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7/18/05
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1. Take Action! Make Your Voice Heard For Farm Conservation
2. Navy Continues to Push for Jet Landing Site
3. One Chef's
Battle to Improve Food For School Kids
4. United States Vows to
End Farm Subsidies
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TAKE ACTION: MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD FOR FARM CONSERVATION!
USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is
currently taking public comments for the Conservation Security
Program (CSP) and your input is needed! The CSP is the 2002 Farm
Bill's landmark "green payments" program -- a
voluntary stewardship incentives program designed to reward
farmers and ranchers for adoption of advanced conservation
systems. Learn
more.
However, it is critical that the program actually be
implemented according to law and your comments on the current
"revised interim final rule" are essential. Please ask
NRCS to make several important program modifications: 1) The CSP
should be run as a nationwide program, without geographic
restrictions, and should be implemented through a continuous
sign-up process; 2) NRCS should remove the provision that
effectively limits CSP enhancement payments for existing
conservation systems to four years; 3) The program should
encourage and reward the adoption of resource-conserving crop
rotations, managed rotational grazing, and other farming systems
and conservation practices with high- level, multiple natural
resource and environmental benefits; and 4) remove extraneous
payment caps, such as the cap on the size of enhancement
payments for performance-based conservation activities, and the
limit on both the new practice cost-share rate and total dollar
amount at 50% and $10,000, respectively.
You can send comments
by mail to Financial Assistance Programs Division, Natural
Resources Conservation Service, P.O. Box 2890, or by e- mail to FarmBillRules@usda.gov; Attn: Conservation Security Program. The
comment deadline is July 25.
NAVY CONTINUES TO PUSH FOR JET LANDING SITE
In September 2003, the U.S. Navy announced plans to
build a
landing field for F/A-18 "Super Hornet" jets in an
environmentally sensitive low-income farming community in North
Carolina. The construction would destroy 33,000 acres of
farmland and displace numerous farming families. The site is
also located within a few miles of Pocosin Lakes National
Wildlife Refuge, which is the winter home for 100,000 migratory
birds and the threatened red wolf. The proximity to such a large
bird population is dangerous; the Navy itself rates the
likelihood of bird collisions as "severe" for 50% of
the year, directly compromising pilot safety.
The project faces strong local opposition from farmers,
environmental advocates, and political leaders including NC
Governor Mike Easley and Senator John Edwards. The U.S.
Department of the Interior and NC Wildlife Commission also
strongly object to the proposal. In response, Defenders of
Wildlife and other environmental organizations filed a
successful lawsuit last year. In response, the Navy has both
announced plans to re- review four other sites and has appealed
the court's decision. The results of that appeal are expected
this Wednesday, July 20th, in Richmond, Virginia.
ONE CHEF'S BATTLE TO IMPROVE FOOD FOR SCHOOL KIDS
Famed chef and food activist, Alice Waters, owner of the
Berkeley, CA restaurant Chez Panisse, has embarked on a new campaign to
change the school lunch program. She has already done a lot
in her own hometown. In 1995 she started the Edible Schoolyard program at a local middle school which turned an abandoned
parking lot into a flourishing organic garden with
vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers. The student's plant, tend, and harvest
the garden; then cook and eat the meals. Waters' new vision is to
make food part of the academic curriculum and to encourage schools to buy more food locally. If Waters' efforts, and
those of groups working on other Farm to School programs take hold, it
will help farmers benefit from the $9 billion school lunch program, educate kids about agriculture and food systems, and
help them eat healthier meals. As Waters puts it, "This
Delicious Revolution could transform education and agriculture."
Read
more.
UNITED STATES VOWS TO END FARM SUBSIDIES
Earlier this month, the United States, as part of the G8
summit, pledged "to end farm export aid and called for renewed
efforts to conclude a new phase of world trade liberalization under the
so-called Doha Round of negotiations by the end of next
year."
Summit participants which included the United States, Japan,
Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia, met in Edinburgh,
Scotland, were responding to calls from leaders in Africa,
Asia and South America that export subsidies unfairly disadvantaged
agriculture products from poorer nations.
Agriculture
subsidies had also been "one of the key stumbling blocks to a
broader deal on trade liberalization in the Doha round of
negotiations" of the WTO several years ago. Read
more.
Cultivating a vision where rural and urban communities join together
to ensure abundant family farms, healthy critters, clean water and a wild Earth.
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Rural Updates!
Scotty Johnson and Aimee Delach
National Rural Community Outreach Campaign
sjohnson@defenders.org
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