Live Link: The Cornucopia Institute
Organic Egg Business Being Hijacked by Corporate
Agribusinesses—Help Reverse this Scandal!
Meeting October 25-28, 2010 in Madison, Wisconsin
Attend or mail in your proxy letter ASAP!
Imagine 80,000 laying hens in a single building, crowded in confinement conditions, on “farms” with hundreds of thousands or a million birds. Is that organic?
How about a tiny enclosed concrete porch, accessible by only 3%-5% of the tens of thousands of birds inside a henhouse. Does that pass as outdoor access as required by federal organic law?
Industrial-scale egg producers are gaming the system with their livestock management shortcuts and are placing family-scale organic farmers at a competitive disadvantage. Some pasture-based organic farmers have already been driven out of the organic egg business.
The organic community has an opportunity to reverse this scandal and support authentic organic agriculture. The USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) will be debating the meaning of outdoor access and stocking densities for organic poultry and other livestock at the upcoming meeting in Madison, Wis., October 25-28.
You can show your support for meaningful outdoor access requirements in several ways:
- By appearing in person at the NOSB meeting in Madison and giving a five-minute oral testimony in support of strong animal welfare standards in organics.
- If you can’t attend the meeting yourself, please sign and return a proxy letter (available on our website), which we will hand-deliver to the USDA at the meeting in Madison.
The USDA is hearing from the well-funded and organized industry lobbyists. We must ensure that they also hear from the organic community!
Please contact The Cornucopia Institute if you are interested in appearing in person for a five-minute oral presentation at the NOSB meeting in Madison, Wis. We will send you a briefing package with detailed instructions for how to sign up to speak, directions to the meeting, and other important information.
Please email us at cultivate@cornucopia.org (preferred), or call 608-625-2042 if you plan on attending the NOSB meeting.
The Cornucopia Institute P.O. Box 126 Cornucopia, WI 54827 608-625-2042 cultivate@cornucopia.org
[...] ORGANIC VALUES BETRAYED IN VIDEO: Scrambled Eggs – Where Are Your Organic Eggs Really Coming F… (ppjg.wordpress.com) [...]
It is not good when we divide ourselves, because the ‘foe’ (the corporate and uber-rich agenda) is so HUGE.
However, I cannot let this article go without commenting that Cornucopia offered me no support whatsoever when I appealed to them (ie., to their chief executive, Mark Kastel) for help in my own personal struggles with CROPP (aka Organic Valley), after CROPP (aka Organic Valley) delivered a ruinous and catastrophic blow to our small organic dairy farm. A ruinous blow which displayed a total betrayal of faith and, what-one-would-suppose-to-be, common justice or justice for people acting and living with good intentions and full belief in those same good intentions. Common justice or, common law.
Something that has been usurped by corporate wealth and legitimized greed and the general deceitful malaise and vast sickness of our western civilization.
Insofar as it is known to me, Cornucopia Project supports then, the Organic Valley agenda.
Which, insofar as it has been experienced by me, is not one of helpfulness or support in any way, toward small farms and natural peoples; particularly when one of those small farms and natural peoples confronts and exposes the corporate agenda. As was my case and, continues to be, my case….
I will continue to look for attorney help (and the help of the others) but so far, the outcome has not been good.
This a misfortune which WILL go beyond this one little ruined and betrayed farm.
Cowardice is evident.
There will come a day of reckoning.
signed,
Guy Ekola