Missouri Senate Bill 9

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: It happens that I just returned from a meeting at the county health department, learning the new rules of food handling for our county, when an e-mail appeared in my mailbox about Missouri Senate Bill 9. The notices says that Representative Casey Guernsey, Chair of the House Agri-Business Committee, has inserted anti-local control language onto numerous bills, and one of those bills, Senate Bill 9, is moving—It is slated to be heard on the House floor anytime! Here’s another example of the corporate ag community throwing local control under the bus. If it passes, in order to pass any local health ordinance, order, rule or regulation regarding factory farms, BOTH the county commission and the county health board must agree to and pass identical measures. That means that if there is an emergency spill into public waters, the health department could not act until the commission meets and passes a regulation with identical language. As the e-mail states: This mandate infringes on Local Control and creates an additional and unnecessary level of government bureaucracy.

Dow and Monsanto: Invincibles Against the Consumer

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: As I wrote yesterday, HJR 7 and 11 have been dubbed the “Monsanto/CAFO protection act.” That’s the Missouri law that would “forever” guarantee “modern” farming methods in our state, regardless of what “modern” means. Robots caring for animals in confinement? Poisons sprayed all over the land to kill weeds? We don’t know. But, now, I see that maybe citizens should call HJR 7 and 11 the “Monsanto/Dow/CAFO protection act.” Because last week, Dow and Monsanto announced a “cross-licensing” deal that would stack the world’s largest chemical company and the world’s largest seed company in a ruthless “next generation” coalition. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch lined it out: “The world’s biggest seed company and the country’s biggest chemical company announced Thursday a cross-licensing deal intended to bring next-generation seeds and chemical mixes to farmers combating increasingly stubborn weeds and insects in the field. Creve Coeur-based Monsanto Co. and Dow Agrosciences, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co., said Thursday that Monsanto will allow Dow to use a corn technology Monsanto is developing to kill corn rootworm, a major agricultural pest. In exchange, Dow will give Monsanto access to its new Enlist brand corn technology, which enables crops to survive applications of the chemical 2,4-D. The deal is the latest move in an emerging pattern that has seen major rivals in agricultural biotechnology license technologies to one another. The existing SmartStax corn product, for example, already contains eight biotechnology traits developed by Dow, Monsanto and Bayer CropScience.” That, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is a “response” to the problems farmers are having in the battle against increasingly chemical-resistant pests and weeds. I guess “response” is one way to put it, but to be honest the problems are due to increasing amounts of chemicals on the land to grow the seeds that the biochemical seed companies are creating. What’s really crazy about all this is that nobody has tested the “traits” on consumers, so if you buy these weird products, you’re ingesting the “traits,” whether they’re good for you or not. And, to make matters more complex, scientists can’t get permission to run tests on lab rats or even on worms or bugs because the “traits” are protected by patents. So who are the lab rats? Well, if you’ve eaten anything today made with corn, canola, soy, sugar beets or cotton seed, you can raise your hand now.

Big ag money corrupts Missouri lawmakers

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: There’s some big money behind Missouri’s HJR 7 and 11, which has been dubbed the “CAFO/Monsanto Protection Bill.” That’s the bill that wants to “forever guarantee modern technology” in agriculture, without saying what exactly that means. The Senate made the bill better, taking out the language that would have destroyed local control. That wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the huge number of phone calls and visits to legislators we generated. Now HJR 7 and 11 is going to a Senate/House Conference Committee where the House will try to put the bad language back in. Any day now. Our citizen lobbyists are tired and that’s exactly what the corporate expected and want. They hope we’ll give up. And, besides that, there are several agriculture omnibus bills (SB9 and SB 342) that would take away the right for county commissions and health boards to pass local health ordinances to protect the health of their citizens. This form of local control should be maintained. With only 3 weeks left in the session, you’d think they’d be bending their minds to better things, like passing a budget or working on the health care crisis that will undo our rural hospitals. But, no. Senate Bill 342 & Senate Bill 9 would mandate that any county health ordinances would have to be passed word-for-word by both the county commission and the county health board. It’s another level of unneeded government bureaucracy. Here’s the deal: Monsanto has just promised 600+ new jobs to the city of St. Louis. And St. Louis is the tail that wags the dog of our state. The newspapers are all excited about it, trying to out-gush each other with enthusiasm for the expansion. Monsanto expansion may, or may not, be real. We’ve seen these expansions fail a lot of times, and we’ve seen them succeed at government expense. Some kind of tax abatement promised, some kind of bonds issued. But, for Missouri lawmakers, the chance to say that they’re bringing new jobs to the state is enough to get them re-elected. That’s life in the heartland. So we need to call our representatives AGAIN to protect local control and the state constitution. We can’t give up. Meanwhile, the day turned dreary and all the chores took two or three times as long as usual. Tomorrow, sunshine is predicted, and a fun day with my pal Laura, travelling the countryside in search of the perfect foxtrotter horse for one of her customers.

