STANISLAUS CONNECTIONS
Working For Peace, Justice, and A Sustainable Environment
May 2003
Living Lightly
By
CAROLINE MITTON
The United States Dept. of
Agriculture (USDA) is hosting a meeting in Sacramento from June 23-25, 2003 for
the Ministers of Agriculture and Trade from 180 nations. There will also be an
"Expo on Agricultural Science and Technology". Neither event is open to the public.
However, a broad coalition
of area organic farmers, family farmers, environmentalists, labor, religious and
economic/social justice groups is planning a response to both the meeting and
Expo. Events will include a public demonstration (with permit), a march, media
events, street theater, public education forums and literature. Calling
themselves the Sacramento Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture, the group
intends to confront the powers that control our food systems in a non-violent
manner to show that there are alternatives to agribusiness' destructive and
self-serving methods.
By
CAROLINE MITTON
In our blind arrogance, we
are trying to get the rest of the world to adopt our agricultural methods of
monocropping, irrigation, chemical inputs and genetic engineering. The stated
purpose is to relieve hunger worldwide. However, a moment's reflection will make
clear that any additional inputs to a crop will make the result more expensive.
If the poor people can't afford to buy food locally-grown that is adapted to
their climate, how can they afford food grown from imported seeds that need
irrigation, fertilizer and weed- and insect-killing chemicals?
If our methods don't
eliminate hunger here, why should anyone expect them to anywhere else? The fact
is there is plenty of food to feed everyone, but much is dumped regularly,
because poor people can't afford to buy it. Hunger is caused by poverty, not
lack of food supply.
One size fits all is
unsatisfactory in clothing, it definitely cannot be good for farming. Over the
millennia, farmers have adapted their crops to available water, temperatures and
sunshine. They have used several crops a year to replenish the soil with legumes
or rye. They have used the weeds, corn stalks and wheat stems to feed the cattle
and the cattle manure to feed the soils, in a continuous loop of replenishment.
Instead of learning from
others, we are making things worse with our genetic engineering of crops to
withstand herbicides. The procedure is on the one hand, nothing new so it
doesn't need to be tested for any hazardous results, and on the other hand, it
is different enough to be patented.
Research is continuing on
developing "Terminator" seeds — those that produce sterile seeds, so
farmers can't carry them over to the next year. They must buy fresh seeds each
year and sign agreements not to share them. They also must buy the herbicide the
crop is resistant to. This is anti-farmer and in itself refutes the claim that
these companies want to "feed the world".
As if that weren't enough,
the pollen from these plants drifts unknown distances, pollinating weeds and
neighboring crops. This has two results — the next generation weeds are
resistant to the herbicide and the neighbor can't save his seeds for next year
under penalty of being sued by the seed company. Now, how can this help poor
farmers?
What we should be doing is
working on plant strains that need less water, since water supply will be the
next limiting factor to growing food. But, instead, the genetic engineering
people are trying to develop plants that shed the foreign DNA before harvest.
This will need a different chemical applied to the crop.
Obviously, the only motive
for these companies is profit. If they have their way, they will soon control
our food supply from seed to harvest. This is not a good idea. It is a threat to
our food security as well as to the rest of the world.
We have seen in our own
country that these methods result in our overdrawn water supplies, our rivers
and wells polluted with agricultural chemical runoff and decreasing varieties of
foods being grown. These methods are not ecologically sustainable. Other
countries are aware of that, and are attempting to withdraw from the
"agrochemical treadmill" of ever higher need for chemical inputs.
Farmers in West Java and
the Philippines for instance, are finding they can increase yields and lower
input costs by adopting biodynamic methods, even on a commercial scale. The
world can be fed and fed much more safely without chemically-dependent
monocropping and genetic engineering.
By
MYRTLE OSNER
A crowd of farmers and
urban dwellers were shown pictures of the future at the State Theatre when they
viewed "Valley at the Crossroads" recently.
Beginning with Gerald
Haslam reading from his book Condor Dreams,
the pain of a farmer losing his land was emotionally riveting for the audience.
No one knows the Central Valley better than Haslam, a native of Oildale, a
suburb of Bakersfield. The final sentence from Condor Dreams set the tone for the afternoon: "The earth must
be nurtured, never owned."
Valley
at the Crossroads is a documentary by
John Doxey and George Spies. The Farmland Working Group, with many sponsors,
brought the video to Modesto where much of it was filmed.
We were reminded that
California farms are the source of half the nation's fruits and vegetables; the
loss of farms here affects our entire nation. When we drive farms out of
business, we are hurting ourselves. In the past 20 years, one million new
residents have settled in the valley, many of them commuters. Graphic scenes of
bulldozers knocking down orchards made the audience wince. What is filling those
lost farmlands is largely houses. Little accompanying industry has been
developed to employ the new residents.
Both former Assemblyman
Patrick Johnston and Great Valley Center director Carol Whiteside suggested that
more revenue must be generated at the local level, especially a more equitable
sharing of the sales tax. At the present time, counties and cities compete for
sales tax revenue generated by businesses on the edge of cities. We have a very
good example of this tax-seeking with the auto row on McHenry Avenue, much of it
outside the city limits, where county government gets the sales tax generated.
For long term food
security, the time to act has come. In 20 years, our population will double to
5.6 million residents. What then?
Alvin Sokolow, public
policy specialist for the Co-op Extension and former professor of political
science at U.C. Davis, spoke of "good guys and bad guys". He told us
that we have good policy laws in place, but that doesn't get you very far if you
don't have people fighting for those good policies to be implemented.
Dr. Sokolow back his
conclusions with statistics. The state has a Farmland Mapping and Monitoring
process in progress. Out of 24 million acres mapped, we are losing about 50,000
acres yearly. The danger signal is that most of it is prime farmland on the
edges of cities. Little accompanying industry has been developed to employ the
new residents. What is really needed is real economic growth. And the most
worrisome fact is that the very best farmland is right on the borders of towns,
and that is what is being developed first.
His special worry is the
cumulative effect of this loss, and particularly the issue of urban-ag edges.
When new houses are built next to working farms, dust, odors, noise, and
spraying become irritants to city dwellers. How to lessen this problem should be
a concern of everyone who approves a new subdivision or changes a city plan.
There is a negative impact on "edge" farmers that makes it harder to
farm, often creating a "domino effect." It doesn't have to be that
way. Sokolow cited figures that show how much farming still exists in the
counties of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego, that we often think are entirely
urban. (Not that we want to emulate them; they have lost enormous acreages of
productive farmland.)
Sokolow spoke of
"intractable issues": among them: How can we get the housing market to
change so that not all the houses being built are huge? How can we get
affordable housing for the residents that work at low income jobs throughout
this valley? How can we protect agriculture and still improve the economic
status in the valley? How can we deal with high speed rail, which is both a
threat and an opportunity?
Plenty to think about; what
will we do about it?
