Articles by Lisa Hymas

Business Week article gave some the wrong impression, company says

Stonyfield Farm, purveyor of organic yogurt and milk, is concerned that some folks got the wrong idea about its business strategy from a recent Business Week article about the big-ification of organic, which I pointed to a couple of weeks ago.

Business Week cover story looks at the watering down of the organic ethos

A fine feature story in Business Week this week -- The Organic Myth, by Diane Brady. "As it goes mass market, the organic food business is failing to stay true to its ideals," the cover proclaims.

When I first glanced at the mag, I expected rah-rah boosterism for corporate organics and spite for old-school purists, but the article actually struck me as a pretty fair assessment of the culture clash between the organic ethos and the Big Biz model -- the gist being that the two are remarkably ill-suited. Corporate enthusiasm for organics notwithstanding -- and there's plenty of enthusiasm out there, from Wal-Mart to General Mills to Kellogg and beyond -- these two approaches to comestible commerce look increasingly irreconcilable.

None of this is new, of course -- our own Tom P. has written about the issue (and I'm interested to hear his assessment of this story). But this is the first article that's made me think the organic juggernaut is really about to blow up into a big ol' mess. Not just organic getting watered down, as is already happening, but the whole system breaking down, unable to support the new model of globally sourced organic items pouring into processed foods and mega-stores. Demand is outstripping supply by huge margins, corporations are demanding lower prices, production is being offshored to unreliable suppliers, individuals are growing even more confused about what "organic" means.

He couldn’t have done this a year ago? Or 18 years ago?

He was arguably the most powerful man in Washington for more than 18 years, but former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan waited until retirement to finally come out in favor of a gas tax. Writes Daniel Gross in the NYT:

As a rule, Mr. Greenspan, a Republican by temperament and background who was reappointed twice by Bill Clinton, adhered closely to Republican orthodoxy on taxes: the lower the better. Mr. Greenspan was hardly a proponent of raising taxes on energy to encourage conservation, a policy prescription generally associated with the politicians and economists of the left.

Until now. In late September, as he spoke to a group of business executives in Massachusetts, a question was posed as to whether he'd like to see an increase in the federal gasoline tax, which has stood at 18.4 cents a gallon since 1993. "Yes, I would," Mr. Greenspan responded with atypical clarity. "That's the way to get consumption down. It's a national security issue."

Want to bet Ben Bernanke will wait until retirement before he comes to the same sage conclusion?

Damn those activist judges!

Here's some big, breaking news. Reports AP:

A federal judge on Wednesday reinstated a ban on road construction in nearly a third of national forests, overturning a Bush administration rule that allowed states to decide how to manage individual forests.

U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte sided with states and environmental groups that sued the U.S. Forest Service after it reversed President Clinton's 2001 "Roadless Rule" that prohibited logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres in 38 states and Puerto Rico.

In May last year, the Bush administration replaced the Clinton rule with a process that required governors to petition the federal government to protect national forests in their states.

Laporte said the process violated federal law because it didn't require necessary environmental studies.

...

"This is fantastic news for millions of Americans who have consistently told the forest service that they wanted these last wild areas of public land protected," said Kristen Boyles, an attorney for Earthjustice, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit in October 2005.

Stay tuned for more ...