Smithfield buy changes everything in the meat industry

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Here’s an interesting piece from Reuters: “China's appetite for pork spurs $4.7 billion Smithfield buy”. I just caught a few seconds of it on the TV news last night before going to the radio station, didn’t have time to look it up until this morning. Basically, the “Smithfield buy” will give China’s meat processing industry a global footprint. The U.S. has deplorably little regulation on this industry, which raises hogs in giant warehouses and butchers hogs on conveyor lines where the carcasses whiz by inspectors too fast for any kind of thoughtful inspection. We have a lot of hog pollution in the U.S. already, but it’s been modified because the organic industry uses hog poo to fertilize fields for U.S.D.A. certified organic produce and grain. Consumers are misled when they think the organic industry helps keep fields clean and healthy, but that’s another story. Smithfield is the world's largest hog owner and butcher. This buy by China means that everything we believe about the food industry can be disproved if the buy goes through. They’ll begin working to dismantle country-of-origin labeling, for example. And pollution standards, as wimpy as they are, will be a thing of the past as international standards, nonexistent, take over. I’m not a predictor and I try to write about what has happened rather than what might happen, but if the past is a teacher, this “Smithfield buy” has implications to bring our tottering planet to its knees.

the March Against Monsanto

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: The March Against Monsanto, organized by Occupy COMO in Columbia MO, was a huge success. I was amazed, having predicted a small turnout. There were 150 people, and these were folks of all ages. I saw farmers from the farmers’ market, moms pushing strollers, guys on bicycles and lots of twenty-something consumer types. This was one of a couple hundred marches around the world, all kicking off at 1 p.m. in their time zone. Here in Missouri, there were five marches: St. Louis (headquarters of Monsanto), Kansas City, Springfield, Jefferson City and Columbia. We might have gone to any of them, since we’re in the middle of the state, but Columbia is the home of University of Missouri (MIzzou), and they get millions in donations from Monsanto so we went there. The rally after the march, for example, was held in front of Monsanto Auditorium, donated by the multinational corporation. We started at city hall where a young man did a great job of summing up the problems. He even mentioned the Monsanto Protection Act. Then we followed a route that took us through downtown, where lots of people came out of their stores and cheered. Yay for them! We passed a wedding party, all dressed up, the guys looking like Mafioso in black suits, and they said a sarcastic, “Good luck with that one” when they saw our signs. Since it was a Saturday, and a break between spring and summer sessions, there was nobody in the auditorium or in the building, it seemed, but no matter. I’m sure the Monsantans caught the rally on their security cameras and they’ll keep the recordings and put some kind of facial recognition program on. Cool what they can do these days! I’m a big fan of chants, so I pay attention. One that resonated with the anti-Vietnam crowd went like this: Hell, no/ Monsanto]/We don’t want your GMOs. My favorite: GMOs are from the past/Local foods will save your ass. I need to order a new banner for the farm. Maybe that’s what I’ll put on it, but for my neighborhood I’ll have to clean it up: “Factory food is from the past/Local foods will save your donkey.”

Everyone's horrified by Monsanto

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Warren Porter of the U of Wisconsin, a zoologist, was on Farm and Fiddle, my radio program on KOPN 89.5 fm Wednesday night talking about how poisons are delivered to plants and animals. It turns out that the inert ingredients in common poisons, like Monsanto’s Roundup, are not inert. In fact, some of them are designed particularly to deliver the poisons into the cells. They are like soaps that break down oils to break down cell barriers. These ingredients are dangerous because they help the poisons kill. Warren’s research has looked into ramifications of all these ingredients in the environment. Because after they kill, they go into the water and air. So we drink, breathe, eat them. There’s an epidemic of sterility going on—low sperm counts and hermaphrodite aberrations in reptiles and insects. Some boy children in areas of Mexico where our vegetables are raised have developed breasts that can function to make milk and girl children losing the cells they’ll need to make milk for their future babies. I asked Warren if we could stop using all the poisons tomorrow, how long would it take to get rid of the effects? He said 100 years, if it was possible at all. After talking to him, Hannah was nearly in tears. Dan looked like he had been slammed with a two by four. As for me, I tried to reassure them that, as responsible, sustainable-minded farmers, we’re trying to do all we can to change the trend and I apologized for being part of my generation, the ones who have created all the excess. It would be great to be in denial about the effects Dr. Porter was talking about. Then you could just go to Wal-Mart, buy crappy lettuce and fried chicken and pretend like you were providing a good meal for your family. With the March Against Monsanto coming tomorrow, I’ve been really surprised by the hatred against that company. All it takes is a casual mention, and people just open up with really revealing comments. One friend told me to keep her in the loop. Her son works for Monsanto and she tries to tell him, for example, that his employer is the number one reason for suicides among farmers in India, and he acts like that doesn’t matter. It makes her so ashamed. Other people, more political ones, are angry about the derailment of democracy—the money Monsanto spends on lobbying. Some of my university friends are mad that Monsanto money skews the research that comes out of the university. It seems like everyone has a different reason to be disgusted with this company. I wonder if the disgust has gotten to the stockholders and buyers of Monsanto products. I know that some farmers say they can’t find seeds without the GMO genes in them. One of my young friends, a chemist, thinks she might want to work for Monsanto some day and change things “from the inside.” Well, that’s a great idea but with so much money at stake, nearly impossible.

