Food Tank
By Danielle Nierenberg and Alonso Diaz
With record high unemployment, a reeling global economy, and concerns of food shortages, the world as we know it is changing. But even as these shifts expose inequities in the health and food systems, many experts hope that the current moment offers an opportunity to build a new and more sustainable food system.
<p>To understand what it will take to move forward, Food Tank has compiled its summer reading list to delve into the issues that affect our food system today. These 20 books provide insight into food access and justice in Black communities, food relief and school nutrition programs, the effects of technology on global food supply chains, the relationship between climate change and food production, and much more.</p>
1. Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community, and the Meaning of Generosity by Priya Basil (forthcoming November 2020)
<p>Priya Basil explores the meaning of hospitality within a variety of cultural, linguistic, and sociopolitical contexts in this short read. Basil uses her cross-cultural experience to illustrate how food amplifies discourse within families and touches on the hospitality and the lack thereof that migrants and refugees experience. <em>Be My Guest </em>is at once an enjoyable read and a hopeful meditation on how food and hospitality can make a positive difference in our world.</p>2. Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition: A New Agenda for Sustainable Food Systems by Danny Hunter, Teresa Borelli, and Eliot Gee
<p>In <em>Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition</em>, leading professionals from Bioversity International examine the positive impacts of biodiversity on nutrition and sustainability. The book highlights agrobiodiversity initiatives in Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, featuring research from the <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/research-portfolio/diet-diversity/biodiversity-for-food-and-nutrition/" target="_blank">Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Project </a>(BFN) of the <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/alliance/" target="_blank">Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT</a>. Through this analysis, the authors propose that the localized activities in these countries are not only benefiting communities, but are transferable to other regions.</p>3. Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. by Ashanté M. Reese
<p>In <em>Black Food Geographies, </em>Ashanté Reese draws on her fieldwork to highlight community agency in response to unequal food access. Focusing on a majority-Black neighborhood in Washington, DC, Reese explores issues of racism, gentrification, and urban food access. Through her analysis, she argues that racism impacts and exacerbates issues of unequal food distribution systems.</p>4. Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice edited by Hanna Garth and Ashanté M. Reese (forthcoming October 2020)
<p>Access, equity, justice, and privilege are the central themes in this forthcoming collection of essays. The food justice movement often ignores the voices of Black communities and white food norms shape the notions of healthy food. Named for Black Lives Matter, <em>Black Food Matters </em>highlights the history and impact of Black communities and their food cultures in the food justice movement.</p>5. Diners Dudes & Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture by Emily J.H. Contois (forthcoming November 2020)
<p>In <em>Diners, Dudes & Diets</em>, Emily Contois looks at media's influence on eating habits and gendered perceptions of food. Focusing on the concept of dude foods, the book follows the evolution of food marketing for men. In doing so, Contois shows how industries used masculine stereotypes to sell diet and weight loss products to a new demographic. She argues that this has influenced both the way consumers think about food and their own identities.</p>6. Feeding the Crisis: Care and Abandonment in America’s Food Safety Net by Maggie Dickinson
<p>The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is essential for individuals who face food insecurity on a daily basis. Still, the program fails to reach many, including those who are unemployed, underemployed, or undocumented. <em>Feeding the Crisis</em> provides a historical overview of SNAP's expansion and traces the lives of eight families who must navigate the changing landscape of welfare policy in the United States.</p>7. Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries by Rebecca T. de Souza
<p>In <em>Feeding the Other</em>, Rebecca de Souza explores the relationship between food pantries and people dependent on their services. Throughout the work, de Souza underscores the structural failures that contribute to hunger and poverty, the racial dynamics within pantries, and the charged idea of a handout. She argues that while food pantries currently stigmatize clients, there is an opportunity to make them agents of food justice.</p>8. Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato by Rebecca Earle
<p>In <em>Feeding the People,</em> Rebecca Earle tells the story of the potato and its journey from a relatively unknown crop to a staple in modern diets around the world. Earle's work highlights the importance of the potato during famines, war, and explains the politics behind consumers' embrace of this food. Interspersed throughout are also potato recipes that any reader can try.</p>9. Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal by Hanna Garth
<p>In <em>Food in Cuba</em>, Dr. Hannah Garth looks at food security and food sovereignty in the context of Cuba's second largest city, Santiago de Cuba. Throughout the work, Garth defines a decent meal as one that is culturally appropriate and of high quality. And through stories about families' sociopolitical barriers to food access, Garth shows how ideas of food and moral character become intimately linked.</p>10. Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain
<p>Scholar, speaker, and strategist Marcia Chatelain provides readers insight into the ways fast food restaurants expanded throughout Black communities. Dr. Chatelain traces their growth during the 20th century and their intersection with Black capitalists and the civil rights movement. This book highlights the dichotomy between fast food's negative impacts on Black communities and the potential economic and political opportunities that the businesses offered them.</p>11. Honey And Venom: Confessions of an Urban Beekeeper by Andrew Coté
<p>In <em>Honey and Venom,</em> Andrew Coté provides a history of beekeeping while taking the reader through his own trajectory in the industry. A manager of over one hundred beehives, Coté raises colonies across New York City, on the rooftops of churches, schools, and more. Coté's<em> </em>passion for beekeeping comes through clearly as he narrates the challenges and rewards of his career.</p>12. Life on the Other Border: Farmworkers and Food Justice in Vermont by Teresa M. Mares
<p>Agriculture, immigration, and Central American and Mexican farm workers may conjure ideas of the Mexico-U.S. border, but in <em>Life on the Other Border</em>, Teresa Mares gives a voice to those laboring much farther north. Mares introduces the readers to the Latinx immigrants who work in Vermont's dairy industry while they advocate for themselves and navigate life as undocumented workers. This is an inspiring read that touches on the intersection of food justice, immigration, and labor policy.</p>13. Meals Matter: A Radical Economics Through Gastronomy by Michael Symons
<p>In <em>Meals Matter</em>, Michael Symons argues that economics used to be, in its essence, about feeding the world but has since become fixated with the pursuit of money. Symons introduces readers to gastronomic liberalism and applies the ideas of philosophers like Epicurus and John Locke to the food system. Through this approach, he seeks to understand how large corporations gained control of the market and challenges readers to rethink their understanding of food economics.</p>14. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg
<p>Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit and has since been a global symbol of environmental activism. Her community organizing and impassioned speeches are uncompromising as she argues that climate change is an existential crisis that needs to be confronted immediately. <em>No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference </em>includes Thunberg's speeches and includes her 2019 address to the United Nations.</p>15. Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It by Tom Philpott (forthcoming August 2020)
<p>In <em>Perilous Bounty</em>, journalist Tom Philpott critically analyzes the centralized food system in the U.S. and argues that it is headed for disaster unless it sees some much-needed changes. Philpot argues that actors within the U.S. food system are prioritizing themselves over the nation's wellbeing and provides well-researched data to back up his claims. Providing readers insight into the experiences of activists, farmers, and scientists, this is a great read for those starting to learn about the state of the country's food system and for those who are already deeply involved.</p>16. Plucked: Chicken, Antibiotics, And How Big Business Changed The Way The World Eats by Maryn McKenna
<p>In this exposé on the chicken industry, acclaimed author Maryn McKenna explains the role antibiotics played in making chicken a global commodity. <em>Plucked </em>makes it clear that food choices matter and show how consumers' desire for meat, especially chicken, has impacted human health. McKenna also offers a way forward and outlines ways that stakeholders can make food safer again.</p>17. Stirrings: How Activist New Yorkers Ignited a Movement for Food Justice by Lana Dee Povitz
<p>Between 1970 and 2000, food activists in New York City pushed to improve public school lunches, provide meals to those impacted by the AIDS epidemic, and established food co-ops. In <em>Stirrings</em>,<em> </em>Lana Dee Povitz draws on oral histories and archives to recount the stories of individuals who led these efforts. She highlights the successes of grassroots movements and reminds readers of the many women leaders in the New York food justice movement.</p>18. The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability by Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern
<p>In <em>The New American Farmer</em>, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern offers a look at farm labor in the U.S. Although most farm owners are white Americans, farm workers are overwhelmingly immigrants and people of color. In this book, Minkoff-Zern details the experiences of farm laborers who are becoming farm owners themselves and outlines the many barriers that workers must overcome during this transition. Through interviews with farmers and organizers, Minkoff-Zern shows that these farmers bring sustainable agricultural practices that can benefit our food system.</p>19. The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here by Hope Jahren
<p>Hope Jahren breaks down climate change for readers in an accessible and data-driven book. <em>The Story of More </em>explains<em> </em>how greenhouse gas emissions and consumption of natural resources in developed nations exacerbate climate change and outlines the consequences of these actions. Although she argues that the planet is in danger, she also provides a variety of everyday actions, like decreasing meat consumption, that consumers can take to make a difference.</p>20. Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes by Bryant Terry
<p>Author, chef, and food justice activist Bryant Terry provides readers with over a hundred recipes to create approachable and flavorful vegan dishes, without relying on meat alternatives. This book is a wonderfully practical recipe book that begins with a list of recommended tools, is organized by ingredients, and even includes a music playlist. Vegans and non-vegans alike will appreciate Chef Terry's <em>Vegetable Kingdom</em>.</p><a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Make+this+summer+a+season+of+reflection+and+self-education+with+Food+Tank%27s+reading+list+%E2%80%94+new+and+important+books+from+%40AMReese07%2C+%40GretaThunberg%2C+%40EmilyContois%2C+%40BryantTerry%2C+%40DrMChatelain%2C+and+more&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffoodtank.com%2Fnews%2F2020%2F07%2Ffood-tanks-summer-2020-reading-list%2F&via=foodtank"><span></span></a>
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USDA NRCS Montana
By Dipika Kadaba
The emergence of multiple pandemics in the animal agriculture industry over the past few decades, coupled with COVID-19's suspected origins in wildlife meat markets, has prompted renewed calls from experts to transform the global food system to prevent diseases harmful to humans.
