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Regional Farm & Food Project July 2006 News If you think the government is squandering your tax dollars, these stories should set your hair on fire! 10 news stories...
* * * EVENTS & CLASSIFIEDS * * * 1. You Don't Have to Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here Time magazine, June 26, 2006 issue, page 17: "It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species." -- Stephen Hawking, astrophysicist, warning that life on earth could soon be wiped out by global warming or nuclear war. 2. NY Representative Sponsors Bill to Keep Antibiotics Working Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is sponsoring a bill called "Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA)", which would address the alarming rise of antibiotic-resistant infections in people by restricting non-therapeutic use of medically important antibiotics in animal agriculture. This bill has been championed by these organizations: Center for Science in the Public Interest, Environmental Defense, Food Animal Concerns Trust, Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, Humane Society of the United States, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, National Catholic Rural Life Conference, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Water Keeper Alliance. Now all we need is the support of the United States Congress!!! From www.keepantibioticsworking.com ... Antibiotic resistance is reaching crisis proportions, resulting in infections that are difficult, or impossible, to treat. Resistant bacteria can evolve even after careful use of antibiotics. But the overuse and misuse of antibiotics greatly accelerates the proliferation of resistant bacteria, thus speeding the demise of antibiotics as effective treatments. Keep Antibiotics Working: The Campaign to End Antibiotic Overuse includes concerned health, consumer, agricultural, environmental, humane and other advocacy groups with more than nine million members, all working to reduce the growing public health threat of antibiotic resistance. Our primary goal is to end the overuse and misuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture, though we also support efforts to limit overuse in human medicine. Current estimates indicate that agriculture accounts for more than 80 percent of antibiotic use in the U.S. 3. Test Tube Meat Nears Dinner Table What if the next burger you ate was created in a warm, nutrient-enriched soup swirling within a bioreactor? Edible, lab-grown ground chuck that smells and tastes just like the real thing might take a place next to Quorn at supermarkets in just a few years, thanks to some determined meat researchers. Scientists routinely grow small quantities of muscle cells in petri dishes for experiments, but now for the first time a concentrated effort is under way to mass-produce meat in this manner. Henk Haagsman, a professor of meat sciences at Utrecht University, and his Dutch colleagues are working on growing artificial pork meat out of pig stem cells. They hope to grow a form of minced meat suitable for burgers, sausages and pizza toppings within the next few years. Currently involved in identifying the type of stem cells that will multiply the most to create larger quantities of meat within a bioreactor, the team hopes to have concrete results by 2009. The 2 million euro ($2.5 million) Dutch-government-funded project began in April 2005. The work is one arm of a worldwide research effort focused on growing meat from cell cultures on an industrial scale. "All of the technology exists today to make ground meat products in vitro," says Paul Kosnik, vice president of engineering at Tissue Genesis in Hawaii. Kosnik is growing scaffold-free, self-assembled muscle. "We believe the goal of a processed meat product is attainable in the next five years if funding is available and the R&D is pursued aggressively." A single cell could theoretically produce enough meat to feed the world's population for a year. But the challenge lies in figuring out how to grow it on a large scale. Jason Matheny, a University of Maryland doctoral student and a director of New Harvest, a nonprofit organization that funds research on in vitro meat, believes the easiest way to create edible tissue is to grow "meat sheets," which are layers of animal muscle and fat cells stretched out over large flat sheets made of either edible or removable material. The meat can then be ground up or stacked or rolled to get a thicker cut. "You'd need a bunch of industrial-size bioreactors," says Matheny. "One to produce the growth media, one to produce cells, and one that produces the meat sheets. The whole operation could be under one roof." The advantage, he says, is you avoid the inefficiencies and bottlenecks of conventional meat production. No more feed grain production and processing, breeders, hatcheries, grow-out, slaughter or processing facilities. "To produce the meat we eat now, 75 (percent) to 95 percent of what we feed an animal is lost because of metabolism and inedible structures like skeleton or neurological tissue," says Matheny. "With cultured meat, there's no body to support; you're only building the meat that eventually gets eaten." The sheets would be less than 1 mm thick and take a few weeks to grow. But the real issue is the expense. If cultivated with nutrient solutions that are currently used for biomedical applications, the cost of producing one pound of in vitro meat runs anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000. Matheny believes in vitro meat can compete with conventional meat by using nutrients from plant or fungal sources, which could bring the cost down to about $1 per pound. If successful, artificially grown meat could be tailored to be far healthier than any type of farm-grown meat. It's possible to stuff if full of heart-friendly omega-3 fatty acids, adjust the protein or texture to suit individual taste preferences and screen it for food-borne diseases. But will it really catch on? The Food and Drug Administration has already barred food products involving cloned animals from the market until their safety has been tested. There's also the yuck factor. "Cultured meat isn't natural, but neither is yogurt," says Matheny. "And neither, for that matter, is most of the meat we eat. Cramming 10,000 chickens in a metal shed and dosing them full of antibiotics isn't natural. I view cultured meat like hydroponic vegetables. The end product is the same, but