Land & Sea Slow Food - Actions You Can Take Now

PUSHBACK ON GMO CONTAMINATION -- FAMILY FARMERS FILE SUIT AGAINST MONSANTO

2011-04-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

Above; Flowering alfalfa plant. Photo: Scott Bauer Below: Corn. Photo Keith Weller USDA gallery

Here's important news from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF):

Above: Sugar beets in the field. Photo: Peggy Grebs USDA gallery

On behalf of 60 family farmers, seed businesses and organic agricultural organizations, the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) filed suit on March 29 against Monsanto Company to challenge the chemical giant's patents on genetically modified seed. The organic plaintiffs were forced to sue preemptively to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement should they ever become contaminated by Monsanto's genetically modified seed, something Monsanto has done to others in the past. The action seeks a ruling that would prohibit Monsanto from suing organic farmers and seed growers if contaminated by Roundup Ready seed. [PUBPAT is a not-for-profit legal services organization affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. PUBPAT protects freedom in the patent system by representing the public interest against undeserved patents and unsound patent policy. www.pubpat.org]

The case, Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, was filed in federal district court in Manhattan and assigned to Judge Naomi Buchwald. Plaintiffs in the suit represent a broad array of family farmers, small businesses and organizations from within the organic agriculture community who are increasingly threatened by genetically modified seed contamination despite using their best efforts to avoid it. The plaintiff organizations have over 270,000 members, including thousands of certified organic family farmers.

"This case asks whether Monsanto has the right to sue organic farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto's transgenic seed should land on their property," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive Director and Lecturer of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. "It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement, so we had to act to protect the interests of our clients."

"Some say transgenic seed can coexist with organic seed, but history tells us that's not possible, and it's actually in Monsanto's financial interest to eliminate organic seed so that they can have a total monopoly over our food supply," said Ravicher. "Monsanto is the same chemical company that previously brought us Agent Orange, DDT, PCB's and other toxins, which they said were safe, but we know are not. Now Monsanto says transgenic seed is safe, but evidence clearly shows it is not."
"Transgenic seed should not be on the market. They are a threat to the future of farming and consumer freedom of choice," asserted Pete Kennedy, Esq., President of FTCLDF. "Monsanto should not be suing farms whose land the company's products contaminate; Monsanto should be paying them damages."

Go to the FTCLDF page to see the list of plaintiffs and to read more.

Here's more info from the Cornucopia Institute

Other actions you can take this month: If you live in the WA area, you can testify next week to the USDA in Seattle.
From the Cornucopia Institute:

"Next week the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) will hold its semiannual meeting in Seattle. Three members of the policy staff from The Cornucopia Institute will be in attendance....

We have a lot to present. Every citizen gets just 5 min. to speak and in the past you could speak a second 5 min. if you had a proxy from someone who could not attend the meeting. The corporate-friendly chairperson of the panel just broke with tradition and eliminate the second 5 min.

There are some real hot button issues like will organic chickens have legitimate outdoor access and enough space inside buildings, will hogs be confined just like on factory farms and will the new potential rules put family-scale dairy farmers out of business.

If that's not enough a proposal is pending to allow any synthetic inorganic food as long as it allegedly has "nutrient value." That could open the door to all kinds of bizarre novel substances that have no business in organics. Turning organic food into what Michael Pollan calls "food-like substances."...

Contact the Cornucopia Institute for more information about testifying on these isues to the USDA.

2011-03-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

WANT TO DO SOMETHING TODAY THAT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
WORK IN YOUR GARDEN, WHETHER IT'S 40 ACRES, OR A PLANTER ON YOUR PORCH, AND ---
(courtesy of Food Democracy Now)

Tell the US Department of Justice it's time to Break Up Monsanto

GO HERE TO SIGN ON. MAKE SURE

YOUR VOICE IS HEARD.

Last year the Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Agriculture held a series of 5 workshops investigating anti-competitive practices in the food and agricultural sectors. Nowhere are these abuses more prevalent than in the extreme market share enjoyed by the seed and chemical company Monsanto, which has a virtual stranglehold on seed supplies in crucial sectors that has severely limited farmer’s choice in what traits they can buy. Monsanto’s control of the seed market is so high that 93% of soybeans, some 82% of corn, 93% of cotton and 95% of sugar beets grown in the U.S. contain Monsanto’s patented genes.

During the 2008 campaign, President Obama promised to deal with the worst monopoly abusers in agriculture. Well now is the time! Please join FOOD DEMOCRACY NOW in telling Department of Justice that it's time to Break Up to Monsanto today!

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Latest News on Genetically Modified Salmon here.
Go here for action to keep wild salmon wild.
To read more, go here

2010-11-22T12:46:00.000-08:00

Comment on FDA Approval of GMO salmon - Also, latest update on SB 510, one post down, as of 9:15 pm 11/22

Read about The Aqua Bounty Corporation's GMO fast growing salmon made of eel and salmon genes: http://tinyurl.com/2bhjlnx

How to take action TODAY
More from the Center for Food Safety on the poor research, and all the information concealed from the public by for-profit Aqua Bounty on, potentially, the first genetically modified animal to be ok'd for food production - and why is this animal being put up for approval as a drug, doing an end-run around tougher food regulations?

More on that from Duke University researchers HERE.

Legislation proposed 11/18/10 by Senators Begich (D-AK), Murkowski (I-AK), and Murray(D-AK) re: GMO salmon.

Tell the FDA You Won't Eat GMO Salmon!

2010-09-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

photo: Wild caught salmon. Courtesy Marinkovich family

Keep the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) from ruling to approve engineered (GMO) salmon as the first animal manufactured for human consumption. Click here to sign the petition demanding the FDA halt approval for GMO salmon.

AquaBounty Technologies created the salmon by artificially combining growth hormone genes from a Pacific salmon with DNA from an eelpout. This keeps the fish growing year round, in crowded inland tanks.

The FDA doesn't do its own testing of genetically engineered animals. It relies on information provided by the company that wants approval — just like they did in their oversight of the egg industry which produced the largest salmonella outbreak in U.S. history last month. Unlike traditional methods breeding, in lab-created GMO “transgenic” animal breeding, genes are from different species, or can be from plants.
The mechanics of gene addition is imprecise. Scientists cannot predict or control where lab-added genes mechanically 'fired' into cells will attach along DNA strands, so genes added in this way often interfere with the normal functions of DNA, creating unwanted mutation. Release of virtually all research information is controlled by GMO patent holders; researchers must sign a release before beginning any research; resulting information on GMO risks has been heavily suppressed. Risks that are known include damage to organs, including stomach, liver and kidneys, severe allergies, adverse hormonal changes and antibiotic resistance.

Because genetically engineered salmon can be classified as a "drug" by the FDA, due to their laboratory origins, instead of food, there's little focus on the potential dangers of people consuming modified salmon. It's not enough that raising salmon in crowded factory fish farms contaminates our food with antibiotics and other chemicals. Now the FDA would be adding additional unknown risks of GMO salmon to the mix.

Aside from the health risks, the risks posed by release of these salmon into waterways, even contained (which has never been proved secure), to wild salmon stocks and biodiversity in general, are staggering, not to mention the danger posed to tribal peoples with salmon traditions, and commercial fishing families and the economies they are a part of.
Read more about GMO's here.
Thank you to Food Democracy Now, Food and Water Watch, and CREDO for portions of this post.

GATES FOUNDATION INVESTS IN MONSANTO

2010-09-02T01:26:00.000-07:00

"Both will profit at the expense of small-scale African farmers."
TAKE ACTION HERE
Or Go to SeattleGlobalJustice.Org. Contact info for the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation here, (the Gates Foundation makes it clear they are under no obligation to review or respond to your correspondence to their address).

"Last week, a financial website published the Gates Foundation’s investment portfolio, including 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock with an estimated worth of $23.1 million purchased in the second quarter of 2010. Prominent links include high-level [Gates] Foundation staff members who were once senior officials for Monsanto, such as Rob Horsch, formerly Monsanto Vice President of International Development Partnerships and current Senior Program Officer of the Gates Agricultural Development Program.
Monsanto has already negatively impacted agriculture in African countries. For example, in South Africa in 2009, Monsanto’s genetically modified maize failed to produce kernels, and hundreds of farmers were devastated. Some farmers suffered up to an 80% crop failure.
Transnational corporations like Monsanto have been key collaborators with the Foundation and AGRA’s grantees in promoting the spread of industrial agriculture on the continent. This model of production relies on expensive inputs such as chemical fertilizers, genetically
modified seeds, and herbicides. Though this package represents enticing market development opportunities for the private sector, many civil society organizations contend it will lead to further displacement of farmers from the land, an actual increase in hunger, and migration to already swollen cities unable to provide employment opportunities.
In a 2008 report initiated by the World Bank and the UN, the international Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), promotes alternative solutions to the problems of hunger and poverty that emphasize their social and
economic roots. The IAASTD concluded that small-scale agroecological farming is more suitable for the third world than the industrial agricultural model favored by Gates and Monsanto. In a summary of the key findings of IAASTD, the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) emphasizes the report’s warning that “continued reliance on simplistic technological fixes—including transgenic crops—will not reduce persistent hunger and poverty and could exacerbate environmental problems and worsen social inequity.” Furthermore, PANNA explains, “The Assessment’s 21 key findings suggest that small-scale agroecological farming may offer one of the best means to feed the
hungry while protecting the planet.” (Excerpted from press release Aug 25/2010 -
AGRA-Watch http://www.seattleglobaljustice.org/agra-watch - Links, italics, and bold font added by Land & Sea)
Press release posted by irresistable fleet of bicycles/the Greenhorns : http://tinyurl.com/3a8s39p

Supreme Court Rules 7-1 GMO Alfalfa Is "Regulated Item" - Planting of Genetically Modified Alfalfa Still Illegal - Monsanto Spins That as Victory.

2010-06-22T06:11:00.001-07:00

Information from an editorial by the Center for Food Safety's Andew Kimbrell 6/21/10:
It should be no surprise that Monsanto's PR machine is working hard to spin the truth in this morning's decision in the first-ever Supreme Court case on genetically engineered crops (Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms).
The Supreme Court ruled that an injunction against planting was unnecessary since, under lower courts' rulings, Roundup Ready Alfalfa became a regulated item and illegal to plant. In other words, the injunction was "overkill' because The Center for Food Safety's victory in lower federal court determined that USDA violated the National Environmental Policy Act and other environmental laws when it approved Roundup Ready alfalfa. The court felt that voiding the USDA's decision to make the crop legally available for sale was enough.

The journal Sustainable Business News also makes the same points in their story, here .

Dave Murphy of Food Democracy Now, quoted in Food Safety news, states: "Reports in the mainstream media have been wildly misleading. This ruling is a serious defeat for Monsanto. Not only is it still illegal to sell or plant GMO alfalfa until the USDA issues guidance, but the Supreme Court also ruled that 'environmental harm' now includes genetic contamination, something that could undermine biotech crops in future court cases.
The issue is still very much alive and now lands on Vilsack's desk at the USDA," said Murphy, in an email to Food Safety News. "Make no mistake about it, the future of organics is at stake."

The article goes on to state: "The agency [USDA] issued a brief statement after the ruling yesterday: "APHIS [Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the USDA] is carefully reviewing the Supreme Court ruling before making decisions about its next regulatory actions related to the deregulation of Roundup Ready alfalfa."

The Washington Post, in a short paragraph covering the ruling, buries the lead:
"On Monday, the Supreme Court: Lifted a nationwide ban on the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa seeds, despite claims that they might harm the environment. In a 7 to 1 vote, the court reversed a federal appeals court ruling that prohibited Monsanto from selling alfalfa seeds that are resistant to the popular weed killer Roundup. The Department of Agriculture still needs to authorize use of the seeds before they can be planted on a wide scale. Justice Stephen G. Breyer took no part in the case.

The case is Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms."

Of interest on this case - As stated above, Justice Stephen Breyer recused himself, as his brother ruled in the original lower court decision of 2007 on this case.
Clarence Thomas, however, who became a corporate lawyer in the pesticide and agriculture division of the Monsanto Company three years out of law school, not only decided he could rule on this case, but also wrote the majority opinion in a past case, J. E. M. Ag Supply, Inc. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International - for which Monsanto was one of the largest beneficiaries.

As the Organic Consumers Association says: Fox, meet henhouse.

What can you do?
Contact the USDA. Let them know that you know genetically modified alfalfa is not safe to plant. Cross contamination from GE crops is unavoidable, and the livelihood of organic alfalfa farmers and health of livestock and consumers is directly threatened by the sale and planting of this product.
Besides the direct documented health risks to animals and humans posed by GMO crops such as this alfalfa, heavier pesticide and herbicide needed to battle the "super-pests" and "super-weeds" created when these seeds are used has been shown to be inevitable.

They say "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door".
Food crops, unadulterated, have evolved to perfectly suit human and animal need, but food crops left as they are can't be patented.

So - if you're a corporation, and you can't build a better mousetrap, the best way to rake in profits is to convince the world you have.

That's what marketing, PR and spin is all about, and it's the high-stakes game these chem/ag/biotech giants are working with their hoped-for GMO moneymakers.

Once again, family farmers - and the rest of us - who are supposed to turn our hard-earned money over to these corporations in order to plant this stuff, eat this stuff, buy pharmaceuticals from these same companies to be cured of health damage caused by this stuff, pay for environmental cleanup resulting from heavier chemical use on this stuff (chemicals also produced by these same companies) - are left holding the bag.

