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What Joe Stands For - Domestic policy - Agriculture Position paper page 1
Agriculture position paper
“When a
small farmer goes out of business, we’re not only losing a farm, we’re losing
another piece of a way of life that’s so integral to this country,” said
Schriner. –Country Today. “Loyalty
to America should be loyalty to Americans – in promoting the common
good,” [said Schriner.] That is… Seneca,
Kansas, farmers stop putting toxic chemicals on their “amber waves of grain,”
so people eating bread in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, don’t get cancer.” --Dru Sefton’s nationally syndicated column, Newhouse
News Service. “He
(Schriner) sees farmland preservation as an important issue and believes
schools should teach farming…” -- The News
Democrat, Georgetown, Ohio categories
covered below include: 1) overview of the issues; 2) the plan, an overview; 3)
it’s primarily about community; 4) less long distance food trucking; 5) toxic
farm chemicals and the environment; 6) toxic farm chemicals and cancer; 7) you
are what you eat; 8) growing organically; 9) employing more people on the land;
10) going back to the farm; 11) technology; 12) at “nature’s pace”; 13) in the
classroom; 14) farmland preservation and recovery; 15) urban farming; 16)
“Community Gardens” and front porch produce; 17) American farming and
international problems; 18) American farmers reach out to the world; 19)
subsidies for “conventional farming” phased out. ___________________ 1) overview of the
issues Modern
“conventional farming” in America is destroying the eco-system. It is
dramatically lessening the nutritional value of food. And worse, because of the
toxic farm chemicals being used with conventional farming, it is causing cancer
(and other physical maladies) in farm workers and consumers alike. Anyone for an herbicide sprayed tomato? What’s
more, the “economy of size” is taking over agriculture, which has opened the
door for corporate mega-farms (the Wal Marts of rural
life) to now dominate. This, in turn, is
‘outsourcing’ small family farmers to the cities in droves. And with
this mass exodus, a way of life that is so integral to the fabric of our country, is going the way of endangered species. Anyone
for some genetically modified corporate-farm corn? Overlaid on
all this, is the long-distance trucking of food from these mega farms to the
rest of the country. Has anyone
mentioned global warming lately, or foreign oil dependence? And to stay
with this global warming thing, big tractors, and even bigger combines, spew
carbon dioxide gases as they ply the fields, day and night. Anyone for a pepper that’s been trucked 2,000 miles? And
American farming is not just playing havoc with America. Because of all the advanced farming
technology, huge corporate farms, improvement in
shipping… we can actually undercut small family farmers trying to sell their food
to their local grocery stores and Farmers Markets in: Guatemala. Something to be “American Proud” of? That is,
helping impoverish the Third World poor even more? C’mon! Anyone for a Florida orange selling in El Salvador for the
equivalent of 15 cents? And if you
add to the mix urban sprawl that is eating away farmland exponentially (nine
acres every hour in Ohio), genetically modified food and a general perception
that farmers are second class citizens… what you have is, well, a problem. Through extensive
cross-country tours, we’ve gone out into America to look at this problem, in
all its dimensions. And we
found them. Boy, did we find
them. We also
went out to look for the solutions. And we
found those too. Anyone for a fresh organic apple from the farm up the street? 2) the
plan, an overview The
solution is nothing short of shifting the whole country back to a small farm
agrarian base as it was (dare I say) in the “old days.” Call us
“retro.” My
administration would act as a catalyst to build on the existing “Back to the
Land Movement,” exponentially. We
would point to highly creative models to start to affect this in accelerated
increments. For instance, at the White Earth
Reservation in northern Minnesota, Winona La Duke (who was Ralph Nader’s Green Party vice presidential candidate in 2000)
showed us how to get some of the land back into the hands of these small family
farmers who have been displaced. The White Earth Land Recovery Project has set
up a fund to buy some of the land back and has also convinced some big farmers
to give some of the land back out of a concern for the “common good.”
And my administration would push for similar initiatives all over the country. In Brown
County, Ohio, we found an iron-clad way to preserve farmland in the jaws of
urban sprawl with another form of a creative Trust Fund to buy rural land, and
then lease it: with the provision that the land is used only for farming. And in tiny
Yorkshire, Ohio, we learned why it is absolutely essential that we do
everything organically on a farm. (Hint:
cancer, depletion of the soil, major destruction of the eco-system…) And my administration would push for a
tremendous increase in organic farming, while also trying to enact legislation
that would ban farm chemicals (manufactured pesticides, herbicides,
fertilizers…) proven to be toxic. Speaking of
eco-systems, is it really necessary that we truck food all over the
country? Farmers in Moscow, Idaho, don’t
think so. And Arcadia, California, has
actually gone to “pedal powered produce.”
