NY TOWN OF SOUTHAMPTON LEADS LOCAL FOOD MOVEMENT BY SECURING FARM ACREAGE

Milestone Collaborative Purchase Ensures Future Local Farming

$12 Million joint purchase of 33 acres of farmland by Town of Southampton and Peconic Land Trust a first in NYS

By Elizabeth Fasolino August 5, 2014 at 1:18 pm 0

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Photo: Suffolk County politicians, land preservationists and farmers at the press conference Tuesday morning/courtesy Peconic Land Trust, Phillip Lehans

This morning, at the Danilevsky farmland, at 1072 Head of Pond Road in Water Mill, the Town of Southampton and the Peconic Land Trust held a press conference to announce the closing of the acquisition of a 33-acre parcel of farmland and the Trust’s Request for Proposal (RFP) from qualified farmers to purchase the protected farmland.
Attending the press conference were the Town of Southampton Supervisor Anna Throne‐Holst, John v.H. Halsey, President of the Peconic Land Trust, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr., Legislator Jay Schneiderman, State Senator Ken LaValle and County Executive Steven Bellone. The application for farmers interested in purchasing the protected farmland is now available on the Peconic Land Trust’s website.

The title to the 33-acre property was transferred on July 10, to the Peconic Land Trust. At the closing, the Town of Southampton purchased enhanced development restrictions from the Trust assuring that the farmland will be farmed primarily for local food. The Town’s purchase of additional restrictions is a milestone, the first of its kind, by a municipality in the State of New York according to a statement by the Trust.

Under the terms of the contract, the Trust bought the land for $12.025 million, and the Town of Southampton purchased the development restrictions from the Peconic Land Trust for approximately $11.167 million with funds raised by the Community Preservation Fund (CPF.) As a result, the restricted value of the newly protected farmland is approximately $26,000 an acre, a price affordable to food production farmers.

In addition to the development rights, the Town of Southampton purchased restrictions that prohibit equestrian use or the production of horticultural specialties that result in the removal of soil from the property. The Town’s easement document also stipulates that 80 percent of the farmland must be used for the production of food and that future sales of the property are to be restricted to qualified farmers at its true agricultural value.

The Peconic Land Trust currently holds similar restrictions on about 60 acres of farmland in Sagaponack.
Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele noted the tradition of successful partnerships that result in a balance between preservation and development that has come to define the economy and lifestyle of East End residents. “Over the past forty years,” Thiele said, “we have been extremely successful in preserving farmland on the East End. It is now time to focus on preserving farming. With the land now protected, we need to ensure that the land does not lie fallow. We must encourage active farming, contributing to our local economy and preserving part of our culture and history on the East End.”

This purchase addresses the leading concerns expressed by Suffolk County farmers in a joint poll conducted by the Suffolk County Department of Economic Development and Planning and The Peconic Land Trust last year.

Concerns of farmers on the East End were myriad and unique to the region, as well as of grave concern to the State of New York. For Suffolk County agricultural revenue tops that of any other county in New York State. In fact, Suffolk County is not just the leader in the state’s important agricultural economy, but it accounts for half of all state-wide sales of nursery, greenhouse, floriculture and sod products. That’s huge.

Farmers on the East End have a lot of worries to navigate in their day-to-day business besides the normal variables facing all farmers such as climate change and weather conditions.
In Suffolk County, 59 percent of farmers polled expressed being “very concerned” about the future profitability of farming, and 42 percent of them said they were concerned about access to land; 60 percent of farmers responded that they are also very concerned about the overall loss of farming in Suffolk County. Chief among the concerns identified by farmers exclusive to the East End were the high cost of production on the East End, high fuel costs, and the availability of farm labor and land.

The purchase of the Danilevsky property ensures that 33 more acres will remain in agricultural production indefinitely, incrementally, but importantly, adding to the 34,304 acres already under propagation by the 585 farms throughout the county.

