A well-researched article on factory farms, antibiotic use in animals, and the implications to humans.

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/080309Keiger.shtml

An interesting set of Frontline interviews with various parties commenting on Chesapeake Bay chicken operations.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/poisonedwaters/themes/chicken.html

An  interesting article about early ideas from the new Office at USDA.

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/02/03/new-us-office-takes-fresh-approach-to-carbon/

An article on HR 875 The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009

http://www.alternet.org/environment/135002/will_new_food_safety_bills_really_outlaw_backyard_gardening_and_end_farmers%27_markets/

Published on January 4th in the New York Times by Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry

The extraordinary rainstorms last June caused catastrophic soil erosion in the grain lands of Iowa, where there were gullies 200 feet wide. But even worse damage is done over the long term under normal rainfall — by the little rills and sheets of erosion on incompletely covered or denuded cropland, and by various degradations resulting from industrial procedures and technologies alien to both agriculture and nature.

Soil that is used and abused in this way is as nonrenewable as (and far more valuable than) oil. Unlike oil, it has no technological substitute — and no powerful friends in the halls of government.

Agriculture has too often involved an insupportable abuse and waste of soil, ever since the first farmers took away the soil-saving cover and roots of perennial plants. Civilizations have destroyed themselves by destroying their farmland. This irremediable loss, never enough noticed, has been made worse by the huge monocultures and continuous soil-exposure of the agriculture we now practice.

To the problem of soil loss, the industrialization of agriculture has added pollution by toxic chemicals, now universally present in our farmlands and streams. Some of this toxicity is associated with the widely acclaimed method of minimum tillage. We should not poison our soils to save them.

Industrial agricultural has made our food supply entirely dependent on fossil fuels and, by substituting technological “solutions” for human work and care, has virtually destroyed the cultures of husbandry (imperfect as they may have been) once indigenous to family farms and farming neighborhoods.

Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.

For 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe that as long as we have money we will have food. That is a mistake. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy. The government will bring forth no food by providing hundreds of billons of dollars to the agribusiness corporations.

Any restorations will require, above all else, a substantial increase in the acreages of perennial plants. The most immediately practicable way of doing this is to go back to crop rotations that include hay, pasture and grazing animals.

But a more radical response is necessary if we are to keep eating and preserve our land at the same time. In fact, research in Canada, Australia, China and the United States over the last 30 years suggests that perennialization of the major grain crops like wheat, rice, sorghum and sunflowers can be developed in the foreseeable future. By increasing the use of mixtures of grain-bearing perennials, we can better protect the soil and substantially reduce greenhouse gases, fossil-fuel use and toxic pollution.

Carbon sequestration would increase, and the husbandry of water and soil nutrients would become much more efficient. And with an increase in the use of perennial plants and grazing animals would come more employment opportunities in agriculture — provided, of course, that farmers would be paid justly for their work and their goods.

Thoughtful farmers and consumers everywhere are already making many necessary changes in the production and marketing of food. But we also need a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities.

This is a political issue, certainly, but it far transcends the farm politics we are used to. It is an issue as close to every one of us as our own stomachs.

Wes Jackson is a plant geneticist and president of The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. Wendell Berry is a farmer and writer in Port Royal, Ky.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2008–Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer today announced the intention to establish a new USDA Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets and the creation of a federal government-wide Conservation and Land Management Environmental Services Board to assist the Secretary of Agriculture in the development of new technical guidelines and science-based methods to assess environmental service benefits which will in turn promote markets for ecosystem services including carbon trading to mitigate climate change.

“Our Nation’s farms, ranches and forests provide goods and services that are vital to society – natural assets we call “ecosystem services,” said Schafer. “The Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets will enable America’s agriculture producers to better compete, trade their services around the world, and make significant contributions to help improve the environment.”

Agriculture producers provide many ecosystem services which have historically been viewed as free benefits to society – clean water and air, wildlife habitat, carbon storage, and scenic landscapes. Lacking a formal structure to market these services, farmers, ranchers and forest landowners are not generally compensated for providing these critical public benefits. Market-based approaches to conservation are proven to be a cost-effective method to achieve environmental goals and sustain working and natural landscapes. Without financial incentives, these ecosystem services may be lost as privately-owned lands are sold or converted to development.

Secretary Shafer intends to name Sally Collins Director of the Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets (OESM). Organizationally, OESM will be located within the Office of the Secretary providing direct access to the Secretary. Collins will assume this position after serving as Associate Chief of the USDA Forest Service for the past 8 years, where she pioneered concepts for ecosystem services and markets as part of that agency’s sustainable land management mission.

OESM will provide administrative and technical assistance to the Secretary in developing the uniform guidelines and tools needed to create and expand markets for these vital ecosystem services and will support the work of the Conservation and Land Management Environmental Services Board. As directed by the authorizing legislation the first ecosystem services to be examined will be carbon sequestration. The Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets and the Conservation and Land Management Environmental Services Board will be established to implement actions authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill.

The Conservation and Land Management Environmental Services Board will be comprised of the Secretaries of Interior, Energy, Commerce, Transportation, and Defense; the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors; the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology ; the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and, the Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers. The Secretary of Agriculture will Chair the Board. The Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Administrator of Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs will serve as vice-chairs.

Nominations will be sought in the near future for a federally chartered public Advisory Committee to advise the Board. The Advisory Committee will include farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners, Tribal representatives, as well as representatives from State natural resource and environmental agencies, agriculture departments, and conservation and environmental organizations.

Last minute update before the election on Obama and McCain positions on agriculture.

Ag Positions

I just read John Phipps most recent blog about farm finances, fertilizer prices, etc. (http://johnwphipps.blogspot.com/) and realized it sounds a lot like someone trying to explain our recent banking industry. John’s a smart guy who I respect…so I’m worried.

First, it was confusing….lots of stuff that sounded like speculation and manipulation. Second, it was complicated….not complex or intelligently sophisticated, just complicated. Third, it was about repeatedly growing the same crop on the same land….and all the ‘inputs’ necessary to reuse the soil every year for the same crop or a very similar rotation crop.

The grain farming community is worried…and dependent on all those costly inputs.

As you might readily image, the life of an Iowa farmer has changed….expanded acreage, new high tech machines, the push to biofuel production, and the increasing cost of farmland.

The cost of farmland, and the competition for rental and purchase, is evidently changing the rural ethic…creating a new ‘pushiness’ in rural America.

The New York Times just did an interesting article on Iowa farms…

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/us/07iowa.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&em&oref=slogin