Headlines

After a decade in the works, on December 20th USDA released its final rule for implementation of the National Organic Program.

WASHINGTON--December 20th, The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its final rule for implementation of the National Organic Program (NOP). A decade in the making, the rules are a prime example of a private-public partnership, said outgoing U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman. "We said that we would deliver standards that could be embraced by farmers, industry and consumers alike, and we have done exactly that," he said. "Now it's time to take the next steps to fully embrace organic agriculture and give it a more prominent role in the farm policy of the 21st century."

Industry members were primarily positive on the final rule. "It's a bright day in Washington and for the organic industry," said Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA). "The rule is a good, strong regulation and one that will move the organic industry forward." DiMatteo noted that the rule was not perfect, and that there are areas the OTA will hope to address, but that overall it is "quite acceptable.".....

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Greenpeace website

November 28, 2000 press releases

PROTESTERS DEMAND EPA NOT ALLOW STARLINK ANIMAL FEED CORN IN HUMAN FOOD EPA to say if StarLink will be approved after massive contamination of U.S. food supply.

ARLINGTON, Va., - In the face of strident protests, the Environmental Protection Agency today met with scientists to help determine if a variety of animal feed corn should be approved for human food. Activists from Greenpeace, wearing chicken, cow and sheep masks, gathered outside the meeting around a feeding trough full of corn and displayed a banner reading, "EPA: Don't Test Gene-Altered Corn on Us." The genetically engineered corn, called StarLink, has been allowed to illegally contaminate the U.S. food supply, leading to the recall of hundreds of popular foods.

"EPA's process is fatally flawed," said Charles Margulis, Greenpeace genetic engineering specialist. "Instead of punishing Aventis for illegally contaminating our food, the agency is on the verge of orchestrating a corporate bail-out. Industry will never again take any EPA regulation seriously if the agency lets Aventis off the hook now." EPA originally allowed Aventis, the biotech firm that developed StarLink, to sell the seed on the promise that the company would insure that none of the harvested corn would be used for human food. Despite scientific concerns about the safety of StarLink, EPA is considering Aventis' request to retroactively approve the corn in food......

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Genetically altered corn mix-up results in huge mess for U.S. farmers

By MATT CRENSON - The Associated Press
(All content 2000 The Kansas City Star)

Date: 12/02/00 22:15

Larry Bohlen had just one item on his shopping list when he went to the Silver Spring, Md., Safeway in the summer: corn. Everything Bohlen put in his cart had corn in it. He tossed in corn chips, corn meal, corn flakes. By the end of his shopping spree, he had collected 23 products containing corn. It was not a craving that motivated Bohlen; it was a hunch. He bet he could prove that a genetically engineered crop not approved for human consumption had reached supermarket shelves. He took the groceries to his office at the environmental group Friends of the Earth and packed them into six cardboard boxes. He then mailed them to Genetic ID, a laboratory in Fairfield, Iowa. At the lab, technicians methodically crumbled the groceries into powder and then performed genetic tests worth $7,000.

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Europe Takes Toughest Steps to Fight Mad Cow Disease

New York Times December 5, 2000 
By SUZANNE DALEY

ARIS, Dec. 4 Moving to calm growing fears over mad cow disease, the European Union today voted its most drastic measures yet to try to control the spread of the fatal illness. In a special emergency session, the union's agricultural ministers voted to ban the use of feed laced with animal products, not just for cattle but for all farm animals, for at least six months. In addition, all cattle over the age of 30 months are to be removed from the food chain tested to make sure they are disease free. As testing capacity is limited, this is likely to mean that two million head of cattle in the union's 15 member countries will be slaughtered.

Both measures are expected to be costly. Union officials estimate that the feed ban ? intended to prevent cattle from eating, even accidentally, infected animal parts that can transmit the disease ?will cost nearly $4 billion a year. The removal of older cattle from the food chain will cost another $800 million, officials said. Evidence of mad cow disease has never been found in young cattle.

"The crisis we have to come to grips with is an unusual one," said Franz Fischler, the European Union's agricultural minister, after emerging from the nine-hour meeting. "It needs unusual measures." The measures come as most European countries have been struggling with a growing panic among consumers about the safety of beef. Wholesalers in several countries have reported a drop in sales of nearly 50 percent in the last few weeks......

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1-4 Anti-Biotics on the Farm: NYTimes

New York Times on January 9, 2001
Editorials

One of the most striking patterns in modern American agriculture is the increasing use of antibiotics as a regular丂supplement in the feed and water consumed by cows, pigs and especially poultry. Most of these drugs are administered in small doses to farm animals not to cure sickness but to promote more growth on less feed and to prevent the infections that come with crowding in feedlots and confinement systems. The practice began in the late 1940's and early 1950's and has accelerated rapidly. Nobody knows precisely what volume of antibiotics is used today. But new estimates released by a public interest group this week suggest that the amount of antibiotics used nontherapeutically in American livestock has grown to 24.6 million pounds per year, a number that may be as much as 50 percent higher than it was in 1985.

These figures appear in a new report on agricultural antibiotics by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge. Mass. The numbers are alarming for two reasons. First,24.6 million pounds far exceeds previous estimates. Second, it was a very hard number to arrive at because the data for antibiotic production and use in humans or animals are, as the report states, "shockingly incomplete." A trade group for the makers of veterinary medicines has estimated, for example, that far more antibiotics are used in treating human illness than are administered to animals. But the new estimates find just the opposite that for nontherapeutic purposes, cows, pigs and poultry receive over all more than eight times the amount of antibiotics humans receive in the treatment of actual illness.

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2 A New Restaurant Opened Torrance, California

 

This new restaurant is located 15miles south of the downtown Los Angeles where you can enjoy superb Japanese cuisine. It is run by MLT management with its extensive experiences as organic and healthy food specialist. 

Restaurant "I-Naba"

20920 Hawthorne Blvd.
Torrance, California 90503
Tel 310-371-6675

Please click here for details

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