Consumers are in charge of the food system!

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: A gorgeous day today! I started it outside, when Jerry, still recuperating from heart surgery, came to trim the horses’ feet. Barb’s little white pony could hardly get out of the barn, but he trimmed her and said she’ll probably be fine. It’s really hard with an equine that’s foundered. When spring comes and the fescue gets green, they just overeat and whatever healing they did gets undone. We have several horses and ponies to go, but she was the most urgent case and Jerry left after trimming her and my big old fellow, Rocky. We made appointments for Tuesday and Thursday next week. Coming back inside, a phone call from a news reporter about my grain project, connecting consumers with local grain. Uprise Bakery, mid-Missouri’s finest, has started using local wheat for one of his bread recipes. What did I think of that? I think it’s fabulous. The reporter was very patient, trying to absorb all the details. It’s hard, when all your breads have come wrapped in plastic from who knows where, to understand how it all begins. Wheat. Farmers. Flour. Millers. Yeast. Bakers. Who knew? The main thing, as I told her, is the consumer. If consumers demand a certain kind of product, the stores will get it for them. Consumers are driving the system, but they hardly ever know it.

Genetically altered salmon in the pipeline

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Tomorrow, the comment period will close on whether industry can raise their genetically altered salmon and sell it to human consumers. This campaign has been going on for years. It started with a huge increase in salmon recipes in the ladies’ magazines and the newspapers. That, to develop demand. Omega 3, you know. The genetically altered salmon grow twice as fast as normal salmon, which means they would take over the native ecosystems by out-eating and out-growing the natives if they got into the wild. If approved, this will be the first animal to be genetically altered and raised for human use. This at the time when we’re trying to figure out what to do about the superweeds that industry created by releasing genetically altered corn, soybeans, canola, cotton and sugar beets. And if the salmon genes jump to other breeds, what then? One of my students has a habit of saying, when things are messed up, “It’s all good.” I think she means that things work out in the end. But, what kind of havoc are we releasing in nature? All good? Not.

Too much Boston Marathon

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: This is the first Sunday morning in a decade when I haven’t watched Meet the Press on TV. I just can’t stand to see those images again—the explosions at the Boston Marathon, people screaming, running TO the emergency rather than FROM the emergency as every TV commentator, preacher and fireman has told us. And then the “manhunt” as the headlines say. We’ve been given a lot of language, haven’t we? I’m sad that it happened, sad for the Bostonians, sad for the Chechnyans and Muslims that will be painted with the same broad brush. I’m proud of the first responders, the people who ran TO the emergency, big shout out to all of ya’all. But I don’t want to re-live it, over and over, giving it the stature that we give news events when they are relentlessly exploited. I don’t want to see it raised to the level of, as they say, “iconic.” I don’t want to see other kids take revenge, and then other kids take revenge against the other kids. You know what I mean—we’ve seen it a million times. The only winners are the media and the advertisers. Better for society to say: this was a bad thing. People were killed unexpectedly, this happens every day in other places but not here. At the bottom of it all was a fearful fellow that listened to the wrong voices. How can we prevent it from happening again? Bottom line: we can’t. Especially if we succumb to the fear that’s driving all this hype. Let it go.

