small farmers // Current TV

Rural farmers unite to feed Wall Street protestors

Every night at Zuccotti Park, dinner is served around 7 P.M. What protesters may not... more

JanforGore
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3 months ago
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Will "a secret farm bill" be passed this week?

Last week, we wrote about the likelihood that the $300 billion 2012 Farm Bill would... more

JanforGore
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3 months ago
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12 comments

Why the Tester Amendment Does NOT Help Small Food Producers Under S.510

The Tester "Small Farm" Exemption to S.510 Exposed as a Scam: Part 1

GLOBALPOLITICAL
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1 year ago
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Food Safety Bill Passes Senate, Including the Tester Amendment

Editor's Note: Thanks to all the groups who campaigned tirelessly on this issue. OCA is pleased that the Tester Amendment passed along with the bill, but like the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (quoted below), we have some concerns about the implementation of these regulations and will continue to monitor this issue and keep our eye on the FDA.

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Tuesday passed a sweeping overhaul of the nation's food-safety system, after recalls of tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach that sickened thousands and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight.

The legislation, which passed by a vote of 73 to 25, would greatly strengthen the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that in recent decades focused more on policing medical products than ensuring the safety of foods. The bill is intended to get the government to crack down on unsafe foods before they harm people rather than after outbreaks occur.

Despite unusual bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and a strong push from the Obama administration, the bill could still die because there might not be enough time for the usual haggling between the Senate and House of Representatives, which passed its own version last year. Top House Democrats said that they would consider simply passing the Senate version to speed approval.

Both versions of the bill would grant the F.D.A. new powers to recall tainted foods, increase inspections, demand accountability from food companies and oversee farming. But neither version would consolidate overlapping functions at the Department of Agriculture and nearly a dozen other federal agencies that oversee various aspects of food safety, making coordination among the agencies a continuing challenge.

While food-safety advocates and many industry groups preferred the House version because it includes more money for inspections and fewer exceptions from the rules it sets out, most said the Senate bill was far better than nothing.

"This is an historic moment," said Erik Olson, deputy director of the Pew Health Group, an advocacy group. "For the first time in over 70 years, the Senate has approved an overhaul of F.D.A.'s food safety law that will help ensure that the food we put on our kitchen tables will be safer."

Among the Senate bill's last major sticking points was how it would affect small farmers and food producers. Some small-farm and organic food advocates warned that the legislation would destroy their industry under a mountain of paperwork, and Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat of Montana, pushed for a recent addition to the bill that exempts producers with less than $500,000 a year in sales who sell most of their food locally.

...Judith McGeary, executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, an advocacy group that sees government regulation as a threat to small farms, said she was satisfied with changes made to the bill to reduce paperwork for small farmers and exempt them from some requirements.

"We still have concerns about the scope of the power that F.D.A. has and its tendency to write rules and regulations that favor agribusiness instead of small farmers," Ms. McGeary said.Editor's Note: Thanks to all the groups who campaigned tirelessly on this issue.... more

JanforGore
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1 year ago
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Take action: Agribusiness fighting against Tester-Hagan amendment in S.510

ACTION ALERT: Factory Farm Vegetable Lobbyists Go After Organic/Local Growers in Food... more

JanforGore
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1 year ago
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Endgame Legislation: Lame Duck Session Ushers in Tyranny

When most of us think about "lame duck" Congressional sessions we think of a... more

GLOBALPOLITICAL
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1 year ago
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ACTION ALERT: Act by Nov. 17 on Senate Food Safety Legislation

It now appears that the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) will be voted on in the... more

JanforGore
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1 year ago
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GLOBAL POLITICAL AWAKENING: Food Supply Under Attack By International Banksters As Small Farms Attacked Nationwide

RELATED ARTICLES: 7 Mega-Cartels that Kill Free Markets and Our Sovereignty Food... more

GLOBALPOLITICAL
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1 year ago
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Bring Down Monsanto...

