***
March 7, 2018 - The Real Organic Project -
We are hard at work on the simple standards that will define our
organic add-on label. In three weeks our fifteen-person Standards
Board will come together in Vermont from around the country to
create the provisional standards. We will send out an update after
that meeting to describe progress on the upcoming pilot project.
The “Just Ask” campaign has the same goal as the current effort
from Cornucopia Institute to Demand Real Organic Food From
Real Organic Farmers.[26] Cornucopia wants all organic eaters to
send them a card asking major retailers to offer genuine organic
choices. If we speak up, the stores will respond. Please visit them
and support this campaign.
There has been a flurry of articles about the Real Organic Project:
Modern Farmer:
The Real Organic Project: Disgusted With the USDA, Farmers
Make Their Own Organic Label
IEG Policy:
Organic farmers launch effort for add-on label after disappointing
NOSB actions
Agri-Pulse:
Organic purists hatching an auxiliary label
Finally, we have had a few more people join the Real Organic
Advisory Board since my 2/16 letter. We are very proud of many
voices that have come together to support us.
They both speak widely on the complex world of soil, plants, and
animals. They have become champions for the revolution of
regenerative agriculture taking place worldwide.
Zoë Ida Bradbury. Born onto a sheep ranch along the southern
Oregon coast, Zoë grew up birthing lambs in the spring, watching
salmon spawn in the fall, and taming plums and tomatoes into
canning jars all summer. Her love for food, farming and rural
livelihood ultimately lured her back to her native southern Oregon
where she has run a diversified fresh market farm — Valley Flora
— since 2008, on land shared with her mother and sister.
Mary Ellen Chadd started Green Spark Farm in 2009 and now
farms full-time year-round with her husband and two little
5
***
May 11, 2018 - Something/s Rising! -
Document #264 -
Presented by Rex Beach, June 1936 -
United States GPO -
Washington, D.C., 1936 -
INTRODUCTION -
"Concerning Dr. Charles Northen: "This quiet, unballyhooed
pioneer and genius in the field of nutrition demonstrates that
countless human ills stem from the fact that impoverished soil of
America no longer provides plant foods with the mineral elements
essential to human nourishment and health! To overcome this
alarming condition, he doctors sick soils and, by seeming
miracles, raises truly healthy and health-giving fruits and
vegetables." - Rex Beach
You would think, wouldn't you, that a carrot is a carrot - that one is
about as good as another as far as nourishment is concerned?
But it isn't; one carrot may look and taste like another and yet be
lacking in the particular mineral element which our system
requires and which carrots are supposed to contain. Laboratory
9
tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs,
and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were
a few generations ago (which doubtless explains why our
forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us!).
No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply
his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health,
because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them! And we are
running to big stomachs.
The truth is that our foods vary enormously in value, and some of
them aren't worth eating as food. For example, vegetation grown
in one part of the country may assay 1,100 parts per billion of
iodine, as against 20 in that grown elsewhere. Processed milk has
run anywhere from 362 parts per million of iodine and 127 of iron,
down to nothing.
Before going further into the results he has obtained, let's see just
what is involved in this matter of "mineral deficiencies," what it
may mean to our health, and how it may affect the growth and
development, both mental and physical, of our children. We know
that rats, guinea pigs and other animals can be fed into a
diseased condition and out again by controlling only the minerals
in their food.
be unable to find their way out, whereas the others will have little
or no difficulty in getting out. Their dispositions can be altered by
mineral feeding. They can be made quarrelsome and belligerent;
they can even be turned into cannibals and be made to devour
each other.
A cage full of normal rats will live in amity. Restrict their calcium
and they will become irritable and draw apart from one another.
Then they will begin to fight. Restore their calcium balance and
they will grow more friendly; in time they will begin to sleep in a
pile as before. Many backward children are "stupid" merely
because they are deficient in magnesia. [Magnesium] We punish
them for our failure to feed them properly.
Very well, you say, if our foods are poor in the mineral salts they
are supposed to contain, why not resort to dosing?
That is precisely what is being done, or being attempted.
However, those who should know assert that the human system
cannot appropriate those elements to the best advantage in any
but the food form. At best, only a part of them in the form of drugs
can be utilized by the body, and certain dietitians go so far as to
say it is a waste of effort to fool with them. Calcium, for instance,
cannot be supplied in any form of medication with lasting effect.
We must rebuild our soils: Put back the minerals we have taken
out. That sounds difficult but it isn't. Neither is it expensive.
Therein lies the short cut to better health and longer life.
