The case underscores one of the major problems with CAFOs, which is the massive amount of manure they produce and the manners by which operators dispose of it, which have major environmental implications. According to the EPA, “a single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day,” which is “equivalent to that of 20-40 people.” The quantity of manure produced by one dairy cow can be multiplied on a CAFO by hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of heads. This higher concentration of CAFO animals leads to a higher concentration of animal waste, a problem that holds true for all types of livestock raised in these operations. As CARE describes the scale of the waste problem:

Operations like the Nelson Faria Dairy produce as much waste as a city of over 200,000 people. Unlike cities, however, which treat their wastes, the dairy industry applies manure to agricultural fields primarily to get rid of it.

In moderation, manure is a great soil fertilizer, but the sheer amount (and concentration) of untreated waste generated by CAFOs is a serious liability. When too much manure is spread out over fields for soil to properly absorb it, or when manure lagoons leak, overflow or rupture, rain and stormwater runoff can carry the waste into groundwater and nearby waterways. This over-application or discharge of CAFO animal waste is an egregious example of nonpoint source (NPS) pollution, where the source(s) is diffuse and can have a wide distribution area. Untreated animal waste is a hazard for both public health and ecosystems because it can contain harmful quantities of nutrients, pathogens and heavy metals. (Ecocentric has covered the problems associated with large amounts of untreated CAFO animal waste.)

The case of the improper handling of manure on the Nelson Faria Dairy is typical of the CAFO industry. While state and federal animal waste rules exist, their enforcement is lax at best. As CARE President, Helen Reddout, explained:

The Washington Department of Agriculture had recently inspected the dairy and found that it was doing an excellent job managing its manure. Nothing could be further from the truth…It is now time for the agencies who are supposed to be protecting our health to follow the precedent set by this Order. Our state and federal laws were aimed at protecting people and now it’s time for the agencies responsible for safeguarding public health to do just that.

Reddout goes on to explain the reality of state agency CAFO inspections:

Washington Departments of Ecology and Agriculture (WSDA) are supposed to monitor and regulate the dairy industry to ensure that operations do not harm public health or the environment. Unfortunately, inspections often involve nothing more than cursory visits by WSDA staff. If problems are found, dairy owners receive only a slap on the wrist, at best.

The hope is that this court victory against CAFO manure handling and pollution – little mentioned in the media – will help set a precedent toward better practices, regulation and enforcement of the CAFO industry. Reddout acknowledges that this court victory is one small step, albeit an important one, that shows that CAFOs aren’t above the law and puts them on notice for pollution practices, a particularly big deal for the economically (and thus politically) strong Yakima Valley dairy industry. Based on the compelling evidence of agricultural water contamination in the Lower Yakima Valley, and bolstered by the recent ruling, the EPA selected the area for inclusion in a study monitoring nitrate pollution in groundwater. Reddout expects the EPA report to be released in late Spring 2012.

CARE and their allies in the Royal City area deserve our congratulations for this major legal victory that may ultimately inspire a regulatory approach to CAFOs capable of safeguarding human and ecological health. Government agencies must acknowledge the great harm cased by CAFO pollution and hold the industry accountable for the true costs CAFOs impose upon the public.

As expressed by CARE’s lead attorney, Charlie Tebbutt, “Citizens have once again proven that the CAFO industry is a huge polluter. It is time for the state agencies to step up.”

To find out how many CAFOs are in your area, check out Food & Water Watch’s Factory Farm Map:

http://www.factoryfarmmap.org/

**********

Legal Documents

Memorandum of Decision (PDF)

Order of Decision (PDF)

Background and Resources

Hidden Wells, Dirty Waters (Yakima Herald online resource that includes a contaminated well  map and various investigative reports on the issue.)

“Farmers Put up Stink Over Stench” (background article from Seattle Times, Wednesday, July 7, 2004)

Socially Responsible Agricultural Project – Washington

Originally published on Ecocentric

A new article in the respected journal BioScience raises important concerns about the harmful influence of genetically engineered herbicide resistant crops on sustainable weed control. As many others have also noted, the excessive reliance on glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup, has resulted in the emergence and spread of many harmful weeds that can no longer be controlled by glyphosate. These weeds now infest millions of acres of farmland the U.S., resulting in greater herbicide use.

But the new article goes well beyond most previous work by providing insight into the state of weed control for major crops in the U.S., and how the current use of engineered herbicide resistant crops is driving agriculture toward reduced sustainability.

Old herbicides in a new package will cause environmental harm

The authors make several important points to support their thesis. First, because of widespread resistance of several important weeds to glyphosate, companies are now working to commercialize crops resistant to several other herbicides, including the old herbicides dicamba and 2, 4-D. Crops resistant to these two herbicides are likely to be widely used because the herbicides they are immune to are more effective than others. This is bad news, because these herbicides can cause a lot of collateral damage to other crops and nearby natural areas. And natural areas are important for fostering biodiversity, such as pollinators and organisms that control pests and reduce insecticide use.

