National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement

I recently received an Action Alert about the National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (NLGMA) from Weston Price (available to subscribers only.)

From the Weston Price alert: “A National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement could harm family-scale farmers-putting at a disadvantage some of the safest local and organic growers in the nation.”

The Cornucopia Institute has provided talking points. Here is an excerpt:

“Should the US Department of Agriculture support an initiative that serves the interests of large-scale, monoculture growers and threatens the small-scale, organic and diversified farms that are the backbone of a movement toward safer food for all? While industry representatives proposed the National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) supposedly to improve food safety, they have not been able to show that this marketing scheme would protect citizens from further foodborne illness outbreaks.

Yet this proposed marketing agreement would allow industry representatives to write a set of standards, forcing leafy green growers to choose between following these standards or potentially being shut out of the market. Handlers who sign on to the agreement would be entitled to use a USDA-backed certification seal (similar to that of the “USDA Inspected” meat seal) that would be prohibited at farmers markets, community supported agriculture (CSA) farms, roadside stands—possibly misleading consumers into thinking that processed, bagged leafy greens are safer than produce from small-scale, local and organic farms.

Meanwhile, the USDA and FDA are completely silent on addressing the root of most of the contamination: manure from animal agriculture that has been contaminated with
pathogenic salmonella and e. coli.1 Improper management of the mountains of manure found on livestock factory farms threatens to contaminate the surrounding countryside and water with these dangerous pathogens. “

View the full document here.

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