<p>Industrial agriculture puts humans in contact with scores of animals in cramped conditions, which is ideal for disease transfer.</p>
<p>But that's only one of the health dangers it causes. Antibiotics are used ubiquitously in all kinds of large-scale agriculture, causing antibiotic resistance and environmental toxicity that studies show <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC122845/" target="_blank">we're not prepared to combat</a>.</p>
<p>Watch our new video to learn more about issues arising from antibiotic use in agriculture.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5363447ee3ad107f98d95612dcc37888"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G8Q07BHRUwc?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/dipikakadaba/" target="_blank">Dipika Kadaba</a> is an ecologist who uses data visualization and design to communicate environmental issues in her role as The Revelator's visual storyteller. Her interdisciplinary work originates in her background in environmental health research as a veterinarian, a graduate degree in conservation science, and a lifetime spent creating webcomics and animations for fun.</em></p><p><em><em>Reposted with permission from <em><a href="https://therevelator.org/antibiotics-agriculture-environment/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></em><em></em></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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5 Biggest Pesticide Companies Are Making Billions From 'Highly Hazardous' Chemicals, Investigation Finds
20 February
Health + Wellness
Worker spraying toxic pesticides or insecticides on corn plantation. D-Keine / E+ / Getty Images
Poor people in developing countries are far more likely to suffer from exposure to pesticides classified as having high hazard to human health or the environment, according to new data that Unearthed analyzed.
<p>The analysis shows that the world's top five pesticide makers are making billions, accounting for more than 36 percent of their income, from chemicals that are proven to hazards to humans and the environment and are contributing to the precipitous demise of bee populations, as Unearthed reported.</p>
<p>The researchers found that the sale of these highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), disproportionately occurred in poorer nations, which often have fewer regulations than industrialized nations, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/firms-making-billions-from-highly-hazardous-pesticides-analysis-finds" target="_blank">according to The Guardian</a>. In India, for example, sales of HHPs were nearly 60 percent, while in the UK it was just 11 percent. </p>
<p>The report from the investigative team at Unearthed focused on the practices of Bayer, BASF, Corteva (formerly Dow and DuPont), FMC and Syngenta, which are continuing to sell HHPs like neonicotinoids and glufosinate that have been banned in other parts of the world, according to the produce industry publication <a href="http://www.fruitnet.com/fpj/article/180959/pesticide-firms-profit-off-hazardous-products-says-report" target="_blank">Fresh Produce Journal</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="_blank">Unearthed</a> dove into data collected by Phillips McDougall, the leading agribusiness analysts, from buyer surveys that concentrated on the best sellers in the top 43 pesticide buying countries, as The Guardian reported.</p>
<p>While regulations have stopped the sale of certain pesticides in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, it has hardly slowed down chemical companies, which sold $4.8 billion worth of products containing HHPs in 2018, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/20/firms-making-billions-from-highly-hazardous-pesticides-analysis-finds" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. Bayer called the analysis "misleading" but did not offer proof of that assessment.</p>
<p>Since the investigation focused on just 43 countries, it covered less than half of the companies' global sales. That suggests that the companies actually made billions more from pesticides that regulatory agencies have said pose hazards like acute poisoning or chronic illness in people, or high toxicity to bees and other wildlife, <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="_blank">according to Unearthed</a>. </p>
<p>The investigation found that pesticide manufacturers sold the majority of its highly hazardous pesticide in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil and India, where experts say the risks posed by using these chemicals are greatest, according to Unearthed. The biggest market for HHPs were for corn and soya crops. </p>
<p>About a quarter of sales were from products known to be human carcinogens or dangerous to reproductive health. Another 10 percent were toxic to bees. An additional 4 percent of chemicals sold are acutely toxic to humans. Every year, nearly 200,000 suicides are linked to pesticide poisoning, almost entirely in developing countries, according to The Guardian. </p><p>"This investigation shows that there is a huge disconnect between what those companies are saying in the international policy arena and what they are actually doing," Meriel Watts, a senior science and policy advisor to the Pesticide Action Network, said to Unearthed.</p><p>Baskut Tuncak, the United Nations' <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Environment/ToxicWastes/Pages/BaskutTuncak.aspx" target="_blank">special rapporteur on toxic substances</a> and human rights, told <a href="https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2020/02/20/pesticides-croplife-hazardous-bayer-syngenta-health-bees/" target="_blank">Unearthed</a>, "There is nothing sustainable about the widespread use of highly hazardous pesticides for agriculture."</p><p>"Whether they poison workers, extinguish biodiversity, persist in the environment, or accumulate in a mother's breast milk, these are unsustainable, cannot be used safely, and should have been phased out of use long ago," Tuncak said.</p>
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Pope Francis celebrates an opening Mass for the Amazon synod, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2019. Massimo Valicchia / NurPhoto / Getty Images
Pope Francis, in an effort to reignite his influence as a global environmental leader, released an impassioned document Feb. 12 entitled Dear Amazon — a response to the historic Vatican meeting last autumn regarding the fate of the Amazon biome and its indigenous people.
<p>In a 94-page "<a href="https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2020/02/12/200212c.html" target="_blank">exhortation</a>," Francis argued for the ecological importance of Amazonia — the world's largest and most biodiverse tropical rainforest — describing the ecosystem services the biome provides, the region's greatly beneficial weather, and the climate change mitigation the forest offers via carbon storage. The pope stressed that those best suited to protect the Amazon are the indigenous people who have lived there since time immemorial.<em></em></p>
<p>The document comes as the Amazon faces "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/world/americas/amazon-rainforest.html" target="_blank">deforestation at breakneck rates</a>," driven by illegal logging, mining, ranching and agribusiness in <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/record-levels-of-deforestation-in-peruvian-amazon-as-gold-mines-spreads/" target="_blank">Peru</a>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/disaster-strikes-in-bolivia-as-fires-devastate-unique-forests/" target="_blank">Bolivia</a>, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/for-colombia-2019-was-a-year-of-environmental-discontent/" target="_blank">Colombia</a> and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/deforestation-in-brazil-continues-torrid-pace-into-2020/" target="_blank">Brazil</a>, a nation that has also seen a sharp <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/murders-of-indigenous-leaders-in-brazil-amazon-hit-highest-level-in-two-decades/" target="_blank">spike in killings</a> of indigenous activists.</p><p><em>Dear Amazon</em> isn't only addressed to Catholics, but "to all persons of good will." It sums up the findings of a three-week Vatican synod, a formal meeting held last October that brought together for the first-time hundreds of Catholic bishops, indigenous leaders and environmental activists from nine South American countries with territory in the Amazon. Francis' post-synod response is organized into four "dreams:" societal, cultural, ecclesial and ecological.</p><p>His plea in defense of the rainforest is at once scientific, humanistic, political, and spiritual: "If the care of people and the care of ecosystems are inseparable, this becomes especially important in places where the forest is not a resource to be exploited; it is a being, or various beings, with which we have to relate," Francis writes in the ecological section. "When indigenous peoples remain on their land, they themselves care for it best, provided they do not let themselves be taken in by the siren song and self-serving proposals of power groups."</p>
<p>Francis joins with Amazon scientists and activists in their alarm. Rapidly escalating deforestation in the biome is already <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/bolsonaros-brazil-unlikely-to-achieve-paris-agreement-goals-experts/" target="_blank">threatening the key goal</a> of the 2015 Paris Agreement — keeping the world from overshooting a 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) rise since the preindustrial era. The Paris accord specifically cites the carbon-sink-and-sequestration capacity, and vital importance, of large, intact forests as a reliable way to slow global warming.</p><p>Top scientists are already warning that climate change and deforestation could be causing the Amazon to cross a critical rainforest-to-savanna <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/the-tipping-point-is-here-it-is-now-top-amazon-scientists-warn/" target="_blank">tipping point</a>, at which time the biome could begin <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/impending-amazon-tipping-point-puts-biome-and-world-at-risk-scientists-warn/" target="_blank">releasing vast sums of stored carbon</a>, pushing the world toward climate catastrophe.</p><p>That warning comes as Brazil, which includes much of the Amazon basin, has been beset by <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/as-2019-amazon-fires-die-down-brazilian-deforestation-roars-ahead/" target="_blank">wildfires</a> and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/bolsonaros-brazil-2019-brings-death-by-1000-cuts-to-amazon-part-one/" target="_blank">aggressive land grabbing</a>. The Brazilian Amazon lost 3,475 square miles of forest — seven times the size of New York City — in 2019, a staggering 85 percent increase over 2018.</p><p><span></span>But as <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/02/12/whats-pope-francis-apostolic-exhortation-amazon-synod" target="_blank">reported</a> in the Jesuit magazine <em>America, </em>"Pope Francis' words will certainly not please Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro who, on the eve of the exhortation's publication, sent a <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/bolsonaro-sends-congress-bill-to-open-indigenous-lands-to-mining-fossil-fuels/" target="_blank">proposed law</a> to the Brazilian Congress that would permit mining activities within the reserves of indigenous peoples, including the Amazon region, without the people's consent."</p>
