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The Pesticide Industry’s Fingerprints Are All Over the MAHA Commission’s Strategy Report
Instead of delivering real change, the strategy appears to be just another example of the Trump administration putting the financial interests of polluting industries above people’s health.
Sep 10, 2025
When it comes to pesticides, the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, Commission has a serious problem: The Commission's newly released strategy for addressing childhood chronic disease is better for the pesticide industry than for people. Ignoring growing public calls for action, the strategy lays out a milquetoast approach that would protect industry profits at the expense of children’s health.
Back in May, a first report from the MAHA Commission correctly identified exposure to pesticides and other toxic chemicals as one driver of the childhood chronic disease epidemic. The US currently uses over a billion pounds of pesticides annually on our crops, about one-third of which is chemicals that have been banned in other countries. Many have been linked to serious health problems from cancer to infertility to birth defects. Those pesticides contaminate our air, our water, and our bodies. One cancer-linked pesticide, glyphosate, is now found in 80% of adults and 87% of children.
The Commission’s strategy to address pesticide exposure has thus been eagerly awaited by health-conscious moms, environmental advocates, rural Americans like me, and many others. But instead of delivering real change, the strategy appears to be just another example of the Trump administration putting the financial interests of polluting industries above people’s health.
One of the most outrageous elements is a goal to “ensure that the public has awareness and confidence in EPA’s [the Environmental Protection Agency] robust pesticide review procedures.” This is like committing to convince the public that the sky is green—but more dangerous. It’s committing public dollars to a corporate cover-up campaign.
If the EPA’s review process was “robust,” the use of cancer-linked pesticides wouldn’t be increasing in the US; we wouldn’t still be using 85 toxic pesticides that are banned in other countries; and pesticides wouldn’t be green-lit based on “safety” data provided by the very companies seeking approval for their chemicals. In reality, the EPA’s pesticide approval process is notoriously industry-friendly, in large part due to the revolving door between the agency and the industries it’s supposed to regulate. The Trump administration, for example, just appointed a former pro-pesticide lobbyist from the American Soybean Association, Kyle Kunkler, to one of the top positions regulating pesticides at the EPA.
Industry influence has led the EPA to prioritize the approval of new pesticide products at the expense of human health for decades. As one EPA toxicologist explained, “It is the unwritten rule that to get promotions, all pesticides need to pass.” The EPA also regularly uses dangerous loopholes—called conditional registration and emergency exemptions—to allow pesticide products on the market without ever putting them through a full safety review process.
Rather than trying to sell the public industry-friendly myths about the EPA, the MAHA Commission should aim to fix the EPA’s flawed pesticide approval process.
The result is that the US lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to protecting people from pesticides. One of the pesticides most widely used in the US, atrazine, is banned in all 27 countries of the European Union. The chemical is infamous for disrupting hormonal functioning and decreasing fertility. Because the US uses over 70 million pounds a year, atrazine contaminates the drinking water of an estimated 40 million Americans.
Rather than trying to sell the public industry-friendly myths about the EPA, the MAHA Commission should aim to fix the EPA’s flawed pesticide approval process. It should propose sensible, much-needed reforms like prioritizing independent science over industry-backed studies, closing the conditional registration and emergency exemption loopholes, and outlining a plan to close the revolving door once and for all.
Another disappointment in the strategy? It barely mentions organic farming, despite the fact that organic is the clearest pathway to transforming our food system into one that is healthy and nontoxic. The US Department of Agriculture organic seal prohibits more than 900 synthetic pesticides allowed in conventional agriculture. Just one week on an organic diet can reduce pesticide levels in our bodies up to 95%. Synthetic food dyes—a key issue for the MAHA movement—are all prohibited by the organic seal, along with hundreds of other food additives and drugs otherwise allowed in livestock production. Research also shows that organic food can be higher in some nutrients.
Expanding organic farming in the US would be a clear home run for making America healthier. But aside from one lackluster recommendation about “streamlining” the organic certification process, the Commission’s strategy ignores organic. Instead, it leans into promoting industry-friendly “precision agriculture”—the use of AI, machine learning, and digital tools on farms to optimize inputs—which primarily benefits corporate giants like Bayer. To make America’s children healthy, we need better than precision agriculture. We need increased organic research, technical and financial assistance for farmers to transition to organic, the development of new markets and processing infrastructure for organic products, and more.
In short, the strategy is deeply disappointing for the Americans across the political spectrum—including members of the MAHA movement, and including many rural Americans like myself—who have been clamoring for real change. It serves Trump’s pro-industry agenda instead of America’s children. Those of use who care about pesticides are left wondering if the MAHA Commission will ever walk the walk and put our health ahead of the profits of the chemical industry.
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Farmers Sue Trump USDA Over Deletion of 'Vital' Climate Information
"USDA should be working to protect our food system from droughts, wildfires, and extreme weather, not denying the public access to critical resources," argued one attorney.
Feb 24, 2025
Climate defenders and farmers sued the Trump administration in federal court on Monday over "the U.S. Department of Agriculture's unlawful purge of climate-related policies, guides, datasets, and resources from its websites."
The complaint was filed in the Southern District of New York by Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on behalf of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY).
The case focuses on just one part of Republican President Donald Trump's sweeping effort to purge the federal government and its resources of anyone or anything that doesn't align with his far-right agenda, including information about the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.
"USDA's irrational climate change purge doesn't just hurt farmers, researchers, and advocates. It also violates federal law several times over," Earthjustice associate attorney Jeffrey Stein said in a statement. "USDA should be working to protect our food system from droughts, wildfires, and extreme weather, not denying the public access to critical resources."
"The Trump administration has deliberately stripped farmers and ranchers of the vital tools they need to confront the escalating extreme weather threats."
Specifically, the groups accused the department of violating the Administrative Procedure Act, Freedom of Information Act, and Paperwork Reduction Act. As the complaint details, on January 30, "USDA Director of Digital Communications Peter Rhee sent an email ordering USDA staff to 'identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change' by 'no later than close of business' on Friday, January 31."
"Within hours, and without any public notice or explanation, USDA purged its websites of vital resources about climate-smart agriculture, forest conservation, climate change adaptation, and investment in clean energy projects in rural America, among many other subjects," the document states. "In doing so, it disabled access to numerous datasets, interactive tools, and essential information about USDA programs and policies."