the E-Recylclers

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: There was ice in all the buckets this morning when I went out to feed and heavy frost on the fields, but it turned out to be a gorgeous day after all. I was able to spend most of it doing silly little chores that just need to be done—checking fences, washing feed sacks, running errands and taking a TV and computer monitor to town for the E-Recycling truck. I told my neighbor I’d take their stuff, so I had a pretty good load in my little Honda Insight. When I pulled up, the guys joked that my car would just barely fit in their crusher. Not my car! I consider it a classic, an antique hybrid. It’s kind of appalling how much stuff we buy and throw out, and neither my neighbor nor I are trendy folks. When I buy something and it breaks, I get it fixed if at all possible, so my car is a 2001 and this computer a 2004. Only have had one cell phone and all it does is make phone calls, but that’s been enough so far. Still, this year the microwave gave up and we had a vacuum cleaner that was just a lemon from the start. All the stuff the E-Recyclers collect goes to a giant crusher in St. Louis and gets broken down, the metals separated out and sold. Hope they make enough money to keep it all out of the landfill.

Tony Messenger Scorns Kurt the Curt

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Yesterday, I wrote about the discourteous Kurt Schaefer hiding behind his desk when constituents came in to ask him about his stance on the Medicaid bill. The story is more elaborate and more damning than I thought. The askers actually waited an hour in the hallway while the staff of His Curtness lied that he was not in. His Boorishness had scotch taped a barrier of yellow legal paper on the window of his office so people couldn’t see in, who does that? Other suits walked in and out of the inner chamber but the constituents had to stand outside and listen to lies. After an hour, somebody lifted a cell phone above the paper barrier and snapped pictures that showed the fool was in there. The capitol police came and stood, police-like, at his door. What was he afraid of? His voters? Turns out, he’s afraid of everything federal. That, at bottom, is his objection to Medicaid. Missouri went to war over that 150 years ago, defending states’ rights. Some of our citizens have been confused about the issue ever since. That’s the trouble with wars; they leave more confusion and anger than they solve. Among the laws this fellow disagrees with is a federal law requiring access to Conceal and Carry (CCW) licenses. The feds want to be able to compare CCW lists with the list of folks getting disability payments due to mental illness. Sounds reasonable to the ordinary person, since we don’t want weapons in the hands of mentally ill people. But Schaefer, along with House Speaker Tim Jones, have tried to whip the tea party gang into a frenzy. Today, St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger wrote a scathing column which said, in part: “Schaefer and Jones are both lawyers, which means one of two things . . . They’re really bad lawyers or they know they’re lying for cynical political gain, and that must makes them horrible people.” Messenger speculates that these two guys “think the road to the Missouri attorney general’s office is paved with lies about mind control and microchips . . .” And, for Schaefer, capitol police and scotch tape.

Kurt the Curt Schaefer Rides Again

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: If the book of 2013 Missouri is ever written, it will be a sad tale of the richies trying to keep social benefits from the poors. And that sad tale can never have a happy ending. Yesterday, more than one thousand people gathered at the capitol to lobby for Medicaid benefits for more Missouri families. The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, asks that benefits be extended to folks at 138% of the poverty level. For a family of four, benefits would be available if they made $26,000 or less, which takes in a huge number of rural families that have no health insurance now. That money would save hospitals, create jobs and result in healthier youngsters. In other words, it would benefit the entire state. But many lawmakers, Republican ones, refuse to pass a bill to accept the Medicaid expansion. So busloads of people, ordinary citizens like you and me, including my friends from Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Grass Roots Organizing, Faith Voices United and many other groups, came to the capitol to visit their lawmakers. They were joined by hospital groups and health providers. Far right observers called these “special interest groups.” Many of the lawmakers, Ds and Rs, were positive. They realize that the federal money is going to go somewhere and it should go to help Missouri folks. Columbia’s Kurt Schaefer was not among the positive ones. In fact, he hid from the lobby groups, taping yellow legal pad paper on the window of his office and pretending to be out, at a meeting. Who does that? Somebody held a cell phone above the paper and snapped a photo of curt Kurt hiding behind his desk. Everyone was laughing. What a fool!

