Mark Lipson
Organic Farming Research Foundation
December 22, 1997

Hi Y'all. I just wanted to get on your screens literally and metaphorically with a quick preliminary note regarding "kill the rule" conversations in the OFMA circles , give you some info about the NCSA (Natl. Campaign for Sust. Ag., "the national SAWG") team working on response to the rule. Tomorrow I'll try to sketch some of the strategic options being considered there. (I'm sending this to the addresses I recognized on some of the OFMA headers and cc:ed to the Campaign team and some others).

Personally, although I expected it to come out pretty bad, I'm still oscillating through several stages of the grief process (anger, guilt, shock, denial, etc.) From my point of view at OFRF the fundamental disappointment with the rule as a whole is pretty widespread, but beyond the "hot buttons" I'm not sure it's universal yet. Of course, most people haven't finished reading the thing yet, let alone really analyzed it. My (still superficial) hunch is that when we sort the whole thing has (in addition to the big3 "open doors") 5-10 systemic flaws (i.e. basic assumptions and rationales that are truly mistaken) and maybe 20-30 "flawed fundamentals" (major particular items that are too weak or just wrong). (I do see 5-10 things that look like potentially good, progressive contributions but they feel like only scattered remnants).

The most obvious overall features so far are 1) the butchering/slicing/dicing/blending that the thing must have gone through, and 2) the creative fantasies and fabrications that were concocted to rationalize the final product.

I have gotten different opinions about how "fixable" it is overall. Ceramic the common reaction to the overwhelming hundreds of pages (that all seem to have a basic problem or three) is to say, "get this foul mess out of here!" However, some very knowledge people who have read it have argued to me that it could be fixed quite well, at least on paper; whether these fixes would be accepted is another issue. If the thing can be fixed, we have to try, it's our only shot. If it can't (or won't) be fixed, then we will have to block it in the courts and/or Congress, but those strategies will only be effective if we have first fully critique the proposal in detail and offered substantive, specific alternatives. No matter what, it seems we have to try and rewrite the thing as well as we can with as much hard data as we can get. Of course, we have to try and do that simultaneously while rallying the massive consumer outrage that makes our rewrite politically (and legally) more viable. But we have the allies to make that rally possible...

Anyway, Mike Sligh is leading the initial team/committee formulating a response from the National SA Campaign, including me and Liz Henderson (NY NOFA), key SA people in DC, Mardi Mellon from Union of Concerned Scientists. We're trying to put together a joint analysis of the rule and some quick strategic proposals to share with everybody and lead up to all the various meetings in mid-January. I don't know that the Campaign (or anybody) is willing or able to be a true clearinghouse but it is a good initial complement to the OTA process and it is essentially farmer-consumer oriented.

Gotta go (everybody else is gone for the week and I've got three lines ringing!!) but I must say that I really agree with Dave D. that vilifying the NOP staffers is pointless indulgence and a waste of my time. I like to think I would have resigned when the thing came out but that's pretty arrogant to assume that and lay it on someone else. We might never know who actually wrote what but we have to focus on what it says now, how we rewrite it for them, and how we ensure that it is adopted. (Maybe delusional but I guess that's another stage of grief).

1/1/98