Catchy, I thought. My
administration would help subsidize these efforts, while at the same time
exhorting the American consumer to step up their patronizing of these types of
local efforts. In addition, we would
suggest a higher tax on gasoline to make this long distance trucking more
prohibitive. Another
thing we learned in Napannee, Indiana, is that if
you’ve got a choice between a quarter of a million dollar, three computer, huge
new combine, or a draft horse… you might want to go with the draft horse. (It is the high-end mechanization that has
opened the door to the tremendously bigger farms which are squeezing the small
family farmer out and creating a multitude of other problems.) While we
can’t legislate away this high-end mechanization, we could vocally get behind
the current grassroots movement back to using “small technology” (small
tractors, small seeders, oxen…). And in
Cleveland, Ohio, we learned the term “urban farmer” is not only in vogue, these
farmers are in action, in a big way, in metropolitan areas all around
the country. And my administration would
push stridently to promote more of this. Farming in Cleveland.
Who would have thought? And in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Siler City, North Carolina, Citronelle, Alabama… we
learned we should all be farmers on our properties, no matter how small
-- not just ‘lawn mower jockeys.’ (America
spends $40 billion a year on lawn care, more than the gross domestic product
of: Vietnam.) This begs
the environmental question: “Are we
nuts?” We wouldn’t
be if farmers weren’t viewed as second-class citizens and farming classes were
a regular part of curriculum in both country and city schools. Can
anyone spell the word permaculture, or sustainability
for that matter? And we
wouldn’t be nuts if we went back to local food production for local
consumption. Can
anyone spell (or anymore even know the definition of) the word: community? 3) it’s
primarily about ‘community’ Our country
used to revolve around a small farm agrarian base. Local farmers grew for local people and there
was a tremendous, close-knit interdependence that was the essence of community. In Athens,
Ohio, I interviewed Art Gish, who is an author and
organic farmer. He sells at a local Farmer’s Market. Gish told me he
sees the conversations and rapport building he has with local people at his
stand as being as important, if not more important, than the actual
transaction of food for money. Paul Yoder
in Apple Creek, Ohio, agrees. On a stop
at Yoder’s farm, he told me all his animals are grass fed and he uses no
harmful farm chemicals, the same as in the “old days.” He said his conscience won’t let him use
these toxins because of the possible harm to his circle of buyers. And he believes trust and community building
between himself and these people are paramount, a
stark contrast to our current ‘many steps removed from the farm’ grocery store
buying. As another
step back toward the “old days,” our administration would also point to Paul Hoene from tiny Sigel, Illinois. On a stop in this area, we learned Hoene and a group of area farmers were about to buy a meat
processing plant. Their animals will be
branded and each package label will display that a certain cut of meat is from,
say: “The Paul Hoene Farm in Sigel, Illinois.” The move, these farmers hope, will inspire
more area people to consider “buying local” to help their neighbor Paul, and others, keep their small farms and this rural way of life. My
administration would point to these models as healthy alternatives to the
prevailing “conventional farm model.”
And we would consider subsidies and other incentives to encourage
similar start-ups. 4) less long-distance food trucking Besides
this return to a heightened level of interdependence, another positive
byproduct of growing and selling locally is the need for less long-distance
trucking. Trucking that burns tremendous
amounts of fossil fuels and creates huge amounts of global warming gases. (According to author Joel Salatin: We
currently have a food system where the “average morsel” travels 1,500 miles
between farm and plate.) At the
Farmer’s Market in Moscow, Idaho, I interviewed Kelly Kingsland from Affinity
Farm. She said before trucking, people
in the old days experienced “the joy of seasonal eating.” That is, when blueberries were in season
locally, people ate blueberries. When apples were in season, they ate
apples. And so on… “There is a monotony in having it all, all the time,” said Ms.
Kingsland. (Not to mention: growing
tremendously spoiled.) What’s more, Ms.
Kingsland’s farm is located just on the city’s edge and they bicycle their
produce to market because “we don’t want to use petroleum.” Some people
in Arcadia, California, don’t want to use petroleum to bring their produce to
local markets either. So much so that at
an energy seminar at Antioch College, I heard environmentalist Jan Lundberg
explain that Arcadia has seven Community Sponsored Agriculture projects, with
all the food (dubbed: “pedal powered produce”) bicycled in. “The
eco-system is on the ropes and the industrial world is in denial,” said
Lundberg 5) toxic
farm chemicals and the environment
Part of why the ‘eco-system is on the ropes’ is because of
the American farmer’s use of toxic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides on
their fields. (Not to mention overuse of
the land.) This is causing major,
long-term ecological damage. For one,
these chemicals are destroying valuable topsoil, an inch of which takes 500
years to develop. And secondly,
because of all the chemical applications there are fewer and fewer minerals in
the soil anymore. Sr. Anita explained this to us while we were touring Michaela
Farm, which is an organic farm run by Franciscan nuns in Oldenberg,
Indiana. Because
there are fewer minerals in the soil, food nutritional values are now sub
par. “We’ve become a society that lives
on supplements (if one can even afford the supplements),” Sr. Anita explained. The point
here is the less nutritional the food, the less fortification for the immune
system. As a result, we’re a society
that is getting physically sicker and sicker.