the process used to make it is different. Consumers accept hydroponic vegetables. Would they accept hydroponic meat?" Taste is another unknown variable. Real meat is more than just cells; it has blood vessels, connective tissue, fat, etc. To get a similar arrangement of cells, lab-grown meat will have to be exercised and stretched the way a real live animal's flesh would. Kosnik is working on a way to create muscle grown without scaffolds by culturing the right combination of cells in a 3-D environment with mechanical anchors so that the cells develop into long fibers similar to real muscle. The technology to grow a juicy steak, however, is still a decade or so away. No one has yet figured out how to grow blood vessels within tissue. "In the meantime, we can use existing technologies to satisfy the demand for ground meat, which is about half of the meat we eat (and a $127 billion global market)," says Matheny. Copyright 2006, Lycos, Inc. 4. Stop the Commercial Planting of the First Temperate GE Tree USDA is accepting public comments between now and July 17, 2006 on a petition that would allow commercial growing and marketing of the first genetically engineered (GE) plum trees. Because this is the first genetically engineered temperate tree proposed for commercial planting, it opens the door to the commercialization of GE varieties of other temperate trees such as poplars, pines, and walnuts. It is critical that all concerned about the threat of GE foods and GE trees respond to this USDA petition. To submit your comments, send an original and three copies with your name and address to Docket No. APHIS-2006-0084, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8, 4700 River Road, Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238. If you wish to submit a comment using the Internet, go to http://www.regulations.gov. In the "Agency" box, select "Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service" from the drop-down menu; select "NOTICES" as the Document Type and APHIS-2006-0084 as the "Keyword or ID." Then press "submit" to submit or view public comments as well as the agency's supporting materials; click just beneath "Add Comments" and scroll down to submit your letter. For more information and points to make in your comments, see:
5. Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm By Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul and Sarah Cohen, Washington Post, Sunday, July 2, 2006 EL CAMPO, Tex. -- Even though Donald R. Matthews put his sprawling new residence in the heart of rice country, he is no farmer. He is a 67-year-old asphalt contractor who wanted to build a dream house for his wife of 40 years. Yet under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice. Matthews is not alone. Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post. Some of them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars without planting a seed. Mary Anna Hudson, 87, from the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston, has received $191,000 over the past decade. For Houston surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell, the total was $490,709. "I don't agree with the government's policy," said Matthews, who wanted to give the money back but was told it would just go to other landowners. "They give all of this money to landowners who don't even farm, while real farmers can't afford to get started. It's wrong." The checks to Matthews and other landowners were intended 10 years ago as a first step toward eventually eliminating costly, decades-old farm subsidies. Instead, the payments have grown into an even larger subsidy that benefits millionaire landowners, foreign speculators and absentee landlords, as well as farmers. Most of the money goes to real farmers who grow crops on their land, but they are under no obligation to grow the crop being subsidized. They can switch to a different crop or raise cattle or even grow a stand of timber -- and still get the government payments. The cash comes with so few restrictions that subdivision developers who buy farmland advertise that homeowners can collect farm subsidies on their new back yards. The payments now account for nearly half of the nation's expanding agricultural subsidy system, a complex web that has little basis in fairness or efficiency. What began in the 1930s as a limited safety net for working farmers has swollen into a far-flung infrastructure of entitlements that has cost $172 billion over the past decade. In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare. The Post's nine-month investigation found farm subsidy programs that have become so all-encompassing and generous that they have taken much of the risk out of farming for the increasingly wealthy individuals who dominate it. The farm payments have also altered the landscape and culture of the Farm Belt, pushing up land prices and favoring large, wealthy operators. The system pays farmers a subsidy to protect against low prices even when they sell their crops at higher prices. It makes "emergency disaster payments" for crops that fail even as it provides subsidized insurance to protect against those failures. And it pays people such as Matthews for merely owning land that was once farmed. "We're simply administering it the way Congress established," said John A. Johnson, a top official at the U.S. Agriculture Department. Today, even key farm-state figures believe the direct-payment program needs a major overhaul. "This was an unintended consequence of the farm bill," said former representative Charles W. Stenholm, the west Texas Democrat who was once the ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee. "Instead of maintaining a rice industry in Texas, we basically contributed to its demise." The program that pays Matthews was the central feature of a landmark 1996 farm law that was meant to be a break with the farm handouts of the past. Subsidies began when the Roosevelt administration stepped forward to support millions of Depression-era farmers suffering from low prices. By the early 1990s, U.S. agriculture was a productive marvel, yet was still mired in government controls and awash in complex subsidies. When the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they brought a new free-market philosophy toward farm policy. In a break with 60 years of farm protections, they promoted the idea that farmers should be allowed to grow crops without restrictions, standing or falling on their own. The result was the 1996 