Based in part on the pesticide/seed industry’s own analysis that both glyphosate and these other herbicides will be used together on engineered soybeans and corn, the authors of the article project total herbicide use to increase more than twofold over the next decade. Dicamba and 2, 4 – D are projected to increase almost tenfold.

And the likelihood of these herbicides moving off site and harming sensitive crops is much higher than for glyphosate—75 to 400 times greater in one comparison, although newer formulations may somewhat reduce this problem.  This spells trouble, especially when combined with several other factors that accompany herbicide-resistant crops, such as use of the herbicides later in the season when nearby susceptible crops and wild vegetation have leafed out and are more vulnerable to damage.

This in turn could lead to a further shift to the few crops that are resistant to these herbicides in an effort to avoid damage.

This kind of further simplification of agriculture is understood to be bad for the environment. And in parts of the country where corn and soybeans are widely grown, it could also impede the growing demand for fresh local foods that have positive effects on jobs.

Where have I heard this before?

Increased herbicide use will surely lead to even more resistant weeds, some with resistance to both glyphosate and 2,4-D or dicamba (or all three), leaving even fewer options for farmers.

The industry has argued to the contrary that it is unlikely that weeds will develop resistance to these herbicides for several reasons…which the article adroitly refutes.

It is troubling that the industry is taking this “head-in-the-sand” attitude because, to the extent it is accepted, it may lead to lax policy by the government and lax practice by growers—that is, too little effort to prevent resistance or to promote sustainable alternatives.

It is particularly troubling because we have heard these irresponsible arguments before from an industry bent on maximizing its sale of products at the expense of the environment. The current article points out how spurious arguments where similarly made that weeds would not develop resistance to glyphosate, where to the contrary, the dramatic increase in resistant weeds is the driving force behind the new crops engineered for dicamba and 2, 4 – D resistance. And I have noted that the industry is also trying to deny and downplay the potential importance of emerging resistance of corn rootworms to Bt.

Undercutting sustainable agriculture

The authors of the new article describe sustainable weed control practices that readers of this blog will find familiar—crop rotation, use of cover crops, crops and cropping practices that effectively compete with weeds, judicious use of tillage, and for non-organic systems, minimal and targeted use of herbicides.

These methods improve weed control and make it more sustainable, while reducing weed pressure.  That means that when herbicides are used, it is less likely that weeds will develop resistance to them. And organic systems, of course, don’t use herbicide at all.

So in the context of these better ways to control weeds, it is perhaps most troubling that the authors document the decline in, as they put it, “…the knowledge infrastructure needed to practice IWM [Integrated Weed Management] in the future…” And, I would add, harm to the research infrastructure that can improve IWM and make it even more efficient.

The authors document a shift in land grant institutions and USDA away from research on more sustainable types of agriculture, toward more emphasis on chemical controls and engineered crops. The dramatic shift of agricultural research funding from the public to the private sector, and the growing ties between academia and the biotech industry, also do not bode well for sustainable agriculture research and infrastructure.

The biotech and chemical industries have no interest in developing the kinds of knowledge- and ecology-based farming vital to a productive and sustainable agriculture that conserves resources and biodiversity, and which will be vital to confronting coming challenges of climate change and increasing population. The companies can’t sell this knowledge, so they are not interested in it.

Sensible solutions

The authors discuss several useful recommendations to make weed management more sustainable. These include mandatory herbicide resistance management imposed by EPA, which approves these chemicals (and I would add, by USDA, which approves herbicide resistant crops); fees on GE herbicide resistant crops and herbicides to discourage their overuse, and which could be plowed back into sustainable ag research; the fostering of partnerships between all stakeholders to develop better stewardship information for farmers and to advise them on sustainable agriculture practices; and more funding and incentives for sustainable agriculture research.

These important policies face a daunting uphill fight—one that UCS and our allies in the sustainable agriculture community will continue to wage. There is considerable resistance to this important agenda by the biotech and pesticide industry and its supporters in the government and academia.

The GE and pesticide industry have no inherent interest in promoting a truly sustainable farming system, and in fact such a system is antithetical to their narrow interests of selling as much herbicide and engineered herbicide-resistant seed as possible. The kinds of sustainable IWM supported in the article would greatly reduce the need for both herbicides and engineered seeds that these companies sell.

Instead, the strong public sector policies advocated by the authors will only come through ongoing and vigorous engagement to convince the public and its servants, who are lobbied heavily by these industries, that sustainable agriculture is critical to the health of our food supply, our environment, and rural communities.

Photo: Giant ragweed, one of the serious weeds that have developed resistance to glyphosate, by Peggy Greb.