Marching Against Monsanto

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: More rain. More rain. The bare ground of my neighbors’ cornfields, poisoned with Roundup to kill the weeds, unplanted because of the rain, is washing away. Big ruts that will have to be bulldozed to fill in. More fossil fuels used to raise more ethanol. How does that make sense? There is a march against Monsanto on Saturday. In fact, there are dozens of marches all around the world. Here in Missouri, we have five to pick from: St. Louis, Columbia, Jeff City, Springfield, Kansas City. I am amazed that when I mention it to friends, they say, “Yeah. I want to go.” We could probably fill a bus to go to St. Louis or Columbia. And we haven’t decided which one to go with. That’s all for tonight. May 20, 2013.

Political Comedy

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: The political process is an interesting pageant, and everyone wants to assume that it’s impossible to change the direction once it gets started. Because if you think it’s impossible to change, you’re relieved from participating, right? So all you do is sit at the coffee shop and complain to your buddies. But, really, politics is more like an audience participation comedy than like a written script. If you’ve ever seen those standup routines where the director stops the action, asks for audience ideas, then starts it again, that’s what it’s like. And ideas can come from anywhere, stage right or stage left. So this year in Missouri, one subject was “agribusiness vs. healthy food and land.” The comedians started with a silly idea: Change the state constitution so that “modern” technology would forever be guaranteed in the state. “Modern” would mean, of course, biotechnology and highly toxic chemicals on the land in an escalation that has already caused irreparable ecosystem damage. The debate began right after New Year’s. The comedians boasted that they had a bullet-proof majority. The governor, in other words, wouldn’t be able to make a veto stick if the general assembly passed a bad bill. By March 4, the shtick was established. Here’s the language that would have gone into the state constitution, introduced in HJR 7 and 11: “No state law shall be enacted which abridges the right of farmers and ranchers to employ agricultural technology and modern livestock production and ranching practices, unless enacted by the General Assembly.” Even the careless bypasser can see the problems. No definitions of “technology” or “modern,” for example. And no room for local control. As one legislative aide said, “This would allow cockfighting in St. Louis.” Seeing the problems, citizens started coming to the capitol. There was a lobby day for family farm supporters. The Comedy stopped. The Audience spoke up. Somebody said, “this would eliminate local control. Our county governments couldn’t make rules to protect the health of citizens.” And the Director said, “go” and the comedians proceeded. They took the language out of one bill, pretended it had disappeared, slipped it into another. And this happened again and again, but the citizens continued to show up. When we couldn’t show up, we sent e-mails, phone calls, faxes. Our leadership hung in there, meeting with key players. Everyday folks delivered flyers after work or just called on their lunch breaks or weekends. We stood up for our farms and communities as well as we could. One grandma, babysitting for the granddaughter, wheeled a stroller all over the capitol to say her piece. It wasn’t easy, but she knew it was important. That’s the thing—nobody did anything super-human. We just learned the issues, showed up, sent e-mails, made phone calls, stood together. Anyone can do it, and should. Sensing that they would lose, the comedians pulled a stunt of desperation. They called a press conference and accused the governor of wrongdoing. The sharpest of the comedians, kind of a ring leader, made a tour of the state, pointing fingers all the way. When citizens came to call, he pretended to be out. Comedy of the dullest form, certainly beneath such a sharp guy. Quite often, I meet people that say they hate to go to the capitol. They hate the rudeness, the meanness, the clusters of ego in the hallways. “Just go and be a witness,” I tell them, but they say it makes them ashamed to see such low doings in the halls that are supposed to be respected and cherished. I get it, but it makes me sad. We need to get our democracy back.