bill, which the Republicans called Freedom to Farm. The idea was to finally remove government limits on planting and phase out subsidies. But GOP leaders had to make a trade-off to get the votes: They offered farmers annual fixed cash payments as a way of weaning them off subsidies. That sweetener was needed to win over wheat-state Democrats -- led by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.) -- and GOP House members from rice and cotton districts. Wheat growers alone stood to receive $1.4 billion in the first year. The payments for rice growers were increased by $52 million at the last minute in an effort to win support from Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.). The new payments were calculated on a farm's "base acres," or production dating to 1981. For example, if a farmer had planted 400 acres of rice, he was entitled to a check of about $100 an acre, or $40,000, every year. The amount per acre varied depending on past production. The payments were unrestricted -- farmers got them whether or not they grew any crops, or whether prices were high or low. Owners could do almost anything they wanted with their land, as long as they did not develop it. They could leave it fallow or rent it for pasture. They could set up a hunting retreat. Or, as happened in some Louisiana parishes, landowners could collect payments while planting stands of commercial timber. Supporters said these annual payments gave farmers the flexibility to switch from one crop to another as market conditions changed, or even to sit it out in a year of low prices. In addition, the payments fit with international trade rules that frown on traditional price supports. The annual payments were dubbed "transitional" and were supposed to decline over seven years. Many lawmakers assumed they would eventually end. But two years later, farm prices fell sharply, and the Republican-led Congress gave in to the farm lobby. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) used his power as chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture to push through $3 billion in "emergency" assistance to grain, cotton and dairy farmers. That was only the beginning of a retreat by Republicans fearing retribution at the polls in key "red" states with broad farm constituencies. "The original intent was to make a step in the direction of eliminating farm programs," said then-House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), who led an unsuccessful fight in the 1990s to trim the subsidies. "By 1998, there was no zeal left." Instead of cutting, Congress ended up expanding the program, now known as direct and countercyclical payments. A program intended to cost $36 billion over seven years instead topped $54 billion. "The farm policy we're pursuing now has no rhyme or reason, and we're just sending big checks to big farmers," said Gary Mitchell, now a family farmer in Kansas who was once a top aide to then-Rep. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the 1996 bill's House sponsor. "They're living off their welfare checks." Efforts to overhaul the farm subsidy network have been repeatedly thwarted by powerful farm-state lawmakers in Congress allied with agricultural interests. "The strength of the farm lobby in this town is really unbelievable," Armey said. "I don't think there's a smaller group of constituents that has a bigger influence." Cowboy Starter Kits Farmers and landowners benefited from the 1996 law whether their land once grew wheat, corn, cotton or any of the other subsidized crops. But nowhere is the impact more evident than in the sunbaked Texas rice country that spreads southwest from Houston to the Colorado River and east to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1981, the Texas rice belt extended over about 600,000 acres. By last year, USDA records show, the amount of planted rice had shrunk to 202,000 acres, partly because landowners were able to get farm payments even if no rice was grown on their land. In fact, so many landowners and farmers are collecting money on their former ricelands -- $37 million last year alone -- that the acres no longer used for rice outnumber the planted ones. "So many wealthy people are getting so much money off this, it's going to be hard to cut," said Michael Wollam, a rice farmer from Brazoria County. At a housing development rising from old rice fields on the outskirts of El Campo, 70 miles southwest of Houston, local real estate broker John K. Petty purchased a 75-acre tract from investors in July 2002. He held on to it for a few months, then carved it up and resold it for housing. "At one time, the area was all farmed in rice," Petty said. Now, the dusty tract is perfect for what he calls "cowboy starter kits," residential tracts owned by nonfarmers but still large enough to keep a horse in the back yard. Petty informed potential buyers that because their land had once been an active rice field, they could collect an annual payment from the USDA on the portion that was not developed. They did not have to grow rice or anything else. "If you have 10 acres and build a house on one, you can continue to get farm payments on those other nine acres without farming," the USDA's Johnson said. Petty used it as a selling point. "Does it increase the marketability?" Petty asked. "Sure it does." Duane Korenek bought 17 acres at the site and is building a house. Korenek said it was "common knowledge around here" that the new owners could collect farm payments. He has received about $2,550, USDA records show. A few hundred yards up a gravel and dirt road, oilman Rene Hamman purchased 20 acres in May 2003. His two-story house and garage sit on part of the land and are appraised at $338,140, records show. His payments have been about $4,500, according to USDA records. "The money is free," Hamman, 48, said, adding that he thought the money should go to real farmers. "You don't have to do anything but keep the ground." When Donald Matthews bought his 18-acre tract from Petty in 2002, he never expected to receive farm subsidies on his property, appraised at $381,000. "I was informed by Mr. Petty that there was a 'rice base' and I was entitled. I said, 'What do you mean I'm entitled? I'm not going to farm rice.' " But nine of Matthews's acres are classified as agricultural land, for which he has received more than $5,000, records show. Matthews said he originally was not going to take the money. But he said Petty told him that it would just go to other landowners. "I