Food Rights Network

Raw Milk Dairy Organic Pastures Sues FDA Over Interstate Raw Milk Sales Ban

According to the Dairy Reporter, the country’s largest raw milk dairy, California-based Organic Pastures Dairy, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “alleging that the agency repeatedly failed to respond to its petition to amend a law that forbids the sale of raw milk-based dairy products across state lines.”

Leave a Comment December 18, 2012

Chicago’s Brilliant Plan: Sludge Soccer Fields

According to a local publication in Hinsdale, Illinois, the Chicago metropolitan area has opted to replace a soccer field’s soil with “biosolids” — dried sewage sludge — in several batches and re-sod. Apparently two other local soccer fields have also been sludged. Why? It’s cheaper than “good, new black dirt.”

Leave a Comment December 18, 2012

Glencolton Farm in Ontario Raided Again

Raid at Glencolton Farm in Ontario (Source: Michael Schmidt, Facebook)

Ontario, Canada raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt, who was recently granted leave to appeal another court case related to raw milk production, is in the news again. Yesterday his farm, Glencolton, was raided for suspicion of his connection to a group called “Farmers Peace Corp.” that is working to prevent a local herd of rare breed sheep from being confiscated and euthanized. One of the sheep was suspected of having scrapie, a prion disease. For more, see The Bovine, David Gumpert’s article on The Complete Patient, and Michael Schmidt’s Facebook page.

Leave a Comment August 3, 2012

Sewage Sludge in the News

(Amherst County, Virginia) According to the Amherst New Era-Progress (June 13, 2012):

The county’s planning director, Jeremy Bryant, told supervisors that a company plans to spread sludge, also known as biosolids, in Amherst County sometime this year. Only one property in the county has been approved for this form of fertilizer.

In a 2009 letter to the Department of Environmental quality, the supervisors opposed the dumping, spreading or discharge of biosolids on land adjacent to the Virginia Blue Ridge Railway Trail.

Synagro informed the county that it intends to spread biosolids, also referred to as sludge, on land owned by Wesley Wright in northern Amherst County. The 132 acres slated for spreading is adjacent to the trail, which begins at Piney River in Nelson County and follows the river nearly 2 miles to Roses Mill in Amherst County, according to officials.

The supervisors opposed the spreading of sludge near the trail, based on the smell and potential health risks.

Synagro — which, as a corporation owned by the Carlyle Group, now has a “junk” corporate credit rating — “intends” to spread sludge wherever it wants, over the opposition of county officials that it “informs” of its intent.

Leave a Comment June 14, 2012

Resources to Find Out More About the Farm Bill

The Family Farm Defenders today posted a couple of good resources for understanding the Farm Bill:

• The Farm Bill Primer website is full of statistics and graphics about the distribution of funds in the Farm Bill, including Agriculture Committee maps, with information about the committee members.
• Path to the 2012 Farm Bill, a resource website of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, has a summary of the Senate Farm Bill’s draft and the impact on Local Food and Rural Development initiatives, as well as other regular updates and guest posts by experts.

Leave a Comment April 26, 2012

Raw Milk in the News

• Wisconsin Raw Milk Association Lobbies Wisconsin Legislature Today, February 22 (Wisconsin Ag Connection, 1/31)
  
• Raw Milk Freedom Riders Plan Workshop and Rally to Support Vernon Herschberger March 1-2 in Sauk County, Wisconsin (The Bovine, 2/21 and 2/15)
• “Study Says Raw Milk Poses Risks,” Seems not to Reflect Corrected Numbers: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article (2/21) quotes a new CDC study published in Emerging Infectious Diseases. Read David Gumpert’s excellent analysis of the study here. The article also quotes a death toll, which doesn’t seem to reflect the correction the CDC made last year.
• Pennsylvania Amish Raw Milk Dairy Farmer Dan Allgyer Shuts Down Farm in Reponse to Court Decision (Philadelphia Daily Enquirer, 2/15; MSNBC, 2/15; and San Francisco Chronicle, 2/14)
• “Indiana Panel to Consider Sale of Raw Milk” (Courier-Journal, 2/14)
• “Iowa House Panel OKs Sale of Raw Milk” (Quad-City Times, 2/13)
• Canadian Raw Milk Dairy Farm Michael Schmidt will Appeal Sentence and Fine (Bayshore Broadcasting News Center, 2/10)
• Rural Vermont Submits Raw Milk Report to Vermont Legislature (Rural Vermont report and announcement, 2/9)
• New Hampshire House Committee OKs Raw Milk Bill (New Hampshire News, 2/7)
• “Kentucky Bill would Allow Herd-Sharing for Raw Milk Products” (Dairy Herd Network, 2/6)
• California Herd Shares “Fight for Survival . . . Despite ‘Buy Local’ Trend’” (San Mateo County Daily Journal, 2/2)

