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!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
WA State Gov. Gregoire Signs The Farm Intern Bill, 6349 Into Law 3/21/10!
Great coverage on this news on the Island Guardian, here, and SJ Journal, here, online.
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!
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!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Farm Internship Bill 6349 needs your help this morning!
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.
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.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Safeguard Organic Alfalfa - This is Not Just a Rural Issue
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
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Sen. Ranker's (SJI ARC originated) farm internship bill passed WA Senate 46-0
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:
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
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
Anacortes Office: (360) 899-5638
By E-mail:
ranker.kevin@leg.wa.gov2. 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
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
USDA ABANDONS PLANS FOR THE NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM!
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| 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 |
Thursday, January 21, 2010
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)
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"
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"
Saturday, December 19, 2009
OH YES, YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE - THE DEPT OF JUSTICE WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU
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
Monday, November 23, 2009
Food Safety & Good News (updated 12/15 with news from Food & Water Watch))
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.
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.)
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.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
"FOOD SAFETY ENHANCEMENT ACT" SENATE BILL 510 and House Bill 2749 (updated 12/3)
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.
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.
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 abo
ut 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 communitie
s - 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 NAISWho 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.
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 abo
ut 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 communitie
s - 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 NAISWho 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.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED: NOW
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.
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.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
USDA Says Biotech Is Compatible with Organic - What You Can Do
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.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
----- 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
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.
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.
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