USDA to Revoke Organic Animal Welfare Rule

The video above shows what organic egg production looks like at one Oregon factory farm. Crowded into closed-in barns, with "outside access" limited to a roofed-in, screened, cement-floored patio with panels preventing the chickens from even seeing outside, is not what people imagine when they see the words "cage free" on the carton.

And it's about to get a lot worse unless you act now.

Factory farmed pigs.

The demand from consumers for organic products has caused that segment of the grocery industry to explode. It's caught the attention of large agribusiness, which has been seeing its portion of the market starting to decline.

A new rule, carefully developed over the last decade, setting consistent and humane animal welfare standards for organic production, was about to go into effect when the current administration delayed its implementation. Over the holidays, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced he was going to completely withdraw the new rule from consideration, a step that corporate agribusiness has been pushing for.

The USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is accepting comments on its decision through Wednesday, January 17, so action is needed immediately. The Center for Food Safety has provided a simple form to submit a comment on this rule. It may sound alarmist, but the integrity of the organic label, including our health, and that of our communities and the environment, is at stake. I sincerely hope you consider signing it.

Guest Essay: USDA Refuses to Enact New Standards, Threatens Organic Integrity

With organic food becoming a bigger and bigger part of people's food budgets, factory farms are moving into organic in a big way. The problem is, they also want to bring their industrial practices—use of chemicals, monocropping and gigantic scale of production ("free range" chickens, above). The current administration's takeover of agricultural regulatory structures has meant that these industrial giants are now in control and looking to stop any changes that may cut into their profits. Matthew Dillon, director of agricultural policy and programs at Clif Bar, offers his take on why the organic industry is suing USDA for delaying the organic animal welfare rule.

Sam Walton once said, "If you don’t listen to your customers, someone else will." It’s an often-repeated axiom in the business world and points to how easy it is to lose consumers if you go deaf to their point of view. Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is losing touch with its customers—the American public.

Matt Dillon of Clif Bar.

In the organic trade, the consumer has spoken often and spoken loudly. When the initial proposed organic rules were introduced nearly two decades ago, more than a quarter million consumers commented on the rules—an epic number in the days before one-click activism, and the most the Department of Agriculture had ever received to date. The USDA listened and amended the proposed rules based on this public input.

With their wallets and voices, the public continues to advocate for a strong and robust organic seal. Unfortunately, the USDA isn’t following the tradition of listening to its customers. In a 60-day period in spring 2017, the USDA received more than 45,000 positive public comments from farmers, consumers and food producers, agreeing with proposed rules to improve animal welfare, particularly increased pasture access for poultry. Its customers—the public—have spoken, but unfortunately, it seems, they have not been heard.

Pasture-raised chickens are part of a rotational grazing system in Scio, Oregon.

These animal welfare rules, known as the Organic Livestock and Poultry Production rule, have been carefully crafted over a 14-year process of listening to farmers, food companies, retailers, scientists, animal welfare advocates and consumers. They were reviewed, revised and reviewed some more before being finalized in 2016. These final rules were scheduled to go into effect in January 2017. However, the USDA has not followed the Administrative Procedure Act and has repeatedly and seemingly indefinitely delayed implementation, without appropriate public input.

Instead, USDA is listening to a few massive egg producers that want to increase sales into organic markets but not incur the costs of higher animal welfare standards. For this reason, the Organic Trade Association is suing the USDA for repeated delays of Organic Livestock and Poultry Production rule.

Organic, pasture-raised dairy cows at Jos L. Poland Dairy in Madras.

The company I work for, Clif Bar, doesn’t raise chickens or use eggs in our product. Our business is not directly impacted by organic poultry rules. So why are we joining the Organic Trade Association and the public chorus who have voiced their concern with the rules? It’s simple: The lack of rule-following by USDA threatens the very integrity and trust that differentiates the organic seal from every other food label. Organic customers want organic farming to continue having the highest standards—and they believe that the historical process of organic rule-making, which includes listening to the customer, needs to be maintained if the organic label is going to continue being a trusted standard.

The success of thousands of family organic farms and decades of hard work by consumers, farmers and food companies is at stake. While the organic community doesn’t always align on everything, we all agree that the future of feeding Americans with healthy, sustainable food requires a robust and trustworthy organic seal. The American public has spoken. USDA must heed Mr. Walton’s advice; if the USDA doesn’t listen to its customers, someone else will.

This essay is reposted from the New Hope Network.