Originally published on the Union of Concerned Scientists’ blog

While many recognize that putting land into conservation programs leads to cleaner water, healthier soil and robust wildlife habitat, few realize that CRP land also plays a major role in fighting climate change. According to the USDA, one acre of protected land sequesters 1.66 metric tons of carbon every year, carbon that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere.  The 7 million acres about to be cut from the Conservation Reserve Program have been putting 11.6 million metric tons of carbon into the soil every year.

The Environmental Protection Agency says that this amount of carbon is equivalent to the annual emissions of 2 million passenger vehicles. All that stored carbon will be sent back into the atmosphere if those 7 million acres are plowed under to plant more industrial-scale corn for ethanol and livestock feed.

A recent poll conducted by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach found that 68 percent of Iowa farmers surveyed say climate change is occurring; many of those same farmers likely experienced the devastating weather events of the past few years. So you’d think that there would be a clarion call from agriculture to have the federal government do whatever it takes to protect farmers against the ravages of climate change. Instead, taxpayers have to pick up the rapidly increasing insurance tab after climate-related disaster strikes.

And had industrial agriculture lobbyists not help scuttle climate change legislation, farmers would be collecting payments today via carbon credits for their conservation practices.

The main impetus for cutting conservation acres is the mad rush to plant every available inch of ground–whether it’s highly erodible land or a golf course–to capture high prices for corn propped up by Washington’s misguided corn ethanol mandate.

Speaking of corn ethanol, the industry and its lobbyists should be gravely concerned about the carbon emissions released by plowing under Conservation Reserve Program land. Political support for corn ethanol–which has been slipping–depends in part on whether it is better for the environment than gasoline. Most believe that corn ethanol currently is no better, emissions-wise, than gasoline.

America’s water, soil and wildlife habitat have never been under greater assault from the ravages of modern industrial agriculture. And since industrial crop production is exempt from most federal regulations, farm bill conservation programs like the Conservation Reserve Program are often our only line of defense against erosion and water contamination by toxic agrichemicals. Conservation is the rare investment in agriculture that pays every taxpayer a positive return.

Meanwhile lavish government payments to highly profitable mega-farms continue. Astonishingly in this tea-flavored budget environment, farm state lawmakers and agribiz lobbyists are working toward newer programs that could increase taxpayers’ burden. Farm income has been white-hot for a decade and shows no sign of diminishing. But if you quiz industrial ag lobbyists about why agribusiness subsidies should be spared the budget axe while conservation gets whacked, they’ll tell you farm bills are written for the bad times, not for the good times.

Well, it’s pretty obvious these are the bad times for conservation.

The conservation community needs to fight back hard against these proposed cuts. EWG president Ken Cook said it best:

No conservationist worthy of the name should accept legislation that cuts another $6-plus billion from the farm bill’s programs to protect land, water and wildlife. Nor should conservationists accept subsidy programs that give incentives to farmers who drain wetlands, plow up prairies or recklessly increase already severe runoff pollution from farm fields.

And if the climate change community can engage the debate on the farm bill with the same intensity it used to postpone the Keystone Pipeline, we may just have a conservation battle we can win this time around.

Originally published on EWG’s AgMag

The attacks coming from economists against the local and sustainable food movement sound a lot like this joke: The arguments are based in flawed assumptions, obfuscated by fancy charts, big words, and complex calculations. 

Consider this most recent rant, “The Inefficiency of Local Food,” on the Freakonomics blog by economist Steven Sexton, who challenges the claim that “relocalized” food systems can be as efficient as today’s modern farming. He writes, “Today’s high crop yields and low costs reflect gains from specialization and trade, as well as scale and scope economies.”

Let’s start with Sexton’s assertion that industrial agriculture’s high yields can be attributed in part to specialization and trade—gains presumably lost when we “locavores” start frequenting farmers’ market. He writes, “The case for specialization is perhaps nowhere stronger than in agriculture, where the costs of production depend on natural resource endowments, such as temperature, rainfall, and sunlight, as well as soil quality, pest infestations, and land costs.”

When I was in graduate school, our economics textbooks spun this old yarn, too. It’s based in the theory of “comparative advantage,” dating back to classical economist David Ricardo’s writings in the 19th century. Specialization, argued Ricardo, makes sense because regions and countries should grow what best suits their climate and soils and then trade for what grows best elsewhere.

But when Ricardo extolled the benefits of comparative advantage, “capital” couldn’t move. Now that corporations can, and do, this theory no longer holds. In fact, regional or national agricultural comparative advantage often reflects nothing “natural” at all, but rather the extreme imbalances in power in our food system that enable those at the pinnacle to more heartlessly exploit the land and the workers lacking power.

To choose but one example: Ricardo’s theory doesn’t explain why North Carolina jumped from a bit player in the hog industry to number two, after Iowa, just in the past few decades. The key was the state’s concessions that lured the hog confinement industry, including its weak environmental and labor laws.

Of course it doesn’t make sense to try to grow mangoes on rooftop farms in Manhattan, but contrary to what Sexton implies, that’s not what regional food advocates suggest. Indeed, one of advocates’ core tenets is that the healthiest diet, for eaters and the planet, prioritizes choosing foods that grow well where we are, when they are in-season or when they can be stored, and considers those mangoes a special treat.

Sexton’s other hit on the efficiency of sustainable farming is that its yields don’t measure up. As a result, he says, shifting to a regional food system would require “more inputs to grow a given quantity of food, including more land and more chemicals.” But his calculations are based on assuming we’re not reconsidering what we grow or how we grow it.

But locavores and regional food advocates aren’t suggesting we try to plant Iowa-like monoculture corn farms in New York’s Hudson Valley; we’re arguing we need to radically rethink not only where we source our food, but what we plant and what methods we use.

Most American industrial farm acreage, for example, is devoted not to growing food for people to eat directly, but to grow commodity crops like corn and soybeans that are mainly used as inputs—for livestock production, ethanol, and industrial products. In addition, the American industrial food system wastes as much as half the food we could all be consuming. This waste embedded in the industrial model and its squandering of vital farmland for non-food production is enough to shake your head at the economist who praises its alleged efficiency—or suggests that by shifting away from this model we are putting the planet at a greater risk for hunger.

Sexton misses two other important points. For one, those industrial yield figures start looking a lot less impressive when you consider the cost by which we’ve achieved them—and especially when you learn that those costs are ones we need not pay. High yields from industrial agriculture rely entirely on external inputs—most of them in the finite, nonrenewable, we’re-not-gonna-have-them-in-fifty-years category.

Consider, for example, that in the Midwest we’re outstripping the nation’s largest source of groundwater faster than we’re replenishing it. A recent peer-reviewed study published by the National Academies Press concluded that if we don’t shift away from this industrial model, the Ogallala aquifer—which one-quarter of the farmers growing corn, soy, and cotton and 40 percent of those raising feedlot beef rely on for water—will be completely drawn down in a few decades.

Using new techniques to track soil erosion, scientists at the Environmental Working Group  found that vast swaths of Iowa and other Corn Belt states were losing their rich topsoil soil at rates many times faster than official estimates had assumed. Industrial monoculture methods leave the soil bare for most of the year and relying on external inputs for fertility defeats the build up of healthy soil—both practices make land vulnerable to erosion.

By definition, industrial agriculture relies on applying manmade fertilizer year-upon-year. But relying on external inputs for farming’s key macronutrients—nitrogen, potash, phosphorus—comes at big costs. While nitrogen is abundant in our atmosphere, to “bind” it into a usable form requires an enormous amount of energy–often natural gas. In China, 70 percent of nitrogen fertilizer production is powered by coal-fired plants.

The widespread use of phosphorus in industrial agriculture–by 2008 industrial agriculture was applying 17 million metric tons annually–has led to what some experts call “the gravest natural resource shortage you’ve never heard of.” Relatively rare on the Earth’s crust, phosphorus is mined from ancient marine deposits, but it’s running out. Some say that within 30 to 40 years we may have none left. Plus, for every ton of phosphorus we mine, we produce five tons of radioactive waste. Today, the U.S. is home to more than one billion tons of this waste stored in 70 towers, ranging from just a few acres wide to some the size of 720 football fields.  In addition, we’re using more potent pesticides than ever, yet despite massive chemical pesticide use, we still face significant crop loss due to pests.

The second point Sexton misses is that strong yields don’t necessarily require chemical inputs and egregious water overuse. Truly sustainable growers know how to grow abundant food without all these external inputs: They recycle nutrients, employ natural methods to repel pests and conquer weeds, and tap ecological sources for fertility, like nitrogen-fixing cover crops. And guess what? Yields hold. In one crop-by-crop analysis over three decades, organic corn yields held steady per acre with conventional ones. Even more notably, during drought years the organic fields, with quality soil structure that retain water better, had 31 percent higher corn yields than conventional ones.

Studies are coming in from around the world—from the UK government to the United Nations to the OECD—that innovative sustainable farming techniques can match industrial agriculture in yields. And, when and if yields are lower, the lower output is more than made up for in reduced costs (both financial and societal) of inputs, better nutritional quality, improved soil and biodiversity, and more. In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers at the University of Essex analyzed 286 farming projects in 57 countries, including 12.6 million farmers transitioning towards agricultural sustainability, and found a yield increase of 79 percent across a wide variety of crop types. Take a look at just those projects in East Africa and the increase in yields jumped 116 percent when sustainable farming approaches were introduced.

But, despite the evidence, Sexton and other economists with their collective blinders on still argue that the only way to feed the planet is with the industrial agriculture methods they endorse. Sure, that works. Just assume unlimited water, fossil fuels, petrochemicals, potash, phosphorus, topsoil, land, stable climate, and endless storage for radioactive waste. Just assume farmers can keep paying for these expensive inputs. And, assume all of us can afford the environmental and health consequences.

