Written by Michael Richards, Sustainable Ecological, Economic
Development. Will forward it to Obama.
If I remember correctly,Obama only got a score of 35% on the environment
from LCV. His environmental choices and choice of an anti-choice for
women and anti gay/lesbian preacher gives me little hope for change--more
or the same, not as bad as Bush but a major disappointment for those of
us who never supported him originally and did our best to get him elected
despite grave doubts. I had begun to think he would be different.
Phyllis
Vilsack Needs Courage to Face up to Big Ag 12-22-08 Des Moines Register
It's major news when a fellow Iowan is elevated to the presidential
Cabinet. Tom Vilsack's story epitomizes the American Dream of an orphaned
youth that rises to lofty national stature.
His impressive political journey started as a small-town attorney in
Mount Pleasant, Iowa. I restored the historic Harlan hotel there during
the 1980s. Vilsack and family were among our most regular customers in
the lobby restaurant. Mount Pleasant is an idyllic county-seat town. It
could be a Mayberry movie set. From small-town Iowa to the halls of
Washington power and influence is quite a journey.
It takes courage to step forward as an Iowan to offer an alternative
view. I congratulate Vilsack as secretary of agriculture, but I will not
line up in his parade to cheerlead the status quo. I challenge him to
consider provable facts that what has worked for agriculture during the
heyday of the petrochemical paradigm will no longer work.
We now face careening climate change and a rapid descent down the
carbon-energy bell curve. We are in a new reality. It takes courage to
face hard facts. Petrol-driven ag that consumes 10 calories to produce 1
calorie of food or fuel is not sustainable. Only real conservation of
land and energy can provide a sustainable future for our grandchildren.
Deep systemic change is urgently required.
I ask hard questions: Will President-elect Barack Obama bring real change
to our economy? Will Vilsack foster sustainable agriculture, or continue
with ag-biz short-term thinking? Obama takes his cues from Wall Street,
not Main Street. Vilsack's rise up the political ladder was supported
whole hog by
multinational ag-business special-interest groups. Politicians follow
money. Statesmen that have the courage to initiate real change are as
rare as hen's teeth.
Vilsack is one of us "folks" with deep Iowa roots. The question is: Does
Vilsack get marching orders from common, concerned citizens or the four
horsemen of the Big Ag gravy wagon: Dupont, Monsanto, ADM, Cargill? We
are in an era of rapidly diminishing returns from factory farming. New
ways of thinking, new ways of farming, novel economic solutions are
necessary.
The petrochemical-powered agriculture juggernaut rolls on roughshod to
deplete once-fertile soil, poison our waters and churn out unhealthy,
nutrient-depleted factory food. Our children are the first generation in
history that will have a shorter life span than their elders as a direct
result of our wrong choices.
Big Ag has the carbon footprint of a 900-pound gorilla. Vilsack joins
Sens. Tom Harkin, Charles Grassley and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill
Northey to defend the ag empire. They all answer to the ag-biz lobby. Our
children deserve the quality of water and soil that our grandparents
stewarded into our present generation. Future generations have no lobby
in Washington.
If we continue with Big Ag and business as usual, Iowa family farms have
no viable future. Half of our rich, vital top soil has already been
extracted and sloughed down the Mississippi River along with a toxic soup
of petrochemical runoff. The dead zone now extends into the Gulf 500
miles beyond the river delta. At the present rate of soil depletion, the
Midwest Dust Bowl is only one generation away.
The average age of Iowa farmers today is 64. The biofuel boom has bid
land prices so high that potential young farmers cannot afford to buy
into the system. Only a small percentage of Iowa land is farmed by
owner-occupants. Most is already leased out by absentee owners. The total
shift to corporate factory farming is nearly complete.
The media image of the yeoman family farmer is nearly extinct. Remaining
Iowa farmers are indentured to big banks and the four ag giants. Iowa
agriculture serves under the iron-grip control of out-of-state
multinational corporations. Formerly independent farmers have been
reduced to the economic status of sharecroppers on their own deeply
mortgaged land.
Iowa topsoil continues to blow in the wind. Our once-resilient and
absorptive Iowa land now sheds water like one huge parking lot.
Floodwaters rise higher, as political defenders of the status quo sell
off the future of our children for a factory-ag fast buck today.
If we continue with Big Ag and business as usual, Iowa family farms have
no viable future. Half of our rich, vital top soil has already been
extracted and sloughed down the Mississippi River along with a toxic soup
of petrochemical runoff. The dead zone now extends into the Gulf 500
miles beyond the river delta. At the present rate of soil depletion, the
Midwest Dust Bowl is only one generation away.
The average age of Iowa farmers today is 64. The biofuel boom has bid
land prices so high that potential young farmers cannot afford to buy
into the system. Only a small percentage of Iowa land is farmed by
owner-occupants. Most is already leased out by absentee owners. The total
shift to corporate factory farming is nearly complete.
The media image of the yeoman family farmer is nearly extinct. Remaining
Iowa farmers are indentured to big banks and the four ag giants. Iowa
agriculture serves under the iron-grip control of out-of-state
multinational corporations. Formerly independent farmers have been
reduced to the economic status of sharecroppers on their own deeply
mortgaged land.
Iowa topsoil continues to blow in the wind. Our once-resilient and
absorptive Iowa land now sheds water like one huge parking lot.
Floodwaters rise higher, as political defenders of the status quo sell
off the future of our children for a factory-ag fast buck today.
____________________________________________________________
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