Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiA Change We Can Believe In - Dumping Industrial Agriculture
As 2009 approaches, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) notes nearly a billion people a day go hungry worldwide. While India supplies Switzerland with 80% of its wheat, 350 million Indians are food-insecure. Rice prices have nearly tripled since early 2007 because, according to The International Rice Research Institute, rice-growing land is being lost to industrialization, urbanization and shifts to grain crops for animal feed.
Yet, according to FAO statistics, world food supplies have kept pace with population growth. There is enough food to adequately feed everyone. Clearly, root causes of the food crisis lie in politics, problems with food distribution, poverty and a failure of the industrial food system to deliver its promises.
Dr. Bob Watson, chief scientist for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the UK, places the blame for the food price spikes on several factors; grain being shifted to animal feed, drought, increased use of grains for biofuels and speculation in food crops. While proponents assert that industrial agriculture is the only hope to end the food crisis, it appears that industrial agriculture is *causing* the food crisis.
A study by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) found, that as industrial farming practices are adopted in countries like India, small farmers and landless peasants are forced off the land. Hundreds of vegetables and weeds that were part of the traditional diet are wiped out by mono-cultures and herbicides used on the Genetically Modified (GM) crops. Thus, as Margaret Visser tells us, more rice and wheat produced in India really meant less food and less nutrition.
In 1995 Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro addressed the Society of Environmental Journalists stating "The commercial industrial technologies (the Green Revolution) that are used in agriculture today to feed the world... are not inherently sustainable." Even Shapiro, was admitting the Green Revolution would fail. As George Kent notes in /The Political Economy of Hunger/, "the benefits of Green Revolution yields went into the mouths of rich world denizens, in the form of meat and processed foods"
IAASTD concluded that small-scale farmers in diverse ecosystems should be the focus of efforts to get better quality food in the right places. Farmers need better access to knowledge, technology and credit, but was biotechnology *the *technology ? Watson told the UK Daily Mail "Are transgenics the simple answer to hunger and poverty? I would argue, no."
Study after study indicates small scale, integrated organic/low input sustainable production can produce more food, of higher nutritional value locally, where it is needed.
A 15 year study at the Rodale Institute showed similar yields for conventionally raised vs. organic corn and soy, with soil fertility being consistently higher in the organic systems.
The Broadbalk study in the UK, ongoing for over 150 years, shows higher yields in integrated organic systems over conventional systems with soil fertility remarkably in the organic system.
In /This Organic Life/, Joan Dye Gussow notes that prior to World War II, even with its harsh climate, Montana produced 70% of its own food, including fruit. Sustainably, organically on small farms.
The advantage of integrated organic and sustainable systems is even more apparent in the Global South where most farms are an acre or less. While "yield" per acre can be higher on large conventional farms, "total output" per acre, the sum of everything the farmer produces, is according to Peter Rosset in /The Ecologist/, far higher on small farms. More food, more nutrition, more animal feed.
Gardeners are familiar with the Three Sisters, corn, beans and squash, three food crops that thrive together. This system of intercropping, has long been practiced by small scale indigenous farmers. Integrating livestock, manure and crop rotation makes the system even more productive in terms of food per acre.
According to Rosset, economists at the World Bank realize that redistribution of land to small farmers would promote greater food production, yet due to corporate and political pressure, the industrial farming model is promoted as the standard that will "feed the world." Helena Norberg-Hodge notes that the industrial food system became dominated by the "need for corporate profits, not the need to feed the global population".
Industrial farming has been an abysmal failure at feeding the world. The best hope, according to the IAASTD report, long term research and countless generations of indigenous farmers, lies with "small scale farmers in diverse eco-systems".
As for the US, we need sensible food policy; less grain for animals, more home and community gardens, farmer owned grain reserves, energy policy that does not use food for fuel and an end to food price speculation. That is a "Change we can believe in".
52 Comments so far
Show AllYou know, we probably wouldn't even be having this discussion if there weren't massive agricultural subsidies. Let's slowly reduce those subsidies to $0 (over say ten years to give everyone time to adjust). Then, the people with the best knowledge (farmers) can grow what makes sense.
Just two other observations:
1. I had a job in a small Indiana town completely surrounded by farms. Could I find any decent food in town? No. What I did find was a lot of processed junk (milk and meat included) and beautiful looking (but tasteless and nutritionally vapid) produce at the grocery stores. Surrounded by farms and couldn't even find a farmer selling corn at a roadside stand.
2. People will pay for real food: I pay $13.50 for a gallon for "real" milk and my total income per month is $900. The milk is yellow, unpasteurized, and I swear I can taste the cow's udder on the rare occasions when I taste it (usually I ferment it into kefir).
With declining production of oil and natural gas, the future of agriculture is less fertilizer/pesticides and fewer machines. Organic is coming whether we want it or not; the smart farmer will re-learn how his great grandparents farmed while there is still time. Not sure: I'd read "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunster.
I want to thank all of you, a very interesting discussion. This is why I come to CD. I've learned quite a bit and some things to check out. Hopefully CD will put up more articles of real concern.
There is a lot of good work in Jim Goodman's article. This is information that conventional farmers haven't heard of, as seen in some of the comments by non believers below. The discussion is good.
I take exception with the following, however. "Rice prices have nearly tripled since early 2007 ..." "places the blame for the food price spikes on several factors...." Ok, yes, prices have tripled. Yes, short term that increased hunger and starvation ("blame",) but long term that (higher farm prices) ends the crisis. Low farm prices for decades caused the food crisis. We called it dumping and "blamed" it appropriately in years past. We deliberately lost money on farm exports for decades. It destroyed economies of Least Developed Countries where 73% of the population was rural. They couldn't even afford the below cost food, as they lacked jobs due to low farm prices impacting their whole economies.
So what is a standard for farm prices, high enough but not too high, variable and stable but not volatile and fuel for speculation. None was mentioned in this, and many other similar articles on the "food crisis." One standard of a living wage/fair trade price is parity. As of September 2005 Corn was 25% of parity and rice was 26% of parity, both in need of a four fold increase. So the "tripled" rice prices and nearly quadrupled corn prices were not a "blame," but a long term solution (but causing a short term increase in hunger). We don't want to return to dumping on third world farmers. That's a "blame," not a solution. See IATP, US Dumping on World Agricultural Markets (and updated version).
We need commodity title price floors with supply management on the bottom side (to stop dumping) and price ceilings with grain reserves on the top side (to address food crises and prevent true price spikes). And we need to feed all of these people, while paying LDC farmers fair trade/living wage prices, and certainly not by dumping low priced food grains on them.
Brad - Do you mind explaining "parity" a little more? I don't know what you mean, as you've presented it.
Allan Balliett
Fresh and Local CSA
Shepherdstown, WV
www.freshandlocalcsa.com
I've farmed a lot of decades. We do lots of flowers and vegetables for ourselves and corn and beans for money. I no-til which is good for the soil. I use chemicals judiciously, which is important and is not bad. I use gm seed because it works better in oh so many ways than traditional seed types. My concerns revolve more around issues such as what do we do when mined phosphate rock becomes depleted (which is not a far in the future issue). Gearing up to burn our food for ethanol is quite insane and cellulosic ethanol, while of some value, should never become a huge source of fuel since the nutrient mining issue remains along with increased erosion possibilities and reduced soil tilth if too much crop residue is removed.
Yes, this should be a primary point in all progressive discussions of biofuels.
There should be no discussion of biofuels as far as I can see, at least as they are constituted now.
You have to burn more (even when used as an additive) to go the same distance, its destructive of engines and it removes food from the worlds table. The cost of production and the materials to produce a gallon of biofuel make it a negative. There is no upside that I see.
Except for Agribusiness and the subsidy it gets. Please feel free to correct me if my knowledge of this is out of date.
My point is, well, that you just "discussed" biofuels in a progressive way. Greg R raised a concern about nutrient mining, that is often left out of critiques of biofuels.
How about that! Good point.