EWG Midwest director Anne Schechinger explained that "by wiping critical climate resources from the USDA's website, the Trump administration has deliberately stripped farmers and ranchers of the vital tools they need to confront the escalating extreme weather threats like droughts and floods."
NOFA-NY board president Wes Gillingham emphasized that "farmers are on the frontlines of climate impacts, we have been reacting to extreme weather and making choices to protect our businesses and our food system for years. Climate change is not a hoax. Farmers, fishermen, and foresters know from experience, that we need every piece of science and intergenerational knowledge to adjust to this new reality."
Rebecca Riley, NRDC's managing director of food and agriculture, pointed out that "by removing climate information from the USDA's website, the Trump administration is not just making farming harder—it is undermining our ability to adapt and respond to the very challenges climate change presents."
The coalition asked the court to declare the purge unlawful and order the USDA to restore the webpages, to refrain from further implementing Rhee's directive, and to comply with its legal obligations regarding public notices.
“USDA's policies influence everything from the shape of our economy to the food we eat," said Stephanie Krent, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. "USDA's sudden elimination of webpages that used to provide this information hurts all of us. Members of the public have a right to know how the department is implementing its priorities and administering its programs."
The New York Times reported Monday that "the Agriculture Department referred questions about the lawsuit to the Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment." The suit is just one of dozens filed against the Trump administration since the inauguration last month.
Schechinger stressed that "this lawsuit isn't just about transparency—it's about holding those in power accountable for undermining the very information that helps protect the livelihoods of food producers, the food system, and our future."
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Climate Cost of Organic Meat Is Just as High as That of Conventionally Grown Animals: Study
"The prices are lying," said one of the study's researchers. "Climate costs are rising and we are all paying these costs."
Dec 22, 2020
Advocates for eco-friendly, plant-based diets hailed a study published last week that revealed the climate cost of organic meat production is as high as that of conventionally produced animal products.
"We expected organic farming to score better for animal-based products but, for greenhouse gas emissions, it actually doesn't make much difference."
--Maximilian Pieper, Technical University of Munich
The study, published on December 15 in Nature Communication and reported Wednesday in The Guardian, used the German government's climate damage cost baseline of $219 per tonne of CO2 and determined that in order to cover climate costs, the farm-direct price of beef must rise by $7.31 per kilogram, while the per kilo price of chicken must increase by $3.66. The price of conventionally raised meat would have to rise by 40% in stores, while organic meat would need to be about 25% more expensive. Conventional milk would be one-third higher, while the price of organic milk would rise by 20%.
The researchers analyzed animal agriculture in Germany and concluded that the climate costs of organic beef and lamb are similar to that of their conventionally produced counterparts. And while they found that organic pork has a slightly lower climate cost than conventional pig meat, for organic chicken it was somewhat higher.
The cost of plant-based foods, on the other hand, would remain nearly the same.
"We expected organic farming to score better for animal-based products but, for greenhouse gas emissions, it actually doesn't make much difference," Maximilian Pieper of the Technical University of Munich, who led the study, told The Guardian. "But in certain other aspects, organic is certainly better than conventional farming."
University of Greifswald researcher Amelie Michalke, who also participated in the study, said that "the prices are lying."
"Climate costs are rising and we are all paying these costs," she said.
While animals emit greenhouse gases in their excrement--and in the case of cows and sheep, through belching and farting--the grain fed to conventionally raised livestock can also contribute to emissions, especially if it is grown on land which has been deforested in places like South America's Amazon rainforest.
Animals raised organically are often grass-fed. But they also grow at a slower rate and spend more time expelling greenhouse gases before they are slaughtered.
"The climate damage costs for meat are especially startling if you compare them to the other categories. The price increases required are... 68 times higher than for plant-based products."
--Pieper
All animals also need water to live, and separate research has shown that the global average water footprint--the total amount of water needed--to produce a pound of beef is nearly 1,800 gallons. For a pound of pork, it's 576 gallons. In stark contrast, a pound of soybeans needs only 216 gallons of water; for corn, just 108 gallons.
The new study's researchers said the results show a need for government policies that reflect the true cost of eating animals, including a meat tax. Revenues from such corrective measures could be used to help farmers adopt more eco-friendly practices, and to provide relief to poor families and people affected by the climate crisis.
However, instead of encouraging Americans to consume less meat, the U.S. government subsidizes animal agriculture by as much as $38 billion annually. Shoppers pay artificially low prices for animal products at the supermarket checkout counter, while their tax dollars fund an industry whose retail sales approach $250 billion per year.
As David Simon notes in his 2013 book Meatonomics, for every $1 of product sold by the animal agriculture industry, taxpayers pay $2 in hidden costs, and a $4 McDonald's Big Mac really costs society $11.
"The climate damage costs for meat are especially startling if you compare them to the other categories," Pieper told The Guardian. "The price increases required are 10 times higher than for dairy products and 68 times higher than for plant-based products."
"The big difference is the simple effect that when you have a field of plants and you eat them directly, then that's the end of the [emissions], basically," he added. "But for beef, for example, you need 42kg of feed to just produce one kg of beef. This huge inefficiency explains the gap."
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New Study Reveals Organic Diets Significantly Reduce Glyphosate Levels
"We all have the right to food that is free of toxic pesticides."
Aug 12, 2020
An environmental organization focused on achieving a healthier and more just world is celebrating the publication Tuesday of a groundbreaking study that found an organic diet radically decreases levels of the toxic herbicide glyphosate in the body.
The study--titled Organic Diet Intervention Significantly Reduces Urinary Glyphosate Levels in U.S. Children and Adults--was published in the journal Environmental Research and co-authored by Kendra Klein, a senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth.
In what FOE described as an unprecedented study to examine how an organic diet affects glyphosate intake, Klein and her co-authors looked at glyphosate levels in urine samples from four different families. The individuals studied spent six days on a non-organic diet and six days on an organic diet. In this time period, glyphosate levels in participants' bodies decreased an average of 70%.
"We all have the right to food that is free of toxic pesticides," said Klein, "but our federal regulatory system is broken and is not protecting us. We urgently need our elected leaders to make healthy organic food the norm for everyone by passing policies that support farmers to shift from pesticide-intensive to organic farming."