thought, heck, why should I do that? I wasn't going to give it to somebody else to put in their pocket." Instead, he uses the money to fund scholarships at the county fair and two local high schools, he said. "Still, I get money I don't think I'm entitled to," he said. In some Texas counties, the federal payments open the door to another benefit: property tax reductions. "When a property owner receives a federal payment, the land is considered agricultural use and is assessed at that lower rate," explained Tylene Gamble, the chief appraiser for Wharton County, where El Campo is located. The discount can be dramatic. For example, she said, a parcel might be assessed at $55 an acre for agricultural use but $3,000 for regular use. "It's big," Gamble said. Gamble is trying to enforce local rules that require landowners to actually farm to qualify for the lower tax rate. But she is hampered by the federal government's definition of farming, "which does not require you to actually farm. There is a conflict there between the federal definition and our definition," she said. Gary Underwood, director of agricultural appraisals for sprawling Harris County, which includes Houston, said owners are building $500,000 houses on old rice fields and qualifying for tax breaks. He singled out one tract where the owner built a 4,000-square-foot single-story house on five acres in Katy, a booming suburb. The house sits on one acre. The other four acres get a tax break and a farm payment. "I can't touch him," Underwood said. The Big Landowners The large landowners who control vast sections of the once-sprawling rice fields outside Houston have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of the 1996 law, USDA records show. Diana Morton Hudson is a corporate securities lawyer whose 87-year-old mother, Mary Anna Hudson, owns an interest in two tracts of land in nearby Matagorda County. USDA records show that Mary Anna Hudson has received $191,000 since 1997 on land she doesn't farm. "We just pay someone to mow it, and it just sits there," Diana Hudson said. Later, she added: "I'm a corporate securities lawyer. I couldn't even locate these two parcels in Matagorda." Houston heart surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell has received $490,709 since 1996 in payments tied to old rice tracts on a vast ranch near Raywood in Liberty County where he now raises cattle, USDA records show. The last rice produced on the 10,000-acre property was "probably over 10 years ago," according to Susan Cotton, Howell's business manager. "We're not rice producers anymore." For Guy F. Stovall III, an El Campo banker who helps oversee thousands of acres of family lands in Wharton, Matagorda and Jackson counties, the 1996 farm law was a chance to get out of rice farming and convert properties inherited from his grandparents to other uses. But 10 years later, taxpayers are still paying for the transition. Records show the land owned by Stovall and two trusts set up by his grandparents have generated $1.8 million in rice subsidies since 1996. Stovall stopped growing rice and began renting the land for grazing cattle. The family continues to grow some crops, such as sorghum and soybeans. Stovall said that is exactly the kind of transition Congress intended with Freedom to Farm. He estimates that 50 to 60 percent of his government payments go to soil, water and other improvements, such as filling in irrigation ditches and putting up fences. "There are bullfrogs where there were none, and we're starting to see quail," he said. "There are less chemicals flowing into our bays, and it reminds me of the environment when I was a kid." "Hell of a Deal' Among the most fervent critics of the annual payments are hundreds of Texas farmers who rent land on which they grow rice. Under the rules, tenants receive the money if they operate the farms. But landlords can simply increase rents to capture those payments. Other landlords have evicted the tenants from land they had farmed for years. Then the landowners can collect the checks themselves, even if they do not farm. Congress "made slaves out of every farmer who was a tenant," said Stephen J. Zapalac, a former Matagorda County rice farmer who now runs a farm credit office in Bay City. In 1998, Zapalac was leasing 2,500 acres, most of it for rice farming. One landlord canceled a lease for 1,400 acres in 1998, he said, and a second cancellation followed for the rest in 2004. "As soon as they figured they could take the payments, they said, 'I don't need you anymore,' " he said. "They were renting me land for $40 an acre, but they could get $125 an acre from the government." Some of the rice land he lost has been turned into pasture for cattle, while the landlord continues to receive the rice money. "You can sell the calves and still stick the rice payment in your pocket," Zapalac said. "It's a hell of a deal." For years, Rex Bailey III, a rugged 6-foot-5 rice farmer, sharecropped near Angleton, Tex., an arrangement in which he and his landlord divided the costs and shared in profits and government payments. "It was all based on what was produced," he said. "We shared the risk." That changed in 2002, when the owners of one tract changed their arrangement with Bailey, 55, from sharecropping to a fixed annual rent, pegged to capture the $90 an acre that the government was paying him on 214 acres. "A lot of landlords increased their rental rates to equal or exceed the direct payments," Bailey said. "They know what the payment is, so that's what the rent is. Even though the payment is in my name, I turn around and give it to" the owner. In 2004, the property was sold to Shin Shan Chu, an elderly investor who lives in Vancouver, Canada. Once a year, Bailey, who still grows rice on part of the 4,000 acres, cuts a $25,000 check and sends it to Chu, whom he has never met. Reached by telephone, Chu said he hoped to eventually "develop some residential buildings there. It's very nice land, very flat, very close to the city." Chu, who also owns and leases 17,000 acres of farmland in west Texas, grew up in mainland China and Taiwan, worked in electronics and moved to Vancouver 36 years ago. He described himself as nearly 80. "It's just an investment," he said of his farm holdings. "I'm waiting for the money." Researchers Alice Crites and Don Pohlman contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100962_pf.html INTERACTIVE MAP OF U.S. FARM SUBSIDIES Raising Cash Farming operations that once produced major crops such as corn, rice, wheat and cotton are paid a fixed stipend each year, along with extra payments when prices for those crops are low. The subsidy, called "direct and countercyclical payments," are sent to operations in most counties of the country. It is the largest program in the federal farm subsidy system, amounting to $9.4 billion in last year. This map shows each county that received the payments in the past calendar year and the program's 10 largest recipients in each county, according to payment records obtained by The Washington Post from the U.S. Agriculture Department as of February 2006. Click on an area of the map to zoom in. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/interactives/farmaid/day1/ RICE CROP PAYMENTS TO SUBURBAN HOMEOWNERS IN TEXAS Money for Nothing In 2002, this land in El Campo, Tex., was a rice field. Today, owners of new homes on the land collect farm subsidies on their back yards. One real estate broker refers to the properties as "cowboy starter kits." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/07/02/GR2006070200039.html 6. Doubts about USDA's Animal ID Program Raised by Opponents Tuesday, July 4, 2006 In an effort to increase sales of meat products to foreign countries, and to supposedly pinpoint sources of contagious and infectious animal diseases, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is attempting to implement a program, found questionable by many, named the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The USDA claims that the NAIS will protect livestock from diseases and increase food safety by allowing the sources of diseases in livestock to be traced to the source of origin within 48-hours. That claim has been disputed by many people, including attorney Mary-Louise Zanoni, JD, PhD, who writes in her article "The National Animal Identification System: A New Threat to Rural Freedom," that the the NAIS will be far more expensive and less effective for protecting the food supply than testing every cow slaughtered for diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). While the USDA's claims a desire to prevent diseases such as BSE from ending up in food, it's banned meat producers from voluntarily testing cattle for BSE. In March, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, LLC, filed a lawsuit against the USDA in an attempt to challenge the USDA's ban on the voluntary testing. Dr. Zanoni also writes that "Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the NAIS is its proponents' lack of concern for individual privacy and religious freedom. Consider that the NAIS plan is a compulsory registration with the government of all people who want to raise their own animal foods" and has warned mentions that the NAIS appears to violate several constitutional amendments, and has also written, with detailed explanations in a letter to the USDA, that the NAIS violates the first, fourth, fifth and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The NAIS, if implemented, will violate privacy and the U.S. Constitution for such purposes as increasing international trade and complying with international treaties, despite a 1956 Supreme Court decision ruling that treaties can't supersede the U.S. Constitution. The forces behind the implementation of the USDA's National Animal Identification System (NAIS) have been discovered to include not only corporate interests ranging from Monsanto, Cargill and the horse-slaughter industry, to Digital Angel and segments of the horse racing industry, but various U.S. government and international agencies ranging from the Department of Homeland Security to the United Nations' FAO. Critics of the NAIS have voiced concerns about political corruption being behind the implementation of the NAIS. It's been learned that the USDA and other government agencies are proceeding with the NAIS as a result of orders from President G.W. Bush, as outlined in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9 (HSPD-9), entitled "Defense of United States Agriculture and Food." That directive brings together the work of various government agencies including the EPA, USDA, HHS, DHS and FBI, which are all now responsible in one way or another for expanding their surveillance of farms. The NAIS has also been quietly implemented through state laws and state departments of agriculture, in cooperation with the USDA. What some find to be the most discomforting aspect of the NAIS is its apparent purpose: to let the government know where all animals considered livestock are located so that it could carry out "depopulation" or "stamping out" procedures, which would begin with the quarantining of animals followed by the wide-scall killing of all livestock and other animals---possibly including wildlife, dogs and cats, according to the United Nations' FAO document entitled "Manual on Procedures for Disease Eradication by Stamping Out." The USDA and state departments of agriculture have been found to be cooperating with international organizations such as the UN's FAO in connection with the NAIS. Such wide-scale killing would take place within a ten kilometer "zone" around the animal found to be afflicted with a contagious or infectious disease. During "depopulation," healthy animals would also be destroyed; owners of animals with certain diseases, who could be treated and returned to good health, would be given no treatment choices other than having their animals killed. If the NAIS goes into effect as planned, the government will force livestock owners to have their animals identified in some way with RFID chips, such as ear tags or injectible chips. Horse owners, for example, would be required to have their horses injected with RFID chips, which would put some horses at an increased risk for developing cancerous skin growths called sarcoids. In addition, such injections could possibly result in skin infections, hematomas and abscesses. Other possible health-risks could result from chip migration within the horse's body. Furthermore, due to the Animal Health Protection Act, Title 7, Chapter 109, of the U.S. code, which took over twenty years to be passed into law, the U.S. government will be able to seize, occupy and destroy private property and buildings in connection with the "depopulation" efforts. Related state laws exist in state governments as well, such as Title 3, Section 105, of the Annotated Code of Maryland. Title 3, Section 105, of the Annotated Code of MD, even without the NAIS being