When Dr. Northen first asserted that many foods were lacking in
mineral content and that this deficiency was due solely to an
absence of those elements in the soil, his findings were
challenged and he was called a crank. But differences of opinion
in the medical profession are not uncommon - it was only 60
years ago that the Medical Society of Boston passed a resolution
commending the use of bathtubs - and he persisted in his
assertion that inasmuch as foods did not contain what they were
supposed to contain, no physician could with certainty prescribe a
diet to overcome physical ills.
Dr. Northen went even further and proved that crops grown in a
properly mineralized soil were bigger and better; that seeds
germinated quicker, grew more rapidly and made larger plants;
that trees were healthier and put on more fruit of better quality. By
increasing the mineral content of citrus fruit he likewise improved
its texture, its appearance and its flavor.
His work led him into a careful study of the effects of climate,
sunlight, ultraviolet and thermal rays upon plant, animal and
human hygiene. In consequence he moved to Florida. People
familiar with his work consider him the most valuable man in the
state. I met him by reason of the fact that I was harassed by
18
"Healthy plants mean healthy people," said he. "We can't raise a
strong race on a weak soil. Why don't you try mending the
deficiencies on your farm and growing more minerals into your
crop?”
mature I had them analyzed, along with celery from other parts of
the state. It was the most careful and comprehensive study of the
kind ever made, and it included over 250 separate chemical
determinations. I was amazed to learn that my celery had more
than twice the mineral content of the best grown elsewhere.
Furthermore, it kept much better, with and without refrigeration,
proving that the cell structure was sounder.
Others besides Mr. Kincaid are following the trail Dr. Northen
blazed. Similar experiments with milk have been made in Illinois
and nearly every fertilizer company is beginning to urge use of the
rare mineral elements. As an example I quote from statements of
a subsidiary of one of the leading copper companies:
21
***
March 8, 2018 -
***
October 26, 2017 - Dear National Organic Standards Board,
***
May 3, 2017 -
Use of the word “organic” on products that do not comply with the
Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) and the National Organic
Program Final Rule (NOP) is illegal. The NOSB (National Organic
Standards Board) recommended against “hydroponic” products
being labeled a “organic” on numerous occasions. Neither OFPA
nor the NOP have been amended to allow for the products of
soilless production systems being labeled as organic. Federal
organic hydroponic standards have not been issued, following
notice and comment rulemaking.
26
As the legal basis for this position, one needs to look no further
than the plain language of OFPA and the NOP Final Rule.
The NOP Final Rule, Section 205.203 “Soil fertility and crop
nutrient management” states:
“(a) The producer must select and implement tillage and
cultivation practices that maintain or improve the physical,
chemical, and biological condition of soil and minimize soil
erosion.
(b) The producer must manage crop nutrients and soil fertility
through rotations, cover crops, and the application of plant and
animal materials.
(c) The producer must manage plant and animal materials to
maintain or improve soil organic matter content”
Respectfully submitted,
Jim Riddle
Blue Fruit Farm
Winona, MN
Former Chair, NOSB
[13]
***
April 30, 2017 -
***
March 27, 2017 -
***
December 13, 2016 -
The demand for organic foods that has steadily grown in the USA
over the course of the last half century can be largely attributed to
the development of Biodynamic Agriculture that began on the
East Coast.
generation ago. The situation that exists now with the hydroponic
claim to the organic label is that people do not know whether the
story-bought organic tomato or organic pepper is actually soil
grown or not! The difference is not required to be disclosed.
Knowing the growing need for "truth in labeling" - I'm reasonably
certain this non-disclosure will not continue much longer. At the
very least the "consumers" will want to know.
At the same time the movement for "local" and "know your
farmer" continues to grow with traditional organic farmers
responding by way of farmers markets and CSA (community
supported agriculture) memberships. These avenues for real
organic foods will continue to flourish regardless of the
"compromise" currently affecting the organic standards.
Nevertheless their is a genuine crisis with regards to the USDA
organic label access by hydroponic interests.
"Dave Chapman is not afraid of getting a little dirty. For the past
36 years, he’s dug his hands into the soil to plant, then pick,
organic tomatoes from his fields and greenhouses in rural
Vermont. His love of organics is rooted in a simple motto: “Feed
the soil, not the plant.”
'They try to pretend that they’re me,' he said. 'They aren’t. It’s a
lie.’
'As far as we're concerned,' Coleman says, 'if it's not grown in soil
with all the wonderful features that soil puts into the plants, there's
no way you can call it organic.’
***
May 13, 2017 - Not "Hydroponic" But A Related Threat To Organic
Agriculture.
One of the comments (at [14]) suggested another issue: "It may
be about eliminating competition/expanding markets." I would
love to see a community-supported Law Firm (based on the
Organic Laws) launch a lawful discovery process to investigate
what all has motivated the county to threaten this farm.
