Archives – March, 2013

Chemical Industry Clout Delays EPA Regulation of Hexavalent Chromium

Contaminated Jug of Water at Hinkley Meeting (Source: PBS)

Contaminated Jug of Water at Hinkley Meeting (Source: PBS)

The hit 2000 film Erin Brockovich, which tells the story of how a novice legal clerk holds a huge corporation liable for contaminating a town’s drinking water with the carcinogenic chemical hexavalent chromium, or chromium (VI), ends in justice for those harmed. But as it turns out, Hinkley, California, the real-life town featured in the movie, is still contaminated. (more…)

1 Comment March 27, 2013

Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America

On Monday, March 18th, 2013, WORT 89.9 FM “A Public Affair” host John Quinlan interviewed Wenonah Hauter, the director of Food & Water Watch. Hauter was in Madison to speak that evening at the Goodman Center at an event hosted by the Food Rights Network, a project of Madison’s Center for Media and Democracy.

Hauter recently published the book Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America, a ”tour de force” (Publishers Weekly) that examines farming at the turn of the 20th century until today and details the consolidation of the food chain from crop seeds to retail stores to argue that the people who grow our food, and consumers, have been cheated and manipulated by agribusiness and the leading food companies. (more…)

Leave a Comment March 25, 2013

Wave of “Ag Gag” Bills Threaten Food Safety and Freedom of the Press

Remember “fecal soup”? A CBS “60 Minutes” exposé in 1987 documented widespread food safety violations by the poultry industry, making use of undercover video from a hidden camera placed by the “60 Minutes” crew. The episode vindicated U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) whistleblower Hobart Bartley, who had been ignored and threatened by his superiors and finally transferred to another plant when he warned of unsanitary conditions at a Simmons Industries plant in Missouri. Bartley was particularly irate about the “eight-foot-high vat of water called the ‘chiller,’ where as many as 10,000 chicken carcasses were routinely left to float, soaking up moisture to increase their selling weight. Dried blood, feces, and hair were floating in along with the dead birds. Diane Sawyer later called it ‘fecal soup.’” (more…)

Leave a Comment March 13, 2013

Have a Cold One, Brought to You by the Foodopoly

- by Wenonah Hauter

Wenonah Hauter, author of Foodopoly

Wenonah Hauter, author of Foodopoly

Tonight, millions of people will enjoy a beer. What the vast majority of them probably won’t realize is that the variety of brands they see in the stores come from just two foreign-based multinational companies that control 80 percent of the market here in the U.S. (more…)

Leave a Comment March 8, 2013

Wenonah Hauter, Author of “Foodopoly,” Discusses Why Corporate Control of America’s Food System Affects YOU

Foodopoly coverWenonah Hauter, Executive Director of the national advocacy organization Food and Water Watch, will be in Madison, March 18, to read from her acclaimed new book “Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America.” Publishers Weekly calls it a “tour de force.” Since 2005, Food and Water Watch has lead the fight against corporate control of the U.S. food system, against the privatization of the U.S. water supply and against water contamination by hydraulic fracturing or fracking. In her new book “Foodopoly,” Hauter examines farming at the turn of the 20th century until today, and details the consolidation of the food chain from crop seeds to retail stores to argue that the people who grow our food, and consumers, have been cheated and manipulated by agribusiness and the leading food companies. She explores how the evisceration of anti-trust laws has dramatically increased consolidation among food and agricultural firms, which, along with the growth of big box stores and the marketing of junk food, has perverted how food is sold and marketed and what people eat. Hauter also calls attention to the inherent cruelty to animals in confined animal feeding operations and the pollution of the environment that is part and parcel of the factory farming of cattle, hogs and chickens. She challenges the biotechnology advances that have led to the genetic modification of food crops and exposes large-company practices that are changing the organic food industry. (more…)

Leave a Comment March 4, 2013


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