USA: organic farmers criticise corporation-dominated organic umbrella organization

The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) has withdrawn from the Organic Trade Association (OTA) – the organic umbrella organization in the United States – and severly criticised the position it adopted in the dispute about GMO labelling in the USA. OTA supported the labelling law passed by the Senate and advocated by the genetic engineering industry.

This law was drafted by Senators Stabenow and Roberts to override the stringent labelling laws in the federal states Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and Alaska, where the laws would have forced food manufacturers to declare fully and in detail GMO ingredients. Hardly any manufacturer would have been prepared to pay for packaging specifically for these four states and this means that all US citizens would have been able to read what GMO ingredients their food contains. In contrast, the Stabenow-Roberts Act prescribes lax, standard labelling nationwide that doesn't even have to be on the packaging but can be concealed behind

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“The world should know that it was the Organic Trade Association that killed our labelling laws in the federal states by supporting Monsanto's Stabenow-Roberts law,“ said the longstanding OSGATA President Jim Gerritsen: “It's obvious that OTA is dominated by a small group of lobbyists who are controlled by the giant food corporations that also own organic brands.“ He said that with their ruthless actions these corporation-controlled organic processors were threatening the survival of organic farmers and the organic community.

Gerritsen appealed to other honest organic organizations and manufacturers to withdraw from OTA as well. The Organic Consumers Association had already severely criticised OTA.  OTA defended its involvement by saying that there would in any case have been a draft law and that by acting as they did they had succeeded in getting it to address important issues of organic farming. The Huffington Post writes about a deep rift running through the organic movement in the USA, between corporate organic and authentic organic.