Well, bust my buttons! The folks at WalMart are apparently readers of this blog. How else to explain this quote in the Washington Post? As faithful readers know, this is the only place that has publicly called out the Cornucopia Institute in the past, despite our efforts at letting the world know the truth. But what a great feeling to finally see a major media outlet ask the questions that we have been asking for years now - how much money has Organic Valley given to Cornucopia and its principals? The timing, too, could not be better. We have been struggling with our own feelings towards the boys of Cornucopia over the past few weeks because we actually agree with them on something. Cornucopia has been vocal in its criticism of the recent moves by dairy processors to market their products as “organic lite.” They called their efforts misleading and duplicitous. We wanted to embrace them, welcome them to the fold, thank them for their bold and courageous statements. But then we realized that although it would be helpful to have an ally in the battle against misleading labeling, it would mean embracing the notion that organic deserves special status, and I can’t do it. I believe strongly that organic is a fraud or to shamelessly plug my book, a myth. It is not sustainable; it is not safer; it is not healthier; it is not free of antibiotics and pesticides; it is not going to feed the world and in the case of milk, there is plenty of evidence that it is in fact cruel to animals.

It would be tempting to line up with Corncopia against Wal Mart, too. We have sent letters urging Wal Mart to take advantage of this “tremendous opportunity to play an important role directing industry to comply with truthful, non-misleading marketing consumer protections while offering consumers diverse choices,” and cautioning them to be wary of advisors and their shameful promotion of consumer perception as reality as far as the benefits (NOT) of organic products. We asked Wal Mart to institute a policy of carrying ONLY brands in all marketing categories which fully comply in all labeling and corresponding marketing with the highest government-defined standards for being truthful and non-misleading in all particulars. We have not heard back from them yet, but we are hopeful, now that we know they are fans of the blog!

This entry was posted on Friday, November 17th, 2006 at 11:21 am and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.