The abundance of agriculture on the East End, coupled with the population density, has created a paradoxical symbiosis between land development and preservation. And, only through the careful land stewardship, such as that demonstrated by The Town of Southampton and The Peconic Land Trust, can Suffolk County remain an agricultural powerhouse within the state’s economy as well as ensure that the tourists and second home buyers who flock to the area continue to be able to enjoy the pristine open farmland that is distinctive among ocean resort communities.

Source:  http://patch.com/new-york/southampton/milestone-collaborative-purchase-ensures-future-local-farming#.U-JVFKOwVk0

WORLD SEED AND FOOD DOMINATION A THREAT TO ALL NATIONS' SOVEREIGNTY AND SECURITY

Published on

Friday, August 01, 2014

by

The Asian Age

Fine Print of the Food Wars

by

Vandana Shiva

A demonstrator participates in the March Against Monsanto in Washington, DC on October 12, 2013. (Photo: flickr / cc / Stephen Melkisethian)

 

Monsanto and friends, the biotech industry, its lobbyists and its paid media representation continue to push for monopoly control over the world’s food through its seed supply.
This “empire” is being built on false foundations: that Monsanto is a creator/inventor of life and hence can own the seed through patents and that life can be engineered and machined like an iPhone.

Through ecology and the new biology we know that life is self-organised complexity — life makes itself; it cannot be “manufactured”. This also applies to food production through the new science of agroecology. Agroecology gives us a deeper scientific understanding of how ecological processes work at the level of soils, living seeds and living food. The promises made by the biotech industry — of increased yields, reduction of chemical use and control of weeds and pests — have not been kept. Last month an investment fund sued DuPont for $1 billion for pushing herbicide-resistant crops knowing fully well they would fail to control weeds and instead contribute to the emergence of “superweeds”.

Creating “ownership” of seed through patents and intellectual property rights and imposing it globally through the World Trade Organisation, the biotech industry has established a monopoly empire over seed and food. While they claim ownership of the seeds they sell and collect royalties, when it comes to checks and balances on safety, the biotech industry is systematically destroying international and national laws on biosafety claiming their products are “as nature made them”. It’s ontological schizophrenia!

Biosafety is the multi-disciplinary assessment of the impact of genetic engineering on the environment, on public health and on socio-economic conditions. At the international level, biosafety is international law enshrined in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. I was appointed to an expert group to evolve the framework by the United Nations environment programmme to implement Article 19.3 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Monsanto and friends have been attempting to deny citizens the right to safe food by opposing Article 19.3 since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. Currently they are attempting to dismantle national laws on biosafety in India, Pakistan, the European Union, across Africa and Latin America. In the United States, they are distorting the Constitution by suing state governments that have passed labelling laws for GMO (genetically modified) foods by claiming that the citizens’ right to know what they eat is superseded by the biotech industry’s right to impose hazardous foods on uninformed consumers as the freedom of speech of a corporation, as if it were a natural person.

Their PR machine is deployed to unscientifically attack scientists working on biosafety, such as Árpád Pusztai, Ignacio Chapela, Irina Ermakova, Éric Séralini and myself. Many journalists, having no scientific background themselves, have become soldiers in this PR assault. Privileged white men like Mark Lynas, Jon Entine and Michael Specter, with no practical experience in agriculture, armed only with BA degrees and ties to corporate-controlled media, are being used to undermine real scientific findings about the impact of GMOs on our health and ecosystems.

Biotech industry uses its PR puppets to falsely claim that GMOs are a solution to world hunger. This denialism of real scientific debate about how living systems evolve and adapt, is backed by an aggressive and massive PR assault, including the use of intelligence agencies such as Blackwater.

In 2010, Forbes named me one of the seven most powerful women in the world for “putting women front and centre to solve the issue of food security in the developing world”. In 2014, Jon Entine, a journalist, wrote an “opinion” piece on the Forbes website, falsely claiming that I have not studied physics. While I have studied physics at a post-graduate level and done my doctorate on the foundations of quantum theory, I have spent 40 years studying ecology in India’s farms and forests, with nature and wise peasants as my teachers. This is the basis of my expertise in agroecology and biosafety.

Good science and proven technologies do not need PRs, intelligence agencies or corrupt governments to prove the facts.

If unfounded attacks on a scientist from a developing country by a non-scientist is one of their tools in shaping the future, they have got it all wrong. They don’t see the growing citizens’ outrage against Monsanto’s monopoly.

In sovereign countries, where the might of Monsanto and friends is limited, the people and their governments are rejecting their monopoly and failed technology. But this news is suppressed by the PR machine.

Russia has completely banned GMOs with deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev saying, “If the Americans like to eat GMO products, let them eat it then. We don’t need to do that; we have enough space and opportunities to produce organic food”.

China has banned GMOs in military food supplies. Italy has just passed a law, Campo libre, making planting GMO crops punishable with a prison sentence of one to three years and a fine of 10,000-30,000 euros. Italian minister of agriculture Nunzia De Girolamo said in a statement: “Our agriculture is based on biodiversity, on quality, and we must continue to aim for these without ventures that, even from the economic point of view, wouldn’t make us competitive.”

PR pieces in Forbes and the New Yorker cannot stop the awakening of millions of farmers and consumers to the very real dangers of genetically-modified organisms in our food and the shortcomings and failures of the industrial food system which is destroying the planet and our health.

© 2014 The Asian Age

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist and eco feminist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. She is author of numerous books including, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis; Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply; Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace; and Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development. Shiva has also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as NGOs, including the International Forum on Globalization, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Third World Network. She has received numerous awards, including 1993 Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) and the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize.

Source:  http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/01/fine-print-food-wars

DEFAZIO LEADS 50 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS FIGHTING 2,4-D "AGENT ORANGE" FOOD CROP PESTICIDE USE

50 Members of Congress Sound Alarm Over Toxic Weed-Killer

Aug 1, 2014

Press Release

‘Agent Orange’ crops linked to damaging health and environmental effects

Washington, DC- With just weeks before a final decision is to be made, 50 members of Congress, led by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reject new GE herbicide-resistant crops and the subsequent use of extraordinarily potent weed-killer designed to kill the “superweeds” that have adapted to withstand Monsanto’s RoundUp. The herbicide, Dow’s Enlist Duo, contains 2, 4-D, the same compound used in Agent Orange that sickened many Vietnam veterans.
Members are concerned EPA and USDA have failed to properly analyze the potentially devastating health and environmental effects of allowing the use of this next generation of herbicide-resistant crops. As the letter to the EPA and the USDA states, the scientific community warned about the dangers of exposure to 2, 4-D for decades. 2, 4-D is linked to cancer, decreased sperm count liver disease and Parkinson’s disease.  A recent report shows thousands of schools would be next to spray zones.
“Right now, we are witnessing agribusiness attempt to wield its powerful influence over federal regulators. They want EPA and USDA to rubberstamp another set of genetically engineered crops rather than listen to the scientific community,” DeFazio said. “We must stop this toxic treadmill because the health of our children and our environment is at stake.”
"The introduction of Roundup Ready GE crops in the 90s sparked a frightening increase in the amount of herbicides in this country.  There's no reason to think that the deregulation of 2,4-D resistant plants will be any different," said Pingree. "The overuse of these powerful herbicides has led to superweeds that require an even stronger cocktail of toxic chemicals to control.  When will it end?  Today, it's Enlist 'Duo.'  Tomorrow, it could be 'Triple' or 'Quintet.'  The federal government needs to take a hard look at ending this destructive cycle."
The full letter to EPA and USDA is below.

July 31, 2014

The Honorable Thomas J. Vilsack
Secretary, Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20250

The Honorable Gina McCarthy
Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460

Dear Secretary Vilsack and Administrator McCarthy,

We write to you to express our grave concerns regarding your agencies’ proposed decisions to register the Enlist Duo herbicide as well as deregulate new varieties of genetically engineered (GE) crops engineered to withstand exposure to the active ingredients glyphosate and 2,4-D.  We believe that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have failed to thoroughly analyze and address the risks of Enlist Duo and the multiple adverse human health, environmental, agronomic, and socioeconomic harms that approval of 2,4-D crops will likely cause.

We currently stand at an agricultural crossroads. The first generation of “Roundup Ready” GE crops increased herbicide use by 527 million pounds between 1996 and 2011, triggering an epidemic of glyphosate-resistant “superweeds” which now infest over 61 million acres across 36 states. 2,4-D crops are among the “next-generation” of GE crops engineered to withstand applications of older, more toxic herbicides. While they are often touted as a solution to herbicide-resistant weeds, even the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) recognizes in its draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that deregulating 2,4-D crops will spur the further evolution of  2,4-D resistant weeds and cause a three to seven fold increase in 2,4-D use.

The scientific community has sounded alarms about exposure to 2,4-D for decades. 2,4-D has been linked to multiple adverse health effects including cancer (especially non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma), decreased sperm count, liver disease and Parkinson’s disease. Further, exposure has also been shown to negatively impact the hormonal, reproductive, neurological and immune systems. In addition, EPA has reported that 2,4-D is the seventh largest source of dioxins in the United States. Dioxins are extremely toxic chemicals, and their bioaccumulation in the food chain may potentially lead to dangerous levels of exposure.

We are also concerned that EPA failed to thoroughly examine all of the significant health and environmental risks of 2,4-D including that of inhalation and aggregate exposure; the risks of 2,4-D exposure to threatened and endangered species; and the risks posed by shifts in use patterns of 2,4-D as a result of the GE cropping systems. Most alarming is EPA’s failure to apply the additional safety factor of 10x, as mandated under the Food Quality Protection Act, to protect children, who are especially susceptible to harm from pesticide exposure. The 10-fold safety factor is required by law to safeguard against the potential health risks for young children and infants that would result from the widespread use of 2,4-D on GE crops.

In deciding to prepare a DEIS before proceeding, USDA APHIS recognized that its proposed approval of Dow’s 2,4-D crops will likely cause significant environmental, agronomic and socioeconomic harms. 

Despite acknowledging these significant harms, in the DEIS, APHIS alleges it “must” approve the proposed crops pursuant to the Plant Protection Act (PPA), because they do not create “plant pest” harms. However in so doing APHIS has narrowly constrained its interpretation of its regulation. This overly narrow and arbitrary interpretation of APHIS’s authority is contrary to common sense and good governance principles, as well as contradicts prior acknowledgments by APHIS that its GE crop review is “considerably broader” than its review of “traditional” plant pests. Rather, APHIS has authority over broadly defined harms to agriculture and the environment that it must apply to Dow’s crops and their acknowledged adverse impacts. 

Surveys of state pesticide regulators establish that 2,4-D drift is already responsible for more episodes of crop damage than any other pesticide. Vastly increased use with approval of 2,4-D crops would correspondingly increase crop damage, putting farmers of sensitive crops at grave risk. Wild plants, waterways and wildlife – including pollinator – habitat would also be threatened.  2,4-D is a quite potent plant-killer, even at levels typical of drift.  EPA tests show that 2,4-D is over 400 times more toxic to emerging seedlings and 12 times more toxic to growing plants than glyphosate.

While APHIS admits that transgenic contamination because of its proposed action is possible, even likely, it refuses to analyze it. We believe that contamination will occur and it will result in significant economic harm to conventional, organic and even some growers of the first generation of glyphosate-resistant GE crops. Yet, the agency wrongly puts the entire burden on non-2,4-D crop farmers to attempt to avoid contamination.

We request that USDA and EPA fully review the facts, law, and science in this case. As the over 400,000 public comments indicate, the risks of approving 2,4-D crops are simply too great and benefits too few to jeopardize public health, the environment and the long-term sustainability of our food supply. We therefore request EPA not register Enlist Duo for use on 2,4-D crops and USDA maintain the regulated status for 2,4-D resistant crops.