You’ll also need to ignore the plain fact that industrial agriculture has already proven unable to feed the world: Globally, we’re now producing over 20 percent more food per person than the late 1960s, but there are more hungry people—now almost a billion. Fixated narrowly on production, industrial agricultural so concentrates power that people go hungry no matter how much we grow.

So, ignore all that; assume the can opener.

If, however, you’d rather join me in the real world—where the occasional economist resides—and where natural resources are preciously limited and where farmers prefer not to pay dearly for inputs or be poisoned by pesticides, you’ll see that the most effective way to feed the world is to embrace a food system based in ecological systems and common sense.

When most people think of factory farming they typically think of feedlots, hog factories or chicken operations–not massive open net pens growing millions of fish in our oceans. However, factory fish farming will soon pose many of the same threats to the environment and to consumers as its land-based counterparts.

Growing fish in a crowded environment in open net pens or cages and giving them antibiotic-laced feed inevitably leads to pollution. The waste, which includes excess feed, antibiotics and the chemicals used to treat the cages, flows directly into the ocean and, ultimately, on to our plates.

Food & Water Watch’s new report reveals that if the government used factory fish farming to reach its stated goal of offsetting the U.S. seafood trade deficit (that is, importing less seafood than it exports), 200 million of these fish would need to be produced in ocean cages off U.S. coasts each year. Calculations show that this could result in the discharge of as much nitrogenous waste as the untreated sewage from a city nearly nine times more populous than Los Angeles.

The environmental issues don’t end there. Escapes from open ocean pens are common, and when farmed fish escape they can compete or interbreed with wild fish, altering natural behavior and weakening important genetic traits. They can also spread disease to wild fish. Washington State and California, for example, are now dealing with a highly contagious disease that is linked to factory fish farms and is threatening to wipe out their wild salmon populations.

Currently, there are only a handful of factory fish farms operating in U.S. federal waters, although there are many closer to the shore in state waters (like those off the coast of Washington State and California). However, just this year the federal government announced a new national aquaculture (fish farming) plan that promotes the increase of these unsustainable farms farther out in the ocean, in federal waters. What’s worse, the government announced it will be bringing these fish farms to the already besieged Gulf of Mexico.

What happens when a hurricane hits the Gulf and tears through these massive fish farms, releasing millions of fish? The last thing we need is another “big industry” disaster in Gulf waters.

It’s important that we let Congress know that we don’t support factory farming–on land OR in the ocean, and that we educate ourselves on other types of more sustainable fish farming, like recirculating, land-based fish farms. These closed-system farms often incorporate plants that purify the water; fish escapes are impossible since the farms are on land; and consumers aren’t threatened by the types of antibiotics, pesticides and other toxins necessitated by crowded, ocean farm conditions. For more information, check out our report: Fishy Farms: The Government’s Push for Factory Farming in Our Oceans.

Photo: Courtesy Food & Water Watch

Good Humus Produce has been in operation since 1976 and is now a 20-acre organic farm that produces fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Over the past 10 years, the Mains have been working on an easement initiative, the goal of which is to preserve a sense of place, post-retirement. When word eventually spread in the community about the Mains’ easement project, Sacramento locals who have come to rely on Good Humus Produce did not allow the couple to carry their initiative alone.

An easement strategy is not a standard conservation method. It utilizes a land trust to purchase and oversee the use of the farm. The trust buys an easement from the farmer for the amount of the development value while a new farmer may buy the land at the agricultural value. After the farm is passed to the next owner, the land trust ensures that the new farmer maintains certain land and residence standards. The farmers, the land, and small-scale agriculture, are all protected in this approach, which ultimately leads to the growth of safeguarded farms. In 2009, an organization known as One Farm at a Time was formed, in collaboration with the Davis Food Co-op and Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, to spearhead fundraising and outreach for the Good Humus easement.

One Farm at a Time will complete conservation work on Good Humus and then continue on to other local farms, using the same easement model to uphold small-scale agriculture. An envisioned network of local, long-standing farms must involve many partnerships that strengthen the larger objective to create sustainable and economically viable local ownership of agricultural land.

Alongside contribution from co-ops, the Mains have worked with a host of different organizations to spread their words of concern. At the launch of the easement initiative in 2001, Equity Trust, Inc., a national non-profit that works with individual farmers to secure land ownership through purchase options, led the Mains through their first round of fundraising. Since their founding in 1991, Equity Trust, Inc. has worked on many land preservation cases spanning New York to California. The Mains have also worked with California Farmlink and Yolo Land on the actual writing of the easement. Organic Valley and Straus Family Creamery help to sponsor the initiative.

Easement strategy is not a new concept specific to the Mains’ predicament. In the state of Washington, an organization known as PCC Farmland Trust does similar work for the American agriculture stage. Like the One Farm at a Time tale, PCC Farmland Trust originated in 1999 in reaction to the impending development sale of a 97-acre farm adjacent to the land of Sequim farmer Nash Huber.

