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For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Environment and Climate Resource Center page and our Politics and Democracy page.

Elders and chiefs of at least 10 sovereign nations walked out of a meeting with U.S. State Department officials in Rapid City, South Dakota, on Thursday May 16 in which the government was attempting to engage in tribal consultation over the Keystone XL pipeline.

Deeming the meeting “invalid,” leaders of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association-attendees included the Southern Ponca of Oklahoma, Pawnee Nation, Nez Perce Nation, Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, Ihanktonwan Dakota Yankton Sioux, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Standing Rock Tribe, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and Crow Creek Sioux Tribe-said they would meet only with President Barack Obama to discuss the pipeline.

The Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association is made up of the 16 tribal chairmen, presidents and chairpersons in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska who have joined to defend treaty rights, according to the group. In January they along with other tribes signed the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred Against the Tar Sands. (Related: Tribal Members Sign Treaty Calling for an End to Alberta Oil Sands Development and Keystone XL)

Keystone XL would carry up to 800,000 barrels daily of viscous crude known as bitumen from the Alberta oil sands of Canada for 1,700 miles down to the Gulf of Mexico coast in Texas. Obama is slated to make a decision on the $7 billion project sometime this year, perhaps as early as the end of summer. (Related: U.S. Senate Endorses Keystone XL 62-37 in Symbolic, Non-Binding Vote)

The chiefs join the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), which two weeks ago released its public comments on the pipeline’s draft environmental assessment report, recommending that the Obama administration reject the pipeline proposal from TransCanada if certain concerns could not be adequately addressed. (Related: Fill Gaps in Keystone XL Draft Environment Report or Reject Pipeline, NCAI Tells Obama Administration)

The state department received more than a million public comments by the April 22 deadline, which was coincidentally Earth Day, most of them against the project. (Related: Anti-Keystone XL Tribal Members Urge Fellow Natives to Comment on Environmental Impact Statement)  

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto page.

The decades-old fight over genetically modified food has reached a fever pitch in Washington.

The Obama administration and Congress are weighing the safety of technological advances that seem ripped from science fiction, including salmon that can grow to full size in half the normal time and strains of crops engineered to resist powerful herbicides.

Critics of these innovations warn that they could pose threats to public health, damage the environment or, in the salmon’s case, lead to the destruction of species when gene-splicing goes wrong.

Proponents argue that genetic engineering is perfectly safe and say it’s critical to providing a sufficient food supply for the world’s ever-growing population.

Proposed regulations to govern the foods are the subject of skirmishes that pit food safety advocates, organic farmers and consumer rights groups against the agriculture and biotechnology industries.

At the same time, a renewed legislative effort to require labels on genetically modified foodstuffs is gaining momentum in Congress.

“There’s a new consciousness in America about food and Agriculture,” said Colin O’Neil, the Center for Food Safety’s director of government affairs. “Finally this issue is being elevated to the national spectrum.”

Late last month, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced a bill that would require labeling on all genetically modified food.

“Consumers deserve to know what’s in the food they eat,” Boxer said. “When we give them the facts, they make the best decisions for their families.”

The effort is not new. Boxer started pushing the idea 13 years ago, and her legislation is seen as facing a difficult path forward through the divided Congress.

But both backers and opponents of the measure agree that support has grown. When she first introduced the bill, Boxer had zero co-sponsors. Now the legislation has more than 30 in the House and Senate, including a pair of Republicans.

The strides come as an increasing number of states have taken up the issue. None carried a heavier price tag than California’s Proposition 37, which was on the state’s ballots last year.

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Politics and Democracy page.

Elizabeth Warren does great email. One payoff of my pittance of a contribution to her grass-roots funded campaign-I regret not contributing more-is that I am regularly alerted by the new Massachusetts senator to the favoritism of our Congress toward Wall Street.

