxic insecticides. Even the USDA has found pesticide residues on over 95% of conventional bell peppers. Go for organic to avoid this type of high exposure.

2. Apples

One a day keeps the doctor away IF it’s organic! The pesticide load of apples is disturbingly high. In one study, there were more pesticides detected on apples (36%), and more pesticides found on single samples of apples (7%), than any other fruit or vegetable analyzed. And while apples aren’t No. 1 when it comes to fruits contaminated with dangerous chemicals, they are always near the top of the list.

1. Peaches

Peaches are the No. 1 fruit to avoid in conventional produce. In some studies, they’ve had up to 10 times as much pesticide on them as other fruits and vegetables. And those chemicals aren’t friendly ones: They include the cancer-linked fungicides captan and iprodione, and the neurotoxic pesticide methyl parathion.

Source: Men’s Health




Chart:



Source: Environmental Working Group: Food News

I started doing some web searching and stumbled upon a relevant blog posting by an LA Times Blogger, who “follows the road to green living in LA.” Siel had an excellent post titled, “Green workplace: Eco-friendly business cards.” Bingo.

One 30-day free trial of Adobe Illustrator and a few drafts later, I’ve successfully submitted my homemade business cards to GreenerPrinter.com and in 7 days, which is the longest of several printing/shipping options, I will have 500 business cards that are made of 100% recycled/50% PCW paper and printed with vegetable-based ink…all for under $50.

But this brings up an even bigger question:

Q: What’s the difference between “recycled” paper and “PCW (post-consumer waste)” paper and why should you care?

Plenty magazine fills us in:

A: Post-consumer waste is the trash produced when someone has used – that’s past tense – and disposed of piece of paper, soda can, or any other product. The term describes the process most people imagine when they think of recycling: you bind last week’s newspapers, set them on the sidewalk and they’re trucked away to a plant that breaks them down, cleans them up, and sells the stuff as non-virgin paper pulp. Pre-consumer waste, on the other hand, is byproduct from the paper manufacturing process, such as the trimmings left over after the paper is cut to size. It’s silly and misleading when companies advertise pre-consumer paper waste as having been “recycled,” because in fact, it hasn’t ever left the manufacturing plant. That’s like saying you’re “recycling” sugar cookie dough when you take the scraps left outside the cookie cutter, ball them up, and roll out another sheet.

So when you buy recycled paper products, look for the ones that specify how much post-consumer waste, or PCW, went into them. If you don’t see “PCW” written anywhere on a product, there’s a good chance you’re being duped. Go for items that boast the highest PCW percentages – the ideal, of course, is 100% PCW, but 80% and 90% are great, too.

And if your recycled paper towels, toilet paper, or printing paper look a bit grayish, that’s a good thing: you’ll know someone once read the news on it, drank coffee from it, or maybe (if you’re lucky) even blew their nose on it, before it got to you. That’s paper pulp that was lovingly tossed in the green bin by its former owner, and which would otherwise be clogging a landfill somewhere.

MORE REASONS TO RECYCLE & TO BUY PCW-PAPER:

• Producing recycled paper causes 74% less air pollution, 35% less water pollution, and creates 5 times the number of jobs than producing virgin paper from trees. It saves old-growth trees, forest eco-systems, native habitat and biodiversity.
• The average person in the US consumes about 700 lbs of paper, making US the largest consumer of paper in the world. 90% of the printing/writing paper comes from virgin tree fiber .
• Conventional paper is also bleached using chlorine or chlorine derivatives, which create dioxins and other toxins and pollutants.
• Once used, paper generally ends up in the municipal waste stream, making up to 40% of the total waste, instead of being recycled and reused.

[source]

The Soil Association’s overall campaign goal is to make a rapid transition from a food production dependent on chemicals, global commodity markets and heavy use of oil, to a more resilient, localized, organic food and farming system powered by present day solar power, rather than one reliant on climate-damaging fossil fuels made from ancient sunlight.

WHY are they pushing for this target?

