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ORGANIC
Org a nic Consum er s A sso ci at ion
Thanksgiving and the Organic Revolution
This Thanksgiving, the OCA gives special thanks to the indigenous farm-
ers and wildcrafters of the Western Hemisphere for cultivating and pre-
serving our food, fiber, medicinal herbs, and biodiversity
for thousands of years. We also bow our heads to our con-
temporary farmers, gardeners, ranchers, farm workers, food
workers, cooks, and holistic healers who are following the
ancient Via Organica, the organic way. As we give thanks to
our organic ancestors and contemporaries, let us renew our
essential pledge as organic consumers and activists to protect
and safeguard the global commons. Let us pledge to build a
healthy organic future of peace, justice, sustainability, and
participatory democracy. Let us promise one another today
that we will rescue and re-stabilize our climate, clean up our
air and water, rebuild our soils, and protect our precious bio-
diversity from the ravages of “profit-at-any-cost” corpora-
tions and indentured politicians and scientists.
75% Of The World’s Food
Seventy-five percent of the food and fiber we grow today
was discovered and cultivated by the native farmers and
hunter-gatherers of North, Central and South America.
These indigenous varieties include corn, beans, peanuts,
cotton, potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, avocados, blue-
berries, cranberries, strawberries, squashes, black walnuts,
pecans, chocolate, tobacco, rubber, sunflowers, and medici-
nal herbs and plants. Today, every one of these varieties are threatened by
Monsanto, Big Pharma, and industrial agriculture, among others, who
are privatizing and patenting seeds and the gene pool, eroding biodi-
versity, degrading the soil and water, contaminating the food chain, and
destabilizing the climate.
A Cultivated Eden Described As A Wilderness
What European colonists mistakenly described as wilderness was actu-
ally a human-created and nurtured landscape, providing food, medici-
nal herbs, bountiful wildlife, healthy, living soil, and clean water. Native
Americans “managed” the environment “organically,” producing and/or
maintaining for themselves and the future generations native animals,
birds, fish, berries, nuts, greens, fruits, bulbs, corn, mushrooms, roots,
basketry and cordage materials, firewood, hunting and building materi-
als, herbal medicines, and plants for ceremonial use. Many “wild” or com-
mercial plants or varieties that exist today are in fact derived from ancient
Native American seed saving and cross-breeding that produced better-
tasting, climate adapted, and nutritional varieties. The popular belief
that pre-Columbian America was a “pristine wilderness” is false. This
destructive myth is based upon essentially racist stereotypes that reduce
the highly successful plant and animal husbandry of Native American
rural societies to the instinctual behavior of wildlife or “noble savages.”
There are no “spontaneous Edens”. The New World Gardens of Eden
spread across the Americas and the Caribbean, mindlessly exploited by
the European conquerors, were the product of the wisdom, hard work,
and perseverance of millions of Native Americans, caring for what they
believed was a “sacred Earth” and an interconnected web of life that
included all living things. In a similar manner, we must understand today
that there will be no spontaneous organic or green revival, nor magical
climate re-stabilization. An organic and healthy life for the present and
future generations will require the dedicated work and perseverance of
millions. In the near future we will either stop the deadly assaults on our
biodiversity, our food chain, our health, and our climate, or else the bio-
logical carrying capacity of the Earth will collapse, along with “modern
civilization” as we know it.
Written and edited by Alexis Baden-Mayer & Ronnie Cummins · Please post, distribute, & subscribe: organicconsumers.org/organicbytes.cfm
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A Wealth of Biodiversity, Still Preserved Today
Millions of indigenous people continue to farm and raise animals the
ancient way, the organic way:
g 4,200 Years of Farming on the Colorado Plateau
On the Colorado Plateau, farming has been an unbroken
cultural tradition for at least 4200 years. The Navajo, Zuni,
Apache, Hopi, Paiute and Tewa have cultivated the most
diverse annual crop assemblage in the New World north of
the Tropic of Cancer.
g The Wayana’s Cultivated Eden
The farming system of the Wayana society of French Guy-
ana is based on diverse and flexible cultivation, with char-
acteristically high biodiversity. Organic agriculture and
permaculture form a rich, biologically complex system of
food production, complimented by wildcrafting, fishing,
and hunting. In Wayana, there is no artificial separation
between cultivated and wild areas, which is the basis for
what we call permaculture.
g The Milpa System and 20,000 Varieties Of Corn
Few regions in the world have an organic farming sys-
tem as sustainable and productive as the traditional milpa
or “three sisters” organic corn fields of Mexico and Cen-
tral America. The Mayan milpa tradition is the planting of
heirloom varieties of corn in mounds or raised beds, inter-
cropped with biologically complimentary species such as
beans and squash, fertilized through natural processes,
weeded, harvested and hulled by hand and tended individually. The
ancient milpa tradition has produced traditional varieties that are health-
ier and more pest-resistant than modern chemical and water-intensive
hybrid and GMO varieties. There are over 20,000 varieties of corn in Mex-
ico and Central America. In southern and central Mexico approximately
5,000 varieties have been identified. Unfortunately, Monsanto’s GE corn—
forced on Mexico by the US—has begun to contaminate traditional Mexi-
can corn varieties, while industry and consumer-induced global warming
has spawned drought, pestilence, flooding, and killer hurricanes.
g Andean Terraced Potatoes, with Thousands of Varieties
In the Andes, generations of farmers have domesticated thousands of
potato varieties. Farmers cultivate up to 50 varieties on their farms. In the
biodiversity reserve of the Chiloé archipelago in Chile, 200 varieties of
native potato are cultivated, using farming practices transmitted orally by
generations of mainly women farmers. A long list of cultural and agricul-
ture treasures from the Inca civilization has been preserved and improved
over centuries to guarantee living conditions 4000 meters above sea level.
Although grassroots opposition has stopped Monsanto’s attempted inva-
sion on the Andes and other regions of the Americas with its GE potatoes,
constant vigilance and struggle will be required.
Learn more about indigenous peoples in the Americas and their contribu-
tion to sustainable agriculture here: www.is.gd/56V6m
OCA Thanks You
Thank you for everything you do as a member of the 900,000-strong OCA
network. Growing, selling, buying, or cooking healthy organic food…
Growing or purchasing organic clothing, body care products or other
green and Fair Trade items and services. Planting peace and justice and
working in your local community for food security… Teaching about
organics, holistic health, climate change, and sustainability… Joining us
in our public education and mobilization campaigns… and supporting
the OCA financially. OCA and international, network of organic consumers
cannot carry out our collective mission without your support. Please send
a tax-deductible donation today. organicconsumers.org/donations.cfm