Protect Organic- Prohibit Hydroponics

How can we make sure we're protecting our kids' health by spending extra money to feed them organic foods if the USDA ORGANIC LABEL=

Don't know what USDA organic label stands for anymore but obvious Gov't has reduced it to mean "chancey health food, eat at your own risk, may be wasting your money, possible carcinogens present, help greedy Big Ag profits!"

Please increase USDA ORGANIC STANDARDS, don't lower them! That will hurt US organic farmers & only profit Big Ag, food lobbyists & foreign sellers & increase the UNITED STATES healthcare costs. I sacrifice to buy organic after having a large brain tumor removed & am trying to prevent 6 family cancers!

Require soil as groth medium for organic standards. Microbes role is a factor, and is altered in hydroponics.

Real organic begins with the soil, its health, and the diversity of its attendant life. Any food system that does not begin with the soil is not real organic, and should be identified as such for consumers.

Calling hydroponic fruits and vegetables organic is not true and misleading to consumers. Those farms can apply harmful chemicals in late stages of growing the crops. The quality, flavor and safety of the crop is compromised. I never buy hydroponics and always advocate to friends not to buy them also.

Separating soil from agriculture is a nice trick for the lab, but no way to farm. As a botanist/biochemist PhD that has worked for universities as well as the USDA, I'm appalled by these recent effort to ignore off-farm inputs and allow hydroponics to be called "Organic". The USDA has never been a good steward of organic farming. Leonard Wickenden, USDA scientist and author of "Make Friends with Your Land", wrote that book in 1949 imploring us to reexamine chemical ag and even though he himself was a chemist, he was already being derided by both his fellow USDA scientists and Industrial Ag. Look we need to face it. Industrial Ag is not nor will it ever be about feeding people. It is about making money, feeding people is just a side effect. The massive amounts of marginal "convenience" food that's foisted on the American people without regard to nutritional quality should pretty much prove that to anyone.

you can do this by making our food safer without using pesticides!

I am in the support of Protecting Organic- Prohibiting Hydroponics

I support the Real Organic Project and their demands to honor the letter of the law of NOP.

Another example of the loss of the rule of law as the USDA violates the Organic Food Production Act.

It is too bad you have to divert time and energy from farming to politics, but thank you for your efforts.

The USDA is violating the law, the Organic Food Production Act. Purposeful distortion of the intent of the act is an act against America, our legal and political systems. It is immoral and an appalling example of profiteering at the expense of fellow Americans.

I am looking forward to learning more about the lack of farmers involved with the bureaucracy. Perhaps there should be a Vermont Organics board just for Vermont farmers..

I believe that hydroponics should be labeled as hydroponics; especially if is allowed to be certified organic. I would rather it not be certified organic as it does not support the soil we all depend on.

I’m a purist, but I am not a farmer, and I am concerned, and have been, about CAFOs, hydroponics, and diluted standards in the NOSB. Of course farmers should have a seat at the table. Please get this right!

I am a lifetime organic eater and gardener. I am now retired but formerly certified organic farmer and a member of the Real Organic Project. I agree wholeheartedly with Dave Chapman and Eliot Coleman.

Hydroponics need to be labeled.

Thank you for your time and energy. We think this is super important!

PROTECT the Small Farmers!