Organic Watch Press Release: April 30, 1998

For Immediate Release: April 30, 1998           Contact: Roger Blobaum 202/537-0191 Melanie Adcock 301/258-3111 Joseph Mendelson 202/547-9359 (Washington, DC). An Organic Watch independent review of over 93,000 of the first 130,000 comments received by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on its proposed National Organic Food rules shows that the rule has been overwhelmingly…

Read More

Guest Commentary published in the “OFARM Quarterly” – Organic Farmers and Consumers Face New Challenge: Stopping Government Backsliding on Organic Integrity 2006

Organic Farmers and Consumers Face New Challenge: Stopping Government Backsliding on Organic Integrity This guest commentary was published in the November 2006 issue of OFARM Quarterly. By Roger Blobaum Developments unfolding in the organic industry are raising serious new concerns about how fast the organic sector can be expanded and mainstreamed without weakening standards, undermining…

Read More

INSIDE ORGANIC: Naming Industry Representatives to Consumer Slots Upsets the Balance And Undermines the Integrity of the National Organic Standards Board (May 06)

  by Roger Blobaum · Inside Organics · MOSES Broadcaster · May-June 2006   The appointment of two industry representatives to National Organic Standards Board slots reserved for consumer/public interest representatives has raised new questions about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s commitment to enforce legal requirements of the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) and protect the…

Read More

Presentation at the Upper Midwest Organic Conference 1998

Roger Blobaum, Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference, Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, February 20, 1998 When Faye Jones asked me last November to pick a title for my talk here, I had just completed a year as coordinator of a new initiative called the Soul of Agriculture Project. And I had just spent several weeks putting together a…

Read More

Testimony to the US Senate Agriculture Committee on the Organic Rule 1997

My name is Roger Blobaum and most of my work on organic food and farming has been as a consultant to public interest organizations and institutions. This process has dragged on a long time. In 1990 the Senate Agriculture Committee was presented with petitions containing 136,000 names of people asking for national organic standards. Most…

Read More

A speech on Organic and Sustainable Agriculture in Asia | 1996

By Roger Blobaum, October, 26, 1996 In a 1911 book entitled ‘Farmers of Forty Centuries,” F.H. King, retired chief of USDA’s Division of Soil Management, described how farmers in Asia had farmed the same fields for 4,000 years without destroying their fertility. L. F. Bailey, in the preface to this agricultural classic, said the book’s…

Read More

Public Input to the National Organic Standards Board 1993

Statement by Roger Blobaum, Public Input Session, National Organic Standards Board, Kutztown, Pennsylvania May 16, 1993 Mr. Chairman and members of the board, my name is Roger Blobaum and I have a small consulting firm that provides professional services to organic and sustainable agriculture organizations.  I have been involved in the development of organic agriculture…

Read More

Presentation at the Upper Midwest Organic Conference – Organic Farmers and the Feds: Can This Relationship Be Saved? 1993

Roger Blobaum, Upper Midwest Organic Conference, Sparta, Wisconsin, March 6, 1993 The title I have selected for this talk, “Organic Farmers and the Feds:  Can This Relationship Be Saved?”, describes in many ways the difficult political situation we face with organic agriculture today. Getting the feds and organic farmers together in 1990 wasn’t easy.  It…

Read More

A paper titled Organic Food and Farming; Development of Ecologically-Sound Agriculture Around the World 1993

Organic Food and Farming; Development of Ecologically-Sound Agriculture Around the World By Roger Blobaum, World Sustainable Agriculture Association 1993 Abstract. This paper reports on the growth of organic agriculture in many parts of the world, continuing attempts to define organic food and farming, trends in the development of international organic food markets, factors responsible for…

Read More

Remarks on the Organic Food Production Act at the Eco-Farm Conference 1992

Remarks by Roger Blobaum Eco-Farm Conference, Asilomar, California January 24, 1992 It feels great to get away from Washington, where nobody seems to be having any fun. Everybody is blaming everybody else for the deficit and the recession and the White House political staff has finally grounded the President and confiscated his passport. This follows…

Read More

First Nominations Submitted For the National Organic Standards Board 1990

DECEMBER 31, 1990 From the Maryland Organic Food and Farming Association: ChristineJohnson:Own/Operate an Organic Farm Chesapeake Center Farm, Marion Station, MD Walter Ehrhardt Own/Operate an Organic Farm Ehrhardt Organic Farm, Knoxville, MD Roger Blobaum: Public Interest CSPI, Washington, DC Michael Heller: Environmental Protection & Resource Conservation Claggett Farm (Chesapeake Bay Foundation) From the Mississippi Organic…

Read More

Organic Food Production Act: Statement to the joint hearing of the Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations, & Nutrition Subcommittee and the Department Operations, Research, & Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee House Committee on Agriculture 1990

Statement by Roger Blobaum, Center for Science in the Public Interest Presented at joint hearing of the Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations, & Nutrition Subcommittee and the Department Operations, Research, & Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee House Committee on Agriculture Washington, DC June 19, 1990 Mr. Chairman, I am Roger Blobaum, director of the Americans for Safe Food…

Read More

Organic Food Production Act: TRANSCRIPT of Testimony and Delivery of Petitions to US Senate Committee on Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry 1990

Organic Food Production Act TRANSCRIPTS of Testimony and Delivery of Petitions to US Senate Committee on Agriculture Nutrition and Forestry March 26, 1990   Mr. Blobaum. Mr. Chairman, the petitions are all here in these boxes and we will just make a token presentation here. These are petitions with 136,000 signatures gathered nationwide by individuals…

Read More

Organic Food Production Act S. 2108: Presentation of 136,000 consumer signatures to Senator Patrick Leahy and the Senate Subcommitee on Agriculture 1990

Statement by Roger Blobaum, Center for Science in the Public Interest Presented to the Subcommittee on Research and General Legislation Senate Committee on Agriculture Washington, D.C. March 22, 1990 Mr. Chairman, I am Roger Blobaum, director of the Americans for Safe Food Project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.  CSPI is a…

Read More