Friends of Rural New York

Humane Society of the U.S.
The Web site features: the Farm Animal Welfare Resource Library, which features newly-published research papers on a variety of issues; links to current HSUS legislation and litigation efforts; and links to background information and updates on HSUS campaigns.

See:
http://www.FactoryFarming.hsus.org

Farm Sanctuary
This new website “is a supportive meeting place where kids can learn more about factory farming and vegetarianism, share their writing and artwork, play games, find new ways to get active for farm animals, and express their compassionate bekiefs with other young people who share their views.”

See:
http://www.FarmSanctuaryKids.org

Join the Author for Earth Day! Lee Welles will be signing books at Borders Books & Music in the Pyramid Mall-Ithaca, NY
Our FAVORITE songwriters, Brooke & Elaine will be there. Come on it and hear the “Enter the Earth” song–very cool!

April 22 at 1pm

http://www.collegiatetimes.com > December 2005 > Features > Book Review: “Gaia Girls: Enter the Earth”

Full version: Book Review: “Gaia Girls: Enter the Earth”

Book Review: “Gaia Girls: Enter the Earth”

In Lee Welles’ first of a series, a young girl is given special powers by Mother Nature to combat a factory farming operation in her rural town.

Chris Oryschak, Web Editor
In the innovative seven book “Gaia Girl” series, Harry Potter meets the Sierra Club as average girls team up with the Earth to fight back against environmental destruction. The introductory novel, “Enter the Earth,” opens with Elizabeth, a fourth grader in upstate New York whose life — until recently — had been spent going to school and exploring the countryside with her dog Maizey.

This life is soon turned upside-down as a destructive factory farming operation sets its sights on her little town of Avon.

Harmony Farms has begun buying up the town’s farmland in order to establish a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, or CAFO, for the wide scale raising and slaughtering of hogs. Neighbors of the town are pitted against each other, with most seeing the CAFO as a chance to sell their land and cash out. Others, such as Elizabeth’s parents, see the impending operation as a threat to their centuries-old family farm and fight to save their livelihoods.

Elizabeth’s parents aren’t the only angry ones, however, as the impending farm draws the ire of “the living entity of the earth”, Gaia. Taking the form of a talking otter, Gaia gives Elizabeth the power to telepathically cause small earthquakes, transport herself through trees and literally commune with nature by talking to plants and animals. Armed with her new environmentally friendly powers and a little help from friends, Elizabeth takes on the factory farming operation to win back her town.

While the book is intended for younger readers and is full of whimsical elements, like talking otters, Welles manages to balance the cuteness with frank depictions of factory farming operations. By combing Harry Potter-like elements with real environment issues and the social impact of Imminent Domain arguments, “Enter the Earth” is an engrossing story for all ages.

Fitting with its environmental message, the hardcover book is printed on 100% recycled paper and is available at: http://www.gaiagirls.com/shop

Who gets to decide what agriculture looks like in a community? This year a group of stalwart citizens in Nichols, NY decided that despite pressure from the Farm Bureau and from the NYS Department of Agriculture, they, the local people, should democratically decide whether or not to allow a Canadian chicken corporation in their town.

The saga began in late summer when neighbors found out that land in their neighborhood was being sold to the Canadian Drost family, for a chicken CAFO (confined animal feeding operation). The deal had been brokered by the county economic development and planning agency with zero input from the over one hundred neighbors who would be sharing their residential neighborhood with hundreds of thousands of chickens. Agency staffers had taken the Drosts around the county looking for suitable land. The original choice was a parcel in Barton but a good neighbor who found out what was going on bought the land himself.

Eventually, the Drosts chose a Nichols parcel adjacent to a housing development. A large part of the land is in Flood Zone A in a spillover area of the Susquehanna River. Neighbors became concerned that the operation would alter the flood plain, contaminate the aquifer, and disrupt the wintering of wild birds and that they would be subjected to smells of chicken manure, to increased truck traffic, real estate devaluation and other documented abuses in chicken CAFO communities.

