Exerpt from Monkeyshines Register ( SFJ Spring 2001)

It's a very big deal. The feds step in and say they are going to level the playing field and make "organic" a designation we can trust. So what we have now is federal control. Lots of different opinions as to what they came up with and lots of confusion. We're certain that the hard work our editorial intern, Seth Quackenbush, has done will help organize the fog into nameable chunks. We have our own harsh assessment which appears at the end of this. But I am certain that this is not the end of this. It is a 'beginning' and one which I think many of us will want to help steer or organize a boycott of. So we'll keep the subject wide open. If you'd like to get in on the discussion write us or email your thoughts and concerns. The future ought not to belong to the USDA's corporate bedfellows. LRM

Ain't nobody's opinion but my own. And plenty of people are fretting that I might just say all that is on my mind with regard to this USDA Org standard business - so what are we waiting for?

What an unfortunate mess?! Hold fast, though, because big messes are frequently the front porch to opportunity. Perhaps we can find a good side to this hot scrambled conflab of stinking compromise and manipulation.

But first: How soon we have forgotten, or choose to ignore, that our own United States Department of Agriculture has functioned and continues to function primarily as a funnel for corporate welfare to giant multinational agribusiness businesses. And that the USDA has worked, blatantly, to tear down the small family farm, the social fabric of rural America, and organic agriculture.

The winners with this new certification program are those large scale organic "factory farms" that have been crying "no fair!" to those of us small operations which, until now, have cornered local markets. The mom and pop organic farms will be hard pressed to afford the cost and inconvenience of compliance. And they may not want to, with the constraints that now exist on good compost building recipes.

USDA will argue that the consumer is the winner because NOW they'll be assured that what is called "organic" is indeed organic. What a pile of nonsense. All they will actually be able to guarantee is that those who comply with the certification standards (and/or those who win or purchase the favor of the "enforcers", subcontracted to do the certification) will serve up an industrial grade of organic product. And that product may or may not be the healthful stuff we have come to expect from "organic".

In other words it is my angry contention that we have just witnessed the theft of our distinction and the degrading of our market position. I'm not sure I want to have my ranch production labelled "organic". I'm not sure. Perhaps we should look at this as an opportunity to label what we produce by a new handle. A more accurate handle. Or a more imaginative and suggestive handle. Something independent. Something like "neo-organic" or "nouveau-organic" or "natural" or "good" or "healthy". And then to tag on a sub-label that says "from a living well-regarded soil" or "the result of humus enhancement" or "without man-made chemical distraction" or "grown by the healthiest means" or "clean and mean" or "without benefit of federal oversight" or "lousy with flavor and health" or "non-industrial" or "beyond organic" or "as healthy as it tastes" or...

There will doubtless be those who believe that we can have constructive input direcly to the USDA on this program. It won't happen. Not on the current administration's watch. It is my opinion that we need to work collectively on other options, those which take us around behind the house and to the back door, the door which leads to the kitchen. LRM