"The only way to dramatically reduce all Americans' exposure to this toxic weedkiller is for the Environmental Protection Agency to ban uses of the herbicide that lead to high levels in foods people eat." - Alex Tempkin, EWG
Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Roundup, an herbicide used as on wheat, corn, soy, canola, cotton, oats, beans, and in gardening and landscaping. It was introduced in the 1990s and, since then, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has allowed the dietary limit of residue exposure to glyphosate to be increased up to 300 times more than previous foods, despite previous research showing its harmful effects.
The chemical was flagged as a possible cause of cancer as early as the 1980s and was classified as a likely human carcinogen by the World Health Organization in 2015. Over time, it has been linked to human health conditions like kidney disease, hormone disruption, and shortened pregnancy. About 280 million pounds of glyphosate is sprayed annually in the U.S.
"The government has turned a blind eye for decades when it comes to monitoring glyphosate--failing to test for it on food and in our bodies," Klein and Anna Lappe, co-director of Real Food Media, wrote Tuesday in an op-ed for The Guardian.
A string of court cases in 2019 linked plaintiffs' cancer with exposure to the use of Roundup, leading to an $180 million payout in damages from Bayer, the company that now owns Roundup after merging with Monsanto in 2018. According to Friends of the Earth, Bayer negotiated another settlement of $10 billion in the summer of 2020 and still has 30,000 more similar cases pending.
In July, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released an analysis of lab testing that showed glyphosate in 90% of non-organic hummus and chickpea samples. Similar reports from the group found the chemical in popular breakfast cereals.
In animal studies, glyphosate has been shown to cause DNA damage, decreased sperm function, and fatty liver disease. It is also considered to be one of the causes of monarch butterfly and bee populations declining.
In a statement Wednesday about Klein's study, EWG Toxicologist Alexis Temkin noted that the "often-repeated claims by chemical agriculture and big food companies that there isn't much difference between conventional and organic foods is wildly inaccurate, and this study is further proof of it."
"The levels of toxic crop chemicals like glyphosate that contaminate a wide swath of conventional foods are a main pathway of exposure for most adults and children," said Temkin. "The only way to dramatically reduce all Americans' exposure to this toxic weedkiller is for the Environmental Protection Agency to ban uses of the herbicide that lead to high levels in foods people eat."
Another important aspect of the new study: Children have significantly higher levels of exposure to glyphosate--about five times higher than the average level in adults.
"Growing up with this kind of chemical in their body will harm them," Sharyle Patton, director of Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center and a study author, told Environmental Health News. "It's a tragedy."
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Six Rules for Organizing a Grassroots Regeneration Revolution
We must think, act and organize locally, while simultaneously cultivating a global vision and global solidarity.
Mar 01, 2020
Over the past five decades, as a food, natural health and environmental campaigner, anti-war organizer, human rights activist and journalist, I've had the inspiring and at times depressing opportunity to work and travel across much of the world.
Perhaps the most important lesson I've learned through my work is that people respond best to a positive, solutions-oriented message. Gloom-and-doom thinking--the kind that offers no plausible solution--doesn't generally inspire people to get involved or take action.
That doesn't mean we should downplay the seriousness of our current situation. We face unprecedented life-or-death threats. We're up against formidable political, economic and cultural obstacles. We must continue to highlight and criticize, with passion, facts and concrete examples, the bad actors, practices and policies that have brought us to the brink of a global crisis.
That said, I believe that the main obstacle we must overcome, in the U.S. and worldwide, is that many (if not most) people are locked into disempowering situations that are causing them to suffer from a pervasive sense of hopelessness. It's not that they don't want to change. But unfortunately, most people don't really believe things can change.
I disagree. I believe we can shift the global conversation on food, farming, politics, health and climate from one of hopelessness to one of hope. I believe we can empower the grassroots to rise up and take action, both individually and collectively.
In my latest book, "Grassroots Rising: A Call to Action on Food, Farming, Climate and a Green New Deal," I outline what I call "Rules for Regenerators," a roadmap for positive change. I go into each rule in-depth in my book, but here are the basics.
Rule 1: Search Out and Emphasize the Positive
In the face of global ecosystem collapse and widespread corporate and political corruption, we need to think in terms of this: The darkest hour is right before dawn. That means not losing sight of the fact that the dawn is coming--so we should focus on, and prepare for it.
Instead of dwelling on the negative, we must seek, highlight and promote positive trends and practices. On the contemporary scene, there are many signs of change and powerful countervailing trends to the degenerative status quo, not only in the U.S., but across the world.
We need to focus on these world-changing trends--not dwell on the gloom and doom.
Rule 2: Link up with People's Primary Concerns and Connect the Dots
The world is full of different people, living in different situations, with differing perspectives, passions and priorities. That means we can't take a "one-size-fits-all" approach to problem-solving.
Instead, we must integrate our green justice and regeneration messages with the specific issues and concerns that are most important to grassroots constituencies. Then lay out, in everyday language, a strategy that helps people understand that we can actually solve the problems they care about most, while solving a host of other pressing problems at the same time.
Only by starting from where people are at, and then connecting the dots, can we capture the attention and imagination of a critical mass of the global grassroots and get them started thinking about how they can participate in our new movement and new economy.
Rule 3: Stop Organizing Around Limited Single Issues
Global campaigning and activism is plagued with single-issue thinking that routinely gives rise to divided movements and fractured constituencies.
To bring about true regeneration, or even to pass sweeping new regenerative legislation like the Green New Deal, we must not be divided and fractured, but united, inclusive and holistic in our understanding of the the global crisis we face, and in our approach to problem-solving.
Too often we hear that "My issue is more important than your issue," or "My constituency or community is more oppressed than yours," or "My solution is the only solution."
That type of thinking won't get us anywhere. Our global Regeneration Movement must be built on the principle that all grassroots issues and all constituencies are important. We have to help each other recognize that the burning issues bearing down on the global body politic--climate change, poverty, unemployment, declining health, political corruption, corporate control, war and more--are the interrelated symptoms of the diseased system of degeneration.
Rule 4: Stop Pretending that Partial Solutions or Reforms Will Bring About System Change
Activists often fall into the trap of malpractice when they project partial solutions or tactics as if they are systemic solutions. One of the most alarming examples of this is the notion that 100-percent renewable energy will, in and of itself, solve the climate crisis.
This theory is both misleadingly hopeful and dangerously flawed. Renewable energy will not get us to net-zero emissions by 2030 or even 2050 unless it is accompanied by a massive drawdown (of 250-plus billion tons) of excess carbon from the atmosphere through regenerative food, farming, land use and commerce.