Hoosier Resolutions 5 and 27 sound like Missouri

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: I said I’d look further for traces of laws ensuring “modern farming practices” for corporations, and it didn’t take long to find 3 states with efforts for amendments similar to Missouri’s proposals. Last November, North Dakota, a state besieged with fracking and sky-high land prices, passed a “right to farm” amendment into the constitution. Its language is eerily like the proposal in Missouri, to wit: The right of farmers and ranchers to engage in modern farming and ranching practices shall be forever guaranteed in this state. No law shall be enacted which abridges the right of farmers and ranchers to employ agricultural technology, modern livestock production and ranching practices. Again, we have the seriously vague words “modern,” “technology,” and the confusing phrase “no law shall be enacted…” So, in North Dakota, no county, township, parish, city or any governmental body will be able to pass a law or ordinance to protect themselves from chemicals, GMOs, CAFOs or any other kind of industrial farming scheme. North Dakota, one of our chief wheat-raising states, will not be able to refuse to plant untested (and untrusted) GMO wheat under this Constitutional clause. The same sort of language is being considered in Montana, another primary wheat-raising state, and in Indiana, one of the buckles on the corn belt. The Hoosier experience, summed up by Indiana’s TribStar.com, sounds just like Missouri. They say: "House Joint Resolution 5 and Senate Joint Resolution 27, identical pieces of legislation making their way through the two chambers, seek to amend the Indiana Constitution to prevent any legislative body from adopting any rules regulating farming . . . The amendment, apparently, would prevent any rules regulating large industrial agricultural businesses such as confined animal feeding operations. It would also prevent any laws that protect public health and private property rights for Hoosiers who are not farmers. Even zoning laws could be challenged." Indiana voters will decide whether to approve this amendment. Let’s see who spends the big bucks to get it passed.

ALEC: In a state near YOU!

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: A new version of Missouri SJR 22 has passed the Senate and is lumbering back to the House for another vote. With the weekend adjournment upon us, I decided to google some of the objectionable, vague language of the bill and see where it comes from. I chose “modern farming practices” which can take in anything from Confined Animal Feeding Operations to wacky new genetic alterations in seeds to robot tractors to unlimited spraying of Agent Orange on the land. I suspected that “modern farming practices” was dreamed up by Alec, the American Legislative Exchange Council, those apologists for big business opposed to individual rights. They are world-class bamboozlers. Couldn’t find “modern farming practices” in Alec’s model bills but there were a lot of interesting bits on the Alec site, where the far-right lawmakers can pick up language to introduce in their statehouses. Here’s a bit to guarantee antibiotic use in CAFOs: WHEREAS, the treatment, prevention and control of animal disease is critically important to the health and welfare of animals and the safety of the food produced; and WHEREAS, the availability of antibiotics is a critical tool for veterinarians, livestock and poultry producers to ensure animal health and the safety of the US food supply; and WHEREAS, the use of antibiotics both therapeutically and sub-therapeutically has a long history of success in improving animal health and welfare; and . . . (there are 8 more “whereas” clauses, each more misleading than the one before) . . . NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that The American Legislative Exchange Council supports the use of science based data to assess whether sub-therapeutic antibiotics cause antibiotic resistance problems. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the American Legislative Exchange Council opposes legislative or regulatory action that may result in unnecessary additional restrictions on the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture that are not based on sound science. Obviously, that resolution could guarantee full employment to a battery of lawyers for lifetime but it doesn’t help ensure public welfare at all. And that’s the point, dear reader. Tomorrow we'll look at the family tree and implications of SJR 22, which has appeared in other states besides Missouri, but that’s enough for today. April 13, 2013.

