Aloha Moon Readers, Advertisers, Supporters and Contacts,
I want everyone to know that I am suspending publication of Moon Over Haleakala as of the April issue.
We have been publishing since July of last year and have had wonderful reception from our community.
Right now, I need to fall back and regroup, as it were. We may be back publishing soon, only the Moon knows for sure.
I want to thank our advertisers for helping to make the Moon Over Haleakala possible and our readers for letting us know how much they have been enjoying our efforts each month.
Maui is a wonderful community to publish for! Again, thanks everyone!
Ken Pinsky

Editor:
I am enjoying the welcomed ‘light’ that your publication has contributed to our Maui aina.
Dawn Pier’s article, “Should 2,4-D be banned on Maui?”, to my reading, never refers to the chemical 2,4-D as anything other than a pesticide.
I am not nit-picking; it makes the article sound as if it were written by someone who has no experience in agriculture, certainly, no experience with the use of agricultural chemicals. 2,4-D is a broad leaf defoliant. Ask anyone who handled ‘agent orange’ in Nam.
Bob Stone, Kihei

For your letters to the editor section,
In perusing the list of agenda items for the first council meeting of the year there are quite a few interesting items being addressed by the new Council.
Danny Mateo will be looking at the regulation of fireworks, Riki Hokama wants an audit of the Dept of Water Supply and Public Works, Mike White wants more money for the Maui Visitors Bureau, and Elle Cochran is establishing a crosswalk in South Maui. Wait, Don Couch is supposed to be the South Maui representative, and yet he has nothing on the agenda. I guess it’s all show, no go with him. Get off the Couch, Don.
Thanks, Sylvia Vierra

No Trespassing

15 Photos

Tapping in to community memory

This house on the center of Paia Bay is owned by now-retired celebrity basketball coach Don Nelson. It is the biggest house on the bay.

What do we remember?
The ocean side of Hana Highway through Paia is a string of warning signs telling us that there is no shoreline access. Well there was, wasn’t there? Lots of Maui long-timers remember going through several places in Paia directly over to the beach, that are now blocked off. We began reserching the county maps, but so far things are inconclusive. What do you remember?
Write to us at mauimoonnews@gmail.com.

Arakawa on public access
[From our February 14 interview with the Mayor]
MOON: Many people feel that public beach accesses in Paia have been blocked from public use by adjoining private landowners. If this can be shown to be so, will your administration support the reopening of those public rights-of-way and the installation of appropriate signs or is that a state function?
Arakawa: “That’s actually a function of the County that the County should be enforcing. In my administration we will always enforce the clearing and keeping those rights-of-way available to the public and we’ll continue that policy. If someone is illegally blocking public access it needs to be cleared up. It’s a direction we will be very strongly enforcing. I don’t understand how those could have been blocked.”

By Kyle Ellison

When was the last time you entered a race that was free? Actually, let’s back up a step.

When was the last time you even entered a race?

If the answer lies somewhere between “Never” and “It’s Been a While”, keep reading, because we may have just found the perfect weekend activity for you.

Imagine a race where along with no entry fee, there are also no trophies, no racing bibs, and no expectations. Actually, there really aren’t even any rules either, just that everyone arrive with a positive attitude and share a common interest in outdoor fitness and healthy living. Want to swim part of the race with fins and a snorkel? Go for it. Want to form an impromptu relay or arrive in a holiday themed costume? It’s encouraged!

Imagine spending a Sunday morning with 30-100 members of the community who just want to participate in a large group workout, put them together in a swim/run biathlon with amateur-friendly distances, add a pinch of joie de vivre, top it off with some door prizes, and you have found yourself in the midst of the endorphin fueled community event known as the “Aluminum Man”.

Billing itself as the “not-so-serious series”, the Aluminum Man is an event that was originally orchestrated in 1995 by the late Jaiom Berger, whose life was tragically cut short by a drunk driver in 1998. Many of those who knew Jaiom have described him as one of the most positive, conscientious, enthusiastic, and authentic men on the planet; the type of guy who would finish a marathon in a handstand or run an entire 5k backwards simply because he felt like it. Not wanting to see such a spirited community event disappear to due the loss of Jaiom, the Aluminum Man was taken over by the husband-wife team of Nancy Robberson and Jami Kimmel who over the last 13 years have independently put on over 85 Aluminum Man events and continue to selflessly dedicate themselves to carrying on Jaiom’s energy through fitness and aloha.

