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WASHINGTON: The nation's organic food movement, representing dozens of brands, thousands of organic farmers and millions of organic consumers, as well as retailers, certifiers, and organizations, published an open letter in the Washington Post. The cosigners are demanding that the USDA stop interfering with the public process that has created clear standards for animal welfare in organic food production.
Members of Congress chastise the US Department of Agriculture in a Jan. 17 letter for threatening to withdraw a widely popular final rule passed in the 11th hour of the Obama Administration that would heighten animal welfare standards for organic producers. USDA announced in December that it intended to withdraw the Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices final rule, which outlined sweeping changes in how organic animals are housed, transported and slaughtered, because the department claimed the rule exceeds the statutory authority of the National Organic Program.
Ricardo Rudin Mathieu ran a racket. He put labels bearing the U.S. Department of Agriculture's organic seal on boxes of pineapples grown conventionally with chemicals.
Urban Organics started an aquaponic operation growing certified organic leafy greens in 8,000 square feet in an old Hamm's beer brewery in 2011. Photo courtesy Urban Organics Pentair Group U.S. regulators appear poised to answer that long-debated question.
The organic industry's multibillion dollar revenues are driven entirely by negative marketing, stoking fear of genetically modified organisms . A handful of consumers might still buy organic groceries believing them to be purer, more nutritious and easier on the environment.
Aldi is offering grocery shoppers a fresh experience as it reopens its remodeled Sheffield Village store today, the first of seven Cleveland-area stores that are part of an aggressive $1.6 billion investment plan recently announced. To celebrate the reopening of the store that's been closed since the end of May, Aldi is hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 8:25 a.m. on Friday.
As the second most traded commodity in the global scene, coffee naturally has a very high demand from countries over all the world. Countless brands are available to suit every customer's taste, but sometimes the safety and quality of the coffee beans are sacrificed for profit.
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.
Wild prairie grasses and wooden signs advertising handwoven rugs dot the roadside leading to the home of the nation's largest organic cooperative. The barn-style headquarters of Organic Valley, off a serpentine byway and tucked in the hills of southwest Wisconsin, feels far away.
I was in the grocery store and started wondering, what am I really getting when I buy organic fruits and vegetables? What makes one onion organic, and another not? The United States Department of Agriculture answers your question this way: "Organic agriculture produces products using methods that preserve the environment and avoid most synthetic materials, such as pesticides and antibiotics," and "a are grown and processed according to federal guidelines addressing, among many factors, soil quality, animal raising practices, pest and weed control, and use of additives." The key words in that rather long definition are "according to federal guidelines."