Defend Organic Scofflaw in Court to Protect Corporate Takeover of Organics CORNUCOPIA, WI – Two powerful lobby groups in the food industry, The Grocery Manufacturers of America and the Organic Trade Association, recently intervened as friends of the court in a federal consumer class-action lawsuit accusing the nation’s largest supplier of private-label organic milk of… Read more »
Search Results for: GMO
Carrageenan Makes Me Sick: Personal Stories
Cornucopia has heard from many people who suffer ill health effects from ingesting carrageenan. [Learn more about carrageenan, including a guide to help you avoid this inflammatory ingredient, on our research page.] We shared the following stories with regulators at the fall 2016 National Organic Standards Board meeting: “I suffer from sensitivity to carrageenan which… Read more »
Agribusiness Interests and the USDA Scramble Organic Eggs
Lobbyists Conspired to Confine Chickens to Factory Farms Consumers Fight Back through Marketplace Activism Reacting to the close of a 90-day public comment period on July 13, the nation’s preeminent organic industry watchdog harshly criticized the USDA for what they called a “giveaway” to factory farm interests masquerading as organic. The Cornucopia Institute suggested that… Read more »
Putting the Chicken Before the Egg
[NOTE: Click here to view the New York Times slideshow of images from the article below.] The New York Times by Stephanie Strom Source: Martin de Witte CRESCENT CITY, Calif. — A decade ago, a couple running a dairy business in Northern California visited a Mennonite farm where the owner had used a flock of… Read more »
Crops, Ponds Destroyed in Quest for Food Safety
SFGate – San Francisco Chronicle Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau Washington — Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides. He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his… Read more »
Everyone from Big Ag to Small Farms Hates the Proposed Budget
Cornucopia’s Take: When the conservative-leaning, agribusiness-loving American Farm Bureau Federation and the more liberal, family farm-supporting National Farmers Union are both vociferously criticizing the administration, you know something has to be pretty decisively bad. The Trump administration’s proposed budget will cut cost-sharing for transitioning organic farmers and the overall budget at the National Organic Program. TRUMP’S… Read more »
Labels 101: Decoding Labels Built on the Organic Seal
![man inspecting a grain crop](https://www.cornucopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/labels101-web1.png)
What it means to be ROP and ROC certified [This article was previously published in the summer issue of the Cultivator, Cornucopia’s quarterly newsletter. Donate today to protect organic integrity and receive our fall issue in print.] By Michele Marchetti and Kestrel Burcham At Oatman Farms, Dax Hansen is putting his faith in eaters who… Read more »
Hutchinson Organic Ranch
![Farmers with cattle in the sand hills of nebraska](https://www.cornucopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/HutchinsonWeb.png)
By Kestrel Burcham, JD The Hutchinson Organic Ranch embodies the best in organic ranching today by adapting their practices to the needs of their land. Dave Hutchinson, with his wife Sue, daughter Sarah Drenth, her husband Jared, and their daughters live and work in an idyllic landscape of the Nebraska Sandhills, marked by abundant wildlife,… Read more »
The Co-op Safety Net
![First_Alternative](https://www.cornucopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/FirstAlternativeCoop1280.jpg)
Values-based solutions in a time of need [This article was previously published in the spring issue of the Cultivator, Cornucopia’s quarterly newsletter.] “Concern for community” is one of the seven guiding principles of cooperatives. It’s also at the core of the responses and solutions offered by co-ops throughout the country as they keep their owners and… Read more »
Anti-Organic Propaganda Exposed
Cornucopia’s Take: We often see stories in the news claiming that organic is no better than conventional agriculture. One of these propaganda pieces recently ran in AgDaily. The author, Michelle Miller, styles herself as a homey Iowan farmer, but a look at her work suggests otherwise. For example, she extolls the safety of the U.S…. Read more »