New GE Wheat Poses Risks for Farmers and the Environment

By: Anthony Pahnke, Vice President of the Family Farm Defenders and Assistant Professor of International Relations at San Francisco State University, and Jim Goodman repurposed dairy farmer from Wonewoc, Wisconsin and board President of the National Family Farm Coalition.

Originally published by Counterpunch, Oct. 11th, 2024

The precautionary principle – the ethical equivalent of the common sense notion that it’s ‘better to be safe than sorry’ – means that when some economic or policy change may endanger the public, business and government leaders ought to thoroughly conduct research so as to avoid exposing anyone to unnecessary risks.

Unfortunately, with our food system, our government continues to ignore ethics and common sense, recently approving as ‘safe for breeding and growing’ a new genetically modified (GM) variety of wheat – HB4. Copying and combining certain genes from sunflowers to create this new variety, HB4 is not only pitched to farmers as a tool they could use to battle our ever-increasingly dire climate crisis, but also to increase yields.

The truth is another, as this latest proposed tech solution to address our climate crisis stands to improve the financial situation of agribusiness corporations more than farmers, while also likely harming our environment instead of helping it.  Not only should the USDA rethink their decision, but our officials ought to instead support publicly financing regional and local varieties of seed.  Strengthening key provisions of the Farm Bill that is currently in Congress could make such proposals a reality.

The overarching problem with HB4 – particularly for US farmers – is economic.

According to USDA data from the past twenty-five years, operating costs for wheat farmers have more than tripled in terms of dollars spent per acre – increasing from just over $57 in 1998, to more than $187 in 2023. Also during this time, while the input cost of seed has more than doubled, going from $7 to $16, chemicals have tripled, climbing from $7 to $22.  Fertilizer expenses have risen the most – going from $18 to over $78 – representing nearly half of what farmers spend per acre.

Wheat is more than a crop, or ingredient that ends up in bread, but an industry, with chemical, fertilizer, and seed companies each clawing for a share.

Meanwhile, wheat prices in our global marketplace have been volatile. The 28% jump that farmers experienced in the first months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 quickly stabilized thanks to the Black Sea Grain Initiative – the plan that allowed grain to leave the region for a time until Russia’s left the agreement in 2023 – and different countries easing their export restrictions.  Prices then fell, as Ukraine, regularly one of the world’s top wheat exporters, saw its production rebound to pre-invasion levels.  Russia’s 2023/2024 exports also exceeded expectations, increasing by 7% over the prior year, making this country the world’s leader in export sales by far.

Meanwhile, the US’ share of wheat exports has steadily fallen for decades, from about 45% in 1980 to just over 15% in 2014.  With worldwide production increasing, US wheat farmers may take a loss in 2024.

Maintaining open export markets for wheat can spell the difference between financial life or death for US farmers.  On this point, there is no indication that world markets are currently willing to accept HB4, as major international buyers of US wheat have not approved it. With contamination of non-GM wheat a problem that we have been aware of for years, we need to be careful as US farmers can only sell what importers will accept.

The other issue with HB4 wheat is that the seed not only resists drought, but also glufosinate herbicides.  Farmers who purchase the seed will have to buy this chemical, in addition to fertilizer.  And despite what the USDA claims about safety, studies show that this class of herbicides is toxic to wildlife and humans.

Overall, in addition to potential environmental harm, we have a case of the ‘price-cost’ squeeze that farmers suffer too often, with the inputs that they need taking a significant chunk of their earnings, while the prices that they receive for their labor either shrinking or fluctuating in ways that are largely out of their control.

Accordingly, if we really want safety – for farmers’ finances and the environment – we ought to work more on promoting regional and local seed varieties instead of looking to multinational corporations for guidance.

Both versions of our beleaguered Farm Bill contain such provisions, with the House and Senate versions of the legislation dedicating grant funding to the development of regional seed varieties (referred to as “cultivars” in the legislation).

The operative word here is “regional,” as grant funding may lead to the creation of new seed varieties that would be suited to particular areas and climates.   Droughts in general entail a lack of water; but soil conditions and weather patterns vary significantly by region.  As a result, we need to develop diverse kinds of seeds that suit different ecosystems instead of global “one size fits all” varieties like we find with GM options.

