Thanks to the magic of the internet we imagine there will be years to come of our seeing the reappearance of the totally deceptive piece about us ‘caving to Monsanto’ that originated in 2011. So, we thought we’d address its latest reappearance with an up-to-date response.
The backstory
In January, 2011, the USDA de-regulated the use of GMO alfalfa. Somehow, and as a huge shock to us, we – along with Whole Foods and Organic Valley – were blamed for this decision. Even worse, we were accused of surrendering to Monsanto and accepting the production of foods made with GMOs. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Yet this accusation stirred the imaginations of a few blog writers already angry about the USDA decision, and before we knew it, we were being bombarded on all sides by angry organic fans who believed this story instead of our years and years of activism against Monsanto and GMOs and all of our work to promote organic food production.
The REAL story
Leading up to the de-regulation of GMO alfalfa, we fought hard against Monsanto’s push for de-regulating GMO alfalfa. But the effort of our coalition of passionate organic advocates wasn’t enough to beat back the Goliath efforts and lobbying money of Monsanto and the chemical industry. We were totally disheartened by the USDA decision. Equally dismaying were the false claims that we had somehow given up the fight – especially when these claims came from people who could and should have been standing with us instead of trying to divide the organic community.
We’re not done fighting
Since then, we’ve continued in our battle against Monsanto and the use of GMOs in the production of our foods. Our co-founder, Gary Hirshberg, is now the Chairman of Just Label It – a national effort to require the labeling of all foods produced with the use of GMOs. We were active supporters of the California Prop 37 initiative to require labeling at the state level. And we continue to be passionate about creating our own certified organic products without the use of GMOs every day.
It’s always inspiring to see how passionate our fans are about an issue that’s also so incredibly important to us. We hope you’ll use that energy to join us in the fight against GMOs – and spread the real story that we’re not planning on dropping out of that fight any time soon.