Dressed in a hot pink bikini and still visibly winded from another strong showing towards the front of the pack, Robberson explains after a recent Valentine’s race (where runners were encouraged to kiss something along the run), that “the Aluminum Man gives people the opportunity to play together outdoors with other fun-loving, positive people. Joy, fun, love, and fitness can really be contagious!”

Consisting of a ½ mile swim and a 3-4 mile run along one of Maui’s beautiful beaches, the Aluminum Man series is held 7 times annually and plays host to an effervescent gathering of happy and healthy members of the community, both local and visitor alike. Non-discriminatory and accepting of all “entrants”, the Valentine’s Aluminum Man held at Ka’anapali’s Kahekili Beach Park featured regular kama’aina swimming and sweating it out next to visitors from as far away as Minnesota and Venezuela.

While the cast of participants share a common interest in outdoor fitness, don’t fool yourself into thinking that each and every participant is a chiseled replica of the statue David or a vacationing Michael Phelps. After all, this is the Aluminum Man, not the Iron Man. All that’s required to enter is a willingness to participate and a belief in the notion that—as Robberson so eloquently puts it—fun should be free. If that means tackling the swim portion with a set of fins or simply opting to walk the entire running segment it’s an allowable and encouraged activity. One participant even recently taught himself how to swim on YouTube.

An uber-refreshing throwback to the pure simplicity of sport, an emphasis on race results and an air of divisive competition are instead replaced by a spirit of togetherness and a gentle reminder to cherish not only what we have, but also all that we can give to all of those around us. Anyone interested in taking place in the next Aluminum Man can check out the schedule online at virr.com, or simply show up at Wailea’s Polo Beach at 8am for the April 24th Bunny Biathlon. You’ll definitely get a workout, and who knows, you may go home with a shaka oven mit and a newfound appreciation for competing for free.

• • •

Kyle Ellison is a freelance writer whose writings and ramblings can be found on his website, kylethevagabond.com-

Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa during the Moon interview.