PCC Farmland Trust emerged to rescue Nash’s Organic Produce, which now leases the 97-acre Delta Farm and continues to produce over 100 varieties of produce, meat, and grains. Since the organization’s first farm preservation, a total of nine organic farms and 865 acres have been saved, and both farmer and consumer rights have been protected. The fight to preserve, support, and produce on locally protected farmland is a campaign that depends upon many voices and a tremendous amount of collaboration.

On a hot July morning, farmer Annie stood with a group of high school girls at the opening of their workday on her farm. She looked from one volunteer to another and said, “We have a small voice. We want you all to be our voices, because when you hold a place in your heart, you defend it.” The girls, dressed in hiking boots and a thick layer of sunscreen attentively listened to the description of Good Humus Farm before they dispersed to weed and compost. From farmer, to worker, to consumer, Annie’s words resonate.

With the help of land trust organizations which value preservation, local ownership, and long-term investment, many family farms have managed to make themselves heard. These defended farms, still standing, confirm that their voices are loud enough.

Applying* a cancer-causing poison on California’s farm fields sounds like some dastardly plot hatched by a Batman super-villain. Unfortunately, reality is often scarier than fiction. In December 2010, the State of California approved the known carcinogen methyl iodide for use on the state’s farm fields. Yes, you read that right—a chemical that actually causes cancer was approved to be applied* on the fields that grow the Golden State’s most prized crops.

Earthjustice promptly filed a lawsuit in January challenging the state’s approval of the toxic pesticide. As a result of the lawsuit, Earthjustice recently obtained internal documents detailing dire warnings about methyl iodide from scientists at the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. Unfortunately, those dire warnings fell on deaf ears and then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger approved methyl iodide for use.

“These smoking gun memos show that state officials cherry-picked calculations to support their preferred outcome of approving methyl iodide instead of letting science guide their decision-making,” said Susan Kegley, PhD, Consulting Scientist with Pesticide Action Network North America. “Ignoring the science and prioritizing the needs of the manufacturer has put the health and safety of Californians at great risk.”

Methyl iodide, produced by the agri-chemical concern Arysta LifeSciences, is a highly toxic pesticide that kills weeds, insects, nematodes, soil borne pathogens, and basically anything else that lives below ground. The chemical is most threatening to the men and women who work in California’s strawberry fields where the majority of the pesticide will be applied. Those farm workers risk eye irritation, nausea, central nervous system disorders, late-term miscarriages, and the aforementioned cancer.

“I’m mad that the Department of Pesticide Regulation, which is supposed to protect us from pesticides, was hijacked by a pesticide company,” said plaintiff Jose Hidalgo. “As a strawberry picker, we frequently see pesticide tarps blowing in the wind and experience the pain of pesticide exposure.”

State experts weren’t alone in warning about the dangers of widespread use of the cancer causing poison. Fifty eminent scientists, including six Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, said methyl iodide is one of the more toxic chemicals used in manufacturing. California’s own Scientific Review Committee agreed. Dr. John Froines, chair of the Committee, told the press: “I honestly think that this chemical will cause disease and illness. And so does everyone else on the committee.”

Earthjustice’s lawsuit claims that the state’s approval of methyl iodide violated the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Birth Defects Prevention Act, and the Pesticide Contamination Prevention Act. The suit also contends that the state failed to involve the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in the development of farmworker safety regulations. Failing a settlement, the case could be heard as early as January 2012.

*Editor’s correction

Don’t you think someone who made $10.7 million in 2010 from a company whose profit primarily depends on chemical agriculture might have a bias in the matter? Yes, it would be understandable to think Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman of the Board of Nestlé, might. It also might be understandable to want to know what others, those without such a financial interest in the food status quo, think about the viability of non-industrial agriculture. But in the FastCompany.com article, like other press that pooh-poohs organic farming, those who disagree, if they’re mentioned at all, are portrayed as marginal or unqualified to speak to the issue.

In FastCompany.com, the other side is represented by unnamed (and unquoted) “nutrition professors and some food scientists.” No offense to nutrition professors and food scientists, but what if you had, instead, learned that the viability, efficiency, and safety of industrial agriculture is being questioned not only by professors and some food scientists but by countless agronomists, food security experts, economists, epidemiologists, public health experts all around the world? What if instead of “nutrition professors and some food scientists,” you heard about the numerous peer-reviewed and meta-studies that contradict Brabeck-Letmathe’s claims.

You’d be more informed, that’s for sure, and you might just begin to see the spin behind Brabeck-Letmathe’s messaging. He has three main talking points to defend fossil fuel-, chemical-, and water-intensive industrial agriculture. Brabeck-Letmathe raises each with strategic discipline: First, he claims that organic farming is a luxury; secondly, that it doesn’t produce food that’s any better for you; and finally (and much worse) that organic food can kill you.

