[Scpg] ojai-saturday evening event

Tue Dec 3 21:45:25 PST 2002

THE FUTURE OF FOOD
AND AGRICULTURE

A special presentation by

Steve Sprinkel

Organic farmer, nationally published writer and public policy analyst
For ACRES,USA and co-owner of The Farmer and The Cook

”The bitter taste of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low
price is forgotten”

          -anonymous

Saturday
7 December
Six PM

At The Ojai Retreat
160 Besant Road, Ojai
call the Retreat for directions 
if needed: 646-2536

>From ACRES,USA

A Journal of Regenerative Agriculture
acresusa.com

T R A N S I T I O N S 

by Steve Sprinkel, associate editor

January 2003

Late in November, USDA’s National Organic Program Staff was strongly and
broadly criticized for attempting to streamline materials approvals regarding
Class Three inert ingredients used in pesticide formulations.

 The Environmental Protection Agency manages these various lists of
substances, dating back to 1987. Inerts of toxicological concern are on List
1. Potentially toxic inerts with a high priority for testing are on List 2.
Inerts of unknown toxicity are on List 3 and inerts of minimal concern are on
List 4. 

The pivotal issue was one of authority: the Organic Foods Production Act of
1990 unambiguously provides to the National Organic Standards Board unique and
legitimate governance on additions to the National List of approved materials.
Current NOSB members- Jim Riddle being most strident among them- quickly
warned USDA staff that they were going beyond their lawful power in adding to
the list.

My impression is that the USDA staff proposal will not stand and by the end of
the year 2002 this issue will have been resolved with USDA staff defeated
because if it is not the entire effort to create organic conformity under the
USDA will have been dealt a killing blow.

 This latest attempt to alter the National List without following procedures
is probably most offensive in terms of potential damage to fundamentals- this
will affect field production-however, its not the first time that the protocol
for materials review was unlawfully altered. Perhaps the 1997 changes on
processing materials review-the nefarious creation of “incidental additives”
by the NOSB itself opened the door to such similar mutations as the current
List Three inerts gambit. 

Though doubtful that USDA would use the 1997 action as a justifying precedent,
its obvious that past members of the NOSB, some current NOP staff and the
organic community in general only have themselves to thank for watering down
organic standards, altering congressionally mandated policies, all for the
sake of efficiency. 

We also need to remember that then-Secretary of the USDA Dan Glickman
authorized changes to the National List when the Final Rule was released-the
addition of sulfites to organic wine among the most memorable and unlawful
additions-but at the time nearly everyone was so glad that the awesomely
complex task was finally over that they just blew it off-as if to say “ Hey-we
got lucky this time-at least we don’t have to beat back GMOs and irradiation
again…”

In acknowledging all the above, our communal, continued indecision on inert
ingredients has been an embarrassment in itself because the use of these
materials is the most obvious means of delivering the kind of
substances-toxic, complex, synthetic materials-which consumers so clearly
believe are not being used in organic production. These materials have been on
our ‘agenda’ for over a decade- I can recall Brian Baker of the Organic
Material’s Review Institute pointedly discussing this secret long ago when he
was the staff scientist at California Certified Organic Farmers. Baker failed
to energize anyone else back then-at least very seriously-even though his
perception of the dire need to act was clear.

Therefore, allow me to play Devil’s Advocate and applaud instead the USDA
staff for bravely trumping the private sector in its lethargy and forcing the
issue front and center. While we meantime have been distracted from lesser
issues, thousands of gallons of unknown and probably dangerous substances have
been applied to organic crops while we have plead ignorance. The truth is that
we don’t need to guess; we can be certain that crucial synergies are most
likely engaged by combining 2 or 3 percent of an ‘active ingredient’ with
nearly a whole bottle of unnamed liquid which you can bet quite heavily is not
as benign as day old goats’ milk. Consumers would have a right to be outraged
over this, and more so because it is the fault of the gatekeepers that this
challenge to organic had not been grappled with resolutely years ago.

This latest drama on inert ingredients found me rusty and dusty on a subject I
once made myself understand. List Three inerts are considered of unknown
toxicity. These substances are not a high priority for EPA to regulate and
investigate further, but knowledge is the key to determining the acceptability
of the substance if it’s to be used in organic production. The big problem is
that there is terribly little disclosure on these unnamed ingredients in
containers of pesticide. 

Last month you caught me cautiously congratulating the GMO multinational
corporate front Biotechnology Industry Organization, a biotech trade group,
for agreeing to only grow potentially harmful crops spliced with industrial
attributes or pharmaceutical products far from food and feed crops. 

Well, I was snared in an artful trap and I should have known better. No sooner
had my article gone to the printer than the real news surfaced which uncovered
the underlying motive for such would-be conscientiousness. 

What the Biotechnology Industry Organization deftly managed to do was pre-empt
a scandal ready to blow: Prodigene, a BIO member, was already under
investigation- by the USDA of all people-for failing to destroy any remnants
of last year’s pharmacorn they grew, with some protein destined for a pig
vaccine ( allegedly), and the corn had contaminated a soybean field. This
story was never provided the prominence of the earlier one about the vow to
safely grow. I register some surprise that USDA actually is policing the
activities of the industry-especially a Texas-based constituent-because USDA
is the largest culprit of all in the development, promotion and defense of
biotech foods and farming. Prodigene is located in College Station, Texas, and
I suppose its not much of a coincidence that the college in College Station is
Texas A and M, the Lone Star State’s agricultural land grant institution. They
used to actually work on practical agronomy there. Now I hear they’ve given
over the experimental orchards and greenhouses to the folks in white lab coats
working now in hermetic centers, using federal money to assure corporate
profit. . The future of agriculture as they, and thousands of other
pretentious pioneers see it, is in manipulating genetics. They achieve it
consistently with a good measure of clumsiness. They are dull when it comes to
theory, stupefied by all the money and therefore blinded to all the unintended
consequences.

While trying to track down the timeline on this story I spoke with Ronnie
Cummins, the executive director of the Organic Consumers Association

http://www.organicconsumers.org),  who said that there had been a similar
story much earlier this year which had not gotten much attention from the news
media. As Cummins suggested-and we have been hollering for some time-there are
unfathomable and unpredictable genetic experiments growing undisclosed
throughout the world now-not just in Nebraska. For example, the GMO trial and
production deal has covered thousands of acres of former sugar cane and
pineapple production land in Hawaii, and is so prevalent in Argentina that
genetically modified agriculture may be contributing to that country’s general
economic disease.    

 "ProdiGene should certainly be punished for this reckless lapse”. said Mark
Helm, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth. “ But let us not forget that the
USDA has irresponsibly continued to allow drugs and industrial chemicals to be
engineered into food crops and it has to stop.”         

 Folks who got burned badly during the Starlink corn-recall readily see that
this new kind of contamination might more fundamentally threaten consumer
trust. Karil Kochenderfer, director for new technologies at the Grocery
Manufacturers of America suggested that until the government and producers can
prove that those crops won't taint food, "we strongly urge the biotech
industry to direct its substantial research capabilities into investigating
the use of  nonfood crops for the development of pharmaceuticals."  

This truly frightening circumstance will no doubt recede from our concern just
as the others have-but there was never a better reason to fight GMO releases
into the environment. How reckless have this industry and its benign watchdog
( the feds) really been? Most of the business is kept entirely secret, usually
for commercial reasons, however, with the advent of overarching state
interest, Homeland Security can be made a convenient reason for not discussing
nor openly identifying where substances designed for vaccines or other
pharmaceutical uses are to be planted or processed.

Carol Hunt, who works for the Johnson County Soil and Water Conservation
District in Iowa City was visiting relatives in California over Thanksgiving.
She said she was moderately hopeful about the Leopold Center’s chances of
survival. I was caught flat-footed, because I had no idea that the Leopold
Center, which has functioned at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa since 1987
was in trouble. 

The center is named after Aldo Leopold, an historic figure held in great
regard especially throughout the upper Midwest and world-wide, for his
pioneering work in wildlife ecology and forestry. Leopold’s A Sand County
Almanac ranks just below Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring  on many an
eco-farmer’s short list of inspirational literature. 