Contact the USDA at (202) 720-2791 0r 202-720-3631 (USDA head Tom Vilsack) today. Please read Organic Valley's take on this issue, here. Dairies and milk are directly affected by these decisions.
To contact our local Senators:

Talking Point Suggestions

Let the USDA know that you do care about GE contamination of organic crops and food
Tell USDA that you will reject GE-contaminated alfalfa and alfalfa-derived foods
If GE alfalfa is deregulated, widespread GE contamination of non-GM and organic alfalfa is inevitable.
Organic alfalfa is a critical component for organic farming and feed.
Remind USDA it's their job to protect Organic farmers, and all farmers who choose to grow non-GE crops.
GE alfalfa would significantly increase pesticide use and thereby harm human health and the environment.
Harm to small and organic farmers is significant.
USDA should extend the comment period.

Short sighted corporate profiteering at the expense of our country's family farms, farmland, and livestock and human health, should not continue to be the wave of the future. And we sure as heck know that these corporations don't create jobs. Use of these products reduces the number of farmers - and manufacturing jobs for these products is outsourced or given to the lowest paid workers to keep corporate profits up. With proper regulation, corporations can be a positive force, so we need adequate regulation.
Otherwise, as we see in the current Gulf corporate originated disaster, cleanup jobs picking up the environmental mess left behind may end up being the only game in town.

2010-06-05T22:32:00.000-07:00

We have to say how much we appreciate the every day efforts of the San Juan Conservation District. These hard working people usually do their jobs without much attention, but the amount of services they provide to all of us in San Juan County is phenomenal. Just take a look at the page listing their many services and programs (the links are on the left when you go here). We know you will find something there you will find helpful! Just check!
The number of services we have available to us through the district is slightly stunning, and the quality of these services and professionals - well... we are very lucky.

There will be a PUBLIC HEARING having to do with the SJ Conservation District:

The San Juan Islands Conservation District
is holding a public hearing on
Tuesday, June 8th, at The Grange in Friday Harbor at 10 AM.
They would like comments from the public
about renewing a County special assessment which provides some of the Conservation District's funding. It's $5 per parcel, for 5 years. This would be a renewal of the same assessment the District's had since 2006.
They'd like to invite you to attend the public hearing to find out more about what they do and to tell them what you think. Written comments (to SJICD, 350 Court Street #10, Friday Harbor 98250) are also welcome.
For questions about the hearing, or on submitting comments, Conservation District Office Manager Josie Byington is at (360) 378-6621

END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR - LOOKING FOR MEANINGFUL WORK?

2010-05-13T02:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a fantastic site - Sustainable Food Jobs -
It's a simple, streamlined site - very helpful. They list by state with descriptions and links.
Here are Washington state current listings as of 5/12/10. Type in the state(s) your looking into, or other keywords, in the search box at the top of the page,
They have listings for both volunteer, internship, and paid jobs, also a Connect More page with links to helpful organizations.
Check it out, graduates and young people!

Eco-Farm is also EXCELLENT - they have a great GenNext page which is a blog page with writing from very new younger farmers and farmworkers sharing their experiences and exchanging advice - some just getting started - and a GMO update page that is very good.
(Also, for jobs and internship opportunities, scroll down to check the Apprenticeships, Internships heading, on the links listed along the right side of our main page. We have tons of links there for all sorts of opportunities.

Lastly- Please scroll down to the post for Nov. 10 and at least skim the red parts.
The "food safety enhancement" and other similar bills are still in play. Want local farms and healthy food? Know about this stuff.

2010-04-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

COMMENT TODAY TO USDA, ON ALLOWING FACTORY FARMS TO CARRY "ORGANIC" LABEL. GO HERE TO REGISTER YOUR COMMENT.
Take action to insure USDA "organic" doesn't mean factory farm.
The USDA recently put out new rules making it clear that organic dairy cows must be raised on pasture. As consumers, please let the USDA know that we expect the same for "organic" certified cattle raised for beef.

Keep hearing the terms "Confined (or Concentrated) Animal Feeding Operation" (CAFO) and "factory farm"?
Go here for a brief, clear US gov't description of what that mea ns.

Want to know what “grass-fed” & “pasture-raised” means?
EatWild.com has excellent, clear explanations of grass-fed basics and how grass-feeding affects food safety, in addition to information on current common feeding practices for commercially raised beef, pork, poultry and dairy operations.

Top - Sample photo of a typical feedlot , from YonderWay , Grass Fed. Enough Said blog page. Yonder way grazes grass fed beef, pork and chickens in a system that has much more long-term success than feedlot methods illustrated in the photo.
Below: Grazing system where cattle have grazed for 3 weeks on the left side of the fence and will be moved to the other side after a 3 week grazing rotation. Benton, Arkansas.
By: Jeff Vanuga, photogallery.nrcs.usda.gov

Some examples of successful grass-fed operations can be seen at:
Fruitland American Meat (Missouri)
YonderWay Farm (Texas)
Thundering Hooves Ranch (Eastern Washington)
Island Grown Farmers Cooperative IGFC right here in San Juan & Skagit counties (WA)
To find where to buy IGFC meats, go here.

2010-04-08T17:41:00.001-07:00

There are two things we hope you will do.Taking action is easy.
One action takes one click of a mouse on the link below.
The most critical action takes a simple phone call.

Critically important is Senate Bill 510. As it is written now, it severely threatens small family farmers with a one size fits all approach that does not improve food safety.
Jon Tester, a working Montana farmer and U.S Senator who has appeal across political lines has written and proposed an amendment to remedy this mistake.
It’s critical, because this amendment still needs to be added to 510, and the bill goes up for a vote as early as Tuesday. Please contact your local Senators, and the head of the committee and members voting on this bill. Please go here to read a summary of the bill, the problem, and how it can be fixed .
This really is very important.

Very Important - Contact the Senators who are the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. Members are listed at the bottom of this page - mouse over their names for contact links.

Call your state's US Senators and the Senate H.E.L.P. Committee members today, and tell them that you support
Senator Jon Tester’s amendment to S. 510.

Our State Senators:
Maria Cantwell (202) 224-3441
cantwell.senate.gov/contact/

Patty Murray (202) 224-2621
murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm

The second very easy thing you can do is to support Lincoln School in Mt. Vernon with an online vote. These Skagit valley kids have produced and entered a video in a contest about school gardens and lunch, and have made it to the final round. Now all they need is your vote.