The Town Board met with two Tioga County agencies and with New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.  All assured Board members that such operations are well regulated and that there was nothing the community could do to restrict farming.

The Board called a community meeting. To their credit, some of the Board members were well informed enough to object to the Drost plan. Nonetheless, they informed the populace that there was probably nothing they could do to stop it. Farm Bureau members, never missing a chance to advance the corporate agenda, accused protestors of being “against farming.”

And so, the people organized. According to spokesperson Debbie Stephens, the close-knit community engaged in a collective effort to protect their homes. Ms.Stephens researched chicken CAFOs on the Internet. She visited and filmed the DROST operation in Ontario and then circulated a DVD of her own responses to the DROST operation to her neighbors and to the Town Board. She wrote letters to the editor and spoke to the press.

Neighbors Tom and Penny Hunter and Shirley and Art Wilcox engaged the media and thus generated a lot of attention from newspapers and TV stations in the southern tier and northern Pennsylvania. Steve Crosse, who is very knowledgeable about farming, helped with providing farming information. About five people were actively working on the effort to inform their own community about the problems engendered by mega chicken farms. Over 100 families signed petitions and attended town meetings.

Finally, on September 28th, after a lengthy public hearing, the Nichols Town Board voted 4-1 to impose a nine-month moratorium on high-density development and commercial farming. The moratorium put the brakes on the process. The Drosts had wanted to get started as soon as possible. They want to protect their markets in New York City.  They have been sued in Ontario for being over their production quotas. There is also a possibility that the borders may close to chicken transport in the event of avian flu outbreaks.  Facing a long delay and community opposition, the Drosts withdrew in January. As quoted in the Sayre Evening Times, “The people of Tioga County can sleep well because the Drosts are looking elsewhere in New York State to place the farm, and have been since the end of 2005.”

Spokesperson, Debbie Stephens, offered her advice to citizens threatened by industrial livestock operations:
• Organize the neighbors.
• Do research and arm yourself with facts. People are so surprised when they hear about the community impact of corporate farming.
• Establish a relationship with the press.
• Ask the Town Board for a moratorium.
• Don’t cave in when state agencies tell you there is nothing you can do.
• Assert your civic rights.  Work together and work hard.

The Sierra Club Farm and Food Committee had been working with the community. They provided information, contact people for advice and lots of moral support.

As for Debbie Stephens, she says she still eats chicken now and then but “prior to this, I never thought about where my chicken came from.”
I hope all of us are thinking about it.

For more information, see:
http://del.icio.us/DebMStephens64/NicholsTimeline
http://www.newyork.sierraclub.org/conservation/agriculture/index.html

Written by: Yvonne Tasker-Rothenberg
Chair, Farm & Food Committee
Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter

Published in the Sierra Atlantic
Spring 2006

Many so called “experts” have recently opined that the days of anti-corporate farming laws are numbered. But anti-corporate farming laws, ordinances, and related policies do not seem to be waning, numerically at least.

In Pennsylvania, 12 townships and five counties passed anti-corporate farming legislation. In North Dakota, three counties recently adopted rigorous guidelines for industrial livestock facilities in response to efforts to site large operations there.

And while states such as Iowa and Illinois eliminated the rights of counties to use zoning to exercise some control over the type of livestock production in their jurisdiction, in other states like Nebraska and North Dakota, zoning is alive and well. In fact, it is on the increase in North Dakota.

In Missouri, local battles over industrial livestock operations continue to rage. Fourteen counties have passed ordinances restricting the expansion of industrial operations. Nine more counties are exploring similar ordinances.

Read more: http://www.cfra.org/newsletter/current.htm
Center for Rural Affairs

Contact: John Crabtree,

This spoof of the Matrix movies details the horrors of dairy factory farms, through the adventures of Leo the pig and Moopheus the cow. Entertaining, adventurous, and informative, this short animated film by Sustainable Table is worth watching. Check out http://www.themeatrix2.com