Quit complaining! We won!

From the Heartland this morning, Margot McMillen breathes easier: A great e-mail this morning, just one of many from progressive organizations that won some key issues in the Missouri legislature. Last night, the session closed with the traditional ritual of throwing the huge stacks of bills into the air. And we held back the bad guys on some key issues. Here's what the e-mail said: We Won Important Victories— Thank YOU for Helping Preserve Local Control & Support Family Farms Thanks to the hard work of our members and supporters who took action, numerous pro-CAFO, anti-local control and anti-family farm bills were defeated or severely weakened during the 2013 legislative session, which ended today. Every Lobby Day visit, every phone call and every email made a difference, and there were thousands of them! These are big victories for family farms, rural communities, local control and the food supply. This was a very difficult and long legislative session, and our bills were in play to the very last day, but all your hard work paid off and we THANK YOU! These victories show that we can win on key issues for family farms, the environment and the future of our communities when we work together to hold policymakers accountable to the people and to our communities. Below is a brief summary of some of the bills we impacted: Senate Bill 342— SB 342 was an ag-omnibus bill that Reprentative Guernsey added bad anti-local control language to. This disastrous anti-local control language was removed in Conference Committee…but not without a fight. The anti-local control language would have: • Forced counties to hire a CAFO operator to administer any local health ordinance that affects CAFOs. • Stopped any county from passing manure application standards that are stricter than the current inadequate DNR/state standards, including setbacks from farms, homes and communities. • No current ordinances are grandfathered in, so all existing local ordinances passed by County Commissions and Health Boards will be null and void unless they comply with these mandates. • Stopped County Health Boards from passing ANY health ordinances without getting the approval of the County Commission. Senate Bill 9— Similar to SB 342, SB 9 was amended in the House by Representative Guernsey to include bad anti-local control language. Again, thanks to your hard work making phone calls and sending emails, the language was removed by Senator Pearce in Conference Committee. House Joint Resolution 7&11—The So-Called “Right to Farm” The original House version of HJR 7&11 was a proposed constitutional amendment that would have taken away Local Control from Missouri counties, stopped the legislature from protecting the health and welfare of Missourians related to corporate agriculture, and limited the constitutional right of Missourians to utilized the ballot initiative process. Everyone’s calls and emails resulted in this language being taken out and a specific sentence added to protect Local Control. This was a major accomplishment. The bad news is that this bill still adds unnecessary language to our constitution and could have negative unintended consequences—We already have the right to farm. Senate Bill 41—“The Pollution Protection Act” The “Pollution Protection Act”, SB 41 would have taken away constitutional rights of farmers and landowners to protect their property & property rights through the court system. Corporate lobbyists once again convinced some legislators of the need to protect a very small minority of corporate industrial livestock operations at the expense of the property rights of the majority of family farms and rural landowners. This bill finally died today, the last day of the legislative session. ________________________________________ Our future work depends on the commitment of these legislators to continue to support our issues. It is really important that we let them know that we appreciate the actions they took to protect Local Control & Family Farms.