Both of these things--renewable energy and carbon drawdown--need to be carried out simultaneously over the next 20 years.
Similarly naive, narrow-minded thinking might lead us to believe that campaign finance reform, or the election of this or that candidate, will solve the national and international crisis of elite domination and political corruption--or that in general, change in one community or country can solve what are essentially national and global problems.
Unless we can lift our heads, connect the dots and fight for unifying systemic changes, any changes that we do make won't be sufficiently effective.
Rule 5: Act and Organize Locally, but Cultivate a Global Vision and Solidarity
If civilization is to survive, we need to rebuild healthy, organic and relocalized systems of food and farming, and repair and restore our local environments.
To do this will require regenerators to put a priority on local and regional education, action and mobilization, in our personal lives and households, as well as in the marketplace and the political arena.
At the same time, we have to inject or integrate a national and global perspective into our local grassroots work and community building. The battle against severe climate change, environmental destruction, deteriorating public health, poverty, political corruption and societal alienation will be fought and won based on what billions of us--consumers, farmers, landscape managers, public officials, business owners, students and others--do (or don't do) in our million local communities as part of a global awakening and paradigm shift.
We must think, act and organize locally, while simultaneously cultivating a global vision and global solidarity.
Rule 6: Become a Positive Example of Regeneration
The personal is political. People hear not just the overt message of what we say or write, but also our subliminal message--that is, our presence, behavior and attitude.
Only by striving to embody the principles of regeneration--hope, solidarity, creativity, hard work, joy and optimism--in our everyday lives and practices (i.e. our work, food, clothes, lifestyle and how we treat others and the environment, how we vote, spend our money, invest our savings and spend our time--will we be able to inspire those around us.
In the 1960s, when I came of age as an activist, we had a saying: "There is only one reason for becoming a revolutionary: because it is the best way to live." I believe this slogan is as relevant now as it was then.
One of the wonderful things about regeneration is that it not only is our duty and our potential salvation, but it can actually become our pleasure as well. As the farmer-poet Wendell Berry once said:
"The care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope."
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'We Need Total System Change': A Letter from Santiago, Chile
Without mass grassroots awareness and collective action, without a political revolution—the billionaires and corporations will destroy us all.
Dec 15, 2019
Defying the machinations of discredited President Sebastian Pinera--who abruptly cancelled the Global Climate Summit in Santiago, Chile in reaction to the nationwide grassroots uprising that erupted here on October 18--an intrepid band of North and South American farmers, food activists and climate campaigners, under the banner of Regeneration International, came together in the Chilean capital of Santiago to share experiences and ideas, and to develop a common strategy for reversing global warming and resolving the other burning issues that are pressing down on us.
With global attention focused on Madrid, which hosted the December 2-13 official COP 25 Climate Summit after Chile pulled out, a number of us decided nevertheless to hold our own North and South America mini-summit here, expressing our solidarity with the Chilean people's epic struggle, and, at the same time, giving some of the best practitioners and campaigners in the Regeneration Movement the opportunity to focus on what's holding us back and how we can most quickly move forward.
More and more people in Madrid this week, and all over the world, are finally talking about how regenerative agriculture and ecosystem restoration can sequester large amounts of excess atmospheric carbon in soils, trees and plants, while providing other valuable ecological, public health, and economic benefits.
Yet overall progress is still too slow. We need total system change, and a Regenerative Revolution--now--if we hope to turn things around in time.
Accelerating public awareness and movement-building
Public awareness of how photosynthesis works, of what agroecology and agroforestry mean, of how healthy plants and trees and properly grazed livestock draw down and sequester significant amounts of carbon in the soil, of how Big Food and Big Ag's chemical and fossil fuel-intensive food system is a major factor driving global warming and poverty, is still in the early stages--as is public awareness of the multiple benefits of regenerative food, farming and land use.
Most climate activists are still focused narrowly on reducing fossil fuel use. They are still ignoring the fact that it will take both a rapid conversion to renewable energy and a massive drawdown of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (especially here in the Global South) if we are to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.
Most climate activists are still focused narrowly on reducing fossil fuel use. They are still ignoring the fact that it will take both a rapid conversion to renewable energy and a massive drawdown of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (especially here in the Global South) if we are to achieve net zero emissions by 2030, (and net negative emissions from 2030-2050) as called for by the Sunrise Movement and Bernie Sanders in the U.S., and by various national and international coalitions for a Green New Deal.
But in order to gain critical mass, political power and sufficient resources--North and South--we have no choice but to move beyond single-issue campaigns and minor reforms to building a qualitatively stronger and more diverse Movement. To head off catastrophe and bring the world's corporate criminals and fascist politicians to heel, we must unite all the different currents of our local-to-global resistance. We must create a world-changing synergy between our myriad demands and constituencies for economic justice, social equity and renewable energy and our demands for radical and regenerative transformations in our food, farming, forestry and land-use policies.
Gaining political power
Unfortunately, many organic and agro-ecological farmers, food and consumer organizations, and anti-GMO and anti-factory farm activists are still either apolitical, or afraid of being called "radical."
For example, too many organic consumers and farmers in the U.S. are still questioning why they should support revolutionary change, such as a multi-trillion-dollar Green New Deal, or a radical presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders, who is calling for political revolution (eco-social justice, universal health care, and free public education), as well as renewable energy and a new food system based upon organic regenerative practices.
What many of our well-meaning but often naive, timid or overly pessimistic compatriots fail to understand is that without a radical shift in political power and public policies, including finance policies--facilitating a massive infusion of public money and private investments--our growing organic and regeneration revolution will likely shrivel up and die on the vine. And of course such a dramatic cultural and political transformation will be possible only with the massive participation and leadership of youth, women, African-Americans, Latinos and workers, carrying out a Ballot Box Revolution that includes, but is not limited to, our life-or-death food, farming and climate imperatives.
Ten to 25 percent market share for organic and local food and grass-fed meat and animal products by 2030 is better than what we have now, but it's not going to make much difference on a burnt planet. Our planetary house, as Greta Thunberg reminded us once again this week in Madrid, is on fire.
Without mass grassroots awareness and collective action, without a political revolution, as well as an energy and farming revolution and a massive influx of funds, public and private, the business-as-usual machinations of the billionaires, the multinational corporations (Bayer/Monsanto, Cargill, JBS, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Facebook, Google et al) and the one percent will drive us past the point of no return and destroy us all.