Sincerely,

__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Peter DeFazio                                                              Chellie Pingree
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress

__________________________                                                   ___________________________
John Conyers Jr.                                                           Marcy Kaptur
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Louise Slaughter                                                           Nita Lowey
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Rosa DeLauro                                                              James Moran
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Maxine Waters                                                 Sam Farr
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Betty McCollum                                                           Michael Michaud
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Jerrold Nadler                                                              Anna G. Eshoo
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Bobby Rush                                                                 Zoe Lofgren
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Earl Blumenauer                                                           James P. McGovern
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Eleanor Holmes Norton                                                Bill Pascrell Jr.
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Barbara Lee                                                                 Grace Napolitano
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Jan Schakowsky                                                           Mike Honda
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
James Langevin                                                            Adam Schiff
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Stephen Lynch                                                  Raul Grijalva
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Tim Ryan                                                                      Gwen Moore
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Debbie Wasserman Schultz                                           Yvette D. Clarke
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress




__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Keith Ellison                                                                 Jackie Speier
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Charles Rangel                                                 Carol Shea-Porter
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress


__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Ann McLane Kuster                                                     Gerald Connolly
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Jared Polis                                                                    Paul Tonko
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Mike Quigley                                                                Judy Chu
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
David Cicilline                                                  Alan Grayson
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Dina Titus                                                                     Matt Cartwright
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                   ___________________________
Jared Huffman                                                              Alan Lowenthal
Member of Congress                                                    Member of Congress



__________________________                                                  
Mark Pocan                                                                
Member of Congress                                                   

###
SOURCE:  http://defazio.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/50-members-of-congress-sound-alarm-over-toxic-weed-killer

SAVING SEEDS - NOW CONSIDERED "AGRO-TERRORISM"

Published on

Monday, August 04, 2014

by

Common Dreams

'Agri-Terrorism'? Town's Seed Library Shut Down

Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture tells Mechanicsburg library its seed library is a violation

by Andrea Germanos, staff writer

The Digging Durham Seed Library.  (Photo:  david silver)

A public library in small Pennsylvania town offered a new public resource for its patrons: a seed library. That is, until the state Department of Agriculture pulled the rug out from under the plan.
Launched on April 26, the seed library at Mechanicsburg's Joseph T. Simpson Public Library would have held all heirloom, and preferable organic, seed. Its first seed trove, with help from the Cumberland County Commission for Women, came from Seed Savers Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving heirloom seeds.
Library patrons could "check out" the seeds to plant, and, if all went well, at the end of the plant's growing season, they'd save its seeds and return them to the library to replenish the stock. If the crop failed or the borrowers were just unable to save seeds, they were allowed to bring back store-bought heirloom seeds instead.
In the process of this seed library circulation, patrons would be bringing a new use to the library space, exchanging seeds with their community members and practicing the art of saving seeds — something farmers have done for years but which stands at odds with proprietary seeds.
"People have been really excited to have this opportunity to borrow seeds," Adult Services Director Rebecca Swanger told local news ABC27 in May. "That way they don't have to purchase a whole packet of seeds and end up not using a lot of them."
According to reporting by the Carlisle Sentinel on July 31, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture sent a letter to the library stating that the seed library violated the state's Seed Act of 2004.
While the Act focuses on seeds that are sold, Cumberland County Library System Executive Director Jonelle Darr told The Sentinel that there could also be a problem with seeds being mislabeled and potentially invasive, and noted that the Department indicated it would "crack down" at other seed libraries within the state.
The Sentinel continues:

[Cumberland County] commissioner Barbara Cross noted that such seed libraries on a large scale could very well pose a danger.
“Agri-terrorism is a very, very real scenario,” she said. “Protecting and maintaining the food sources of America is an overwhelming challenge ... so you’ve got agri-tourism on one side and agri-terrorism on the other.”

But not all towns seem to agree with Cross' take that seed libraries pose a danger, as a wave of emerging seed libraries is emerging in towns across the country including Alameda and Richmond, California, Basalt, Colorado and LaCrosse, Wisconsin.
It makes sense, really, that these public institutions would be involved in seed libraries. As the Duluth, Minnesota seed library states in its values: "Public libraries play a vital role in communities as a repository for a diversity of ideas and shared knowledge for the public good. Similarly, seed is a public resource and shared legacy – it must be managed in a manner that benefits the public good."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Source:  http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/08/04/agri-terrorism-towns-seed-library-shut-down