When the USDA decided that HB4 was “safe,” they must have left out considerations for farmer financial wellbeing and the environment.  But our legislators can make up for this mistake with the Farm Bill – whether it emerges in a lame duck session this year following the elections in November or awaits our next Congress – taking heed of the risks that GM crops pose, and supporting more local and regional food system development.

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Nominations Open for the 2024 John Kinsman Beginning Farmer Food Sovereignty Prize! Deadline is Sept. 30th!

Each year Family Farm Defenders (FFD) is proud to host the John Kinsman Beginning Farmer Food Sovereignty Prize – named in honor of John Kinsman, one of the founders and longtime president of Family Farm Defenders who passed away at the ripe old age of 87 on MLKJ Day, 2014. John was not only an early pioneer of organic grass-based dairying in the Midwest, but was also a tireless champion of civil rights, social justice, and food sovereignty both in the U.S. and around the world.

T o be considered for the prize, nominees must meet the following criteria: engaged in own farm for less than five years; engaged in small scale livestock and/or vegetable and/or fruit production; market products locally; practice sustainable management of natural resources; promote healthy soil; conserve biodiversity; and support food sovereignty principles.

FFD will then send a short application with several questions to all nominees. Board members then review those applications submitted. The final winner(s) receive a cash prize ($2500), as well as public recognition at an award dinner and ceremony held in conjunction with the FFD annual meeting which is usually in early or mid Nov.

If you have someone you would like to nominate for the 2024 John Kinsman Beginning Farmer Food Sovereignty Prize, please send their name and contact info (phone, email, address) to: [email protected] or call: 608-260-0900

You can also make a donation! Each year FFD invites individuals and other supporters to help sponsor the John Kinsman Beginning Farmer Food Sovereignty Prize. All sponsors are given honorable mention in publicity for the award ceremony, and those making a donation of $100 or more can also receive a complimentary ticket to the award banquet, as well as a FFD t-shirt!

We hope that you will consider supporting this unique effort to honor the spirit of John Kinsman, by not only nominating a worthy beginning farmer you may know, but by also providing financial support for this amazing celebration of food sovereignty! For more info: https://familyfarmers.org/

Previous John Kinsman Beginning Farmer Food Sovereignty winners include:

2011: FL Morris of Grassroots Farm, near Monroe, WI, and Daniel and Hannah Miller of Easy Yoke Farm near Millville MN

2012: Nancy and Jeff Kirstein, Good Earth Farm, Lennox SD and Tracy and Dick Vinz, Olden Produce, Ripon, WI

2014: Blain Snipstal of Five Seeds Farm near Sparks, MD and Jed Schenkier and Will Pool of Loud Grade Produce Squad in Chicago, IL

2015: Carsten Thomas from Moorhead, MN and Emmet Fisher and Cella Langer with Oxheart Farm near Mt. Horeb, WI

2016: Donald (Jahi) Ellis from Vidalia, GA and Polly Dalton and Oren Jakobson with Field Notes Farm near Custer, WI

2017 Eduardo Rivera of Sin Fronteras Farm near Stillwater, MN

2018 Tommy and Samantha Enright of Black Rabbit Farm near Amherst, WI and Craig and Lauren Kreutzel of Meadowlark Farm near Wonewoc, WI

2019 Curtis Whittaker of Faith Farms in Gary, IN and Joseph & Abbie Monroe and Caleb & Kelly Fiechter of Valley Spirit Farm in Campbellsburg, KY

2020 Jazmin Martinez, Nadia Sol Ireri Unzueta Carrasco, and Viviana Moreno with Catatumbo Cooperative Farm in Chicago, IL

2021 Tacumba Turner with Oasis Farm & Fishery in Pittsburgh, PA, Jenny Hoople and Raul Casique-Montes with Bountiful Beloit in Beloit, WI and Rachel “Nami” Kimura with Hinata Farms in Chicago, IL

2022 Naima Dhore of Naima’s Farm near Alexandria, MN and Heather Gayton of ZanBria Artisan Farms near Friendship, WI

2023 Hannah Frank and Justin Thomas, Rue de Bungaloo Farm, Athens, WI; Nia Nyamweya, Beauty Blooms Farm, Montgomery County, MD, and the Bad River Food Sovereignty Initiative, Odanah, WI

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Keeping Our Food Off Drugs

Factory farms on land and at sea have become breeding grounds for drug-resistant microorganisms.

By: Anthony Pahnke (vice president of Family Farm Defenders and associate professor of international relations at San Francisco State University) and Ryan Horwarth (fisherman and founder of Pacific Cloud Seafoods, based in Buffalo, NY)

Originally published by the Progressive, Aug. 6th, 2024

If you’ve ever caught a fish, you know that keeping hold of them is hard.  

Now imagine taking a syringe and injecting that fish with antibiotics—not just a difficult task, but a strange one. This is exactly what some large-scale fish farms do, along with dumping antibiotics into densely packed pens or mixing drugs into feed. Like concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) on land, industrial fish farms administer antibiotics to stem the outbreak of diseases that fish contract from living in such cramped spaces. 

But solving one problem creates another. Factory farms on land and at sea have become breeding grounds not just for livestock, poultry and fish, but also for drug-resistant microorganisms such as Salmonella and E. coli. The World Health Organization (WHO) has criticized CAFOs for this reason. Some estimate that more than 70 percent of the global supply of  antibiotics are used on animals in these kinds of operations.

This arrangement benefits pharmaceutical companies like Merck, which employs hundreds of lobbyists each year to convince consumers and policymakers that factory farming is a necessity. Its subsidiary, Merck Animal Health, is an officer company of Stronger America Through Seafood, an industry group pushing for the development of intensive finfish aquaculture in U.S. waters, which would export the factory farming model from land to sea.

Despite the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibiting the use of antibiotics to promote animal growth, there was a 12 percent increase in animal antibiotic sales between 2017 and 2022. This development, and, with it, persistent concerns about human health, led Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, in July to send a letter to the FDA calling on the agency to provide information about its efforts to manage the growing antimicrobial resistance crisis and the overuse of antibiotics in concentrated animal agriculture operations.

The truth is, neither farming nor fishing need to be done this way. We both come from families with farming and fishing traditions centered on treating animals with respect. When you operate on a smaller scale, it’s more feasible to use holistic practices, and you don’t need the same industrial solutions—like intensive antibiotics use—as you do for factory-style food production.

Legislation currently being debated, namely the Improving Agriculture, Research, Cultivation, Timber and Indigenous Commodities (ARCTIC) Act and the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act, would create opportunities for community-based fishing and farming families like ours to provide high-quality, drug-free food to local markets.     

Both bills include provisions to improve processing, which is often a bottleneck when it comes to keeping food supply chains localized and transparent. The Improving ARCTIC Act creates pilot grant programs to strengthen domestic seafood processing and working waterfront economies in coastal communities. The PRIME Act allows small farmers and ranchers to slaughter and process their livestock at local, custom slaughter facilities. In expanding processing options and infrastructure, both acts allow small-scale food producers to better plug into local markets and get more nutritious local food to consumers. 

Currently, the PRIME Act is in both the House and Senate versions of the Farm Bill. The Improving ARCTIC Act could also find its way into the mega omnibus bill as it meanders through Congress.

Let’s do what we can to keep fish, and other animals, off drugs. An important step in achieving this is to empower traditional and small-scale food producers that have holistic, stewardship-based relationships with the animals, lands and waters they work with. The legislative tools are there, that is if our lawmakers want to care for the health of our shared lands and waters, our food supply and us.  

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Check out the Summer 2024 FFD Newsletter!

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Manure Digesters – Just Another False Solution That Makes Climate Injustice Worse

By John E. Peck – FFD executive director

Published by Common Dreams, April 21st, 2024

There has been much media hype about manure digesters and how they will “solve” climate change by capturing and burning methane from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs – aka factory farms). Billions in taxpayer handouts and other incentives through pollution offset trading markets are encouraging factory farms to expand and profit from their waste stream. Some economists now speculate that factory farms are earning more from making methane than milk! A recent FOE and SRAP report (https://foe.org/resources/biogas-or-bull/) goes even further suggesting that if the U.S. really wanted to reduce it’s agricultural contribution towards greenhouse gases, it would make more sense for regulators to phase-out/split-up CAFOs and shift taxpayer support towards smaller grass-based livestock operations instead.

