September, 21 2010, 03:46pm EDT
Pesticide Industry to Use Tax Dollars to Attack Critics
The California Department of Food and Agriculture
has awarded $180,000 in federal funds to finance an
agribusiness-chemical industry plan to combat its critics -
Environmental Working Group and other health, consumer and organic
farming advocates who have campaigned against overuse of pesticides on
food crops.
WASHINGTON
The California Department of Food and Agriculture
has awarded $180,000 in federal funds to finance an
agribusiness-chemical industry plan to combat its critics -
Environmental Working Group and other health, consumer and organic
farming advocates who have campaigned against overuse of pesticides on
food crops.
The Alliance for Food and Farming
(AFF), a Watsonville, California, trade association representing more
than 50 large produce growers and marketers and pesticide and fertilizer
suppliers, is slated for a slice of California's $17.5 million share of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Specialty Crops Block Grant program, which Congress set up in 2004 to improve "efficiency, productivity and profitability" in farming of vegetables, fruits, nuts and flowers. The 2008 farm bill expanded the specialty crops program, mandating that USDA
distribute $55 million in state block grants in 2010, and the same for
2011 and 2012, to advance "buy local" campaigns and other efforts to
make produce, nuts and flower crops more competitive.
California officials announced last Friday (Sept. 17) that the Alliance for Food and Farming would receive $180,000 to "correct the misconception
that some fresh produce items contain excessive amounts of pesticide
residues." The state press release added that the grant would go to
rebut "claims by activist groups about unsafe levels of pesticides
[that] have been widely reported in the media for many years, but have
largely gone uncontested. ... The goal is to generate more balanced media
reporting and change public perception about the safety of produce when
it comes to pesticide residues."
Last July, the Alliance for Food and Farming attacked Environmental Working Group's (EWG) influential "Shopper's Guide To Pesticides In Produce," introduced more than a decade ago to advise consumers about high concentrations of pesticide residues in conventional produce.
"This grant is a slap in the face of California's rapidly-advancing
organic agriculture sector," said Ken Cook, president and founder of
Environmental Working Group. "While conventional produce has seen
demand stagnate, organics are enjoying dynamic growth. The state should
think twice about using U.S. taxpayers' money to attempt to give
chemical-dependent industrial farming a competitive edge over organics."
"The block grant program supports some initiatives that we believe
are worthwhile," Cook said. "But the grant in question shows how a good
program can be distorted. I think most taxpayers would say this is
exactly the kind of thing they don't want their money spent on. It ends
up going to serve the agribusiness agenda. If these well-heeled
corporate farming interests want to talk people out of buying organic or
low-pesticide food, they ought to spend their own money to do it."
Over the past decade, organic fruit and vegetable sales have soared
from 3 percent of the retail produce market in the U.S. in 2000 to
nearly 11 percent last year, to $9.5 billion. According to surveys by
the Organic Trade Association,
organic produce's precipitous trajectory barely slowed when the global
financial crisis took hold in late 2008. The stunning gains make a sharp
contrast to the otherwise lackluster market for conventional fruits and
vegetables in recent years.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ERS)
reports that Americans' per capita annual consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables
has been roughly flat for the past two decades. U.S. vegetable
consumption has slumped slightly, according to USDA, to 92.2 pounds per
person per year in 2008, from an all-time peak of 101 pounds in 1999.
According to the Pesticide Action Network of North America,
an advocacy group that compiles data on pesticide use, in 2008
California growers deployed 161 million pounds of pesticides on all
crops. They used 53 million pounds of pesticides on crops whose
growers comprise the Alliance for Food and Farming: head lettuce, leaf
lettuce, celery, spinach, tomatoes, avocados, table and raisin grapes,
wine grapes, peaches and strawberries.
According to public records examined by EWG the Alliance for Food and Farming is chaired by Matt McInerney, executive vice president of Western Growers Association, an Irvine, Calif., based organization of large California and Arizona farmers.
California officials last week awarded the Western Growers Association two grants totaling $942, 278 to create a website and other communications activities to promote specialty crops.
Last July, the Alliance for Food and Farming set up a web site
and press webinar to attack EWG's Pesticide Guide, contending that
there is "no scientific evidence" that a small amount of pesticide
residue on food "represents any health risk."
According to EWG's reviews of public record, the Alliance board is comprised of:
Richard L. Peterson - Executive director, California Dried Plum Board
Matt McInerney - Executive vice president, Western Growers Association
Jim Howard - Vice president, California Table Grape Commission
Rick Tomlinson - Director of government affairs, California Strawberry Commission
Ed Beckman - President, California Tomato Farmers; former President of CA Tomato Commission
Barry Bedwell - President, California Grape & Tree Fruit League
Bruce Knobeloch - Chief operating officer, River Ranch Fresh Foods, LLC
Mark Murai - President, California Strawberry Commission
Kathleen Nave - President, California Table Grape Commission
Sheri Mierau - Vice president of sales and marketing, Fruit Patch Sales LLC
Rosanna Westmoreland - Communications manager, California Farm Bureau Federation
Claire Smith - Director, corporate communications, Sunkist Growers, Inc.
Terry Stark - Executive Director, California Association of Pest Control Advisers
Dave Kranz - Communications, California Farm Bureau Federation
Renee Pinel - President and chief executive officer, Western Plant Health Association
Bryan Silbermann - President and chief executive officer, Produce Marketing Association
Bob Whitaker - Chief science officer, Produce Marketing Association
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
(202) 667-6982LATEST NEWS
200 Rights Groups Call On Biden to End 'Cruel' Expansion of Immigrant Detention
"This suffering does not advance any rational policy goal," said the advocacy groups. "It merely exists to further the political goal of deterrence, which is cruel, inhumane, and misguided."
Apr 25, 2024
Citing ample evidence of human rights abuses in U.S. immigration detention centers, 200 advocacy groups on Thursday demanded that the Biden administration reverse course on a planned expansion of detention facilities and said President Joe Biden's "further entrenching" of the government's reliance on detaining migrants marks "an utter betrayal" of his campaign promises.
The president's signing of a spending bill last month provided $3.4 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), clearing the way for the agency to make space to jail 41,500 immigrants per day in facilities across the country.
After Biden campaigned on ending the use of for-profit detention centers, said the groups, he took office at a time when fewer than 15,000 people were being held in immigration detention facilities—which gave him "a remarkable opportunity to wind down a wasteful and abusive system."
But after the president's 2023 and 2024 budget requests signaled an intention of reducing detention funding—with ICE itself recommending that numerous facilities be closed due to "critical staffing shortages that have led to safety risks and unsanitary living conditions"—Biden last year requested supplemental detention funding as commentators and Republicans in Congress hammered the administration for allowing so-called "chaos" at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Your FY2025 budget request sought funding for 34,000 beds instead of the 25,000 sought in the two previous cycles," wrote the groups, including Amnesty International USA, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), and the Texas Civil Rights Project. "The result is unsurprising: the FY2024 spending bill you signed provides ICE $3.4 billion to jail an average of 41,500 immigrants per day, historically high funding surpassing all four years of the Trump administration."
The groups, which provide legal aid and other assistance to people who have been detained as migrants, said many of their clients "carry lifelong scars from the mistreatment and dehumanization they endured because of the United States' reliance on detention, mostly through private prisons and county jails."
The administration is seeking to expand a system, said the groups, in which the jails and prisons used have been found to "operate under insufficient standards."
The organizations cited a 2018 ACLU reportthat found inadequate medical care contributed to the deaths of more than half of the detained immigrants who died in custody between December 2015-April 2017; a 2021 case in which an LGBTQ+ man reported "physical and homophobic verbal abuse" at a facility in Louisiana; and the finding by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that the use of solitary confinement in detention centers "regularly meets the United Nations' definition of torture."
Biden signed the spending bill two weeks after Charles Daniel, a 61-year-old migrant from Trinidad and Tobago, died at a detention center operated by the private contractor GEO Group after being held in solitary confinement for four years. ICE has placed people in solitary confinement over 14,000 times in the last five years, according to PHR, for an average of 27 days each; U.N. experts say exceeding 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes torture.
"This suffering does not advance any rational policy goal," said the groups on Thursday. "Detention does not provide an efficient or ethical means of border processing, and it certainly does not indicate to migrants that they are welcome in the United States. It merely exists to further the political goal of deterrence, which is cruel, inhumane, and misguided—as even the most punitive forms of detention have been proven not to deter people from seeking safety or a better life."
Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks government data, found that as of April 7, more than 61% of ICE detainees have no criminal record, while "many more have only minor offenses, including traffic violations."
"Increasing the incarceration of immigrants is a grave mistake," said the groups, "and we urgently implore you to reverse course."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Bernie Sanders to Netanyahu: 'It Is Not Antisemitic to Hold You Accountable'
"Please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government," said the Vermont senator to Israel's prime minister.
Apr 25, 2024
Jewish U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing statement Thursday pushing back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's characterization of burgeoning protests on American university campuses as "antisemitic," declaring, "It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions."
"No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population."
"Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people," continued Sanders, who lost family members to the Nazi Holocaust. "But, please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government. Do not use antisemitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment you are facing in the Israeli courts."
No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – 70% of whom are women and children.
You will not distract us from this immoral war. pic.twitter.com/oDaiyU4ipD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 25, 2024
Sanders' statement came a day after Netanyahu
falsely described student protesters speaking out against Israel's catastrophic war on Gaza as "antisemitic mobs" and likened the demonstrations to "what happened in German universities in the 1930s."
"It has to be stopped," Netanyahu said of the campus protests, which have faced violent police crackdowns.
Students at Columbia, Princeton, the City College of New York, the University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern, and other schools nationwide are demanding that the institutions divest from any companies that are participating in or benefiting from Israel's war on Gaza and publicly support an immediate cease-fire.