Another CAFO coverup, and Casey Guernsey's amendment to SB 342

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Tomorrow is the last day of the legislative session here in Missouri and wouldn’t you know, even though the bad bills have mostly gone away, there’s one corporate flak, Representative Casey Guernsey, that hasn’t gotten the picture. Guernsey is a CAFO owner (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) in the smelly area that many of us call “baja Iowa.” With plenty of corn, immigrant labor and isolation, that area is perfect for corporate hog systems that don’t want the public to see them. Obviously, one of the problems of these CAFOs (many folks call them “pig shit factories”) is pig shit. So part of Guernsey’s bill would stop any county from passing manure application standards that are stricter than the current inadequate DNR/state standards, including setbacks from farms, homes and communities. The news tonight on all the TV stations is about another CAFO scandal in the state, this one in southwest Missouri (I guess we could call the area “upper Arkansas”) where a closed rendering plant buried 2,500 cow carcasses in a trench. Those are leaking into the groundwater and who knows what the results will be. Language in SB 342 would negatively impact the statute that gives County Commissions and County Health Boards the authority to pass local ordinances to rein in these CAFOs and protect the health of their citizens, farm families and rural communities. Representative Guernsey’s Anti-Local Control Amendment on SB 342: • Forces counties to hire a CAFO operator to administer any local health ordinance that affects CAFOs. • No current ordinances are grandfathered in, so all existing local ordinances passed by County Commissions and Health Boards will be null and void unless they comply with these mandates. • Stops County Health Boards from passing ANY health ordinances without getting the approval of the County Commission. This mandate would infringe on Local Control and the authority of local governments to respond to the needs of its citizens, and creates another level of detrimental unnecessary government bureaucracy.

Monsanto Beats Bowman and We're the Losers

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: “Don’t know if you saw this,” my sweetie said, pointing to a headline in the Wall Street Journal. It said, “Indiana Farmer Loses Fight Over Monsanto Seed Patent.” He said, “You probably knew about it…” Well, yeah, I hadn’t heard, but I suspected it. “A put-up deal.” I said. It’s the third or fourth time in the last week I’ve let my cynicism run free, and I’ll try to do better. In Bowman v. Monsanto, it was obvious from the first that the corporation had the precedents and cases to confirm that the patent holders would win their argument that Bowman owed them fees when he planted their seeds and harvested them. To paraphrase the Journal, “using the seed to reproduce itself infringed on Monsanto’s patent,” even though planting and harvesting has been the business of seed owners from the beginning of agriculture. Monsanto’s lead attorney repeated the hackneyed Monsanto line that the patented seeds represent “breakthrough 21st-century technologies that are central to meeting the growing demands of our planet and its people.” OK OK OK. I won’t comment on that line. But I will say that if citizens are to fight the takeover of seeds, agriculture, and food on “our planet and its people,” we can’t depend on help from the courts. We have to do it ourselves, and as soon as possible.

Sexual abuse in the military is a problem for rural women

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: The subject of sexual assault in the military is a little out of my usual writing realm of food and agriculture, but as a rural woman I am thrilled it has come out. My rural neighbors make up a disproportionate number of military entrants and for years we’ve heard from our girls that, although they begin with the best of intentions, the highest of hopes, they end up in what one told me was a “meat market.” Rural kids make up about 44% of military recruits even though we are only 20% of the general population. Our kids are, in fact, targeted by recruiters. Sharply dressed fellows with successful track records and snazzy videos come to our schools. The army’s rodeo team performs at public sales. In just a few days the “Blue Angels,” a Navy and Air Force demonstration team, will fly over my Missouri neighborhood in a Memorial Day salute that’s free to the public and widely promoted on all the radio and TV stations. Here’s what the National Priorities Project found out: “Rural counties dominated a list of the top 100 counties with the highest military recruitment rates in 2004 and 2008 . . . Their analysis looked at the Army's recruitment rate per 1,000 people aged 18-24 in each county in the U.S. The highest rate in the nation in 2004 was from Mineral County, Montana, with three other counties from that state in the top 20. Other states in the list included Kansas with three counties, Texas with three, and Nebraska with two. Rural counties in Mississippi, Illinois, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Missouri, South Dakota, and Kentucky round out the list. That year, more than 44 percent of military recruits came from rural areas, according to Pentagon figures. In contrast, only 14 percent came from major cities. Regionally, most enlistees come from the South (40 percent) and the West (24 percent).” My favorite high school and college kids, upon graduating, will talk about their hopes and plans and then say something like, “and if that doesn’t work out, I’ll join the military.” For the poorest, often those from single-parent homes, a military career is their highest and best hope. Indeed, their role models may be retired military guys since those folks retire to the country, often to farms the family could keep because the kids left farming. It’s amazing any of the youngsters get out with their humanity intact. Their first weeks are spent in total isolation with their units, banned from contact with family and friends. Then, bonded to their buddies, the training intensifies. Protection of the unit includes a grounding in homophobia and, since they don’t know where they’ll serve yet, the kids learn about all their enemies: “we good, they bad, we have big guns.” In this kind of environment, women are almost always the victims. Smaller, optimistic, trained from an early age to be pleasing, the result is inevitable. Kudos to the folks who are speaking out. They are the courageous ones in America’s incessant wars.