Corn and beans, beans and corn. Ad infinitum. Synthetic nitrogen "fertilizer." No-till. Deisel-fueled tractors, trucks, trains. Stupid corrupt ethanol from corn subsidies. Beans and corn, corn and beans, eternal rotation. Dead soil pesticides and herbicides. No worms.
Streams with no fish, no frogs no tadpoles, no crayfish where once they thrived.
Children be sure to eat your mineral-depleted veggies, and if you get cancer it's your lifestyle's fault you guilty scum.
Better to lick the topsoil from some forest floor above the polluted floodplain.
Oh beautiful... spaceous skies above the polluted plain. ...Majestic lies ...pronounced in brand names.
Entire industries built on making you sick. Your utter biology, enslaved. Big Pharma will save you. Depending on your Deductible (if you can afford one). Ain't Progress wonderful.
"Depleted Uranium" spreads the poison of "rationalization" of Capitalist warfare; Children be sure to eat your heavy-metal contaminated veggies, and if you're in Tennessee worry not about the coal-ash arsenic because the EPA tested it. FDA approved. Don't trust your lyin nose.
The stench has become unbearable. The revolution will be like no other. Sick unto death and hoping for a total revolt... What now appears organized civilization is Chimera listing on its own bankruptcy. Push it over the edge. Applaud its demise.
-30-
Well stated!
[Except the part about "corn subsidies." The impact is correct, it just isn't caused by subsidies. As is often said by those who understand the commodity title of the farm bill, subsidies are a result, not the cause, they're closely related (except when there were no commodity subsidies, of course, before 1961). Ok, maybe then subsidies have a small, (indirect) impact of about 0% (+3% to -3% depending upon the commodity, ie. Timothy Wise, The Paradox of Agricultural Subsidies, page 21). The cause is the lack of price responsiveness on both supply and demand sides (Daryl E. Ray, "Are the five oft-cited reasons for farm programs actually symptoms of a more basic reason" combined with the lack of the appropriate remedy, a lack of price floors and supply management on the bottom side and price ceilings with commodity reserves on the top side. Sure, it looks like subsidies are the cause, and the public, the mainstream media and the progressive community understandably think that's it, and so they allow the larger, (multibillions per corporation and multitrillions historically) hidden scandal to go unnoticed. But see online:
Timothy A. Wise and Elanor Starmer, "Industrial Livestock Companies’ Gains from Low Feed Prices, 1997-2005." "We estimate cumulative savings to the broiler chicken industry from below-cost feed in those years to be $11.25 billion, while industrial hog operations saved an estimated $8.5 billion."
Daryl E. Ray, "The true beneficiaries of recent farm programs: Those who are now complaining."
Daryl E. Ray, "GMA rails against ethanol subsidies but benefited from federal farm subsidies for years." "While the season average corn price paid to farmers has risen by 88 percent over the last 30 years—all of that increase in the last two years—the retail price of cereals and cereals products has increased by 268 percent (figure 1)."
R. Dennis Olson, "Below-Cost Feed Crops: An Indirect Subsidy for Industrial Animal Factories."
George Naylor, "Legacy of Crisis."
Mark Ritchie, "Crisis by Design."]
zmann:
I am really laughing at the link about roots. The roots on the plants now are so much better than 20 years ago. Oh well, tiz better to live in bliss with a full stomack, than to live in hunger wondering where your next meal will be coming from.
And.....tizz funny that that study has not been replicated.
The link was about micro-nutrients, not roots, and a cursory search reveals that it is sufficiently serious to encourage plant breeding efforts.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w5q3783765577137/
In response to "big" organic companies producing inferior products, consumers can altnernately select to buy from local producers of those products instead. Many states have small organic or transitional dairies, for example, that produce the product on a much smaller scale with greater concern for quality. These companies only have to meet the needs of residents in their region, not customers across the country.
Therefore, these smaller farmers/ companies are less likely to adopt the undesirable methods arguably practiced by the "big" organic producers.
To those who do not know:
1.When I started soil testing on my farm.....the organic matter was less than 2%. That is very low. AT that time there was very very little fertilizer used. Yes, some manure, but that was all we had.