in effect, allows Maryland officials to violate the U.S. Constitution and conduct possibly unnecessary searches and seizures. That law allows government officials to enter anyone's property at any time, carry out any kind of testing on any livestock---whether necessary or not, or whether or not it will harm or kill the animals. The law's vagueness also allows government officials to kill, or in its words, "destroy," any animal with any contagious or infectious disease---that could include illnesses which are fairly minor and treatable. Many owners of horses and small farms have been perplexed and angered by the government's attempts to foist the NAIS upon them. Questions sent in letters to politicians have resulted in vague answers and misleading information supplied to politicians by the FDA and state departments of agriculture. Due to people having become aware of the NAIS, and not wanting that harmful burden placed upon them, a grassroots movement has sprung up across the nation to oppose the NAIS and related government policies. The USDA, apparently displeased that a grassroots movement to oppose the NAIS has surfaced---and has been alerting people dangers and information pertaining to the NAIS which have been kept quiet, plans to spend $10 million dollars on pro-NAIS publicity to counter objections to the NAIS. Some of the misleading information that's already been spread by the USDA, with the help of pro-NAIS interests, has included convincing many people that the NAIS is voluntary---that's a half truth; the NAIS is only voluntary until it goes into full effect, which is planned to happen in 2008. At the present time, people are being asked to voluntarily tell the government where their animals are located so that they can be assigned "premise IDs." Horse owners have been astounded that some national associations, claiming to represent them, such as the American Horse Council (AHC), have been working against them in support of the NAIS, when there appear to be no legitimate reasons for the inclusion of horses in the NAIS, since horses aren't raised for food, or eaten as food, in the U.S. The USDA claims that horses can possibly spread some diseases to other livestock, or carry and spread certain zoonitic diseases to people. However, horses are no more more of a danger for spreading such diseases than wildlife or people who may carry diseases to other locations on their clothing, shoes and car tires, etc. Many of the claims made by proponents of the NAIS with regards to zoonotic diseases have been shown to be misleading. Another reason for horses being included in the NAIS has been given by Colonel John Hoffman, Program Manager, Food and Agriculture, for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security---which has taken over some of the USDA's functions. He believes that horses need to be tracked and identified because, he says, "Until the 1980's, the Soviet Union continued to produce in its bio-weapons program a disease agent taken from horses but lethal to humans too." He's concerned that many horses are transported throughout the U.S. without being tracked. It's important to note that disease agents can come from a vast number of sources found throughout nature, not just from horses. Some statistics pertaining to the American Horse Council have been researched by Karen Nowak, which inform us that that 57% of the AHC's 2005 board of trustees was directly involved in racing interests, which appear to support the NAIS, and there were more than twice as many involved in showing interests (15%) than recreational interests (8%). A study conducted by the AHC shows that only 9% of horses are used in racing and 29% are used in showing while 43% are used for recreational uses. Therefore the AHC is not representative the interests of most horse owners and is misleading politicians and others by claiming to represent most horse owners. As to the Equine Species Working Group that's working with the USDA to determine what form of ID is to be used with horses, Ms. Nowak has reported that 50% of its members are connected with racing interests and 38% have direct ties to racing interests; 21% are involved in show organizations and 4% are involved in recreational uses of horses. If the NAIS into effect as planned, every time that a horse leaves wherever it resides---whether that merely involves a ride down the road, or even just into the road or onto an adjoining property, going for a trial ride nearby, or a horse is trailered somewhere, the movements of the horse, and whomever the horse has been in contact with, will need to be reported to the government within 24 hours. A goal of the NAIS is to track all movements of all livestock from birth to death. Companies such as Microsoft Corporation and Computer Sciences Corporation have been involved in the computer-related aspect of the NAIS for the tracking of animals. According to the National Organic Farming Organization of Massachusetts, "The most immediate impact of mandating NAIS would be to put some small farmers out of business." At this time, some small farms and horse owners have been putting plans on hold to expand their businesses and to breed their animals. Some are even questioning whether or not they will continue on with their farming and equestrian activities if the NAIS goes into effect. The effect of the NAIS on small farms and a large part of the equestrian community could be catastrophic and result in large fines, loss of property and seizures, or death, of animals which are regarded as long-time friends rather than just livestock to many. Additional information about the NAIS cab be obtained from the following web sites: 7. Pesticides Linked to 70% Increased Risk for Parkinson's Disease From HealthDay News Exposure to pesticides, but not other environmental contaminants, may boost the long-term risk for developing Parkinson's disease by 70%, a new study suggests. The researchers did not assess the length, frequency, or strength of pesticide exposure, and they stressed that the absolute risk of developing Parkinson's remains relatively small. However, their finding does back up earlier animal studies linking pesticide exposure to motor function abnormalities and lower levels of the brain neurotransmitter dopamine. Declines in dopamine have long been associated with Parkinson's. "This is the first large human study that shows that exposure to pesticide is associated with a higher incidence of Parkinson's," said study lead author Dr. Alberto