(See our Health Care position paper.) Another extremely damaging byproduct from the use of these environmentally toxic farm chemicals is that they run off into larger watershed areas, like those extending for hundreds of miles around the Chesapeake Bay, for instance. During a campaign speech in Rising Sun, Maryland (right at the top of the Chesapeake), I said studies show farm, yard and sewage runoff have put the Bay in grave danger, with large areas of dying aquatic grasses and dramatically falling fish populations. (During the
speech, I also pointed to the “Save the Bay” coalition of concerned citizens,
environmental and civic groups that are rallying to curb some of this pollution
and bring the Chesapeake back.) And as
mentioned in the plan above, my administration would work to get these
environmentally toxic chemicals banned. 6) toxic farm chemicals and cancer There are a
lot of indicators emerging that these artificial farm chemicals are playing all
kinds of physiological havoc with farmers, farm workers and the general public
as well. At a stop
at the National Chavez Center in Keene, California, I interviewed Douglas
Blaylock, who is the administrator for the Robert F. Kennedy Medical Plan. The plan was started by Cesar Chavez in 1969,
as the first medical plan for farm workers in the U.S. Blaylock
said some of the main health issues for farm workers are asthma and cancer, both purported to be caused by continual exposure to
toxic farm chemicals. In fact, Blaylock
told me his office worked with Dr. Paul Mills, an epidemiologist at Fresno
State University, on a six-year cancer study among farm workers in the San
Joaquin Valley. He said throughout the
Valley, a good number of “cancer clusters” were found in farm worker
settlements. And as
these farm workers are in peril, so, apparently, are the farmers. Dan Basinger has a farm in rural Allen County, Ohio. (As a “farm immersion experience,” our family
had gone there for a week to manually hoe a bean field Basinger
was turning organic.) In an interview with Basinger, he said what’s not talked about much in farming
circles is all the herbicide and pesticide spray that doesn’t make it to the
plant or soil, but goes “airborne” in the wind.
(And these are ground sprayers Basinger is
talking about. At the National
Agricultural Museum in Tulare, California, we learned 65% of all herbicides and
pesticides in this country are applied by airplane crop dusting, which provides
even more of a chance for the chemicals to go airborne.) Basinger
said he correlates all this (airborne chemical applications) to “second hand
smoke” which affects people for miles. In
addition, Basinger said these chemicals also leach
into the groundwater, which means they often also get into the farmer’s
well. And he ended by saying the couple
on the farm across the street had recently died of cancer. His brother on a farm just to the north of
him had recently died of cancer. And
another farmer not far up the road had just been diagnosed with cancer. 7) you are what you eat… And as
these farmers and farm workers seem more and more in peril, so, apparently, are
the American consumers. During an
interview with Whole Foods storeowner Linda Houshower
in Bluffton, Ohio, she told me she had recently read a study from the turn of
the 1900s that showed the average person’s body tissue then had about 12
foreign chemicals at most.
Now it’s 200! And this is partially attributable
to the toxic chemicals in the food we eat. At a stop
at Oberlin College in Ohio, David Orr, who is an author and head the college’s
Environmental Studies Department, told us he believes these herbicides and
pesticides are creating “chemical cocktails” that are like time bombs in our
systems. And some of these time bombs
eventually explode into all kinds of cancer and other physical maladies. During an interview with a newspaper in
Bellefontaine, Ohio (in the heart of the rural Midwest), I said what we should
be vitally concerned about in this country, is not just the threat of chemical
warfare from afar, but even more alarming, we should be terribly concerned
about all the “chemical warfare” coming -- right out of our farmers’ fields. And during
a talk at an Organic Farm Festival in Yorkshire, Ohio, I posed that if farmers
know the chemicals they use may, in fact, cause cancer, aren’t they, in a very
real sense: contributing to someone’s death? 8) growing organically The Organic
Farm Festival in Yorkshire, Ohio, was at Dan Kremer’s “E.A.T. Food For Life” Farm. He
does everything organically on his farm and has started one of the first
organic farm co-ops in Ohio. Six farmers throughout Darke
County there provide organic poultry, meat, vegetables, fruit, bread… In an
interview, Kremer told me (as mentioned before) that it’s common knowledge that
modern farming with these toxic chemicals has caused a massive degeneration of
the soil, which in turn significantly depletes the nutrition content in food. Conversely, growing organically replenishes
the soil and this purer form of food replenishes the cells of the body as well,
said Kremer. Kremer is
an absolute evangelist when it comes to touting the benefits of growing and
eating organically, and he gives talks around the state. And Kremer is the type of small, common sense
farmer, I told the Greenville Advocate newspaper, that we would consider
for our administration’s: Secretary of Agriculture. I would
also consider Winona La Duke (who ran as a vice-presidential candidate with the
Green Party’s Ralph Nader during Campaign 2000.) We talked with Ms. LaDuke
on the White Earth Reservation in northwestern Minnesota. Ms. La Duke
is spearheading the “White Earth Land Recovery Project” to help move members of
the Ojibwe Tribe there back to their origins. Ms. La Duke’s group is teaching the Native
Americans how to grow organically again, and harvest naturally. (They are also restoring forests, reintroducing
sturgeon back into the rivers…) Ms. La Duke
told me her motivation revolves around the spiritual principle that we must be
careful about our actions in this generation, because we are responsible for
how they ripple through the next seven generations. Bob Henson
believes we must be good environmental stewards now as well. At a stop at his organic farm in New Vienna,
Ohio, Henson, who studied biology and botany at Ohio State University, said the
American farmer’s use of chemicals has increased 20-fold in the last 50 years.