**
May 18, 2017 - Some Good News from Azure - the "Organic Farm
Under Threat" (in the post of May 13th).
My comment:
35
Congratulations Azure!
Cheers for your farm and for virtually all Organic Agriculture.
I'm glad the farm has been spared from chemical spraying.
I hope all future conversations with the governmental agency will
stay on this course.
***
May 19th, 2017 -
Are any of our local (San Diego County) farmers adding rock dust
to their soils? If so I'd like to know who and support them!
***
June 18, 2017 - "How Biodynamic Farming Spawned Organic
Farming”[18]
***
September 1, 2017 -
***
December 8, 2017 -
[i] http://www.demeter-usa.org/about-demeter/demeter-history.asp
[ii] BIODYNAMIC® AGRICULTURE • A T A GLANCE 1/12/12 by
demeter-usa.org
-
"In the period from 1924 to 1938 the name ‘bio-dynamic’ was
evolved and the practices were tested and formalized. Pfeiffer’s
book Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening was the ‘coming of
age’ as well as the ‘coming-out’ of bio-dynamics. The book was
published in 1938 in at least five languages: English (Pfeiffer,
1938a); Dutch (Pfeiffer, 1938b); German (Pfeiffer, 1938c); French
(Pfeiffer, 1938d); and Italian (Pfeiffer, 1938e).
There is more to this history that one will need to read to be fully
convinced that "Lord Northbourne" got Biodynamics from Pfeiffer
as of "1-9 July 1939”.[24]
-
40
***********^***********
Notes:
[1] http://us10.campaign-archive1.com/?
u=49b011e822aefbbeb68709181&id=0618ebabee&e=d273047ed
0
[3] http://www.demeter-usa.org/downloads/Demeter-At-A-
Glance.pdf
[4] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/11/12/organic-
farmers-fight-usda-defend-their-turf/
hatKOH0ClfmbqyMMwemHBJ/story.html#comments
[5] http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/11/16/502330731/
some-growers-say-organic-label-will-be-watered-down-if-it-
extends-to-hydroponic?
utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2
0161116&utm_campaign=npr_email_a_friend&utm_term=storysh
are
[6] https://www.cornucopia.org/2016/11/follow-national-organic-
standards-board-meeting-st-louis-mo-nosb/
[7] MOFGA+Hydroponics+Comments+Fall+2016.pdf
41
[8] http://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/
the-plate/2016/11/is-soil-grown-food-fundamental-to-the-organic-
label-/
[9] http://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org
[10] http://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org/single-post/2015/11/17/If-
He-Can-Make-Her-So-by-Haniel-Long
[11] http://us10.campaign-archive1.com/?
u=49b011e822aefbbeb68709181&id=7306721f8f&e=d273047ed0
[12] https://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/organic-bytes-548-
dows-dastardly-deeds
[13] http://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org/jim-riddle-nosb-testmony
[14] http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/tenant-farmers-
oregon-plans-douse-azure-standard-organic-farm-pesticide/
189292#comment-1161059
[15] https://hl.azurestandard.com/healthy-living/info/azure-farm-
moro/?utm_source=Azure%20Drop
%20Coordinators&utm_campaign=5d6b1677ff-
AZUREFARM&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1953aadeee-5d
6b1677ff-95749885&goal=0_1953aadeee-5d6b1677ff-95749885
[16] https://vimeo.com/217945829?outro=1&ref=fb-share
[17] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001ODEPY4/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
[18] https://www.ediblenm.com/how-biodynamic-farming-
spawned-organic-farming-the-city-with-the-golden-garbage-a-
north-american-biodynamic-conference-in-santa-fe/
42
[19] https://drlorand.wordpress.com
[20] “'In Bacteria Land': The Battle over Raw Milk" by Anne
Mendelson
Source: Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, Vol. 11,
No. 1 (Spring 2011), pp. 35-43
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2011.11.1.35.
[21] https://next7.org/sign-the-petition/?
link_id=4&can_id=cebfcc80acde27b17aa033d1a0c89abe&source
=email-does-this-look-organic-to-
you-6&email_referrer=email_253963&email_subject=does-this-
look-organic-to-you
[23] https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/farm-ranch/a-
history-of-organic-farming-transitions-from-sir-albert-howards-war-
in-the-soil-to-the-usda-national-organic-program/
[24] http://orgprints.org/19511/1/Paull2011BetteshangerJOS.pdf
[25] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up2Z38rnie8
[26] https://www.cornucopia.org/2017/11/demand-real-organic-
food-real-organic-farmers/
[27] https://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-and-Environment/
topsoil-loss-zmaz80mjzraw
[28 http://www.betterhealththruresearch.com/document264.htm
***********^***********
Keywords: