Friends of Rural New York

Quaid City Times
Factory farms should be locally regulated
By Rich and Sue Sievers, Odebolt

Why don’t our state representatives act on the needs of their constituents? A Des Moines Register survey shows that over 70 percent of Iowans prefer local control (county level) over the construction of factory farms, as opposed to state control. This is exactly what House File 77 would provide, but the state legislature refuses to bring it to a vote.

Iowans should come together and decide at a county level whether or not a factory farm should be built. Local people know the land and their communities better than anyone.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement members want to protect rural residents, family farmers and the environment. It is time our state legislators pass HF 77 and give the choice to the people who will be affected by the factory farms, not the bureaucrats in Des Moines.

If you can’t imagine life without a daily dose of dairy, consider new research that questions the value----if not the safety----of this dietary staple
Julie Deardorff


February 5, 2006

You know it like the Pledge of Allegiance: “Milk helps build strong teeth and bones.”

But does it really? Or, as nutrition researchers from Harvard and Cornell Universities are radically suggesting: Have we all been duped by the dairy industry’s slick, celebrity-driven “got milk?” advertising campaign?

Milk, the sacred cow of the American diet, is under attack and not just by animal-rights activists. Though federal dietary guidelines and most mainstream nutrition experts recommend that people age 9 or older drink three glasses of milk a day, researchers are examining the role of dairy in everything from rising osteoporosis rates, Type 1 diabetes and heart disease to breast, prostate and ovarian cancer.

Last March, the journal Pediatrics published a review article concluding that there is “scant evidence” that consuming more milk and dairy products will promote child and adolescent bone health. Some leading practitioners of integrative medicine, including best-selling author Dr. Andrew Weil, suggest eliminating dairy products from the diet to help treat irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, eczema and ear infections. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock reversed his support of cow’s milk for children in 1998 in his last edition of his world-famous book “Baby and Child Care.”

One fact is indisputable: Our bodies need the mineral calcium to build and maintain bones and teeth. Calcium also helps with blood clotting, muscle function and regulation of the heart’s rhythm. The debate centers on whether milk is really the best--or even a necessary--source. Ten thousand or so years ago, cow’s milk was not part of the human diet.

Whom do you believe?

For consumers, the issue is profoundly confusing, especially when it comes to osteoporosis. On one hand, we’ve had it hammered home since grammar school that milk is a health food. We’re told that increasing calcium intake by drinking milk will prevent osteoporosis, the weakening of bones.

But researchers Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, and T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, say there is little evidence that shows boosting your calcium intake to the currently recommended levels will prevent fractures.

Willett, who co-authored “The Nurses’ Health Studies,” one of the largest investigations into the risk factors for major chronic diseases in women, found that women with the highest calcium consumption from dairy products actually had substantially more fractures than women who drank less milk.

Campbell, who like Willett comes from a dairy-farming family, found the same thing after spending several decades surveying health-related effects of a plant-based diet and death rates from cancer in more than 2,400 Chinese counties.

Both men say there is no calcium emergency; Americans get plenty. And they argue that the unnecessary focus on calcium prevents us from using strategies that really work in the fight against osteoporosis, including getting enough exercise and vitamin D and avoiding too much vitamin A.

“The higher the consumption of dairy, animal protein and calcium, the higher the fracture rate--an indisputable observation in my view,” said Campbell, whose life work is compiled in “The China Study” (Benbella Books, $24.95), one of the most comprehensive nutritional studies undertaken.

The link between milk and cancers is sketchier--peer-reviewed studies back both pro- and anti-dairy viewpoints--though a growing body of evidence has shown that animal-based foods are associated with prostate cancer, possibly because of the high intake of calcium and phosphorus, Campbell said.

The dairy industry, the federal government and most conventional registered dietitians and nutritionists say just the opposite. Milk is more than just calcium; it’s a relatively cheap little package of fat, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and minerals.

Some research shows calcium may help protect against colon cancer and high blood pressure. A large-scale government study called DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) found that a balanced, low-fat diet rich in fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy foods may help reduce blood pressure as effectively as some medications.

The calcium from some vegetables such as broccoli, bok choy and kale is absorbed as well as or better than calcium from milk and milk products, according to the National Dairy Council’s Calcium Counseling Resource. But the report also says that to get the same amount of calcium absorbed from 1 cup of milk, one would have to eat nearly 2 1/2 cups of broccoli or 8 cups of spinach.

