Remember Proposition 2 in California, where voters approved a new law that improved the standards under which farm animals are confined? Similar scenarios have popped up in Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Maine, Colorado and Oregon, but Ohio had other plans. Instead of ensuring that their collective voices will be heard on issues pertaining to the treatment of livestock, this week voters in Ohio opted for a constitutional measure that will place the decision making power with a 13-member board instead. The board, according to Alan Johnson of The Columbus Dispatch, "would have far-reaching powers to set standards for livestock and poultry care, food safety, supply and availability, disease prevention, farm management and animal well-being. It would have minimal legislative oversight."

Critics question what place the board has in the Ohio Constitution, along with only two other boards: the Board of Education and the Board of Workers Compensation. They also point to the hastiness of the issue's navigation through the legislature — immediately following the Humane Society of the United States' (HSUS) announcement to move forward in the state with a ballot initiative to set minimum space allotments for confined animals.

American Farm Bureau president Bob Stallman calls it a victory for farmers, but HSUS president and CEO Wayne Pacelle calls it a dirty trick on the part of agriculture giants. What do you call it?    

I received this action alert yesterday from The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. We have until September 28 to tell the USDA to base Conservation Stewardship Program application approval on environmental outcomes, not on when a conservation practice is implemented. See below:

Since the 1930s, we've been paying farmers to produce corn, wheat, rice and cotton. What if we paid farmers for producing healthier soil, cleaner water, climate change mitigation and greater bio-diversity instead? That's the "Big Idea" behind the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). Pay farmers to produce environmental outcomes that contribute to the public good.

Sustainable and organic farming advocates have an important, urgent opportunity to help shape the implementation of this working lands conservation program. The USDA has requested comments on the administrative rules that will govern implementation of the new CSP.  

The USDA is considering giving a higher rank to CSP applications proposing the adoption of new conservation practices vs. the maintenance of existing practices. Current rules give equal weight to existing and proposed conservation practices. Please tell the USDA that CSP applications should be ranked on the basis of environmental outcomes and not on the basis of when a conservation practice is implemented.  

The USDA has posed a specific question for comment:  Should the program give greater weight and therefore a higher rank and a higher likelihood of acceptance into the program to applications proposing new conservation practices? Or should existing and new practices be given equal weight?  

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and other conservation programs pay farmers to adopt new conservation practices. The CSP, however, is unique among working lands conservation programs. The CSP rewards farmers who are already farming at a high stewardship threshold and provides an incentive to maintain those high stewardship standards.  

If a farmer has previously adopted advanced conservation measures and systems, the program is designed to reward that behavior and help pay for continued active management and maintenance of those systems and practices. Farmers should also be expected to and be rewarded for adopting new practices. But CSP ranking and payments should be keyed to environmental outcomes and not on when conservation activities are adopted.

CSP design and regulation should equally balance the benefits of both existing and new practices with the primary measure being the environmental benefits secured by the total conservation system regardless of the timing of adoption of various parts of the system. This is essential to making CSP a program that recognizes and rewards the multiple benefits of sustainable and organic farming systems.  

Comment letters can be as short or as long as you want. Put your comments in your own words, and raise the points most important to you. You can submit a comment from the National Sustainable Agriculture website, or you can email comments directly to the USDA at CSP2008@wdc.usda.gov.  
 
If you send your own email:  Be sure to identify the Docket Number at the top of your letter:  RE:  NRCS-IFR-09004. Address your comment letter to: Mr. Gregory Johnson, Director, Financial Assistance Programs, US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Room 5237-S, Washington, DC 20250-2890. Be sure to identify yourself by providing your name and contact information. You may also mail your letter to this address if you prefer not to email it. The deadline is September 28.

For decades, we’ve relied on antibiotics to treat infection. In a scary turn of events, however, we’re finding that when used improperly, these drugs are ineffective or can even worsen the problem by creating “superbugs” — bacteria that have become antibiotic-resistant. 

Probably the most egregious example of improper antibiotic use comes from the livestock industry. Some 70 percent of total antibiotic use occurs in the livestock industry to speed growth and ward off disease, and some in the medical community are warning that we’re headed for disaster. Antibiotics are routinely used whether the animals are sick or not — breaking the first and most important rule of protecting antibiotic efficacy. 

Enter Rep. Louise Slaughter’s H.R. 1549/S.619: The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009. The bill is designed to prevent the agricultural use of antibiotics important to human health unless the animals are sick. 

Livestock organizations such as the United States Cattlemen’s Association state that if passed, American producers could no longer compete with foreign markets and our meat would have to be imported. Opponents claim that at the very least, meat prices would skyrocket to offset the increased costs experienced by producers. 

Supporters of the bill maintain that antibiotic resistance adds millions to healthcare costs — $4 to $5 billion per year, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. The group also states that 300,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths are caused by food contaminated by dangerous pathogens and bacteria such as Salmonella and E. Coli each year, and these bugs are becoming increasingly antibiotic-resistant. 

What do you think?  Do you support this legislation? Let us know your thoughts.

Photo by iStockphoto

If you’ve ever found yourself thinking that we’re overly critical of factory farms, take a moment to read this nauseating profile of Smithfield Foods’ hog farms from Rolling Stone magazine. 

Author Jeff Tietz reports that “Smithfield estimates that its total sales will reach $11.4 billion this year. So prodigious is its fecal waste, however, that if the company treated its effluvia as big-city governments do — even if it came marginally close to that standard — it would lose money.” That’s a lot of poop, people. 

The article goes on to tell about farms littered with pig carcasses (as many as ten percent of factory-farm hogs die before slaughter due to the conditions in which they live, according to one study), and about people succumbing to the fumes from hog waste lagoons. Lagoons, which, according to Tietz, contain a combination of toxic substances such as ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates and heavy metals (not to mention  your typical gut-wrenchers: salmonella, cryptosporidium, streptocolli and giardia). 

If, like any good capitalist, you want to send Smithfield a message by avoiding its products, here’s a list of brands that sell their meat. What is Paula Deen thinking, ya’ll?

Photo by iStockphoto/Bruce Works

ISTOCKPHOTO/LILLIDAY

Look out filthy, disease-ridden factory farms: There’s a new kid in town. An organization has surfaced to restore law and order, Wyatt Earp/Dodge City-style. 

The Center to Expose and Close Animal Factories (CECAF) was launched April 30, with the objective to “achieve safe, sensible, and sustainable farming and ranching in America through policy development, public education, corporate pressure, community forums and advocacy partnerships.” The launch of this group couldn’t be more appropriate, considering that a Smithfield Foods swine operation is rumored to be ground zero in the recent H1N1 swine flu outbreak. 

Attorneys and co-founders Charlie Speer and Richard Middleton plan to use the experience they gained from the more than 300 lawsuits they helped bring against industrial agriculture giants to mobilize communities in opposition of factory farms, which it says endangers the health of both humans and the environment. With an armory of regulatory, legal and legislative tools, CECAF is on a mission to end the inhumane and dangerous practices of confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.   

Don't forget to sign up to receive e-mail updates on CECAF's progress. 

Let’s address the elephant (or should I say “pig”) in the room: Across the globe, illness is spreading due to completely avoidable circumstances. The link between factory farms and H1N1 is clear. While no one can blame the hog industry for asking the World Health Organization to change the name of the illness to H1N1 (the virus contains swine, avian and human components), I have a really hard time not blaming them for the current epidemic, as well as each and every one of those deaths.   

In fact, some believe the virus can be traced directly to a Smithfield Foods hog farm. Read more on the topic in this piece, “Swine Flu Outbreak Could Be Linked to Smithfield Factory Farms” from Grist. 

Today the Cornucopia Institute issued an alert, calling to action its troops in support of organic and sustainable agriculture. Three bills have been introduced to Congress (HR 875, 759 and 1322), all designed to strengthen our country’s food safety system, but all falling short. 

Like the Organic Consumers Association, the Cornucopia institute was quick to point out that none of the bills are backhanded attempts from agriculture giants to cripple organic producers, as many have been led to believe. (Read HR 875: No Need for Alarm ... Yet.) But they do urge you to visit their website to read up on the bills, and contact your representatives to make your opinions known. As always, sample message wording and contact info for members of Congress are supplied — it will take a matter of minutes to make a big difference!