And because of this, he said we are presently losing four tons of top soil per
person, per year, in the U.S. This
doesn’t bode well for the next generation, much less seven generations down the
line. What would
bode well, is more farmers going to an “Integrated
Pest Management System (IPM).” At the Heritage
Complex in Tulare, California, we learned this is a natural way of getting rid
of pests, while reducing, or stopping altogether, the use of pesticides. For
instance, the introduction of more ladybugs on a farm means a tremendous
reduction of crop damaging aphids. Likewise,
lacewings eat mealy bugs, aphids and spider mites, all of which are crop
damaging. Bill Bosko would approve of this system.. 9) employing more people on the land Bill Bosko is the manager of Ark Acres Farm, a 54-acre organic
farm in West Union, Ohio. He is a 1994
graduate of Eden Valley Institute, a Christian College specializing in organic
farming in Loveland, Colorado. On a stop
here, Bosko told me nature is God’s “second
book.” And being intimately in touch
with the growing seasons, the land, the plants… tells us about the nature of
God. Ark Acres
was certified organic the year we arrived by the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm
Association. Fields have to be toxin
free for three years, Bosko explained. Instead of
using chemical nitrates to fix the soil, organic farmers plant “green manures”
like soy beans, clover and vetch, which produce nodules on their roots, fixing
nitrogen from the air to the ground.
Nothing gets polluted. And these
cover crops also help protect from erosion and provide an insulating soil
blanket, according to a May, 2000 Mother Earth News article on green manure. Organic
farms, in many respects, are much more labor intensive than modern conventional
farms. People are needed to weed, water,
wash, pack and harvest (a lot of harvesting is done by hand at Ark Acres.) Bosko said it takes
about 15 people to maintain the farm, which means 15 more jobs for the
community. (In St. Joseph, Louisiana, we
interviewed Jerry Outlaw who is a case manager with the state’s JTPA Works
Project. He told us this particular area
(Tensas Parish) used to have 12,000 people – it now
has 5,000. Outlaw said as the farms
became increasingly mechanized, the jobs decreased in measure. Families that had been part of this area for
generations began to move away.) While
working on the Basinger farm in Allen County, Ohio,
Cindy Basinger said that in the “old days,” before
herbicides, pesticides and big combines, parents worked side-by-side with their
children in the fields. There was no
such thing as talk about making “quality time” with the kids,
there was all kinds of quality time. And there
was less obesity and other physical maladies with children. On a
2,000-mile, bicycle campaign tour leg through the Midwest during Campaign 2000,
I interviewed Bernie Stuttgen, who taught physical
education at Thorp High School in Wisconsin for 31 years. (He’d just retired.) He said to
me that way more kids used to grow up on small family farms shoveling, throwing
bails of hay… (Stuttgen
grew up with a family of 16 kids on a dairy farm.) He said as
kids have moved off the farms, many have become much more sedentary. This is
contributing to things like childhood obesity – which is approaching epidemic
proportions in America. 10) going back to the farm So, how do
you get more kids back on the farm?
Well, one way, as an interim step, is to find people like Ray Person. Person
teaches religion at Ohio Northern University and he and his wife Elizabeth
recently bought a 20-acre farm in rural Allen County, Ohio, about five miles
from Bluffton, Ohio. Several acres of
the farm have been put aside for an “organic garden co-op,” Elizabeth told me. A group of
five families (including a good deal of children) from Bluffton share labor,
equipment, cost of seeds… The Persons
have even set up a “Summer Kitchen” in their garage (complete with stove,
refrigerator, sink…) for joint canning efforts and other projects. Red Oak
Farms in Hancock County, Ohio, has started a Community Sponsored Agriculture
(CSA) project, which allows for people to work on the farm as well. Red Oak’s T.R. Steiner told me that community
members are offered “shares” ($390 a full share, $200 a half). In return, shareholders receive weekly
produce from the farm. What’s more,
if a full shareholder chooses to work 10 hours on the farm, they get $100 off.
And for five hours of work, a half shareholder gets $50 off. “People say
that’s generous,” said T.R. “But I think
farm labor should be viewed as a valuable thing in our society.” [I told the
Kingman (AZ) Daily Miner newspaper that a farm worker provides a more
valuable service than practically anyone sitting behind a desk. That is, they help provide us with: food.] Another way
to get kids back on the farm is to move them there, like Bill Towne of
Kingston, Rhode Island did. On a stop in
Kingston, Towne told us he’d moved his wife and children from the city to this
small, two-acre farm so they could grow up intimately experiencing the cycles
of nature and also know that: “Milk doesn’t come from the grocery store.” A cluster
of families in western Ohio have not only moved from various cities around the
country to small farms in this rural area, they have set up a Five-Acre Farm
Model” to help others make the transition to farm life as easy as possible. On a stop
in Minster, Ohio, one of these small scale farmers, Guy Gruters,
gave us a tour, explaining that the farms utilize raised beds for maximum
garden yield; easily movable grazing pens for sheep; an elaborate, yet simple,
worm composting system; a highly creative, and also mobile, chicken wagon… And once
these new rural models evolve, with more and more people getting involved with
the rural life again – it will be essential we don’t make the same mistakes we
made the first time around. 11) technology One of the
major mistakes was that greed drove farmers, and big corporations, to want more
and more farmland to make more and more money. I met with
Bob Hoffbeck, an agronomist and crop consultant in
Jamestown, North Dakota, during a campaign stop there. He said farm equipment and farm technology
has been driven by farm size. And he
stated that farm size, in part, has been driven by U.S. agricultural policy. He said
government “set-asides” were paid to farmers in the 1980s when prices were
low. Some farmers took the money and
bought out their neighbors, sending the neighbors to town. The neighbors, in effect, were ‘outsourced,’
he said. And coupled
with this, large corporate farms are growing at such volume (allowing for much
cheaper prices) that this is also pushing the small farmers off the land
because they can’t compete. “Economics
of size currently has agriculture locked up (in America),” said Hoffbeck. And at the
far end of the ‘bigger is better’ continuum, we now have huge, single-pass
feeder combines, complete with three computers.
One computer is for steering, another is for planting seed and another
regulates fertilizer application. (Hoffbeck said a new one of these now runs just under a
quarter of a million dollars.) Also at the
Heritage Center in Tulare, California, we learned that one of these huge
combines, for instance, can pick the same amount of cotton in 20 minutes that
it would take a human picker two days to pick.
And a Forage Harvester can fill a trailer that holds 60 tons of forage
in: 10 minutes. 12) at “nature’s pace” During a
campaign speech in Rockport, Maine (which my wife Liz, who has a degree in
Agricultural Science, wrote), I said with the advent of big tractors and huge
combines, mass production of food became possible – which opened the door to
massive, corporately owned mega-farms.
This, again, pushed a tremendous amount of small family farmers off
their land, land that had often been in the family for generations. During a
seminar I attended which featured David Kline, who is the publisher of Farming
Magazine, he said that with big farms and big farming implements, the
fields are basically “vacant” between June and August. Whereas with the small
organic farmer, there is always something going on in the fields (hoeing,
pruning, picking…). This puts the
farmer more in touch with the land, and with life. To underscore this, Kline quoted a Lakota
medicine man: “Modern farming leads to a
lack of respect for growing and living things, which leads to a lack of respect
for human things [aborted unborn babies, children living in abject poverty, the
elderly in nursing homes…]. The answer
to reversing some of this modern conventional farming dilemma, At Nature’s
Pace author Gene Logsdon told me, is to revert
back to small technology (small tractors, small seed spreaders, etc.) on small
family farms. We would
agree. And we would push for the small
farm technology to include things like non-polluting electric and solar powered
tractors. We would
also point to Old Order Amish, Mennonite and Quaker sects who still use
horse-drawn plows and seed spreaders. At a stop
at Amish Acres Museum in Nappanee, Indiana, we learned that the Amish use draft
horses to plow because this is truly “nature’s pace.” (At a stop in La Crosse, Wisconsin, retired
farmer Marion Helin told me he preferred using
“beasts of burden” to farm because they have to rest “…and then you get your
rest.” He said tractors can run all
night and tempt farmers to do more and more work, and want more and more land.) At stops in
Amish settlements all over the country, we learned time and again that Amish
farmers seldom want more and more land.