On Wednesday, hundreds of UT Austin students walked out of their classrooms and marched to the main lawn of the campus before police officers with horses and riot gear
arrived on the scene, arrested dozens, and assaulted some protesters.
"One woman said she saw a large police officer place his entire body weight to detain a young woman protesting," The Texas Tribunereported. "Law enforcement was also seen kneeling on individuals' backs and necks, pulling their hair, and in one case punching a protester in the nose."
Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at UT Austin, toldAl Jazeera that contrary to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's claim, there was "nothing antisemitic" about Wednesday's protests.
"These students were shouting 'free Palestine,' that's all," said Suri. "They were saying nothing that was threatening. And as they were standing and shouting, I witnessed the police—the state police, the campus police, the city police—an army of police almost the size [of] the student group... many were carrying guns, many were carrying rifles, and then, within a few minutes, this group of police stormed into the student crowd and started arresting students."
In his statement Thursday, Sanders emphasized that criticism of Israel's massively destructive assault on Gaza cannot be conflated with antisemitism.
"It is not antisemitic to note that your government has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure—electricity, water, and sewage," said Sanders, who earlier this week voted against a foreign aid package that included $17 billion in additional U.S. military assistance for Israel.
"It is not antisemitic to realize that your government has annihilated Gaza's healthcare system, knocking 26 hospitals out of service and killing more than 400 healthcare workers," he continued. "It is not antisemitic to condemn your government's destruction of all of Gaza’s 12 universities and 56 of its schools, with hundreds more damaged, leaving 625,000 students with no education."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Holocaust Survivor Tells Student Anti-Genocide Protesters: 'Just Keep Doing It'
"There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism," said Stephen Kapos. "If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt."
Apr 25, 2024
A Holocaust survivor opposed to Israel's war on Gaza on Wednesday told U.S. student protesters they're on the right side of history, and that the global wave of demonstrations against the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians will soon force Western leaders to face up to their complicity in genocide.
Stephen Kapos, 86, was 7 years old in 1944 when he was separated from his family during the Nazi extermination of Jews in his native Hungary. Most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust but Kapos survived and moved to the United Kingdom after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Kapos is part of a small group of Shoah survivors and their descendants who "demonstrate disagreement with the use of the Holocaust experience as a cover by the Zionists and the state of Israel." They attend protests wearing signs around their necks reading, "This Holocaust Survivor Says Stop the Genocide in Gaza!"
"As a Holocaust survivor, my message to the brave student protesters in America is just keep doing it. Don't give up," Kapos said in video published by Double Down News. "We are doing exactly the same, and in the long term we are going to prevail."
Holocaust Survivor Message to US Campus Protesters:
This survivor of the Holocaust is against Genocide in Gaza & conflating Jewishness with Zionism, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.
Your protests are so persistent, large and global that eventually the Western… pic.twitter.com/IDCH0NTO6m
— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) April 24, 2024
Kapos' comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found "plausibly" genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide.
According to Gazan and international officials, more than 122,000 Palestinians have been killed or maimed during 202 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks. This figure includes around 11,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Starvation and dehydration caused by Israel's bombardment and blockade of Gaza are killing children and other vulnerable people.
Instead of condemning Israeli leaders, the Biden administration has lavished them with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli crimes and blocking recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
As the suffering in Gaza continues, U.S. students have set up encampments or staged other forms of protest, some of which have been brutally repressed by police—who have also attacked and arrested journalists and bystanders.
On Wednesday, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored U.S. authorities to crack down even harder on the students, whom he called an "antisemitic mob."
Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that "the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they're doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust."
He said he is also protesting "the conflating of Jewishness with Zionism, which is what the Israeli state is trying to do, which does nothing but increase antisemitism."
Kapos predicted that "today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that."
"Today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it."
"There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism," Kapos asserted. "If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt without any doubt and I think it is imperative to assert opposition and even some degree of disadvantage and risk if you want to be guilt-free when history judges what's happening."
Kapos and his comrades are part of a long history of Holocaust survivors speaking out against Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
Long before today's growing acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid state, the late Suzanne Weiss—whose parents were murdered in Nazi-occupied France—said in 2010 that "the Palestinians are victims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid" and that "the Israeli government's actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family's experiences under Hitlerism."
Hajo Meyer, who survived 10 months in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, argued during his lifetime that "what is happening to the Palestinians every day under the occupation" was "almost identical" to "what was done to the German Jews before the 'Final Solution,'" and that instead of making Jews safer, Israeli policies and practices were stoking the flames of antisemitism.
Holocaust survivors who stand up for Palestinian rights have been condemned by critics as "antisemites" and "self-hating Jews" who, in Meyer's case, allegedly abused his status as a Holocaust survivor.
Kapos, who has experienced such slurs, is undaunted and says he has no plans to stop protesting. During a recent rally in London he vowed, "I'll keep doing it as long as the bombing and apartheid and the injustice is going on."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular