The POP Campaign is a recently launched, grassroots effort to provide a powerful leadership presence on the national and global stages regarding organic food and supplements. The objective of this effort is to keep our voices and choices alive, our standards pure, and everyone informed on related issues and effective action. Learn more today at www.popcampaign.org.
It is our strong belief that the right focus, prudent alliances, participation of motivated citizens and a collaborative effort can advance our health freedom forward through the maze of regulations, guidelines and laws surrounding food safety, organic standards and dietary supplements. By “organically” adapting responses to legislative agendas, political changes, counter proposals, and special interests with remarkable speed and depth, along with leveraging our collective passion and influence, we can realize victories and preserve gains already made for health freedom and choices.
Recent Victories
On a shoestring budget, we hired lobbyists Beth Clay and Clinton Miller to personally contact members of Congress so they might witness our passionate commitment to healthy eating and to viable “common-sense” positions. What seemed impossible has resulted in significant successes—we influenced wording in the Senate Chairman’s Mark on Food Safety S. 510; helped frame and participated in the rigorous dialogue pertaining to Senator McCain’s Dietary Supplements bill so that he understood its ramifications and withdrew his own sponsorship (huge victory); addressed Codex influence on domestic crops and supported FDA accountability reporting measures; presented the “POP” and “Codex” amendments; and contributed to push-back efforts, information sharing, and personal stories to leverage our influence on policy.
Action Plan
Moving forward, we find ourselves making difficult conversations more simple, complex issues more clear
and shaping more meaningful thinking on key issues. We will continue to monitor the bills and actions mentioned above. We will be taking a deeper look at an acceptable definition of “organic” and the concept of “science-based” standards. We do not agree with “one-size-fits-all” rules and the manipulation of the term “science-based” to strengthen self-serving objectives. Closely monitoring some of the upcoming sunsets on banned substances in organic farming is also a key objective—stay tuned.
Major activities will include:
• Collective Impact: Leverage our numbers, resources and experts
• “Science based” and “organic” debates: Steer the dialogue correctly and fairly
• Codex Harmonization: Influence its global impact through education; stop any national bleed-through; take positions at FDA and Congressional hearings
• Continued Monitoring: HR 458, HR 185 and sunsets on farming additives
Collective Impact
There are many indicators Americans are becoming more focused on their health:
• Celebrities flock to the Hippocrates Health Institute, boosting their health, beauty and longevity.
• Guests on the Oprah Show passionately share healthy eating tips and discuss America’s obesity epidemic.
• Food Inc. received an Academy Award nomination!
• Catherine Austin Fitz, national financial advisor, says that ten years ago she could not have imagined speaking on national radio about personal gardening and organic food or even broaching the conversation that “food is medicine.”
• Jamie Oliver invades the most “unhealthy U.S. city” in his reality show to change eating habits in a Midwestern town.
• Daily, from New Jersey to Kansas City to Boise to Bakersfield, eco-moms buy one or two new GMO-free items for their children.
• Farmland Inc. reports that the return on investment for farms that convert to organic is minimally 8% above traditional crops.
• Organic food and beverages in the United States have grown into big business with sales from $1,000,000,000 in 1990 to an estimated $22,900,000,000 in 2008.
• Mainstream’s passion for organics is skyrocketing. This is our biggest asset that can be leveraged…you are developing quality standards daily, one food choice at a time.
To the choir: You are the path-makers. Obviously, we have a strong, unique connection to our organic food—a degree of intimacy that leads us to grand rhapsody and poetry. We can still experience child-like wonder over luscious natural tastes and smile ourselves into bliss. Our organic food crowns us a champion with each delicious bite. We have researched, documented, fine-tuned and learned how to grow food sustainably, efficiently, and cost effectively. We cultivate an intimacy with the earth and its harvests that is just nitty-gritty delicious and healthy. We are alive and vibrant! We must leverage our passion in a huge way to do what is necessary to take our leadership to the next level—showing up “BIG” to correctly address major issues.
“Science-based” Standards and the “Organic” Definition Debates
The use of the term “science-based” minimum standards is dangerous and one of the most tricky quagmires to maneuver. This is a term Congress increasingly uses when instructing the FDA or Administration. “It has no clear definition in statute and is used to exclude traditional use theories and practices, minority opinions and other information not in line with the status quo bjectives,” states Beth Clay. It also sets the stage to undermine decades of progress on organic standards that, up to this point, have prevented the intrusion of pesticides and chemicals.
Section 419 of S. 510 requires the Secretary to propose and enact regulations to establish “science-based minimum standards for the safe production and harvesting of those types of fruits and vegetables that are raw agricultural commodities for which the Secretary has determined that such standards minimize the risk of serious adverse health consequences…”
Applying “science based” is an immediate red flag. Once the door is open, it can be a Pandora’s box. Institutional and corporate agendas have no tolerance for anything not aligned with their own objectives. Scientific arguments can be a “tit-for-tat” chess game where each fact is countered by another, until a stale mate is reached. Although results may be clearly scientific, built upon years of case studies, and very pervasive, the valuable information is simply ignored and gives way to an economic-political over-ride. Those “in charge” reassert their claims to academic territory, are stubbornly unwilling to relinquish positions, demand enormous volumes of evidence, and build cases addressing symptoms rather than the source of problems—wanting nothing that upsets the apple cart.
The POP Campaign, along with the best health experts in the world, is challenging many basic assumptions and demanding to be included at every stage of policy development—on every committee, at every hearing, and on every working group across the country. We are pitting traditional uses and practices against special interests. There will be victories, but we will be rigorously challenged. ..... Continued on Page 2
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