Food News: Toxins in PDX Gardens; FDA Begins Testing for Glyphosate in Vegetables

Two stories from the food policy website Civil Eats caught my eye recently. If you like these kinds of stories, consider a subscription to support their reporting on food system issues. I do!

Who hasn't heard about the high levels of toxins found in moss samples surrounding two glass factories in Portland, and then the devastating results of air pollution studies in the metro area? An article on Civil Eats about the city's soil crisis echoed a question I'd had, and that was: If the air and the soil around those factories is polluted, what about my friends in those neighborhoods who garden and raise vegetables to feed their families?

It's hard to think that those leafy green lettuces, juicy red tomatoes and carrots might be contaminated, too. Writer Elizabeth Grossman queried Portland public officials about these concerns and got a disturbing answer. She writes, "Oregon health and environmental authorities have admitted 'it is difficult to say for sure.' They’ve…recommended that people should avoid eating produce grown within a half-mile of the highest mapped metal concentrations until further notice."

Having your soil tested for heavy metals is an expensive process, and Grossman reports that while the EPA has guidelines for levels of heavy metals at toxic waste sites, it has no guidelines for garden soils. The article recommends that if gardeners want to grow vegetables, mitigation efforts include deep raised beds filled with clean soil and compost, and keeping those beds away from roof drip lines that could wash contaminated particles into the soil.

Grossman winds up by asking about the health effects of eating vegetables from contaminated areas and coming into contact with contaminated soil. "Children, says Tulane [University School of Medicine research professor Howard] Mielke, are 'extraordinarily sensitive.' He says there’s not enough research into exposure to soil contaminants so available information is limited. 'You get the runaround with people saying it’s probably safe,' when it may not be, he says. Mielke calls the soil information gap 'enormous.'"

* * *

It's a good news/bad news situation regarding herbicides, at least when it comes to glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world. An article on Civil Eats by Carey Gilliam starts off with the bad news: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never tested foods like soybeans, corn, milk and eggs for residues from this herbicide, much less established guidelines for how much, if any, might be safe.

Gilliams reports the good news is that, as a direct result of a recent declaration by experts at the World Health Organization that glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen, the FDA is going to start testing for residues of the herbicide on certain foods. She writes that "the FDA’s move comes amid growing public concern about the safety of the herbicide known as glyphosate, and comes after the U.S Government Accountability Office (GAO) rebuked the agency for failing to do such assessments and for not disclosing that short-coming to the public."

Additionally, she reports that "critics say several studies have linked glyphosate to human health ailments, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma and kidney and liver problems, and because glyphosate is so pervasive in the environment, even trace amounts can be harmful due to extended exposure." A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee, who spoke under condition of anonymity, said that the FDA plans to initiate testing on corn and soybeans.

Food News: USDA Features Two Portland Metro Farmers

The Cully neighborhood of Northeast Portland is a hotbed of urban experimentation, with new restaurants and bakeries popping up like proverbial weeds on Northeast 42nd Avenue, along with co-housing developments and small-scale urban agriculture. A recent article on the US Department of Agriculture blog profiled one farmer, Stacey Givens of The Side Yard Farm, who needed to expand crop production and extend her growing season so that she could offer more produce over a longer period to her roster of restaurant accounts.

The high tunnel at Side Yard Farm.

One answer to her quandary was to construct a high tunnel, a type of greenhouse with polyethylene walls and roof that heats up from the sun's solar radiation. Like any greenhouse structure, the heat generated warms plants and soil faster than heat can escape it. But, like most small farmers, the price of constructing such a structure was way beyond Givens' means. That was when a friend told her about a program through the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) that was geared to help small-scale farmers like her build high tunnels to expand their businesses.

The article quotes Kim Galland, NRCS district conservationist for Multnomah County, who said, "These high tunnels are producing food on a local basis for an area that has a metropolitan base, so it cuts down on the energy consumption of the region.

"It allows Stacey to plant earlier in the spring and later into the fall, while protecting her crops from frost. High tunnels allow farmers to get higher yields, better production, hit the market earlier and provide longer service to their customers—and it’s all being done on a small-scale urban farm."

Photo from USDA blog.

* * *

Another Oregon farmer was profiled recently on the USDA blog as one of the farmers who are realizing the benefits of improving the health and function of their soil through working with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

An organic farmer and co-owner with his wife, Amy Benson, of Square Peg Farm in Forest Grove, Chris Roehm has always seen healthy soil as a prime goal of their farm, but he said they saw almost immediate results when they fine-tuned their existing system by integrating cattle and forage crops into their rotation.