Defending Nature — Again
<p><em>Dear Amazon</em> stands as an emphatic complement to <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/02/top-vatican-official-climate-change-action-is-a-moral-imperative/" target="_blank"><em>Laudato Si, On Care for Our Common Home</em></a>, a papal encyclical released in June 2015 with the express purpose of spurring a positive outcome to the United Nations negotiations that resulted in the landmark Paris Agreement that December. An encyclical is a Catholic teaching document of the highest order, possessing "moral authority."</p><p><em>Laudato Si</em> established Francis on the world stage as an ecumenical leader and advocate for environmental protection. He bluntly blamed human activity for global warming and castigated rampant consumerism and unbridled capitalism as hastening the destruction of the earth.</p><p>Myriad faith communities around the globe were inspired to organize and act on the pope's urgings. However, the controversial manifesto met with <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/08/popes-environmental-encyclical-arrives-in-peru-to-mixed-reviews/" target="_blank">mixed reviews</a> in Latin America where some see conservation as a hindrance to economic growth and the relief of the poor in developing nations. Vatican officials have since touted climate action as a "<a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2016/02/top-vatican-official-climate-change-action-is-a-moral-imperative/" target="_blank">moral imperative</a>."</p><p>The message of<em> Dear Amazon</em> seems even more urgent than the 2015 encyclical<em>, </em>coming in response to the rapidly worsening Amazon emergency: "We are water, air, earth and life of the environment created by God," Francis writes. "For this reason, we demand an end to the mistreatment and destruction of mother Earth. The land has blood, and it is bleeding; the multinationals have cut the veins of our mother Earth."</p><p><em>Laudauto Si </em>was released when the progressive pope was at the height of global popularity, and it was heralded and cited for months by international media. But the urgent call of <em>Dear Amazon</em> has so far been largely ignored. Mainstream media accounts in the past week instead focused almost exclusively on Francis' decision to not allow the marriage of priests serving in the Amazon as a way of boosting their dramatically diminished numbers.</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/world/europe/pope-married-priests.html?searchResultPosition=1" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> — which like other accounts stressed the Catholic church's progressive and conservative political divide — went so far as to report that "his closest advisers have acknowledged that the pope's impact has waned on the global stage, especially on core issues like immigration and the environment."</p>People of Faith Respond
<p>Francis won't likely be standing down without a fight. He calls on Latin American governments to enforce their environmental protection laws, return land rights to indigenous peoples, and recognize that Amazonian rainforests are more than an economic resource to be monetized for "extraction, energy, timber and other industries that destroy and pollute."</p><p>"The equilibrium of our planet depends on the health of the Amazon region," Francis writes. "Together with the biome of the Congo and Borneo, it contains a dazzling diversity of woodlands on which rain cycles, climate balance and a great variety of living beings also depend."</p><p>Faith leaders contacted by Mongabay looked past Vatican politics and cheered the pope's message in <em>Dear Amazon, </em>saying that it is invigorating their conservation work and strategies.</p><p>"Protecting rainforests is fundamentally an ethical issue, where care for creation and the realization of social justice for indigenous peoples and forest communities are part of one moral fabric," said Joe Corcoran, the UN project manager for the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/09/interfaith-leaders-step-up-to-protect-the-worlds-sacred-rainforests/" target="_blank">Interfaith Rainforest Initiative</a> (IRI), an NGO which lobbies for governmental climate action in six rainforest countries.</p><p>"Through IRI, we are seeing that not only is the leadership of Pope Francis rallying Catholics to act, but [it is] also inspiring religious leaders from other faiths to protect rainforests around the world," Corcoran said.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjc3NTY1Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzOTM4NjI4M30.Y5pTtZz6P7myoTw2aH0NakqmBCrEZKzMsVPXFs7xkG0/img.jpg?width=980" id="fb23d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="762322d8e30b479449d744a68ac6644e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/pope-makes-impassioned-plea-to-save-the-amazon-will-the-world-listen/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>Seeing the Amazon gravely at risk, the Vatican has called on governments and the people of the world to protect the world's largest remaining rainforest. Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay
<p>Laura Vargas leads IRI's <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/cop25-laura-vargas-inspires-with-power-of-faith-in-defense-of-forests/" target="_blank">initiatives in Peru</a>: "I believe <em>Dear Amazon</em> marks a turning point for the whole life of the church in the Amazon and beyond its borders. If we believe everything is interconnected, we realize that what happens to the largest tropical forest in the world affects the entire planet."</p><p>Meanwhile, at London-based Christian Aid, a global environmental activism organization, spokesman Joe Ware said, "The pope remains one of the most popular and loved pope's with significant influence not just over one billion Catholics, but of many others, too."</p><p>Ware stressed that 2020 is a crucial year, the year the Paris Agreement <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/" target="_blank">goes into force</a>. The agreement remains dangerously <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/cop25-self-serving-g20-spites-youth-humanity-world-at-climate-talks/" target="_blank">incomplete</a> as leaders of the industrialized world continue dragging their feet to establish aggressive carbon emission-reduction policies, even as time runs short to dramatically begin decarbonizing the global economy — the UN itself <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-on-global-warming-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/" target="_blank">warned</a> in 2018 that the world's nations have just 12 years to act to avoid climate catastrophe.</p><p>"It's vital," Ware said, "that we have the voice of the Catholic Church and people of faith around the world pushing political leaders this year to make the boldest decisions possible."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Birds fly over Lake Erie. Residents of Toledo, a city on the shores of heavily polluted Lake Erie in the U.S. state of Ohio, voted to give the lake rights of nature last year. A local farm responded by filing a lawsuit claiming this violated the rights of agribusinesses. Jessica Hetrick / EyeEm / Getty Images
"We see ourselves not as an owner of wild rice but a symbiotic partner and a parallel entity from the Creator," says Frank Bibeau, a lawyer from the Anishinaabe indigenous group in the U.S. and Canada.
<p>Harvesters use flailing sticks to beat the wild rice — or manoomin, by its Anishinaabe name — and release grain into the air. "A good portion of the rice gets sent out in all directions to reseed the rice. Maybe half of it or a little more falls into the canoe for food," Bibeau explains. "So we are part of the natural reseeding process ourselves."<em></em></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/environmental-protection-should-nature-be-given-rights-enshrined-in-law-a-52186866/a-52186866?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>
<p>Seeking ways to block an <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil">oil</a> <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines" rel="noopener noreferrer">pipeline</a> through the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Great-Lakes" rel="noopener noreferrer">Great Lakes</a> ecosystem where his people and the rice have thrived together for generations, Bibeau designed legislation granting wild rice its own rights under tribal law.</p><p>According to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) that advised Bibeau on the legislation, manoomin is the first plant in the world to be granted rights. But it joins a growing number of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rivers" rel="noopener noreferrer">rivers</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests" rel="noopener noreferrer">forests</a>, and characterizations of nature as a whole, that are protected by "rights of nature" laws around the world.</p>
Indigenous Approaches Written Into Law
<p>"Conventional environmental laws are really about regulating how we use nature," says Mari Margil of CELDF. "The consequences of that have been so devastating that people in different parts of the world are saying we need to make a fundamental shift in our relationship with nature."</p><p>With the idea that indigenous peoples are the most reliable custodians of our planet now repeated by politicians and environmental NGOs alike, giving nature rights suggests a way their approaches might be adopted by broader society.</p><p>It was in this spirit that Ecuador became the first country to enshrine the rights of nature — personified as Pachamama, the Andean earth goddess — in its constitution, in 2008.</p><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Bolivia">Bolivia</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Uganda" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uganda</a> have since enshrined the rights of nature in their constitutions, and <a href="https://celdf.org/2019/10/media-release-rights-of-nature-constitutional-amendment-introduced-in-swedens-parliament/" target="_blank">an amendment</a> was recently proposed for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Sweden" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sweden</a> to do the same.</p>A Healthier Relationship With Nature?