This three-part spin-doctoring should start sounding familiar. I’ve been hearing it reported by uncritical media for more than a decade, dating all the way back to a 20/20 episode with John Stossel in 2000 and to the op-ed pages of one of Canada’s top newspapers, the Globe and Mail. In 2008 Brabeck-Letmathe told the paper, “We cannot feed the world on organic products.” That same year he delivered the same line to the Financial Times. Today, he tells FastCompany.com: “There’s no way you can support life on earth if you go straight from farm to table.”

Yet, numerous studies on the efficiency and future viability of industrial agriculture—especially in an increasingly resource-constrained and climate-unstable planet—keep proving the opposite is true: we cannot support life on earth unless we shift away from industrial agriculture systems.

Consider that in the United States alone, 27 percent of our nation’s farmland is dependent on fossil water from the Olglalla aquifer and we’re depleting it at a rate so fast that in a few decades there could be none left.

Or, consider that chemical runoff from industrial farms throughout the Midwest, especially synthetic fertilizer, creates a Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico every year that kills off aquatic life on the ocean floor and can grow to the size of New Jersey.

Or, consider that one of the three macronutrients industrial farmers rely on for fertilizer, phosphorus—found in the phosphate-bearing rock mainly in Morocco, China, South Africa, Jordan, and the United States—is increasingly rare. Some experts suggest we’ve already passed peak phosphorus; we will find it increasingly difficult to mine for the stuff. And, every ton that we do secure produces five tons of radioactive waste. Today, the U.S. is home to more than one billion tons of this waste now stored in 70 locations, some towering as high as a 20-story building and some as large as 720 football fields.

Meanwhile, studies have found that ecological farming practices, of which organic agriculture is one, can significantly improve water usage efficiency and eliminate farmers’ dependence on petroleum-based chemicals and synthetic fertilizer ingredients, including phosphorus.

And what to make of Brabeck-Letmathe’s second talking point: “From a nutritional point of view studies show no nutritional difference from bio [or organic] to other foods.”

We certainly need more studies assessing the nutritional differences between food items, but research is already turning up positive results—for organic foods. We already know, for instance, that studies of children’s consumption of organic versus conventional foods found those eating organic foods had lower detectable pesticide metabolites. We also know that last year’s President’s Cancer Panel noted that many chemicals used on industrial farms are known or suspected carcinogenic or disrupt our hormone systems, mimicking testosterone or estrogen. The Panel’s recommendation? Stay away from foods raised with pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics. Without calling it by name, the panel was saying: Be safer, go organic.

Finally, Brabeck-Letmathe adds the zinger: Not only is organic food not more nutritious: “it’s more dangerous.” Organic foods in Europe are “often fertilized with livestock manure,” he says, “and people don’t always realize they need to wash it thoroughly.”

More than ten years ago, Dennis Avery, from the Hudson Institute-funded Center for Global Food Issues, made the same attack on 20/20. Avery warned then that organic produce is likely infested with “nasty strains of bacteria” because it is “fertilized with manure.” A wide-eyed Barbara Walters asked, “I’ve been buying organic food. It is more expensive. But it isn’t dangerous?”

Yes, to the typical consumer—and FastCompany.com reader or 20/20 viewer—fertilizing crops with manure probably sounds gross. But Brabeck-Letmathe and Avery conveniently neglect to mention a few things: First, while some organic farmers do use manure as fertilizer, they must do so following strict guidelines so that potentially dangerous bacteria—the kind that has Brabeck-Letmathe so worried—are naturally eliminated. Plus, manure is not the only source of fertilizer for organic farmers. In fact, it’s not even the preferred source. Many organic farmers use no manure at all, preferring instead nitrogen-fixing crops like legumes that naturally pull nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it bioavailable in the soil. Often called green manure, the organic farmer integrates these fertility methods with many others.

These two also neglect to mention that industrial farms also fertilize fields with manure, only without any regulation or oversight. And then, there’s sewage sludge. Industrial farmers can use it; organic ones cannot. (By the way, Avery’s misstatements on 20/20 were eventually retracted by producers online. But I wonder how many people saw the televised episode and how many read the retraction?)

In the FastCompany.com article with Brabeck-Letmathe trotting out this tripartite critique of organic food, he concludes by saying that the demand for organic food has hit a peak. “It will stay the same… I don’t think it will grow much more than it is.”

Need I remind you who you’re listening to? The Chairman of the Board of Nestlé, a man who makes millions of dollars a year selling the world on Nestlé products, including everything from Cinnamon Toast Crunch to Butterfinger and Laffy Taffy and increasingly prepared and frozen foods. In other words, someone with a stake in ensuring that few of us turn to real, whole, organic foods or, even, cook for ourselves anymore. (As the U.S. Chairman and CEO of the company said recently, he was “feeling good about its focus on frozen foods” since, “cooking has become a lost art in the United States.”)