"One of the components of our soil health management plan that we are happiest with is the integration of growing forage crops for grazing animals with our annual vegetable production," Roehm said in the article. He also noted that even their farmers' market customers noticed the increase in yield. "The first year after that foraged ground has been turned over is like magic, everything just flies up out of the ground, there are hardly any weeds, the bugs don’t know what to do; it’s really fantastic."

Food News: Lead Contamination; EPA Tweaks Data on Herbicide; Lax USDA Regulators

The brouhaha over rampant development in the Portland metro area has been intensifying, with residents banding together to fight what they see as a Wild West-style climate for developers who feel they can knock down houses with impunity and throw up shoddily constructed McMansions in their place while city regulators take a hands-off approach.

But it's not just the Northwest's densely populated cities that are finding it tough to get a handle on the impacts of people flocking to our mild climate and livable communities. A shocking investigative report by Oregon Public Broadcasting's EarthFix environmental reporting team revealed that in more rural parts of the region, schools, homes and daycare centers have been built over old orchard sites where the soil is contaminated with lead and arsenic.

Worse, Washington "state’s Department of Ecology knows about this, and has for decades. But many parents and caregivers still do not, despite the risks these chemicals pose specifically to children."

The report said that "until the 1950s, Northwest apple growers spent decades spraying lead arsenate pesticides in a never-ceasing battle against the codling moth, which once threatened the country’s most productive tree fruit region. That spraying contaminated an estimated 187,000 acres of former orchard lands throughout Washington—an area that exceeds the size of Seattle and Portland combined."

It quotes Frank Peryea, professor emeritus at Washington State University’s Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center in Wenatchee, who studied lead and arsenic for decades, as saying, "Anything spilled or sprayed that reached the ground 100 years ago is still within the top foot of soil."

* * *

These are good days to be a corporate giant, especially if you're dealing a government agency.

A recent investigative story in the Chicago Tribune revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has blithely "tossed aside" data on the dangers of the World War II-era weed killer 2,4-D, which for decades that same agency had labeled as a dangerous, potentially cancer-causing chemical. By tweaking some numbers, the article said, "the agency’s scientists changed their analysis of a pivotal rat study by Dow [Chemical Co.], tossing aside signs of kidney trouble that Dow researchers said were caused by 2,4-D."

Dow is seeking to revive the herbicide for use in combatting so-called "superweeds" that have become resistant to Roundup, a weed killer developed by Monsanto in the 70s. In the early 2000s, in order to combat these resistant weeds, "Monsanto genetically engineered corn and soybeans to make them immune to its best-selling weed killer, [which] the company pitched …as a way to reduce overall use of herbicides and usher in an environmentally friendly era of farming." Instead, in an "old lady who swallowed the fly" move, the use of herbicides in American agriculture skyrocketed and now "chemical giants are giving the next wave of genetically modified crops immunity to the weed killers of generations past."

Dow has combined its 2,4-D with glyphosate, the active ingredient found in Monsanto's Roundup. This is despite "studies [that] found increased odds of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma, hypothyroidism and Parkinson's disease among people who used the chemical [2,4-D] as part of their jobs. In June, the WHO's cancer research agency ruled that 2,4-D is a possible carcinogen."

The result of the EPA tweaking the research data? "The Obama administration’s EPA now says it is safe to allow 41 times more 2,4-D into the American diet than before he took office" and that "U.S. children ages 1 to 12 could consume levels of 2,4-D that the World Health Organization, Russia, Australia, South Korea, Canada, Brazil and China consider unsafe." I wonder if Michelle Obama, with her focus on children and nutrition, is aware of this?

* * *

An article in the Capital Press in Salem, Oregon, reports that a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) internal agency audit uncovered that its own biotechnology regulators "don’t take past non-compliance problems into account when approving new field trials for regulated genetically engineered crops."

What that means is that when these biotech crops are planted out in the field and something goes wrong, like pollen from the biotech crops contaminate a neighboring field, which may render the contaminated crops unusable, the violation of USDA protocols is not taken into account when approving future trials by the same applicant.

The article states that "auditors found one instance where an organization was repeatedly allowed to conduct field trials even though it was cited for 122 incidents, including failing to 'devitalize' the crops, having the crops persist in the environment and moving them without authorization."

Most concerning is that the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) "doesn’t have a handle on what is being planted out there," according to Bill Freese, the non-profit Center for Food Safety’s science policy analyst.

