September, 10 2008, 10:32am EDT
Almond Growers and Handlers File Federal Lawsuit Seeking to End 'Adulteration' of Raw Nuts
Lawsuit Would Halt Treatment of Almonds With Toxic Fumigant or Steam Heat
WASHINGTON
A group of fifteen American
almond growers and wholesale nut handlers filed a lawsuit in the Washington,
D.C. federal court on Tuesday, September 9 seeking to repeal a controversial
USDA-mandated treatment program for California-grown raw almonds.
The almond farmers and handlers contend that their
businesses have been seriously damaged and their futures jeopardized by a
requirement that raw almonds be treated with propylene oxide (a toxic fumigant
recognized as a carcinogen by the EPA) or steam-heated before they can be sold
to American consumers. Foreign-grown almonds are exempt from the
treatment scheme and are rapidly displacing raw domestic nuts in the
marketplace.
Tens of thousands of angry consumers have contacted the USDA
to protest the compulsory almond treatment since the agency's new
regulation went into effect one year ago. Some have expressed outrage
that even though the nuts have been processed with a fumigant, or heat, they
will still be labeled as "raw."
"The USDA's raw almond treatment mandate has
been economically devastating to many family-scale and organic almond farmers
in California," said Will Fantle, the research director for the
Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute. Cornucopia has been working with
almond farmers and handlers to address the negative impacts of the USDA rule,
including the loss of markets to foreign nuts.
The USDA, in consultation with the Almond Board of
California, invoked its treatment plan on September 1, 2007 alleging that it
was a necessary food safety requirement. Salmonella-tainted almonds twice
this decade caused outbreaks of food related illnesses. USDA
investigators were never able to determine how salmonella bacteria somehow
contaminated the raw almonds that caused the food illnesses but they were able
to trace back one of the contaminations, in part, to the country's largest
"factory farm," growing almonds and pistachios on over 9000 acres.
Instead of insisting that giant growers reduce risky
practices, the USDA invoked a rule that requires the gassing or steam-heating
of California raw almonds in a way that many consumers have found
unacceptable.
"For those of us who are interested in eating fresh and
wholesome food the USDA's plan, to protect the largest corporate agribusinesses
against liability, amounts to the adulteration of our food supply," said
Jill Richardson, a consumer activist and blogger at: www.lavidalocavore.org.
"This ruling is a financial disaster and has closed a
major customer group that we have built up over the years," said Dan
Hyman, an almond grower and owner of D&S Ranches in Selma, CA. His
almond business relies on direct sales to consumers over the internet.
Hyman notes that his customers were never consulted by the USDA or the Almond
Board before they were denied "a healthy whole natural raw food
that they have eaten with confidence, enjoyment and benefit for decades."
The lawsuit contends that the USDA exceeded its authority,
which is narrowly limited to regulating quality concerns in almonds such as
dirt, appearance and mold. And even if the USDA sought to regulate bacterial
contamination, the questionable expansion of its authority demanded a full
evidentiary hearing and a producer referendum, to garner public input -
neither of which were undertaken by the USDA.
"The fact that almond growers were not permitted to
fully participate in developing and approving this rule undermines its
legitimacy," said Ryan Miltner, the attorney representing the almond
growers. "Rather than raising the level of income for farmers
and providing handlers with orderly marketing conditions," added
Miltner, "this particular regulation creates classes of economic winners
and losers. That type of discriminatory economic segregation is anathema
to the intended purpose of the federal marketing order system. "
Retailers of raw almonds have also been expressing their
unhappiness, based on feedback from their customers, with the raw almond
treatment rule. "We've been distributing
almonds grown by family farmers in California for over 30 years
and we regard them as the common heritage of the American people," said
Dr. Jesse Schwartz, President of Living Tree Community Foods in Berkeley,
CA. "We can think of no reply more fitting than to affirm our faith
that ultimately the wisdom and good sense of the American people will
prevail in this lawsuit."