Leave a Comment February 22, 2012

Sewage Sludge in the News

• King County, Washington Brands Sludge Product and Pushes it at Northwest Flower and Garden Show: According to a press release reprinted in the West Seattle Herald (2/8), “King County’s clean-water utility has announced the launch of Loop, its new biosolids brand, at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show at the Washington State Convention Center, Feb. 8-12. . . . ‘As an urban farming collective, it only makes sense that we use an urban-derived compost. We know that using Loop not only helps us grow great crops, it’s also the right thing to do,’ said Sean Conroe, founder of Seattle-based urban farming collective Alleycat Acres, which uses GroCo compost made with Loop to fertilize and amend their city farm sites.” ”Biosolids,” or treated human and industrial waste, include many hazardous chemicals. New studies found steroid hormone runoff from agricultural test plots smeared with sludge. Seattle cancer patient and naturopath, Dr. Molly Linton, has raised concerns about pharmaceutical residues such as the drugs in her chemo therapy making their way into sewer systems, and University of Washington Researcher John Kissel shares those concerns, according to King 5 News (2/7). The Food Rights Network supports urban farming, but doesn’t support the growing of any food in toxic sludge.
  
• Calabasas, California Residents Encouraged to Stock Up on Free Sludge! According to the Calabasas Patch (2/6), “Built in the early 1990s, Rancho Las Virgenes uses a highly-automated process to convert biosolids removed during the water reclamation process into U.S. EPA graded “Class A – Exceptional Quality” compost that has become a favorite of professional landscapers and home gardeners across the region. After nearly 20 years of production, some of the machinery and the buildings that house compost production must undergo significant maintenance and upgrades.” So the facility is urging residents to come get some free sludge quick, to help them clean out before they fix up.
  Beginning in 2007, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) began sporadic free giveaways of its sewage sludge. The San Francisco sludge was processed by the Synagro company (along with sludge from 8 other counties) and given away as free “organic biosolids compost” to gardeners. (more…)

Leave a Comment February 9, 2012

Food News You Can Use

• “More Damning Evidence Points to Pesticide as Cause of Mass Bee Deaths: Bayer-produced imidacloprid harmful to bees even at very low levels” (Common Dreams, 1/30)
• “Dishonest Fox Chart: Food Stamps Edition”: According to Media Matters for America (1/30), a Fox News show run on Monday, January 30, “features mismatched data that does not answer the question of whether ‘more people have gotten on food stamps’ under Obama than any under other president (spoiler alert: they haven’t).”
• Climate Change Affects Agriculture, and Vice Versa (Who Knew?!): According to Greenwire (1/30 – subscribers only), “The World Bank’s proposed agriculture-based carbon market got preliminary approval today [Monday 1/30] from a third-party carbon credit accreditation system based on the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism. . . . The approval brought the bank’s efforts to remunerate smallholder farmers for practicing agricultural techniques that sequester carbon in soil — such as no-till farming, crop-residue management and agroforestry — closer to reality. With the approval, carbon credits can be sold on voluntary carbon markets globally.” However, as Carbon Trade Watch‘s Kevin Smith has said, “Effective action on climate change involves demanding, adopting and supporting policies that reduce emissions at the source as opposed to offsetting or trading. Carbon trading isn’t an effective response; emissions have to be reduced across the board without elaborate get-out clauses for the biggest polluters.” The Food Rights Network supports no-till farming, using crop residues to boost soil fertility, and agroforestry without the use of toxic herbicides and other unsustainable practices, particularly for small farmers, but believes that corporations shouldn’t be allowed to buy carbon credits from small farmers instead of reducing their own emissions. Meanwhile, Public Radio International reports (1/29) that “farmers in Mozambique [are] trying to adapt farming to climate change” by diversifying the crops grown and installing irrigation, with help from the organization Save the Children. And in the United States, climate change may be threatening cranberry production in New Jersey, according to the New Jersey Spotlight (1/26). Some scientists propose “geoengineering,” or “fill[ing] the upper atmosphere with tiny particles that could scatter sunlight before it reaches, and warms, the Earth’s surface,” as a solution to the effect of climate change on agriculture and to boost crop yields, according to NPR (1/23). Scientists working on the proposal caution, however, “Even if the global average remained the same, some regions might get hotter while others get colder. That could cause drastic local or regional changes in climate and weather patterns.” And the New York Times Green blog also published an article about agriculture and climate change, on January 19. (more…)

