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7/17/03
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1. Agriculture
Appropriations Update
2. Country of Origin Labeling Fails House, Heads To Senate
3. Beef Checkoff Victory
4. Wisdom of the Ecosystem
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1. AGRICULTURE
APPROPRIATIONS UPDATE
The House of
Representatives passed its version of the Agriculture
Appropriations bill on Monday, July 14. The bill was largely
unchanged from the version that the appropriations committee had
passed on June 25, with no funding for either the Conservation
Security Program (see Rural Updates, July 10) or
country-of-origin labeling (see below). Meanwhile, on the Senate
side, the agriculture appropriations subcommittee voted 15-0 to
report to the full committee $74.5 billion in agriculture
appropriations ($91 million less than the FY2003 bill). The bill
reported by the subcommittee does include funding for country of
origin labeling. According to the "National Journal,"
the Senate bill also contains "$826.6 million for
conservation programs" and "$1 billion for the
Environmental Quality Incentives Program."
2. COUNTRY OF
ORIGIN LABELING FAILS HOUSE, HEADS TO SENATE
The House of
Representatives on Monday narrowly defeated a measure that would
have reinstated funding for the Department of Agriculture to
implement country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for red meat.
The House version of the agriculture appropriations bill
contains a provision prohibiting any money to be spent this year
to implement COOL.
Representatives
Rehberg and Hooley had offered an amendment to strike, or
remove, that provision. While proponents of COOL knew that
winning the motion to strike was a long shot, the closeness of
the vote clearly indicates that independent cattle producers are
making their voices heard on the Hill and the House is no longer
listening only to the large trade associations that oppose COOL.
The close vote also puts advocates in a good position to win on
COOL in the Senate. Learn how you can help win this fight
in the Senate by visiting the WORC
site.
3. BEEF
CHECKOFF VICTORY
This week the Eighth
Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a federal judge's ruling that
the mandatory beef checkoff program is unconstitutional. This
decision is heralded by livestock growers across the nation who
contest their checkoff dollars have been used to fuel policies
favoring large corporate producers over family farmers.
The beef checkoff is
a mandatory one-dollar fee ranchers pay every time they sell a
head of cattle. According to a press release by the
Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) "over 90%
of national checkoff dollars are channeled through the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association, a controversial private industry
group."
In its final
decision the court ruled that the government was not speaking
through the beef checkoff, but was compelling individuals to pay
for speech they disagree with. Therefore it violated the First
Amendment. In the press release WORC added, that,
"Today's decision upholds the rights of independent cattle
producers who have been fighting this illegitimate check-off for
years," For more information, visit the WORC.
4. WISDOM OF THE
ECOSYSTEM
Wes Jackson is a
perennial upstart in the field of agriculture. Founder of the
Land Institute some 25 years ago, Jackson says that modern
agriculture is a big mistake. More specifically he says
it's a water-depleting, topsoil-eroding, wildlife-destroying
mega-mistake. These are not idle words by a Kansas Methodist
whose large build reveals his former football coaching history.
Nor are they inexperienced words from an urban layman.
Jackson is a about as rural as it gets. On top of that he
is a renegade scientist; a geneticist more interested in the
long term development of perennial polycultures, that in the
short-term marketing of gene-spliced monocultures. At The Land
Institute Jackson has ushered in a long term experiment called,
"Natural Systems Agriculture."
This fifty- year
study investigates ways that monoculture annual grains, such as
corn and wheat, can be replaced by perennial grains, grown in
polyculture. Polyculture production means more than one
crop grown together and selected to mutually enhance each other
is some way via nutrient, water absorption, etc. In an interview
with High Country News Jackson said, "What we're really
talking about is the wisdom of the ecosystem. That system has to
work. You can't just grant immunity, autonomy, to one of the
features of the system. It's gotta be integrated. That's what
the whole discipline of ecology can teach the culture."
Read
the online interview.
Cultivating a vision where
rural and urban communities join together
to ensure abundant family farms, healthy critters, clean water and
a wild Earth.
If you would like to subscribe or unsubscribe to this list,
visit our
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Updates Subscriber Center. Read previous issues by
visiting our Rural
Updates Archive.
Rural Updates!
Scotty Johnson and Aimee Delach
National Rural Community Outreach Campaign
sjohnson@defenders.org
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