Successes
Recent successes in Food & Agriculture include:
Shaping legislation that supports organic and sustainable agriculture
UCS and our allies worked to ensure that the Food and Farm Bill will include programs that assist farmers converting to organic operations,help defray the costs of organic certification, and offer new opportunities for publicly funded plant and animal breeding (which is currently driven by corporate agendas). Lawmakers are conferring on two versions of the bill and we are focused on retaining the best provisions of each.
Achieving a meaningful label for grass-fed meat
UCS analysis has shown the potential health benefits of raising dairy and beef cattle on pasture, bolstering the well-established environmental benefits of reduced reliance on overcrowded, confined animal feeding operations. We helped push the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for a reliable means of identifying grass-fed meat in the supermarket,
and the agency responded with a label that can only be applied to products from animals raised exclusively on non-grain vegetation. The label should debut by late 2008.
Preventing a valuable human medicine from being used routinely in animal agriculture
The routine use of antibiotics on animals in confined feeding operations (to stave off stress-related illness) contributes to the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant diseases. UCS and our allies blocked the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) attempt to approve the antibiotic cefquinome for widespread use in cattle. This drug has significant potential for treating human diseases, so we took our case directly to the FDA commissioner. Our coalition also succeeded in persuading Congress to reintroduce the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, and we are appealing to physicians and farmers alike to support its adoption in 2008.
Pressing for a ban on the outdoor production of drugs and industrial chemicals in food crops
UCS has shown that current USDA regulations are too weak to prevent genetically engineered “pharma” crops from entering our food supply. We therefore launched the website www.ProtectOurFood.org and an online campaign and petition calling for the USDA to ban the outdoor production of such crops. Our efforts complemented those of the
Grocery Manufacturers Association and companies such as General Mills and PepsiCo, which also have serious concerns about potential contamination of the food supply.
Strengthening oversight of pharma crops and cloning
UCS and our activists pressured the USDA and FDA to improve their oversight of pharma crops and extend the voluntary moratorium on milk and meat from cloned animals. In addition, our participation in a precedent-setting lawsuit resulted in a stinging rebuke to the USDA for its handling of scientific issues related to genetically engineered alfalfa.