Cafo Far From The Farm

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Cafo Far From The Farm, arranged by Daria Kerridge in Columbia, was a huge success, according to friends who were able to attend. The 3-day event drew speakers from all over the United States, addressing problems like government financing of CAFOs, environmental degradation, corruption of the food supply and animal cruelty. All the events were held during my busy times—teaching and radio hosting—but I know plenty of folks who went. In fact, that’s the only complaint I’ve heard: Everyone there knew everyone else. It was the same group that shows up for all the foodie programs. My New Year’s Resolution for 2013 was to drag someone younger than myself to any presentation, lobby day, food meal, event, anything I go to. So far, the resolution has been good and I’ve had a great time with my young guests, neighbors or students. We usually go to a meal before or after and I drive so that they don’t have to buy gasoline. We talk about what we’ve seen or done, what we learned, what was good or bad about the presentation. It’s always worthwhile. If we don’t take the kids along, they can’t go. They’re so busy with school, work, dating, figuring out their futures…remember how you were at their age? They aren’t getting the same notices that we’re getting, so they don’t know about the events. And we need them to understand the food system. Every generation gets farther away from the farm, and the industrial system becomes normalized, they don’t know how to do things for themselves from raising food to foraging to cooking. They’re used to getting food wrapped in cellophane, poor dears. At the event last night, a panel discussion, John Ikerd told folks that farmers and consumers need to work together to solve the problems of industrial agriculture in the animal business. Folks who want good meat have to learn about the business and ask the farmers how they manage their animals. Farmers who want to work with the public have to listen to what they want. We can work it out, but we need to listen to each other, in an open and curious way. And that’s all for today. April 11, 2013.

Missouri lawmakers are getting a clue!

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Apparently, lawmakers are realizing how stupid it would be to change the state constitution to “forever guarantee” “modern farming practices,” and I’m getting more and more feedback about the subject. Tonight there was an anti-CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) meeting in Columbia and I’m not sure if folks there had called in to their reps, but it would have been a good opportunity to get them to complain about the fact that CAFOs are supported by policy. Young farmers can get loans to start CAFOs because the loans are guaranteed by the U.S. government. Can’t get a guarantee to start a vegetable farm or to buy equipment for a grain mill. When I got home another friend on the phone was complaining about the Missouri legislature and their new ideas about how to ensure that “modern farming practices” are “forever guaranteed” under the constitution. “Whatever they want, I’m against it,” said my friend. He was talking about HJR 7&11 and SJR 22. “Modern farming practices” are not defined in these bills. This is a major problem because these “future” practices could be anything (from corporate controlled CAFOs, to cloned animals, to robot tractors, to complete control of the seed supply…). And it's the Constitution we're talking about.

The FDA is a Sham

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Sunday always seems like a catch-up day and I had a pile of newspapers to read, going back a couple of weeks. And I had two lambs abandoned by their mom to nurse. They had kept me up all night and needed to be fed every 3-4 hours, the male taking longer than the female, like maybe an hour. So the day went like this: Warm bottle for the lambs and feed. Glance through 4 or 5 sections of newspaper, fold for recycling, take a nap, wake up and warm bottle for the lambs, and so forth. So it went along well, until I stumbled on an Op-Ed in the New York Times March 28, 2013. David A. Kessler, commissioner of the FDA from 1990 to 1997, a time of huge expansion in the Confined Animal Feeding Operation era, wrote “Antibiotics and the Meat We Eat.” Too little too late, David. You shoulda checked it out when you were in power. As he said, “It was not until 2008 . . . that Congress required companies to tell the F.D.A. the quantity of antibiotics they sold for use in agriculture . . .” Why didn’t he ask? It’s not a secret that low doses of antibiotics are fed to increase fast weight gain in meat animals. That was one of the first tricks the big corporations used. They followed it by such strategies as feeding arsenic to poultry to compromise the liver and increase blood flow, thus increasing gain. The antibiotic usage in CAFOs accounts for about 80% of all antibiotic sales nowadays and that is causing antibiotic-resistant bugs that flow into the creeks, the rivers, the ocean. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a major problem in hospitals and one doctor has told me he gets a memo every week about what drugs no longer work on what bacteria. Kessler’s last line exempts FDA, the organization that we thought was the watchdog, from responsibility, and sums the problem up: “Lawmakers must let the public know how the drugs they need to stay well are being used to produce cheaper meat.” The industrial system knows that the government system is a sham. After all, industry designed it. But, now, consumers need to demand answers.

Fabulous chickweed potato salad!