<p>Asserting that nature has intrinsic rights isn't just a legal tool to prosecute polluters. It also challenges the "ecosystem services" approach to environmental protection that costs up the economic value of clean air, water and biodiversity — and even the concept of conservation areas.</p><p>As a national park, land surrounding the Whanganui River in New Zealand was off limits to the Iwi Maori tribe who had hunted and fished there sustainably for generations. In 2017, the dispute was resolved by making the river a person in its own right, owned by neither the state nor the tribe.</p><p>Maori law professor Jacinta Ruru sees it as a major breakthrough that New Zealand law now reflects the relationship the country's indigenous people have with the environment — one that sees no division between what's good for people and the planet.</p><p>"My tribe — we'll talk about your veins in your arms as being like the riverways of the land," explains Ruru. "So you're seeing the health and wellbeing of who you are as a person, your health, your own happiness, as entirely connected with the health and wellbeing of the environment around us."</p>Strategic Compromise
<p>Ruru says it's too soon to judge the ecological impact of the Whanganui River's change of status. And it remains to be seen if the Rights of Manoomin will be any match for the interests invested in the pipeline.</p><p>In Ecuador's case, the new constitution has been used to block plantations and road-building that threatened forest, but it hasn't proved enough to transform an entire system geared toward economic development; cases brought by indigenous activists have ended in Pachamama's rights being trumped by those of <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55914fd1e4b01fb0b851a814/t/5748568c8259b5e5a34ae6bf/1464358541319/Kauffman++Martin+16+Testing+Ecuadors+RoN+Laws.pdf" target="_blank">businesses</a>.</p><p>Critics also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2514848618763807" target="_blank">point out</a> that making rivers and forests honorary people owes less to any indigenous deification of nature than to the Western rights discourse.</p><p>"There is a strategic relationship between indigenous communities and the rights of nature," says Mihnea Tanasescu, a political scientist who authored a book on the subject in Ecuador, "but there is not necessarily an intrinsic philosophical affinity, because rights are a very Western legal category."</p><p>Michelle Maloney of the Australian Earth Laws Alliance is developing legislation based on Aboriginal traditions that ground all law in relationships to the land. She says nature rights are a way for different cultural perspectives to work together.</p><p>"The legal personhood argument is getting traction around the world," she says, because "the average Westerner-lawyer type understands it as a construct."</p><p>The Ganges and Yamuna rivers now have legal personhood, as do each of Bangladesh's hundreds of rivers. The <a href="https://celdf.org/advancing-community-rights/rights-of-nature/rights-nature-timeline/" target="_blank">Colombian judiciary</a>, meanwhile, has repeatedly ruled that the rights of rivers of forests had been violated by <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollution" rel="noopener noreferrer">pollution</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/logging" rel="noopener noreferrer">logging</a>.</p><p>These laws draw on specific local indigenous ideas. Yet a single U.S.-based organization, CELDF, has been instrumental in drafting nature rights legislation around the world.</p>
<p>CELDF worked on the world's first rights of nature law — a local ordinance to <a href="https://celdf.org/2015/08/tamaqua-borough/" target="_blank">stop toxic waste dumping</a> in Pennsylvania — in 2006, and Margil says close to 40 nature rights bills have now been passed in the U.S. Many are brought by activists with no indigenous ties frustrated by a legal system that doesn't recognize damage to nature as a crime until it affects human health or livelihoods.</p>
Conversation-Changer
<p>Last year, one such case made international headlines. Residents of Toledo, a city on the shores of heavily polluted Lake Erie in the U.S. state of Ohio, voted to give the lake rights. A local farm responded by filing a lawsuit claiming this violated the rights of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agribusiness" rel="noopener noreferrer">agribusinesses</a>. </p><p>Since the bill was more or less quashed by Ohio state legislature, activists are fighting to revive it from legal limbo. But if nothing else, their struggle has drawn attention to the priorities of a legal system that treats nature as property but corporations as legal persons.</p><p>"Often people just don't think about these invisible systems that govern our world," Maloney says. "So as a starting point — and a conversation- and discourse-changer — the rights of nature is very powerful."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Hanging on a gate is a sign reading: "Potatoes — healthy and delicious." The slogan, to which the word "rare" could justifiably be added, is in line with Cornel Lindemann-Berk's philosophy of quality over quantity. "We don't have enough rain in the summer," he tells DW. "And since we don't want to water them, we've turned this weakness into a strength."
<p>The yields are 50 percent lower than they might otherwise have been, but even the rare varieties such as Bergerac or Bamberg aren't watery. Customers from across the region come to the farm shop to buy these spuds known for their rich flavor and high mineral content.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/farming-without-pesticides-how-can-we-make-agriculture-greener/a-52216796?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">Deutsche Welle</a>.</em></p>
<p>Those who came last summer also got to witness the strips of brightly colored flowers around the edge of the Lindemann-Berk's fields. His mixes of brilliant red poppies, cornflowers and wild daisies attracted an abundance of insect life.</p><p>"The number of [plant] species has increased, and the number of each insect species has gone up fourfold," says the agronomist.</p><p>Scientists began recording the growth of the flowers after carrying out targeted planting for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/insects">insects</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/birds" rel="noopener noreferrer">birds</a>. Here, the animals can find food and nectar, as well as a safe place to reproduce.</p>
This Is Conventional Organic Farming
<p>This family-run business in Germany's Rhineland region is one of 10 farms across the country taking part in a project to test and implement practical and economically viable conservation measures alongside traditional agriculture.</p><p>By taking part in the project, which is known as F.R.A.N.Z. (Future Resources, Agriculture & Nature Conservation) and runs from 2017 to 2027, Lindemann-Berk is on his way to becoming an organic farmer.</p><p>"As part of this project, we don't use liquid manure or crop protection agents," he says. "The yield is sometimes zero, because weeds such as thistles and burdock are rampant here." For every crop plant, around 30 unwanted herbs and grass also push through the ground.</p><p>Lindemann-Berk has been making losses on grain and rapeseed for years. But when he took over the Gut Neu-Hemmerich farm three decades ago he converted several disused buildings into flats and offices, and so he doesn't have to rely on agriculture alone to make a living. Nonetheless, it's still important to him to plant a diversity of grains. He doesn't cultivate monocultures but practices crop rotation, just as farmers did centuries ago. Varying what he grows each year helps to regenerate the soil, while also reducing disease and pests.</p><p>As part of other experiments for F.R.A.N.Z, Lindemann-Berk has sown corn and runner beans together. The beans grow up the corn plants and prevent light from reaching the soil, thereby significantly reducing the growth of weeds. Because the beans are rich in protein and the corn contains starch, the mix also lends itself to cattle feed.</p><p>"Skylark-windows" — rectangular strips in the shape of windows which are cut into the crops — were also introduced in the fields. This allowed the heavily decimated bird population to breed undisturbed on the ground among the dense grain.</p><p>Lindemann-Berk only uses fertilizers and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/deadly-pesticides-in-eu-produce-from-turkey/a-52142826" target="_blank">pesticides</a> in an emergency — and even then in homeopathic doses.</p><p>"Too much fertilizer can even cause unwanted weeds to multiply. We've been calculating the requirements for more than 40 years. Using soil samples, we examine the amount of nutrients in the soil and calculate exactly how much fertilizer we need to use in order to get a good yield. Only then do we buy what we need," he says.</p>High Tech in the Fields
<p>He also prefers to use organic fertilizer made of animal excrement. "It's delivered from the Netherlands, because there's hardly any livestock nearby," he says. His farm supplies grain for the Dutch cattle. "So why shouldn't we get the animal's excrement back?" he asks wryly. "Organisms in the soil digest the valuable liquid fertilizer and excrete minerals like nitrogen, which the plants then absorb through their roots."</p><p>This liquid crop protection mixture can be applied to troublesome plants using a satellite-navigated and digitally controlled syringe. This kind of work is particularly effective after sunset.</p><p>With the help of his own weather station, data collected from the soil and the meteorological service, Lindemann-Berk can make forecasts in order to calculate the risk of attack from fungus. Even then, pesticides should only be used if the plant isn't able to help itself.</p><p>By using lactic acid bacteria, Lindemann-Berk was able to dramatically reduce his use of chemical fungicides.</p><p>Once the harvest is complete, he takes soil samples again. "So far, the measurements have shown no <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/defending-glyphosate-a-roundup-of-german-agribusiness-sentiments/a-48841453" target="_blank">residues of glyphosate</a> and its breakdown products within the grain," he says.</p><p>He points to the shelf behind him, which is full of files, explaining how he has to keep his records for five years. Although <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germany-sets-new-restrictions-on-glyphosate/a-46172338" target="_blank">fertilizer regulations have been tightening for many years</a> now — <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-farmers-overregulation-is-the-last-thing-we-need/a-51418355" target="_blank">causing many farmers to give up on agriculture</a> — he says the positive impacts won't show up in groundwater for 30 years.</p>Not an Organic Farm — but Still Environmentally Friendly
<p>Organic farms can only treat their plants with copper formulations, which stimulate growth and act as deterrents against fungus. Although it's a heavy metal, people still need copper in small doses to help with blood formation and to support a functioning nervous system.</p><p>"We do everything we can to be environmentally friendly, and do what the organic farms do so well," says Lindemann-Berk. "Because no one wants to harm the environment. Agribusinesses have been working in the same places for hundreds of years."</p><p>Sustainable practice is a priority here. But in order to be certified as an organic farm, he would need to pluck the weeds by hand and — as was done centuries ago — regularly rake the soil around the plants to uproot unwanted herbs and grasses.</p><p>"No one wants to do this job, not even young people doing an internship," he says. And so the job is left to machines, in the age of industrial agriculture in Germany.</p><p>Lindemann-Berk gives his plants plenty of space to grow, which allows them to absorb enough nutrients from the soil, and in turn leads to well-aerated earth that is less susceptible to fungal diseases. He also calls on customers who pay too much attention to the appearance of their fruits and vegetables to reconsider.</p><p>"If I offer my customers tasty and untreated apples from the orchards, you'll always get complaints about a few marks on the fruit," he says, adding that people want produce that is both organic and flawless. "Those two things don't go together."</p>From Your Site Articles
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"It would be great to see all the candidates join Elizabeth Warren in taking the No Big Ag Money Pledge," said Citizens Regeneration Lobby's Alexis Baden-Mayer. Peter Blanchard / Flickr / ric (CC BY 2.0)
Food system justice and environmental advocates on Wednesday urged all Democratic presidential hopefuls to follow in the footsteps of Sen. Elizabeth Warren in signing a pledge rejecting campaign cash from food and agribusiness corporations.
<p>The Massachusetts senator, said advocacy group Friends of the Earth, is "leading the way."<em></em></p>
<div id="783fc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="NR54YP1579724062"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1220003866185490432" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">BREAKING: Elizabeth Warren has signed our #NoBigAgMoney pledge!
77% of Iowa Democratic caucus goers want candidate… https://t.co/A0VudN01tO</div> — Friends of the Earth (@Friends of the Earth)<a href="https://twitter.com/foe_us/statuses/1220003866185490432">1579706562.0</a></blockquote></div><p>"We applaud Sen. Warren for listening to voters that overwhelmingly support candidates rejecting Big Ag's money and influence," <a href="https://foeaction.org/news/elizabeth-warren-signs-no-big-ag-money-pledge/" target="_blank">said</a> Lisa Archer, food and agriculture director for Friends of the Earth Action. "We urge all presidential candidates to take the No Big Ag Money pledge and prioritize our families, farmers, food chain workers, our planet, and our democracy over Big Ag's profits."</p><p>The "No Big Ag Money Pledge" was launched last week. It <a href="https://foeaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/The-No-Big-Ag-Money-Pledge.pdf" target="_blank">states</a> (pdf):</p><blockquote>I pledge not to take contributions over $200 from large food and agribusiness corporation executives, lobbyists, and PACs and instead prioritize the health of our families, farmers, food chain workers, our planet, and our democracy.<br></blockquote><p>The document lists dozens of companies that fall under that category, including giants <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bayer">Bayer</a>, Caterpillar, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Tyson" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tyson</a>, General Mils, and Sodexo. Rejecting cash from those entities, says the coalition behind the pledge, would show that presidential candidates won't favor the interests of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/factory-farming" rel="noopener noreferrer">factory farms</a> over those of family farms.</p>
<p>If the opinion of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa serve as a guide, candidates would be wise to sign on to the plege.</p><p>According to a <a href="https://foeaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/LRP-Friends-of-the-Earth-Action-Iowa-Poll-Memo.F.2020.01.09.pdf" target="_blank">poll</a> (pdf) out earlier this month — commissioned to the Friends of the Earth Action and conducted by Lake Research Partners — 77 percent of these likely caucus-goers agree that presidential candidates should reject campaign contributions from Big Ag. Sixty-four percent also said they support breaking up the biggest food and agriculture corporations — a proposal backed by <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/27/elizabeth-warrens-plan-lift-family-farmers-includes-barring-big-ag-mega-mergers" target="_blank">Warren</a> and Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie <a href="https://berniesanders.com/en/issues/revitalizing-rural-america/" target="_blank">Sanders</a>.</p><p>Make no mistake, Big Ag wields significant power. As Friends of the Earth outlined in a <a href="https://foeaction.org/news/coalition-launches-no-big-ag-money-pledge-targeting-presidential-candidates/" target="_blank">statement</a> last week,</p><blockquote>Currently in the United States, four corporations (many of them foreign owned) control 84 percent of the market for beef, 70 percent of the market for soy, 66 percent of the market for hogs, 80 percent of the market for corn, 59 percent of the market for poultry, 84 percent of the market for pesticides, and 60 percent of the market for seeds.<br></blockquote><p>The food and family farms groups say that campaigns not accepting contributions from these interests would be a step towards neutering their political influence. </p><p>"It would be great to see all the candidates join Elizabeth Warren in taking the No Big Ag Money Pledge," said Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of Citizens Regeneration Lobby. "It's time to stop agribusiness monopolies from using campaign cash and lobbying dollars to put a stranglehold on federal food and farm policy."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/22/2020-dems-called-follow-warren-supporting-no-big-ag-money-pledge" rel="noopener noreferrer">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Residents of La Chiquita say they don't have adequate access to safe drinking water. David Silva
By Alejandro Pérez, translated by Romina Castagnino
Fifteen years ago, Martha Valencia relied on the nearby river for water and for food. But then oil palm crops arrived in the area and polluted the river, say Martha and her neighbors. The community took the oil palm grower to court, which ultimately resulted in a ruling in their favor.
<p>"It is determined that there had been serious environmental effects in the territory of the communities … which should have been prevented by the Ecuadorian government," the ruling read, and a judge ordered compensation for those affected.</p><p>That was two years ago. And Martha and her neighbors say they are still waiting for things to change.</p>
<h3>No Clean Water</h3><p>The river and the community, both named La Chiquita, are located within the municipality of San Lorenzo in the Esmeraldas province of Ecuador. Logging and oil palm plantations, in addition to its proximity to the Colombian border where drug trafficking and armed conflict is rife, contribute to the area's dubious honor of having the highest levels of poverty and violence in the country.</p><p>Every eight to 15 days, the municipality sends a <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water">water</a> truck to La Chiquita. The tank fills a 1,500-liter blue plastic tank "but not even that water is clean. We were told by the Municipality to put chlorine before drinking it," says Olga, another community member.</p>
<p>When a new truck does not arrive in town before their tank runs dry, residents say they can buy 20-liter water canisters in San Lorenzo, which last three or four days. However, this option often proves too expensive for community members who must subsist off meager profits from small farms. They say that in that case, they are forced to walk great distances to other rivers.</p><p>There's little in the way of alternatives for people living in the area. According to the National Statistical System and the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC), 16% of San Lorenzo residents are illiterate, which is more than double the national rate of 6.8%. Almost half of its population is engaged in agriculture and fishing due to a lack of industrial development in the area.</p><p>Two years have passed since the Jan. 2017 ruling of Esmeraldas' Provincial Court of Justice, and those affected in La Chiquita are still waiting for the judge to order the provision of drinking water, among other compensations. The ruling also requires the construction of a health center and a school.</p><p>La Chiquita lies in the the Chocó-Darién, an ecosystem that extends from Panama to northwest Ecuador and is known for its unique <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests">forests</a> and vast biological wealth – both of which are disappearing at a fast clip due to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agribusiness">agribusiness</a> and other human pressures.</p><p>Oil palm companies are required to have a buffer zone between planted fields and water sources. They must remove any crops that are located less than ten meters (33 feet) from community water sources and replace them with endemic species such as guadua bamboo. According to former environment ministers, a fine is applied "for obvious negligence in the performance of their duties."</p><p>"It is a historic ruling, although it has objections and inaccuracies that must be corrected in its execution," says Manolo Morales, a lawyer and representative of the Corporation of Management and Environmental Law (Ecolex) that sponsored the lawsuit.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMzkxNTg3Nn0.CxCctPkqgMZ_Bm8EGMQbHz_ee8IfkUzAqZ8-tKI5r9g/img.jpg?width=980" id="75b3e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5beed33c898dbf531c01db76efda48b7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Oil palm cultivation is one of the primary drivers of deforestation in the province of Esmeraldas. Eduardo Rebolledo
<p>The ruling also calls for the Ministry of Environment, together with affected communities, to reforest 500 hectares of degraded land with native species. However, La Chiquita resident Isaha Ezequiel says this is absurd. "Companies are the ones that have polluted and killed the forest but they want <em>us</em> to reforest," he told Mongabay.</p><p>Violence is common in the region. The murder rate in San Lorenzo in 2018 was 96 per 100,000 inhabitants – almost ten times the national rate. The area gained further notoriety that year when a reporting team from the El Comercio newspaper was kidnapped and then killed by FARC dissident groups. The incident occurred in Mataje, a border town near Guadalito, Colombia.</p><p>Although four companies were referenced during the trial, two were included in the ruling: Palmera de los Andes and Palmar de los Esteros (Palesema). Only Palmera de los Andes agreed to comment for this story.</p>
<h3>Never-Ending Battle</h3><p>Oil palm plantations in Ecuador cover about 250,000 hectares (617,763 acres) and are distributed among several provinces. Due to its suitable growing conditions, Esmeraldas has the lion's share.</p><p>Palm oil companies arrived in San Lorenzo in the late 1990s and early 2000s, settling in an area of around 30,000 hectares (74,131 acres) that was later expanded to 50,000 (123,552 acres). The inhabitants of La Chiquita, who are mostly the descendants of enslaved people of African ancestry, say local children began to develop stomach diseases and that they noticed oil and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides">pesticide</a> residue in a river that was their primary water source.</p><p>When La Chiquita residents went into the forest to investigate the cause of this pollution, they discovered that one of the oil palm growers had installed a palm oil mill less than three kilometers upriver that was dumping liquid waste into the water. The same thing was reported by members of the Awá Guadalito indigenous community, who also joined the demand for change and reparations.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNjI1MTkzMX0.S2TpMCNsFN-rFlwVPso_oU7Kh-JZndeSZcumt7GSN8s/img.jpg?width=980" id="7364f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ac0a4e2a548cd1ddafc72293e13e4ad6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Aerial view of a young oil palm plantation in Esmeraldas. Eduardo Rebolledo