“The advantage of dairy is that it’s convenient, and children are more likely to consume it over broccoli and prunes,” said Jeanette Newton Keith, a gastroenterologist at the University of Chicago. She advocates a whole-food diet and recommends dairy as part of the DASH plan.

“Anti-dairy groups say you don’t need it in the diet. Unfortunately, 83 percent of the calcium in our diets comes from dairy foods,” Keith said.

Though dairy is high in saturated fat, the dairy industry claims that low-fat dairy products can encourage weight loss. During the last few years it has spent millions on a controversial “got milk?” advertising campaign, using milk-mustachioed figures such as television’s Dr. Phil McGraw.

In response, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) filed false-labeling petitions last June with the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration. They maintain that the “got milk?” weight-loss ads are “dishonest,” because scientific evidence contradicts the claims. The dairy industry based its assertion largely on the work of University of Tennessee researcher Michael Zemel, who received funding from the Dairy Council and who also has patented a weight-loss program using calcium.

(The PCRM, which includes about 5,000 physicians among its 100,000 members, is often accused of “having ties” with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PETA]. In fact, it’s a separate organization from PETA and separately funded, though the groups have similar ideologies, said Amy Joy Lanou, PCRM’s senior nutrition scientist and the author of the review in Pediatrics that found that milk products didn’t necessarily promote bone health in children.)

An overlapping focus

“Our work promoting preventive medicine through healthy eating--with a focus on a plant-based diet--does overlap with PETA’s work in the sense that they also are promoting vegetarian and vegan diets and compassionate living,” said Lanou, an assistant professor of nutrition in the department of health and wellness at the University of North Carolina.

For Mickey Hornick of Chicago, showing kindness toward other creatures was the reason he began considering a dairy-free lifestyle. But he eventually turned vegan for health reasons.

“I was often congested and had asthma-like symptoms,” he said. “When I removed all dairy from my diet, my breathing greatly improved without any medication.”

Selling soy products

Hornick and his wife, chef Jo Kaucher, who co-own the meat-free restaurant Chicago Diner, have found a growing market for their soy cheeses (casein-free), soy, rice and nut milks, organic soy ice creams, vegan cream cheese and tofu ricotta.

They send dairy-free cookies, muffins and cheesecakes to 18 Whole Foods stores across the Midwest and other local stores and restaurants, including Wild Oats grocery stores, Evanston’s Blind Faith, Argo Teas, Chicago’s Kopi Cafe and Uncle Joe’s at the University of Chicago.

The restaurant has been an oasis for Chicago’s Rikke Vognsen and her husband, David Saxner, who cut dairy out of their diets 20 years ago to help with Saxner’s arthritis. He also lost 80 pounds in the process. Their belief is that dairy creates dampness in the body and promotes yeast growth. But they also wanted to avoid ingesting residues of the hormones, antibiotics and other supplements given to the cows that produce non-organic milk.

(The dairy industry contends that milk is free of antibiotics given to cows and that there is no “significant” difference in cows treated with hormones produced with biotechnology, known as recombinant bovine somatotropin [rbST]).

“We saw immediate improvements in my husband’s health after eliminating dairy,” Vognsen said.

But some can’t imagine life without whole milk in their lattes or mozzarella cheese on their pizza. Chicago’s Trina Kakacek, the adult aquatic director at Lakeshore Athletic Club Lincoln Park, drinks a glass of skim milk and eats cheese and yogurt daily. Once a week she treats herself to ice cream.

“I would never dream of giving up dairy, particularly cheese or the real cream in my coffee every morning,” said Kakacek, who is allergic to nuts and soy and rarely eats meat.

- - -

Make vegetables’ calcium more palatable

No one ever said eating a fennel bulb or beet green would be as much fun as a slice of pepperoni pizza or a big scoop of chocolate ice cream, but a few simple steps will make calcium-rich vegetables taste better.

Buy in-season and buy the best quality you can afford. Just-picked vegetables in peak condition have more flavor than any tired old things trucked in from California two weeks ago. If that means shifting gears on your meal plan at the market, so be it.

Don’t overcook vegetables. Think of those crisp-yet-tender veggies found in classic Chinese stir-fries.

Vary your presentation. You’ve served steamed vegetables every week for the last six months; do something different. Puree for soup (cooked rice can be whooshed in the food processor or blender with the vegetables to give the soup a creamy texture). Chop fine and fold into an omelet. Saute them in olive oil with garlic, lemon zest and some red pepper flakes. Experiment.

Remember to season as you cook, especially when it comes to salt and pepper. Taste every step of the way and adjust flavorings accordingly.

Get out of the butter rut. Accent your cooked vegetables with an eye toward flavor, texture and color. A sprinkling of minced red onion and a shot of orange juice do wonders for fennel. A spritz of lemon works for bok choy. Chopped walnuts pair well with greens like kale. And minced sauteed garlic perks up any vegetable.

—Bill Daley

----------

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

by Matthew Scully

Special for the Arizona Republic
Feb. 19, 2006 12:00 AM

Arizona voters will be asked this fall to weigh in on a ballot measure called the Humane Treatment of Farm Animals Act, which is now in the signature-gathering stage but, by November, is certain to be one of our livelier election-year debates.

The initiative, modeled on a reform passed by Florida voters, would prohibit the factory-farming practice of confining pigs and veal calves in crates so small that the animals cannot even turn around or extend their limbs.

Factory farming, in general, is no one’s favorite subject, and the details here are particularly unpleasant to think about: masses of creatures enduring lives of unrelieved confinement and deprivation. But if you’re in need of reasons to sign the petitions and vote for the initiative, they are easy to find, and our discomfort with the subject is a good place to start.

Known in the trade as “intensive confinement” or “mass confinement,” it sounds pretty rough. And as we’re seeing already, pork producers and the PR firms in their hire do not take well to criticism of what they regard as “standard practice.”

Just this month, the industry’s allies in the Arizona Legislature proposed a constitutional amendment to bar the public from passing any laws promoting the humane treatment of farm animals, effective Jan. 1, 2006. Nice to have a fallback position: Even if the humane-farming initiative passes by vote of the people, as industry lobbyists apparently fear it will, they plan to nullify the law retroactively.

Basically, pork producers figured out some years ago that if they packed the maximum number of pigs into the minimum amount of space, if they pinned the creatures down into fit-to-size iron crates above slatted floors and carved out giant “lagoons” to contain the manure - if they turned the “farm,” in short, into a sunless hell of metal and concrete - it made everything so much more efficient. An obvious cost-saver, and from the industry’s standpoint, that should settle the matter.

Veal, by definition, is the product of a sick, anemic, deliberately malnourished calf, a newborn dragged away from his mother in the first hours of life. Veal calves are dealt the harshest of punishments for the least essential of meats. And if you think people can get too sentimental about animals, try listening sometime to chefs and gourmands going on about the “velvety smooth succulence” of their favorite fare.

“Cost-saver” in industrial livestock agriculture may usually be taken to mean “moral shortcut.” For all of its “science-based” pretensions, factory farming is really just an elaborate, endless series of evasions from the most elementary duties of honest animal husbandry. Man, the rationalizing creature, can justify just about anything when there is money in sight. It’s only easier when your victims are so completely out of sight and unable to speak for themselves.

Over the years, one miserly deprivation led to another, ever harsher methods were applied to force costs lower and lower, and so on until the animals ceased to be understood as living creatures at all. Pigs, for example, aren’t even “raised” anymore, a term that once conveyed some human attention and care. These days, in America’s 395,000-kills-per-day pork industry, pigs are “grown,” crowded together by the hundreds in the automated, scientifically based intensive-confinement facilities formerly known as barns.

Unlike the old ways

To the factory farmer, in contrast to the traditional farmer with his sense of honor and obligation, the animals are “production units,” and accorded all the sympathy that term suggests. As conservative commentator Fred Barnes put it in the Wall Street Journal, “On the old family farms, pigs and cattle and chickens were raised for food, but they were free for a time; they mated, raised piglets, calves and chicks and were protected by the farmers . . . . They had a life. On industrial farms, they don’t.”

Among the more disreputable claims made to justify intensive confinement is that it’s actually for the benefit of the pigs. They “prefer” confinement to grazing outdoors. They need “protection” from each other’s aggression.

If you know absolutely nothing about pigs, this has a vaguely comforting ring to it - that is, until the moment you step into a factory farm, as I have had occasion to do. Inside, it becomes dramatically obvious that their ceaseless, merciless confinement is the cause of the pigs’ aggression, and by no stretch a protective measure. It turns out that when you trap intelligent, 400- to 500-pound mammals in gestation crates 22 inches wide and 7 feet long, when their limbs are broken from trying to turn or escape and they are covered in sores, blood, tumors, “pus pockets,” and their own urine and excrement, they tend to act up a bit.

Indeed, the most notable thing is how the appearance of any human being causes a violent panic. A mere opening of the door brings on a horrific wave of roars, squeals and cage-rattling from the sows. Another memorable sight is the “cull pen,” wherein each and every day, the dead or dying bodies of the weak are placed, the ones who expired from the sheer, unrelenting agony of it.

It takes a well-practiced dishonesty to insist with a straight face that intensive confinement is “for their own good,” and almost as brazen is the libertarian case for factory farming, which may be summed up as “mind your own business.” Along with this comes a haughty little reminder that we’re all the beneficiaries of factory farming, and where do you think all that cheap meat comes from, and why don’t we just be grateful and let them manage their own affairs?

The argument has a certain practical appeal, provided you forget that factory farming is propped up by tens of billions of dollars in annual federal subsidies, which are very definitely our business. Much as the immiserated animals are kept on four legs by hormones and antibiotics, the entire enterprise is sustained by those federal subsidies and billions more paid by government to repair industrial farming’s immense collateral damage to land, water and air.

The illusion of consumer savings depends not only on unscrupulous corporate farmers, but also on complaisant citizens and blithely indifferent consumers who don’t ask too many questions - least of all moral questions. And the industry wants to keep it that way. Just buy the “cheap” meat, forget the damned animals, and keep the subsidies coming.

Once the details are known, in short, it all becomes a very tough sell for factory farmers. And so far their quaint-sounding “Campaign for Arizona Farmers and Ranchers” (brought to you by the National Pork Producers Council and other agribusiness trade groups) is not going well.

Industry lobbyist Jim Klinker, now director of the Arizona Farm Bureau and lead spokesman against the humane-farming initiative, started things off with a blunt reminder that farm animals aren’t pets, and so our sympathy for them is misplaced. “These people,” Klinker told Tucson Weekly, “want these animals raised the same way we raise our dogs and cats. I think most people understand that’s not how food is produced.”

When you want people to harden their hearts, however, it’s probably not such a good idea to invite comparisons between farm animals and dogs or cats. How would your dog react if you stuffed her into a crate in which she could not even stretch or turn around, and never let her out? No human attention or companionship with other animals. No bedding, straw to lie on. No single moment outdoors, ever, to feel the breeze or the warmth of the sun.

What if it were a dog?

Your dog, a being of intelligence and emotional capacities entirely comparable to those of a pig, would beg and wail and whimper and finally fall silent into a state of complete brokenness. And anyone who inflicted such tortures on that animal, no matter what excuses might be offered, would be guilty of a felony. If the creatures are comparable, and the conditions identical, and the suffering equal, how can the one be “standard practice” and the other a crime?

Next, in an interview with Arizona Capitol Times, Klinker tried out the “sentimentalist” line. The initiative, he scoffed, is based on “pure emotions” - as opposed to factory farming itself, which we are to assume is guided at every grim stage by the light of pure reason.

He followed up with a little warning that the Humane Treatment of Farm Animals Act is all the doing of “outsiders” anyway, by which he means various cranks, subversives, and social misfits who apparently are conspiring at this very moment to “impose the values of a vegetarian society on all Arizonans.”

One problem here is that if Klinker is going to be our defender of true Arizona values against “outsiders,” then he needs to hear from a broader range of outside opinion. And it may surprise him to learn that the problems of factory farming are becoming more apparent, and more abhorrent, to people of every political stripe.

When the conservative columnist George Will, for example, calls cruelty to animals “an intrinsic evil,” citing the “pain-inflicting confinements and mutilations” of factory farming, you know it can no longer be shrugged off as the concern of a faint-hearted few.

Factory farming, Mr. Will observed in Newsweek not long ago, has become a “serious issue of public policy.” And conservatives in particular, applying that uncompromising moral clarity on which they pride themselves, should not be afraid to call “vicious” things what they are.

Another conservative writer, Andrew Ferguson of Bloomberg News, challenged the “hyper-efficient agricultural economy” and “the cruel innovations the modern industrial farm depends upon.” And Father Richard John Neuhaus, writing in the conservative National Review, expressed his disgust at “the horrors perpetuated against pigs on industrial farms,” a matter “that warrants public and governmental attention.”

Neuhaus could cite, if he needed further authority, Pope Benedict XVI, who has warned against the “degrading of living creatures to a commodity” entailed in factory farming. And Protestant Christians could hear a similar message from one of their own most respected figures, Charles Colson, the conservative evangelist who cautions that “When it comes to animal welfare today, Christians have allowed the secular world to set the agenda. ... We need to get involved in shaping laws that determine animal treatment. But first we must make it our business to find out how the ... cattle of the earth are treated on factory farms.” Christians especially, declared Colson, “have a duty to prevent the needless torment of animals.”

“Outsiders,” all of them, but not to my knowledge collaborators in any effort to impose “the values of a vegetarian society” on Arizona. For Klinker and other lobbyists for factory farming, surely the lesson is that they should spend a little less time warning about other people’s values, and a little more time examining their own.

It is true, as he reminds us, that other states have far larger “herds” than in Arizona’s $40 million-a-year pork industry. But this is hardly a thought to put one’s mind at rest. The same was also true, until recently, of Utah, now home to a sprawling network of nightmarish “mega-farms,” all of them built and run by giant corporations like Smithfield Foods, the real outsiders in all of this. The largest of these places, a sort of gulag for pigs, holds 1.3 million in confinement and produces more waste every year than metropolitan Los Angeles.

Why, Klinker wonders, enact a law here instead of in Iowa, North Carolina or Utah? Well, for starters, maybe Arizonans do not want to go the way of Utah. And in that case, now would be a good time to bar the door.

Prepare yourself to hear, in the coming months, these arguments and similar rubbish from industry lobbyists, their shill veterinarians, and anyone else they can trot out to make something pernicious and contemptible seem decent and praiseworthy. Then in the quiet of the voting booth ask yourself why any creature of God, however humble, should be made to endure the dark, lonely, tortured existence of the factory farm, and what kind of people build their fortunes upon such misery.

The answer will send an unequivocal message, to factory farmers here and to all concerned, that unbridled arrogance, bad faith, and rank cruelty are not Arizona values.

Matthew Scully worked for Arizona governors Mecham, Mofford, and Symington. A former special assistant and deputy director of speechwriting for President Bush, he is the author of “Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy.”

AMERICAN FARM RETURNS TO UPSTATE NY IN MARCH - Johnstown and Ithaca
 
On Wednesday evening, March 1st at 7:00 pm, I will be bringing the film back to upstate New York with a one-night-only event at Fulton-Montgomery Community College in Johnstown.  The film will be shown in the College Theatre in the Main Building.  Special thanks to Dr. Stephen Barry who has organized this event.  Directions to the campus can be found at http://www.fmccedu/about/directionstocampus.cfm.
 
At the end of the month, American Farm will screen at Cornell University in Ithaca on Thursday, March 30th at 7:00 pm.  The screening will be sponsored by the Cornell Collegiate FFA.  Many thanks are due to Julie Seamon for all of her efforts in bringing the film to Cornell!  Campus location for the showing will be announced in a forthcoming email. 
James Spione
http://www.AmericanFarmMovie.com

I wonder what planet these folks live on? Have they visited a CAFO lately?

From Grassroots January issue.

http://www.nyfb.org/Grassroots/grass0106/manure.htm

Animal manure is fertilizer, not hazardous waste
United States courts should not be classifying animal manure as hazardous waste, subjecting it to the Superfund Law’s regulations and enforcement, said Steve Kouplen, president of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, in testimony before Congress.

“Farm Bureau firmly believes that Congress never intended that animal manure be considered a hazardous waste and regulated under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (Superfund),” Kouplen said. “Congress needs to reaffirm this now. We need some common sense that will protect us from those who would litigate us out of business.”

Kouplen is a cattle rancher from Beggs, Okla., and a member of the American Farm Bureau Federation board of directors. He recently testified before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Overzealous state and local government officials have charged in court that the use of animal manure as a fertilizer causes contamination and damage to natural resources, Kouplen said. Manure has been the basis for fertilizing ground since time began, he explained, and farmers are being successful in controlling runoff from manure applied to farm ground.

The courts are being asked to limit farmers’ rights to use natural fertilizer. The enforcement of CERCLA against farmers would expose them to liabilities and penalties that Congress never intended, Kouplen said.

Kouplen cited three court cases and provided extensive details about a court case filed by the Oklahoma attorney general against poultry processors. The attorney general is alleging, under CERCLA and the federal Solid Waste Disposal Act, natural resources damages to the Illinois River watershed were a result of the improper application of poultry litter as fertilizer. Poultry producers deny the contentions and point to their cooperation with state and federal agencies in filing nutrient management plans. Kouplen asked if manure is classified as hazardous waste will farmers need to incinerate it and have special permits to transport it? And, because phosphates in the manure are the main concern, will applying phosphate-based fertilizers be allowed for lawn care?

“We are not asking to be excused from meeting our environmental responsibilities under the Clean Water Act or any other applicable federal law or regulation—we are meeting them,” Kouplen said. “We are simply asking Congress to clarify what some of us felt was quite clear from the beginning—animal manure is not considered a hazardous waste under CERCLA.”

Comment: FB is lobbying to AGAIN externalize the cost of
pollution onto the tax payer.  Where is the high minded conservative mantra
of personal responsibility? 

From our friends in Minnesota

Yesterday I was busy working on some stuff for a customer and over the wire (Wisconsin Public Radio) came wafting into the room a lively discussion about corn ethanol. So, decided to listen to it.

Apparently Wisconsin is a target for mandated ethanol in their gas forced on them by the ethanol industry. The industry has spent 30 million dollars trying to buy the Wisconsin legislature. It didn’t look like it was working at all. A couple of legislators cut it up nicely and the call in from listeners was quite gratifying. They too tore it to pieces. You see, ethanol from corn is a scam on the tax payers and the environment of the first order. I have to hand it to the folks over in Wisconsin. Smart folks.

Making ethanol from corn is all about fossil fuel. As the cost of fossil fuel rises so does the cost of making ethanol. They are joined at the hip. I think that I’ve said that for the past few years.

Further, Industrial Agriculture is totally dependet on fossil fuel as well. As fossil fuel rises in price so does the cost of growing corn.
At the end of the day this demise of fossil fuel will be the death knell of what we see as Industrial agriculture today. It will end quite soon.

There is nothing that will be able to replace oil and gas in farming. One thing will… A team of Belgians.

This past year in the neighborhood (corn country Midwest) the price to make a bushel of corn was about $3.50 a bushel. The market price today here in my neck of the woods is $1.45 a bushel. Who pays the difference. One guess. Look in the mirror.

So, 67% of the ethanol industries raw material is paid for by the taxpayer. Look in the mirror.

Last year a pretty good number for the real cost of making a gallon of ethanol was $4.70 a gallon to make the stuff.

$13.16 is what it costs to make 2.8 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn. The bushel of corn costs $3.50.  Can we add? I hope so.

Almost all of the energy (calories) is removed from the corn when it is used to make ethanol. Calories (energy) are what fuel you and me. Makes me fat. There is no market for distillers grain. There is protein but the calories are gone into the ethanol. There is no market for this stuff. Smoke and mirrors. Trying everything they can to make excuses. Neighbor across the road feeds beef cattle. Lots of “high energy” corn to make really good steaks. Did you get the words high energy?

How much energy in a gallon of ethanol = 65,000 BTU

How much energy in a gallon of unleaded = 100,000 BTU

Not much energy in ethanol.

You cannot use coal to make anhydrous ammonia can you. This ain’t rocket science.

Here in Minnesota the ethanol folks stepped so low as to try to get permission to burn 10,000,000 tires a year to create energy to run the plant. Burning these tires across the road from our Elementary School. Do you have any idea how evil and crummy these folks are. Really bad stuff.

“It’s not the pigs that create the problem. It’s the people. We couldn’t grow them if people wouldn’t eat them. If you don’t like it, stop eating them.”

Jim Gibben
North Dakota Hog CAFO owner
2/12/06

”Animal Care Certified” Seal Officially Discarded After FTC Ruling

Rochester, NY (February 10, 2006) – Last month Wegmans Food Markets
officially removed the controversial “Animal Care Certified” logo from its
Wegmans-brand egg cartons. The move came less than four months after the
Federal Trade Commission ruled that the logo can not be used on egg
cartons after March 31 of this year. The ruling came after the Better
Business Bureau (BBB) had twice deemed the logo “misleading” to consumers.

A new logo, claiming Wegmans Egg Farm is part of the New York State Egg
Quality Assurance Program (NYSEQAP), now appears on Wegmans-brand egg
cartons. However, according to a state official with NYSEQAP, the program
has no standards for animal welfare. Under this labeling program the
750,000 hens at Wegmans Egg Farm will continue to be subjected to inhumane
conditions.

The “Animal Care Certified” logo first came under scrutiny in June 2003,
when Washington, DC-based Compassion Over Killing filed petitions with the
Better Business Bureau and the FTC, as well as other federal agencies,
asserting that the logo is misleading. Under the “Animal Care Certified”
guidelines, egg producers are permitted to intensively confine hens in
“battery cages” so small they cannot even spread their wings, among other
abuses.

In 2003, and again upon appeal in 2004, the BBB deemed the “Animal Care
Certified” logo “misleading” because it implied a greater level of humane
care than is actually the case. Despite these rulings and the BBB’s
subsequent referral of the matter to FTC for potential legal action
against the United Egg Producers (UEP), which ran the logo program, the
logo continued to appear on cartons across the country—and consumers
continued to be deceived.

As part of a 2004 investigation at Wegmans Egg Farm in Wolcott, NY
Compassionate Consumers found widespread evidence of egregious cruelty to
animals. The group’s investigators found hens covered with feces and open
sores, birds forced to sleep atop decomposed corpses, beak mutilations,
and hens drowning in liquid manure.

Compassionate Consumers is asking that Wegmans Egg Farm cease the use of
cruel battery cages and go cage-free. In September 2005 the University of
Rochester decided to stop the use of eggs from caged hens in foods
prepared on campus. Danny Wegman, CEO of Wegmans Food Markets, is a Senior
Trustee at UR.

In 2005 alone some of Wegmans’ largest competitors stopped selling battery
cage eggs. Two of the nation’s three largest organic food markets, Whole
Foods and Wild Oats decided to go entirely cage-free. And in November,
organic food chain Trader Joe’s agreed to make its own brand of eggs
cage-free.

Compassionate Consumers is a Rochester-based organization dedicated to
providing the public with information about the treatment of animals on
farms and at slaughter.

For more information visit: http://www.WegmansCruelty.com

Contact:
Ryan Merkley, 585-410-0773,

A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations provides a robust critique of industrial animal farms from an environmental perspective. According to the FAO: “Concentrated, large-scale livestock production often creates concentrated, large-scale environmental problems. Large industrial farms bring in massive quantities of nutrients in the form of concentrate feed. And they produce far more waste than can be recycled as fertilizer and absorbed on nearby land. When intensive livestock operations are crowded together, pollution can threaten the quality of the soil, water, air, biodiversity and ultimately public health.”

The FAO report focuses on industrial animal farms in “developing” countries, where farmed animal slaughter (meat production) grew at an average 5% per year from 1980-2004 and tripled over the entire period. The FAO report states that “the rapid growth of livestock production highlights the urgent need for effective policies to regulate intensive livestock operations.” This rapid growth of concentrated animal farming and the resulting volume of animal waste are causing severe water and land pollution, according to the report.

Specifically, the FAO says that industrial pig and poultry farms in China, Thailand, and Vietnam are the leading cause of nutrient pollution in the South China Sea. The report states that “Pig production accounts for an estimated 42% of nitrogen and 90% of phosphorus flows into the South China Sea… Run-off is severely degrading seawater and sediment quality in one of the world’s most biologically diverse marine areas.” In response to such problems, the FAO suggests that developing nations use tax policies and subsidies to discourage development of industrial animal farms, particularly near urban areas.


1. “Industrial Livestock Production near Cities often Damages the Environment,” UN / FAO, 2/2/06
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000219/index.html

2. Full Report: “Pollution from Industrialized Livestock Production,” UN / FAO, 2/2/06
PDF file (3.6 MB): http://www.fao.org/ag/AGAinfo/resources/documents/pol-briefs/02/EN/AGA02_EN_08.pdf

3. “FAO Faults Meat Production in Developing Areas,” MeatNews.com, 2/6/06
http://www.meatnews.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Article&artNum=11032
from Farmed Animal Net

Alfred State “Smart Farm” aims to shape agriculture practices in 21st century

Major proposal adds organic herd to dairy operations, expands programs

Alfred State College will help shape the future of family farming locally, regionally, nationally, and globally, with development of its new Centennial Farm.

A multi-million dollar “Smart Farm” business plan, formulated by Cornell Cooperative Extension experts James Grace and Joan Petzen and approved recently by President Gupta and her Cabinet, incorporates and expands on recommendations put forward last fall by an Alfred State College Farm Task Force.

The Centennial Farm will be operated according to principles of sustainable agriculture. Sustainability rests on the principle that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Therefore, stewardship of both natural and human resources is of prime importance.

While college officials did not release a price tag on the new complex and new programs, Alfred State is embarking on an ambitious plan which calls for dramatic changes in the current facilities and operations.

A portion of the Centennial Farm will be certified organic. An additional dairy herd will be added to the conventional herd already in place at the farm. The additional herd will produce certified organic milk and will be managed according to organic veterinary principles.

College officials believe adding organic production and management to the current conventional herd with allow Alfred State to offer a new slate of opportunities for research and continuing education.

