Providing key information on recent developments in rural America, including up-dates on the Farm Bureau, and salient issues converging around water quality, farm sustainablility and the protection of biodiversity.

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1. 1000 ways to Sustainable Farming
2. "Dollar Harvest" - Expose of the Farm Bureau - Ordering information.
3. BT Corn and the Butterflies - A call for the Precautionary Principle.
4. Dissension within the Farm Bureau.

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GREEN GrassRoots Environmental Effectiveness Network is a project of Defenders of Wildlife designed to serve grassroots wildlife and wilderness advocates. GREEN policy positions do not necessarily represent those of Defenders of Wildlife.

1. SUSTAINABLE FARMING CONNECTION: Within diversity is strength; within strength is sustainability. The Sustainable Farming Connection web-site is an excellent resource tool for anyone wanting to learn more about sustainable, ecologically sound agricultural production. To view this excellent web resource, go to http://metalab.unc.edu/farming-connection.

2. DOLLAR HARVEST - AN EXPOSE OF THE FARM BUREAU People have been asking how to get a copy of this book. It can be obtained in paperback by sending $5.00 to MyndSeye - Agricultural Books. PO Box 171, The Plains, Virginia. 20198-0171. Add $4.00 shipping and handling for single book orders, $3.00 each for 2-5 books, $2.00 each for 6 - 10 books and $1.00 for more than ten books.

For those unfamiliar with Dollar Harvest, it has been called the definitive work on the Farm Bureau's elusive business structure, tax breaks and agri-business connections. Though the book is dated (1971) one reader commented, "The only thing different is a large increase in money and power the Farm Bureau concentrates to advance corporate agribusiness policies."

Dollar Harvest, written by Samuel (Sandy) Berger, now chief Security Advisor for President Clinton, culminates 3 years of congressional investigation into the affairs of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Berger's words ring true, even today...

"The Farm Bureau is far more than simply an organization of farmers, as it so often claims. The nations biggest farm organization has been quietly and systematically amassing one of the largest business networks in America, while turning its back on the deepening crisis of the farmers whom it supposedly represents."

Berger continues with important questions, "Why has the Farm Bureau's membership been steadily increasing over the past ten years while the number of farm households has dropped by more than a million in the same period? Why has the Farm Bureau consistently opposed legislation to upgrade the quality of rural life medicare, federal aid to education, anti-poverty legislation, housing bills, minimum wage laws and advocated a farm policy opposed by nearly all the other farm organizations, one that most agricultural economists agree would be disastrous for most farmers?" The answers to these questions, and many more, become clear with a reading of Dollar Harvest.

3. BT CORN AND THE BUTTERFLIES: A CALL FOR THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE: Genetic manipulation of seeds and crops is rampant in the world today. While agribusiness campaigns attempt to quiet fears - evidence continues to mount that more precaution is necessary when creating genetically modified organisms.

One example is the recent discovery that BT-Corn kills butterflies who feed on the pollen. The ramifications of this are staggering in scope to global biodiversity. This recent evidence proves genetically modified organisms have far-reaching possibilities to disrupt organisms and their links in the food chain. On the heels of such disruptions could follow an impoverishment of diversity. Until all potential threats are understood about new genetically modified organisms (GMO's), the utmost in precaution should be followed.

With these "new" increases in manipulating life, "new" ethics need to be employed to prevent error and abuse. In the case of GMO's such an ethic exists - it is called the precautionary principle.

Doctors studying medicine learn the precautionary principle very early. By another name it is called the Hippocratic oath: "First do no Harm." Contained within these four simple words is a wise recipe regarding (GMO's). One that should be adopted at the highest levels of international trade.

Unfortunately, this is not the case in our current profit-driven corporate culture. Statistics report that the majority of GMO's are now being designed for profit only - and often with the intent of reducing producers accessability to seed, as is the case with the Terminator seed. This is neither healthy, nor sustainable. Worse, agribusiness affiliates, such as the Farm Bureau, are attacking advocates of the precautionary principle, tagging them as "toxic-terrorists". Clearly this radical approach by agri chemical industries in the name of profit needs to exposed. The precautionary principle offers a simple and honest ethic our culture should adopt - "First do no harm."

3. DISSENSION IN FARM BUREAU RANKS: Farm Bureau members nationwide are expressing increasing dissatisfaction with their leadership. Farm Bureau's support of factory animal farms, vertical integration, and ties to corporate agribusiness has disenfranchised many family farmers. Now, American Farm Bureau President Dean Kleckner has come under scrutiny by his peers.

The Congress Daily reported last week that "Kleckner was notably absent when two dozen farm group leaders went to the White House last Friday to meet with White House Chief of Staff Podesta regarding the farm crisis." While Kleckner was reportedly on his way to Italy for business, other farm leaders were not convinced.

Some believe Kleckners distaste for the Democratic presidential leadership was the real reason.

the CongressDailey continued, "Kleckner has often been criticized by his peers for his strong Republican ties. But in the minds of some Farm Bureau members, he stretched that relationship last January at the Farm Bureau's national convention in Albuquerque, N.M. - when he told members, "We need people of conviction, not those who should be convicted," serving in Washington. The next day, Agriculture Secretary Glickman told the group "not to take potshots on matters not related to the goal of improving agriculture."

Kleckner later apologized to Glickman."

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