Glow-in-the-dark food?

From the heartland, Margot McMillen writes: A week ago, one of my students told me how easy it is to separate the bit of glow-in-the-dark DNA from a jellyfish. They had done it in her undergraduate biology class. When it came to the next step, inserting it into a frog (or something) the procedure was a little trickier, and the wise biology teacher hadn't gone that far. But it could probably be done, she told me, in an ordinary school lab. But now the news from Singularity University that they have, indeed, created glow-in-the-dark plants, a genre without regulation, and they're offering them to people for a small fee. As a food farmer, I hope none of my neighbors jump on the offer. On my farm, we have never planted a genetically modified seed and we never will. It's bad enough that we might have weeds blowing in from a neighbor's place that resist herbicides or kill pests. These genes have been inserted intentionally to crops, but now spread to weeds, thanks to the weeds' clever evasion of continual dousings of poisons from the industrial farms. Glow-in-the-dark biology can find a market--from wal-mart shoppers without a brain between them, looking for something fun to take the birthday boy, to cities looking for new ways to light their streets. But we obviously would need regulation. Nobody wants glow-in-the-dark tomatoes or kale. NO way, says Singularity University, this non-gift should be available to the world. Now, other groups are trying to find ways to raise money to fight the threat, but I can't see how that will work. With a technique so easy that it can begin in an undergraduate bio lab, the possibilities are endless.

thanks, Jolie Justus!

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: So it’s May 3, 2013, and it’s snowing in north Missouri. Rhonda says they have 5 inches in Chillicothe and Kirstin said 6 inches in Hale. So, last week, on my vegetable farm, we planted potatoes and then it started raining and I started to worry about rot. Turned out I needed to worry about freezing! All my fruit trees have bloomed—peaches, cherries, pears, apples, plums, all of them. Frozen fruit trees are fairly common in Missouri, but usually in mid-April. Early May? Not so much. If you wanted two years contrasting against each other, last year, 2012, when we had a drought and excessive heat by mid-May is a good contrast with this one, 2013. But it’s the same old politics. Tomorrow I talk to the League of Women Voters annual meeting in Jefferson City. What a delight to talk to activist women from all over the state. My text: Lessons from the suffrage movement. Lesson one: Persevere. Yeah, it takes decades, but at some point the stupids realize how ridiculous they are and they just give it up. Trouble is, when it comes to food and agriculture, they have the potential to change everything on the planet while they’re diddling around on the bad side. My state senator, Jolie Justus, has figured out that her constituents want the planet to last and want rural life to be here for the future and our kids, in a non-poisonous way. She has stood up for us in the face of the stupids, those who are paid off to support HJR 7 and 11. So I called her at the end of the day to say thanks. Hope she knows I mean it. That’s all for today. It’s May 3, 2013.

Can we go a month without GMOs?

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: Last night on Farm and Fiddle, the radio program that celebrates and explores rural life for today and tomorrow, we began our second annual "month without Monsanto," also called, "Nonsanto May" and "month without biotech." Dan rigged up a Facebook page for people to check in and we reviewed the rules. For the month of May, we try hard to delete biotech products from our lives. That means, basically, no processed foods, because they mostly contain GMO corn and soybeans, unless they are marked "USDA organic" or "GMO-free". Also, no cotton clothing manufactured after 1998 when the first GMO cotton was introduced. Even though we had prepared, we all had to admit exceptions. I was wearing linen pants, rayon shirt and linen jacket, leather shoes, BUT I had blown it by wearing cotton socks. Dan had a cotton t-shirt and Hannah had taken an ibuprofen after she fell off her bike. Hannah and I were both worried about animal feed. She has new chicks and was starting them on leftovers and grain from the health food store. I was able to give her some leftover wheat from 2011, which is non-GMO. But I have 2 bottle baby lambs eating formula. I know I'll have to buy that, and it contains soybeans. Today, I saw Dan at Cafe Berlin. He was wearing a vintage t-shirt. I had put on some wool socks. We congratulated each other. But what to eat? Luckily, the cafe has a good variety of vegetarian foods, but they generally cook with canola oil. I ordered an egg and tempeh, fried in olive oil. It was delicious.