About a year (or less) ago the US Dept of Agriculture (I'm pretty
sure) tried to impose standards a bit looser than what were voluntarily
accepted by the various organic standards organizations and farmers. Those
proposed standards never made it out of the comment period, the comments
being about as favorably inclined as Slashdot is towards a certain company
in Redmond WA. The biggest stinks I recall came from the proposed
acceptance of genetically modified plants and (appropriately) something
about fertiliser from municipal sludge.
So at present, the law says nothing about the organic label, other
than the contractual obligations that sellers of organic wares have with
the various organic standards bodies. In fact, legal regulation looks to
make the standards looser as the USDA is perceived as being something of
a corporate shill, and I, for one, am less than convinced that the organic
communities' perceptions in this are wrong.
Now, understand, just as I'll occasionally boot into Windows, I'll
occasionally eat fast food (except McDonalds' on Broadway, whom I won't
forgive that big oak).
Whoever the marketing-type was who came up with the word organic
to describe more naturally cultivated food does owe biologists, though. It
seems to me that there was a competing "natural" designation, I don't know
why it fell by the wayside.
On Thu, 30 Dec 1999, Thomas J Macauley wrote:
> Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 16:12:55 -0800
> From: Thomas J Macauley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: Tautology
>
> Hey,
>
> I like the comments. Especially the open-source analogy.
>
> What I'm getting at is the double talk in marketing. Marketing is full
> of oxymorons and tautologies. Look at "virtual reality" or "color safe
> bleach."
>
> I'm curious. How do the laws deal with the sources of organic
> fertilizers? Is it OK to ferilize an organic garden with "inorganic"
> vegetables? Is cow manure and such checked for bad stuff that will
> end up in the organic vegetables?
>
> My point is that when marketing uses oxymorons and tautologies, they
> are saying nothing. Many marketing people could care less as long as
> they make a sale. Look at "no pesticide detected." What does that
> mean? How sophisticated was their test? Did they use their eyes and
> nose or did they use a pesticide-o-matic pesticide detector?
>
> Don't get me wrong. I don't like subjecting my body to these poisons -
> - personally I don't drink, use alchohol, and avoid drugs (prescription,
> non-prescription, and recreational.) I grew up on a farm. We ate our
> own stuff. Drank water from a spring. But even spring water can
> contain nasties like arsenic or cadmium.
>
--
Ed Craig [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Taxi Linux FreeBSD
Think this through with me, let me know your mind... Hunter/Garcia