They stay small because they’re more interested in the good of the
community. And they realize the common
good is all about allowing their neighbors to stay on their farms and raise
their children on the farms. In
addition, the Amish see farming as a God-given vocation. And to get in the way of someone not
realizing their vocation would be a serious spiritual affair. On a
campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, we met two young, married men who were
just starting families and working at a phone company in the city. They said they didn’t want to work at the
phone company; it was just that they couldn’t financially make a go of it
anymore on their family farms because they couldn’t compete with the
mega-farms. Both men’s
vocations, in essence, had been taken away.
And their children would be deprived of farm life as well – including
perhaps future vocations for them. 13) in the classroom In order
that future farmers don’t fall through the cracks, our administration would
tout a plan among the states to consider adding farming classes to all
curriculum (k-12) in both city and country schools. Author Gene
Logsdon (mentioned earlier), believes these classes should not necessarily be
taught by standard teachers, but rather by: local farmers. I mean, who better, right? Earlier, I
also mentioned that Ark Acres’s Bill Bosko had gone to Eden Valley Institute, a Christian
College specializing in organic farming.
We also think there should be federal incentives for more of these types
of colleges, and more of these types of majors in general. On a
campaign tour down Hwy 95, I interviewed Brad Jaeckel,
who is the Organic Farm Project coordinator at Washington State University in
Pullman, Washington. He said there has
been a sustained movement among small liberal arts colleges in America to teach
the principles of organic growing. Washington
State University offers an intensive 12-week course for college credit that
includes class studies and work on the college’s three-acre organic farm. Jaeckel said the
intention is to prepare students to start their own organic farms. We would also
promote “teaching farms,” like Michaela Farm in Indiana (which was also
mentioned earlier). Michaela has an
“Intern Program.” People from across the
country live and work here for a time, then return
home to start organic farms or organic garden co-ops. Sr. Anita at Michaela told us there are
currently some 1,000 similar “teaching farms” throughout the U.S. My administration would try to
promote more of these teaching farms by offering incentives to establish
more. And in tandem, we would suggest a
Fund for scholarship money so more of the disadvantaged could enroll at these
farms. 14) farmland preservation and recovery It’s
essential we try to preserve as much farmland as possible, especially in the
midst of runaway
urban sprawl these days. In Brown
County, Ohio, which was looking down the barrel of Cincinnati urban sprawl, we
learned about a group of farmers who had established a Trust Fund and were
fundraising to try to buy as much rural land as possible in the county. They were then leasing the land under the
provision that it could only be used for farming. Local
initiatives like this should be encouraged throughout America. And in addition, my administration would
propose the federal government also buy “endangered farmland” and set up a
system like the National Park System, only again, this would be a National
Farmland System. And, as in
Brown County, Ohio, small parcels would be leased solely for farming. Also, at
the White Earth Reservation (mentioned earlier), we learned that over the
years, parts of the Reservation had been sold to outside farmers and corporate
farming interests. In turn, large farms
had been established. The White
Earth Land Recovery Project is about appealing to these big farmers to consider
selling (or even just giving) all, or at least part, of their land back to the
Reservation. The intention is to convert this land back to organic fields, as
well as hunting and fishing areas – all to be used in line with traditional
Native growing and hunting methods. The
Project had established a Trust Fund as well.
And besides soliciting donations, they were also trying to raise grant
money. In line
with the White Earth Land Recovery Project model, our administration would
point to the “Economy of Sharing” (EOS) model to help with reclaiming farmland
for small farmers nationwide. At a stop
in Fishers, Indiana, we interviewed John Mundell,
whose environmental consulting firm is an EOS business. Mundell explained EOS is a worldwide movement of businesses
that have developed the following formula:
The first third of a company’s profits go directly to fund humanitarian
outreach into the Third World. The
second third goes into a pool to help other EOS businesses get started. And the
last third goes back into the company for overhead (which includes, among other
thins, “fair wage” for employees). This model
could well expand to include “Economy of Sharing” farms. The first third of an EOS farm’s profits
could go to help small farmers in the Third World. The second third could go into a pool to
purchase farmland and help with small farm start-ups. And the last third would go back to the farm
itself. (The EOS headquarters in America
is in Maplewood, New Jersey. In
addition, our administration would also encourage states to establish more laws
that would effectively contain urban sprawl. 15) “urban
farming” Local production for local
consumption of food is also happening more and more in big metropolitan
areas. It’s called: “urban farming.” In Cleveland, Ohio, I interviewed
Meagan Kresge who had just completed a 10-week “City
Fresh” course. Sponsored by the Ohio
State University Agricultural Extension (and a number of other organizations),
City Fresh provides training in “small scale agriculture.” Attendees are taught how to grow
organically, compost, and develop markets into the city – whether to
restaurants, Farmer’s Markets, grocery stores…
There was even suggestions of a “Mobile Market” using a ‘veggie cart’
that would go from neighborhood to neighborhood. Ms. Kresge
told me she had picked a section of an old abandoned parking lot and is
currently working on getting grants, and other financing, to get started. In addition, City Fresh is trying
to promote “School Farms” at elementary and high schools all over the city, not
only for more local food production, but to give city kids more of a hands on
feel for agriculture. Herman Schreiner, of West Milgrove, Ohio, has a rather expansive backyard garden,
told me that the U.S. could learn a lot from European countries when it comes
to land utilization for the growing of food.