Here’s the note from the gal overseeing this project:
"Hi all
We created a video about our efforts to improve the food at Lincoln
Elementary School in Mount Vernon. We entered the National Farm to
School "Real Food Is" video contest and the judges put us in the top 4
picks. We are the only video from Washington State in the top 4!
Online voting is how we can win $1000 for our efforts at Lincoln.
Please vote for our video. It is called "Lincoln's Journey to Real
Food".
Please get the word out and send on the link so everyone you know can
vote. http://www.farmtoschool.org/vote.php (you can only vote once per
computer.)
Please vote from each of your computers. (I know you have more than
one!! :) Please ask your friends, family and networks to vote as
well. Thanks so much

Wish us luck
Rita Ordonez, Coordinator
Lincoln Elementary
School Garden and Family Cooking Classes
Mount Vernon, WA
360-336-0932"
ritaroma@earthlink.net

http://www.farmtoschool.org/vote.php

SB 510
Sponsor: Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill.
Cosponsors: 15 (8 Democrats, 7 Republicans)
Introduced: March 3, 2009
Committees: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

Chairman
Tom Harkin (D-IA)
harkin.senate.gov .

Ranking Member
Michael B. Enzi (R-WY)
enzi.senate.gov

To contact the Senate HELP Committee members, go to the links below.
Call or email as many as you can before Tues.!
Make a party of it! Call with friends, and pass this on!
This can be the thing that makes the difference.

Democrats by Rank

Tom Harkin (IA)
Christopher Dodd (CT)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Jack Reed (RI)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Sherrod Brown (OH)
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA)
Kay Hagan (NC)
Jeff Merkley (OR)
Al Franken (MN)
Michael Bennet (CO)

Republicans by Rank

Michael B. Enzi (WY)
Judd Gregg (NH)
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
John McCain (AZ)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Tom Coburn, M.D. (OK)
Pat Roberts (KS

Please learn more about the number of Food Safety Enhancement Acts now working through Congress by looking here at our Actions page and asking questions.

Tracking SB 510 through Congress - http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510
(Please read the questions at the bottom of that page)

Thanks for making a big difference!
Happy, blustery Spring,
Linda and Maureen

WA State Gov. Gregoire Signs The Farm Intern Bill, 6349 Into Law 3/21/10!

2010-03-23T12:52:00.000-07:00

Jim Sesby just told us the happy news this morning, and told us he'll send over a photo, but we can't wait, so see the great photo, and great coverage, about this happy news on the Island Guardian, here, and SJ Journal, here, online! Isn't this lovely news? Good news for all of us, including young people who want to learn to be the farmers who feed us!
Way to go Kevin Ranker, Agricultural Resources Committee (ARC) of San Juan County, and people who called and wrote to help make this happen. It makes us feel optimistic knowing we all can make a positive difference!

Farm Internship Bill 6349 needs your help this morning!

2010-02-23T07:27:00.000-08:00

The Farm Internship bill passed the state Senate last week unanimously. For 6349 to get to the Governor's desk to become law, it has to now get through the House committees and back to the Senate.
This morning at 11 am, the Commerce & Labor committee will vote on moving Bill 6349 out of the committee and on through to other comittees and the Senate. Can you contact as many of our state representatives on this Committee as you can this morning,
and let them know 6349 needs to pass?

Rep. Steve Conway, 360-786-7906,Conway.Steve@leg.wa.gov
Rep. Alex Wood, 360-786-7888, Wood.Alex@leg.wa.gov
Rep. Cary Condotta, 360-786-7954, Condotta.Cary@leg.wa.gov
Rep. Bruce Chandler, 360-786-7960, Chandler.Bruce@leg.wa.gov
Rep. Larry Crouse, 360-786-7820, Crouse.Larry@leg.wa.gov
Rep. Tami Green, 360-786-7958, Green.Tami@leg.wa.gov
Rep. Jim Moeller, 360-786-7872, Moeller.Jim@leg.wa.gov
Rep. Brendan Williams, 360-786-7940, Williams.Brendan@leg.wa.gov

Below are some good reasons why full support of SB 6349 is important to establish a
process for internships on small farms in Washington State:

Recent audits of small farm internship practices by Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) have raised a serious issue for the small farmers in our state. Washington State labor law doesn't recognize farm internships as a valid worker category unless the
participants are enrolled at a recognized educational institution. Because only a small percentage of farm interns are registered students, the majority of small farms teaching interns are likely not in compliance with L&I's requirements.

Statewide, small farms are becoming increasingly important in maintaining a diverse and sustainable local economy. This bill allows small farms to establish an internship programs for future farmers to pass on crucial vocation knowledge of farming practices and enterprises. SB
6349 is essential for ensuring continued growth in the agricultural industry.

Our state representatives can help farm interns and small family farms, and the communities and economies they are a part of in by voting SB 6349 out of committee.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's a link to the latest information available on 6349's progress .
Once you've become involved in your democracy, you may want to watch
what happens to this bill as it makes its journey to become law - here.

Safeguard Organic Alfalfa - This is Not Just a Rural Issue

2010-02-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

Alfalfa is a very important crop, high in nutrition needed by dairy and beef cattle and other livestock. Because it absorbs nitrogen from air - instead of from soil like most other grasses, including corn - with adequate water it is also quite an efficient crop to grow.
We just got a notice from the Organic Consumers Association telling us that:

The USDA is Poised to Approve Monsanto's Genetically Engineered Alfalfa.
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), aren't actually in practice meant to feed the world or survive droughts and floods. GMOs currently in commercial use - now spliced into millions of acres of corn, cotton, soy, canola, sugar beets and alfalfa - are designed to sell Monsanto's herbicide, Roundup, and the patented "Roundup Ready" Monsanto-owned seeds that go with it. All corporate-patented GMO seeds for commercial use are either designed as crops able to withstand doses of Monsanto's herbicide, Roundup, while all other living plants are killed around them, or are designed to actually carry a pesticide within the crop plants. Other corporate players in the GMO game are Syngenta (Novartis), Bayer, and Dupont, although corporate names, and names of their subsidiaries do occasionally change as their practices are made public.

Pests on GMO crops have become resistant to GMO-related pesticides, creating need for ever-newer corporate GMO products to be purchased by farmers. Natural controls have been shown to be much more effective and sustainable.
Weeds are also becoming resistant to the chemicals that are part of the GMO 'package' - causing the same expensive and dangerous cycle. Again, tried-and-true traditional methods have proved much more effective and safer over the long-term, in addition to building soil health.

A 2009 study showed that, in 13 years,
Monsanto's Roundup Ready crops increased herbicide use by 383 million pounds.
The dangers of these chemicals to human health - and the serious health dangers posed by the genetic modification process itself, especially to stomach, liver, and kidney - have been proved.

In 2007, a Federal court ruled the
USDA's approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa failed to analyze the risks Gmos posed, including contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa and the development of "super-weeds." The court banned the planting of GM alfalfa until USDA completed a rigorous analysis of these impacts.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals twice affirmed the national ban on Roundup Ready alfalfa planting. Now Monsanto is appealing to the Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, at least one sitting justice has close ties to the chemical, bio-engineering corporation, and has not recused himself in the past from decisions in which this company has a stake.
Widespread GMO contamination of organic alfalfa - destruction of organic crops - is inevitable if Monsanto's GM Roundup Ready alfalfa is allowed to be planted across the U.S.

