 ello fellow Earthlings, and wel- come
to a brief serious column by your beloved Goddess. I am afraid Big Brother
is sticking his nose where it doesn't belong again and I wanted you all
to know about it before it was decided without your having some influence.
So let's take a stroll in the world that Monsanto runs.
 Oprah Winfrey is an unlikely hero
of the battle against big business. Yet the case she won last month, in
which she established her right to express an opinion about the merits of
eating beef burgers, ranks with the McDonald's libel trial as one of the
few serious setbacks suffered by the agro-industrial combines seeking to
monopolize world food production.
She had been sued by a syndicate
of monster cattle ranchers, under the surreal "food disparagement"
laws introduced in 14 American states to prevent people from questioning
such practices as feeding bovine offal to cows. These laws are a compelling
demonstration of the lengths to which U.S. legislators will go to defend
the interests of corporations against the interests of the citizen.
Winfrey might have won her battle,
but the war waged by an industry that can tolerate no dissent has only just
begun. Its latest attempt to silence criticism and eliminate good practice
is already well-advanced.
At the end of April, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture will close its consultations on a new national standard for
organic farming. Its proposals have horrified small farmers, consumer groups
and animal welfare campaigners. If adopted and implemented as protesters
predict, they will outlaw genuine organic production all over the world.
The USDA would allow fruit and vegetables
to be labeled "organic" in the United States which have been genetically
engineered, irradiated, treated with additives and raised on contaminated
sewage sludge. Under the new proposals, "organic" livestock can
be confinement raised, fed with the offal of other animals and injected
with antibiotics. "Organic" produce, in the brave new world of
American oligopoly, will be virtually indistinguishable from conventionally-toxic
food.
The solution would seem to be obvious:
genuine organic producers should call their food something else. But the
USDA is nothing if not farsighted. The new proposals prohibit the setting
of standards higher than those established by the department. Farmers will,
in other words, be forbidden by law from producing and selling good food.
There's no mystery about why U.S.
agribusiness wants its Washington subsidiary, the USDA, to set these new
standards. The consumption of organic food is rising by 20 to 30 percent
per year and, in some countries, is likely to become the dominant land use.
Organic farming is labor intensive. It responds best to small-scale production,
matched to the peculiarities of the land.
Big business simply can't operate
in an environment like this. There is no potential for hegemony. What it
can't control, it must destroy. The United States government claims to be
the champion of free trade, but it is, in truth, emphatically opposed to
it. It seeks instead to exercise a coercive power of central control and
legislative totalitarianism.
Here are 6 ways that you can help
keep "Organic" organic: | 
mill.net. Next month we will continue with some really great information on your vegetable gardens. Come up and see me sometime.