Ascherio, associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "It is, of course, a relative increase," emphasized Ascherio. "So, whereas normally the lifetime risk for developing Parkinson's is three percent, pesticide exposure will bring the risk to five percent." Ascherio and his colleagues discussed their work in the July issue of the Annals of Neurology. The authors reviewed lifestyle surveys completed in both 1982 and in 2001 by over 143,000 participants in the U.S. "Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort," launched in 1982. In addition to pesticide exposure, participants were asked about exposure to a host of chemicals and dusts, such as: asbestos, acids, solvents, coal and stone dust, coal tar, asphalt, diesel engine exhaust, dyes, formaldehyde, gasoline exhaust, herbicides, textile fibers, wood dust, and x-ray or radioactive materials. Nearly all the patients were white, with an average age just of over 60. In total, 413 participants went on to develop Parkinson's disease. The surveys revealed that just over eight percent of the men and just over three percent of the women reported exposure to pesticides. Exposed patients were twice as likely to be blue-collar workers and 14 times more likely to work as either a farmer, rancher, or fisherman. However, no differences were found in terms of risk increase between patients who experienced exposure because of their work, such as farmers, and those who came into contact with the chemicals because of home or garden use. The Harvard team found that, regardless of occupation, pesticide exposure boosted long-term Parkinson's risk by 70% over the long-term. Ascherio stressed that although the association found in his study was stronger than any previously documented, more work is needed to pinpoint what exactly it is about pesticides that may help spur Parkinson's. "The key point would be to identify which chemicals cause Parkinson's," he said. "It's not very practical to tell people to avoid pesticides, because many people find it very useful. So this will require more detailed study," he added. Robin Elliot, executive director for the Parkinson's Disease Foundation in New York City, described the findings as "important and solid." "This is certainly the biggest and most serious populations study on people, and it appears to be the best proof today that there is a general association between pesticide and Parkinson's among people," said Elliot. "It merits further investigation," he said. In a separate smaller study, published in the June issue of Movement Disorders, a team of researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Olmsted County, Minnesota, found that pesticide exposure seemed to increase Parkinson's risk for men, but not women. Telephone interviews were conducted with 149 men and women, all local-area Parkinson's patients who developed the illness between 1976 and 1995. The Mayo team also interviewed 129 healthy individuals. They found that male patients were 2.4 times more likely than healthy individuals to have been exposed to pesticides. No such increased risk was evident among the female patients. More info at http://www.rachel.org 8. National Farmers Union Supports Interstate Meat Shipment Bill Washington (June 28, 2006) - National Farmers Union is part of a broad-based coalition urging Congress to repeal the ban on shipment of interstate meat and poultry. The legislation, introduced to Congress in mid-June, allows the interstate sale of products that are state-inspected. National Farmers Union has a long-standing policy supporting the elimination of the interstate ban and believes the legislation will level the playing field for small farms and businesses while increasing standard safety measures for American consumers. Without change, small farmers and ranchers will continue to face smaller local markets with fewer buyers for their livestock and poultry. “Inadequate market competition is one of the most pressing issues facing local producers and is a major reason so many family farmers and ranchers have been forced out of business” said National Farmers Union President Tom Buis. “Repealing the ban to let domestic farmers trade freely within the country is a big step in ensuring that farm products are able to reach the consumers and markets.” Current law allows some meat products such as venison, pheasant and quail to be shipped between states without restriction. Foreign meat and poultry also does not face restriction in interstate trading, while domestic meat is blocked. National Farmers Union supports expanding the market opportunities for farms to create fair trade and economic equality for small farms. National Farmers Union supports Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Kent Conrad (D-ND), and Herb Kohl (D-WI) for introducing this legislation. 9. Saving the Good Ship Lollipop A Precautionary Tale Children in our day suffer from a host of diseases and problems that our great-grand parents could not have imagined. We have seen increases over the span of one generation in autism, learning disabilities, certain birth defects and cancers, asthma, obesity, and diabetes. The nature of the increases point to the possibility that these afflictions may have been preventable. Some statistics are startling: the chance that a little girl would get breast cancer was only one in 25 when my mother got married. But now, one woman in seven can expect to get breast cancer. By the time my 12-year-old niece gets married, one in three will likely face that diagnosis. Unless we do something. My generation came of age in a world in which the best minds thought we could measure and manage risk. We believed that economic decisions would take care of any unacceptable risk and the market would make necessary course corrections. That old approach has failed. Measuring and managing risk has led to global warming, emptying the oceans of fish, polluting much of the world with toxic chemicals, and increasing chronic diseases in humans. The GNP may be healthy, but our world and our children are not. Risk management may represent a flawed strategy, but a new and significant approach to protecting public health has emerged in the last decade. In January of 1998, at the Johnson Foundation's Wingspread Conference Center, environmental leaders met to develop guiding principles for evaluating decisions that affect human health and the environment. They came to consensus around what is referred to as the precautionary principle, or