Turning eco-labeling on its head, Dennis and Alex Avery of the Hudson Institute are promoting a new seal of approval they are calling “Earth Friendly/Farm Friendly.”
The Organic Consumers Association denounced the CGFI as a notorious front group for corporate agribusiness, chemical and pesticide manufacturers and portrayed its leaders as attack dogs against the organic movement.
Avery has gained notoriety for his misleading editorials decrying organic food as unsafe. He is the author of “Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic.” His positions on food production are antithetical to nearly everything ecological farmers believe; he praises genetically modified organisms, pesticide use, irradiation, and intensive livestock production. He has recently started a campaign, “Milk is Milk,” to try to discredit farms that promote their milk as free of genetically engineered growth hormones.
CGFI said it is launching the program with a pilot project in the dairy industry and is currently recruiting interested producers, processors and retailers. During the first year of the pilot, CGFI will work with dairy producers, processors, retailers and consumers to formalize standards and create consumer awareness.
Klaas and Mary-Howell Martens, organic farmers in New York, have been following the CGFI labeling program and concluded that virtually every conventional dairy farm in America easily meets the program’s requirements. For example, one requirement is that 10% of feed grain be produced with conservation tillage. A much higher percentage of the nation’s feed grains are already produced that way.
Avery’s web site is www.cgfi.org.