We raise most of our own food, meat and veggies, and even make our own soap, beer, and wine.  What we can't/don't raise we get from friends who do.  But the USDA is trying to make it impossible for little guys to raise their own meat and if the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is allowed to become mandatory, it will be impossible to find free-range eggs, chicken, beef, etc.  Their tracking and premises I.D. requirements will put all small producers out of business.  You can kiss raw milk, farmstead cheeses, free-range poultry and eggs good-by forever.  Call your Congressmen and Senators and talk to your state representatives, NAIS will force us all to eat heavily processed, mass-produced food!

If you are considering throwing in the towel on food labeled as "organic", even USDA organic, consider this:

chemical fertilizer in the USA had the weakest regulations compared to other countries in the world that regulated fertilizer.  And, the regulations that were in place prior to this administration, only came about after Duff Wilson, an investigative reporter previously with the Seattle Times, had uncovered what became an award winning series entitled Fear in the Fields.  Wilson uncovered that legally hazardous wastes went into the silos as hazardous waste but magically came out as fertilizer.

His articles are still in the archives at the Seattle Times, but here is an article by Seattles Times reporter, Tom Brown that I happen to have found.

The date was Wednesday, July 23, 1997, and the article (in the Business section) was entitled:

Food Processors Ask State For Regulations On Toxins In Fertilizer - - Industrial Waste Puts `Public Trust' At Risk

**An association of 75 Northwest food-processing companies wants Washington state to regulate the practice of using industrial-waste products - some of which contain toxic substances - in the production of fertilizer....

"The Northwest Food Processors Association believes that the practice of using industrial byproducts to produce fertilizer should be regulated by the departments of Ecology and Agriculture," said Smith's July 17 memo to Pendowski. "While using industrial byproducts may serve an environmentally sound purpose, these products should meet a risk-based standard prior to being licensed for sale." ...

In stories July 3 and 4, The Seattle Times reported that fertilizers are so poorly regulated that substances containing such hazardous materials as cadmium, lead, arsenic, radioactive elements and dioxins are sometimes included in their manufacture...**

archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/.../display

I am currently trying to establish a CSA (Community Supported Ag) and Co-op here in my neighborhood.  With this background and experience I can tell you that most folks would rather know where and how their food is grown as opposed to it just having the "organic" label.  For a small operation to become "certified organic" is the equivalent, in my opinion, of a special individualized gov. tax  (fee charged for that cert.) which once paid will give the operator back their constitiutional right to freedom of speech, allowing them to use the word "organic" when descibing their growing practices without fear of being fined if caught using that word without gov. certificaton!  Now how free is that speech? I hope most people wise up to the fact that they are responsible for the food they consume and if they want REAL food, then do the homework and find the people who want to provide it in your neck of the woods.  There is no substitute for personal responsibility on the consumers part and there is no gov cert. that is automatically going to make a grower "organic".  It is actions, not words!!  I fear we will just be left with gov. looking for additiional ways to collect more of our hard earned pay, while telling us they are actually trying to ensure our safety and serve us and the additional fee's are 'the cost' of it all.  "Government that governs the least, governs the best." .... Ok, I'll step down off my soap box now.  I need to go start some plants from heirloom seeds so that my family can eat this coming winter.  Which by the way....90% of what my family ate this winter was from what I managed to 'put up' last summer as far as vegetables, fruit and meat, (canned, dried, frozen and root cellared)-hoping to get one cow someday.  To sum it up, I may be a bit preachy here but I do practice what I preach.

Trust not the Bush-Cheney USDA, EPA, FDA, Department of Interior or anything else that corporate lobbyists have been appointed to in government by the Bush-Cheney Administration.  Everything coming out of this administration is FRAUD and deception!  

However, there is still some organic food that is organic produced.  And, it may even be organically produced in China.  It's just that there are no regulations in China, to my knowledge, and the regulations that were once in place in the USA were based on peer reviewed science, something that the Bush Administration does not support.  They only support vested interest science by the lobbyists of industries and not the organic production industry.

Right after the Bush Administration took over the White House, long-time staffers that did not support the new agenda were fired and replaced with corporate lobbyists.  First to go were at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but also Bush appointed a Dow Chemical lobbyist to the National Institutes of Health. At the NIH, I noticed (because I'm in there often) that all the subtitled had been cleared of citations (at the Hazardous Substances Data Banks) and obviously non-scientific data was put in its place. When Bush science was added, it all predated the Clinton Administration, that is, studies were published during the Reagan-Bush and Bush Quayle administrations, with no new findings published.

Suddenly toxic formaldehyde, a human carcinogen, no longer caused cancer in humans, according to the overall of the data base by industry lobbyists.  And there is more, but it will take a long time to locate citations that attest to what I'm writing.