The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) needs your immediate help to stop
Congress and the Bush administration from seriously degrading organic
standards. After 35 years of hard work, the U.S. organic community has built
up a multi-billion dollar alternative to industrial agriculture, based upon
strict organic standards and organic community control over modification to
these standards.

Now, large corporations such as Kraft, Wal-Mart, & Dean Foods--aided and
abetted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are moving to lower
organic standards by allowing a Bush appointee to create a list of synthetic
ingredients that would be allowed organic production. Even worse these
proposed regulatory changes will reduce future public discussion and input
and take away the National Organic Standards Board's (NOSB) traditional lead
jurisdiction in setting standards. What this means, in blunt terms. is that
USDA bureaucrats and industry lobbyists, not consumers, will now have more
control over what can go into organic foods and products. (Send a quick
letter to your Congressperson online here: http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1242

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 20, acting in haste and near-total secrecy, the U.S.
Senate will vote on a "rider" to the 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Bill
that will reduce control over organic standards from the National Standards
Board and put this control in the hands of federal bureaucrats in the USDA
(remember the USDA proposal in 1997-98 that said that genetic engineering,
toxic sludge, and food irradiation would be OK on organic farms, or USDA
suggestions in 2004 that heretofore banned pesticides, hormones, tainted
feeds, and animal drugs would be OK?).

For the past week in Washington, OCA has been urging members of the Senate
not to reopen and subvert the federal statute that governs U.S. Organic
standards (the Organic Food Production Act--OFPA), but rather to let the
organic community and the National Organic Standards resolve our differences
over issues like synthetics and animal feed internally, and then proceed to a
open public comment period. Unfortunately most Senators seem to be listening
to industry lobbyists more closely than to us. We need to raise our voices.
(Send a quick letter to your Congressperson online here:http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1242

In the past, grassroots mobilization and mass pressure by organic consumers
have been able to stop the USDA and Congress from degrading organic
standards. This time Washington insiders tell us that the "fix is already
in." So we must take decisive action now. We need you to call your U.S.
Senators today. We need you to sign the following petition and send it to
everyone you know. We also desperately need funds to head off this attack in
the weeks and months to come. Thank you for your support. Together we will
take back citizen control over organic standards and preserve organic
integrity.