2. NOW my soil organic matter is 2.9%, the soil has tilth, is alive with worms etc. IN the past 35 years, I have improved the soil so much that it is now virtually all black again. There used to be yellow spots..but now it is fine and alive.
3. You can't mine the soil without putting back. Say you grow wheat as an examaple. EACH kernal that leaves my farm takes part of my farm with it. IF I don't put that part back.....pretty soon there will be nothing to take. IT is that plain and simple.
You are the funny one, Sig. Do a simple search of the literature on soil loss worldwide. It is truly astronomical.
You are, of course, free to ignore the FACT that agricultural lands world wide are being rapidly degraded by industrial agriculture.
This article is quit amuseing.
1.Before chemical fertilizers, my great grandfather was lucky to average 15 bu/acre of wheat. Now I average around 60 bu/acre.
2. It is apparant that the author has not taken agronomy. A plant can use phosphorus/potash/nitrogen only in one form. Did you know that phosphate is mined? That that supposed "chemical" we use for fertilizer is actually old dead fish? And potash is the same. It is mined from potash deposits?
The three main fertilizers that plants need are
1. Nitrogen
2. Phosphorus
3. Potash
Nitrogen is made from natural gas. One of the main chem components of natural gas is N. Without that nitrogen, you would see yields fall dramatically.
As a farmer, I would love to see all pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers banned. I would make a million bucks! Food would be such a scarce commodity that the price would have no top.
As it is, I eake out a living, but at least with satisfaction that I am allowing people to eat.
And I want to know WHAT study has been done to show that my wheat/corn etc has less nutritional value now than it had 40 years ago?
IN fact.....it is higher! More protien....etc.
Sugurdur_11 writes: "One of the main chem components of natural gas is N."
Actually, there is no nitrogen in natural gas, most of which is methane (CH4).
Natural gas is simply a fuel used to drive the Haber-Bosch process, which takes molecular nitrogen (N3) out of the atmosphere, and converts it to ammonia (NH3).
If you got that one wrong, what makes you think the other "facts" you believe are true?
Sorry I don't have a reference ready, but my experience is that organic methods easily match industrial methods, but admittedly, take more labour. Try the Organic To Be website — lots of wonderful stuff there! Also check out Permaculture.
There are many ways of doing things that equal or better conventional chemical farming. And if you think the price will "have no top" if it all went organic, wait to see the prices once oil takes off again, as it inevitably must! (Peak Oil is a gift to the organic farming movement!)
Many studies show benefits of organic food — although the USDA is trying its best to water-down and industrialize organics. Organic food typically has more trace minerals, vitamins, and micro-nutrients than food grown with heavy application of NPK. In particular, vegetables that have been attacked by insects have a group of compounds called salvestrols, totally absent in chemically-grown food, that appear to have important cancer-fighting properties.
But this is for all the other people out there, because I don't think you're interested in such facts that conflict with your beliefs.
:::: Jan Steinman, Communication Steward, EcoReality ::::
See my reply to this below, "This is an important point that appropriately needs to be explained..." in response to Kernelz. (Organic farmers, using no more non organic fertilizers and pesticides than your great grandfather, get competitive yields today ie. 180 bushels/acre) with lower input costs.)
You get nitrogen free from the air in an organic system. Organic farmer Bill Welsh, Lansing Iowa has used Berseem Clover and/or Nitro alfalfa in a 2 year rotation of barley with legumes/rye over winter/corn, getting plenty of Nitrogen for 180 bu. corn.
"And I want to know WHAT study has been done to show that my wheat/corn etc has less nutritional value now than it had 40 years ago?
IN fact.....it is higher! More protien....etc."
Less minerals and vitamins, anywhere from 10-50% less depending on which ones. Micronutrients are disappearing from industrially farmed food.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_7044.cfm
Oh, by the way, if you're growing #2 field corn, guess what it's completely inedible until it's processed into some food-like substance. You call that more nutrition?
