POTW: Biohazardous Organic

Interesting that BPL would highlight this post for historical importance. While the article actually reports accurately about several points that many failed to include at the time, this is a good opportunity to offer some more factual information about this important issue--especially the presumption that the NOSB's recommendations truly reflected "what organic is all about." I also find it interesting that people were outraged that the USDA would ask for comment about questions that it "should have known" the answer to. Duh. As any good lawyer will tell you, it is often helpful to let a jury hear the truthful answer to a question that you already know the answer to. I would be happy to send you a copy of Organic Revolutionary: A Memoir of the Movement for Real Food, Planetary Healing, and Human Liberation (Black Rose Books, 2020). Here is some of the blurb about it: An influential founding member of the American organic agriculture movement and a long-time organic farmer, Grace Gershuny gives us one of the most comprehensive and deeply personal accounts of adventures in that movement ever written. A principal author of the USDA's first proposed National Organic rule, Gershuny left the National Organic Program staff just before the final rule was published. The complicated story of that movement for nationwide organic regulations, which consumed Gershuny’s life for five years, is interwoven here with her own personal timeline before, during, and after the arduousardous federal process. This memoir explores how the organic revolution became rooted well before the US federal government cared to notice. Gershuny asks important ongoing questions about the organic movement that still aren’t receiving enough attention, such as whether organic standards should be consumer or farmer-driven and if organic agriculture architecture (sic) will be able to maintain its principles as it becomes mainstream. Entertaining yet urgent, Organic Revolutionary thoughtfully details the personal, political, and practical struggles that ensued in the heroic effort to push the organic movement beyond farmers' markets and into supermarkets. It can be ordered via my website: https://gracegershuny.wixsite.com/organicrevolutionary -- If you provide me with a mailing address I will donate a copy. With best wishes, Grace