Comments on: National Organic Program to be audited!

By: green energy

green energy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:22:03 +0000

very interesting read, many thanks. nice one.

By: susanne

susanne — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:28:47 +0000

not to mention the fact that the “farms” producing our food right now are producing over 4000 calories for every man, woman, and child in the nation per day. we could surely be using some of that extra energy to farm more responsibly.

By: 100 mile diet

100 mile diet — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:01:03 +0000

Hey Sid you can actually feed the nation, because there are small farmers nationwide who are not paid enough and who have leftover food that they cannot sell.

Please read ANIMAL VEGETABLE MINERAL and get your facts straight.

Besides, people can feed themselves with a small victory garden and subsidize their diet with food bought from farmers.

By: sid

sid — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:54:56 +0000

It’s not organic farming that worries me, but the industrial-scale organic farms and related systems (like distribution), but you aren’t going to feed a 300 million person nation without an industrial-based food system. Lucky I can do CSA with an organic farm and avoid mega food stores with their shelves 90% full of processed crap, no better example of this than the yogurt section, where a big store has almost no basic, plain yogurt but is full of bio-boosted mega-health product festooned with health claims that do one thing for certain: boost the unit price? What ever happened to just “food?”

By: Cathy Richards

Cathy Richards — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:10:15 +0000

I would say that the public has deep distrust in the food system, period. Organic is the current scapegoat because 1) ‘traditional’ (ie. the past 60 years) farming lobbyists are scaremongering organic as a scapegoat to divert attention to its treatment of animals, overuse of petroleum for fertilizing and shipping, and rampant food safety issues; 2) consumers feel a need to pick on organic to justify their desire to spend less on food regardless of the impact on animal or environmental welfare; 3) USDA has opened the door to questioning organic due to its lax ‘lowest common denominmator’ standards.

I would much rather the $500,000 be spent auditing the ‘traditional’ food systems — abuse of fertilizers, pesticides, monocultures, antibiotics, animals.

However, if this leads to stronger organic standards, I guess something positive could come from it.

By: Harriette Jensen

Harriette Jensen — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:29:43 +0000

Sounds like the corporate farming interests who run the USDA are running a little scared. It’s not the small organic farmers who have caused national panic in the country because of the e. coli found in their products.