<p>However, a representative of Palmera de los Andes contends claims of pollution.</p><p>"We have 11 processing pools with strict environmental controls," said Fabián Miño, a lawyer and director of the company's legal department. "It is false that we are the cause of any contamination." He explained that, after the palm oil refinement process, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wastewater">wastewater</a> is treated in each pool until it is decontaminated. "To confirm that the liquid comes out clean from our building, in the last two pools we have fish and seaweed," he said.</p><p>Miño says communities have been manipulated by NGOs with ulterior motives. He claims Ecolex is an environmental organization that receives funds from abroad, and that the organization attacks oil palm growers to justify its activities and budget regardless of the employment and development opportunities plantations create.</p><p>Manolo Morales, of Ecolex, says Miño's accusations are absurd. He says the organization has worked in the area since 1998 helping local communities gain legal rights to their ancestral territories. He claims that in the intervening years the government promoted and encouraged the cultivation of oil palm and that many inhabitants were persuaded to sell their territories to agroindustry companies. He said he made the decision to advise La Chiquita and Guadalito when he learned of the problems they face.</p><p>In 2005, a water quality study by the Al Tropic environmental foundation detected the presence of endosulfan and terbufos in the tributaries that provide water for these two communities. Commonly used as pesticides, these compounds can cause severe illness and death in humans, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies both as Category 1 toxins – a designation reserved for the most dangerous substances. This information was included in a <a href="http://suia.ambiente.gob.ec/documents/10179/242256/03+PLAN+DE+MANEJO+CAYAPAS+MATAJE.pdf/300e86f9-31ef-492a-8b3f-da397583949c" target="_blank">report from the Ministry of Environment (MAE) in 2009</a> and served as the basis for initiating the trial. However, subsequent water studies were not decisive enough to directly hold oil palm companies accountable. Therefore, the judge only partially accepted the claim, ordering the government to fulfill some of the requested reparations to affected communities.</p><p>Ecolex reported that oil palm grower companies were alerted by government authorities before officials went to take water samples looking for the presence of toxins. Meanwhile, Fabián Miño, from Palmera de los Andes, claims that the organization was trying to obtain samples of stagnant water.</p><p>"They went out of their way to find pollution," Miño said. "We have all the environmental certifications, national and international."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NjY1NTc3MH0.JQOvJIM0B7E8d7CWqu_ThpEiuXOtJOQKeM5EHAgOkEY/img.jpg?width=980" id="cea9d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="575e74bb5ddd0eae2eaa648e152525c3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Satellite image of oil palm plantations in San Lorenzo. Rodrigo Sierra
<p>Isaha Ezequiel and his neighbors say two years have passed and they have seen no progress towards court-mandated reparations. According to Nathalia Bonilla, an environmental engineer and coordinator with the NGO Ecological Action in Ecuador, this is because the judge did not report the verdict to the ministries responsible for carrying them out.</p><p>Because there is a mountain between the towns of Guadalito and La Chiquita, the judge ordered the building of a school in each. However, Bonilla says the Ministry of Education was also not made aware of this ruling.</p><p>Palmera de los Andes reports that it has already begun fulfilling the reparations required by the ruling. However, company representatives say it is doing so because such activities are within its environmental responsibilities and protocols, not because it considers the ruling to be right.</p><p>"We are reforesting as required by the ruling," says lawyer Fabián Miño. He adds that the company has a 1200-hectare (2,965-acre) forest reserve, which was not requested in the reparations, and that the company has an environmental license and provides upwards of 700 jobs to local residents. "They should applaud us and not judge us," he said.</p>
<h3>A Refuge for Many Species</h3><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation">Deforestation</a> in northern Esmeraldas began well before oil palm moved in. In the 1960s, the government implemented its Northwest Forestry Development project that established 14 forest concessions. According to project data, more than 400,000 hectares (988,421 acres) of dense forest was cleared between 1966 and 1975. Five more concessions were subsequently created.</p><p>"This is how the primary forests of Esmeraldas were cut down," says Walter Palacios, a forest engineer and associate researcher at the National Institute of Biodiversity (Inabio). He explains that the primary forests of northwestern Ecuador are home to around 4,000 species of plants, and says many may have disappeared due to habitat loss without biologists ever knowing them.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkxMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTUwNjA2NX0.3xXSRR5sv5AAoGwphXFzvxiiPtRDdI4A5LjzDknFD1E/img.jpg?width=980" id="74194" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="133882db4ceb21be266165fcc98e3592" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Oil palm plantations in San Lorenzo, Ecuador. Eduardo Rebolledo
<p>The region's protected areas preserve what has been lost to agriculture elsewhere: reserves, rich in orchids and giant ferns, extend to the paramos of the Ecuadorian highlands, providing vital habitat for a multitude of species including jaguars and ocelots. A microcosm of the biodiversity of the Chocó-Darién can be seen in just one of its massive trees. A Sande tree, for example, can be covered by as many as 60 species of ferns, orchids and other plants, its fruit important food for birds and insects.</p><p>According to Walter Palacios, when the palm plantations first appeared in the area, the secondary forests that had regenerated after the mass clearing of the 1960s were cleared once again.</p><p>"A secondary forest no longer has the same species density, it has less wildlife," Palacios said. "However, it is better to preserve them than to turn them into monocultures."</p><p>Of the region's remaining primary forest, Palacios says he hopes that the government spares these areas from the expansion of the agricultural frontier.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkxNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNTUzODY3M30.AMtr4PbjviNuTaKDjgG5VYLcla7IEAb88QKW-tYYhBs/img.jpg?width=980" id="dc715" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c0cfb8c7cf43e3cfcfca0f4addafea4b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Oil palm crops near the town of San Lorenzo. Eduardo Rebolledo
<p>Residents say conversion of forest to plantations has affected their lives.</p><p>"I used to make with my mother wicker baskets out of Piquigua – an endemic plant," Martha Valencia said. "We used the baskets to transport fish, or the meat of guanta, deer and other animals that we hunted. The forest and the river gave us everything, now we have to go to San Lorenzo to buy the food that was taken from us."</p><p>Residents like Valencia say they know everything they had before will not return in their lifetimes, but that they should still be able to expect clean water. "That is why we need the reparations promised by the ruling," says Wilberto Valencia, another community member.</p><p>The current Minister of Environment in Ecuador is Raúl Ledesma, who assumed the position four months ago. In an appearance before the National Assembly, together with the affected community members, Ledesma offered to further investigate the situation in La Chiquita to verify the damage that Wilberto Valencia and others say is affecting their ability to live. At that same meeting, Ledesma said he was aware that Energy Palma is breaking environmental standards.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkxNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDI0NzkzN30.NMhg3Xk97VtVikarIHlwl4T6QZolIunwrA_X8_DB340/img.jpg?width=980" id="328fe" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e529de6f36be9c720473d60a5000571c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Inhabitants of La Chiquita are fighting against the pollution of their water sources. David Silva
<h3>What Does the Future Hold?</h3><p>Large-scale plantations aren't the only places where oil palm is grown in Ecuador, and advocates of the crop say stricter regulations on its cultivation could hurt small farmers.</p><p>"If there are infractions, justice must act," says Wilfredo Acosta, executive director of the National Association of Palm Oil Growers (Ancupa). "But 89% are small producers and for us, it is an agricultural activity, like any other, that encourages the development of the country."</p><p>In recent years oil palm crops have been beset with "bud rot." As of October 2019, the fungal disease had wiped out 15,000 hectares (37,065 acres) of plantations, according to Acosta. His proposed solution: support farmers with credits and provide, through the Ministry of Agriculture, new seeds that are resistant to this disease.</p><p>Assemblyman Lenin Plaza, a native of Esmeraldas and president of the Committee on Food Sovereignty, together with Ancupa, is promoting a bill in the National Assembly, which has already passed the first debate. One of its objectives is to double palm oil yields for biofuel production, but Plaza says that does not necessarily mean expanding the agricultural frontier with new plantations. "This will depend on the country's demand," Plasa said. "The important thing now is to help the producers."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkyMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDY4ODQzMX0.lsGtkv969Gr1Xh1dJ1eRaPwu3Twsf-23NbO77s5KBuQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="90ff7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="226012e8b64a58ccdbdaf69da704e26a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Assemblyman Lenin Plaza has proposed a law to increase palm oil production. He says it is necessary to help small producers. Cecilia Puebla
<p>Acosta says oil palm expansion could take advantage of underutilized land once used for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agriculture">agriculture</a> but which has since been abandoned.</p><p>"It's not necessary to expand, it's about optimizing crops," Acosta said. "With that, we take the pressure off the forests."</p><p>However, even if the majority of producers may be small, environmental organizations say large companies control around 80% of land used for oil palm cultivation.</p><p>"The big companies are the ones that benefit," said Nathalia Bonilla of Ecological Action. "What they say about small producers is just a story. [Oil] palm is an activity that uses chemicals that seep into the earth [and] needs large areas, and working conditions are precarious."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/communities-in-ecuador-fight-back-against-palm-oil/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>Related Articles Around the Web
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By Lauren Wolahan
For the first time ever, the UN is building out a roadmap for curbing carbon pollution from agriculture. To take part in that process, a coalition of U.S. farmers traveled to the UN climate conference in Madrid, Spain this month to make the case for the role that large-scale farming operations, long criticized for their outsized emissions, can play in addressing climate change.