GMO contamination poses an incredibly serious threat to the livelihood of alfalfa farmers, livestock and dairy farmers, the ranchers who depend on organic alfalfa for feed, the people who consume their products, and the economies these farms are an integral part of.

American farmers must not lose the right and the choice to grow organic and GMO-free food.

So far, in addition to organic farmers, ranchers, and others, 16,099 Organic Consumers Association activists have sent letters. If you haven't, you can Take Action Now.
If you happen to be in San Diego, Monsanto's coming to town. Are you or a friend a Facebook member? Join the Peaceful Eat-In (Facebook event) Say No to GMO!

The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund explains that GMO alfalfa also threatens our milk supply. They have actions you can take here.

photos Scott Bauer and Keith Weller, courtesy USDA

Sen. Ranker's (SJI ARC originated) farm internship bill passed WA Senate 46-0

2010-02-16T22:41:00.001-08:00

Dear Everyone,

Kevin Ranker just sponsored a bill which will help farmers on the island and throughout the state by changing inappropriate Labor and Industry restrictions for farm interns--this will be HUGELY helpful for farmers, and the local economies they're a part of. It looked at one point like it might not happen.
Kevin got it passed unanimously 46-0. It's WA SB 6349. Click here to read more on our main page.

Simply another politician? This is a working man!

Easy things you can do:

1. Write or call Kevin Ranker and thank him & his Senate colleagues! Our county's lucky to have Kevin pulling for us. Without this bill, WA farmers would face almost insurmountable obstacles passing farming skills on to a new generation of willing young farmers.

By Phone:

Olympia Office: (360) 786-7678
Anacortes Office: (360) 899-5638

By E-mail:

ranker.kevin@leg.wa.gov

2. Now the bill goes to the House for consideration.
Can you contact our state representative Jeff Morris: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/members/morris/ and Dave Quall: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/members/quall/ whoever your WA state rep is in your district, and tell them this needs to pass?

As with the NAIS in the post below, People speaking up really makes a difference!
You can make a difference!

Photos courtesy of Becky Bolt and Washington State

USDA ABANDONS PLANS FOR THE NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM!

2010-02-10T14:41:00.000-08:00

Hi USDA Announces New Framework For Animal Traceability!

On February 5, 2010, the USDA announced that it was dropping its plan for the National Animal Identification System, (NAIS) and turning its attention to developing "a new, flexible framework for animal disease traceability."

While the NAIS plans called for tracking every livestock animal in the country, the USDA stated that its new plan will apply only to animals moved in interstate commerce. In a conference call with concerned organizations, Secretary Vilsack stated that the new plan will seek to be able to trace animals back to the State they came from, and that any additional traceback will be left to the State. The Secretary also stated that NAIS had received a "failing grade" and that he does not intend to use preferential funding to the States to implement it.

You can read more details from USDA at:

USDA Publications

USDA has admitted that "the vast majority of participants [in the listening sessions] were highly critical" of NAIS and claims that its new approach "honors the very legitimate concerns of the American public and those in Rural America." From the listening sessions to State anti-NAIS bills to the Legal Defense Fund's lawsuit challenging the legality of NAIS, the USDA faced pressure on a variety of fronts to drop this program. The change in USDA policy is due to the thousands of people who spoke up in opposition to NAIS, and each of you deserves credit. Thank you for taking action!

Although this is a significant victory, the issue of electronic tagging and tracking of livestock is not over. Livestock owners face continuing problems with the programs that are already in place in Wisconsin and Michigan, which will require a change in those states' laws to fix. The agribusiness and technology companies will undoubtedly push for burdensome regulations, both in the new USDA framework and at the State level, so we still have a lot of work to do. Please stay tuned for more information and action steps.

Hi Everyone - This great news (above)
comes to us courtesy of the
Farm To Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

Announcement upcoming
about our next movie
for our Land & Sea Film Fest -
"Flow", and other programs and events.
Best -
Linda and Maureen

WA Senate Bill 6349 - Give our small (unsubsidized) farmers a chance to stay in business.(Also, read about "Food Safety" bills in Nov. 10 post below)

2010-01-21T19:39:00.000-08:00

Most of our small farmers hold two or 3 other jobs just so they can stay in business growing safe and healthy food.
Here's a letter from Matt Marinkovich talking about giving them a fighting chance:

"Hello There
I am a commercial fisherman who lives on San Juan Island and I am writing you in support of SB 6349. Since I moved here from Tacoma over six years ago I have learned more about food and farming than I ever dreamed I would know.

One of the things I see firsthand is most of these farmers here on these islands (and everywhere else, as well) are no spring chickens-- the majority of them are either at or soon approaching "retirement" age, and I know only a couple of younger people who have fully entered the farming trade. I think its a matter of public security/safety (especially on these ferry-dependent islands) that we have young people entering the farm trade--who is going to grow our food in 15- years? Shall we outsource it to Dubai?

It makes no sense that when people, young or old, want to learn how to farm that they would not be considered an intern. There's more to running a small farm than just planting veggies, and it takes a while to learn the important skills needed to make a farm just break even, let alone become profitable. I know enthusiastic young people who would like to learn the farm trade, and I know farmers who are willing to teach them but they can't work on their farm because of the L&I law as it currently exists. There should be no restrictions at all--in fact there should be INCENTIVES--when it comes to new people entering the farm trade.

On my small, family-owned fishing boat I hire crew as independent contractors. They are paid a share of the gross, and could make a lot or a little--there is no minimum, and there's NO State L&I agent poking their nose in my business (Thank you God! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!). These small, family-owned farms operate in much the same way (except for the L&I agent). They're NOT like a giant factory trawler with 30 grunts slaving away on the factory deck-- they have just a few good hands dedicated to keeping the farm afloat, and I think this law should be passed so the government will get off the back of the small farmers so they can get busy with the vitally important job of training the next generations of farmers.

Who grows your food?

Sincerely,

Matt Marinkovich
consumer of locally-grown produce and registered voter"

OH YES, YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE - THE DEPT OF JUSTICE WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU

2009-12-19T21:57:00.001-08:00

LINK The DOJ will be holding antitrust hearings and workshops in 2010 all over the country on the subject of the control of US food and food production by 3 or 4 multinational corporations. Justice wants to hear from you by Dec 31 - NOW - and they are listening.
Call a friend - Get together, and write a letter.
Here is the link to get your statement to the Department of Justice. If you saw "Food, Inc.", or have read this page, you know this is critical. Please pass it on, especially to friends who are farmers. We do have the power to make change. Let's do it.