Farm Bulletin: The Boutard Manifesto, Pt. 1

I know, I know, it's the holiday season and no one wants to think about politics. Nonetheless, the machinery of politics and the machinations of corporations churn relentlessly. If you don't have time to read this right now, fine, but bookmark it for later when you do, because this is terrifically important information about the future of our state's agriculture and our local food system. (BTW, you can tell how important it is when you hear contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm quoting scripture.)

This autumn's special session of the Oregon Legislature was called to deal with urgent budget problems. Unfortunately, the legislature also passed SB 633, a bill that blocks local communities from regulating genetically engineered (GE) crops—the same bill that had been defeated earlier in the regular session (pdf of full text here). It stuck out like a sore thumb and garnered a measure of national attention. Its sole purpose was to sweeten the budget deal for the Republicans. It was a disturbing indicator of how powerful the biotechnology industry is, even in a state where GE crops play a minor to trivial economic role. As a general matter, we have a deep ambivalence toward local governments regulating agriculture as the laws have often been directed against organic gardeners and farmers. Ironically, even when such laws are prohibited, such as in the case of SB 633, it is still skewed against organic growers. The old heads we lose, tails you win game.

Anthony with his flint corn.

Plants that cross pollinate, whether by wind or insects, are vulnerable to contamination by nearby plantings of GE crops of the same type. Last Saturday, at the suggestion of Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed, a reporter contacted us regarding Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack touting the idea of "coexistence" between organic growers and the biotechnology sector. The USDA is in the comment period for rule-making on coexistence, another indicator of the industry's influence. After the market on Sunday, we sent the reporter this quickly drafted response, reedited a bit for clarity.

* * *

When we hear people use the word "coexistence," we hear the language of the Prophet Isaiah 11:26: "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat …" In life on earth wolves eat sheep and leopards eat goats, and quite happily, at least from the predator's perspective. We agree with Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seeds, the faith-based approach to controlling genetic trespass, cynically named coexistence, isn't reassuring unless the predator is caged, or defanged and declawed.

Bees can carry pollen for miles.

Parts of Oregon have a legal and social structure called "open range." Cattle are allowed to roam without fences and cow hands round them up in the autumn when it comes time to sell them. If you don't want livestock on your property, you have to put up a fence. Ownership is determined by the branding iron not the location of the beast. When you travel in the eastern parts of the state, highway signs advise you that there may be cattle in the road. You hit one, you have to compensate the owner for the dead or injured animal. In the more densely populated areas, that doesn't work; livestock must be fenced.

Up to now, the genetically engineered crops have had their grand romp across the nation with little resistance. Millions of acres in GE corn and soybeans cover the midsection of the U.S. It is the equivalent of open range; the pollen from these crops and the traits it carries can range freely. If your crop acquires a GE trait, even passively because the pollen lands on your crop, you have to pay the company that owns the trait if you want to use that seed. Yes, it is outrageous, and it is the law upheld by the Supreme Court.

Ayers Creek flint corn.

In the Willamette Valley and Rogue Valley with their small area and dense pattern of cropping, open range rules for GE crops are economically destructive to certain sectors of agriculture, and not just the organic growers, also specialty seed growers and crops grown for the export markets. Those agricultural sectors are well established in the state. Oregon is fifth in the nation in terms of number of certified organic farms, and one of the top seed-producing regions in the world. We need the equivalent of a fenced pasture here, in other words, keep your modified genes on your own land.

The inane argument that modified genes are legal doesn't cut it. Cattle and sheep are legal but the state does not sanction our neighbor's sheep trespassing on our land and destroying the value of our crops. In our part of the state, livestock must be fenced, and if one wanders in the road and we hit it or it damages our crops, the owner is liable for damage to our property. Drift from a legal pesticide onto a neighboring farm is likewise trespass if it causes economic damage, even if it is applied according to the label. Unfortunately, in the case of genetic trespass, neither the federal nor the state governments have shown leadership or concern for growers who are put at economic risk.

Table beets.

The next step of the argument is the foundering, hand-waving assertion that pollen is everywhere and no one can control it. This is wrong on its face. Almost every plant species has a mechanism for excluding foreign pollen when it lands on the stigma. That is why you can't cross lettuce with a tomato in classic breeding methodology. If the patent office hadn't granted utility patents on traits in established crops, we doubt we would be at this contentious moment. The industry would have found a way to protect their proprietary traits by preventing their replication in non-GE crops, utilizing one of the many exclusion mechanisms found in nature or maternal inheritance (no modified genes in the pollen). The EPA could have required that pollen from a modified plant be unrecognizable to plants in the same species as a condition of approval. With patent protection, the large corporations exploit the court system instead. The owners of the patent have no incentive to corral their traits, so local governments have no choice but to step into the breach using what authority they can reasonably muster.

