Letters to the Editor

CORI reform is more than a juvenile issue

I am sending this letter not to anything that I have read recently, but what I am and I’m sure others have gone through.  

Recently my child was involved in a court situation surrounding her children. They were temporarily taken from her. Not because she was unfit or had a 51A filed on her, but because the court did not know how to rectify a visitation situation with the father they deemed to be a danger to the kids.

She has taken steps to satisfy the courts — I hope and pray — so that my grandchildren will be returned to her. But she is isolated from her family, doesn’t have her children and they are not with family.  

Which brings me to this — CORI reform. I am the maternal grandmother. I have raised three children, brought two grandchildren home from the hospital and have another that I watch on occasion. I work, pay taxes and vote. But 25 years ago I made a mistake and every time I think I am past that mistake, something happens to remind me of how unforgiving this state truly is. Even when it involves family.

They chose to put my grandchildren with strangers because I have a CORI. I can not express the anger and dismay I feel. They seem to intentionally want to break down the family unit and that helps destroy the community.

I truly hope they return my grandchildren to my daughter because I don’t know how to fix this situation.

When they should intervene they don’t and they don’t seem to know when it should be support they give and not destruction.

I want to write and send letters to everyone I can. But I feel no one really listens. The system is so flawed that even after years of being an upstanding, law abiding citizen, they have taken from me what wasn’t theirs to take and I want it back!

A strong black loving
mother and grandmother
Via e-mail

Truth in organic food labels

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently finalized regulations that will ensure organically certified production practices are in keeping with the spirit of what an organic label means to consumers.

The organic rule already required that producers afford access to pasture to receive certification, but the new rule will clarify vague language about how much grazing is enough and the limited circumstances under which animals can be denied pasture access. Previous requirements, for instance, allowed some products to receive the certified organic label although the animals rarely set foot outside a confined animal feeding operation.

To obtain the label under the new rule, producers will have to give livestock access to the outdoors year-round and graze animals throughout the grazing season, which must be at least 120 days. In addition, the rules ensure that a minimum amount of an animal’s food come from pasture. A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that grazing animals on pasture is not only less damaging to the environment than raising animals inside confined operations, but that meat and milk from grass-fed cows can contain higher levels of good fats that may provide health benefits.  

USDA’s new rules will remove ambiguity for producers in meeting organic standards and give consumers greater confidence that milk and meat bearing the organic label have been produced in ways that truly benefit people, animals and the environment.