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Jerry the horse shoer called and postponed again. It’s been one thing after another. The weather. Somebody’s health. His health. He asked if it messed up my schedule to keep moving our appointment. Mess up my schedule? No way. A good horseshoer is worth his weight in gold. He can make or break a horse. Jerry saved one valuable horse we had here and the latest unhealthy one, a white pony, galloped up to the fence when I went out to feed this morning. So I guess I can say he saved one valuable one and one other. I can wait a long time for Jerry to get here, believe me. In the meantime, we had a wonderful group of college students visit the farm to tour and talk about sustainability, food sovereignty, food security, that kind of thing. The meal was perfect, and all from Missouri. Kobe beef, gnocchis, spinach salad, pasta salad with pasta from Excelsior Springs, all prepared by a chef from Broadway Brewery, potato chips from the Backers, our neighbors, and a lettuce salad harvested at the last minute by Walker from our greenhouse. Oh, yes, and I made a berry cobbler. I’ll give you the cobbler recipe during berry season. In the meantime, here’s how to make a superb chickweed salad, as prepared by fiddler Sarah. Cut into chunks, potato salad size, and boil until just softened, 1 pound potatoes. Arrange them in a layer on the bottom of a baking dish. Then, pick and break up 8 oz fresh chickweed. Finally, pour over the whole thing ½ cup of vinagrette, recipe follows. To serve, spoon up the potatoes at the bottom, the chickweed at the top, the vinagrette throughout. This is the best spring salad ever! Vinagrette: • ½ cup honey OR 1 cup sugar • 1 tablespoon ground mustard • 1 teaspoon salt • 1/2 teaspoon pepper • 1/2 cup hot water • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar • 2 garlic cloves, halved • 1/4 cup really good olive oil In a 1-qt jar with a tight lid, combine the first five indredients. Add the next three and shake until the sugar is dissolved. Then add the oil and shake well. Store it in the refrigerator. You can use this on any green salad, but it’s amazing on chickweed and potatoes. Yield: 2 cups.

Jon Stewart v. Monsanto

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: The sustainable agriculture breakfast group was all a-twitter this morning because Jon Stewart had actually mentioned the Monsanto Protection Act rider that passed with the continuing resolution to keep the government in business, as he put it, until September. Stewart didn’t get the rider just right, confusing the issue and saying it had to do with GMO food rather than GMO crops, but for a city boy he did all right. He had a nice clip of Jon Tester trying to get Congress to pay attention and compared Congress to a farty old grandpa. You can google “The Daily Show” and play the clip. The breakfast group seemed to think it would be on-line for about a week. Truthfully, there has been a lot in the news about the riders. Not only was there the rider that gives corporations the right to plant any kind of biotech crops that they want, no matter if they’re poisonous to the environment or people, never mind the issues of cross-pollination or other dangers, but there’s one that prevents anyone from making regulations on gun purchases. One has to wonder what else is in there for the President to sign.

Missouri Senators Schafer and Munzlinger--BFFs?

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: In 2012, we had an early spring. So early that I was in the throes of the worst part of the legislative session, with my fellow citizens battling the bad policies that Missouri lawmakers can dream up. The session always begins with five or six really bad bills that need shooting down. With so much money coming from Monsanto, a Missouri corporation, it’s hardly surprising that a good many representatives and senators are in Monsanto’s genetically-altered, chemically-enhanced, robo-tractor pockets. That means, of course, that they’re working against family farmers. So this year, the spring is a little later and I was determined to enjoy the daffodils and the redbuds, but today we were back at the capitol. Family farmers from all over Missouri were in the Senate talking to Missouri senators about HJR 11 and 7 and SJR 22, Monsanto Protection Acts that will also work in favor of the giant meat packers like Tyson and Smithfield who have put farmers out of business. It was wonderful that so many of the senators are seeing the light and planning to vote against these bills that will defile our state constitution. Several of the senators, both Democrats and Republicans, can see that HJR 11 and 7 and SJR 22 take local control away from counties and townships. They see that if these bills pass, it will change our state constitution forever. A funny thing, though, and surprising how many of the senators we talked to made a link between Brian Munzlinger, a longtime supporter of Farm Bureau initiatives and Kurt Schafer, the Senator from Columbia who is a lawyer representing Smithfield, a giant pork producer that sells to Wal-Mart. Munzlinger and Shafer don’t really have much in common except their ties to big transnational corporations, one’s sharp as a tack and the other’s dumber than a hammer, but I guess they’ve been BFFs during this session because the other senators linked them together, like, “you need to go talk to Munzlinger and Schafer.” Maybe it’s because they both want to run for statewide office, I don’t know, maybe they’re cooking up some kind of teamwork initiative. With politics like this going on, who could be bored? That’s all for today. April 4, 2013.