...And if you want to know what is in the food you buy - look at the address on anything packaged, & write or call the company. Tell them if you don't want genetically modified, irradiated, nano-particle altered, or chemically treated ingredients in your food.
Tell them if you want the food labeled to reflect that. THEY WILL LISTEN.
Get together and do it with your friends, or club, or coworkers, or church. Start with that package of corn tortillas and that box of soymilk, and do it now. You do have power!

Photos courtesy of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Top: Tim McCabe,
center: Bob Nichols. Bottom photo: courtesy NRCS

Food Safety & Good News (updated 12/15 with news from Food & Water Watch))

2009-11-23T07:35:00.000-08:00

Read very Good news below, coming from California, Hawaii, France, and Ireland -

First - quite important "food safety enhancement" House and Senate bills 510 & 2749. Please read the updated info in Nov. 10 post just below. Skim down to the red text if you have to, but please read it, it's very important.

Photos above & below, Island grown squash and sweet carrots , Linda Degnan Cobos

So, some good news about "Monsanto Laws" and small farmers targeted by them comes in the form of California's new AB 541, signed into law last year by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and supported by organizations across the political spectrum. The law not only begins to protect farmers, but also demonstrates there is a real need for such protection.

Food & Water Watch has an action alert about antitrust hearings the Obama Aministration is said to have scheduled to examine the corporate control of food.

Read about that here.

For a great article on family farmers, Monsanto, and our food safety, read this well researched 2008 article from Vanity Fair - here. More on these difficulties faced by small US farmers here and here.

This just in from our friend Becky Bolt -
France's Supreme Court has ruled that Monsanto has given false information about the safety of it's best-selling weed-killer, Roundup.
France's highest court upheld two earlier convictions against Monsanto - by the Lyon criminal court in 2007, and the Lyon court of appeal in 2008.
Background from the BBC: “French environmental groups had brought the case in 2001 on the basis that glyphosate, Roundup's main ingredient, is classed as "dangerous for the environment" by the European Union.”

More good news - Read about Hawaii's 2009 ban on GMO taro, and the Sept. '09 U.S. ruling banning GMO sugar beets. More about the many GMO crops grown in Hawaii, from Scientific American magazine, here, it will blow your mind.
Ireland has a new ban on GMO crops. Go here for more on that.

To get a updated list showing what products in your market have genetically modified ingredients, click here. We'll also be bringing more little GMO-free shopping booklets to the SJI Co Op soon.

To find the list of national & local businesses who have pledged to avoid GMO beet sugar, & to sign up, go here.

Becky's also turned us on to a wonderful local SJI Facebook page she is a member of & we've joined, Gogo Green, for local info & all things eco, including a discussion page.

Thanks, Becky, and thanks for the use of your great Farmers Market photos!

Palace Theater manager Aaron King made a local viewing of "Food, Inc." on the big screen possible last month. He's also sent us a note about a "CSI: Miami" television show episode that recently aired, titled "Bad Seed"(places to watch it here). The plot's all about food safety, veggie laws, and then it's some kind of crime solving thriller - that's kind of amazing. Who woulda thunk it? Thanks, Aaron!

Speaking of the Palace - Troy Roush, a farmer who spoke so movingly in the movie "Food, Inc" (which is now available on video at Big Store) was kind enough to write back to a question we sent to the ACGA (American Corn Grower's Association) about movie popcorn and genetic modification. (The ACGA is a great organization, you can join - they could use your support). Troy wrote us back a very nice note, saying "I was in the popcorn business for a number of years and at the time I stopped growing (two years ago) there was no GM popcorn being grown and the talk was there wouldn't because popcorn is used for direct human consumption and widely exported to countries (Europe mostly) that would not accept GMO popcorn." Troy said that popcorn has a gene that makes cross-pollination with field corn impossible - it can't be contaminated by field corn. and now this gene has been patented by seed co. Hogemeyer, so, as Troy says, " there is no way around eating popcorn that is not "patented", even though it is not GMO and the Indians showed us how to grow the stuff in the first place."

On a related subject - if you use soy products (movie popcorn 'butter' is one) and you don't want to eat or use genetically modified soy products, call & write the companies you buy from, and tell them.
91 percent of all soy grown in the world is now genetically modified. (Maybe you noticed the word organic disappearing off the soy milk and tofu you see at the market). The genetic modification to soy is the addition of a pesticide (Bt) right into the plant, and a gene making the soy resistant to heavier doses of glyphosate herbicide. Yum yum.
(There are also some troubling things happening around the growing of soy in some of the major producing counties. For example, Paraguay.)

Not too good for the earth or us. Let's do something about that.

"FOOD SAFETY ENHANCEMENT ACT" SENATE BILL 510 and House Bill 2749 (updated 12/3)

2009-11-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

Please go to the FTCLDF web site to read about Senate Bill 510, the “Food Safety Enhancement Act”.
One bill has already made it through the House as SB 2749. It includes the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), in which each animal you own (except dogs & cats) must be chipped (with Cargill chips, at your expense), and your premises registered with the government, in addition to requiring paperwork to be filed with the government every time your animal leaves or returns to your premises. Non-compliance results in hefty fines. Veterinarians will be fined for not reporting any un-chipped animals to the government.
Large factory farms (CAFOs-Containment Animal Feeding Operations) are exempted from chipping each animal, but only are required to chip one animal in their massive herds, which defeats the stated purpose of the regulations.

This part of the bill 2749 alone is loaded with problems and doesn't even address the most frequent sources of food contamination in

the US - the CAFOs - but instead buries local family farms in inappropriate regulations and paperwork under the guise of “food safety”.
This bill would effectively drive many, many, very good and very needed, family farms out of business with enormous demands on manpower and resources that amount to nothing but extremely expensive busywork. The original wording of much of the bill actually came directly from Monsanto and Cargill sponsored organizations, taken from ‘voluntary regulations' already enacted by a number of states without having to pass through legislation.

The NAIS is only one of the major problems with these bills.

The bills create incentives for retailers to import food from other countries while not actually being able to hold foreign food facilities to the same standards as US facilities, allowing less-safe food to be brought the US, while undercutting American farmers. However, corporate farms - multinationals - would benefit from this provision, as they own large operations in other countries, paying far below US farm wages (which are already low) and using cheaper and
far less safe growing methods.And that's not the only problem.

In these bills, a practical distinction between CAFOs (factory farms) and small farms raising pastured animals is not made. Protection from contamination of crops such as spinach , by fertilizer and runoff from CAFOs, is not included (read about that here).
The importance of crop and animal biodiversity - the check against devastation by disease developed by nature over billions of years, versus the mono cropping practiced and encouraged over the last 50 years by corporate farm interests - is not addressed. Access to information and research on the safety of GMO crops is not protected, and tight regulation of corporate owned GMO based sterilizing seeds - Terminator seeds (GURTS), which can sterilize fields of contaminated food crops, making seed unusable - is not addressed, nor is the current ownership of most of the world's seed supplies by one bio-tech/chemical corporation.