Maybe what we hear in FastCompany.com is a note of Brabeck-Letmathe’s defensiveness? After all, the growth of the movement of food producers allied with consumers who are rejecting short-sighted industrial agriculture, choosing to cook real food, and connecting in direct relationship with farmers means one thing to Nestlé: Loss of market share.

And while Brabeck-Letmathe would like you to believe that demand for organic food is coming just from “elite, wealthier” consumers in the U.S. and E.U.—and, indeed, leveling off here, he couldn’t be more wrong. The movement of eaters choosing organic foods and of food producers embracing agroecological practices is not just gaining ground in the U.S. and the E.U., but all around the world, from the foothills of the Himalayas to the plains of Central Brazil and the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. For a man like Brabeck-Letmathe, that must be scary stuff.

Next year, developers plan to apply for permits for the construction of America’s largest open-pit copper and gold mine, in the heart of Alaska’s most valuable salmon runs. It’s not too late for us to stop them if we act now. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently considering requests from stakeholders to use its power under the Clean Water Act to protect Bristol Bay. FRESH, Parent Earth and Trout Unlimited are combining grassroots forces to take action and I hope you’ll join us by signing the petition!

Pebble Mine would cover 20 square miles in the Bristol Bay watershed, and require the construction of the world’s largest earthen dam for a 10 square mile waste containment pond. Up to 10 billion tons of toxic mine wastes could be produced. Any release of these wastes could cause irreparable damage to the Bristol Bay salmon runs.

Even worse: while our wild salmon are under threat, genetically modified salmon may be introduced to the market any day. Here is exclusive footage with Paul Greenberg, best-selling author of Four Fish. He explains why hybrid Frankensalmon has no place on our tables, especially when we have an abundant, healthy alternative.

Originally published on Huffington Post

I recently attended a ranch field day at TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, California, hosted by the California Climate and Agriculture Network.  The focus was on the climate benefits of sustainable ranching-an overview of how properly managed rangelands (grasslands where animals graze) can sequester carbon dioxide (CO₂) in soils and help reduce greenhouse gas emission.  This is no easy task, and one that is the subject of much debate.

With about 770 million acres of rangelands in the U.S., their potential contribution to mitigating climate change is not insignificant.  The 30-second science lecture (from this non-scientist) is as follows: CO₂ is emitted into the environment in a myriad of ways and CO_2, along with other gases like nitrous oxide and methane, all contribute to climate change.  One of the possible ways to reduce CO₂ emissions is to keep grasslands in place, instead of plowing them up to make way for crops.  An increase in properly managed rangelands has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (by keeping those lands from being plowed up for crops). This could possibly sequester CO₂ that is in the atmosphere by improving soil health and therefore increasing the growth of grasslands, shrubs, and trees where they were not before.

The field day attendees included a mix of ranchers, USDA employees, non-profits and local politicians, and the general consensus was, yes, properly managed rangelands are a good thing and most of the rancher attendees were already employing some of these techniques on their land.  One of the more interesting conversations was how you encourage others to do so?  Managed grazing leads to healthy soils which have a host of benefits above and beyond carbon sequestration–increased productivity of the land, increased soil fertility, increased water holding capacity (leading to reduced run-off and erosion), increased soil aeration, increased biodiversity above and below ground, reduced need for fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, the list goes on.

But, the economic drivers of cattle production, in general, do not encourage ranchers to graze their animals up until the animals are ready for slaughter.  Nor do they encourage keeping ranchers’ land covered in native grasses, for example, when they could potentially plow it up and make more money planting row crops.  Proposed carbon payments would attempt to offset this potential loss in income by compensating land owners for the carbon they sequester in the soil.  This is rather difficult to measure. How much carbon warrants a payment? How long does the land have to be kept as grasslands in order to receive the payment?  If a rancher receives a carbon sequestration payment this year, but plows land up next year, all the climate change benefits are lost and the carbon is released into the atmosphere.  Measuring carbon sequestration rates and holding individual land owners accountable for their carbon sequestration commitments is quite difficult.

Recognizing that difficulty, one rancher suggested that instead of trying to pay people not to emit carbon, why not incentivize the production of the agricultural products that are a result of said carbon mitigating, healthy soil promoting, managed grazing techniques?  That is, don’t pay ranchers not to plow their land, make not plowing a naturally attractive alternative by paying more for grass-fed beef.  With many arguing that organic, local and/or sustainable foods are priced out of the reach of most consumers, there seems to be a greater trend towards trying to reduce, rather than maintain, the current prices of sustainably produced foods like grass-fed beef.

If the marketplace incentives aren’t popular, are there public policy options?  What does a policy that supports the production of sustainably produced foods like grass-fed beef and, therefore incentivizes ranchers to use managed grazing techniques, look like?   I’m curious as to what the Civil Eats community thinks. Please add your comments here on whether these positive environmental benefits should be compensated through the marketplace or through public policy.

Photo: Allie Quady, Eco-Farm