By Ken Pinsky
On Monday morning, February 14 the Moon Over Haleakala team of Phil Swatek, Steven Oster and myself interviewed newly elected Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa in his office. The interview was recorded on video and can be viewed at mauimoonnews.com.
Arakawa is now serving his second, but non-consecutive term as Maui’s Mayor. He was first elected Mayor in 2002, having previously served several terms on the Maui County Council. Arakawa was unseated from the Mayor’s office in 2006 by Charmaine Tavares, and then defeated her in a rematch this last election.
The Mayor spoke with us about quite a number of critical issues and choices facing Maui. He also addressed several areas of deep concern to those of us who are still striving to protect Maui’s natural beauty and the sweet and peaceful lives so many of us are privileged to have here. Arakawa was relaxed, frank and thoughtful during our hour-long talk. The video is well worth watching. I have excerpted some of the highlights for this article.
We asked Arakawa what he had been up to between his terms as Mayor and what he hoped to do differently this time?
Arakawa: “The four years that I was out of office was a really good time to not be in office. My father-in-law was ill and we had to take care of family problems and it was a blessing that I had the time to do that. It was really good for our family.
“It also gave me an opportunity to re-evaluate how we were operating as a government, where were the flaws in trying to do our operations?
“We’re going to have to take some really strong positions, get logical arguments down and just plow through. Trying to placate the political world just isn’t going to work. So we’re going ahead and we’re going to try to fix things that need to be fixed in this community.
“The last time I was in office we had an economy that was one of the best economies in the world. I mean our economy was booming. We had a lot of things that were being accomplished. And over the last four years everything came to basically a grinding stop and many bad decisions were made in my opinion. For instance; the Pali to Puamana Parkway. We had already arranged to purchase that area so that in perpetuity, the county, the government, the people could have had a major parkway all the way from the Pali to Lahaina. It would be kept without houses. That was derailed because we weren’t here.
“Let’s take the upcountry watershed, the water issue. When I first got in we were talking about no water, now I think everybody’s agreed there is water. We can provide water to the upcountry area. We have an agreement with EMI for twelve million gallons a day, that’s contractual. And we have adequate backup. The big problem is not whether we have water or not. The big problem is how do you distribute the water we do have in a fair and equitable manner? There are people who have been waiting on this [water meter] list for twenty or thirty years, however long this list is there. I believe the system we have in place right now doesn’t make any sense. Let’s do it the way it needs to be done the proper way and look at the real impacts on people and what is fair or not. We’re going to actually do the study. We’re going to figure out how to get it done and then we’re going to do it.
“We’re looking at the Paia area. We’re currently working with A&B. As a matter of fact, we’re looking at the mini-bypass. We’re going to open that mini-bypass seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. And to open the area from the current county parking lot to the roadway so we can possibly increase the number of parking spaces. We should have that ironed out within a short period of time and we’ll be opening the bypass.
“We’d like to be able to acquire Jaws as a public park, with the area around it for parking that will be sufficient to handle all of the people that are down there when we have major storm events that people flock to see. That’s a possibility. Also Maliko Gulch. We’re looking at creating that into a major park area and acquiring that for the county.
MOON: We asked Mayor Arakawa if there was a possibility of preserving the area between Paia Bay and Baldwin beach and the Hana Highway and the coast?
He said, “Absolutely. A&B does have plans for that. I’ve talked to A&B about that. I’ve actually had one-to-one meetings with the head of A&B. A&B does have plans for that, they plan to turn it over to the county as park. The entire area will ultimately become a park and A&B is committed to it.”
MOON: Many people feel that public beach accesses in Paia have been blocked from public use by adjoining private landowners. If this can be shown to be so, will your administration support the reopening of those public rights-of-way and the installation of appropriate signs or is that a state function?
Arakawa: “That’s actually a function of the County that the County should be enforcing. In my administration we will always enforce the clearing and keeping those rights-of-way available to the public and we’ll continue that policy. If someone is illegally blocking public access it needs to be cleared up. It’s a direction we will be very strongly enforcing. I don’t understand how those could have been blocked.”
The entirety of the Moon Over Haleakala interview with Maui’s Mayor, Alan Arakawa, is available for viewing at our website, mauimoonnews.com.

Well, I’ve been living in Paia since last summer now and I’m ready to report in. Things keep changing, and I’ll get to that, but I want you to know, Paia’s great. I’ve been on Maui a little over thirty years, and almost all of that time I lived out in the jungles of Ha‘iku, in the boonies. Was nice, yah. But now I find I enjoy the hustle and bustle of life in a small town. I think Paia right now comes pretty close to that small American town ideal, with lots of tourists of course. It’s friendly and the regulars know each other. The tourists flow through in great numbers, mostly leaving smiles and tips behind. It’s usually balmy and sweet and the ocean is near enough to smell, and sometimes to hear. I’m enjoying Paia.
Now to the coming changes. The commercial disaster that is the ongoing parking lot remodel behind Charley’s shows signs of ending in the coming weeks. We said the same thing around Christmas time, but that was just wishful thinking. This time, could be so. Project manager Josh Dean of West Coast Investments told the Moon Over Haleakala back in October that they “have to be done by February 18.” Well, it is February 21 today and the lot ain’t open. When it does open, then what? The single direction lot will empty only out into Baldwin Avenue right next to the bank. If anyone goes left they will be blocking traffic going down towards Hana Highway. It looks to be a mess there. Do you think the planners at West Coast Investments even get what it is like in Paia? Traffic is already at a standstill coming into town most days both directions on Hana Highway and uphill on Baldwin Avenue. It is adding time to everyone’s drives and subtracting time from the other parts of their lives.
Then there is the general parking problem. David Spee, a Paia lawyer, recently completed purchase of the undeveloped section of town between the “mini-bypass” road and Baldwin Avenue, from the houses to the post office. He plans to add several hundred new parking stalls there to Paia’s inventory, as well as new commercial buildings and some housing on the extensive parcel of now vacant land.
In addition, Mayor Arakawa told the Moon that the county intends to expand its parking lot at the Kahului end of town and that he is talking with the Japanese cemetery about providing space for a parking lot.
Arakawa also told us that he is working with A&B to open the “mini-bypass” road to full time – 24/7 – use. I’ve been thinking about how the fully open bypass might work. The more I think about it the more I think A&B may have it about right – open at peak hours. It’s a single strip of narrow pavement without edges or sidewalks. It is illegal for pedestrians to use it, but of course it gets used. If the county wants to open the Paia bypass full time, maybe they ought to acquire it and improve it to the standards of a public street, so it doesn’t become simply the Paia Speedway. Make it a real street so Paia residents can continue to walk their dogs and ride their bikes and watch the sunsets over the West Maui’s from that part of town. A “cars only” street is “town unfriendly.” Perhaps extending the daytime hours into the morning will help with traffic, then again, maybe it wont. A lot of those cars are heading out the Hana Highway to points east and will not be turning right. For those who are, it’d be nice if the damn thing was open when you needed it. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a midnight speedway. It would seem a good street for speed bumps and a bikeway.
I bike ride in Paia a lot, particularly over to Baldwin Beach. The area in between the highway and the coast is beautiful – and more or less pristine still, as the gods made it – now that the old lime kiln is out of use. Mayor Arakawa told us in our recent interview that A&B is “committed” to seeing the entire area become county park, a North Shore Park – from Paia Bay to Baby Beach at the other end of Baldwin. Well nothing could please me more. I commend A&B and the Arakawa administration for looking forward to the needs of our community over the years ahead.

