Image
courtesy of salon.com

PRODUCT
PLUNDER OF THE WEEK:

This week, Horizon, the largest organic dairy company in the U.S.,
announced, for the second time this year that its profits are decreasing.
Horizon dairy is one of several brands being boycotted by the OCA
and thousands of organic consumers due to the company’s practice
of sourcing milk from giant dairy feedlots where the animals have
little or no access to pasture. Gregg Engles, the CEO of Dean Foods
(Horizon’s parent company) blamed recent profit losses on "considerable
disruption" in the organic dairy marketplace. When OCA launched
its boycott in 2006, Engles claimed factory farmed organics were
necessary in order to produce enough organic milk to meet growing
consumer demands. Ironically, this week Engles said part of the
blame for the company’s profit losses is due to an oversupply of
organic dairy in the marketplace.
Learn more: http://organicconsumers.org/rd/boycott.cfm

TARGETS
OF OCA’S ONGOING "ORGANIC" FACTORY FARM DAIRY BOYCOTT

Horizon, Costco’s "Kirkland Signature," Safeway’s "O"
organics brand, Publix’s "High Meadows, "Giant’s "Natures
Promise," "Woodstock Farms" and Wild Oats’ organic
milk.

OCA
ALERT UPDATE: SUCCESS!
FACTORY FARM DAIRY SUPPLYING HORIZON LOSES ORGANIC CERTIFICATION

After more than a year of efforts to raise public awareness, the
OCA and the Cornucopia Institute celebrated a major victory last
week when, for the first time, a massive 10,000 head intensive confinement
California feedlot dairy had its organic certification suspended.
Prior to OCA’s boycott, this factory farm supplied Horizon Organic.
"This is a big victory for the farm families around the country
who work so hard to create milk and dairy products that meet a high
ethical standard," said Mark Kastel, Cornucopia’s senior farm
policy analyst. The Cornucopia Institute says that the good news
about organic dairy products is that the vast majority are produced
with high integrity and meet the spirit and letter of the organic
law.
Learn more: http://organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5565.cfm

OCA
FARM BILL ALERT UPDATE:
CONGRESS CONSIDERING NEARLY $200 MILLION FUNDING FOR ORGANICS

In the past few issues of Organic Bytes, the OCA has been alerting
its readers to contact various congressional subcommittees who
are in the process of allocating funding for the 2007 Farm Bill.
This massive piece of legislation provides funding until 2012
and includes a variety of programs that would benefit organic
farmers, sustainable agriculture and the environment. Thanks to
your efforts and the concerted work of OCA’s allies, many of these
target programs have been allocated funding.

Specifically,
the following funding has been approved in subcommittees for organic
and sustainable agriculture related programs over the course of
the next five years:

• $150
  million to examine optimal conservation and environmental outcomes
  for organically produced agricultural products, and to develop
  new and improved seed varieties that are particularly suited
  for organic agriculture.
• $22
  million to help farmers pay for organic certification
• $5
  million for outreach to organic and specialty crop producers.
• $3
  million to collect market and production data about organic
  farming.

The
OCA will continue to alert you to new issues arising in this arena,
as the 2007 Farm Bill continues to be developed by Congress.
Learn more: http://organicconsumers.org/farm.cfm

OCA
LAUNCHES NEW WEB FORUM
YOUR ONLINE ORGANIC COMMUNITY HAS ARRIVED
This week, OCA announces the birth of our new online web forum.
This interactive web portal provides tens of thousands of green-minded
folk, like you, with a place to post questions, comments and critiques
about any OCA related issue. Whether its organics, food safety,
sustainability, social justice issues, politics, or any other
related topic, we welcome you to login for a free registration
today and start posting your ideas and questions for discussion.
Since we’re just getting this started, we need a few of our readers
to get the forum buzz rolling by posting some of your OCA related
thoughts/questions now: http://organicconsumers.org/forum/index.php

FEATURE
STORY — OCA ALERT UPDATE:

Thanks to all of you who joined thousands of organic consumers
in late May and signed OCA’s petition to the USDA opposing the
agency’s latest "Sneak Attack" to allow 38 new non-organic
ingredients in products labeled as "USDA Organic". (Read
full petition here: http://organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5225.cfm)

USDA’s
controversial proposal to allow 38 new non-organic ingredients
in products labeled as "organic" has fueled the anger
of organic consumers and generated a backlash of negative press
coast to coast. Over the weekend the New York Times and the L.A.
Times (as well as a number of other major news outlets) ran feature
stories on the debacle.

The
New York Times noted that the mega-brewer Anheuser-Busch pressured
the USDA into allowing them to use hops grown with pesticides
and chemical fertilizers in their "Organic Wild Hop Lager"
beer. In the Los Angeles Times, Ronnie Cummins, OCA’s National
Director, was quoted as saying, "This proposal is blatant
catering to powerful industry players who want the benefits of
labeling their products ‘USDA organic’ without doing the work
to source organic materials."

Although
industry was given the better part of two years to work with the
USDA in developing this proposal, the agency only gave the public
a brief 7-day comment period. During that short time, the OCA
generated over 8,000 petition signatures telling the USDA to back
off on allowing non-organic hops, factory-farmed animal intestines,
tainted fish oil, and other problematic ingredients in organic
products.

On
Friday June 8, the USDA took its third swing at organic standards
and struck out, violating federal law by refusing to respond to
a federal court order to stop allowing companies to use the 38
non-organic ingredients proposed for inclusion in products labeled
"USDA Organic". Unprepared for the firestorm of protest
against their latest Sneak Attack, the USDA has been refusing
to talk to the press.

RECENT
HISTORY OF USDA ORGANIC LAWBREAKING
January 2005 (Strike One): Federal court rules that the
USDA has violated federal regulations in allowing conventional
and synthetic ingredients in products labeled as "organic".

May
2007 (Strike Two): After heavy lobbying from industry, USDA
proposed to allow 38 conventionally grown ingredients in foods
labeled as organic. One of those ingredients, fish oil, has never
undergone review, which is a violation of federal law.

June
2007 (Strike Three): A federal judge had given the USDA until
midnight Friday (6/8) to post its final ruling, which the agency
failed to do.

YOUR
HELP IS STILL NEEDED
We need to put a lot more pressure on the USDA, demanding they
re-open the public comment period on this issue. Industry was
given two years, and the public was only given 7 days. Through
that process, it appears the organic standards will be significantly
weakened unless we can generate enough comments to force the USDA
to reconsider its proposal to weaken organic standards.

Please
forward this email to all interested friends and colleagues and
send a letter to the USDA here: http://organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5225.cfm