<p>Often, conversations about agriculture feature calls for more small-scale, organic farming, the abolition of animal agriculture, and a shift away from farming row crops like corn and soy. The farmers at the meeting in Madrid, many of them political conservatives, aimed to challenge this view.</p><p>A.G. Kawamura, a third-generation fruit and vegetable grower and California's former secretary of food and agriculture, responds to critics by asking, "Well, did you eat today?"</p>
<p>The debate about the environmental impact of agriculture harkens back to the 1950s, which gave rise to synthetic pesticides and fertilizer, genetically modified crops, and advanced machinery. These tools allowed farmers to produce more food than ever before, but they also did considerable damage.</p><p>The widespread use of pesticides and fertilizers killed insects and birds, as well as fish who lived downstream of farms. The focus on cash crops led many farmers to plant the same crop year after year, sapping the soil of needed nutrients. And the embrace of high-powered farming tools turned once-rich topsoil into lifeless dust.</p><p>In light of these facts, many in the environmental community have called for a radical overhaul of the agricultural system. Longtime farmers of row crops like corn and soy are pushing back. They say that, through <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/an-opportunity-for-farmers-in-a-green-new-deal-f48f37fd6d3c">smart farming practices</a>, they can actually help curb pollution.</p><p>Many farmers, for instance, are using <a target="_blank" href="https://nexusmedianews.com/artificial-intelligence-is-changing-the-way-we-farm-15981f95e1e8">advanced technologies</a> that help them to cut down on pollution by allowing them to apply chemicals only where they're needed. But these technologies are only cost-effective on larger farms.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjE2NTAzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODk5NjUzN30.eYXKQPAA2ve4aZHlw3MOO2UxAjXLHkCcelxw7udw0G4/img.jpg?width=980" id="2f478" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ca48b649ee39247443516d5df03d5180" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
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<p>Growers said they can mitigate the impact of large-scale farming by embracing practices such as no-till farming, which uses machines that don't tear up the earth, and so doesn't release the carbon stored in the soil. They have also called for planting cover crops — like oats, radishes and cereal rye — in between rows of corn or hay to cover any bare earth, keeping carbon trapped in the ground.</p><p>In addition to stemming pollution, these practices also help the soil hold more moisture, meaning it can absorb extra water during a heavy rainstorm, keeping farms healthy. In an industry increasingly threatened by extreme weather, this is good business, said Fred Yoder, an Ohio farmer and former head of the National Corn Growers Association. He said he thinks of his soil as a 401k, a long-term investment that will help him weather future difficulties.</p><p>Yoder and other growers want the UN to encourage member countries to incentivize climate-friendly farming practices. Cover crops, for example, are currently used on just <a href="https://www.thegazette.com/IowaIdeas/stories/agriculture/cover-crops-in-iowa-illinois-indiana-profitability-20190503" target="_blank">4 percent</a> of Iowa farmland. Widespread adoption of cover crops could be key to curbing farming-related emissions.</p><p>Critics, however, say that even with smarter practices, large-scale farms will continue to be a significant source of pollution.</p><p>"Farming is more than just a collection of practices. It is a system within the local ecology," said Ben Lilliston of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He said that carbon-smart farming can help curb pollution, but he believes that, ultimately, growers need to build farms that are more integrated with nature.</p><p>Many growers in Madrid, however, contended that large-scale farms could operate in harmony with nature, and they were eager to defend their environmental bona fides.</p><p>"The American farmer is the original environmentalist," said Ray Gaesser in a panel on agriculture and climate change. Gaesser has been farming soybeans in Iowa for 50 years and previously chaired the American Soybean Association. "Yes, I happen to be conservative," he added, "but that doesn't mean I am not seeing the impacts of our changing planet first hand."</p><p>Gaesser recalled a time 20 years ago when he watched, astonished, as four inches of rain fell on his farm in less than an hour. The deluge washed away much of his topsoil. Since then, he's seen such rainstorms like that one strike at least once a year.</p><p>Another way that farmers can combat climate change, panelists said, is by embracing renewable energy. In corn-rich Iowa, for instance, the landscape is dotted with wind turbines and barns with solar panels on their roofs. The revenue from clean energy on farmland helps insulate growers against increasingly volatile commodity prices as well as the severe weather that could stunt yields.</p><p>"Farmers are used to working with big equipment, and they don't tolerate equipment that doesn't work, and just like everyone else, they love making money. Solar works, and it makes them money," Tim Dwight, President of the Iowa Solar Energy Trade Association, said on the panel. "What's not to love?"</p><p>Dwight said that wind and solar have grown in Iowa with the support of the agricultural community, which looms large in the Hawkeye State. His colleagues underscored this point in their argument at the climate talks.</p><p>"Farmers have a tremendous opportunity to be part of the climate solution," said Ernie Shea, president of Solutions from the Land, a non-profit advocating for better farming practices to address climate change. "That's why so many of us are here."</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/at-un-climate-conference-u-s-growers-defend-large-scale-farming-5ef0944bfd5" target="_blank">Nexus Media</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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Trump’s EPA Re-Approves ‘Cyanide Bombs’ Deadly to Coyotes, Foxes and Feral Dogs, other Wildlife
06 December 2019
Animals
Coyote pictured at Yellowstone National Park. Hanna May / Unsplash
Wildlife advocacy groups cheered when the Trump administration reversed its decision to approve the use of deadly predator traps known as "cyanide bombs" in August. But now the administration has reversed course again. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published an interim decision Thursday and approved their use with added safety measures.
<p>"This appalling decision leaves cyanide traps lurking in our wild places to threaten people, pets, and imperiled animals," carnivore conservation director at the <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="_blank">Center for Biological Diversity</a> Collette Adkins said in a joint press release from wildlife groups. "The EPA imposed a few minor restrictions, but these deadly devices have just wreaked too much havoc to remain in use. To truly protect humans and wildlife from these poisonous contraptions, we need a nationwide ban."</p>
<div id="4da5f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="NJFW031576661033"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1202787551913881605" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">“This appalling decision leaves cyanide traps lurking in the wild, threatening people, pets and imperiled animals,”… https://t.co/VTkAQwN6cA</div> — Center for Bio Div (@Center for Bio Div)<a href="https://twitter.com/CenterForBioDiv/statuses/1202787551913881605">1575601873.0</a></blockquote></div><p><br>Cyanide bombs, otherwise known as M-44s, are spring-loaded traps that target livestock predators like coyotes, foxes and feral dogs, <a href="https://time.com/5744950/trump-cyanide-bombs/" target="_blank">Time explained</a>. When animals bite down on bait, cyanide is released into their mouths, killing them. They are used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Wildlife Service on public lands, as well as by state agencies in South Dakota, Montana, New Mexico and Texas.</p><p>They became especially controversial after one of them injured a young boy in Idaho in 2017 and killed his dog. Idaho then prohibited their use on public lands, according to the joint press release, and Oregon and Colorado have also issued temporary bans, Time reported. When the EPA opened a public comment period on reauthorizing the use of the traps at the end of 2018, "an overwhelming majority" of the 20,000 comments it received opposed them. Environmental groups credited this public outcry with the EPA's decision in August to reverse its initial approval of the traps.</p><p>But the livestock industry supports the use of the traps and praised the EPA's new authorization.</p><p>"We sincerely appreciate USDA and EPA working together to ensure livestock producers have access to effective predator control, while also increasing public awareness and transparency," American Sheep Industry Association President Benny Cox said in the EPA announcement. "Livestock producers face heavy losses from predators, amounting to more than $232 million in death losses annually. We are particularly vulnerable during lambing and calving, where we see the worst predation."</p>
<p>To appease worries about trap safety, the EPA is issuing new restrictions. These include:</p><ol><li>Prohibiting the use of traps within 600 feet of a residence, except with the landowner's permission</li><li>Extending the buffer zone around public roads from 100 to 300 feet</li><li>Placing two elevated warning signs within 15 feet of the traps.</li></ol><p>But wildlife advocates say the restrictions do not go far enough to protect humans or animals.</p><p>"Tightening up use restrictions is turning a blind eye to the reality of M-44s," <a href="https://www.predatordefense.org/" target="_blank">Predator Defense</a> Executive Director Brooks Fahy said in the press release. "In my 25 years working with M-44 victims, I've learned that Wildlife Services' agents frequently do not follow the use restrictions. And warning signs will not prevent more dogs, wild animals, and potentially children from being killed. They cannot read them. M-44s are a safety menace and must be banned."</p><p>The traps killed 6,579 animals in 2018 and at least 13,232 in 2017, according to Wildlife Services data. Two-hundred of the animals killed in 2017 did not belong to the species targeted by the traps, and included opossums, raccoons and one bear.</p>
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The prices farmers receive for crops do not cover all the costs of keeping farms viable, not to mention the extra costs of ecological or regenerative farming systems. The farm crisis is not over. Pixabay / Pexels
By Elizabeth Henderson
For almost five decades, organic farming associations like the Northeast Organic Farming Association, the Maine Organic Farming and Gardening Association and others across the country have been dedicated to supporting and expanding the community of farmers, homesteaders and conscious eaters who build their lives and livelihoods through agroecology — growing and consuming food, forage and other crops in as much harmony with natural processes and rhythms as we can muster.