A clear path for more GMOs

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Today, one of the leading food policy nonprofits issued a lengthy statement by Frederick Ravid, with this naive centerpiece: "First of all, you need to realize the Continuing Resolution is only a six month law. No part of this law lives beyond September 2013, no matter what it provides . . . Section 735 "Monsanto Rider" is reported by NY Daily News to have been written in concert with Mosanto by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), perhaps Monsanto’s biggest Senate contribution beneficiary. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) allowed the language to stand without consultation with the Agriculture Subcommittee, or any others, for that matter. This infamous action has been widely criticized in the strongest terms, even within the Senate." Senate Shmenate. Here’s the thing: It’s springtime. The CR gives cover to Monsanto and other planters to put any kind of wacky poisonous plant in the ground right now, grow it and harvest it in the fall. They only need six months. Then, with lots of seeds in their bins, they only need to go to USDA and whine, “but we have all this seed, and we need to plant it now. You need to approve our insanely dangerous plants or some family farmers with seed in their bins will suffer…” This is how GMO alfalfa was approved despite 200,000 objections from citizens. A USDA panel voted to approve GMO alfalfa, with a patented gene to resist Monsanto’s Roundup.That was back in February 2011. I blogged about it then and here’s what I said: “USDA chief Tom Vilsack had expressed doubts about the approval. Vilsack, an Iowa agriculturalist in his pre-Beltway life, has seen enough failure in the biotech sector to question another crop engineered to resist Roundup, the most powerful weed killer on earth. After a tank of Roundup is sprayed on a field, the alfalfa pops up green and sprightly, ready to grow without competition. But the gene has moved to weeds, so there are now ragweeds, water hemp and many other weeds that can’t be killed by this herbicide. "Vilsack, who wrote that cross-pollination poses "a significant concern for farmers who produce for non-GE markets at home and abroad," was ignored. So were the comments of 200,000 consumers that wrote against approval during the comment period. Many of these were organic consumers who realize that organic production will be under threat from the new alfalfa. A few minutes after I posted my blog about the hearing, I got an e-mail with a snippet of conversation between Kathleen Merrigan, who made the decision, and Mark McCaslin of Forage Genetics. And here’s the kicker: The approval was granted not because the doubts had been settled but because an ag industry company had a bunch of the seed in a warehouse and were afraid they were going to lose money without the approval. Land O’ Lakes, now part of Purina, had raised GMO alfalfa and harvested seed for 3 years. A federal judge had ordered them to put it in a warehouse rather than use it, since it was an illegal crop. The damning Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and the anti-GMO comments of more than 200,000 consumers--stood in the way. But Land O’ Lakes was determined. In the words of Mark McCaslin of Forage Genetics: "So based on USDA's estimate of a two-year turnaround on an EIS, rather than pay our seed growers to take out those Roundup-ready acres, we left those in. We honored those contracts. And we harvested that seed that we had paid the growers for. So that seed that was produced in 2007, 2008, 2009, according to Judge Breyer's ruling, is in storage. It has been in storage since that time. So the owners of that seed are the 350,000 farmer members of Land O' Lakes. So this -- is the Land O' Lakes cooperative made the decision to pursue Roundup ready alfalfa. We produce the seed. We own the seed, and it's stored in our warehouses." When I read that the investment of a seed company clinched the approval, I felt sad and betrayed. Washington’s in the hands of corporate agbusiness for sure. You would expect a furious outcry from every pet owner, organic consumer, and livestock raiser. The Roundup-Ready genes have never been tested on eaters, including horses, rabbits, hamsters, parakeets—anything that eats those greenish-brown pellets. But, no. Consumers are almost silent. A true measure of our national disconnect from the food system. ” That’s all for today. It’s April 1, 2013.