$36 BILLION CUT IN HEALTHY FOOD PROGRAMS OK WITH YOU?? HAVE YOUR SAY!

May 14, 2012   Tell Your Representative Cuts to Nutrition Programs are Unacceptable! Last week, the House of Representatives voted to cut almost $36 billion from federal nutrition programs. The vote was part of a partisan budget reconciliation process and it will not become law, but it gives CFSC members a perfect opportunity to let members of the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee know that: We oppose draconian cuts to nutrition programs We have better ideas to build community food security. Click here now to tell the House Agriculture Committee what you want in the 2012 Farm Bill! (The comment period closes on May 20, 2012.) Here are some ideas to get you started: A $36 million cut to SNAP is not the way to go. The Committee should focus on writing a Farm Bill that creates economic opportunity and improves access to healthy, affordable food for all Americans.   CFSC members had important wins in the Senate’s Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act and the House Agriculture Committee should include them in their bill. Community Food Projects Program – $10 million per year to help communities build food self-reliance. Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program – $20 million per year to develop farmers market capacity and create food hubs to connect farmers with schools, hospitals, grocery stores and other markets. Hunger-Free Community Incentive Grants – An average of $20 million per year for a new SNAP local fruit and vegetable incentive grant program at farmers markets and other healthy food retailers. Outreach and Technical Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers Program (Section 2501) – The Senate bill includes only $5 million per year for this program, less than half the funding level in the 2008 Farm Bill. Tell the House Agriculture Committee that this important program deserves more support. (Read more about the program here.) Questions? Please contact CFSC Policy Office: 202-481-6933. Thank you for your help! Community Food Security Coalition

Community Food Security Coalition 110 Maryland Ave. NE Suite 108 Washington, DC 20002  (202) 481-6933 | www.FoodSecurity.org The Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3), North American organization dedicated to building strong, sustainable, local and regional food systems that ensure access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food for all people at all times. We seek to develop self-reliance among all communities in obtaining their food and to create a system of growing, manufacturing, processing, making available, and selling food that is regionally based and grounded in the principles of justice, democracy, and sustainability.

OCCUPY COMMUNITY-FAMILY FARM- UC BERKELY SHUTDOWN - SIGN PETITION TO STOP THEM!

Farm Protesters Land Seized by UC Berkeley

by Alison Hope Alkon
Published on Monday, May 14, 2012 by Civil Eats

The newly established farm on UC Berkeley-owned Gill Tract will soon be empty. At the time of this writing, it is surrounded by riot police from at least 8 different UC Campus police forces. Nine have been arrested. This is the end to a standoff that began on Friday, when the police blocked farmers from entering or leaving, forcing supporters to toss food and water over the fence. In addition, the UC has filed suit against 14 individuals and 150 additional unnamed persons.

The farm began with a celebration of life, the planet and the people’s right help determine the fate of a place owned by a state-supported institution. Three weeks ago on, Earth Day, a group of 200 volunteers occupied the Gill Tract. The multi-generational crew planted two acres of vegetables, including a children’s garden, and began to offer workshops on sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty. A small encampment sprang up, but organizers insisted it be limited only to those doing the everyday work of maintaining the farm.

The land in question is a 10-acre parcel that comprises the last remaining class 1 agricultural soil in the East Bay. Despite years of community action favoring the creation of a research site specializing in urban and organic agriculture, the land is slated to be sold for development. 

Even as the occupation phase ends, the farm represents a cross-pollination between the food movement’s embrace of sustainable and urban agriculture and the occupy movement’s emphasis on direct action and democratic control of resources.

This occupation is a direct confrontation with a university that, according to the occupiers, has long ignored its public mandate in the pursuit of profit. It is an attempt to seize a piece of land that is publicly owned in name only, and use it for the public good. It is an exercise in land reform, demanding that “farmland is for farming,” and insisting that because farming this land is the right thing to do, the occupiers have every right to do it. It remains to be seen whether some kind of agreement might allow the farming to continue once the occupation has ended. The land is currently used by UC researchers. Some explore agroecology while others conduct basic research on gene mutations that, if successful, will likely aid the development of GMO crops. But the tract is large enough that the occupy farm could remain while that research is conducted.

Occupy the farm is one of a handful of efforts that can reenergize a food movement that has become satisfied with its own success. Supporters of the food movement have become content to “vote with our dollars” in favor of local and organic alternatives, for small farms and farmers markets. But for all the good they do, these vibrant alternatives have not confronted the system head on. No farmers market places limits on the power of corporate agribusiness. No community sponsored agriculture program interferes with industrial farming’s ability to exert its influence on the way that agriculture is governed. Alternatives build power, but they cannot seize power from the systems that currently hold it.

Occupy the Farm represents a new way forward for the food movement, one that moves beyond support for alternatives to confront an important player in the industrial food system.  It’s a chance to vote, not with our dollars, but with our voices, for the kind of agriculture we want to create and the kind of society we want to be.

Here are some actions that Occupy the Farm has asked for in support:

Sign the online petition:  Show the UC Berkeley administration that you support the vision of Occupy the Farm – and call on them to stop police action so that the farmers may continue to farm!  Click here for the petition.

If you are an organization or group that wants to support: Endorse the collective letter of support, being signed by organizations, alliances and groups nation-wide. To sign on, please email occupythefarmletter@gmail.com.

Take more land, wherever you live: Wherever community needs are not being fulfilled and traditional avenues of change have failed, take space at the required scale to meet these needs. Occupy. Make Productive. Contest the Title.   

Stay updated:
–Twitter: @OccupyFarm
–Facebook: Occupy the Farm –Sign up for text message alerts if you’re local: Text “gilltractfarm” to 41411.
–Email list: send a message to GillTractFarm@riseup.net with “listserve” in the subject line to be added to the email list.

Donate to the Farm: Click here to find a link to their online donations page, as well as a current list of needed materials.

Learn more: www.OccupyTheFarm.org

© 2012 Civil Eats

Alison Hope Alkon is a sociologist who writes about food systems, inequalities and environmental justice. She is author of the forthcoming book Black White and Green: Farmers Markets, Race and the Green Economy and co-editor of Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and Sustainability. She teaches at University of the Pacific.
SOURCE:   http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/14-6

HOME, HOME ON THE CAFO - SUBSIDIZED DESTRUCTION DOUBLED

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 14, 2012 5:13 PM

CONTACT: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337

Livestock's Heavy Hooves Impair One-Third of BLM Rangelands

33 million Acres of BLM Grazing Allotments Fail Basic Rangeland Health Standards

WASHINGTON - May 14 - A new federal assessment of rangelands in the West finds a disturbingly large portion fails to meet range health standards principally due to commercial livestock operations (CAFO's confined animal feeding operations - Clean Food Earth Woman), according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  In the last decade as more land has been assessed, estimates of damaged lands have doubled in the 13-state Western area where the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) conducts major livestock leasing.     

The “Rangeland Inventory, Monitoring and Evaluation Report for Fiscal Year 2011” covers BLM allotments in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.  The report totals BLM acreage failing to meet rangeland health standards in measures such as water quality, watershed functionality and wildlife habitat:

• Almost 40% of BLM allotments surveyed since 1998 have failed to meet the agency’s own required land health standards with impairment of more than 33 million acres, an area exceeding the State of Alabama in size, attributed to livestock grazing;
• Overall, 30% of BLM’s allotment area surveyed to date suffers from significant livestock-induced damage, suggesting that once the remaining allotments have been surveyed, the total impaired area could well be larger than the entire State of Washington; and
• While factors such as drought, fire, invasion by non-native plants, and sprawl are important, livestock grazing is identified by BLM experts as the primary cause (nearly 80%) of BLM lands not meeting health standards.

“Livestock’s huge toll inflicted on our public lands is a hidden subsidy which industry is never asked to repay,” stated PEER Advocacy Director Kirsten Stade, noting that the percentage of impairment in lands assessed remains fairly consistent over the past decade.  “The more we learn about actual conditions, the longer is the ecological casualty list.”

Last November, PEER filed a scientific integrity complaint that BLM had directed scientists to exclude livestock grazing as a factor in changing landscapes as part of a $40 million study, the biggest such effort ever undertaken by BLM.  The complaint was referred to a newly appointed Scientific Integrity Officer for BLM but there are no reports of progress in the agency’s self-investigation in the ensuing months.

At the same time, BLM range evaluations, such as this latest one, use ambiguous categories that mask actual conditions, employing vague terms such as “making significant progress” and “appropriate action has been taken to ensure significant progress” that obscure damage estimates and inflate the perception of restoration progress.  For example, in 2001 nearly 60% of BLM lands (94 million acres, an area larger than Montana) consisted of grazing allotments that were supposed to be managed to “improve the current resource condition” – a number that has stayed unchanged for a decade.

“Commercial livestock operations are clearly a major force driving degradation of wild places, jeopardy to wildlife, major loss of water quality and growing desertification throughout the American West,” Stade added, while noting that BLM has historically been dominated by livestock interests.  “The BLM can no longer remain in denial on the declining health of our vast open range.”

###

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals. PEER's environmental work is solely directed by the needs of its members. As a consequence, we have the distinct honor of serving resource professionals who daily cast profiles in courage in cubicles across the country.
SOURCE:   http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/05/14-11

STILL COOKING WITH "NON-STICK?" FUGEDDABOUUUDIT!

Non-Stick Cookware
Dangers – Why You Should Avoid this Cookware

Patrick Gallagher
NaturalSociety
May 10, 2012    Yet another item to toss from your home is one that has become regarded as the best method of cooking out there – non-stick cookware. Using non-stick cookware sure makes cooking easier and more convenient, but is the average person aware of the harm revolving around this cookware? Unlike iron or ceramic pots and pans, this type of cooking vesicle can transmit a toxic chemical through the air that you breathe in. Before continuing to use non-stick cookware, be aware of the many non-stick cookware dangers.

Chemical Compounds: PFOS, PFOA, and PTFE

Most notable of the non-stick cookware dangers, chemical compounds known as perfluorinated compounds are emitted from using this cookware. Once the compounds become heated, they are considered to be a potentially deadly vapor gas if taken in too quickly. Perfluorinated compounds are amongst many non stick surfaces, as well as in popcorn packaging, french fry boxing, candy bar wrappers as well as  other various food items. It is best to stay away from anything that may contain perfluorinated compounds in them.

Along with PFOAs, another toxic chemical known as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) are actually capable of killing birds. The chemical responsible for the biological damage, which has been shown to cause many problems in animals, has been found in the bloodstream of 95 percent of Americans.

Low Birth Weight in Infants

To add to the non-stick cookware dangers, a direct correlation between PFOA and low birth-weight has been found, affecting newborns around the globe. The full effects of C8 (further abbreviated name of PFOA) exposure went under study, under the lead of a Dr. Goldman of John Hopkins University. Though the results came to be conclusive about the low birth weight and other deformations found in infant children, the Teflon chemical still persists as the prime ingredient in non-stick surfaces.

Thyroid disease, oxidization of DNA in organs

The teflon compound, when released into the air around you and integrated into the bloodstream through ingestion, can pose a serious risk for thyroid damage while also negatively impacting DNA. The results from a study taken in Tokyo have found that these chemicals are at the very least carcinogenic, if not potentially more deadly on a larger timescale. Obviously people that have been using conventional products like candy wrappers and popcorn bags for the past century are at a greater risk for toxic exposure, but it should not be overlooked as something minor by any means.

So while non-stick cookware is convenient, is it really worth exposing yourself to the many non-stick cookware dangers? As a precaution, you may want to put aside the non-stick cooking ‘essentials’ and use something tried and true as a method for cooking their foods, just as a precaution and to hopefully enrich their lives further.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/non-stick-cookware-dangers-why-avoid-this-cookware/#ixzz1uxYlCQL0
Source:  http://naturalsociety.com/non-stick-cookware-dangers-why-avoid-this-cookware/

DOMINO'S: STOP BUYING CRUELTY-RAISED ,IVESTOCK!

Dear Clean Food Earth Woman,

I love pizza -- double pepperoni with cheese from Domino's used to be a guilty pleasure when a craving struck. But since I found out Domino's buys meat from factory farms that abuse pigs before they become pepperoni, I haven’t been able to touch a slice.

On these farms, pregnant pigs spend their lives trapped in stalls barely bigger than their bodies, called "gestation crates." They can’t even turn around. Soon after they give birth, they’re re-impregnated. And once their bodies can’t physically endure the constant pregnancies and confinement any longer, they’re killed. 

While other major brands like McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King have all promised to phase out these cruel practices, Domino’s is continuing to profit from this horrific suffering. So I started a petition on Change.org asking Domino’s to stop buying meat from factory farms that use gestation crates. Will you join me?

I hadn’t realized what tortured lives these animals lead -- until the Humane Society of the United States released an undercover video of abuse at factory farm just a few days ago. The pigs are treated like nothing more than production units, and video footage of piglets being physically abused actually made me feel ill. I couldn’t even get to the end. 

Domino’s can take an incredibly simple step to help eliminate this sort of cruelty. It’s the second largest pizza chain in the world, and eliminating gestation crates will set an incredibly powerful example. Even better, as a huge company buying literally tons of food, if Domino’s changes its practices to stop buying meat from abused animals, others will be forced to follow. 

Public pressure has already convinced major brands like McDonald’s and Wendy’s to do the right thing, and I know that if Domino’s hears from thousands of its own consumers, it will have to follow their lead.

Click here to sign my petition asking Domino’s to stop buying meat from farms that use cruel gestation crates.

Thanks for your support,

Rina Khadivi

$6.3 MILLION - 2011 FRANKEN-LOBBYING GONE WILD

Monsanto's Deep Roots in Washington

By Russ Choma, Open Secrets

12 May 12

Genetically modified (GM) crops. (illustration: Melvyn Calderon/Greenpeace)

t's planting season, which brings to mind one of the most ubiquitous names in agribusiness: Monsanto.  Love it or hate it - and there are plenty of people on either side - the company controls much of the agricultural market, and also sells products for the suburban yard such as the weed-killer Roundup. Roundup is the core of Monsanto's agricultural breakthrough: The company produces genetically modified seeds that are resistant to the herbicide, making it easy for farmers to spray whole fields of soy or corn and kill only the weeds. Food production made easy.

On the flip side, environmentalists and organic food fans maintain there are too many unknowns and potential dangers involved with genetic modification. Monsanto, which last year had revenues of $11.8 billion, has become their bogeyman.

But such efforts as grassroots petitions and proposed legislation to require at least the labeling of genetically modified food have thus far withered on the vine next to Monsanto's deeply rooted Washington presence, which has proved resistant to most lines of attack.

According to OpenSecrets.org data, in the first three months of this year, Monsanto spent $1.4 million lobbying Washington - and spent about $6.3 million total last year, more than any other agribusiness firm except the tobacco company Altria.

Monsanto's interests in Washington are diverse. It lobbied bills ranging from the American Research and Competitiveness Act of 2011, which would extend tax credits for companies doing research, to several bills that would change the way the Department of Homeland Security handles security at chemical facilities - chemicals being a big part of Monsanto's product portfolio.

And just as important as Monsanto's legislative agenda for 2011 and 2012 is its regulatory one: the company's lobbying reports list the departments and agencies it visited to talk to federal bureaucrats and appointees as they wrote rules to implement and enforce Congress' handiwork. That explains why Monsanto reports having lobbied the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and many other executive branch offices.

The FDA currently is the target of a petition signed by more than 1 million people, according to a sponsor known as Just Label It, asking the agency to require that genetically engineered food be labeled as such. The petition, sponsored by a coalition of environmental and food groups, is an attempt by activists to make an end-run around Monsanto's Washington operation - a necessity because their lobbying dollars pale in comparison to the cash spent by Monsanto and others in the industry. For instance, one of the coalition members, the Environmental Working Group, has spent just $82,000 on lobbying this year - or about 5 percent of Monsanto's total.

"The power of Monsanto, whether in the halls of Washington, or in farm country, should not be ignored," said Environmental Working Group spokesman Alex Formuzis. "Monsanto comes armed with some of the deepest pockets and a bench of influential lobbyists, which makes the coalition's efforts over GMO labeling on behalf of consumers a very tough fight indeed."

Another upcoming matter of great interest to Monsanto: the new farm bill, an omnibus piece of legislation that sets the nation's agricultural policy and deals with nearly every aspect of the country's farming and food industries. The current bill expires in 2013; when it went through Congress, Monsanto filed more lobbying reports on it than any other organization. The process of piecing together a new proposal is already well under way.

The company's access to members of Congress who are likely to be key in shaping the final legislation may be eased by the contributions of its very active PAC, the Monsanto Citizenship Fund. Already this cycle it has spent $383,000. The biggest recipient of that money so far is Rep. Frank D. Lucas (R-Okla.) who has received $20,000 from Monsanto's PAC - $10,000 for his campaign committee and $10,000 for his leadership PAC. Lucas happens to be the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee - no farm-related legislation is passed without his say-so.

Monsanto has hedged its investment with the agriculture committee, though - it also gave $13,500 to Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), the top-ranking Democrat on the committee. So far this election cycle, Monsanto's PAC has given $77,500 to 17 members of the House 

agriculture committee, or their leadership PACs.

SOURCE:   http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/11397-focus-monsantos-deep-roots-in-washington  

COLLEGE RESEARCH DICTATED BY CORPORATE INTERESTS

AlterNet / By Jill Richardson

37 COMMENTS

How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education

Academic research is often dictated by corporations that endow professorships, give money to universities, and put their executives on education boards.

May 11, 2012  |  

 

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/mostafa fawzy

 

 

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Here’s what happens when corporations begin to control education.

"When I approached professors to discuss research projects addressing organic agriculture in farmer's markets, the first one told me that 'no one cares about people selling food in parking lots on the other side of the train tracks,’” said a PhD student at a large land-grant university who did not wish to be identified. “My academic adviser told me my best bet was to write a grant for Monsanto or the Department of Homeland Security to fund my research on why farmer's markets were stocked with 'black market vegetables' that 'are a bioterrorism threat waiting to happen.' It was communicated to me on more than one occasion throughout my education that I should just study something Monsanto would fund rather than ideas to which I was deeply committed. I ended up studying what I wanted, but received no financial support, and paid for my education out of pocket."

Unfortunately, she's not alone. Conducting research requires funding, and today's research follows the golden rule: The one with the gold makes the rules.

A report just released by Food and Water Watch examines the role of corporate funding of agricultural research at land grant universities, of which there are more than 100. “You hear again and again Congress and regulators clamoring for science-based rules, policies, regulations,” says Food and Water Watch researcher Tim 

Schwab, explaining why he began investigating corporate influence in agricultural research. “So if the rules and regulations and policies are based on science that is industry-biased, then the fallout goes beyond academic articles. It really trickles down to farmer livelihoods and consumer choice.”

The report found that nearly one quarter of research funding at land grant universities now comes from corporations, compared to less than 15 percent from the USDA. Although corporate funding of research surpassed USDA funding at these universities in the mid-1990s, the gap is now larger than ever. What's more, a broader look at all corporate agricultural research, $7.4 billion in 2006, dwarfs the mere $5.7 billion in all public funding of agricultural research spent the same year.

Influence does not end with research funding, however. In 2005, nearly one third of agricultural scientists reported consulting for private industry. Corporations endow professorships and donate money to universities in return for having buildings, labs and wings named for them. Purdue University's Department of Nutrition Science blatantly offers corporate affiliates “corporate visibility with students and faculty” and “commitment by faculty and administration to address [corporate] members' needs,” in return for the $6,000 each corporate affiliate pays annually.

In perhaps the most egregious cases, corporate boards and college leadership overlap. In 2009, South Dakota State's president, for example, joined the board of directors of Monsanto, where he earns six figures each year. Bruce Rastetter is simultaneously the co-founder and managing director of a company called AgriSol Energy and a member of the Iowa Board of Regents. Under his influence, Iowa State joined AgriSol in a venture in Tanzania that would have forcefully removed 162,000 people from their land, but the university later pulled out of the project after public outcry.

What is the impact of the flood of corporate cash? “We know from a number of meta-analyses, that corporate funding leads to results that are favorable to the corporate funder,” says Schwab. For example, one peer-reviewed study found that corporate-funded nutrition research on soft drinks, juice and milk were four to eight times more likely to reach conclusions in line with the sponsors' interests. And when a scrupulous scientist publishes research that is unfavorable to the study's funder, he or she should be prepared to look for a new source of funding.

Continue Reading: Source:    http://www.alternet.org/story/155375/how_corporations_like_monsanto_have_hijacked_higher_education?akid=8773.296296.94cNba&rd=1&t=5