* By Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association, Jan 27, 2011
Straight to the Source

“The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well. True coexistence is a must.” – Whole Foods Market, Jan. 21, 2011

In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America’s organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it’s time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto’s controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for “coexistence” with Monsanto and USDA biotech cheerleader Tom Vilsack.

In a cleverly worded, but profoundly misleading email sent to its customers last week, Whole Foods Market, while proclaiming their support for organics and “seed purity,” gave the green light to USDA bureaucrats to approve the “conditional deregulation” of Monsanto’s genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa. Beyond the regulatory euphemism of “conditional deregulation,” this means that WFM and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S.

In exchange for allowing Monsanto’s premeditated pollution of the alfalfa gene pool, WFM wants “compensation.” In exchange for a new assault on farmworkers and rural communities (a recent large-scale Swedish study found that spraying Roundup doubles farm workers’ and rural residents’ risk of getting cancer), WFM expects the pro-biotech USDA to begin to regulate rather than cheerlead for Monsanto. In payment for a new broad spectrum attack on the soil’s crucial ability to provide nutrition for food crops and to sequester dangerous greenhouse gases (recent studies show that Roundup devastates essential soil microorganisms that provide plant nutrition and sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases), WFM wants the Biotech Bully of St. Louis to agree to pay “compensation” (i.e. hush money) to farmers “for any losses related to the contamination of his crop.”

In its email of Jan. 21, 2011 WFM calls for “public oversight by the USDA rather than reliance on the biotechnology industry,” even though WFM knows full well that federal regulations on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) do not require pre-market safety testing, nor labeling; and that even federal judges have repeatedly ruled that so-called government “oversight” of Frankencrops such as Monsanto’s sugar beets and alfalfa is basically a farce. At the end of its email, WFM admits that its surrender to Monsanto is permanent: “The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well True coexistence is a must.”

Why Is Organic Inc. Surrendering?

According to informed sources, the CEOs of WFM and Stonyfield are personal friends of former Iowa governor, now USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and in fact made financial contributions to Vilsack’s previous electoral campaigns. Vilsack was hailed as “Governor of the Year” in 2001 by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and traveled in a Monsanto corporate jet on the campaign trail. Perhaps even more fundamental to Organic Inc.’s abject surrender is the fact that the organic elite has become more and more isolated from the concerns and passions of organic consumers and locavores. The Organic Inc. CEOs are tired of activist pressure, boycotts, and petitions. Several of them have told me this to my face. They apparently believe that the battle against GMOs has been lost, and that it’s time to reach for the consolation prize. The consolation prize they seek is a so-called “coexistence” between the biotech Behemoth and the organic community that will lull the public to sleep and greenwash the unpleasant fact that Monsanto’s unlabeled and unregulated genetically engineered crops are now spreading their toxic genes on 1/3 of U.S. (and 1/10 of global) crop land.

