Recent comments

You say you put your name on the article, But that only matters if you have a well known reputation for being accurate. Otherwise it's meaningless. Who is Ryan ? Is a committed, concerned person? Is he a PR flack looking to divert bad press, Does he just post stuff to be contrary ? If you were Dan Rather, or Carl Sagan, that would something, but you aren't, so putting your name to it gives us no more information than before.

As you say, brevity should be a warning. Saying that cross contamination happens all the time, belittles and obscures the problem. It's like saying droughts happen all the time. It's a serious problem for farmers who grow organic and find their crop renders useless for the market they intended by the careless actions of others. Cross contamination can be avoided by maintaining a buffer zone. Large agribusiness farmers refuse to do that despite having been notified. There are many cases of this and it's the organic farmer that takes the brunt of it.

Whole Food sells conventional products, yes and that's not really a problem, it's also not really the point of the article.
The point is not that Whole Foods sells so little organic that it could barely fill a 3x5 ft square area (15 sq ft, your figures), while that's sad for a store that bases it's brand on being green and natural,
the point is that Whole Foods has dropped it's opposition to the commercialization of GMO alfalfa. The planting of GMO alfalfa will inevitably lead to more contamination which is very much at odds which a company who's core value is supposed to be to to offer the Highest Quality of Natural and Organic produce available.
The point is Whole Foods stakes it's brand, it's identity on offering natural and organic foods, it's why people will pay considerably more for produce at Whole Foods than at other supermarkets (and simple comparison shopping will bear that out, I recently took advantage of a Whole Foods coupon and found prices for comparable items were as much as twice as high at WH than at other supermarkets).
Whole Foods is taking that brand idea on the one hand and making deals with the GMO manfacturer Monsanto on the other that will further the spread of GMO crops.
That is the point. That Whole Foods cares more about profits and projecting a green image than actually running a green business.
As far as natural vs organic being not news, again that's a weak distracting response, Whole Foods certainly isn't working hard to point out the difference. If natural is not certified, then what is the difference between 'natural' and 'conventional' produce that you find in every store? If natural doesn't have an official meaning, then is something that can be used to jack the price up a bit more without actually adding anything of benefit except the vague feel good feeling that Whole Foods has propped it's business up on ? Whatever it means, it certainly doesn't mean 'probably contaminated with GMO genes'. This is not something a customer expects when handing over a bunch of money for 'natural' produce.

What is behind this whole development ?
I would encourage anyone interested to read the larger article this brief one was based one. It's about 3 pages long. http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/01/28/the-organic-elite-surrenders-to-monsanto/
There are interesting points like

"Beyond the regulatory euphemism of "conditional deregulation," this means that WFM and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S."

and

"Why is Organic Inc. Surrendering?

According to informed sources, the CEOs of WFM and Stonyfield are personal friends of former Iowa governor, now USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and in fact made financial contributions to Vilsack’s previous electoral campaigns. Vilsack was hailed as "Governor of the Year" in 2001 by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and traveled in a Monsanto corporate jet on the campaign trail. Perhaps even more fundamental to Organic Inc.’s abject surrender is the fact that the organic elite has become more and more isolated from the concerns and passions of organic consumers and locavores. The Organic Inc. CEOs are tired of activist pressure, boycotts, and petitions. Several of them have told me this to my face. "

and finally
"The consolation prize they seek is a so-called "coexistence" between the biotech Behemoth and the organic community that will lull the public to sleep and greenwash the unpleasant fact that Monsanto’s unlabeled and unregulated genetically engineered crops are now spreading their toxic genes on 1/3 of U.S. (and 1/10 of global) crop land.

WFM and most of the largest organic companies have deliberately separated themselves from anti-GMO efforts and cut off all funding to campaigns working to label or ban GMOs. The so-called Non-GMO Project, funded by Whole Foods and giant wholesaler United Natural Foods (UNFI) is basically a greenwashing effort (although the 100% organic companies involved in this project seem to be operating in good faith) to show that certified organic foods are basically free from GMOs (we already know this since GMOs are banned in organic production), while failing to focus on so-called "natural" foods, which constitute most of WFM and UNFI’s sales and are routinely contaminated with GMOs. "
Like Ryan, I have signed my name to this post as well, or have I? Is Ryan actually Ryan? Am I actually me, Or am I Anonymous?