Sadly, the misguided notion of manure digesters as a “solution” to the climate crisis is nothing new. Back in 2009 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen I almost fell off my chair when then USDA Sec. Vilsack announced that manure digesters on factory farms were going to be a key part of Obama’s climate change agenda. He later admitted that less than 10% of dairy farms (ie CAFOs) would be large enough to qualify for these USDA digester grants – another example of how federal policies support industrial agribusiness to the detriment of smaller farmers.

Waunakee, WI taxpayer subsidized “Community” Manure Digester that only serves three CAFOs nearby – prior to its massive explosion in 2012

This manure digester building binge has ramped up even more under Biden – with Vilsack once again back at the helm of the USDA. The latest IATP report (https://www.iatp.org/costly-versus-cost-effective) critiquing the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) reveals just how much of this popular USDA effort has been hijacked by a small elite number of CAFOs, to the detriment of the majority of farmers who have their EQIP applications declined. Encouraging livestock grazing is NOT front and center among “climate smart” practices promoted under EQIP and NRCS – that star role is held by waste lagoons and manure digesters. A typical CAFO digester for 2000 dairy cows costs over $2 million with EQIP covering up to $400,000. But there are many other funds available, such as through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) which bankrolled $78 million for digesters in the last decade. The recent Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) added another $250 million to EQIP, along with another $2 billion for REAP, including a brand new 30% tax credit for all new digesters built.

The current trough of taxpayer funding for the manure methane industrial complex is long and deep, but there is even more potential revenue to be milked. In Wisconsin alone there are now fifteen manure digesters getting money for their methane offsetting of 1.3 million carbon credits available through the California Cap and Trade System. How does this work? Build a methane digester in WI, claim that by burning off this really bad methane it is equal to reducing the impact of so many tons of carbon dioxide emitted in CA, and then get a bonus check for that hard offset work! The value of one carbon credit on the CA market as of April 2023 was $28.66.

The problem with this taxpayer mandated and subsidized “cap and trade” system is that it does not necessarily reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions – it just moves pollution around (and the atmosphere doesn’t care about your zipcode…). Worse yet, if your offset claims prove to be bogus and corrupt, the climate crisis ends up much worse. This was exactly the case when Midwest activists alerted CA officials that some of the WI CAFOs claiming methane offset credits were really engaged in wire fraud since their digesters were either broken or not effectively functioning to capture methane as claimed. More details can be found in the SRAP expose of this 21st century Ponzi style scheme: (https://sraproject.org/news-and-events/california-cap-and-trade-program-summary/) Along with many allies, FFD has been diligently opposing such corporatized pollution trading mechanisms through the Alliance Against Farm Bill Offsets, whether they involve offsets for carbon sequestration pipelines, manure digesters, or “no-till” GMO monocultures.

My gut reaction fifteen years ago to Vilsack’s manure digester panacea to global climate change remains true today – why pay to fix a problem that doesn’t even need to exist? Countless studies have shown that the most cost effective, eco-friendly, and often quite profitable form of animal husbandry – including dairying – is managed rotational grazing. If animals are just allowed to enjoy pasture outside (as they prefer and are meant to do by mother nature) and then also allowed to deposit their manure in a healthy perennial ecosystem, one does not end up with a methane crisis. It is only when one decides to confine thousands of animals in a warehouse, offer them nothing but TMR to consume (with dubious components like feather meal and ethanol leftovers), liquify millions of gallons of their manure, and then store it in massive anaerobic lagoons, that one creates a pollutant 80+ times worse than carbon dioxide.

Sure, one can always capture and burn the methane that doesn’t leak from a CAFO digester to make electricity or run a vehicle (which means more greenhouse gas pollution), but you still have the leftover sludge (aka digestate) to deal with. This is loaded with nitrates, phosphorous, and – depending upon what other waste gets dumped into the digester – PFAS, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, heavy metals – which will then seep into the ground and became part of runoff, contributing to tainted wells, beach closures, toxic fish, the list goes on and on. Besides methane, there are other toxic CAFO gases – such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and nitrous oxide – that cause chronic headaches for neighboring residents and hurt anyone else downwind.

