Category: Organic Consumers Association

A mighty band of citizen activists, along with the Nebraska Farmers Union, are taking on a city council and a corporate giant. And they need your help.

Retail giant Costco wants to build the largest chicken factory farm in the U.S., in Fremont, Nebraska. The city’s elected officials have approved the project. But the people and farmers in surrounding cities, whose lives will suffer the most, are fighting back.

Costco and the Fremont City Council are singing the same old tired tune, that a giant factory farm will bring jobs to the city.

What they don’t want Fremont residents to know, is that those jobs will be low-paid and dangerous, that the water pollution generated from another huge factory farm will be devastating for Nebraskans, whose water is already badly compromised by agricultural runoff, and that local farmers will get ripped off under contracts stacked in favor of the retail giant.

We’re so impressed with what Nebraska Communities United is doing to stop this project—including organizing workshops to help local farmers farm profitably, sustainably and independent of corporate control, that we’re asking for your help.

MEXICO CITY – On behalf of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and its Mexico City-based affiliate, Asociación de Consumidores Orgánicos, OCA International Director Ronnie Cummins issued the following statement today on the decision by Mexico’s agriculture sanitation authority (SENASICA) to revoke Monsanto’s permits to commercialize genetically modified soy in seven states, and a recent court ruling upholding a ban on the commercial growing GMO corn in Mexico:

“We are encouraged by these two decisions which reflect a growing trend in Mexico among government and court authorities of responding to the public’s demand to preserve Mexico’s hundreds of native corn varieties and rich biodiversity, and to reject Monsanto’s degenerative agricultural model that produces pesticide-contaminated food, pollutes waterways and soils and contributes to global warming.”

Your local natural health food store could never get away with stocking its shelves with Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Toxins that cause cancer and birth defects don’t belong in “health” food stores.

So how do some of these stores get away with stocking Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, when our testing revealed that ten of 11 flavors contain glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup?

This week, we called 290 of the best natural health food stores and co-ops nationwide to find out which ones sell Ben & Jerry’s.

We’re relieved to report that most—198—don’t. But unfortunately, 92 (31 percent) do. Here’s the list of natural health food stores and co-ops that sell glyphosate-contaminated Ben & Jerry’s. If your store is on this list please take this letter to the store manager and ask him or her to stop selling Ben & Jerry’s. After your visit, fill out this form to let us know what happened.

Most of the stores that sell Ben & Jerry’s  display it right next to the organic brands they sell—a move that misleads consumers into thinking Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is organic, too.

One of the most politically charged debates today, especially in the U.S. and Europe, is the so-called “immigration crisis.” There are approximately 250 million (3 percent of the world’s 7.6 billion people) migrants in the world today. About 20 percent, or 47 million of those, live in the U.S. Another 35 million live in Europe.

At the recent regional Summit on Migration and Repatriation in Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala, October 20-21, a new and promising solution to the global “immigration crisis” emerged: the creation of local, grassroots-powered economic development projects based on regenerative food, farming and land-use practices.

Regenerative food and farming is the new gold standard for climate and environmentally friendly agriculture and land use across the world. An increasing number of food and farming leaders have described regenerative agriculture as the “next stage” of organic food and farming.

A growing number of regenerative farms and ranches worldwide are demonstrating how farmers and herders can restore soil health, improve food nutrition and increase yields, while at the same time strengthening local food systems and traditional practices (such as seed saving and small-scale animal husbandry), empowering women and youth, and restoring or enhancing community food security.

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Mexico – About 105 experts in soil, water and land management, agriculture, media and campaign strategy assembled today in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for a three-day international conference on how to scale up organic and regenerative agriculture, land management and livestock grazing to address global warming, global food insecurity and public health.