WFM and most of the largest organic companies have deliberately separated themselves from anti-GMO efforts and cut off all funding to campaigns working to label or ban GMOs. The so-called Non-GMO Project, funded by Whole Foods and giant wholesaler United Natural Foods (UNFI) is basically a greenwashing effort (although the 100% organic companies involved in this project seem to be operating in good faith) to show that certified organic foods are basically free from GMOs (we already know this since GMOs are banned in organic production), while failing to focus on so-called “natural” foods, which constitute most of WFM and UNFI’s sales and are routinely contaminated with GMOs.

From their “business as usual” perspective, successful lawsuits against GMOs filed by public interest groups such as the Center for Food Safety; or noisy attacks on Monsanto by groups like the Organic Consumers Association, create bad publicity, rattle their big customers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kroger, Costco, Supervalu, Publix and Safeway; and remind consumers that organic crops and foods such as corn, soybeans, and canola are slowly but surely becoming contaminated by Monsanto’s GMOs.

Whole Food’s Dirty Little Secret: Most of the So-Called “Natural” Processed Foods and Animal Products They Sell Are Contaminated with GMOs

The main reason, however, why Whole Foods is pleading for coexistence with Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and the rest of the biotech bullies, is that they desperately want the controversy surrounding genetically engineered foods and crops to go away. Why? Because they know, just as we do, that 2/3 of WFM’s $9 billion annual sales is derived from so-called “natural” processed foods and animal products that are contaminated with GMOs. We and our allies have tested their so-called “natural” products (no doubt WFM’s lab has too) containing non-organic corn and soy, and guess what: they’re all contaminated with GMOs, in contrast to their certified organic products, which are basically free of GMOs, or else contain barely detectable trace amounts.

Approximately 2/3 of the products sold by Whole Foods Market and their main distributor, United Natural Foods (UNFI) are not certified organic, but rather are conventional (chemical-intensive and GMO-tainted) foods and products disguised as “natural.”

Unprecedented wholesale and retail control of the organic marketplace by UNFI and Whole Foods, employing a business model of selling twice as much so-called “natural” food as certified organic food, coupled with the takeover of many organic companies by multinational food corporations such as Dean Foods, threatens the growth of the organic movement.

Covering Up GMO Contamination: Perpetrating “Natural” Fraud

Many well-meaning consumers are confused about the difference between conventional products marketed as “natural,” and those nutritionally/environmentally superior and climate-friendly products that are “certified organic.”

Retail stores like WFM and wholesale distributors like UNFI have failed to educate their customers about the qualitative difference between natural and certified organic, conveniently glossing over the fact that nearly all of the processed “natural” foods and products they sell contain GMOs, or else come from a “natural” supply chain where animals are force-fed GMO grains in factory farms or Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

A troubling trend in organics today is the calculated shift on the part of certain large formerly organic brands from certified organic ingredients and products to so-called “natural” ingredients. With the exception of the “grass-fed and grass-finished” meat sector, most “natural” meat, dairy, and eggs are coming from animals reared on GMO grains and drugs, and confined, entirely, or for a good portion of their lives, in CAFOs.

Whole Foods and UNFI are maximizing their profits by selling quasi-natural products at premium organic prices. Organic consumers are increasingly left without certified organic choices while genuine organic farmers and ranchers continue to lose market share to “natural” imposters. It’s no wonder that less than 1% of American farmland is certified organic, while well-intentioned but misled consumers have boosted organic and “natural” purchases to $80 billion annually-approximately 12% of all grocery store sales.

