Yet another article which buries the lead: WHOLE FOODS endorses California's 'Vote Yes on 37!'
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/business/california-referendum-pits-organic-brands-against-corporate-parents.html?_r=0
Uneasy Allies in the Grocery Aisle
By STEPHANIE STROM
Published: September 13, 2012
Giant bioengineering companies like Monsanto and DuPont are spending millions of dollars to fight a California ballot initiative aimed at requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods. That surprises no one, least of all the proponents of the law, which if approved by voters would become the first of its kind in the nation.
But the companies behind some of the biggest organic brands in the country — Kashi, Cascadian Farm, Horizon Organic — also have joined the antilabeling effort, adding millions of dollars to defeat the initiative, known as Proposition 37.
<...>
“Consumers aren’t always aware that their favorite organic brands are in fact owned by big multinationals, and now they’re finding out that the premium they’ve paid to buy these organic products is being spent to fight against something they believe in passionately,” said Mark Kastel, a co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute, an organic industry watchdog and farm policy group that has been tracking corporate contributions in the ballot fight. “They feel like they’ve been had.”
<...>
On Tuesday, Whole Foods, the retail mecca of the organic and natural foods movement, said it supported the California proposal, though with some reservations over the details — and without putting any money into the effort in accordance with its policy, a spokeswoman said.
<...>
http://www.cornucopia.org/2012/09/iconic-organic-industry-giants-missing-in-action/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=iconic-organic-industry-giants-missing-in-action
<...>
According to Cornucopia, and California state records, numerous more modest companies, such as Nature’s Path, Dr. Bronner’s, Nutiva, Eden Foods, Organic Valley and Lundberg Family Farm are “walking their talk,” having collectively contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaign in favor of Proposition 37 and food transparency. But the California Secretary of State’s records fail to show one red cent from the missing organic industry giants.
“There’s been speculation that because some of these company’s leaders have close relationships with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, a proponent of genetically engineered foods, and others in the Obama administration, that they are sitting on their hands, and sitting on their wallets, so as not to embarrass the president during an election year,” Kastel notes.
“The sad reality is that the Obama administration has done nothing more to make GMO labeling happen than the Bush administration, while accelerating—at the behest of the biotech companies—the review and approval process for an increasing number of genetically modified food crops by the USDA.”
“To be candid with you,” Stonyfield’s Chairman Gary Hirshberg told the New York Times, “I understand exactly what they’re trying to accomplish, and I’m supportive of their goal, but I don’t believe that in the long run we can solve a problem like this on a state-by-state level.”
<...>
My view? I think he would've if he could've. He didn't yet, so it's up to us to assist. Those counting on the public to be passive or lazy need to think again.
= new reply since forum marked as read
