Explore Coverage

Living Maxwell

Archive

The USDA Takes Illegal Action (Again) That Will Greatly Harm the Organic Industry

The evidence just keeps rolling in that the USDA and the Obama administration are firmly against organic food. And for someone who is so passionate about organics and understands its importance to good health, it is getting very, very hard to take.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White recently banned the USDA from allowing genetically-engineered sugar beets to be planted until a complete Environment Impact Study (EIS) has been completed. The objective of this study is to prove whether or not GE-sugar beets will harm the environment and impact/contaminate local organic and non-GE growers. (More than half of the nation’s granulated sugar comes from GE-sugar beets — the rest comes from sugar cane.)

Of course, we know that the GE-sugar beets will do both. GE-seeds have already created many problems with superweeds, and the toxic chemicals that get sprayed on the GE-seeds pollute our precious water supply.

The USDA has not completed its full EIS but the agency claims that some documents that it has compiled are more than sufficient to allow the planting. Despite being told by Judge White that the USDA cannot do this without a full EIS, the USDA did it anyway. The USDA is under tremendous pressure (and influence) by Monsanto and other biotechnology companies to allow this to happen.

Why should organic advocates be alarmed about this?

1) GE-sugar beets contaminate nearby organic and non-GE sugar beet farms and will put them out of business. The amount of organic food available to the public will slowly dwindle if the USDA keeps acting like this.

2) The USDA continues to defy the order of the courts in order to protect the interests of Monsanto and biotech.

3) The USDA continues to prove that it has absolutely no interest in protecting the organic food supply or the farmers that grow organic.

Led by The Center for Food Safety and other groups, legal action has been taken to prevent this from happening.

How can organic consumers help?

In my view, the best thing we can do is to support The Center for Food Safety. They desperately need our financial help to combat the GMO forces (including our own government) via the legal system.

We are already in a legal fight with the USDA about GE-alfalfa, something which will destroy the organic dairy and meat industries, and now we have another one on our hands with GE-sugar beets.

As I continue to say, we cannot assume that organic food will always be there on the supermarket shelves.

If you want to hear detailed evidence about how President Obama is so against organic food, listen to a recent radio interview I did on The Organic View. I give a breakdown of many of his recent “anti-organic” policies and appointments (at the 35 minute mark). Most people are shocked when they hear everything he has done.

Thank you so much for supporting organic.

A message from Tradin Organic

Why Tradin Organic is Prioritizing Regenerative Organic Farming

At Tradin Organic, we believe that regenerative organic farming is key to growing healthy and nutritious food ingredients — for now and for future generations.

And in Sierra Leone, we have grown the world’s first Regenerative Organic Certified cacao.

Learn more.

livingmaxwell: a guide to organic food & drink