A bit of research on the internet revealed that the Iowa State legislature
reduced the Leopold Center’s funding by around 80% earlier this year. In
another search I used ‘Leopold’ and ‘controversy’ as search terms, which
resulted in the entire crime being laid out rather quickly, in archived
articles from the Des Moines Register, commentary from regional
agriculturalists and in the words of Mike Duffy, the assistant director of the
Center.

“Look, almost everyone in farming today would have to agree that our current
policies are failing most farmers, right? Well, who’s going to look into
different ways to grow or market food if places like the Leopold Center face
the knife?” Duffy said, earlier this year.

Controversy is the best word to search for reasons and it yielded up the seeds
of the Center’s crisis, because dating back to 1997, the Leopold Center had
gone on notice that it is not interested in doing any work which includes
promoting genetically engineered agriculture. Their rationale at the time was
pretty simple: private sector money represented an avalanche of support and
the Leopold Center’s meager budget could be better spent on other projects. 
Moreover, what they did choose to study and report on were the failed promises
of better-yielding and more profitable farming through corporate-bred GMOs.
Eventually, certain powers buttonholed the folks who run the Iowa legislature
and told them to knock the Leopold Center off its feet. 

A comparison of defunded projects and funded projects at the state level is
forthcoming. I can guess that pork-barrel favorites and monopolistic,
pandering corporate initiatives gained funding.

The Leopold Center is one of the few legitimately formal institutions in the
region to criticize the advent of genetically manipulated crops, unsustainable
farm policy and the rural farm-country crisis.

 One of their mandates and mission is to protect groundwater from pollution
through education and research on environmentally friendly farm practices. A
special state tax put on nitrate fertilizers is dedicated to educate farmers
about groundwater pollution. Leopold Center has worked on this issue, funded
through that tax.

The largest alteration in farming brought by GMO production is the obligation
to spray herbicide directly on top of the majority acreage of the soybean crop
and a large percentage of the corn crop. One odd irony is that hard water (
calcium, magnesium or iron in solution) deactivates Round-Up herbicide to such
an extent that mixing as much as 17 pounds of ammonium sulfate fertilizer with
100 gallons of water is openly recommended. So we have to add tons and tons of
polluting nitrogen fertilizers to mitigate hard water and allow the herbicide
to work effectively. 

I did not retrieve this linkage through the Leopold Center, but these are the
sort of nettlesome details that the GMO crowd would prefer that no one knows
about- and silencing the Center can better assure continued ignorance.

There is literally no independent voice like the Leopold Center being heard
where it may count for more than anywhere else- ground-zero in the GMO
revolution. And with Fred Kirschenmann as Executive Director since 2000,  the
Leopold Center has a leading figure that is nearly an equal to Leopold himself
as a multi-faceted, authentic farmer-philosopher. 

In Mike Duffy, farmers have a clear-voiced champion whose focus on
sustainability is that of a professor of economics who also is in charge of
Iowa State’s Beginning Farmer Center.

In July of this year, once the severity of the financial shortfall became
known, the Leopold Center reported on the outlook for its future and that of
small farms in Iowa.

"Slashing the Leopold Center's budget does far more damage than simply
crippling the Center's ability to fund projects to support midsize farms,"
Kirschenmann said. "It sends a message that Iowa has given up on the long-term
vision of an agriculture that is economically and environmentally sound."

"We do not believe that the demise of midsize family farms is inevitable, " he
added. "We believe in another future for Iowa agriculture, and are working
within the university community and with organizations outside that community
to secure funds to keep the Leopold Center in operation."

The Center will be able to operate through Fiscal 2003 because it maintained a
year’s reserves-a fine bit of exemplary planning. In coming months, Leopold
Center staff will seek relationships with grant-making institutions and
individuals so that they don’t have to depend on the legislature or the
economy as much.

 “We have to move away from this year-to-year political nonsense,” says Duffy.

Please help support the Center. The current challenge might very well turn
into a benefit, giving even greater editorial liberty to reports and
literature issued there, as well as broader freedom when speaking out against
industrial agriculture. 

The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, 209 Curtiss Hall,
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-1050 PH: (515)294-3711
Fax:(515)294-9696 Email: leocenter at iastate.edu