Dear Organic Community,
In
March I wrote a letter to the OTA board stating our dissatisfaction
with the direction and leadership of the OTA. Our main concern was and is
that the OTA board is controlled by board members who work for or whose
employer is owned by a conventional/GM food company. We believe this has
created integrity issues at OTA which I outlined in our letter to the
OTA Board (pdf here)
From the feedback we received, most were in agreement and many added that they were frustrated as they feel these issues go back
many years. The problem, some stated, was the corporate influence of
the OTA board combined with the political apathy of the majority of OTA
members. My understanding is that last election only 20% of members
voted.
Unfortunately, political apathy is not an option.
We must accept, whether reluctantly or not, that OTA is the largest and
most recognizable voice for the organic industry. What
OTA does or doesn’t do affects us all. So myself, along with many
others have put forward a modest yet obvious proposal. That OTA members
from 100% organic companies field candidates for the OTA board election
and that membership becomes engaged enough to consider voting for these
like minded organic candidates.
The stakes are getting
much higher as OTA has formed a Political Action Committee. Our
understanding is that the board member from Dean Foods is chair of this
PAC. What this means is that employees of corporate members of OTA can
now donate to Congresspeople and Senators through the OTA PAC. This
gives policies, that these corporations are lobbying for, the organic
legitimacy that comes from the PAC’s association with North America’s
largest organic trade association.
We believe such a change
of direction, from an association promoting organics to a lobbying
association is an error and takes focus away from what has made this
industry, promoting the benefits of organics to the public. It does
nothing for organics, the grassroots nor the 100% organic companies to
empower its corporate members to lobby directly through OTA. The organic
community has a strong lobby and its worked when we’ve needed it. For
example, when the USDA tried to slip GMO, sewage sludge and irradiation
into the National Organic Program, over 200,000 responses were received
by the USDA. Government claimed it was the largest public and industry
response to proposed rule changes the USDA had ever received. And it
worked. So why would we waste money donating to politicians, when this
money could be used to promote organics to the public? Additionally, we
our extremely naive if we feel our hundreds of thousands of dollars in
lobbying for GM labeling or compensation for adventitious presence
will make a dent in policy versus the millions the biotech industry
spends on lobbying for its version of a GE world. Ours would be a
complete waste of money. GE, for example, will be labelled once the
public wakes up and gets genuinely angry. It has little to do with the
politicians. This along with the current issues of organic integrity at
OTA need to be fully discussed by the board and membership.
The process of 100%
organic company board control of OTA will take this and the next
election to complete. Below from the OCA website are the candidates who
are running and their organic, natural and GM interests. Thankfully, a
number of 100% organic companies have decided to run for the board:
Earthbound Farms, Wholesum Family Farms, Uncle Matt’s and Nature’s Path. My understanding is that the following 100% organic
companies/organizations currently have board seats; Pennsylvania
Certified Organic, Late July Organic Snacks with Uncle Matt’s running
for re-election. If the 100%ers are voted in this would provide 6 board
seats out of 15 board seats. So this process is not complete but it is
well within our reach for the next OTA election.
Below are the candidates for the current OTA Board elections.
100% Organic –
Earthbound, Wholesum Family Farms, Uncle Matt’s, and Nature’s Path
Organic & Natural – Non-GMO –
Annie’s, Wholesome Sweeteners
Organic & Natural – Personal Care Products –
Aubrey
(as a result of Organic Consumers Association’s Coming Clean Campaign,
Aubrey no longer labels its personal care products as organic unless
they are USDA certified)
Organic & Natural – Some GMO –
Frontier
, UNFI, MOM’s Organic Market
Organic & Conventional – Some GMO –
Indianapolis Fruit Company
Organic & Industrial – Mostly GMO –
Small
Planet Foods (0.2% of General Mills’ U.S. retail sales, the other 99.8%
being industrially processed foods, almost all of which are produced
using genetically modified organisms).
Happy Canada Day!
Jason
Jason Freeman
General Manager
Farmer Direct Co-operative Ltd
Farmer Direct Co-operative Ltd
is a farmer owned business that provides the world with ethically grown
and traded food. Our co-operative of 60 Certified Organic , Fair Trade
family farms and 120,000 acres of farmland produce high quality, 100%
Certified Organic, Fair Trade grains, oilseeds, pulses and meats for
food manufacturers, distributors, and food service providers in Canada,
the United States, the European Union and Japan. FDC is a bulk supplier of organic grains specializing in containers, truckloads.