He said the Europeans grow food on their balconies, in every available
nook of their yards, even on plots adjacent to railroad tracks. And as we would do well to study
these European models, we would do well to establish more “Community Gardens”
in the nation’s cities as another aspect of “urban farming.” 16) “Community Gardens” and front porch
produce In Woodstock, New York, we
interviewed Martha Hill, a special education teacher who has a plot at the
Woodstock Community Garden. (The Garden
has 25 15-foot squared plots.) Hill said
the Garden has provided her with fresh food, helped her get to know more people
and she has gleaned a good deal of gardening tips. While there’s no formal Community Garden
Board here, up the road in New Palz, New York, we
learned there is a Community Garden with 100 plots, a Garden Board and a
regular newsletter. In the Toledo, Ohio, area, I
interviewed Patrice Powers-Barker who helps coordinate that city’s extensive
Community Garden network, with numerous locations throughout the town. We toured one of these Toledo Community
Gardens behind St. Louis Church in the heart of the city. The fresh produce grown here goes to a Soup
Kitchen next door. Ms. Powers-Barker told me: “I want to do as much as I can in the city to
make it livable. And the work I’m doing
in the central city (with the Community Garden projects) is just as important
as any work I could do on the farm (in the country).” In an effort to make cities more ‘livable,’ our
administration would follow the historical model of when there was much more
produce and dairy sold from ad hoc ‘front porch stands’ in city neighborhoods –
like they used to have on Cleveland, Ohio’s Near Westside. Bill Merriman, a long time resident
of this area of Cleveland, gave me a tour of some neighborhoods there, pointing
out how, in the “old days,” these vegetable, eggs, goats milk… stands were run
from peoples’ front porches every fourth or fifth house. This not only provided extra income for the
family, but enhanced neighborhood community building exponentially. However, with increased
affordability of the automobile, people started driving to the grocery stores
more for everything – and they started to move farther out into the suburbs,
with community in the city diminishing in kind.
In tandem, zoning commissions started outlawing chickens, goats and
other “farm animals” in city neighborhoods, spelling the demise of what
remained of these front porch stores. My administration would push for a
relaxation of these laws, starting in D.C. where we’d turn the White House lawn
into a permaculture, complete with chickens, goats, a
big organic garden, fruit trees… (Well,
you’ve got to lead by example.) And the example we’d use is that of
Robert Waldrop in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Waldrop has established a permaculture around his modest, one-story home. On a one-seventh acre of land he grows almost
100 different types of food in raised bed gardens, trees, fruit bushes… “A well kept lawn (which
are all around him) is a waste of productive land, unless you’re grazing
sheep,” he said. Likewise, in Citronelle, Alabama
(pop. 3,270), Lisa and Craig Kalloch have established
a permaculture similar to Robert Waldrop’s, only on
several acres of land. On a stop there, Criag told me a permaculture is
all about “allowing nature’s synergy to do its part.” A key component to the Kalloch’s permaculture is “sheet
mulching.” That is, layers of compost,
leaves, newspapers… are put down in several layers. And the layering of this material brings
worms and microbes to the surface to help it break down into tremendously rich
soil for growing herbs and vegetables. The day I was at the Kalloch’s, there, Eric Conn from
Bellingham, Washington was also there.
He had a business called “Food Not Lawns.” And he told me he would cover the ‘dead
green,’ chemically-treated lawns with sheet mulching, then plant vegetables,
herbs, fruity shrubs (blackberries, blueberries…), fruit trees. The land would become much more
“productive and educational,” Conn added. The point, we believe, is we should
all consider this type of permaculture farming on our
land, whether a large plot, or small, to be better in touch with nature and the
growing cycles. And the money we save on food could
go into humanitarian food funds to help in the Third World – where 24,000
people (U.N. figure) starve to death every day. 17) American farming and international
problems A tremendous international social
justice problem growing out of the evolution of the American corporate mega-farms, is the demise of many small farms in the Third World. At a seminar in Ohio, I heard
Bluffton College economics professor Jim Harder say that modern corporations,
for the most part, see people as “individual markets,” not “individuals living
in community.” As a result, making money
from the “individual markets” is the priority, and how people live in community
isn’t given much of a thought, said Professor Harder. So corporations often don’t
hesitate to pollute much, or overwork cheap labor, or exploit natural
resources… How this translates in the
farming world, Professor Harder continued, is that corporate mega-farms in
America can grow at such volume and ship cheaply enough – that these farms can
undercut local small farmers in Central America who are selling to local
groceries or farmer’s markets. As a result, impoverished people in the Third World
become that much more impoverished.