In order to replicate and scale up the game-changing, carbon-sequestering regenerative food, farming and ecosystem restoration practices that are finally taking root and spreading across the Americas and the planet--these include bio-intensive organic, agroecology, holistic grazing, agroforestry, permaculture, reforestation and biochar--we need all of the major drivers of regeneration to be operating in synergy and at full power.
As we affirmed in our Regeneration International General Assembly meeting on December 10 in Santiago:
Given the unprecedented and accelerating global-scale climate emergency that is upon us, global governments and civil society must rapidly prioritize, invest in, and scale up the following:
- Public education on climate and regeneration and a sharp focus on grassroots movement-building
- Rapid expansion of existing regenerative agriculture practices that promote ecosystem restoration, carbon-capture in soils, and food security
- Reorientation of public policies to support regenerative agricultural practices and ecosystem restoration
- Reorientation of economic priorities to facilitate a massive increase in public and private investment in regenerative practices..."
Despite the continuing bad news on the climate front, and the rise of authoritarian and fascist regimes in South America and across the world, our counterparts here in Santiago have been very happy to hear about some of the recent positive developments in North America, including the growing support for a Green New Deal and the campaign of Bernie Sanders for president, as well as the growth of radical, youth-led, direct action groups such as the Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for the Future.
In the short span of 12 months, the Green New Deal Resolution in the U.S. has gained massive support from disenfranchised youth, minority communities, embattled working class constituencies, the food movement and climate activists. The resolution, according to a number of polls, now has the support of more than 60 percent of the population, despite increasingly frantic opposition by Trump, the corporate mass media and the neo-liberal wing of the Democratic Party, represented by Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and billionaires like Michael Bloomberg.
The growing understanding that we need "System Change," i.e. a political revolution, in the U.S. if we are to stop climate change and resolve our other burning crises, is echoed in the call for a "Fourth Transformation" in Mexico, in the growing movement for the overthrow of the climate-denying, Amazon-burning, fascist Bolsonaro junta in Brazil (ditto Bolivia, Honduras, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, et al), and now the thunderous demand from all sectors of the population for a New Constitution and a democratic revolution in Chile.
Taking it to the streets
Marching and chanting with our Chilean brothers and sisters along riot-scarred streets in central Santiago, past an astonishing number of smashed-up billboards, burnt-out subway stations, battered storefronts, broken traffic lights, boarded-up banks, hotels and businesses, it's clear that elite control and "business as usual," at least here in Chile, is no longer tolerable. Along the major thoroughfares such as Avenida Providencia, neighborhood or family-owned businesses, "somos pyme" have generally been spared, while colonial monuments, government buildings, Starbucks, McDonald's, Oxxo, Domino's Pizza the Crown Plaza Hotel, and other symbols of multinational control and consumerism have been spray painted, smashed and vandalized.
Supposedly prosperous Chile--the Latin America "free market" jewel of U.S. foreign policy (where President Nixon, Kissinger, AT&T and the CIA overthrew the democratic socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973)--today has the surreal feeling of a post-modern dystopia. Block after block, mile after mile, with anti-government youth directing traffic at many of the intersections, every wall of the central city is covered with messages of resistance and solidarity, including heartbreaking photos of young protesters (my son's age) murdered, blinded (the Carbineri have reportedly been deliberately shooting rubber bullets into the eyes of protestors) and imprisoned.
Chile's workers, indigenous Mapuches, farmers and the once-middle class, led by youth and students, are rising up against the one percent, despite tremendous repression.
Meanwhile the glaciers that supply much of Chile's water and agriculture are melting. Record-breaking temperatures, forest fires and drought are spreading here and throughout Latin America. Last Sunday, just as thousands of young protestors on bicycles converged on President Pineda's mansion calling for his resignation and a new Constitution, a massive wildfire broke out on one of the seriously deforested and parched mountains surrounding the city. The scene reminded me of what's happening in California, and even now in the Boreal forests of Canada and Alaska.
Our collective house, our politics and our climate, are all on fire. As India activist Arundhati Roy said:
"It is becoming more and more difficult to communicate the scale of the crisis even to ourselves. An accurate description runs the risk of sounding like hyperbole...
The hour is late. The crisis is dire. But as those of us in the Regeneration Movement understand, heart and mind, we've still got time to turn things around. But the time to act, to educate, to build stronger movements, to scale up our best practices, to gain political power, is now.
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Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal is a Game-Changer for Food and Farming
Finally, we have a true Declaration of War against fossil fuel pollution and global warming, a radical legislative program that can head off climate catastrophe and supercharge a just transition to a 21st Century Green Commonwealth
Aug 29, 2019
The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s. Battling a world war on two fronts--both in the East and the West--the United States came together, and within three short years restructured the entire economy in order to win the war and defeat fascism. As president, Bernie Sanders will boldly embrace the moral imperative of addressing the climate crisis and act immediately to mobilize millions of people across the country in support of the Green New Deal... a wholesale transformation of our society, with support for frontline and vulnerable communities and massive investments in sustainable energy, energy efficiency, and a transformation of our transportation system... [and] our agricultural system to fight climate change, provide sustainable, local foods, and break the corporate stranglehold on farmers and ranchers... providing $200 billion to the Green Climate Fund, rejoining the Paris Agreement, and reasserting the United States' leadership in the global fight against climate change... reduce domestic emissions by at least 71 percent by 2030 and reduce emissions among less industrialized nations by 36 percent by 2030--the total equivalent of reducing our domestic emissions by 161 percent... [and] Investing in conservation and public lands to heal our soils, forests, and prairie lands...". - from "The Green New Deal," Bernie Sanders Campaign, August 22, 2019
Beyond the cesspool of the Trump administration and his fascist allies across the globe, powerful winds of rebellion and regeneration are gathering momentum.
This year will likely be remembered as the time when the U.S. and global grassroots finally began to acknowledge the terminal crisis posed by global warming. With the global scientific community finally dropping their customary caution and pointing out that the "end is near" in terms of irreversible climate change, the mass media, a significant number of global policymakers and hundreds of millions of ordinary people simultaneously began to wake up across the world.
Activist youth in America, led by the Sunrise Movement, supported by a group of radical insurgents in the U.S. Congress, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are leading the new resistance and calling for an end to business as usual--and a Green New Deal.
