Happenings on the Ranch

I am happy to post this letter for you all to read, written by some very passionate organic proponents. While I find it interesting that two of the very people who said we should try to co-exist with GE crops have signed this letter (CEOs of both Stonyfield and Organic Valley), I am willing to believe (or hope) their participation in this effort are sincere.  (Notice the CEO of Whole Foods is not in the list of signatures.)  If you would like to help in the effort or receive alerts, there are links below. ~Karin

We stand united in opposition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) decision to once again allow unlimited, nationwide commercial planting of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa, despite the many risks to organic and conventional farmers.

Last spring more than 200,000 people submitted comments to the USDA highly critical of the substance and conclusions of its draft EIS on GE Alfalfa. Instead of responding to these comments and concerns, including expert comments from farmers, scientists, academics, conservationists, and food safety and consumer advocates, the USDA has chosen instead to listen to a handful of agricultural biotechnology companies.

USDA’s decision to allow unlimited, nationwide commercial planting of Monsanto’s GE Roundup Ready alfalfa without any restrictions flies in the face of the interests of conventional and organic farmers, preservation of the environment, and consumer choice. USDA has become a rogue agency in its regulation of biotech crops and its decision to appease the few companies who seek to benefit from this technology comes despite increasing evidence that GE alfalfa will threaten the rights of American farmers and consumers, as well as damage the environment.

The Center for Food Safety will be suing on this decision.

In the coming months, we will be seeing USDA proposals to allow unrestricted plantings of GE sugar beets, and GE corn and soy crops designed to resist toxic pesticides, such as 2-4D and Dicamba, highly toxic pesticides that pose a serious threat to our health and the environment. To win these critical and difficult battles, the entire organic community, and our allies in the conventional food and farming community, will have to work together.

Now is the time to unite in action. We need to work together to restore sanity to our food system, stop the deregulation of GE crops and join together against the forces that are seeking to silence hundreds of thousands of Americans.

As we move forward, we are united in opposing genetically engineered organisms in food production and believe that pressure to stop the proliferation of this contaminating technology must be focused on the White House and Congress. The companies responsible for this situation are the biotech companies whose GE technology causes genetic drift and environmental hazards that are not contained as the deregulation of genetically engineered alfalfa goes forward. The organic community stands together with consumer, farmer, environmental and business interests to ensure practices that are protective of health and the environment.

We urge you to join us today.

Sign up to receive action alerts.

Consider making a donation to the legal effort ahead.

Let the White House know that you do not support the deregulation of GE alfalfa.

Sincerely,

Joan Boykin, The Organic Center
Christine Bushway, Organic Trade Association
Jay Feldman, Beyond Pesticides
Michael Funk, United Natural Foods Inc (UNFI)
Elizabeth Henderson, NOFA Interstate Council
Gary Hirshberg, Stonyfield Farm
Liana Hoodes, National Organic Coalition
Kristina Hubbard, Organic Seed Alliance
Faye Jones, Midwest Organic Sustainable Education Service
Robby Kenner, Robert Kenner Films
Andrew Kimbrell, Center for Food Safety
Russell Libby, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners (MOFGA)
Ed Maltby, Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (NODPA)
Robyn O’Brien, Allergy Kids
Keith Olcott, Equal Exchange
Michael Pollan, Author
Maria Rodale, Rodale Inc.
Eric Schlosser, Author
Robynn Schrader, National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA)
Corinne Shindelar, INFRA
George Siemon, Organic Valley
Michael Sligh, Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI)
Megan Westgate, Non-GMO Project
Maureen Wilmot, Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF)
Enid Wonnacott, Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT)

I have just had it with the mainstream “organic” and “natural” movement.  What started as a grass-roots effort for people to live healthier lives while rejecting the constant pollution of our soil, air and water with chemicals and monster seeds has now, obviously, turned into nothing but a hypocrital money maker.  I will henceforth be boycotting Whole Foods, Stonyfield Farm, Organic Valley, all their sub-companies and any other two-faced, money-hungry, “natural” company I see.

Let me take a step back for a moment.  This rant of mine has been prompted, once again, by Monsanto and their GMO monstrosities.  Organic dairies and farmers have been fighting to keep another in a long line of Roundup Ready seeds out of the market.  This time it’s alfalfa.  Anybody heard of an alfalfa shortage?  Anybody hear any farmers complaining of too many weeds and too little yield from their alfalfa fields?  No?  Me neither.  But the chemical giant decided years ago they wanted to add another seed to their long line of genetically engineered, herbicide resistent, superweed-creating GMOs by producing Roundup Ready alfalfa.

Obviously, organic farmers and dairy producers don’t want this.  We’ve had enough problems of cross contamination of fields from Monsanto planted farms.  For years we’ve been fighting to keep these crops from contaminating organic produce and feed crops.  For a while I thought we had an ally in Whole Foods and some other major organic companies.  I know Whole Foods has plenty of downfalls … why would I buy organic garlic from China or organic tomatoes from Chile when local producers can grow it?  Besides, I rarely by vegetables out of season or that’s been shipped in.  And many of their supposedly “natural” products are produced from GMO crops.  But WF does have a good selection of other non-edible organic goods and by shopping carefully and paying close attention I could get the things I needed and support local (or at least U.S.) farmers while still occasionally treating myself to some off-season organic produce.

I hereby withdraw my support for Whole Foods after seeing they have now surrendered to Monsanto.  Two days before WFs blog post announcing this, the CEO of Organic Valley publically caved in on their website.  Two days before that, the CEO of Stonyfield Organic did the same thing.

