Increasing Hunger and Poverty in US/FoodFirst Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - jclancy@peg.apc.org Mon, 31 May 1999 (Articles from Food First _Institute for Food and Development 398 60th St Oakland CA 94618 e-mail: foodfirst@foodfirst.org http://www.foodfirst.org FOOD FIRST ORGANIZES CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON INCREASING HUNGER AND POVERTY IN THE US The U.S. economy is booming, yet 1997 census figures show only a slight decline in poverty, which affected 35.6 million Americans - 40 percent of whom were children. The Bureau's latest report came while the Congressional Progressive Caucus witnessed the heart-wrenching cost of indiscriminate cuts in the social safety net at the Economic Human Rights Hearing, held on September 23, 1998 on Capitol Hill. Rep. Earl Hilliard (D-AL), Rep. George Miller (D-CA), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) presided at the Economic Human Rights Hearing/Progressive Challenge. The hearing was organized by Food First in collaboration with the Institute for Policy Studies, and progressive members of the Congress. It featured 17 Americans who gave a firsthand account of their experiences with increasing hunger, poverty, unemployment, and homelessness. "It isn't that I never worked," said a grandmother, Katherine Engels. "I worked since 1 was 14 years old. The A jobs that are out there-you are not making enough in order to live. Mothers go hungry at night so their children can eat." The essence of their testimony was that while America criticizes other countries on their human rights records, our country is not meeting the minimum economic human rights standards spelled out fifty years ago by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The hearings not only put a human face on poverty, but also pointed out some very a disturbing facts in a prosperous America. Thirty million Americans are hungry, five to seven million are homeless, and more than 43 million have no health insurance. By a conservative definition, one in every eight Americans is denied the basic right to a standard of living adequate for the health and a well being of themselves and their families. "Your stories are the true scandals that our nation should be focused on. It is scandalous that there are over five and a half million people with worst-case housing. It is scandalous that we cannot meet the standards of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It is scandalous that we have forgotten Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights, which declares that we have a right to adequate housing, among other basic human rights," said Rep. Barbara Lee, who responded to testimonies on increasing homelessness in the U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) noted that until the U.N. Declaration is "treated as the law of our land, working men and women and their families will always have to fight for the basic necessities -The removal of the welfare safety net makes President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's promise of Freedom from Want ring hollow to the millions of Americans whose families are hungry or homeless," he said. The hearing was the culmination of the second phase of our campaign "Economic Human Rights: The Time Has Come!' which marks the 50th anniversary of the UDHR. The campaign is asking the U.S. to reaffirm its weight in law by ratifying and implementing the International Covenant for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which guarantees everyone an adequate standard of living, including the right to food. On October 16, 1998, our documentary, America Needs Human Rights, based on first ad hoc Congressional hearing in Oakland, California, aired on several PBS channels and 1200 closed circuits as part of the fifteenth annual World Food Day Satellite Teleconference organized by the US National Committee for World Food Day. Food First"s Policy Director , Anuradha Mittal, was one of four experts panelists for the teleconference. The topic of this year teleconference was "Food For All: Right or Goal?". In 1999 we will release a new Food First book, America Needs Human Rights: Fighting Hunger and Poverty in the Richest Nation on Earth. Prior to the hearing we ran full-page advertisements in the New York Times-West Coast Edition and a double page advertisement in The nation magazine. We have had a great response from readers. ************ Item 2: U.S. CERTIFIED ORGANIC PROPOSED RULES The organic farming sector is now a $3.5 billion industry in the U.S.- a 40-fold increase in 10 years, and is expected to continue to grow dramatically for years to come. Unlike the European Union, which since June 1991 has had strict guidelines on what may be marketed as organic, U.S. producers are not required b, federal law to certify that they have complied with the principles of organic farming in 1990 the U.S. Congress added the Organic Food Protection Act (OFPA) to the Farm Bill. It mandates that the USDA create a National Organic Program (NOP) to establish national standards for organic production and handling, a National List of Allowed Synthetic and Prohibited Non-Synthetic Substances for Organic Production (National List), and guidelines for accreditation, certification, labelling, enforcement, and foreign trade of organic goods. The proposed national standard, which was published December 16, 1997, received over 250,000 comments from concerned citizens. Community groups forced USDA to hold public hearings. The majority of comments opposed Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), use of irradiation in food processing and packaging, and use of reclaimed sewage sludge as plant fertilizer. Although the initial proposal published by the USDA did not explicitly condone their use in organic agriculture, neither was it condemned. Some organic farmers believe that this controversy was intentionally created by the USDA to divert attention from equally important, deficiencies, loopholes, and appropriations of authority in the proposed standard. The Organic Food Protection Act states that the National List must be based on a proposed national list developed by a 14member National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). Perhaps the most significant deficiency is the proposal's attempt to assign final and full authority over the National List to the Secretary of Agriculture. A USDA memo dated May 1, 1997 states that "based on the distinction [in the OFPAI between the capitalized National List, which is the final list, and the lower-case list, we have taken the position that the Secretary may add substances to the National List not placed there by the National Organic Standards Board. Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR), who wrote the act, responded by saying that, "The intent of the law was to give the Board sole authority to place items on the National List-If the USDA continues to stand by this interpretation, it is very likely that it will be challenged in the courts."' Another tactic the USDA is using to escape Board review of all synthetic materials is to adopt a loose definition of "inerts;" thus permitting certain toxic chemicals to be used without discretion. At the same time, the National Organic Program proposes to exclude certain safety guidelines the Board placed on particular synthetics that are included in the National List.' The USDA is attempting to usurp power from the organic community by not allowing state and private certifying agents to deny, suspend or terminate certification of an operation. Under the Proposed Rules, the organic community would merely be allowed to submit a recommendation to the USDA. The Farm Bill delegated the USDA to serve as an accreditation body-not a certification body. If the final rule maintains these proposed rules, enforcement of the National Standards will be seriously compromised. Another concern is that the proposed rules would limit "organics" to "safefoods;" focusing on a chemical-free end product rather than the entire production process. For example, the mandatory crop residue testing, which is extremely costly and unreliable, says nothing about the soil. The proposed rules do not even address source and quality of irrigation water, nor guidelines for fumigation of imported and exported products.' Controversy also surrounds the long awaited organic livestock certification protocol. The current proposal allows newborns of non- organically raised livestock to be incorporated into organic systems. And throughout the lives of organic livestock, 20 percent of the feed can come from non-organic sources. On May 8,1998 Agricultural Secretary Dan Clickman announced that fundamental revisions to the USDAs Proposed Standards would be made as a result of the comments the USDA received. He said that genetically modified organisms, irradiation, and sewage sludge cc are safe and have important roles to play in agriculture, but they neither fit current organic practices nor meet current consumer expectations about organics," and that, "these practices will not be included in our revised proposal." This is a partial victory, but we must not allow other equally important deficiencies go unchecked. For a more in depth review visit our web site at: www.foodfirst.org and the USDAs web site: ww.ams.usda.gov/nop. Voice your opinions to the USDA, and be prepared to fight for organic consumers' rights when the USDA publishes the Revised Proposal, which will be open for public comment shortly. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-06.02.99-04:39:26-2546