the "forecaring" principle. It is based on the simple notion that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The group called on governments, corporations, communities, and scientists to implement the precautionary principle when making decisions affecting public health: When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed, and democratic, and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action. In other words, we can take precautionary action in order to prevent harm and suffering in the face of uncertainty. This simple idea of preventing harm is, at its core, an ethical precept, with its origins in other ethical norms like the physician's Hippocratic Oath to do no harm or the Golden Rule, which says we should do to others as we would have them do to us. In this case, "others" represents our fellow beings on the Earth, including future generations. Implementing the precautionary principle emphasizes upstream evaluation and decision-making—preventing potential problems and harm—in contrast to the risk management approach based on evaluating our capacity to deal with problems downstream. While several state, municipal and county governments have adopted the precautionary principle to guide environmental and public health policy, public schools have been in the vanguard of this precautionary principle movement. The school is a primary environment for children from the day they enter kindergarten until the day they walk out with a diploma. In the late 1990's the Los Angeles Unified School District adopted the precautionary principle paired with a program of Integrated Pest Management to eliminate unnecessary pesticides from the buildings and grounds of the largest school district in the United States. LAUSD chose this route because they believed that a child's future health and learning potential should not be compromised through the use of pesticides that include neurotoxicants, carcinogens, or mutagens on playgrounds or in classrooms. More recently the Governing Authority of the Emeryville Unified School District in California adopted the precautionary principle as the foundation of all its environmental policy. This far-reaching policy will guide everything from curriculum to building materials and the food served at the schools. Some elements of the precautionary principle included in the policy are the following:
When evaluating those alternatives, there is a duty to consider all the reasonably foreseeable costs, including raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, use, cleanup, eventual disposal and health costs even if such costs are not reflected in the initial price. Short- and long–term benefits and time thresholds should be considered when making decisions. Taking the long view is key to the precautionary principle. Our children stand on the threshold of the future. My Indigenous friends say that the precautionary principle is the seventh generation principle, which comes from the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy practice of making decisions with the seventh generation in mind. The only way we can guarantee that we leave blessings and an inheritance for future generations, rather than the fruits of our shortsightedness, is to acknowledge that we can't wait for science to prove everything before we take action. We need to use the precautionary principle and make decisions that are the wisest, fairest, and most preventive of harm. In adopting the precautionary principle, members of the Emeryville School District school board chose to assume the role of guardians of this generation and those to come. As guardians they are taking steps to protect children for the long term. Those steps were laid out in 10 action points, three of which describe a precautionary food policy. The food recommendations are to:
The Emeryville School District leaders intuitively understand that school meal programs stand at the center of our hope for a good and healthy future. Lunch is the time when we can say, "We have provided food that will nurture your body and not harm you. We want to show you your place in the community of farmers, bees, water, and the land that grew your food. We promise to be wise guardians of your future." School lunch is our communion, of past lessons and hope for the future, of knowledge that wisdom accrues in small bites, and of our vow to forecare. 10. NY Farms! Networks for Flood Victims In response to the tragedy of recent floods in central and southern New York, NY Farms! will put to use its great networking capability. For the next several months they will use their "News to Share" email newsletter as a "needed / wanted" vehicle to help individuals get or place items needed to get folks back on their feet. There are many volunteers around the state willing to help, please keep the lines of communication open so that they can be of service. To date, 20 New York counties have been designated as Presidential Disaster Areas, within which farmers have experienced severe flooding resulting in significant damages to personal property and economic losses to their businesses. USDA estimates 290,500 acres of crops were destroyed by flooding, along with 28,250 acres of land. Structurally, New York farmers sustained damage to 60 barns, 115 farm structures including silos, and 122 pieces of farm equipment. Three government agencies are currently offering financial assistance for which New York farmers could be eligible: the United States Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency (USDA FSA), New York State Department of Labor (NYS DOL) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). For information on assistance available for farmers affected by flooding, please visit http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us. * * * EVENTS & CLASSIFIEDS * * * Announcing the Chatham Real Food Market ACTIVIST COOKBOOK SEEKS RECIPES WEB-BASED FARM BILL FEEDBACK FORM ALLOWS NATIONWIDE INPUT USDA INVITES COMMENT ON STANDARD FOR GRASS-FED MARKETING SCOTT IS LOOKING FOR AN INTERNSHIP July 18-23 Tuesday, July 18, 8:30 am - 2:15 pm Thursday, July 27, 7:00 pm Friday, July 28, 10:00 am - 3:00 pm Saturday, July 29, 10:00 am - 2:30 pm Sunday, July 30, 10:00am - 5:00pm Wednesday, August 2 Saturday, August 5 & September 2 AUGUST 10 - 26
Thursday, August 17 to Sunday, August 20 Wednesday, August 23rd, 6:30-8:30pm August 31-September 1 SAVE THE DATE! December 6-7-8, 2007 February 7-8-9 |
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