Toby Moffet [Mofett} former lefty congressman from Ct has been in the pocket
of Monsanto for years now. We have to be carefull of the supposedly Lefty Liberals
like the other lobbyists selling their soul for pennies. Ann Wexler another
Vietnam protester who is now one of the biggest Lobbyists in the country.
Where do we turn? Who can we trust? The Nuclear Institute? The Edison Institute?
Do students have to pass a test before they can enter those institutes?
What a sham!
Add Paul Wellstone to your list. He switched over to the Republican Freedom to Farm approach after first opposing it in 1996. He switched when Tom Harkin, Daschle, Dick Gephardt and the other main farm state Democrats did, when Harkin became Ag Chair. Now Harkin is the key, more than Vilsack, and any congressman/senator on the ag committee.
Paul Siemering
small farmers can supply our food needs better than agribusiness, and provide healthier food too. there are many impediments to getting there, the u.s. farm subsidies, WTO's enforced "free" trade agreements, structural adjustment programs from the world bank and imf- but none that cannot be overcome.
The small farmers in the Global South have been bravely fighting the power at the grassroots level, and proving that another food policy is possible.
look at this
http://viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php
and my favorite food superhero, Vandana Shiva
http://www.navdanya.org/
Yes!
[Except it's NOT "the u.s. farm subsidies," it's the lack of price floors, supply management, reserves and price ceilings that is the biggest issue. Via Campesina is on board with the National Family Farm Coalition on this.
The good news is we don't have to fight the existing model in order to change things. We can build a small farm/garden system throughout the world without permission from the current agri-business system giving its blessing.
Here in the Columbia Gorge of Oregon/Washington, people are actively working together to increase the number of small, local farmers/gardeners and connecting them with local consumers with the long range vision of building a regional food system between the two states (5 counties). Yes, we know this will take a good 10 years to reach full success--but every year we've seen more and more people on both the production and the consumer side getting involved!
www.gorgegrown.com
Buckminster Fuller said "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
So, lets not focus our energy on 'dumping industrial agriculture'. Instead put all your efforts into building the small farm/garden system.
Clearly we need BOTH approaches. There are abundant quotes on the other side of this issue (you can't make an omlet without breaking eggs, Frederick Douglas on how power never concedes, Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" on the need to create tension, etc.
We need to learn how to be effective, how to organize, however. Read Shel Trapp, Roger Fisher's Beyond Machiavelli, and attend WORC's training on organizing. We need progressives, including the sustainable/organic groups to come on board on the big issue of a lack of price floors, etc.. Getting the US to make a profit on farm exports is winnable, as losing wealth for decades merely to secretly subsidize multinational (foreign and domestic) exporters, processors and unsustainable animal factories is absurd. Do do nothing is to massively subsidize the livestock competitors of organic farmers.
Jim Goodman___ I believe you are off the track with blaming "industrial" agriculture for the food shortages in other countries. I began farming 50 years ago without the help of industrial methods, for example, fertilizer, irrigation, pesticides, herbicides, modern machinery, marketing options, computerized help for a wide variety of applications, minimum or no tillage practices, etc. We are now producing at least five times as much from the same ground as we farmed using the old methods you seem to support.
Our country could not continue our present standards of living without the higher production that is the cornerstone of our society and keeps all of the wheels turning. As for hungry people elswhere, that is everyone`s worry, and farmers would sell their crops to feed them as well as to ethanol or feeders. We have many fewer farmers now, and we had better keep those left in business if we all want to continue eating.
This is an important point that appropriately needs to be explained. Yes, back 50 and more years ago production, which was often organic by todays standards, had very low yields, and yes major increases occurred under industrial agriculture. But note that today organic farmers are meeting those yield levels without non organic fertilizers and the various pesticides, and they're often doing it cheaper (See organic and chemical corn costs at Iowa State University for 2006, organic appears to have lower costs, (ie is more profitable, even without premium prices). Not all organic farmers are achieving this, but many are. What's more, organic farmers have done this withOUT the billions of dollars of research on their system. Now that's truly amazing. This is not well known outside of the organic community, and for decades there was little research establishing it. In Iowa organic farmers demanded attention from Iowa State University in about 1989 and were promised results, but didn't get much for another decade or so. But today, finally, we have a decade or so of research on organic farming. It's still relatively small compared to the other research, but still, it's beating out the other ways of farming.
