Friends of Rural New York

The zealous diatribe, Viewpoint...In Defense of the American Farmer, printed in
the Ithaca Times, dated 04/23/2008, little more than Rush Limbaugh-esque cant, bilious with the patriotic mom and pop-ism dogma championed by agribusiness talking heads, routinely disregards facts about the negative environmental and health impacts of factory farms and the enormous subsidies (taxpayer dollars) they receive.  The CAFO industry would have us believe that the concept of local small-scale sustainable family farms is passé, old-fashioned, obsolete, even a sentimental childish fairytale.  This self-serving claptrap, along with the inciting adjectives concocted to discredit those who dare bring to light personal experiences with factory farm-generated pollution impacts to their properties and health, are Big-Ag fabrications shrewdly wrought to control public opinion.  Agri-business’ mind-control experts routinely utilize specific buzz-words to incite distrust and prejudice against anyone daring to question the motives and practices of the industry, branding them “city dwellers”, “move-ins”, “agitators”, “terrorists”, “fanatical vegetarians”, “rebel rousers”, etc.  These expressions, paired with the accusatorial jargon, “left-wing animal-rights activists or further-left command economists”, execute Big-Ag’s brand of subterfuge by employing a well-roasted propagandic feast to combat those niggling “bêtes noires”.

Command economy is an economy that is planned and controlled by a central administration, as in the former Soviet Union.  Indeed, Joseph Stalin created and implemented his very own command economy concept, the factory farm.  So who’s a “further-left command economist”, eh?

A Washington Post’s reporting team identified more than $15 billion in waste, fraud and abuse in the nation’s farm subsidy programs.  Dan Morgan, Gilbert M. Gaul and Sarah Cohen spent more than a year examining federal agriculture subsidies for their “Harvesting Cash” series, generating more than a dozen stories and several interactive maps.  This series became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2007.

US Dairy CAFOs (factory farms) are half subsidized with taxpayer dollars.
They enjoy low cost labor by undocumented farm workers and generous welfare handouts.  Then, CAFOs are again rewarded taxpayer dollars to contain or clean up the pollution inevitably resulting from this model that was destined to fail from its inception.  “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…”.

From the “Harvesting Cash” series: “The multibillion-dollar farm subsidy system often is touted by Congress as a way to save small family farms.  Instead, those policies are helping to accelerate their demise, because owners of large farms receive the most subsidies.  In 2005 alone, when pretax farm profits were at a near-record $72 billion, the federal government handed out more than $25 billion in aid, almost 50 percent more than the amount it pays to families receiving welfare.”
For the entire Washington Post article, go to this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp srv/nation/interactives/farmaid/

CAFO industry spokespersons imply that the citizens of the United States and people throughout the world have no right to question the origins and quality of the food they eat and serve to their children, and harshly rebuke those who dare question, report or oppose factory farm negative impacts to air, water and food quality, while commanding us to allow food industry “Big Brothers” to take good care of us.  Consumers should ask Big Ag, “How much does this gallon of CAFO milk really cost, including all subsidy dollars and negative environmental and health-impact costs?”

Willy Nelson states, …“Sustainable family farms are the alternative to the large-scale industrial farms that erode our soil and pollute our waterways.  Excessive chemicals, soil erosion, runoff from factory farms laced with hormones and antibiotics and the growing threats of widespread genetic contamination from genetically engineered crops threaten our capacity to grow the food we need to feed our country.” Worldwide, local sustainable family farms are our only viable long-term solution for feeding the world while restoring the health of the environment.”

We entreat New York state and world-wide farming communities and consumers to become empowered, do their own homework on these issues and refuse to allow the Big-Ag industry to dictate what’s best for us, our children, environment and future generations.

Mark C. Trout