Subject: strategies: OFMA

From: FionaNyx <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 22:42:02 EST

It seems to me that people have been talking about a wide variety of
approaches here intermingled.  I would suggest selecting one or more of these
strategies to clarify for yourself what you are trying to do:

1) Fighting passage of proposed USDA regs as a whole: People can comment &
lobby, etc. 

[If there were a unitary standard in the organic growing field, it would be
easier to take this to the USDA and say, " Why doesn't your standard reflect
this standard?"]

[My opinion is that this may delay, but is unlikely to totally stop it.  Delay
can be significant, over 20 years of delay (sponsored by manufacturers) in
review of pesticides & fungicides let in by the earliest Pesticide regs has
kept the 10 most health damaging pesticides flowing into our food stream
despite masses of evidence as to their negative health consequences.]

2) Becoming involved IN the process of shaping the USDA regs to be less of a
travesty.
[Some gains can be made here by folks different in mind from those doing 1,
because the regs are probably going to happen...]

3) Specifically fighting to change the language in the USDA regs that steals
the term organic and regulates labelling about organic foods.  

[The more specific the fight, the more likely it can gain ground.]  

4) Putting the USDA proposal aside except as a spur to establish a label and
standards that reflect food produced without destructive methods. 

[One issue is that organic methods have never been defined by a single
standard, will we be able to get to that point now?  Oregon Tilth is regarded
as a "good" example, would you all be willing to adopt it? ]