They all say it in a roundabout, thinly veiled attempt to make it look like they are fighting against GMOs.  All three companies basically state that the only choices we have are to either allow the complete deregulation of genetically engineered seeds or to find a way to co-exist.  All three companies have decided we should opt to co-exist, as the lesser evil to allowing full deregulation.  Excuse me?  What about a third option of complete and total regulation of GE seeds, research (real research) into the effects of GMO foods, and real punishments for contamination of organic and non-GMO crops?  How about some truth in labeling?  If you’re using GMO crops to create my “all natural” cereal or granola bars, I want to know.  Nope, the organic elite don’t think that’s an option.  Better to lay down with the devil to “co-exist” than to use your significant market power to battle against them instead.

Sorry, guys.  I have a better option.  I’ll continue to grow my own food, buy from local producers whose sources I can verify, eat with the seasons and leave your Frankenstein crops blowing in the tainted wind.  I will no longer support your stores or your products.  I will make my own, find my own or do without.

So, after my Breyer’s temper tantrum I made the trip to Whole Foods on Monday.  I happily strode through the aisles checking off items on my list.  Mind you, I still checked the labels because what I consider “all natural” doesn’t really describe what most manufacturers think it means.

I started where the nuts and grains are.  I picked up some Bob’s Red Mill potato bread mix and read the label.  No funky additives.  Perfect.  Good thing about Red Mill is that they’re available all over the place.  I continued on and after adding some crackers, panko bread crumbs and a few other items I made my way to the dairy aisle.  I bought some milk from Shatto’s – no growth hormones and locally produced.  Not  to mention the glass bottles are really cool.  Then it was time to look at yogurt.

Yogurt has been a bit of a thorn in my side for quite a while when shopping in ‘regular’ groceries.  There have been very few times I would buy yogurt because it’s hard to find one that doesn’t have a whole bunch of gums or other odd additives.  In front of me were a plethora of yogurts, both natural and organic, and as I read the labels I was pretty pleasantly surprised by most.  A few did have guar gum as a stabilizer and I just put those right back on the shelf.  I saw some Brown Cow maple cream top yogurt, made with real maple syrup, on sale but wasn’t quite sure about the flavor.  I opted for a large tub of french vanilla cream top yogurt by Stonyfield Organics.  But I kept eyeing that maple.  While trying to make the decision a young woman walked into the dairy section, walked directly up to the maple yogurt, looked at nothing else, grabbed the tub and walked away.  That was all I needed; it made it’s way into my cart, too.

I continued to stroll the aisles looking at the labels and got a little bit more disenfranchised the further I went.  Being in the ag industry, so to speak, I know better than anyone the definitions of labels and claims by manufacturers and what is regulated and what is not.  I began to wonder if the common shopper really understood what can be classified as “all natural” and what can be included in “organic” foods.

Natural Foods.  There is no actual legal definition for natural foods, nor are there regulations in place (yet) for what can or can’t be included in foods that make the “all natural” claim.  Most companies use the label for foods that have ingredients from all natural sources and have been minimally processed without chemical components.  But there are a multitude of ingredients from natural sources that many consumers don’t want to ingest and these are often included in natural foods.  What’s worse is that some companies use this label in a very misleading way.

There is an organization out there that producers can join which does have standards.  Certified Naturally Grown is a non-profit organization that gives smaller farmers and ranchers an alternative to the USDA organic certification process.  NV Ranch is working toward our certification from CNG.  The standards are basically the same as the USDA National Organic Program but are less expensive and more easily attainable for smaller farms.  Of course, this certification really only helps consumers that shop local farmers but it’s a step in the right direction.

I always check the label on anything that claims to be natural.  It only takes a second to flip the package around and look at the ingredients list.  A quick scan will tell me if there’s anything I don’t want.  Of course, this means being educated on what those funky names for things mean.  But that’s another post.

USDA Organic.  The USDA’s National Organic Program regulates the standards for any farm or producer/handling operation and is intended to assure consumers that certified organic foods they buy are processed in accordance with those standards.  Using the Organic label means the product must contain at least 95% organically produced ingredients.  The remaining 5% can be non-agricultural ingredients on a list approved by the USDA.  Funny, “gums” can be organically produced.  Again not something I want to ingest but it’s allowable in organic products.  There are also 100% Organic items that are required to contain nothing that hasn’t been organically produced or processed.  Again, the “gum” clause applies.

So, even if something is labeled organic I still check the ingredients.  Our farm grows our produce in an organic way that exceeds the USDA regulations for organic farms.  I figure if I’m not willing to grow anything that doesn’t meet my high standards why should I settle for buying something that doesn’t?

Trying to eat things that are completely natural and don’t include any chemically processed ingredients can be difficult.  It definitely makes the shopping trip take a bit longer and may limit your diet a little bit.  But I think it’s well worth the effort.  Don’t trust what the front of the label tells you.  Turn it around, look at the ingredients list and then decide for yourself what you’re willing to eat and what you’re not.  Chances are someone else said the same thing along the way and started producing a product they, and you, are happy to eat.  It just might take a little searching to find it. 

And my ice cream search?  I managed to find an ice cream from Straus Family Creamery that didn’t have any extra junk in it (the way Breyer’s used to be made) and it’s awesome.  I even found an alternative for the one cookie I was guilty of eating that had all kinds of, um, “crap” in it.  My precious Vienna Fingers have now been replaced by Whole Foods 365 brand All Natural Vanilla Sandwich Cremes.  The cool thing is the cream inside tastes the way Vienna Fingers used to taste like.  Careful … they can be addicting.

Oh, and that maple yogurt?  I bought the 32oz tub on Monday afternoon and it’s gone as of this morning … and nobody else in the house got to eat any.  I’d say it was pretty good.