Barth Anderson, Research & Development Coordinator for
The Wedge, a Minneapolis-based grocery cooperative, noted that their mission
has always been to support family farmers. "We weren't surprised
when Wedge shoppers and members wrote nearly 500 individual letters expressing
disapproval of the USDA's mandatory fumigation law for domestic almonds,"
Anderson said. "Our members especially did not like the idea that
fumigated almonds could be called 'raw.'"
According to the USDA, there is no requirement for retailers
to alert consumers to the toxic, propylene oxide fumigation or steam treatment
applied to raw almonds from California.
"This rule is killing the California Organic Almond
business," said Steve Koretoff, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and owner of
Purity Organics located in Kerman, CA. "Because foreign almonds do
not have to be pasteurized their price is going up while our price is going
down because of the rule. It makes no sense." Koretoff
added.
Two groups of consumers that have been particularly
vocal in their opposition to the almond treatment rule are raw food enthusiasts
and vegans. These consumers may obtain as much as 30% of their daily
protein intake from raw almonds, after grinding them for flour and other uses.
Studies exploring nutritional impacts following fumigant and steam treatment
have yet to be publicly released. A Cornucopia Institute freedom of
information request for the documents is awaiting a response from the USDA.
"We raw vegans believe raw
foods, from non-animal sources, contains valuable nutrients - some not
yet well-understood by scientists," stated Joan Levin, a retired attorney
living in Chicago. "These nutrients can be destroyed by heat,
radiation and toxic chemicals. We support the continued availability of
fresh produce free of industrial age tampering," explained Levin.
Cornucopia's Fantle noted
that the Washington, D.C. federal district court has already assigned the
almond lawsuit a case number, beginning its move through the judicial
system. "We believe this is a strong legal case and hope for a
favorable decision in time to protect this year's almond harvest,"
Fantle said.
MORE:
Additional background information on the almond treatment issue,
including a copy of the legal complaint, can be found on The Cornucopia
Institute's web page at www.cornucopia.org. The lawsuit, filed in
federal district court in Washington D.C., has been assigned case number 1:08-CV-01558.
PCC Natural Markets, in Seattle, WA is the nation's
oldest and largest cooperative grocer. Goldie Caughlan, is the
co-op's Nutrition Education Manager as well as a board member of The
Cornucopia Institute. According to Caughlan: "After the
USDA's treatment mandate became effective, we added imported
organically grown and conventional almonds. The labels and
signage we created accurately informs customers these are truly
"raw," and explain the changed requirements for U.S.
producers. We continue to sell some U.S. produced almonds, but
this has necessitated investigating growers to ascertain that we sell
only steam-pasteurized almonds, not those fumigated by chemicals.
These added efforts are time consuming and create added expense for our
company."
"This is yet another example of how government, under
the guise of 'public health,' is interfering with an individual's
fundamental right to consume the foods of their choice," noted attorney David
G. Cox of Lane, Alton & Horst LLC in Columbus, OH and a legal advisor to
The Cornucopia Institute. "The government's police power does not
authorize the USDA to choose for the individual what foods should be in the
marketplace."
Mitch Wallis, a San Diego attorney and another member of the
Cornucopia legal team, added that "in one fell swoop, the USDA and its
agribusiness-dominated California Almond Board, have taken away all consumer
access to a truly 'raw' almond. Almonds are, especially in California,
perhaps the 'king of nuts.' If they can get away with
destroying the almond, what does this portend for the future of all
nuts and ultimately for all raw and natural foods?"
"It goes against all reason for the USDA to
require domestic almonds to be pasteurized while
allowing unpasteurized almonds to be imported from abroad," observed
Eli Penberthy, a Seattle, WA-based food and farming analyst with The Cornucopia
Institute. "Small-scale and organic farmers in California have
lost sales to retailers and consumers who are instead choosing to buy
truly raw almonds from Italy and Spain." The shift to foreign
sources is ironic since there is virtual unanimity in the retail sector that
foreign nuts are of lower quality in terms of flavor and appearance.