Ever since the Green New Deal Resolution was introduced in Congress in February, supported by more than100 members of Congress, millions of us have been waiting for a concrete plan of action. Contrary to the standard "go slow/small change" establishment message perpetuated by the mass media, a Yale University poll in April found that an overwhelming 93 percent of Democratic voters (and even a minority of Republicans) support an aggressive plan like the Green New Deal.
Finally, we have a true Declaration of War against fossil fuel pollution and global warming, a radical legislative program that can head off climate catastrophe and supercharge a just transition to a 21st Century Green Commonwealth--thanks to the Green New Deal plan laid out by Vermont Senator and presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders.
Released on August 22, 2019, Bernie's 67-page GND lays out a comprehensive $16.3-trillion package of policies and government-funded programs, as well as realistic projections on how these new programs will actually pay for themselves over the next 15 years.
The Green New Deal will pay for itself over time by creating massive new revenue streams through increasing employment and income tax revenue ($2.3 trillion) and through selling trillions of kilowatt hours of renewable solar and wind energy every year from new, expanded Federal Power Marketing Administrations ($6.4 trillion), patterned after our current federal hydropower program.
Meanwhile the GND will reduce federal government expenditures by slashing military spending ($1.2 trillion) and reducing government energy costs, among other benefits. Sanders' plan also calls for "making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies... [reducing the] need for federal and state safety-net spending due to the creation of millions of good-paying, unionized jobs... [and] making the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share."
Bernie's multi-trillion-dollar GND lays out a 10-year strategy to transform the U.S. energy and utilities sector, transitioning from our current levels of 17 percent renewables to 100 percent renewable energy between 2030-2050; creating 20 million well-paid green jobs; forging new foreign relations and cutting back military spending as part of a global cooperation with Russia, China, India, the EU and other nations; and implementing a trillion-dollar program of organic and regenerative (carbon-sequestering) food, farming and land use practices.
Sanders' manifesto far exceeds what any of the other leading presidential candidates have so far dared to propose. Because Sanders' GND is essentially a radical plan designed to address a radical societal and global emergency, it has, of course, already generated terabytes of criticism and ridicule from proponents of fossil fuels and "middle of the road, don't go too fast" politicians and corporations.
Of course as Bernie constantly reminds us, we'll never be able to implement a system-changing GND without a grassroots-powered ballot-box "political revolution," starting with the 2020 election cycle and beyond, whereby we elect a pro-GND president and inspire, co-opt or cajole a majority in both the House and the Senate to get behind a GND.
Earlier this year, David Roberts, writing for Vox magazine pointed out the political realities of implementing a Green New Deal:
Here's the only way any of this works: You develop a vision of politics that puts ordinary people at the center and gives them a tangible stake in the country's future, a share in its enormous wealth and a role to play in its greater purpose. Then organize people around that vision and demand it from elected representatives. If elected representatives don't push for it, make sure they get primaried or defeated. If you want bipartisanship, get it because politicians in purple districts and states are scared to cross you, not because you led them to the sweet light of reason.
Four major game-changers in Bernie's GND
I could write a whole book on this topic, and in fact I have, "Grassroots Rising," which will be published in January 2020 by Chelsea Green Publishing.
But for now, let's look at four aspects of Bernie's GND that make it different--and revolutionary.
No. 1: The GND is a U.S. and global Renewal and Regeneration plan on the scale of a World War II mobilization. The Sanders GND is the only plan in the industrialized world that sets a goal high enough to actually reverse global warming (with significant net negative emissions projected by 2030) and eliminate economic injustice, environmental destruction, deteriorating public health and global poverty and conflict at the same time.
The primary drivers of the plan include a green, high-wage, full-employment renewable energy economy complemented by an agricultural and land-management system with little or no use of fossil fuels and massive natural carbon drawdown and sequestration of excess atmospheric CO2 in our soils, forests and wetlands. This Great Transition will be financed by a multi-trillion-dollar infusion of public funds ($15.3 billion over 10 years) that can actually "net zero out" fossil fuel emissions in the short timeframe we have left (2019-2030) before our current climate crisis morphs into runaway global warming and climate catastrophe.
While Elizabeth Warren, Jay Inslee, Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Tim Ryan, Tulsi Gabbert, Marianne Williamson, and others have spoken out on the urgent need to solve the climate crisis, none have offered a comparable high-bar plan, nor dared to propose more than a few trillion dollars over the next decade to fix our Climate Emergency and societal breakdown.
No. 2: Bernie's GND offers the first realistic assessment and timeline for what needs to be done in the limited timeframe we have left to avoid climate catastrophe, both nationally and internationally. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said shortly after she won her Congressional primary election in New York in 2018: "The Green New Deal we are proposing will be similar in scale to the mobilization efforts seen in World War II or the Marshall Plan... Half measures will not work... The time for slow and incremental efforts has long past."
Most politicians who acknowledge that there is indeed a climate crisis are still talking in rather vague terms about moving to domestic net-zero emissions by 2050, advocating domestic private and public funding in the billions of dollars, whereas Bernie is talking about trillions in public funds, including $200 billion to help the Global South decarbonize their economies and naturally sequester billions of tons of atmospheric carbon through reforestation and regenerative agriculture.
By allocating massive resources both nationally and internationally, the GND will reduce the U.S. carbon footprint (which includes both the emissions released within our borders and the emissions released overseas to supply us with resources, imports and consumer products) by "the total equivalent of... 161 percent" within a decade. As the Sanders GND emphasizes, we need drastic changes in our foreign policy as well as our domestic policy:
As president, Bernie will provide strong, inclusive American leadership to not only transform our own energy system, but to reach out to countries all over the world and cooperate on the global crisis of climate change. We must recognize that people from every country in the world -- Russia, India, China, Japan, Brazil -- are all in this together. Instead of accepting that the world's countries will spend $1.5 trillion annually on weapons of destruction, Bernie will convene global leaders to redirect our priorities to confront our shared enemy: climate change.
No. 3: Focusing on, and providing $841 billion in program money to transform our climate-destructive, corporate/monopoly-controlled, factory-farm food and farming system into an equitable family farm-based, regenerative system of farming and ranching. Bernie's GND will provide the funding and resources to revitalize rural America and draw down billions of tons of excess CO2 and store it in our soils and pastures, while simultaneously improving food quality, public health, rural livelihoods and quality of life.
