US ORGANIC INDUSTRY SUPPORTS FOOD IMPORTS FROM FUKUSHIMA-CONTAMINATED JAPAN

And you thought the organic industry was your friend!

USDA - United States Department of Agriculture news release:

 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2013–Earlier today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that the United States and Japan formed a partnership that will recognize the two organic programs as equivalent and allow access to each other's markets.

 

The equivalency arrangement was signed by Anne L. Alonzo, USDA Agricultural Marketing Service Administrator; Ambassador Islam Siddiqui, U.S. Trade Representative Chief Agricultural Negotiator; and Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Director General, Food Safety and Consumer Affairs Bureau.

 

Representatives from the U.S. organic industry—including trade associations and organic producers—praised the U.S.-Japan partnership.

 

"This monumental agreement will further create jobs in the already growing U.S. organic sector, spark additional market growth, and be mutually beneficial to producers both in the United States and Japan and to consumers who choose organic products,"

Read more - http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDAOC/bulletins/8cbfc5

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In other words, as long as US organic growers see $$$$$$$$$$$ in an expanding market, they disregard the fact that Japanese agricultural products - organic or not - could be heavily contaminated by increasing radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

 

Read the latest from the Fukushima  disaster, now spreading nuclear contamination through North America and the world.

http://enenews.com/category/location/japan

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ANTIBIOTICS ADDED TO U.S. ORGANIC APPLES AND PEARS

NOT SO ORGANIC AFTER ALL

Natural News - You may not be aware of it but every time you bite into that crisp, organic apple or succulent, organic pear, you could be exposing yourself to two different antibiotic drugs that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)'s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has quietly allowed to be used on these two fruits since the organic program's inception back in the 1990s.

Organic apples and pears grown in the U.S. for the European Union (EU) market are already effectively grown without the use of either streptomycin and tetracycline -- EU provisions do not allow the use of any antibiotics in agriculture -- which means there is no valid reason why these same fruits cannot be grown without the two antibiotics for the American market as well.

 

But heavy influence from some large organic apple and pear growers threatens to postpone NOSB's phase-out requirements until 2016, which threatens both the viability of antibiotics and the safety of the public.

Read more here:  http://www.naturalnews.com/039472_antibiotics_organic_fruits_petition.html

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