The Cornucopia Institute has been articulating the concerns
of family-scale farmers, producing organic, conventional and local food, about
the potential fallout from the industrialization of our food supply.
Foodborne illnesses, and the contamination of food from large industrial
farming operations, are now motivating regulators to look at
"technological fixes" rather than addressing the root cause of the
problems - the widespread fecal contamination of the nation's food
supply.
"It is ironic that consumers, in increasing numbers,
are voting in the marketplace for a higher quality of food from organic and
local farmers - producers they trust," stated The Cornucopia
Institute 's Fantle. "The very growers that stand to lose are the safest
and highest quality producers of food in the United States. We will not
allow them to be placed at a competitive disadvantage."
The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit farm policy research group, is dedicated to the fight for economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Their Organic Integrity Project acts as a corporate and governmental watchdog assuring that no compromises to the credibility of organic farming methods and the food it produces are made in the pursuit of profit.
LATEST NEWS
Amid Spying Fight, House Passes Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," said one advocate.
Apr 17, 2024
While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
"The privacy violations that flow from law enforcement entities circumventing the Fourth Amendment undermine civil liberties, free expression, and our ability to control what happens to our data," said Free Press Action policy counsel Jenna Ruddock. "These impacts affect everyone who uses digital platforms that extract our personal information any time we open a browser or visit social media and other websites—even when we go to events like demonstrations and other places with our phones revealing our locations."
"We're grateful that the House passed these vital and popular protections," she added. "The bill would prevent flagrant abuses of our privacy by government authorities in league with unscrupulous third-party data brokers. Making this legislation into law with Senate passage too would be a decisive and long-overdue action against government misuse of this clandestine business sector that traffics in our personal data for profit."
Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," she argued. "That means passing FANFSA and reforming Section 702 authority—and prioritizing everyone's First and Fourth Amendment rights."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
"The passage of the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale underscores the extent to which reining in abusive warrantless surveillance is a bipartisan issue," Scott said. "We urge the Senate to take up this measure and close the data broker loophole."
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a critic of the pending 702 bill and FANFSA's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, called the the House's Wednesday vote "a huge win for privacy" and said that "now it's time for the Senate to follow suit."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leaked Cables Show Biden Pressuring Nations to Oppose Palestine's UN Membership
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," said one former Lebanese diplomat.
Apr 17, 2024
As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough "no" votes so that the United States can avoid resorting to a veto.
Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors."
"We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of 'Palestine' as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks," the document advises.
The U.S. argument essentially is that the U.N. should not create an independent Palestinian state by fiat—even though that's precisely how the world body voted in 1947 to establish the modern state of Israel.
The renewed push for Palestine's U.N. membership comes as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which hasn't controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, rejected the Biden administration's requests to hold off on seeking full membership.
"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Critics pointed to the leaked cables as more proof of U.S. duplicity and double standards on the Israel-Palestine issue.
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," Massoud Maalouf, a former Lebanese ambassador to Canada, Chile, and Poland, said on social media.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Database Exposes 'Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World'
Yanis Varoufakis hailed the effort as "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
Apr 17, 2024
"Coups. Assassinations. Riots. Detentions. Disinformation. We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?"
Progressive International (PI) asks and answers this and other questions with an extensive new database published Wednesday that connects the dots in what the leftist group calls the "Reactionary International"—a loose global network of right-wing leaders and organizations working to subvert democratic institutions.
PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and BrasÃlia's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
From leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former U.S. President Donald Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee—to evangelical Christian groups influencing laws in African countries criminalizing LGBTQ+ people and tech companies empowering ubiquitous state surveillance, Reactionary International is a who's-who of the world's right-wing forces.
A cursory search of the database's contents shows users can:
- Learn about Israel's NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America;
- Meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey's roving death squad with links to President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition; and
- Explore the global network of the Falun Gong, its Trump-connected media outlet The Epoch Times, and its traveling dance troupe known as Shen Yun.
Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
PI invites the public to contribute to the database.
"Together, we will not only name, shame, and expose the forces of the far right—but also dismantle their network of complicity," the group said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular