The meeting was in the small We the People Building's auditorium in Oakland, across the street from the glittering new Oakland Amtrak station, on a bright and sunny March 3rd morning. This is Jerry Brown’s campaign headquarters (he is running for mayor of Oakland). This was a Tuesday morning, and the meeting started setting up at 9:00. [This seemed like a really inconvenient day and time to me, plus it was not near easy public transportation. Anyway, thanks should go to Jerry Brown for making the space available for the meeting to occur.]

There was a pre-meeting kick-off outside the door. A lively group of citizenry wearing big yellow SOS (Save Organic Standards) cards gathered on the sidewalk. There was a photo opportunity set up for the media spiced up with displays of real organic vegetables and an eye-catchingly scary "produce stand" of creative fake "produce" with clever signage: "from Monstersanto: poison-ready soybeans". There were animal/vegetable mixes, bizarre cotton balls spray-painted green, and other hideous inventions which I wish I could remember now.

There were three speakers at this pre-meeting outdoor press conference: Monica Moore of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) and Californians for Pesticide Reform, who spoke first and introduced the other speakers: organic farmers Warren Webber and Gay Franklin. The press consisted of a reporter and a camera operator, and one other guy with a microphone and recorder – nothing I saw identified where they were from. It looked like things were going well until a big bus pulled up, which probably killed the audio recording of some crucial moments of Monica Moore’s speech. The bus was urged to move along by some of the crowd, but the press did not stick around for the whole presentation. [Note how the news crews typically only grab the first few moments of a set-up media event. I think Monica Moore was prepared for this, as she seemed to be saying all the right things as quickly as she could.]

The couple of people I encountered first agreed with me that they had just barely heard of the meeting in time, and we agreed that a LOT more people would have been there if there had been more coverage. I spoke with Monica Moore, asking her why this meeting had not been more publicized. Her explanation was that the CDFA had only notified a few groups about the meeting, and left the work entirely on their shoulders. These groups, being understaffed and largely volunteers, did their best. She also explained that there were originally only going to be three meetings, which had already occurred prior to March 3rd, and none of them were in major metropolitan areas. It was only after the deadline for the USDA’s public comment period was extended that this fourth meeting was added.

Inside the door, sign-up for giving your (3-minute) "presentation" was going on. "See the guy in the silver suit. He has the clipboard," was the word. The guy in the silver jacket and silver beard and wearing the fancy cowboy boots turned out to be Ray Green of the CDFA, the person we are supposed to address our letters to the CDFA to (postmarked by March 6th!). He told me he is on our side. (Does he really know who "we" are, I wonder? I guess he got an idea by the time the day was over.)

When it was time (9:30), the California Food Advisory Board had assembled behind their table and were waiting to hear the people speak. The Board consisted of 6 or 7 people, 2 of them women. All are involved in organic farming in one way or another, and overall during the proceedings the Board seemed to be very sympathetic to what they were hearing. The function of the CFAB is to give its recommendation to the CDFA, based on these hearings, and then the CDFA is supposed to pass it on to the USDA. From what I could tell, if the CDFA adopts the recommendations of its own Food Advisory Board, the recommendation it sends on to the USDA should be the right one.

The first thing that facilitator Ray Green said, after everyone was seated, was "The letter about this hearing went out on January 6th." Obviously, people had been asking him why there was not more publicity/advance notice about the meeting. And apparently this does not jibe with the information I got from Monica Moore about this meeting not having been added until after the USDA’s deadline was extended, because I believe that had not happened yet on January 6th. So something is not correct here.

The "auditorium" consisted of a medium-large room with maybe seventy folding chairs set up. The chairs were never all filled, and after a ten-minute lunch break at 12:00, there were only about 15-20 people left.

A total of 30-32 people spoke, and I have synopsized my notes on what they said below. At one point early on, while there was still a relatively full house, there was some confrontation with authority (in the person of Ray Green) and some supportive yelling ("Let her speak!" "Why can’t we hear her?") and cheering from the crowd, a bit of drama which added to the sense of solidarity.

Impressions -- From the notes I took, which are incomplete. My apologies to people who are not mentioned here, or whose names I got wrong or forgot (write me and let me know!).

One plaintive comment we can all empathize with was made while pointing to the sheets of official rules for submitting written comments to the USDA (which begin with the annoying directive "Separate fact from opinion"). Kendall Denigan, of the Berkeley Community Gardening Collective, summed up our feelings with, "If I followed these instructions, my Comment could double as my Ph.D. Dissertation"!

Small and feisty white haired lady from Berkeley, who said "I have never come to a meeting like this before, but I just go crazy listening to KPFA and hearing about all these things that make me so mad that I start throwing things at the radio!"

"As people move into a more polluted future, they are going to be increasingly concerned about their food." This is the kind of apocalyptic statement I might have made myself, but someone else did it for me.

Claire Cummings, who has a show on Berkeley's KPFA radio on Tuesday mornings (I think she said 8 AM), made a fan out of me. Some of her comments: "As a former USDA attorney, I am deeply ashamed of that agency." "What the USDA has done here is a travesty, and now they expect the public to fix the problem." "How is the USDA going to deal with these heartfelt and eloquent letters from the public, how are they going to quantify this kind of thing?" "They have created a serious legal problem, and I hope to make them accountable -- personally, if I have to." She said that she has been getting as many as 40 or more calls per show about this issue, expressing a high level of frustration because the proposed rule "does not address their concerns about personal health and planetary health. People are concerned about production aspects, they want farming in a way that protects the planet." "The USDA has to remember that Risk Assessment is fairly new and just another theory/method of assessment."
New: read Claire Cummings' written statement on the NOP.