Much heavier use of herbicides on fields of genetically modified herbicide resistant crops (such as Roundup-Ready) have led to damage to pollinators including Monarch butterflies and bees, and increased toxic runoff to water supplies and contamination of soils. This damaging practice is also not addressed.

If you do like buying from local family farms, and like having them there for you, please help by contacting your state senator NOW.
Senate Bill 510 will be pushed through quickly, as was HB2749, and the damage it will leave family farms open to is serious and largely irreparable.
Similar flawed bills (update - "Processed Food Safety Act" introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein D. CA 12 '09) will soon be quietly finding their way through Congress.

Ask your local independant family farmer. And local farmers in Illinois. Texas. New Jersey. Wisconsin. California. Minnesota. Arkansas. Tennessee. ...
This bill is a gift to Monsanto, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Smithfield Farms, and Tyson. Unfortunately, those companies, while employing American workers (at very low wages) at their factory farms and pesticide, herbicide, and GMO factories, also employ undocumented workers here, and use workers at substandard wages in non US locations. These companies most often take their profits out of the community, and often out of the country, while enjoying US government tax breaks and large subsidies paid for by US taxpayers.

Local small family farms who are an integral, and once again rapidly growing, part of building very strong local economies in spite of all the roadblocks being thrown in their way, provide safe healthy food and jobs to local communities - and have actually been targeted to be crippled by a blizzard of paperwork and enormous unnecessary expenses.
These bills as currently written will do just that.

The benefit will be to the short-term bottom line of these few influential multinational corporations. No benefit will come to local communities when all is balanced out, and very little if any actual 'food safety' will have been achieved.

These bills were designed to be read quickly and to be passed by non-farmers; designed to sound good, while dealing a death-blow to the growing competition safe, healthy, local food is beginning to be to giant corporate factory farms' bottom line, and impairing actual food safety. Those corporate profits don't come back to the American taxpayer in any meaningful way. However, the environmental damage, health problems caused by factory food practices - in addition to unsafe working conditions and poverty-level wages that are products of factory type farms - cost the American taxpayer, especially the working class taxpayer, a lot.

As usual.

Please contact your state's Senators about Senate Bill 510. Please ask that it effectively address the food safety issues posed by CAFOs, mono cropping/biodiversity, and targeting of family farms by competing corporations.

Link - Contact info for Sen. Patty Murray D-WA.
Link - Contact info for Sen. Maria Cantwell D-WA.
Link - Contact info for other states, districts and territories.
(A phone call's better than an email, and a letter is even better. Why not try all 3?)

The Chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee through which the bill passed Wed. is Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) (202)-224-0767, fax (202)-224-5128.
HELP Committee ranking member is Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), (202)-224-6770

Write or Call Your State Congressman about House Bill 2749 (which includes the NAIS).
WA State Districts here; SJI Rep. is Rick Larsen.
This bill has already passed the House, but your Congressman needs to know a bit more about it.

Read more on Food Safety enhancement Act here, and go to links at right here and on the main Land & Sea page for more info on the bills HR2749 and S510 and NAIS

Who says you can't grow peppers in the Pacific Northwest? Photos of local produce and farmers at market, above, courtesy of San Juan islander Becky Bolt. Photo, Milk cows - Jerseys - in stanchions - Casey J. Lehman

YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED: NOW

2009-10-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

Photo, top : Becky Bolt. San Juan Island Farmers Market

From the "Small Farmers. Big Change." web page of Equal Exchange comes this important message, below. It's important that our voices are heard NOW:

"The Revolving Door between Big Ag and OUR government

October 29, 2009 by Phyllis Robinson

A broad coalition of groups around the country (Pesticide Action Network, National Family Farm Coalition, Food & Water Watch, Farmworker’s Association of Florida, Institute of Agriculture & Trade Policy, Food Democracy Now!, Greenpeace, Center for Food Safety) have mobilized to block the appointment of Islam Siddiqui to the critical post of U.S. Chief Agricultural Negotiator.

Equal Exchange is encouraging our friends and allies to read the following statement and petition and sign on. We share in the belief that President Obama should be held to his promise to put people’s interests ahead of the special interests of big agriculture.

Dear Colleagues:
Despite campaign promises to the contrary, President Obama has nominated to two key posts “Big Ag” industry insiders who come straight from the chemical pesticide and ag biotechnology sectors.

Islam Siddiqui — current VP of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife (THE lobbying association for the pesticide/GMO industry). A former registered lobbyist, Siddiqui has been nominated to the critical post of U.S. Chief Agricultural Negotiator. This position will enable him to keep pushing chemical pesticides, inappropriate biotechnologies, and unfair trade arrangements on nations that do not want and can least afford them.
Roger Beachy — long-time head of Monsanto’s defacto nonprofit research arm — has been installed as director of the USDA’s newly created National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). This office comes with a $500 million budget, and therein control over the U.S. ag research agenda for years to come.

Please join us in signing this petition, urging President Obama to withdraw his Big Ag industry insiders nominations to vital agriculture posts.

We need 50,000 signatures to make an impact and we have until Nov. 4th (when the Senate Finance Committee will vote) to make a difference.

Click here to sign the petition".

Thanks, Small Farmers and Equal Exchange!
Please go here to read more important information from Equal Exchange's "Small Farmers. Big Change." web page, here for info from Organic Consumers Association, and here for the petition from Food Democracy Now. And, please, tell your friends.

USDA Says Biotech Is Compatible with Organic - What You Can Do

2009-09-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

Please read this story from the Organic Consumers Association. Especially important is reading the sidebar on the story which explains where the push on GMO's (genetically modified organisms) is coming from.

Although it's often difficult, it's really important to stay updated, and to make your voice heard - as you can see after reading this Organic Consumers Association story, it does make a difference!

Image from Cooperative Grocer
A lot is happening in our government regarding food and water regulations including fisheries - but that's not all - while we are busy with summer. We will be posting about bills such as H.R. 2749 which just passed the House and is to go on to the Senate soon. A great blog from a CSA farmer in Texas - Home Sweet Farm - with some great links on the new Food Safety Enhancement Act (HR 2749 text). Please read the links about this bill - it's being pushed through quietly and quickly - and without important changes, could be devastating for small sustainable farmers.

Contacting your legislators can be crucial, you do have the power to make a difference!

What's happening to the Frasier sockeye is an example of what happens when we don't have a chance to pay attention. Click here for an action you can take to help the wild sockeye survive.

2009-06-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

----- Hi Graduates - Looking for something more than a career?
The Practical Training/Farm and Garden Apprenticeship program is taking app's for 2009-2010 (until 10/1/09 for U.S. and Canadian students 9/1/09 for international students).

