Once upon a time, all you needed to be an organic farmer in America was a pair of Birkenstocks and a commitment to keep your products chemical-free. Those idealistic days of the 1990s are long gone. Today, organic farming is a $30 billion industry dominated by Big Agriculture, backed up by Uncle Sam and a federal rulebook that gets longer every day.
In the halls of Congress, the rhetoric never changes: Vote against new regulations and you side with big business; support tough rules and side with the little guy. But history tells us that, far from restraining the power of big companies, an overbearing regulatory bureaucracy benefits them just about every time. Last month, the White House released e-mails detailing the deal it cut with PhRMA — the drug industry’s lobbying arm — to win support for Obamacare. And the size and market share of America’s biggest banks have only grown since the passage of Dodd-Frank banking regulations.
Comments
Dear John Sununu, We don't need you opining about something of which you know nothing. You claim that the USDA organic standards have killed the dream of an organic farmer growing organic products on a local farm and selling them to appreciative customers at a reasonable price. The good news is that the dream is alive and well and is being lived across this land on all different scales. Some may not like that the standards are not "pure" enough, but there is absolutely nothing in the standard that prevents a farmer from living the dream of growing organic products and selling them. On the contrary, the USDA Organic rules have given the American public a reasonable definition of organic so that when they see the organic seal or see something sold as organic at a local market, they can know what it means. I hope that all my friends who are fulfilling their organic farming dreams on a daily basis will let Mr. Sununu know he is beyond ill informed!!!!
Dear John Sununu, We don't need you opining about something of which you know nothing. You claim that the USDA organic standards have killed the dream of an organic farmer growing organic products on a local farm and selling them to appreciative customers at a reasonable price. The good news is that the dream is alive and well and is being lived across this land on all different scales. Some may not like that the standards are not pure enough, but there is absolutely nothing in the standard that prevents a farmer from living the dream of growing organic products and selling them. I hope that all my friends who are fulfilling their dreams on a daily basis will let Mr. Sununu know he is beyond ill informed!!!!
John, every time you try to have an opinion it shows how ignorant you are and why you are an ex-oneterm-senator. Say hi to Scott Brown down there in the sub-basement.
Sununu said, "big government never serves the little guy well." You've gotta be kidding, right? How about rural electrification, rural telephone service, the interstate highway system, the Internet, the GI Bill, Social Security, etc. among many others??
You are so right, Mr. Sununu. Regulations impose fixed costs on businesses that large corporations spread over large volumes and pass on to customers. Small businesses have to eat the regulatory costs and many don't survive. This is happening right now in banking with Dodd-Frank.
Your own ignorance is showing. You haven't responded to his argument with substance.
The organic farmers of Vermont — or New Hampshire or anywhere else — can decide for themselves what constitutes "organic." >>>>>>>>>>>>>This is the GOP viewpoint in a nutshell, about this topic or anything else. Civic-minded business peolpe are the only ones to trust. Ignore decades, if not centuries of obfuscation, corruption, negligence and criminal greed.
Right there in his first paragraph, the former senator from New Hampshire describes the trees and then totally ignores the forest. When government regulation does more harm than good, it is very frequently because the regulator has been captured by business interests, or even created at their request. Big agriculture has owned the USDA for decades, so the only remotely surprising element of this story is that it took them so long. To paraphrase the original: "Big business never serves the little guy well", and it uses big government whenever it can.
Organic farming is good for everyone, but in a globalized economy it is impossible for the consumer to be able to trace where his or her groceries came from. The only way to solve the problem is to create regulations that place strict definitions on what "organic" means. I support the Senator's distaste for this poorly written regulation, but his solution is akin to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The core problem here isn't that the regulations exist, it is that they have been unduly influenced by special interests. Campaign finance reform is the only way to reduce that influence, and this column does a very good job of illustrating why.
This column makes some points if they really are points, but John Sununu is infamous for stating facts incorrectly, leaving out facts that are inconvenient, and heavily relying on anecdotal evidence. Since I know little or nothing about organic farming and its rules and regulations, I can't objectively judge Sununu's arguments, but considering his history of distortion I'm highly suspicious.