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Locally and nationally, the organic foods community rose up at what it saw as an attempt to weaken organic standards and undermine the very meaning of the word “organic.” In New York State, the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) of New York, together with the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture (NCSA), started a joint write-in campaign to protest the flawed Rule. Some 278,000 complaints were registered with the USDA. Among them were the voices of organic farming couple Polly and Jay Armour, who own and run the Four Winds Community Supported Agriculturel (CSA) farm in Gardiner. According to Polly Armour, the tremendous outpouring of individual public commentary led to a shakeup in staffing at the USDA, including the replacement of “a group of marketing gurus who had no idea of what organic meant, but who knew different ways of marketing products, not necessarily growing them.” Longtime sustainable agriculture advocate Kathleen Merrigan, who authored the congressional Act in 1990 while working as an aide to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, was hired as head of the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. The USDA also brought on board Keith Jones, as program manager of its National Organic Program. Jones was responsible for helping to set up the Texas State Department of Agricultures’ organic program. Through the direction of Merrigan and Jones, others familiar with the true definitions of organic agriculture were brought in and a rewrite of the standards took place. On March 13, 2000, a new set of standards was released for public comment. While this new Rule shows a marked improvement over the previous one, it still has “some terrible problems,” according to Liana Hoodes, associate national director of NCSA. “There are loopholes in this Rule that could allow for big industry to take over the agricultural market from the smaller farmers and push them out of the foods system,” says Hoodes. Among the items deemed unacceptable by NCSA are: • Regulations that would hold organic farmers responsible for the polluting actions of others. Specifically, the failure to address the consequences, economic and otherwise—of gene pollution in situations where pollen from farms growing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) would drift over and “pollute” an organic farmer’s crop, or the drifting of chemicals used by neighboring farms and mandatory state or federal spray programs. In such a scenario, organic proponents feel that liability should be shouldered by those producing the technology, and not the organic farmer who would be penalized by losing their crop or their “organic” certification. Depending on the level of the “polluting” effect from either of these actions, the USDA would be able to force an organic farmer to 1) till their crop under and thereby lose the entire crop for that year (low-level, short-term effect), or 2) lose their “organic” certification until the time when the soil would be cleared of the pesticide (high-level, long-term effect which could take years to undo). Organic proponents would like to see compensation from either the state or the federal government for such loss of crops. • The harmful effects on small farmers, businesses and certifiers from the required USDA fee scale, which charges the same to all farming entities regardless of size. • The allowance of “certified organic” animal factories where animals would not have outdoor access for most of their lives. MORE