Teosinte, ancestor of modern corn.

For every economic crop that is genetically modified, the approving authorities should require that its pollen is unrecognizable to the crop so modified, or that plant is sterile. For example, GE beet pollen should not germinate on non-GE beets. There are many foreign gene exclusion models that occur in nature. Some strains of popcorn have a single gene, GAS, that stops the germination of the pollen tube if is from a different class of corn, and prevents pollination. Some organic seed producers have incorporated this gene into their lines, using classic breeding techniques. In fact, domesticated corn cannot pollinate the wild corn plant, teosinte, which has a similar exclusion mechanism. The industry could also use traits that lead to sterile hybrids.

Just as with fencing livestock in the valley, that burden should fall to the entity profiting from the wandering genes. The companies producing GE seed have the tools and expertise at their disposal to produce seed lines that would not pollute non-GE seed lines with their pollen. But they are not going to do it if they don't have to.

As Frank Morton noted, we produce a great deal of seed on our farm. If our neighbors upwind of us decided to grow GE corn, for example, we would lose that crop and a substantial chunk of income. We have been working on our seed lines for twelve years, adapting them to the climate and soil conditions on our farm. It is incredible corn and if you are in Portland, visit Pine State Biscuits and try their grits. We grow that corn.

Photo of teosinte from Wikipedia.

Farm Bulletin: The Measure of a Farm

I begin this introduction with a clarion call to attend the Hillsdale Farmers' Market on Sunday, Feb. 17. That is because it is the last market of the winter season for Ayers Creek Farm, and the last time you can stock up on Anthony and Carol's greens, roots, corn and beans. Their outstanding preserves are available at several specialty groceries around town, including my brother's wine shop, Vino, on SE 28th and Ash. They return to their market stall at Hillsdale on July 7th.

Farm income and deductions are declared on the Schedule F of the personal income tax form. Every five years, the USDA conducts a census of people who file a Schedule F or a corporate return indicating farming as a business activity. Last year, 2012, was a reporting year for the Census of Agriculture, and we submitted our report on the 4th of February, right at the deadline. A response is required by law, and we are now spared a visit by a determined census enumerator.

The author of the first book on agriculture, De Agri Cultura, from around 200 BC was Cato the Censor. It is a good book on farming. As his title indicates, he also served a term as censor, the person responsible for maintaining a census of citizens. The censor was also responsible for public morals, hence the modern definition. Although modern census enumerators have no role in determining public morals, they are also not so well versed in agriculture as Marcus Porcius Cato was, so it made sense to send our answers in on time. Old Marcus was also a pecuniary and heartless s.o.b., as well as a nativist concerned about the encroachment of all things Greek, so we might have sent in the census even in his day to avoid hearing his extreme political views. Even today, the libertarian Cato Institute, its name and character derived from the Roman's family, still has its shorts twisted up about Greece. La plus ça change…

Aside from avoiding pesky enumerators, we willingly submit our farm data because the Census is used by government agencies and advocacy organizations to shape agricultural policy. If small market farms such as ours underreport, we lose visibility and a place at the table in policy debates. It takes a few hours to assemble the information and fill out the form. For highly diversified farms such as ours, it is a daunting task easy to put off until the very last minute.

Filling out the 24-page form is also frustrating because the structure of the questions reflects commodity farming where the production is sold as just so many widgets grown and harvested in standard units. Everything is reported in acres, whereas we measure our plantings in row feet or trees planted. For example, we planted 20,000 row feet of corn, and have no idea how many acres that is. Grains are reported in bushels, and legumes in hundred-weights harvested. The list of crops mirrors a suburban Safeway, not a vibrant urban market. With 72 different crops, tracking their individual yields is an utter waste of time; what is important is the picture that emerges from the mosaic, and the bank balance on the 31st of December. In many cases, we can back-out the numbers, others are wild guesses, and how on earth do you report frikeh*?

There are signs of progress. For example, the national census now includes questions about organic certification, community supported agriculture (CSA) and farmers' markets. Nonetheless, the data garnered from those questions will give only a rough idea of how farming is changing. The balance of questions are grounded in the past, and will not provide a good sense of how agriculture is changing.