If Kernelz doesn't believe this could possibly be true, well, that's the case with most farmers. They still don't believe it's possible.
But think of it this way: ever larger corporations have long dominated agricultural research, using seed money to get public funded research facilities to go their way (See Jim Hightower, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times; alsoThe Center for Rural Affairs has some good work on this). And what is the corporate goal? To help farmers get an ever larger share of the food dollar? No. To themselves get an ever larger share of the farm dollar! I call it product-centered farming. Buy their products instead of using organic management? But the law of diminishing returns has kicked in a good while back. Buying products from huge corporations as a farming system in good for them, not for farmers. This requires a paradigm change in farmer thinking in order to be imaginable. As fossil fuel prices rise (as we run out of fossil fuels) this becomes ever more true. Organic uses much less, as we have long known, when fertilizer/pesticide manufacture is included (Barry Commoner/William Lockeretz/Roger Blobaum, et al, "Economic Performance and Energy Intensiveness on Organic and Conventional Farms in the Corn Belt: A Preliminary Comparison" http://www dot jstor dot org/pss/1239604, summarized in USDA, "REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON ORGANIC FARMING," http://ofrf dot org/resources/publications/report_and_recommendations_on_organic_farming_1980 dot pdf). Organic no till magnifies this energy reduction perhaps 5 fold or more, and will become profitable as fossil fuel prices rise.
Kernelz
That kind of production is not only not sustainable for energy reasons and less nutritious you are essentially mining soil as zmann suggests, using it up and in the end making it far less able to produce than it was when you started. Yes, yields of one crop using industrial methods can be higher, temporarily. But long-term yields are lower, since you are making a rock and scrub desert where fertile land used to live. Look at Greece and the countries formerly known as the Fertile Crescent. Still deserts after all these years.
Even in the short run, multi-story cropping, biointensive permaculture, etc. combined with reduced meat consumption and a return to World War II levels of home food production means no one has to starve--in fact, fewer have to starve than do now in this world awash with commodified food. Hungry people everywhere of course cannot compete with huge ethanol or feedlot corporations to buy food, so do and will starve. As fisheries collapse, forests disappear and more and more farms are bought by bigger and bigger corporations producing ethanol for next-generation Humvees and nicely-marbled beef for yacht parties it will only get worse, unless we work to fix it by changing the system entirely.
So thank God or Allah or the Spirit in the Tree that we won't be able to continue our present standard of living, which is killing us body and mind without making us happier. We will be so much better off when a lot of those wheels stop turning.
Think of Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. Big wheels turning. Here's to thrown shoes (sabots) and wrenches. Here's to beating your tractors into pruning hooks.
Sioux Rose
J4Zonian: Excellent, visionary post.
Yes, but that kind of production is not sustainable without cheap oil-based fertilizer, fuel for machinery, toxic chemicals, etc. While you are producing a lot more food, that food has been shown to have less nutrition than it used to...so people now need to eat more to get the same nutrition. Also, how do the industrial practices you use affect the soil? Is your topsoil layer getting thinner?
I used to sell milk to Organic Valley, I have a very small dairy operation (18 cows) and a passionate love for small-scale farming and the earth. It is not easy work and the pay is abysmal. When Organic Valley came to our area, I was excited at the opportunity to get a better pay check. Unfortunately, their (OV's) regard for me was contemptuous. They never bothered to listen to my issues, treating me like some heavy metal sewage sludge and when their large milk hauler semi-trucks did damage to my property, I asked for reimbursement. Instead they stopped picking up my milk.
Some kinda change to believe in, eh?
Never trust agri-business even if it calls itself "organic". They're nothing more than another perfect example of green washing. By the way, can't you sue Organic Valley for property damage?
P.S.: Do they sell grass fed milk or conventional corn fed type?
