Family Farm Defenders

“The Farmer Assurance Provision” is the title of a rider, Section 733, inserted into the House’s 2013 agriculture appropriations bill. Somehow, as a farmer, I don’t feel the least bit assured.

The only assurance it provides is that Monsanto and the rest of the agriculture biotech industry will have carte blanche to force the government to allow the planting of their biotech seeds.

In addition, the House Agriculture Committee’s 2012 farm bill draft includes three riders – Sections 1011, 10013 and 10014. These amendments would essentially destroy any oversight of new genetically engineered (GE) crops by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If these riders had been in place during the review of GE alfalfa, Monsanto could have requested — no, they could have compelled — the secretary of agriculture to allow continued planting of GE alfalfa even though a federal court had ruled commercialization was illegal pending completion of an environmental impact study.

Essentially, the riders would prevent the federal courts from restricting, in any way, the planting of a GE crop, regardless of environmental, health or economic concerns. USDA’s mandated review process would be, like court-ordered restrictions, meaningless. A request to USDA to allow planting of a GE crop awaiting approval would have to be granted.

Wow, who’s next to get in on a deal like this, the drug companies?

Not only would the riders eviscerate the power of USDA and the authority of the courts, but they would also permanently dismiss any input from other agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Wildlife Service or Environmental Protection Agency.

Does Congress really believe it has the right to remove the court’s power of congressional oversight? Doesn’t that violate the separation of powers guaranteed in the Constitution?

The trade group behind the riders, Biotechnology Industry Organization, insists that the riders do not, in any way, reduce regulatory requirements for new GE crops. What? They only eliminate any oversight from the judicial branch — that’s sort of a big thing.

The approval process for new GE crops is not without its perceived delays. As limited as it may be, review takes time but getting new GE crops approved is a cakewalk.

StarLink corn and Liberty Link rice slipped through the approval process only to have major contamination and health issues after commercialization. Once a crop is in the USDA pipeline, approval is a near certainty.

BIO insists the riders are necessary to avoid delays in approval. Of course, delays cost them money, which is obviously all they are concerned about. If they were concerned about environmental impacts, or food safety, wouldn’t they request input from EPA and FDA?

So the “Farmer Assurance” thing — using farmers as their poster children — is quite disingenuous. The biotech industry cares about farmers because farmers are their meal ticket.

Farmers are not stupid; we learned that the promises of biotech were short-lived at best and to various degrees simply false. The new GE crops are basically the old GE crops, just redesigned to resist different, more toxic herbicides while having become less effective at killing insect pests.

No, the Farmer Assurance Provision and the farm bill riders are not about farmers, nor are they about speeding needed crops to the waiting public. They’re about getting fast rubber-stamp approval for new, profitable GE crops.

These riders are an effort to end run Congress, the courts and the Constitution.

Corporate collusion with government is not new, but this takes it to a new level. By allowing corporations to subvert the Constitution, Congress is saying that corporate influence and profits are more important than the best interests of the people.

Corporations are not people, my friends, despite the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

By:  Joel Greeno

Dairy farmer near Kendall, WI and vice president of Family Farm Defenders

My family has raised dairy cows on our farm in Monroe County near Kendall, Wisconsin, for almost 150 years. We’ve weathered the Great Depression, low milk prices, droughts, floods, and snowstorms. Despite difficulties, the dairy and related industries generate $26.5 billion in revenue, 174,000 jobs, and fresh, healthy milk, cheese and butter for the state each year.

My farm is just a few miles from the town of Warrens, the center of Wisconsin’s cranberry country and home of the world’s largest cranberry festival, with more than 140,000 visitors this year.

Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same here or anywhere else if our cranberry crop vanished.

Mining Wisconsin’s high-quality sand is another industry that’s been established for some time. However, the recent spike nationwide in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas and oil has boosted demand for the sand the process requires. If all 86 planned facilities for the state are built and mined, they would account for about 2,800 jobs. Those jobs would be helpful but hardly remarkable or sustainable. The sand will eventually be depleted. Then what?

Mining companies are offering farmers in Monroe and neighboring counties millions of dollars for their land, and a number of them have sold. I can’t really blame them — that’s more money than most dreamed of making over a lifetime. But the consequences are horrific.

Extracting sand on a wide scale would convert thousands of acres of our countryside into open pit mines. Each oil or gas fracking well can use as much as 3 million pounds of sand — 1,500 tons — before it’s tapped out. And there are thousands of these wells nationwide.

Once farms are destroyed, it’s pretty hard to rebuild them, just as it’s hard to bring farmers back to the land once they leave. Farmers in this region shouldn’t have to choose between diametrically opposed options — continue farming at a loss by incurring more and more debt or selling their farms to be converted into sand pits to relieve debt.

Many of these farmers wouldn’t consider selling their land if they saw a real future in farming, and the future depends on a fair price for their products, whether it’s cranberries, turkeys, or milk. The people who provide our food and beverages for every meal deserve a living wage. The small number of short-term mining jobs that large-scale sand mining might create just doesn’t justify destroying our food supply, farmers’ livelihoods, and rural communities.

Extracting sand, oil, gas, or any other finite resource means that eventually the mined land will be worth nothing. The mining companies will move on, taking the jobs and leaving behind scarred landscapes and empty houses.

On the other hand, if farmers receive a fair price from the buyers of their product, especially renewable, sustainable ones such as cranberries, butter or milk, everyone wins — local businesses thrive, schools and other infrastructure are supported, and future generations of farmers have real opportunities.

For Immediate Release  10/8/12

Family Farm Defenders is extremely proud to host the Wisconsin leg of a Midwest tour by Mrs. Jeomok Bak and Ms. Junkyoung Lee, representatives of the Korean Women’s Peasant Association (KWPA) and recipients of the 2012 Food Sovereignty Prize which is being awarded to them in New York City on Wed. Oct. 10th at 7 pm at the National Museum of the American Indian (One Bowling Green, lower Manhattan)