Comments on: Message to President Obama: Why Trade Will Not Save Rural America

By: Amerigo

Amerigo — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:05:04 +0000

I agree with AprilMC. Rural areas are being depopulated as farm consolidation continues. Rural areas need local food sytems, yes, but they need local economies. Agribusiness has killed the family farm and Walmart has killed main street. Restore those, and people will return, and local food systems will follow.

By: USDA makes the right call on school meat safety, animal tracking : Greenvert.net

USDA makes the right call on school meat safety, animal tracking : Greenvert.net — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:10:54 +0000

[...] Tom Laskawy From its failure to rein in abuse of farm subsidies to its misguided efforts on international trade, the Obama USDA has disappointed many progressives. But let’s take a moment to offer kudos to [...]

By: jonna

jonna — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:48:29 +0000

great article. really. you hit the issues spot on.

By: Stumblers.Net › USDA makes the right call on school meat safety, animal tracking

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:40:07 +0000

[...] school meat safety, animal tracking From its failure to rein in abuse of farm subsidies to its misguided efforts on international trade, the Obama USDA has disappointed many progressives. But let’s take a moment to offer kudos to [...]

By: Greenhoof » Blog Archive » USDA makes the right call on school meat safety, animal tracking

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:00:36 +0000

[...] its failure to rein in abuse of farm subsidies to its misguided efforts on international trade, the Obama USDA has disappointed many progressives. But let’s take a moment to offer kudos to [...]

By: GarlicMan76458

GarlicMan76458 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:06:45 +0000

Paula,

Again you hit the nail on the head. Thanks for the info… I’ll save it as an excellent resource.

I second what Smokey wrote. Sometimes it is so frustrating to get info from the USDA about their programs only to find out that there are too many strings attached. So where the big industrial ag companies are subsidized heavily, I have never gotten any subsidies, grants, loans, etc. and that is why my organically grown garlic costs more.

Thanks. Now I’ll step down from my soapbox.

By: AprilMc

AprilMc — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:15:42 +0000

Great article. However, the problem with creating local food systems in rural areas is that there are no people left in those areas to feed. I agree that direct sales are the way to go, but first we have to get the rural/urban population in balance. As Wendell Berry says, we are faced with the very tricky problem developing supply and demand simultaneously.

By: Smokey

Smokey — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:15:17 +0000

Well, this fits with the convoluted way our political wonks do things. $230mm to TRADE ORGS!

This is money to be spent around the world, but not here in the good ol’USA. A majority of the money from the previous two Farm Bills has gone unfunded. I have paperwork requesting to partcipate in USDA programs that have languished for more than two years. These programs were for conservation, water resource mgmt, and wetland improvement…never funded. I can name you 20 or more farmers who are still waiting for funding for crop production and coop marketing programs.

I understand the importance of having export markets, but, these markets mean little to the small and mid-size agricultural operators. They need access to local and regional markets. A little of that $230MM, invested in local farms, would do more for our economy, and with a more lasting effect. It is a proven concept that a dollar spent locally can have an economic impact worth $15.00 or more by the time it “tumbles” through that community.

Besides, the majority of the export market is controlled by the industrial food giants, and lord knows, we need to help them out financially.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:08:28 +0000

While I agree with most of your article, I’d like to point out that the S. Korean protests were not over hormones, antibiotics, or GMOs.

The protests were mainly initiated by students over a largely imagined risk of mad cow disease (mostly stemming from a single erroneous front page news article), and the adults carried on with that theme while also covering discontent with a very unpopular ultraconservative president and a railway workers’ complaint (it was never explained to me very well, but I have some propaganda given to me at a candlelight vigil). I was living in South Korea at the time, and I can assure you that the “crazy cow” protests never had anything to do with the facts on American beef.

By: Leon

Leon — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:43:00 +0000

IMHO, that’s an excellent message and I hope you did send it to President Obama by mail or took some other steps for it to reach audience outside of this blog? Because I doubt he reads Civil Eats.

I just found this site recently and I love it but once again I see a group of like-minded people here. It’s great but how do we reach out to the majority of the population who doesn’t get it yet? I mean if 80% of people stopped buying junk it would make Monsanto & Co history way faster than any government intervention or rules …