Among the unprecedented food, farming and land use components of the GND are:
* $410 billion for farmers and ranchers, including first-time, indigenous, minority and disadvantaged farmers, to avoid or make the transition from chemical, energy-intensive, factory farm methods to "ecologically regenerative," climate-friendly practices
* $160 billion in payments to farmers and ranchers to sequester and increase soil carbon
* $25 billion for farmland conservation
* $1.25 billion for tribal land access and acquisition
* $1.4 billion in new research and development
* $1.4 billion for renewable energy on farms
* $36 billion to establish a "victory lawns and gardens initiative" to help urban, rural and suburban Americans "transform their lawns into food-producing or reforested spaces that sequester carbon and save water"
* $14 billion to increase the number of co-op grocery stores
* $31 billion to strengthen the infrastructure for on-farm and local food processing
* $160 billion to help states to eliminate food waste and compost organic materials
* $500 million to help farmers get certified as organic, as well as funds to incentivize schools to procure locally produced foods.
Beyond financial subsidies and grants, the GND promises to:
* Use government resources and legal power to enforce anti-trust laws
* Break up big agribusinesses that have a stranglehold on farmers and rural communities
* Ensure farmers are paid a fair price for their products with tools like supply management and grain reserves
* Re-establish and strengthen the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration
* Ensure farmers have the right to repair their own equipment
* Reform patent laws to prevent predatory lawsuits from massive agribusinesses like Bayer/Monsanto
* Reform the agricultural subsidy system so more money goes to small and medium-sized farms
* Strengthen organic standards
* Enforce country-of-origin labeling and allow meat slaughtered at state inspected facilities to be sold across state lines
* Create a pathway to citizenship for migrant farmworkers and improve wages and working conditions and end exclusions for agricultural workers in labor laws
* Invest in historically underserved communities to grow the number of farmers of color.
No. 4: Bernie's GND doesn't shy away from the fact that we must fight the power of the fossil fuel corporations, the military-industrial complex, and the economic elite that maintain our degenerate and climate-destructive business as usual. As the Sanders GND states in its introduction:
We need a president who has the courage, the vision and the record to face down the greed of fossil fuel executives and the billionaire class who stand in the way of climate action. We need a president who welcomes their hatred. Bernie will lead our country to enact the Green New Deal and bring the world together to defeat the existential threat of climate change.
The hour is late, but we still have time to turn things around. Our job in 2019 and beyond is to reach out and educate our fellow Americans about the GND and the political revolution that must take place, beginning now. Don't mourn, organize.
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Organic Farms Are Under Attack From Agribusiness, Weakened Standards
For the health of our planet and agrarian justice—consumers need to become co-producers, learning about why it is such a struggle for smaller farms to thrive, and acting in solidarity by paying fair prices, buying direct or seeking out meaningful labels
Mar 20, 2019
The certified organic label has helped save many generational farms and enabled people like me, who do not come from agricultural backgrounds, to become successful farmers. Organic farming has brought environmental benefits--healthier soils, freedom from toxic pesticides and herbicides--to 6.5 million acres in the U.S.
Organic shoppers are willing to pay a little extra for food that is free from chemical residues. But the organic label is in trouble after reports of fraudulently labeled food made national news. On top of that, agribusiness pressures and National Organic Program (NOP) actions have weakened standards. Yet at a time when farms are in distress, family-scale farmers need a label with integrity. They need a label that provides public support from people who understand that small-scale farmers are an endangered species.
In the 1980s, I was one of the organic farmers who helped launch organic certification. Farming and non-farming members of the Northeast Organic Farming Association worked together to write standards for a label that identified the real organic food that non-farmers wanted to buy--for which they were willing to pay enough to keep the small farms in business.
In retrospect, it has become clear that we were very naive. It did not occur to us to consider the many ways our clear, simple statements could be twisted by people who were willing to cut corners to increase their bottom line and steal markets by underselling the farmers who observed the standards faithfully.
To pass the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) in 1990--which established the NOP for organic food production on farms and in processing plants with a National Organic Standards Board of stakeholders to advise USDA, as well as a process for certification and accreditation--organic farming organizations and consumer and environmental groups allied with the Organic Trade Association, which was dominated by organic processors. At that time, there were few processed organic foods on the market, but since the NOP was implemented in 2002, sales of those foods have grown impressively. Cracks in our united front began to appear, as large conventional food corporations bought up independent organic brands and savvy players figured out how to scam the system.
The NOP standards require outdoor access for livestock, grass for ruminants and dirt for scratching for poultry. Shortly after the creation of the NOP, a chicken farm, where the chickens never walk outside but only access the outdoors by spending time on a porch, applied for certification. Today, most eggs with the organic label come from similar farms.
A bigshot with Organic Trade Association launched the first of the mega-dairies. The milk from these multi-thousand cow dairies is crowding family-scale dairies out of the market, causing heartbreaking farm closures by taking advantage of an obscure loophole that allows them to increase herd size quickly by using conventional (non-organic) heifers. These farms also cut corners on feed. Organic regulations require that 30 percent of feed by dry weight comes from pasture. Aerial photos of mega-dairies suggest that they do not have adequate pasture.
Despite clear language in OFPA requiring that organic farming be based on the maintenance and improvement of soil fertility, the NOP allows the certification of hydroponic produce. Hydroponic operations grow fruits and vegetables indoors, in greenhouses or hoop houses, or even large warehouses where all the light is artificial and the roots of the plant sit in a neutral medium with nutrients provided through the irrigation system. The acreage of hydroponic tomatoes and berries increases steadily, underselling produce from smaller farms and hoodwinking shoppers who have no way of knowing what they are buying.
Organic farmers and independent organic processors are deeply upset by these developments and are taking actions that the public can support.
Because family farms are so economically vulnerable, farmers who feel betrayed by the NOP do not want to undermine consumer confidence in the organic label on which so many farms depend.
Instead, there are three efforts underway to create add-ons to that label. The Real Organic Project will signal that products were grown in soil or raised on pasture. Regenerative Organic Certification will assure that products come from farms that build soil carbon to fight climate change, treat livestock humanely and use fair labor practices. The Agricultural Justice Project's Food Justice Certified label is already on a few products signaling that the farms pay living wages with decent working conditions.
For the health of our planet and agrarian justice--meaning fairness to family-scale farms to ensure their survival--consumers need to become co-producers, learning about why it is such a struggle for smaller farms to thrive, and acting in solidarity by paying fair prices, buying direct or seeking out meaningful labels.