We wrote about this on our April Actions post, but it bears repeating:

Today, more than 1,200 apprentices have been trained in the organic fields, orchards and greenhouses at UC Santa Cruz, learning not only how to raise food and flowers, but how to make the food system itself more sustainable by addressing issues of social justice. They are today's organic farmers, market gardeners, urban agriculturalists, school garden teachers, and others working to promote local, healthy food in communities around the country.
Contact the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, UC Santa Cruz, 831-459-2321 email: apprenticeship@ucsc.edu

Recent graduates exemplify the program’s potential to create new farmers…

Kelsey Keener, Ryan Power, and Noah Bresler raise vegetables, fruit, and heritage livestock on historic Williams Island near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mike Nolan and Gabe Eggers coax crops from the sagebrush country of southern Colorado for local markets. Amy Rice-Jones manages the brand new Bounty Farm, where she coordinates a team of volunteers growing food for low-income residents of Petaluma, California.

Read more of the profiles of UC Santa Cruz apprentices here.

Photo above, left: The Farm to College Project at UC Santa Cruz - The Farm-to-College project at UC Santa Cruz links the Center’s Farm on the UCSC campus with other local organic farms and with UCSC campus organizations to bring organic produce to the campus dining halls and restaurants, while bringing students to the Farm for sustainable food systems education.

Supporting the "Grow a Farmer Campaign" an independent project that helps financially support the housing needs of the CAFS program, or taking part in this program are 2 ways to help. Click here for homepage of the CASFS program.

Check out the web page and YouTube video for the "Grow A Farmer Campaign".

AND...We can also learn from this program, and work to develop a training program for farmers right here. We're starting, with our L & S Youth Club Farm Garden and farmworker training; we know others on the island are thinking the same thing, and doing it, too.

NEW PAGE ! - MORE INFO

2009-04-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

Photo, left, from Credo
Welcome to the first post of our Actions Page - This is where we will list news from out of our region that affects us all, and actions you can take right now to help!
We will be building this page in the next few weeks and will begin adding more stories and links to keep you informed.

From Credo Action Network:

Tell the Pesticide Peddlers: We support Michelle Obama's organic garden.

The Mid America CropLife Association (MACA)represents chemical companies that produce pesticides, and they are angry that - wait for it - Michelle Obama isn't using chemicals in her organic garden at the White House. In an email to their supporters, a MACA spokesman wrote, "While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder.", and went on to publish a letter it had sent to the First Lady asking her to consider using chemicals -- or what they call "crop protection products" -- in her garden.
Sign this petition today to tell the board members of MACA (virtually all of them big chemical executives) that we don't appreciate their telling Michelle Obama (or any of us) to use pesticides in our gardens.

From Organic Consumer's Association:

Contact Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and urge her to veto HB 2121 before April 16^th.

HB 2121 could potentiall restrict any national US dairy from properly labeling their milk products as free from genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH or rbST).

rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) is a genetically engineered variant of the natural growth hormone produced by cows. Formerly manufactured by Monsanto, it is sold to dairy farmers under the trade name Posilac. Injection of this hormone forces cows to boost milk production by about 10%, while increasing the incidences of mastitis, lameness, and reproductive complications.

Save Organic Standards: Tell the USDA and the NOSB to Protect Organic Standards. Under the new Obama Administration, with Kathleen Merrigan as second-in-command at the USDA, we have an opportunity to prevent corporate greed from corrupting organic standards.

Action Alert: Critical Pending Food Safety Legislation - H.R. 875
Please Ask Congress to Protect High Quality Organic and Local Food

(Several other bills include provisions that should worry small farmers – like H.R. 814, which calls for a mandatory animal identification system, or H.R. 759, which is more likely to move through Congress than H.R. 875 and calls for electronic recordkeeping on farms and registration fees for processing plants. For factory farms this is a very good idea; for small sustainable farms, it can be not only unnecessary - overkill - but devastating in cost of money and time).
People should know what they're talking about when they call or write their government representatives. Organic sustainable farmers will tell you that passing a bill (HR 875) with so many ambiguities and the 'one size fits all' potential will not be good at all for the future of organic farmers, given the presence of Big Chem and Big Ag in the Congress, Dept. of Ag, FDA, and Farm Bureau. It's important that people find out who their officials and decision makers in these agencies are, who they worked for, who they will likely work for again.

The term "food safety" has more than one meaning: There is the idea of tainted or diseased food supplies. There is also the idea of destruction of biodiversity, contamination and sterilization of seed stocks with bioengineered seed crossbreeding, and loss of small communities' ability to feed themselves. Small sustainable farms can be lost due to inappropriate and overwhelming regulation, and seed and animal manipulation and patents. The call to contact your representative is really a call for education about what is happening to our food supply. Who owns our food supply (and our water) and are we allowed to feed ourselves and to understand what food safety really is?
Books and other media to help understand more about this incredibly important issue:

Read Vandana Shiva's "Stolen Harvest; The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply".
Watch the excellent video "The Future of Food".
Read Jane Goodall's "Harvest for Hope".
Read about the NAIS (National Animal Identification System).
Watch the incredibly informative "The World According to Monsanto"
Watch the award wining documentary Flow about water issues

All of these can help in understanding the significance of the term "food safety".

Would corporations actually do things that are not in the best interest of the American people? Is that really a question right now? If, incredibly, somehow it is, the book & documentary "The Corporation" is helpful in understanding the structure and need for short-term profit of the the modern-day corporations controlling so much of the present and potential food supply and holding so much influence in a number of governments.

WANT TO HEAR SOME HAPPY NEWS? WANT TO BE A PART OF IT?
left: The Farm to College Project at UC Santa Cruz

Check out the web page and YouTube video for the Grow A Farmer Campaign.
It will make you happy!
Today, more than 1,200 apprentices have been trained in the organic fields, orchards and greenhouses at UC Santa Cruz, learning not only how to raise food and flowers, but how to make the food system itself more sustainable by addressing issues of social justice. They are today's organic farmers, market gardeners, urban agriculturalists, school garden teachers, and others working to promote local, healthy food in communities around the country.

Recent graduates exemplify the program’s potential to create new farmers…

Read more of the profiles of UC Santa Cruz apprentices here.

Supporting or taking part in this program is one way to help.

MORE GOOD NEWS:

Take a look at this month's issue of Yes! magazine - it is incredible!
You will be inspired - the article titled "Growing Power" will remind you that it only takes one person to begin to make change - you do have it in you! Read all about Will Allen, The New Crop of Farmers, Percy Schmeiser, and the Good Food Revolution. You will come away with a smile on your face!

Left: Will Allen shows some of the 10,000 fish growing in one of Growing Power's four-foot-deep, 10,000-gallon aquaponics tanks. Waste from the fish feeds greens and tomatoes. The plants purify the water for the fish. The fish eventually go to market. Photo by Ryan Griffis temporarytraveloffice.net