Take action now and let's bring down Monsanto: 70% percent or more of our... more

lookatmypix
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1 year ago
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TOP 10 seeks support for local growers nationwide through Changemakers in New Hampshire

A national movement is taking shape with growers in eight states selling under the Top... more

TOP10PRODUCELLC
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1 year ago
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Obama Puts Pesticide Pusher in Charge of Agricultural Trade Relations

WASHINGTON— Sidestepping a stalled Senate confirmation vote, yesterday President Obama recess-appointed Islam Siddiqui to be chief agricultural negotiator in the office of the U.S. trade representative. Dr. Siddiqui’s nomination was held up in the Senate and was opposed by the Center for Biological Diversity and more than 80 other environmental, small-farm, and consumer groups. More than 90,000 concerned citizens contacted the White House and Senate to oppose the nomination. Siddiqui is a former pesticide lobbyist and is currently vice president of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America, a biotech and pesticide trade group that lobbies to weaken environmental laws.

“Dr. Siddiqui’s confirmation is a step backward,” said Tierra Curry, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “His appointment ensures the perpetuation of pesticide- and fossil-fuel-intensive policies, which undermine global food security and imperil public health and wildlife.”

As undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Siddiqui oversaw the development of the first national organic labeling standards, which allowed sewage sludge-fertilized, genetically modified, and irradiated food to be labeled as organic before public outcry forced more stringent standards. Siddiqui has derided the European Union’s ban on hormone-treated beef and has vowed to pressure the European Union to accept more genetically modified crops.

CropLife America, formerly known as the National Agricultural Chemicals Association, lobbies to weaken the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, claiming that pesticides are not pollutants because of their intended beneficial effect and that pesticides positively impact endangered species. The group has lobbied to allow pesticides to be tested on children and to allow the continued use of persistent organic pollutants and ozone-depleting chemicals. It also launched a petition asking Michelle Obama to use pesticides in the organic White House garden and fought county initiatives in California banning genetically modified foods.WASHINGTON— Sidestepping a stalled Senate confirmation vote, yesterday President... more

JanforGore
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1 year ago
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More food may not mean less hunger

Achieving ambitious Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) production targets to meet growing world demands will not suffice to feed the world, and focusing too much on churning out crops may even be damaging, experts warn.

The Rome-based United Nations agency said earlier this month that world food production must increase 70 percent by 2050 to nourish a human population likely to reach 9.1 billion. It said this can happen if developing countries, expected to generate most of the extra 2.3 billion people, increase agricultural investment by around 83 billion dollars per year.

But FAO's estimate that over one billion people, almost one-sixth of humanity, are suffering hunger in a world that today generates more than enough to feed everyone suggests that meeting this target is only part of the equation.

"We ask how we can feed the world by 2050, but what we should also ask is how we can overcome poverty by 2050," Hasan Sahin, programme officer of the Tehran-based Economic Cooperation Organisation tells IPS.

Marco Contiero, the genetic engineering and sustainable agriculture specialist at Greenpeace's European Unit, also thinks there is a danger of taking too narrow an approach. "The dogma that we just need to produce more is wrong," Contiero tells IPS.

"Of course we must increase production where it is at low levels. But we already produce lots of food and yet we still have one billion people going hungry, while 1.6 billion are overweight and 500 million are obese. This shows there is much more to the problem."

Some analysts fear the drive to meet quantity targets could lead to an increased use of large-scale industrial farming of a restricted number of crops - methods that have kept the First World well-fed but which might not be appropriate for developing countries.

One of the main reasons these methods may be inappropriate is that they risk further damaging the plight of poor people in rural areas worst affected by hunger, where a Catch 22 situation frequently materialises.

"When the prices are too low the farmers have no cash. If the gate price does not even pay for the calories they spend in their muscles on ploughing, that's nonsensical. But when prices are high, poor people become very vulnerable," Roberto Ridolfi, head of the European Commission's Europe Aid F3 Unit, tells IPS. "It's bad news for poor people no matter what."

Helping developing countries' small farmers to break out of poverty, on the other hand, could create a virtuous circle in which they stop being part of the problem and become part of the solution.

"We are not the ones who feed the world, the farmers are. What we need to do is motivate farmers to increase productivity - farmers need to be a major concern for us," Benyamin Lakitan, secretary of Indonesia's State Ministry for Research and Development tells IPS.