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute, and originally published by Truthout.
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Study Shows Toxic Pesticide Levels in Families Dropped by 60% After One-Week Organic Diet
"This important study shows how quickly we can rid our bodies of toxic pesticides by choosing organic," says researcher
Feb 11, 2019
A new peer-reviewed study shows that eating a completely organic diet--even for just one week--can dramatically reduce the presence of pesticide levels in people, a finding that was characterized as "groundbreaking" by critics of an industrial food system that relies heavily on synthetic toxins and chemicals to grow crops and raise livestock.
Published in the Environmental Research, the study--titled Organic Diet Intervention Significantly Reduces Urinary Pesticide Levels in U.S. Children and Adults (pdf)--found that switching to an organic diet significantly reduced the levels of synthetic pesticides found in all participants.
"We all have the right to food that is free of toxic pesticides. Farmers and farmworkers growing our nation's food and the rural communities they live in have a right not to be exposed to chemicals linked to cancer, autism and infertility."
-- Kendra Klein, PhD, Friends of the Earth
"This study shows that organic works," said study co-author Kendra Klein, PhD, senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth. "We all have the right to food that is free of toxic pesticides. Farmers and farmworkers growing our nation's food and the rural communities they live in have a right not to be exposed to chemicals linked to cancer, autism and infertility. And the way we grow food should protect, not harm, our environment. We urgently need our elected leaders to support our farmers in making healthy organic food available for all."
The study tested the urine of four diverse American families in Oakland, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Baltimore after eating their typical diet of conventional food for six days and then after a controlled diet of all organic food for six days.
Featuring the families that participated and the scientist who carried it out, watch a video produced by FOE Action about the study:
According to FOE, the pesticide and pesticide metabolite levels detected in participants dropped by an average 60.5 percent after just six days of eating the all-organic diet. Specifically, the testing showed significant reductions in pesticides associated in the past with increased risk of autism, cancers, autoimmune disorders, infertility, hormone disruption, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's disease.
Among the key findings:
- 61% drop in chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxic pesticide known to damage children's developing brains. Exposure is associated with increased risk of autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, and IQ loss.
- 95% drop in malathion, another neurotoxic organophosphate pesticide and a probable human carcinogen according to the World Health Organization.
- 83% drop in clothianidin, a neonicotinoid pesticide. Neonicotinoids are associated with endocrine disruption and changes in behavior and attention, including an association with autism spectrum disorder. Neonicotinoids are also a main driver of massive pollinator and insect losses, leading scientist to warn of a "second silent spring."
- 43-57% drop in pyrethroids, a class of pesticides associated with endocrine disruption and adverse neurodevelopmental, immunological and reproductive effects.
- 37% drop in 2,4-D, one of two ingredients in Agent Orange. 2,4-D is among the top five most commonly used pesticides in the U.S. and is associated with endocrine disruption, thyroid disorders, increased risk of Parkinson's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, developmental and reproductive toxicity and other health issues.
"Everyone has the right to clean organic food. That is a human right," said Tara, one study participant from Baltimore.
"This important study shows how quickly we can rid our bodies of toxic pesticides by choosing organic," said Sharyle Patton, director of the Commonweal Biomonitoring Resources Center and co-author of the study. "Congratulations to the families who participated in the study and their willingness to tell their stories in support of creating a food system where organic is available to all."
Read or download the full report here (pdf).
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Angering Organic Farmers and Advocates, Trump's USDA Kills Animal Welfare Rule
The rule would have "specified a set of standards for organic livestock and poultry designed to minimize stress, facilitate natural behaviors, and promote well-being."
Mar 12, 2018
Angering organic farmers and advocates, the Trump administration announced on Monday that it will officially withdraw a rule that would have added animal welfare regulations for meat, eggs, and dairy marketed as "organic."
"The decision nullifies 14 years of policymaking in a process mandated by Congress, and marks an about-face for the agency."
--Lynne Curry, Civil Eats
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) killed the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP) final rule after deciding that it "exceeds the department's statutory authority, and that the changes to the existing organic regulations could have a negative effect on voluntary participation in the National Organic Program," according to a USDA statement.
While Greg Ibach, undersecretary for the USDA's marketing and regulatory program, claimed that "the existing robust organic livestock and poultry regulations are effective," organic farmers, animal rights advocates, and consumers who have supported the enhanced regulations--which were published on January 19, 2017 and would have taken effect in May--expressed disappointment with the move.
"The decision nullifies 14 years of policymaking in a process mandated by Congress, and marks an about-face for the agency," Lynne Curry wrote for Civil Eats. The rule would have "specified a set of standards for organic livestock and poultry designed to minimize stress, facilitate natural behaviors, and promote well-being," she noted in an update to a piece she published in December. As Curry explained:
Championed throughout the organic industry--from farmers to consumer groups to retailers and animal-welfare advocates--the OLPP was intended as a course correction for the $43 billion food industry, formulated to bring organic dairy, eggs, and meat production into line with consumer expectations of higher animal welfare. Trust in the organic seal depended on it, some advocates insisted.
But this latest USDA decision codifies the big rift between the majority of certified organic producers, who follow the spirit of the law, and the fewer, much larger producers who seek to gain market advantage, primarily by continuously confining animals that are required by law to have outdoor access. The USDA's ruling preserves the status quo, and fails to establish the USDA Organic label as the "gold standard" for organics that OLPP promised.
When the department moved to withdraw the rule in December, the industry group Organic Trade Association (OTA) said, "This groundless step by USDA is being taken against a backdrop of nearly universal support among the organic businesses, and consumers for the fully vetted rules that USDA has now rejected."
"It is against this overwhelming public input that USDA ignores growing consumer demands for food transparency," the group added. "It makes no sense that the Trump administration would pursue actions that could damage a marketplace that is giving American farmers a profitable alternative, creating jobs, and improving the economies of our rural areas."
Monday's annoucement came after the OTA requested oral hearings late last week for a lawsuit it filed against the USDA for repeatedly delaying and moving to withdraw the rule.
"Failure to implement the final rule, and its welfare provisions, will lead to irremediable damage to consumer trust in the USDA Organic seal," warned Jesse Laflamme, a supporter of the OTA lawsuit and co-founder of Pete & Gerry's Eggs, which partners with over more than family-owned farms in 14 states. "Our farmers will suffer severe financial setbacks."
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