Janet Brown, founder of the Marin Food and Agriculture Project, was the person the crowd rallied behind when her presentation was going to be cut short by the 3-minute limit. She had excellent comments, starting off with "Forty years ago, J.I. Rodale defined "organic" and moving right along: "We behaved naively by going to the Feds for help. The organic industry was looking for a rubber stamp on hard-won regulations, but now the USDA thinks it is the piano that has written the concerto." "The work of the NOSB is done, and that work belongs to us. We should take the NOSB recommendations and copyright them, and use the NOSB as Board of Directors for the National Organics Program." "As a taxpayer, I’d like to know what recourse we have to hold the USDA accountable for its costly failure" "An attempt to undermine a grassroots movement"

Bill Walker, Director of the Environmental Working Group (a nonprofit): "Genetic engineering, toxic sludge, and irradiation should not be allowed in the production of ANY food."

Daniel Chellin, who runs an organic seed company, said that in order to continue sales with Europe and Japan under a standard like the one the USDA proposes, "We would have to guarantee that we did NOT meet the US National Organic Standard", because Europe and Japan have made it clear they will not buy things certified to that standard. The CFAB asked him a question, "Have any of your customers been in favor of the proposed standard?" "No, none. But the 1992 law, yes – that would have been helpful for international trade." Q: "Is the problem with international law with more things in the NOP than genetic engineering, toxic sludge, and irradiation?" "Yes" and here he referred to a study I’m not familiar with by Suzanne ____? Which addresses this issue, and to "the CCOF preparation which covers 60 different things."

David Latourno, on the Board of Directors of CCOF, tried to make the point that small organic farmers should get their certification fees covered under consumer protection laws, using the American Bakers Association as an example of such a situation. And besides, "the biotech industry gets all kinds of money". Latourno is employed as director of organics at an international trading company in SF, and says that customers in Japan and Europe write to him and want to verify that there are no GEOs in the food before they order.

Walter Epp's compelling speech can be read online in its entirety at www.idiom.com/~for7gen/i

Gay Franklin, organic farmer and processor, stated some dollar amounts that really impressed the CFAB when referring to business that would be lost if the new proposed standard goes into effect. She also mentioned that her Canadian customers have called her in a panic because the Canadian government does spot-inspections of store shelves to make sure there is nothing in violation of their standards.

Judith Barocca (?) Organic grape farmer and vintner, was inspiring in her passion about organic farming: The organic farmer knows that good results come "from having good, loving, healthy soil." She spoke of her delight in digging out a shovelful of earth to show visitors how full of earthworms it is and said, "The organic farmer understands his connection with that earthworm." She spoke of her wine being much lower in sulfites than the national standard, and of the difference between naturally occurring and synthetic sulfites. She concluded with "I ask that you do not allow the use of any synthetics in the organic standard, in either farming or processing. The national organic standard should have only higher standards than the California Food Act of 1990."

Warren Webber, organic farmer, was actually the first person to speak (I do not necessarily have things in order here). He said "The USDA rule should at least equal the CCOF standards, which should be the bottom line." He mentioned several problems, among them, "no buffer zones between organic and non-organic croplands" and that "we would be relinquishing the right to higher standards". He said the issue is "A question of Who will Own the 'O' Word?" and said, "We cannot leave it up to a Federal culture which has its own agenda and responds too readily to political/financial pressures."

Michael Strauss of Strauss Creamery said that going organic was what made it possible both for their farm to continue to be economically viable and to align their farming practices with their philosophical beliefs. He said, "We can testify that parasiticides and hormones are completely unnecessary in organic dairy farming" and he disagrees with adding chlorine to the List (of acceptable substances), saying that he and his brother have successfully substituted hydrogen peroxide (a benign substance). He pointed out that the USDA’s proposal would allow big agricultural concerns to "flood the market with cheaply produced products that would undermine our efforts" to remain truly organic. When the Board asked him about any deviations from the CCOF standard (i.e., any special-circumstances exemptions he might have had to ask for, such as one that might have required the use of antibiotics), he responded, "We do not use antibiotics, we have success using homeopathy."

Jacqueline Turner, representing a local (Oakland) community organization called "Early Rain" stood up to voice that group’s concerns with organic food. The previous year Early Rain had presented a "Feast of Pure Food" in this same building. (If you wish to contact Early Rain, I have their address.)

Last but not least, two people from Dharma Realm (whose names I wish I had gotten, and if they read this I hope they will contact me) spoke from the Buddhist perspective and made the important point that the issue is one of freedom of religion. Using the basic Five Precepts of Buddhism, they gave great reasons that the new proposal is unacceptable: 1.Kill not-- For Buddhists who are vegetarians to eat a plant that has been genetically altered with animal genes would mean they are taking in animal products. 2.Do not steal-- Stealing good health from people, those who eat the produce and those who are downstream from the pesticides and chemicals. 3. Do not lie-- Well, this whole thing is a lie. 4. Take no toxins into your body-- pretty obvious. 5. Do not commit adultery--This one was going to be the exception, but someone in the audience called out that it is adulterous to combine genes from different species!

Once again, my apologies for any errors or omissions, and feel free to write me and add to this report.

The meeting was over by 1:30.