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
I agree with the comments below in support of Organic Valley. They started with 7 farmers, and grew with the 20% per year of organic demand. A few years ago they said they had 700 farmers and needed another 700 within five years to keep up with demand. They're offering dairy farmers in transition some financial help.
As I state elsewhere here, I don't see evidence that this gripe is credible. Where's the (organic) beef?
The issue was compaction of the soil by these large trucks, causing frost penetration to the depth of the water line. I went without water to my milkhouse and barn for part of last winter and was removed from grade A status. This caused me a lot of extra work, loss of revenue and grief! Especially following a severe drought here the summer before. Familyfarmdefenders.org says I must get expert testimony and establish through that testimony that Organic Valley and/or their agents are at fault. The burden is on me! I am just so tired of claims by organizations that they are supportive of small farms and then they turn out to be anything but supportive.
Organic Valley was reported here on CommonDreams earlier this year to be purchasing large feedlot-type milk and passing it as 'organic'.
And Organic Valley has the better 'reputation' of the two large organic monopolies, the other being Horizon Dairy.
It amazes (and angers) me, the injustice of it.
City folks won't be familiar with this kind of issue on farms. If you want to sell milk or grain to be shipped out by big trucks, you need a way for them to get it, even if it's wet. Many farm yards get muddy. That's not the fault of Organic Valley. That's the farmers responsibility. You can't just leave it muddy and then expect to sue them. You can't expect them to use different trucks just because you didn't haul in enough rocks so they can get to where you store the milk, and then turn around and go back out.
Organic standards are tough to meet, as they should be. That toughness helps farmers by excluding industrial pseudo organic (and I fully support tougher enforsement and/or standards). But quite expectedly there are many, many complaints by farmers, especially those new to this system. It's hard work to comply and it costs money. On the other hand, farmers are very independent minded, and organic farmers who have withdrawn from the conventional system even more so. So yes there's a log of griping.
I don't find these gripes to be credible.
You do not understand. I stood up against mistreatment and erosion of 'rights' (I have farmed for 30 years, I know how things used to be--much better) and got further mistreatmeant from a group (Organic Valley) proclaiming itself something other than it is. Anyone interested in personal rights and liberties should give Organic Valley a call, ask for Doran Holm, and ask him to explain their treatment of a certain west central Minnesota dairy farmer. Their farmer hotline number is: 1-888-809-9297.
Fine, you say I don't understand your specific situation. But I see nothing in what you have actually written here to see that they've done anything wrong. You say your rights and liberties were violated. Fine. But I see nothing you've written that proves that that has happened. If you want to provide such information now, fine, let's see it.
It is rather amazing what you think is fine. ;)
Anyone else interested in defending against erosion of rights and liberties by supposedly helpful groups, give ol' Doran a call!
That's all I've got to say.
Following a report by the Organic Consumers Association about the OV dealings with the large feedlot operation in Texas, and subsequent outrage among OV farmers, OV stopped their dealings with the feedlot operation.
Say what you will about Organic Valley, but in fact they are a producers marketing cooperative, not a standard corporate brand. They are ultimately beholden to the farmers who produce their milk and soy, and as long as those farmers stand up for the genuine organic standards that provide them with their brand advantage in the marketplace, they will continue to reliably sell superior milk and soy milk products (and meat too under the Organic Prairie brand).
Due to the alert organizing of the Organic Consumers Association, the stand-up response of the family farmers who make up the bulk of OV producers, and the ultimate decency of the people who founded and still lead Organic Valley, you can still trust that their milk is from organically pastured cows, not pseudo-organic feedlot operations.
i'm in the retail grocery business with my local natural foods co-op grocery store, and i follow these issues closely.
Interesting - i just noticed the blurb at the bottom of the article, the author Goodman is a small organic dairy farmer from Wisconsin (original home of OV) who also works with the OCA, so i Googled his name with Organic Valley, and it turns out Goodman chooses NOT to affiliate with OV since they are so large and less-than-purely committed to the strictest enforcement of organic standards.
i'll continue to prefer OV to their ugly sisters Aurora and Horizon, but i'll keep studying.