While the well off in America become even that
more well off. Coupled with this, American farmers are subsidized
pretty heavily by the government, which gives them additional capital to invest
in machinery, more land… which puts these small farmers in other countries at
even a greater disadvantage. And if you overlay creating free
trade zones through things like NAFTA and CAFTA, the small farmers in these
impoverished countries have virtually no protection at this point, and little
hope. The free trade and “globalization”
rhetoric out of America has been that “we can compete with anyone in the
world.” And of course we can, given our
affluence and level of technology. The real question is: “Should we be competing?” Or should we be trying to help
these countries more. My administration would opt for the
latter. Note: According to a Catholic News Service article,
Guatemala Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini said while he is
not against “free trade in its true sense,” it is not currently equal rules for
equal players. According to the article,
the bishop said he is concerned that under the terms of the Central American
Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), U.S. food products will flood global markets,
stifling domestic production for Guatemala.
“The Guatemalan peasant farmer has no social security, no job security,
neither does he have access to subsidies (unlike) the U.S. farmer, who has
farming equipment, irrigation systems, and who will inevitably produce more,”
the Bishop said. 18) American farmers reach out to the world While campaigning in Indiana, we
learned about a “Common Ground Growing Project” in Noble County. This project involves a group of
people getting together to farm a common plot of land. Once harvested, the crop is converted to
cash, which is donated to supply seeds, tools, irrigation equipment, animals
and instruction to local villagers in 25 countries who then work to create
community gardens, wells, and herds that will sustain them long-term. At a stop in Neola, Iowa, we
learned about a “church farm,” where members of St. Patrick’s Church here farm
land donated by a deceased farmer. And
some of the money is set aside to help the disadvantaged. Likewise, the Peace Corps sends
people all over the world to help Third World villagers with farming
techniques, how to start community gardens…
For instance, I interviewed Ed and Dorothy Bailey, who in their
retirement did a tour with the Peace Corps in the Philippines where they helped
provide loans to small farmers. And another type of loan, or rather
Third World donation, that makes tremendous sense to
us is the donations of Heifer International.
In Bluffton, Ohio, I interviewed
Amy Marcum whose Global Concerns group at St. Mary’s Church there had just done
a fundraiser for Heifer International. The crux of this program, which is based in
Arkansas, is that local people here raise money and purchase cows, chickens and
other animals, which are then shipped to communities around the world. The livestock arrives in the
impoverished villages bringing the benefits of milk, wool, draft power, eggs –
and offspring to pass onto other farmers.
In fact, every family and community that receives assistance through
Heifer International, promises to donate one, or more, of their animal’s
offspring to another family in need. I told the Bryan Times in
Bryan, Ohio, that it was these kinds of initiatives (humanitarian outreach to
the Third World) that might be more in line with the “globalization” God might
wish for the planet. Because I doubt God looks at people
as “individual markets.” 19) subsidies
for “conventional farming” phased out My administration would propose,
over a 10-year-period, the incremental removal of government subsidies (and
they are currently quite substantial) for conventional farmers on big farms who
are using toxic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. This, in turn, would create a significant
pool of money. We would propose using this money
to help with start up costs for small, new organic farms, or the conversion of
some conventional farms to organic ones.
Some of this money could also go to the purchase of farmland that is
endangered for the National Farmland System (mentioned earlier) and for grants
to help with local and state initiatives to preserve farmland. To help
encourage the re-establishment of smaller farms, my administration would also
propose an escalating tax on farms with over 60 acres. That is, there would be a tax on each
additional acre, with the percentage of the tax to rise on an ascending scale
in relation to: the bigger the size of the farm. So, for
instance, on a 80-acre farm there would be an
additional tax of 2% per acre above 60 acres.
On a 100-acre farm, it would be the same additional 2% for each acre
between 60 and 80 acres -- and an additional 3% tax on each acre between 80 and
100 acres. And so on… To reverse
the current “economics of (big) size,” we believe there must be some creative,
targeted approaches that will move people into a much saner agricultural
paradigm. What’s
more, any money raised by these additional farm taxes could be earmarked toward
the improvement of technology in developing better electric or solar powered
tractors, farm wind turbine projects, and other non-polluting, renewable energy
applications. And some of
the money could be earmarked as grants, or loans, to help some farmers
purchase: draft horses. Ubana (OH) Citizen newspaper: He
(Schriner) explained that he is concerned about what people eat, particularly
his children. If he were president,
Schriner said he’d support an effort to return completely to
organic agriculture. “Those
chemicals, whether herbicides or pesticides, create a chemical cocktail
internally that causes cancer,” Schriner said.
“I tell people that first thing I’d do if I got to the
White House is tear out the front lawn and put in an organic garden.”
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