The USDA also manages field offices at the state level. As a matter of principle, we refuse to participate in those surveys that do not include the question of whether or not the crop is certified organic. Before the National Organic Program (NOP) was implemented, we were sampled in a detailed survey assessing chemical use on fruit crops. Press releases accompanying the survey's results lauded a drop in chemical usage on fruits as though farmers were using fewer chemicals across the board. Knowing that our organic farm was part of a small sample that drove that conclusion stuck in our craw. When we complained, we were told there was no generally accepted definition of organic so they couldn't collect that information.

In 2006, four years after NOP adoption, we were again included in the sample of the chemical use survey. Even though there were now legally binding national standards of what constitutes organic farming, the survey still did not collect that information, so we sent a letter explaining our refusal to answer. The director wrote back stating that it wasn't important to the survey on chemical usage to separate out farms that "have non-traditional production practices." The letter chided us for not participating and noted that "we will use computer models to estimate your information." A textbook case of bureaucratic insouciance. With a well-practiced script, we still carefully explain to the enumerators who visit or call why we refuse to participate. Amazingly, a survey of Oregon farms issued in December, 2012, a decade after the NOP adoption, still collects no information about the organic certification of the state's crops. It sits, untouched, on the desk.

Agricultural statistics are mired in the late 20th century industrial model of agriculture. The practices and marketing the USDA quaintly considers "non-traditional" are as old as agriculture itself. Heck, we still heed Cato's advice on a wide range of farm practices, even though his politics were obnoxious. With time, fresh ideas will creep into the census, but it is a slow process that needs some obdurate farmers to nudge it along.

* Watch a video of how frikeh is made, as well as a rare interview with Monsieur Boutard.

Oily Process: Canola Needs Closer Look

The Willamette River, from its headwaters in the Calapooya Mountains outside of Eugene to its confluence with the Columbia north of Portland, forms the base of a long narrow valley that not only contains 70% of the state's population, it's also Oregon's most fertile agricultural area. Averaging only 25 miles wide, the valley's rich volcanic and glacial soil was deposited here by ancient Ice Age flooding and can be half a mile deep in some areas.

Orchards, vineyards and farmland vie with urban areas for space in its narrow confines, and some crops have been tightly controlled to prevent problems with cross-pollination from the distribution of pollen by the wind, water and dust churned up by traffic along its length. Canola, also known as rapeseed, has been one of those controlled crops and has been regulated in Oregon since 1990.

Because it is a member of the Brassica family (Brassica napus, B. rapa and B. juncea), it can cross-pollinate with with similar brassicas like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and turnips, endangering these valley crops and the farmers who depend on them for their livelihoods. With the bulk of the domestic canola crop also contaminated with GMOs (approx. 93%), this presents a particular threat to organic farmers and seed producers, since current USDA Organic guidelines do not allow for genetically engineered material.

Recently, the USDA deregulated canola production, a move that was pushed by large agribusiness concerns like Monsanto. This prompted the Oregon Dept. of Agriculture (ODA) to reevaluate its canola regulations, and on Aug. 3, 2012, it issued a temporary ruling to allow planting of the crop in certain formerly protected areas. This decision was made after a working group hit a deadlock regarding the boundaries of where canola can be planted in various protected agricultural areas of Oregon.

By taking the decision in-house, the ODA has circumvented regulations requiring input from the public and the agricultural community. The new rule is set to take place this Friday, Aug. 10, though no justification has been made as to why the rule has to be rushed into implementation.

A stakeholder letter signed by Friends of Family Farmers, Oregon Clover Commission, Wild Garden Seeds, Fresh Market Growers Association, Oregonians for Farm & Food Rights, National Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, Center for Food Safety, Greenwillow Grains, and Adaptive Seeds asks the public to sign a petition asking Katy Coba, Director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Governor John Kitzhaber to halt the temporary ruling process.

Other actions include:

• Call ODA and ask them to halt the temporary rulemaking process: phone 503-986-4552 or e-mail Director Katy Coba
• Contact Governor John Kitzhaber: phone 503-378-4582 or e-mail the Governor’s office 

Read the other posts in this series, Canola Controversy Heats Up, More on Canola: Stakeholders File Suit, A Voice from the Field, Despite Decision, It's Not Over, ODA Caves to Canola, Write Right Now, Seeding Change and Legislature Passes Ban.

Photo of canola field in Boardman by Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives, via Wikimedia Commons. Canola blossom by Canada Hky (own work), via Wikimedia Commons.