“The farm is taking a giant leap forward and it will be the keystone of our centennial celebration,” said Robert J. Albrecht, Alfred State College interim vice president for Academic Affairs.

“It will be the anchor for practical sustainable agriculture education in New York state,” he added.

“This plan is not just a business plan,” said Alfred State College President Dr. Uma G. Gupta, “It is a plan that will help shape the future of agriculture for the region, the state, and our country.”

With approval of the proposal, the college has embarked on the resource development phase of the project, according to officials. The College believes the key to development of the plan is outreach to and partnerships with business, the organic dairy industry, the food industry, state and local governments, farmers and Alfred State agriculture graduates.

The Centennial Farm’s new facilities will make it a “smart farm” where every technology innovation will be used or piloted. The goal is to meet the needs of farmers and the agriculture industry in the 21st century.

The smart farm facilities will include:

140-cow freestyle dairy barn
A milking center with a double-8 milking parlor
A 110-head dairy heifer barn
The “smart farm” also will utilize alternative fuels, permanent perimeter fencing, and computerized dairy farm management systems. The farm management system will be based on a more sustainable model featuring grasslands dairy management. Ultimately, the college plans to develop a National Grazing Institute and a Center for Sustainable Agriculture Advocacy, officials said.

“Our hope is that the facility will be utilized by the entire regional community,” said Victoria Bolton, chair of the Alfred State College Agriculture and Horticulture Department. “The college hopes to partner with other agricultural organizations to offer programs, workshops, and examples of modern agricultural methodologies. The college farm will be a working farm that will offer a site for extraordinary teaching, research, and demonstration value.”

Alfred State College also proposes to significantly update the academic programs related to agriculture. The proposal includes a two-year degree in Agriculture Technologies with provost-approved tracks in dairy, veterinary technology, agribusiness, organic farming, and nutriceuticals. Agricultural Technologies graduates could transfer to the college’s Technology Management baccalaureate program, pending state education department approval.

“The addition of a complementary organic herd and adoption of free grazing will open up opportunities for faculty-student research studies and permit agriculture and veterinary technology students to investigate comparable care and treatment of animals,” said Dr. Joanne M. Cepelak, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.

College officials believe the uniqueness of the Centennial Farm will result in it becoming a nationally significant facility, powerfully linked to economic development.

“Our new vision for the farm as an organic and grazing powerhouse makes Alfred State College a trailblazer in the convergence of agriculture and technology,” Gupta said. “Our expertise in applying technology to address the changing needs and growing challenges of the agricultural community sets us apart as visionaries, leaders, and doers in agricultural education and economic development.”

The college began to review its agriculture offerings and look to the future at a farm summit last April. The summit resulted in the creation of a task force charged with studying current operations at the Alfred State Farm and offering options for improvements and changes. The Task Force report was followed by a business plan model developed by the Cornell Cooperative Extension personnel.

“Senator Catharine Young also has been instrumental in helping Alfred State College lay the foundation for a ‘Smart Farm’ in Western New York,” said Gupta. “She played a key role in opening doors for industry partnerships and remains an outstanding spokesperson for the importance of a thriving, high-tech agricultural community in Western New York.”

The current farm sells about 20,000 pounds of milk per cow per year. Currently, the farm has 67 milking-age animals.

“The (new) dairy herd would consist of 140 milking age animals plus replacements split into two parallel herds. One herd would be managed in accordance with organic standards outlined by the Federal Organic Standards and the other conventionally,” the business report says. “The herds would be managed to optimize production within the resource constraints of the quality of forage available for grazing and procured for stored feed.”

Approximately 200 students are enrolled in the Agriculture and Horticulture Department programs at Alfred State.
from the Alfred State website.

Sierra Club Testimony on Governor Pataki’s Proposed Budget calls for increased CAFO fees and support of sustainable agriculture.

1. State Pollution Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) Permit Fees.

Governor Pataki proposes to increase existing fees for all facilities that require a SPDES permit to discharge pollutants to New York waters.  In addition Governor Pataki proposes to increase fees for industrial stormwater discharges and for permits for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation CAFO Permits.  Since the revenues generated by these fees will support additional staff in these programs, Sierra Club supports the Governor’s proposal.

The need for additional staff in the CAFO permits program was brought home by the damage caused to the Black River in August 2005 when an unregulated manure lagoon on the Marks Farm in Lewis County released over 3 million gallons of manure killing tens of thousands of fish and threatening the City of Watertown’s public water supply.

2. Provide at least $5 million in grant funds for sustainable agricultural programs.