GMO Labeling Sellouts And The Damage They’ve Caused: Organic Trade Association Grows Smaller Following Their Betrayal
The dust has settled somewhat on Congress’ recently passed renewed DARK Act, the anti-anti-GMO labeling bill that was hastily, crudely crafted to overrule any state’s attempt to provide consumers easy access to information on genetically modified foods in their products. However, the fallout continues to take its toll on the Organic Trade Association as yet another manufacturer has quit in protest of the group selling out.
First a little background:
The Senate and House’s limp version of a GMO labeling law–requiring only QR codes or 1-800 numbers consumers call for GMO information rather than a simple yes or no on the product’s label itself that you can read in the store–came as a panicked rebuttal to Vermont’s anti-GMO labeling law. It, you will recall, would have been the first in the nation to force food manufacturers to label all their GMO-containing products.
However, Congress alone–even with the vast pools of money shoveled at them by the lobbying group the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association as well as big agriculture and individual food manufacturing giants like Kraft and Pepsico–would not have been able to pull off a coup like this one.
Or to put it more bluntly, even a Congress emboldened by the food manufacturers’ cash would not have had the balls to go against the wishes of upwards of 90 percent of the electorate, those who have expressed a not-unreasonable desire to know if they are eating GMO-containing products or not.
No, Congress needed a fig leaf . More accurately, they needed a greenwashing. Someone with the gravitas and reputation necessary to paint lipstick on the pig of a bill they jammed through.
That’s where we come to the Organic Trade Association. Originally the group opposed the DARK Act–the first version of it–but ultimately bowed to anti-labeling legislators and their whore-masters in food manufacturing and ended up supporting this odious joke of a bill that was signed into law by President Obama.
But now yet another manufacturer, Dr. Bronner’s, North America’s leading maker of natural soap and other organic beauty products has resigned from the OTA in protest of the OTA leadership supporting the bill as well as what the company described as the OTA’s “general drift” from the core principles that once drove the organic movement.
Instead, the company plans to use its organizational resources previously pledged to the OTA to help elevate consumer, farmer and organic industry partners in spreading the word on sustainable, regenerative organic farming techniques.
“We are particularly thrilled to support the Rodale Institute’s new Organic Farming Association and the expansion of their regional teaching farms across the country, as well as participate in the North American General Assembly of the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements at Expo East,” said company CEO David Bronner.
And while that is an inspiring message, one hopes that more companies will follow their lead and shame the OTA by dropping out.
Search this OTA member list for your favorite organic products, then contact them and ask why they are still supporting this sell-out sham of an organization that doesn’t support us, the organic consumer.
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http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/dr-bronners-resigns-from-organic-trade-assoc-citing-betrayal-of-gmo-labeling-movement/