SV Review: Organic Consumers Association

Why Is OCA So Great? Because It's Packed With Quality Eco-Content

Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association, spoke at the May 2003 Eco Fair in my hometown, Fairfield, IA.

I was impressed by his knowledge and extreme candor, and I was eager to have a good look at the OCA site.

After listening to Ronnie Cummins for five minutes, I thought that OCA had to be one of the best sites on the web if you're pro-planet earth. That impression has been confirmed with every visit to OCA.

Here are just a few of the topics listed on the OCA home page:

• Organic food
• organic cotton
• genetic engineering
• Monsanto, World Trade Organization
• Anti Globalization
• Community Supported Agriculture
• Mad Cow Disease
• pesticide contamination
• agricultural subsidies
• pollution lawsuits

OCA walks it's talk, and promotes its many consumer activist campaigns on the website. Here's a sample of topics on the home page:

Protest Starbucks, join OCA for WTO protest, adopt an organic apple tree, stop GM wheat, safeguard our students, sign the food agenda 2010 petition, protest Kraft, join the OCA action network, enroll 5000 in your congressional district.

OCA links from their main menu bar on all pages of all of its sites to content from the Greenpeople site, which tells you where to find organics, listing CSA/s, wholefood stores and co-ops, farmers markets etc.

In spite of being packed to the rafters, the site is well designed, and well organized, easy to navigate. It's clear where you are and what's happening at all times. That's rare!

Listed on the home page side bar are all the site sections, each one a separate website: GE Food, Organic Food, Irradiation, Mad Cow/Mad Deer, Fair Trade, rBGH, Globalization, Cloning and Patenting, Food Safety, and OCA Publications.

Each home page of all these sub-sites repeats the basic structure of the OCA home page, with sub-headings, and a sub-menu of links clearly indicating the content. The left side bar repeats that of the OA home page, and the right side bar lists consumer action campaigns related to the sub-site topic.

The only disappointing thing to me about the OCA Site is there is no information about the people behind it, and I was trying to figure that out. Either they think it's unnecessary, or they're excessively modest, or they may not want to show their faces for security reasons. Or it's not the done thing on non-profit sites, and I'm just not with it.

Update, 2.06: Ronnie Cummins, OCA Director, has become more publicly visible on the OCA Forums and Blog

Visit Organic Consumers Association, and spend a few days there, bookmark it, and go back often. It's up to you whether you join their network, or go on protests. But do subscribe to the newsletter, Organic Bytes.

Judith Kingsbury, Savvy Vegetarian

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Articles and Reviews on Related Topics:

Congress Weakens Organic Standards Ecological Organic Agriculture Eco-Fair, Fairfield, IA, 2003 EPA's Dirty Air Agreement Farmers Backs Against The Wall Over GMO Food Revolution Review Got Local Organic Milk? Mad Cow Disease In The US Organic Consumers Association Organic Food; What Is It, And Why Should We Eat It? Rat Babies Died - Mothers Ate GE Soy, Jeffrey M. Smith State of the Eco-Union, Joel Salatin

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