<p>To enable shoppers to identify organically grown food, these organizations put a lot of time and energy into developing local markets for direct sales, and creating and maintaining organic certification and the integrity of the organic label. But direct sales and that label are not enough to keep family-scale farms viable.</p><p>Under relentless and steadily increasing financial pressures, talented young farmers are <a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/02/10/what_nobody_told_me_about_small_farming_i_cant_make_a_living/" target="_blank">giving farming their all for five to 10 years</a>, then quitting. Experienced farmers, including organic farmers, are admitting defeat, <a href="https://civileats.com/2016/02/12/quitting-season-why-farmers-walk-away-from-their-farms/" target="_blank">selling what they can and finding "real" jobs</a>. The prices farmers receive for crops do not cover all the costs of keeping farms viable, not to mention the extra costs of ecological or regenerative farming systems. The farm crisis is not over.</p>
Can we find solutions?
<p>"The problem that has impoverished and destroyed farmers nearly always is that of low prices resulting from surplus production," poet and environmentalist Wendell Berry <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/opinion/wendell-berry-agriculture-farm-bill.html" target="_blank">told</a> the New York Times in a 2018 interview. "That is also, obviously, a land-destroying problem. The only solution to that problem that can sustain the small farmers is the combination of production control and price supports as exemplified by the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association as it was reorganized in my region under the New Deal in 1941."</p>What does production control plus price supports mean and how did it work under the New Deal?
<p><br>In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, so many family farms were going bankrupt that the federal government stepped in to help them avoid eviction and to increase prices for their crops. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) <a href="https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/archival/1341/item/457089" target="_blank">declared an economic emergency</a>, justifying action as being in "the national public interest." The AAA set out to re-establish farmers' purchasing power, taking the years just before WWI as the base period when the proper balance existed.</p><p>To raise prices for farm products, the AAA reduced the oversupply by setting limits in the form of marketing quotas on the acreage farmers could use for basic commodities, and that first year, some crops were even plowed under. There were also marketing agreements that controlled the quantity, quality, and rate of shipment to market to limit some fruit and vegetable crops. Although agribusiness successfully brought suit against the first version of this parity system, the revised approach set up by the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of February 29, 1936, proved more durable and lasted through the 1960s.</p><p>Farm income in 1935 was more than <a href="https://archive.org/stream/CAT31056120/CAT31056120_djvu.txt" target="_blank">50 percent higher</a> than farm income during 1932, due in part to the farm programs. From 1935 through 1974, legislation each year set the level of the price supports from 50 to 90 percent of parity, depending on the supply of each commodity and the changing economic conditions through the years of WWII.</p><p>In "<a href="https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/258_2_97261.pdf" target="_blank">Crisis by Design: A Brief Review of U.S, Farm Policy</a>," a paper written by Mark Ritchie and Kevin Ristau and published by the League of Rural Voters Education Project in the midst of the 1980s farm crisis, the three central features of the parity system are summarized:</p><ol><li>It established the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), which made loans to farmers whenever prices offered by the food processors or grain corporations fell below the cost of production. This allowed farmers to hold their crops off the market, eventually forcing prices back up. Once prices returned to fair levels, farmers sold their crops and repaid the CCC with interest. By allowing farmers to control their marketing, the CCC loan program made it possible for them to receive a fair price from the marketplace without relying on subsidies.</li><li>It regulated farm production in order to balance supply with demand, thereby preventing surpluses. Since government storage of surpluses was expensive, this feature was crucial to reducing government costs.</li><li>It created a national grain reserve to prevent consumer prices from skyrocketing in times of drought or other natural disasters. When prices rose above a predetermined level, grain was released from government reserves onto the market, driving prices back down to normal levels. From 1933 to 1953 this parity legislation remained in effect and was extremely successful. Farmers received fair prices for their crops, production was controlled to prevent costly surpluses, and consumer prices remained low and stable. At the same time, the number of new farmers increased, soil and water conservation practices expanded dramatically, and overall farm debt declined. What is even more important is that this parity program was not a burden to the taxpayers."</li></ol>
<p>In the 1960s however, according to Mark Ritchie in <em><a href="https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/The%20Loss%20of%20Our%20Family%20Farms.%20By%20Mark%20Ritchie.%20League%20of%20Rural%20Voters.%201979.pdf" target="_blank">The Loss of Our Family Farms: Inevitable Results or Conscious Policies?</a> </em>a consortium of agribusiness, banking and university leaders deliberately set in place policies that cut farm prices to drive excess "resources" (that is, farmers and their families) out of the countryside.By the mid-'70s, farm prices were dropping below parity. Instead of a system that had provided stability for family-scale farms, farm numbers were decreasing rapidly and the cheap food policies that we have today were set in place.</p><p>The combination of subsidy and emergency payments to farmers along with the program of crop insurance in the 2018 Farm Bill actually <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/bradwilson581525/the-hidden-farm-bill-37959389" target="_blank">guarantees low prices that mainly benefit the biggest ag corporations.</a> With production control and price supports, those corporations had to pay farmers decent prices in the marketplace. Just to take a couple of commodities for illustration purposes, according to the National Agriculture Statistics Service, the parity price for <a href="https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/c821gj76b/r494vw17c/sq87c499d/agpr0619.pdf" target="_blank">100 pounds of milk in May 2019 would be $52.80</a>, a bushel of corn would be $13.20. Instead, conventional farmers were getting $18 for a hundredweight of milk and $3.63 for a bushel of corn. Since the 1970s, it is the taxpayer who covers the costs of cheap food. This adds up to a major transfer of wealth from the farmers and the public to the likes of Walmart, Amazon and Archer Daniels Midland, a global food processing and commodities trading corporation.</p><p>Although a few farming organizations — in particular, the National Family Farm Coalition — have continued to demand a <a href="https://nffc.net/index.php/fffa/" target="_blank">return to parity and supply management</a>, for 20 years or more it has been deemed too unlikely to gain any traction in Washington, D.C. Then in a flash of light, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text" target="_blank">Green New Deal resolution</a> by Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a crash program to mobilize all possible forces to prevent climate disaster, has made it "realistic" once again to <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/green-new-deal-agriculture-farm-workers" target="_blank">consider this set of root solutions to the food and farm crisis</a>.</p><p>While we can learn a lot from the old New Deal — both from its strengths and also its failures, especially in regard to farmers of color — we will have to design a new version for the 21st century that includes racial justice and equity in the safety net it provides for farms. I can imagine an exciting public process where groups of stakeholders all over the country hammer out the details.</p><p>The challenge we face now is to pull together a big enough movement of farmers, farmworkers, labor unions, environmentalists, faith communities, youth and rural and urban activists of all kinds to transform this climate emergency into an all-out campaign to save human life on this planet.</p>
<p><em>Elizabeth Henderson farmed at Peacework Farm in Wayne County, New York, for more than 30 years. Peacework CSA was one of the <a href="https://www.oeffa.org/news/" target="_blank">first community-supported agriculture farms</a> in New York State. She is a member of the Board the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) of New York, and represents the NOFA Interstate Council on the Board of the Agricultural Justice Project. Elizabeth is the lead author of <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Sharing-Harvest-Community-Supported-Agriculture/dp/193339210X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Sharing+the+Harvest%3A+A+Citizen%E2%80%99s+Guide+to+Community+Supported+Agriculture&qid=1561933054&s=books&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen's Guide to Community Supported Agriculture</a> (Chelsea Green, 2007), with a Spanish language e-book edition in 2017. She maintains the blog <a href="https://thepryingmantis.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">The Prying Mantis</a>.</em><br/></p><p><em>This article was produced by <a href="https://www.independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="_blank">Earth | Food | Life</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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