The Solution: Truth-in-Labeling Will Enable Consumers to Drive So-Called “Natural” GMO and CAFO-Tainted Foods Off the Market

There can be no such thing as “coexistence” with a reckless industry that undermines public health, destroys biodiversity, damages the environment, tortures and poisons animals, destabilizes the climate, and economically devastates the world’s 1.5 billion seed-saving small farmers. There is no such thing as coexistence between GMOs and organics in the European Union. Why? Because in the EU there are almost no GMO crops under cultivation, nor GM consumer food products on supermarket shelves. And why is this? Because under EU law, all foods containing GMOs or GMO ingredients must be labeled. Consumers have the freedom to choose or not to choose GMOs; while farmers, food processors, and retailers have (at least legally) the right to lace foods with GMOs, as long as they are safety-tested and labeled. Of course the EU food industry understands that consumers, for the most part, do not want to purchase or consume GE foods. European farmers and food companies, even junk food purveyors like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, understand quite well the concept expressed by a Monsanto executive when GMOs first came on the market: “If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”

The biotech industry and Organic Inc. are supremely conscious of the fact that North American consumers, like their European counterparts, are wary and suspicious of GMO foods. Even without a PhD, consumers understand you don’t want your food safety or environmental sustainability decisions to be made by out-of-control chemical companies like Monsanto, Dow, or Dupont – the same people who brought you toxic pesticides, Agent Orange, PCBs, and now global warming. Industry leaders are acutely aware of the fact that every single industry or government poll over the last 16 years has shown that 85-95% of American consumers want mandatory labels on GMO foods. Why? So that we can avoid buying them. GMO foods have absolutely no benefits for consumers or the environment, only hazards. This is why Monsanto and their friends in the Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations have prevented consumer GMO truth-in-labeling laws from getting a public discussion in Congress.

Although Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio) recently introduced a bill in Congress calling for mandatory labeling and safety testing for GMOs, don’t hold your breath for Congress to take a stand for truth-in-labeling and consumers’ right to know what’s in their food. Especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the so-called “Citizens United” case gave big corporations and billionaires the right to spend unlimited amounts of money (and remain anonymous, as they do so) to buy media coverage and elections, our chances of passing federal GMO labeling laws against the wishes of Monsanto and Food Inc. are all but non-existent. Perfectly dramatizing the “Revolving Door” between Monsanto and the Federal Government, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, formerly chief counsel for Monsanto, delivered one of the decisive votes in the Citizens United case, in effect giving Monsanto and other biotech bullies the right to buy the votes it needs in the U.S. Congress.

With big money controlling Congress and the media, we have little choice but to shift our focus and go local. We’ve got to concentrate our forces where our leverage and power lie, in the marketplace, at the retail level; pressuring retail food stores to voluntarily label their products; while on the legislative front we must organize a broad coalition to pass mandatory GMO (and CAFO) labeling laws, at the city, county, and state levels.

The Organic Consumers Association, joined by our consumer, farmer, environmental, and labor allies, has just launched a nationwide Truth-in-Labeling campaign to stop Monsanto and the Biotech Bullies from force-feeding unlabeled GMOs to animals and humans.

Utilizing scientific data, legal precedent, and consumer power the OCA and our local coalitions will educate and mobilize at the grassroots level to pressure giant supermarket chains (Wal-Mart, Kroger, Costco, Safeway, Supervalu, and Publix) and natural food retailers such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s to voluntarily implement “truth-in-labeling” practices for GMOs and CAFO products; while simultaneously organizing a critical mass to pass mandatory local and state truth-in-labeling ordinances – similar to labeling laws already in effect for country of origin, irradiated food, allergens, and carcinogens. If local and state government bodies refuse to take action, wherever possible we must attempt to gather sufficient petition signatures and place these truth-in-labeling initiatives directly on the ballot in 2011 or 2012. If you’re interesting in helping organize or coordinate a Millions Against Monsanto and Factory Farms Truth-in-Labeling campaign in your local community, sign up here: http://organicconsumers.org/oca-volunteer/

To pressure Whole Foods Market and the nation’s largest supermarket chains to voluntarily adopt truth-in-labeling practices sign here, and circulate this petition widely: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22309.cfm

And please stay tuned to Organic Bytes for the latest developments in our campaigns.

Power to the People! Not the Corporations!

Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association