HOWEVER - if done right, Organic Food is INTRINSICALLY GOOD; yeah,
actually life providing, and the whole world is crying out for that, but
in an ACCESSIBLE WAY!
I'm going to go over Betty Gras' proposal and see what she's come up
with. The time is ripe for consolidating something, and I don't think
it's in OFPA.
Wilson, Dale wrote:
>
> Douglas,
>
> > Not if OFPA were successful in providing a minimum national definition
> > w/o requiring certification. Verification could be contested by
> > interested parties, rather than required Carte Blanche.
> >
> I see, it could be enforced by civil litigation.
And by filing criminal charges, if appropriate (i.e. deliberate fraud).
> > Most if not all distributors already require certification and the
> > differences between one major certifiers practices and anothers are
> > not as great as some have maintained.
> >
> Okay, I understand now (pardon my ignorance). Then the easiest path for
> the USDA would be to adopt the rules of the least stringent of the major
> certifiers, and continue to to let these private parties do the actual
> certification. Certification agencies could be designated on a
> bioregional basis. The USDA could take bids to find the most
> cost-effective private certifier in the region or state.
Not quite. If the USDA could provide the service of arriving at a
consensus, of unifying real organic growers around a truely congruent
standard (which can NOT deviate significantly from the IFOAM's,
probably), then there will be no lack of adherents and USDA - NOP
certification may well be a plus for those that require a reliable
certifier. BUT - this must be voluntary. "USDA Certified Organic" must
stand on it's own merit, and not by trashing the competition!
> > The major problem as I see it, is that the revised Rule may not
> > consider
> > revising OFPA itself to remove mandataory certification, in which this
> > will go to court.
> >
> I think I see why this is an issue. If certification is not mandatory,
> and is expensive, no one will buy it. The bureaucratic domain would
> shrink. The big players would like to make it mandatory, to help grind
> their Mom and Pop competitors into the dust. So there is an alignment
> of interest between the regulators and the big players.
>
> Dale
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