Stop the Biotech Rider!

The biotech, or "Monsanto" rider is back!  Originally in legislation last summer, this industry-driven rider would not only allow, but require the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. This means that biotech companies would be able to temporarily override a federal court ruling, effectively placing them in a position of greater power than the court itself. All they have to do is ask.

If passed, this provision will undermine the fundamental safeguards of our judicial system, and will negatively effect farmers, the environment, and public health across America. The rider will give the biotech industry a way to circumvent federal court orders and serves to give the industry assurances that aren't needed.

Tell your Senators to demand that Appropriations Chairwoman Mikulski pull this dangerous and unconstitutional rider, and support Senator Tester's amendment  (#74), co-sponsored by Senators Boxer (D-CA), Gillibrand (D-NY), and Leahy (D-VT), that would strike the rider from the Continuing Resolution.

We can't allow the biotech industry to subvert our judicial and political system. Thank you for taking time from your busy day to make this important call!

Find your Senator's number here

 

You can also call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202)224-3121 and ask for your Senator's Office, or send a letter telling your Senator to support the Tester amendment by filling out the online letter here. Learn more about the biotech rider and the Tester amendment on the Beyond Pesticides website here.

Urge Congress to Pass a Farm Bill This Year

From the National Center for Appropriate Technology:

As of this month, our nation’s food and farm policy in the form of the 2008 Farm Bill has officially expired, with no workable replacement moving forward in Congress. This has left critical low-cost but very high-value programs high and dry with no funding— and it means Congress missed the chance to make real reforms and an investment in an equitable, sustainable future for food and farms in America.

With no new farm bill or extension of the 2008 Farm Bill, the programs that address rural and urban job creation, training opportunities for beginning farmers, natural resource conservation, and access to healthy food are in big trouble. These are programs that NCAT has been part of and support our work to assist farmers and ranchers in building a more sustainable future.

Can Congress still finish a farm bill this year? YES!

There is a short window of time for Congress to finish the bill after Election Day. So when Congress returns to Washington, we’ll need YOU and other farmers and advocates across the country to tell them loud and clear: we need an equitable, sustainable 2012 Farm Bill!

Sign your name and tell Congress we need a 2012 Farm Bill that:
• Invests in the future of healthy farms, food, and people
• Protects our precious air, soil, and water
• Reforms farm subsidies and levels the playing field

Without a working Farm Bill, funding for many of the resources CT NOFA promotes to farmers will be in jeopardy.  The farm bill is one of the most important and influential pieces of legislation the United States government is in charge of.  Please sign the petition urging Congress to pass a farm bill by the end of the year.

Click here to sign the petition

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree on the politics and business of organic food

Check out this all-new episode of The Business Beat, which aired 7/29/2012 on WICN/90.5 FM. 

Steve D'Agostino interviews Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).  They talk about the politics and business of organic food.

In the 1970s, with a degree in human ecology from the College of the Atlantic, now- Congresswoman Pingree started an organic farm on the island of North Haven, Maine. By selling produce to summer residents and raising sheep for wool, she built a thriving mail-order knitting business that eventually employed 10 people in her small community.

Rep. Pingree is still a small-business owner, operating the Nebo Inn and Restaurant on North Haven, which features locally grown food. After serving on the local school board, and as the town’s tax assessor, she went on to serve eight years in the Maine Senate, become the national CEO of Common Cause, and in 2008 get elected as a Democrat to represent Maine in Congress.

As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, Congresswoman Pingree is committed to helping reform farm policy -- with interests of small farmers and consumers in mind. Last year, she introduced the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act — a comprehensive package of reforms to agriculture policy that will expand opportunities for local and regional farmers and make it easier for consumers to have access to healthy foods.

Don't forget, Rep. Pingree is one of the keynote speakers at the NOFA Summer Conference on August 10 - 12 at Umass-Amherst. She will speak on Friday, August 10 at 7:30 p.m. at the Campus Center auditorium.  Register for the conference today to take advantage of the excellent keynotes and workshops the Summer Conference has to offer.

Hope to see you at the Conference!
-Melissa

Farm Bill Follow Up

Yesterday the House Agricultural Committee passed a Farm Bill that has some very positive elements and some neutral elements.  The bill passed 35-11 with 7 democrats voting against it mainly because of the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and 4 Republicans citing fiscal concerns an disagreements about the commodity program. These are some positive elements, as highlighted by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC):

• Pingree (D-ME) and Ellmers (R-NC)'s amendment allows certain school to make their own food purchase choices so it's easier to buy local.
• Pingree's amendment that enables SNAP Recipients to use benefits for Community Supported Agriculture shares was passed
• Her amendment requiring the USDA to make recommendations on steps to serve small meat and poultry processing facilities and to access to information on the meat and poultry labeling process
• An amendment by Rep. Sewall (D-AL) requires the USDA to conduct a study on increasing specialty crop production by small, women, minority and socially disadvantaged farmers.  
• an amendment that authorizes micro loans for beginning young and small farmers was passed and a military veterans liaison at the USDA will be established. 

The bad news is that, Tom Philpott calls this Farm Bill "boldly regressive" and reports that Ferd Hoefner, the policy director at NSAC called it an "anti-reform bill—bad for family farmers, rural communities, and the environment." Some particularly negative elements of the farm bill include: 

• deep cuts to the SNAP program over all
• it limits what the USDA can consider when conducting environmental reviews of GE Crop and according to Philpott   "all requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act or Endangered Species Act, would be banned, even if a crop approval would harm protected species."
• There are also deep cuts in the beginning farmer and rancher development program (though there is funding in other programs that will support beginning farmers).  
• Oh and then there's the Environmental Working Group's Top Ten Reasons to Reject the House Farm Bill (cuts in nutrition assistance, even higher subsidies for big farms, cuts in conservation programs, few incentives to encourage healthy diets, weakening of GMO regulations, and taking power away from states in terms of making their own farm and food laws, and it repeals an organic cost-sharing program to reduce the burden on farmers when they go organic).

The House Agricultural Committee's Farm Bill is not the one that sustainable agriculture advocates hoped for - at all.  This image has stuck with me for months (it's showed up on the blog two or three times now):

The USDA acknowledges that a healthy diet (which is less likely to result in obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, etc.) is one half fruits and vegetables. Which means, instead of receiving 11% of funding, these "specialty crops" should receive 50% of it (maybe even more).  That was the big hope for this Farm Bill, that the local producers that grow "specialty" crops would finally receive the support from the government that acknowledges the role that these producers have in our nation's health.  Subsidizing organic food and fruits and vegetables can reduce prices for consumers. And cheaper healthy food would mean foodstamps would go a lot further in feeding our nation's starving families (half of the people using food stamps are children). 


Instead, it's more of the same.  It could even potentially be worse. With no incentive for farmers to grow organic, and leaving health foods as an expensive "specialty" food, and diminishing the funding for food stamp so underprivileged can  buy any kind of food at all, the 2012 Farm Bill is a pretty transparent gift to Big Agriculture while taking from the environment, national health, and small producers.


And on that note, have a wonderful weekend everyone.
Best,
Kristiane