"The problem in developing countries is that farmers' prosperity has really not increased for decades. We need to put more effort into increasing farmer prosperity; that way farmers will help us to increase food production. Financial incentives for farmers is the key issue."Achieving ambitious Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) production targets to meet... more

JanforGore
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2 years ago
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Family farmer speaks out against agribusiness at "showdown in Chicago"

Larry Huelskoetler, a family farmer from Beason, IL, a small unincorporated town in central Illinois with a population of about 200, spoke on Monday morning, October 26th, to hundreds of people gathered for the "Showdown In Chicago," a national grassroots mobilization taking place in Chicago against the October 25-27 national convention of the American Bankers Association (ABA). The ABA is a banking industry lobbyist group that "works to enhance the competitiveness of the nation's banking industry." Its members represent over 95 percent of the banking industry's $13.3 trillion in assets. The protests against the ABA have brought thousands of people to Chicago from across the U.S. to demand progressive reform of the financial industry, call to "bust up big banks," and send the message that "the only ones too big to fail are the American people."

Huelskoetler directs Farmers Supporting Independent Agriculture (FSIA), ia Central Illinois-located, faith-based community organization that works to save family farms, preserve local economy, and promote sound stewardship of farmland. FSIA has successfully negotiated low-interest rate operating loans for Central Illinois family farmers who commit to purchasing from local suppliers, worked with farm realtors and farm managers to develop land stewardship best practices, partnered with institutional landowners to craft farmland leases that create sustainable farming incentives, and pushed the University of Illinois to manage its endowment farmland in a more sustainable manner that benefits tenant farmers and local communities. FSIA is a member organization of the Central Illinois Organizing Project (www.ciop.org), the largest faith-based community organization in downstate Illinois, which organized dozens of people to participate in the Chicago rallies and protests against the ABA.

"I'm here to talk to you today about the long-term effects of the decisions that the dishonest Wall Street bankers have done to my community," Huelskoetler said. "Like in many rural communities, family farmers in my area are struggling and having a difficult time with the decisions made by the people on Wall Street."

"I've been farming for 37 years, and 7 years ago a Wall Street investor came and bought the farm that my family has farmed for 50 years. I then talked to the investor. He said, "Give me an extraordinarily high rent and you can continue to farm." I said, "I can't give you that kind of rent and do the job right." He said, "Too bad, I'll bring in a mega-farmer." "

"A mega-farmer is a farmer who wants to be just like the big banks, big enough that he can't fail. But high-risk farming by mega-farmers is becoming a reality. Mega-farm operators are pushing family farmers off the land they have farmed for decades. Mega-farmers can do this because they farm in an unsustainable manner. They work on narrow margins of profit. The risk is so great that these mega-farmers know they can't do the right thing and make a profit, so they don't even put back the nutrients into the soil that the crop takes out."

"Therefore they are stealing from one of our greatest natural resources: the soil. The impact is felt severely. What's left is poorly maintained fields, agricultural runoff, and diminishing productivity at a time when the world's population continues to grow and we have to feed the people all over the world. Large-scale mega-farm operators are bypassing local agricultural suppliers and costing local communities billions of dollars in economic activity every year."Larry Huelskoetler, a family farmer from Beason, IL, a small unincorporated town in... more

JanforGore
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2 years ago
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0 comments

Vilsack earns moans, groans, hisses, and even boos

With a packed house, and time for only one more question, author Jeffrey Smith stepped... more

NonGMOTalk
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2 years ago
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Quashing In

A new government scheme in Tanzania has implemented a loaning system that allows... more

IFAD
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3 years ago
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Rural farmers unite to feed Wall Street protestors

Will "a secret farm bill" be passed this week?

Why the Tester Amendment Does NOT Help Small Food Producers Under S.510

Food Safety Bill Passes Senate, Including the Tester Amendment

Take action: Agribusiness fighting against Tester-Hagan amendment in S.510

Endgame Legislation: Lame Duck Session Ushers in Tyranny

ACTION ALERT: Act by Nov. 17 on Senate Food Safety Legislation

GLOBAL POLITICAL AWAKENING: Food Supply Under Attack By International Banksters As Small Farms Attacked Nationwide

Bring Down Monsanto...

TOP 10 seeks support for local growers nationwide through Changemakers in New Hampshire

Obama Puts Pesticide Pusher in Charge of Agricultural Trade Relations

More food may not mean less hunger

Family farmer speaks out against agribusiness at "showdown in Chicago"

Vilsack earns moans, groans, hisses, and even boos

Quashing In

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