That’s how I was reminded this week that Congress is about to let the interest rate charged for new student loans double to 6.8 percent at a time when the too-big-to-fail banks that caused the Great Recession continue to be bailed out at the rate of 0.75 percent. Yes, the banks pay less than 1 percent for money that we the taxpayers lend them. I know that sucha statistics are thought to be boring, but as Warren explained, the rate that students will have to pay “is nine times higher than the rate at which the government loans money to the big banks.”

The student loan interest rate that had been temporarily cut in half back in 2007 was once again set to double, but instead of pushing for the status quo as Congress did last year, Warren has upped the ante with legislation that would cut the student loan rate way down to the near zero that the big banks enjoy. As Warren put it in her characteristically no bull style:

“The federal government is profiting off loans to our young people while giving a far better deal to the same Wall Street banks that crashed our economy and destroyed millions of jobs. That’s why I’ve introduced the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act as my first bill in the Senate: To allow students to borrow money at the same rate as the biggest banks.

“   Why should the big banks get a nearly-free ride while people trying to get an education pay nine times more?” Warren asked. “It isn’t right.”

The justification of near zero rates of interest for the banks is that they will make loans available that will stoke the economy, but quite the opposite has happened. The banks have been slow to make housing and business loans while feathering their own nests with outsized executive bonuses and costly acquisitions of other financial institutions. In contrast, student loans amounting to more than $1 trillion exceed the total outstanding credit card debt in the U.S. and represent a major contributor to consumer purchasing power.

Students actually spend their loan money on surviving as consumers in a tight economy, while learning skills needed for the economy of the future. On the other hand, the already too-big-to-fail banks have used the government’s free money to become even more obscenely powerful.   

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Fair Trade and Social Justice page.

The Organic Consumers Association’s Fair World Project is working to generate grassroots support in its opposition to newly revised certification standards for multi-ingredient products under consideration by Fair Trade USA.

Meanwhile,
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps is prepared to file a new complaint with the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

On its website, third-party certifier Fair Trade USA lays out criteria for composite products – such as cosmetics and personal-care items, as well as multi-ingredient foods – under a draft policy that it says would “expand the market for fair-trade farmers and farm workers, impacting the long-term stability of their communities and the quality of their lives for generations to come.”

FWP disagrees.

The campaign identifies two shortcomings in the draft policy in particular. First, products that contain as little as 20% fair-trade ingredients can qualify to feature Fair Trade USA’s Fair Trade Certified Ingredient seal without a front-label disclosure specifying the exact percentage of fair-trade content.

Whereas other fair-trade certifiers – such as the Institute for Marketecology, which oversees the Fair for Life program – require products to contain a minimum of 50% fair-trade content, Fair Trade USA’s “subpar” threshold is potentially misleading to consumers, who may assume that a product bearing the certifier’s logo is majority fair trade, according to FWP.

Should a new NAD complaint prove fruitless, “we will either litigate or we’ll even take it to a state ballot initiative. One way or another we’re going to get [fair-trade] percentage disclosures.” – Dr. Bronner’s President David Bronner

Second, Fair Trade USA is dispensing with a requirement in its previous policy – which itself was not popular with OCA, Dr. Bronner’s and other staunch fair-trade advocates – that obligated licensees of its seal to use fair-trade forms of any and all ingredients in their product wherever such options were commercially available.

Under the proposed change to the certifier’s policy, for example, a milk chocolate bar containing fair-trade cocoa but not fair-trade sugar – often the main ingredient in such products – could still sport a fair-trade label, FWP notes.

“This fair-trade hoax takes advantage of consumers’ intentions to buy fair-trade products, create unfair competition for the fully committed fair-trade brands who use a maximum of fair-trade ingredients in order to have a fair-trade seal, and most importantly harms the farmer and farmer co-ops that supply truly fair-trade brands with fair-trade ingredients,” the group says.

Dr. Bronner’s President David Bronner was similarly critical of the draft policy. “That’s the racket that Fair Trade USA’s running,” he said in a May 6 interview. “They say, ‘Here, we’ll give you our seal and make you look fair trade, but we’ll make it so you don’t actually have to use that much fair trade in your product – and you pay us the money.”

Both Dr. Bronner’s and FWP see the latest iteration as a step backward from an already soft certification scheme administered by Fair Trade USA and a concession to big business – in particular, The Hershey Company.

Hershey To Use FTUSA In Sustainability Initiative

Fair Trade USA claims its draft policy for multi-ingredient products will “increase fair-trade benefits to more farmers by enabling more companies to use Fair Trade Certified ingredients.”

As the fair-trade movement gains momentum and consumer awareness grows, companies are under increasing pressure to provide transparency around their ingredient supply programs and certify ingredients to third-party standards designed to ensure fair compensation and humane conditions for workers in developing markets.

One such firm is The Hershey Company. In October 2012, nonprofit Green America announced that Whole Foods Market was removing the chocolate maker’s high-end Scharffen Berger brand from its store shelves due to concerns about the possible use of forced child labor at the start of its supply chain in West Africa.

Green America – in collaboration with international human rights organization Global Exchange, advocacy group The International Labor Rights Forum and other stakeholders – organizes the Raise the Bar, Hershey! campaign, which has united more than 150,000 consumers in a call for Hershey and other chocolate companies to improve labor practices on cocoa farms and plantations.

Hershey promptly answered Whole Foods’ action in fall 2012, and the negative media attention it generated, with a statement promising to source 100% third-party-certified cocoa for all of its chocolate products worldwide by 2020.

According to Raise the Bar, Hershey!, “fair-trade certification [is] the most rigorous certification for identifying and remediating the worst forms of child labor.”

Then in March, Hershey unveiled its 21st Century Cocoa Plan, “a roadmap for how the company will work to help cocoa communities around the world grow sustainable cocoa for the next century.” Breaking down its strategy by scalable benchmarks, the company said it aims to be purchasing at least 10% certified cocoa by the end of 2013, and 40% to 50% by the end of 2016.

Hershey named Fair Trade USA as one of three organizations it would partner with initially as it works to reach its certification goals.

Bronner told “The Rose Sheet” that following that announcement, “coincidentally – or not so coincidentally – Fair Trade USA issued a new labeling policy that not only doesn’t remedy the ongoing deception but actually is now going to be even worse.”

In its April 24 release, FWP observes: “It is clear [Fair Trade USA] will need to make these changes if they plan to work with large multinational corporations interested in limited fair-trade engagement.”

Dr. Bronner’s Readies New NAD Complaint

Dr. Bronner’s has taken its beef with Fair Trade USA to NAD before, arguing that the certifier’s Fair Trade Certified Ingredients seal amounts to deceptive advertising due to weaknesses in its policy for composite products.

In a June 2011 decision, NAD advised Fair Trade USA to require firms using its seal to clarify that their products do not necessarily contain all or even a majority of fair-trade ingredients (“Dr. Bronner’s Brings Avon, Fair Trade USA Before NAD For “Deceptive Practices”” – ”
The Rose Sheet,” Jun. 27, 2011).

Not satisfied, Dr. Bronner’s appealed that decision to NAD’s National Advertising Review Board, which ruled in September 2012 that Fair Trade USA should have licensees include the “relative percentage by weight of ingredients that are fair-trade-sourced” on labels for certified products.

Over the course of those cases and discussions with stakeholders, Fair Trade USA has implemented changes to its program, including increasing its minimum threshold requirement for fair-trade content to 20% versus the 2% and 5% minimums previously mandated for wash-off and leave-on products, respectively.

The certifier’s efforts have satisfied NAD but not Dr. Bronner’s, which urged NAD in an October 2012 letter to refer Fair Trade USA to federal regulators for enforcement action based on the enduring absence of a percentage disclosure requirement in the organization’s certification policy (“Dr. Bronner’s Urges NAD/NARB To Refer Fair Trade USA To Regulators” – ”
The Rose Sheet,” Oct. 29, 2012).

In a March 29 email to the organic soap maker, NAD Deputy Director David G. Mallen noted that the minimum fair-trade-content threshold at issue in Dr. Bronner’s original complaint is no longer in effect, as Fair Trade USA’s updated policy “significantly increases this threshold requirement.”

He also pointed out that advertising cited by Dr. Bronner’s originally as examples of fair-trade deception – including ads for Avon Products Inc.‘s Fair Trade Body Collection under its mark. brand, which Dr. Bronner’s claimed leveraged Fair Trade USA’s seal to mislead consumers – have since been discontinued.

In light of those developments and other modifications to Fair Trade USA’s program, “we have determined that no further action can be recommended at this time,” Mallen said.

Bronner interpreted: “NAD is saying at this point that because Fair Trade USA raised [the minimum content threshold] from 2% to 20%,” among other changes, “the problem got solved – but no, nothing got solved, that’s ridiculous. They’re just completely ignoring what NARB ruled.”

Rather than appeal, Dr. Bronner’s intends to file a new complaint with NAD by the end of May if it doesn’t see any movement from Fair Trade USA toward addressing outstanding concerns. This time, Bronner said, the firm plans to partner with a “major heavyweight” brand in fair-trade foods and will bring new data to the table from a consumer survey suggesting that consumers are being misled by Fair Trade USA’s seal for composite products.

In the survey, conducted by Lake Research Partners, 1003 Americans age 18 and over were asked to give their impressions of products bearing the Fair Trade Certified Ingredient seal.

Presented with a Fair Trade USA-certified chocolate bar (cocoa) and iced tea (tea), 72% and 83% of respondents assumed the products were entirely or majority fair trade, whereas in reality the products were only one-third and one-fifth fair trade, respectively, Dr. Bronner’s says.

Bronner is confident that the findings will be persuasive and lead to an NAD decision in Dr. Bronner’s favor, but should the NAD route fail, the firm will resort to other tactics.

“We will either litigate or we’ll even take it to a state ballot initiative” proposing that for “a fair-trade or any other eco-social seal that’s on the front of a label, if the product’s a minority of whatever that seal says it is, it has to have a percentage disclosure. One way or another we’re going to get percentage disclosures. Hopefully we don’t have to spend too much more energy, time and money to get there, but eventually we’re going to get there,” Bronner said.

The exec acknowledged that the problem Dr. Bronner’s sees with misleading fair-trade labeling and advertising is primarily in the food sector at this point. On the personal-care side, “companies have kind of gotten the message – don’t cross us,” he said.

Avon/mark. has discontinued its Fair Trade Body Collection – which launched in August 2010 as a line of products “not only good for the body, but also good for every body” – since its scrape with Dr. Bronner’s.

“People don’t want to run into us,” Bronner said.

As for FWP, the campaign will focus on influencing change in Fair Trade USA’s practices through grassroots action, “rais[ing] consumer and business awareness of [Fair Trade USA's] proposed changes in hopes that they will back down when it is clear how many consumers, producers, and businesses will be adversely affected and/or feel deceived by the changes.”     

For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto page.

Optimal health is one of my passions and nutrition is one of the best tools I know of on how to achieve it. But the key to getting healthy organic vegetables, of course, is the health of the soil in which it’s grown.

Research scientist Dr. Elaine Ingham is internationally recognized as an expert on the benefits of sustainable soil science.

She was formerly an associate professor at Oregon State University and well on her way to full-tenure professorship when her research on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) led to her being forced to resign.

The biotech industry, led by Monsanto, funds a large part of the budget for Oregon State University, and her findings were not welcome as it threatened the University’s funding.

Dr. Ingham went on to develop a company called Soil Foodweb Inc., which helps farmers and gardeners understand the health of their soil. The company analyzes soil samples and also helps develop a composting plan that is specifically targeted for the plants you’re seeking to grow.

She’s also the chief research scientist at Rodale Institute which I plan on personally visiting in the near future. I’ll provide you with some video of that visit afterwards.

One of my new passions is to understand, at the deepest levels, how to achieve high performance agriculture by grilling the leading experts in the world, then digesting the information and sharing it with you in easy to understand and apply bits.