I don't think we'll be dumping industrial agriculture overnight. Most Americans are used to fast food, TV dinners, dine-outs, etc ... Most don't know how to grow their own food or even hunt. Hell, most people don't even know or want to take the time to know how to cook. At least that's the case in the suburbs and urban areas where growing food and hunting is unfeasible but not cooking is just plain inexcusable. If you want to take care of the healthcare mess, try cooking for a change and leave the dine-outs for a very special day. Besides, cooking can be a pretty cool challenge as my wife challenges me from time to time.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
There aren't enough wild animals left in the world to hunt to feed our population anymore. But I am slowly learning how to cook, and as soon as I can I want to plant a garden and cook with what I harvest from it...but it's a little cold in DC right now.
I can't imagine growing a garden in a big city and certainly not in the nation's capital. I hear that most of the remaining farmlands in the surrounding suburbs are getting torn down for new businesses.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
The Cubans grow food in city gardens, supplying something like 40% of the vegetables all of Cuba consumes. Not bad for a country under generations of embargo eh? We could do far more.
There will be a lot fewer people going for fast food and eating out next year sir. I believe when the bad stuff starts hitting in 09, they may be forced to change a few habits and cook for themselves a lot more.
Someone told me that if the demand for crude oil goes down then so too does fast food. In any case, I'm enjoying the plain folk life out in the farmland and I was surprised to find out all the ways natives cooked and prepared their foods even before they were given the tools by the settlers. As for 2009, how dramatically worse will it get from 2008? And I thought this year is already hitting rock bottom but then I'm so used to it.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
In my opinion the real problems haven't hit yet. The unemployment will continue to go up, values will continue to go down, the world is about to find out the fallacy of not needing us and will feel it more than we do.
I believe we are experiencing a change in our status. Though we will remain the worlds most powerful country, by far, there will be 2 or 3 other countries that will exert power over parts of the world.
I believe our military will indeed be pulled back from parts of the world to the detriment of all and the chagrin of all the folks here that simply don't understand what the real world is like or what we have achieved for the world.
If Obama does not stop illegal immigration, change the tax code and encourage in every way the reindustrialization of America, he will fail. These are the two biggest economic drags we have. Also tax corporate money that is left overseas.
So, I believe 09 will not be kind to us. This opinion and a buck will get you ac cup of coffee of course.
P.S. Take a look at the states that have a surplus in their budget. That will tell you how bad it really is. I believe there are no more than 5 or 6.
I'm not even going to bother looking at my state's deficit budget because there's enough fudging going on as it is and the state's a shitpot though I'm used to living in a numb economy. I can see how dramatic your state will be when the downturn hits but I can't see my state getting much worse since we're one of the last anyway. As far as the military is concerned, most of it is in Iraq, is it not? If not, please explain because I fail to see how pulling back is going to hurt us anymore than leaving it and saddling it even more. I haven't served so I need some more education on the need for the military. You are correct on the immigration and tax mess as I see a lot more min wage Latinos in work these days and thanks to further eroding the tax infrastructure in my state, you can easily say my state has been economically raped by the business scums.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Sorry, I should have specified that I was speaking about our bases around the world and many of the countries that lived under our umbrella. Our troops will soon be out of Iraq in my opinion, but it won't happen overnight.
Actually Texas is doing fairly well, we even have about an 11 billion dollar surplus I think.
Oh, I see. I have heard a lot about the bases around the world. You should meet my staunch Republican friends and coworkers who keep arguing for the need to withdraw troops from Europe and move them into Iraq. I don't know much about military but I found their argument very disturbing. It's as if they want Europe and Iraq to go into chaos as if things are not bad enough in those two already.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
I'd say your friends at work need to rethink. In the first place we don't need more troops in Iraq. In the second placve we need to withdraw troops from Europe all right, but bring them home or exchange them for troops already in Iraq and bring those home. Close some of the bases where these folks keep bad mouthing us.
Let Europe defend Europe. not us.
Happy New Year!