And let’s not forget the ever present danger of methane explosions and lagoon ruptures. When a massive lagoon leaked on a hog factory farm in Wayne County NC in May 2022, spilling into the nearby Nahunta Swamp, it was revealed that hundreds of rotting pigs, along with deli meat and discarded hotdogs, were part of the digester feedstock to make the methane being sold to Duke Energy. Closer to home, just ask anyone who lives near Waunakee, WI, what it is like to have a poorly designed and managed digester both explode and also leak 400,000+ gallons of fresh manure into Lake Mendota about a decade ago. This single disaster set back Yahara Watershed clean up efforts for years. It would have been so much cheaper, simpler, and less disastrous for WI state and Dane county taxpayers to have promoted composting instead (which some better CAFOs actually do, without lagoons).

Waunakee WI manure digester in 2013 leaking 300,00 gallons of CAFO manure into Lake Mendota, part of the Yahara Watershed, just north of Madison

In Nov. 2022 Kari Lydersen wrote a disturbing investigation, chronicling the many risks to farm workers from factory farms and their manure digesters (https://energynews.us/2022/11/16/biogas-expansion-may-compound-worker-risks/). She tells one story of Bob Baenziger, Jr., retired Army veteran and former offshore oil rig diver, who died in 2021 as a hired contractor trying to fix a broken cable in an IA manure digester. Drowning in such a squalid pool is something straight out of Dante’s Inferno. The same year Samuel Antonio Padilla Castro, a Honduran immigrant, was working a twelve hour shift at the Fair Oaks Farm in IN when his clothing was caught in manure handling equipment, strangling him to death. His death left behind a widow, three children, and a token $10,500 OSHA fine. Austin Frerick’s profile of the McCloskey Family which owns Fair Oaks Farm in his new book, Barons, reveals more of the underbelly of this “Dairy Disneyland” including their role as digester cheerleaders. Another Fair Oaks tourist and digester advocate he mentions is Tom Vilsack.

Our current “get big or get out” farm policy does not have much time or interest in agroecological approaches for healthier food that also ensure food sovereignty. Instead, corporate agribusiness is allowed to manipulate commodity markets – driving out what little competition exists from smaller farmers and local processors. The political allies of the food giants then ensure that taxpayers help underwrite the largest industrialized operations left standing since they are the easiest to vertically integrate into the dominant oligopoly structure. Is it any surprise to see agribusiness lobbyists and their academic apologists now touting manure digesters as “climate smart” just in time for Earth Day and pushing for pollution trading offset schemes within the 2024 Farm Bill?

Thankfully, there are better responses to the climate crisis that also treat rural people and our land, air, and water with respect. Existing federal initiatives such as the Conservation Reserve Program could be expanded to better direct payments to farmers who are already doing so much responsible land/climate stewardship – without carbon offset peddlers skimming 25% off the top. The EQIP and REAP programs need to be overhauled to severely limit or even eliminate CAFO lagoon/digester grants and earmark more towards smaller grass-based diversified operations instead. This is the gist behind the EQIP Reform Act, introduced by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Mike Lee (R-UT) last year as part of the Farm Bill debate.

More generally, factory farms must be treated as a pollution point source, subject to all the monitoring, regulation, and liability required for any other industrial operation. Why should CAFOs evade the common sense oversight that other businesses respect? Defending local control also remains critical. Last year grassroots activists in St. Croix County were able to push back and shut down a massive digester proposal near New Richmond, WI, being aggressively promoted by Nature Energy, a Shell Oil subsidiary. Thousands of folks recently responded to a statewide action alert successfully demanding that WI Gov. Tony Evers veto CAFO industry-crafted preemption legislation that would have hamstrung the right to pass ordinances that would restrict their manure digesters and other rural mal-development projects. Democratic direct action can get the goods!

NASA space probes have revealed that there is a massive ocean of liquid methane on Titan, one of the moons circling Saturn. There is also not any life that we know of on Titan… Intentional factory farm production and subsequent “climate smart” combustion of methane is not only oxymoronic, but will undermine the future prospect of life here on Earth. Farmers can feed the world and the cool the planet – without the false promise of manure digesters.

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