• SHRINK CARBON FOOTPRINT: With 30% of an individual’s carbon footprint made up of their food choices, food is the single most important, everyday means for tackling the challenges of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and future security of our food supplies.
• PROMOTE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH: The production and use of synthetic [chemical] fertilizers globally are the largest single source of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 310-times more damaging than carbon dioxide.
• DECREASE RESOURCE DEPLETION: To make one tonne of synthetic fertilizer takes 108 tonnes of water, emits 7t of carbon dioxide, and uses 1t of oil. Organic farming typically uses 26% less energy to produce the same amount of food as non-organic farming.
• DECREASE OIL DEPENDENCE: The UK, USA, and other countries worldwide remain very dependent on oil in agriculture: oil for machinery and also for oil-based pesticides.

“It’s a complete stereotype that organic farming is old-fashioned. We’re not in any way anti-science or luddite and we do need to research things such as soil science to prevent degradation. Use of chemicals has left soil in this country susceptible to flooding, and soil is the biggest retainer of carbon there is,” said Maynard.

He also delivered a message to the consumer: “Food is the simplest thing everyone can do to reduce their carbon footprint. It’s where we can make direct choices and can push for local, seasonal, unprocessed food. We need a system to grade food with a carbon rating – the existing carbon labeling is fraught with difficulties.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if the United States set a similar organic target? If this is something you are interested in doing, contact us and your legislators today!

MORE INFO: The Soil Association’s report: An Inconvenient Truth About Food (online PDF here) addresses the organization’s viewpoints on the issues of food security, climate change, healthy eating and food policy.

As the article states, no charges have been filed in the Port Organic Products case, but Kern County records dating back to 2005 show Port Organic has stocked thousands of gallons of aqua ammonia, a common source of synthetic nitrogen. (Industry sources estimate that Port Organic Products produced up to half of the liquid fertilizer used on California’s organic farms in recent years.)

Although there is still much work to be done to better regulate the organic fertilizer industry and prevent similar scandals in the future, these two recent issues have resulted in an increased focus on organic fertilizer inspection, testing, and regulation:

• California Certified Organic Farmers, the state’s top organic certifier, last week mandated inspections of fertilizer makers that sell to its clients. As of Friday (1/23/09), California Certified Organic Farmers ordered its clients to stop using Port Organic’s products.
• Earthbound Farm, the nation’s largest producer of organic greens, is stepping up a new testing program for the chemicals its farmers use.
• CA state fertilizer inspectors may get additional auditing powers and the state Senate Food and Agriculture Committee has scheduled a hearing on the issue Feb. 3.

We at Optimum Yield would like to reinforce our commitment to our growers and to our distributors that ECO-MIN is an all-natural, OMRI-listed, non-leaching / non-polluting soil amendment product. It contains no nitrogen (NPK) or genetically modified ingredients and is safe for children, pets, and wildlife when used as directed.

Please contact us if you would like to learn more about how ECO-MIN can help improve crop yield, soil fertility, and brix levels, while reducing erosion and the need for toxic chemicals. www.eco-min.us.com

Those same regulators didn’t tell the public (including those organic farmers) of this discovery – nor did they demand the product be removed from market – until 2007. As a result, “some of California’s 2006 harvest of organic fruits, nuts and vegetables – including crops from giants like Earthbound Farm – wasn’t organic.” Not good.

Perhaps it’s time to make sure that any “organic” products you are currently using are indeed organic.

We at ECO-MIN / Optimum Yield want to take this opportunity to assure our growers and distributors that ECO-MIN (which is derived from rock minerals) is 100% all-natural, organic, and contains no genetically modified ingredients. It is listed by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) for use in the production of organic food & fiber. ECO-MIN does not leach/pollute ground water or streams, so spills do not cause concern or involve costly clean-up. And used according to directions, ECO-MIN will not harm children, pets, animals or birds.

ECO-MIN does not contain any synthetic N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorous, or potassium). Instead, ECO-MIN enhances the growth of soil microbes (“the invisible workers of the soil”) that in turn supply root systems with an abundance of nutrients, minerals, trace elements, and ultra trace elements. Over the long-term, soil fertility will increase (vs. decrease as it does with chemical fertilizers); this can provide higher yields and improve crop quality, reducing the need for toxic chemicals such as N-P-K fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.

Click here for more information on the benefits of incorporating ECO-MIN into the land management practices of conventional and organic growers, cities, schools/universities, urban developers, and government agencies.