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Children's letters now available!
and Iceland supermarket chain goes organic

June 16

Dear Health Freedom Fighters,

The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods is pleased to announce we have updated our popular web site. You will notice some revised navigation buttons and added content. Other improvements are coming soon. 

One of the most exciting new developments is the addition of our "Children's Letters."

http://www.thecampaign.org/children.htm

Each of the five children's letters contain an outline of a butterfly that can be colored with crayons or colored pencils and sent to the appropriate politician. There is a House Representative letter, a Senator letter, a letter to President Clinton, and letters to presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush.

When you visit the web page for the Children's Letters, you will see a "before" and "after" example. The first image is a black & white letter to President Clinton. Move your computer mouse over the image and the butterfly letter will change to one that has been hand-colored.

Kids will enjoy coloring these butterfly letters with crayons and colored pencils. The Children Letters can be the "spice" that gives our legislative initiative the extra attention it needs from our elected officials. 

If you have children, or have friends with children, please involve these future voters in the political process by having them send butterfly letters to President Clinton, Vice-President Gore, Governor Bush, their two Senators and their House Representative.

Have fun with these letters. They can be completed in a day, over several days, or several weeks. Coloring the butterfly letters can be a great project for children in classes, attending day care centers, and during the long days of summer vacation. By the time a child has colored the set of letters, he or she will have a much better understanding of our political  system. And these young Americans will be playing an important part in the effort to get labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Special thanks goes out to Jennifer Esperanza and Donnia Herberger of the New Mexico-based "Food Fight" organization for their assistance in the butterfly letter project. 

Print the butterfly letters out on your computer by going to:

http://www.thecampaign.org/children.htm

Other improvements to The Campaign's web site include our new "Action Center" and "Frequent Questions." And we have changed our "News Update" web page to "News & Analysis." The Analysis section includes The Campaign's ongoing editorial opinions about the continuing worldwide battle over genetically engineered foods.

http://www.thecampaign.org/
newsupdates/index.htm

WITH THIS E-MAIL, I AM INCLUDING AN ARTICLE BELOW OF GREAT SIGNIFICANCE. It is from Reuters news service and reports on a new initiative to promote organic produce from the British supermarket chain Iceland. Iceland was the first British supermarket chain to ban genetically engineered foods from their stores. Iceland's effort against genetically engineered foods led the marketplace in the United Kingdom and served as an example to the other supermarket chains who soon followed Iceland's lead.

Now Iceland is making an unprecedented move to promote organic agriculture. This effort could be the first major step in a worldwide movement towards organic agriculture.

The biotech agriculture industry has attempted to promote genetically engineered crops as a method to use less pesticides. However, research is showing that genetically engineered crops still require nearly as much use of pesticides as non-genetically engineered crops. Organic agriculture, on the other hand, has the ability to completely eliminate the use of toxic pesticides. Pests are controlled by methods non-toxic to humans and the environment.

Because agriculture has employed the use of chemical pesticides for about 55 years, we have come to accept it as necessary to grow crops. Yet many of the pesticides have been shown to cause cancer, birth defects and other serious diseases. Perhaps we should be questioning not only the use of genetic engineering, but also the use of all chemical pesticides. That appears to be what Iceland is doing in the United Kingdom.

I am reminded of a quote by Revolutionary War hero Thomas Paine. In the introduction to his famous work "Common Sense" he stated, "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right." That seems to be the case with chemical agriculture.

From the beginning of time on planet earth to about 1945, virtually all agriculture was organic agriculture. It was only after World War II that farmers rapidly switched to chemical agriculture with the promise of the "Green Revolution." Human history is likely to look back on the change from organic agriculture to chemical agriculture after WWII as a giant mistake.

These chemical pesticides are responsible for polluting our water, land and air. Millions of agricultural workers have been poisoned by them and they have contributed to untold amounts of cancer and other deadly diseases. Unfortunately, genetically engineered methods of agriculture have the potential to be even more harmful than conventional chemical agriculture.

We are at a pivotal point in the history of agriculture. One path leads to wide scale use of genetically engineered crops. Another path leads to a future of sustainable organic agriculture. Let's hope that the action of the Iceland supermarket chain will be an important step towards a global rediscovery of the health and environmental advantages of organic agriculture.

Craig Winters
Executive Director
The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

UK's Iceland to bring organic food to mass market

By Mian Ridge

LONDON, June 14 (Reuters) - British supermarket Iceland Group Plc said on Wednesday it was investing nine million pounds ($13.58 million) in an initiative to bring organic produce to customers at similar prices to other food.

Iceland, the first supermarket chain to ban genetically modified food from its stores, said it had secured nearly 40 percent of the world's organic produce and set up long-term contracts with suppliers.

``This is the biggest move in the organic industry so far,'' said Chairman Malcolm Walker in a statement. ``It is our aim to stop organics being a niche market and make it accessible to all income groups.''

Iceland will start by switching its own-label frozen vegetables to organic produce before converting a whole range of conventional foods. Instead of hiking prices to secure profits it will reduce margins on organic food to the tune of eight million pounds.

``This means the company will be able to sell organics at the same price as ordinary supermarket own-label food, while ensuring customers and farmers get the best deal,'' it said.

Kate Calvert, an analyst at HSBC bank said the move was part of Iceland's brand repositioning strategy. The supermarket is seeking to distance itself from its image as a purely frozen food retailer, in which will be helped along by its merger with grocery wholesaler Booker Plc announced last month.

The deal with Booker is seen as a merger of complimentary businesses, which will remain separate but reap some synergies. Booker is strong in room-temperature foods.

Organic demand outstripping supply

Calvert said the success of Iceland's move into organic food depended upon its handling of the supply-demand issue.

Iceland says the market for organic food is predicted to grow by 40 percent per year for the next five years. With only three percent of British land currently organic, demand for organic food would quickly grow to outstrip supply.

In order to overcome short-term difficulties this would create, Iceland said it would source 80 percent of its frozen vegetables from overseas, but it would also invest one million pounds in the British National Trust's farming program to increase organic acreage in the UK.

``This is a big marketing push for Iceland,'' said Calvery. ``There is potential for growth here, but in any case Iceland's competitors will follow it into the mass market for organic food very fast.''