Leave a Comment January 31, 2012

Raw Milk in the News

• Raw Milk Rally and Court Hearing for Wisconsin Dairy Farmer Vernon Hershberger Friday, January 27 at 12:00 pm in Baraboo: Vernon Hershberger has a court appearance scheduled tomorrow, Friday, January 27, 2012 at 1:00 pm at the Baraboo Courthouse, which is located on 515 Oak Street in Baraboo. Vernon is facing criminal charges for allegedly violating state food and dairy laws, including several counts for not having the proper permits. He has contended that he was not required to have the licenses because his store was a members-only club, in which people leased farm animals and were provided dairy products from those animals. Wisconsin farmers and Hershberger’s farm club members have scheduled a Rally at 12:00 pm in front of the Baraboo Courthouse preceding the 1:00 pm court appearance. The Jefferson/Waukesha chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation recently published a related commentary on the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection’s (DATCP’s) “war on raw milk.”
• “Local Food Movement Gets Verbal Support from El Dorado County Officials” (Sacramento Bee, 1/25): “The grass-roots (and grass-fed) agriculture revolution that Patty Chelseth,” whom the Food Rights Network interviewed last month, “started last summer is picking up steam. Chelseth, of My Sisters’ Farm in Shingle Springs, has launched a campaign to get a ‘Local Food and Community Self-Governance’ ordinance. Her effort got a warm reception Tuesday from the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors.” (more…)

Leave a Comment January 26, 2012

Sewage Sludge in the News

Updated on Thursday, January 26, to add a late-breaking research article:

• “Measurement of Flame Retardants and Triclosan in Municipal Sewage Sludge and Biosolids” (Environment International, April 2012 volume): “The biosolids [from California and North Carolina] and SRM 2781 were analyzed for PBDEs, hexabromobenzene (HBB), 1,2-bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy)ethane (BTBPE), 2-ethylhexyl 2,3,4,5-tetrabromobenzoate (TBB), di(2-ethylhexyl)-2,3,4,5-tetrabromophthalate (TBPH), the chlorinated flame retardant Dechlorane Plus (syn- and anti-isomers), and the antimicrobial agent 5-chloro-2-(2,4-dichlorophenoxy)phenol (triclosan). PBDEs were detected in every sample analyzed, and ΣPBDE concentrations ranged from 1750 to 6358 ng/g dry weight. Additionally, the PBDE replacement chemicals TBB and TBPH were detected at concentrations ranging from 120 to 3749 ng/g dry weight and from 206 to 1631 ng/g dry weight, respectively. Triclosan concentrations ranged from 490 to 13,866 ng/g dry weight. The detection of these contaminants of emerging concern in biosolids suggests that these chemicals have the potential to migrate out of consumer products and enter the outdoor environment” (from article abstract, with emphasis added). For more on sewage sludge contaminants, see SourceWatch.
• Pennsylvania’s William Bispels Runs for the State House of Representatives on Anti-Sewage Sludge Spreading Platform (BCTV, 1/25)
• “Cadmium Stress” from Sludge Spreading Negatively Affects Plant Growth and Development (CO2 Science, 1/25): For more on the presence of cadmium in sewage sludge, see SourceWatch.
• Sludge Pelletizing Plant Explodes in Florida, Worker Injured (Palm Beach Post, 1/24, and Waste & Recycling News, 1/24)
• Pennsylvania Compost Program Stench Causes Outcry: According to the MarpleNewtown Patch (1/24) and HaverfordHavertown Patch (1/20), the program composts local leaves, but the unholy stench has neighbors upset enough to demand the program be ended. The two neighboring townships, Havertown and Marple, Pennsylvania, hired well-known sewage sludge consultant Craig Coker, to help reduce the odor. Coker is on the Board of the sludge front group the U.S. Composting Council and a former member of the sludge industry trade group the Water Environment Federation‘s (WEF’s) “Biosolids” Management Committee and, in 2008, wrote an editorial (or “advertorial,” in PR jargon) for the Roanoke Times in which he advocated the safety of treated, minimally regulated sewage sludge as fertilizer. Are the townships “composting” human and industrial waste sludge with their leaves? (more…)

Leave a Comment January 25, 2012