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Consumer Activist? Me? (yes, you!)
by Jean Andreasen, Member Services Manager, Mississippi Market

Poor Oprah; trying to give the public information about the growing issues surrounding beef production in the United States and getting slapped with a lawsuit from an Amarillo, TX rancher and a large cattle producer. Earlier in this decade, Texas adopted a food defamation law that essentially makes it a crime for anyone to speculate about the safety of food products. (That means that consumer groups, health advocates, journalists and maybe even co-op newsletter editors bare the burden of proof, not the food producer.)

As consumers, we continue to be frustrated, dissatisfied, and skeptical because of unfulfilled promises, unrealized expectations, and unstated dangers in the products and services available to us. Why didn't the Consumer Product Safety Act (1972) include automobiles, food, drugs and tobacco products anyway? Can we really expect that businesses will be forthcoming about the safety and integrity of their products if it hurts their bottom line? President Kennedy stated that consumers have four rights: the right to be informed, the right to safety, the right to be heard and the right to choose. Since those words were first spoken, these consumer rights have since seemed to be slowly eroding away.

There are still many unanswered questions regarding the interpretation of the proposed national organic standards released in December by the USDA. As retailers, we are looking into the ways in which the standards will affect us. As consumers, we are concerned that irradiation, bio-solids (the user friendly word for toxic sludge), genetically modified organisms, and rendered animal proteins (ditto for animal cannibalism) have been addressed only in the preamble of the document, not the actual rules themselves. We definitely need to comment on the section in the rules regarding food labeling (or lack there of) and how that will affect consumers in their ability to make informed choices.

Many of you may not see yourselves as consumer activists. But by becoming members of Mississippi Market and shopping at the co-op, whether you purchase 10% or 93% of your groceries here, you have already voiced that you are unhappy with the other marketplace options and want something better. That's consumer activism. You and consumers nation-wide want all the information surrounding issues of food production so that you can make good decisions about how you spend your dollars. We are concerned about food handling practices, environmental impact, health, nutrition, and misleading marketing. (Mr. Potato Head is as malignant a marketing tool as Joe Camel.)

We need to demand that the USDA reaffirm the statutory power of the National Organic Standards Board to decide what should be permitted and what should be prohibited under the organic label. We want standards as high as those that are currently expected of growers and producers. Organic standards must not be at the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture and agribusiness lobbying dollars.

Join us in our letter writing campaign. Contact the UDSA, your senators, your representatives. Why not even President Clinton and Vice President Gore? The more unified our voice, the more likely we can effect change. You may disagree with Oprah on a lot of things, but she's in there fighting for your rights as a consumer, same as your co-op.

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