Protect Organic- Prohibit Hydroponics

Crucial and essential to maintain integrity of organic label

Most certainly "the USDA (must) follow the law as it is written in the Organic Food Production Act." However the true Lawful jurisdiction of that (as well as virtually any "Act of Congress") is just as critical to understand. Federal jurisdiction needs to be understood by every American as well as by every member of Congress. "If the members of both House of Congress had a correct interpretation and understanding of the Organic Laws of the United States of America they would realize that Lawfully enacted federal legislation is limited to the territory actually owned by or subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States of America."[1a][1b] If a farm is not located on "... territory actually owned by or subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States of America" then "the Organic Food Production Act" doesn't Lawfully apply to that farm, however the farmer can volunteer into the federal jurisdiction and the farmer does this by claiming federal citizenship rather than asserting a superior status as a natural born America. If the above os true and correct then this means the issue of "Real Organics" is not just about how organic food is identified in commerce. It is about American identity as well as our original land & soil based jurisdiction vs the jurisdiction of the truly foreign "United States" as Congress is known as and that has its own separate jurisdiction that is foreign to that of the land & soil-based States of the union kn own as The United States of America. " This may sound like American Government 101 and it is because the government public schools do not teach the limitations of proprietary jurisdiction. Without this understanding (literally standing on American land and soil) people are confused with the names of legal fictions that they were taught to believe are what they are part of. If you were not born on federal territory then you we

My wife and I are the founders of Nature's Path Organic Foods, established in 1985. Prior to Nature's Path, I founded LifeStream Natural Foods in 1971, Golden Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant in 1967, and my dad, Rupert Stephens adopted organic farming principles on our Vancouver Island-based Goldstream Berry Paradise Farm. In 1951, my dad wrote briefly about hydroponics, in his oft-published article, 'Sawdust Is My Slave' as follows: "Modern super-cultivation causes casualties in astronomical figures to the unseen inhabitants of the soil. I am referring to the numerous beneficial types of soil bacteria and fungus that are absolutely necessary for healthy plant growth, and for the health of the people or animals that eat it. It is true that as a novelty or emergency measure, plants can be grown in pure sterile sand or water to which has been added a chemical solution. Let the other fellow eat the produce grown in this matter - not my family, or the customers that buy my produce..." This was his natural instinct, to reject food not grown on living soil, which is, and should always be the first measure of organic farming. Hydroponics has no part in it.

Thank you for all the hard work that you do to enlighten those who care about the food that we eat.

Our well-being and our ecosystem are inseparable. Any built environment can only deliver the best of man-made inputs. Infrastructure leachates, indoor and outdoor air pollutants, pipe-water contaminants, solution stabilizers and preservatives, imbalances in received or provided light, air-circulation-filter contamination, combined with inputs of limited solution nutrient, sprays, science's inability to understand or duplicate optimal soil-air-microorganism-pollinator interactions and various phytochemical responses to environmental factor that we don't perceive -- all combine to invalidate hydroponics as a viable food-production means. We need the full intricacies of our biosphere if our cultivated foods are to have their unique nutritive strengths and if we are not to consume harmful, unheeded carcinogens and pathogens. We need food grown in living, healthy soils with clean air, water, and sunlight. It's down to physics; convenience and profit have no lines in this play.

It's important to grow food in good quality soil.

HYDROPONICS NEVER WAS AND NEVER WILL BE ORGANIC. PLANTS MUST GROW IN THE PROPER SOIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Produce grown in Soil is key to organic farming. I don't want to be misled by USDA organic labels placed on the produce grown in pots with without soil via the "Driscoll" method of industrial production. I don't want to be misled by the USDA label on eggs that are from CAFO operation that don't let the chicken out on the land to peck around, or dairy from cows that are similarly confines in the warehouses that Horizon and Aurora use. Those practices distort the meaning of organic farming, and I want none of this hydroponic or aeroponic growing of the food I buy and eat. I want organically grown produce that is grown in soil and compost. I pay more to buy it and I don't want my money being spent of cheap substitutes that leave out the organic soil, and the access to outdoor grazing and pecking by animals.

As President of the Midwest Organic Farmers Cooperative and part of the Organic Farmers Association for Relationship Marketing (OFARM) we have continually questioned OTA over the years, on their motives to circumvent NOP rules. Seems they would rather work with Big Food, than the American organic farmer.

Thicke's statement prohibiting hydroponics as organic holds.

Hydroponics is NOT organic. Had I known that was what Driscolls was, I would never have bought it. This explains a lot. Definitely Not Organic!

The word soil appears in the NOP over 50 times. One solution to this loophole is to add soil to ‘terms defined’.

My family does not want to consume hydroponic-grown food. With the sell out (and buy out) of the NOSB, we have no way of knowing whether our food is soil-based or not. Increasingly I distrust the USDA Organic label and hope an ethical organization steps in to supplant it.

I believe that organic standards need to stay strict and not allow any hydroponics to be certified organic! I stick by organic standards with all my ingredients to all my clients and they want real 100% organic.

I'm all for protecting organic by prohibiting hydroponics

I can't accept hydroponics as organic. It just makes no sense.

Organic and soil belong together - worldwide!

Please keep the soil in organics and protect the real organic dairies.

Hydroponics is not organic.

Soil and its complex ecosystem is what makes healthy food and mends the planet to boot. Manufactured food is just a feeble attempt to copy nature with out the side benefits.