Home News & Events Alternative Agriculture News -- April '98

Headlines:
Research Title Clears Conference; Fund Reduced
USDA "Bowed to Biotech Pressure" on Organic Rules
Sidey Recounts "The Greatest Story Never Told
Institute Elects Officers, Installs Johnson
EPA To Crack Down on Large Livestock Farms
Iowa Court Rejects County Ordinances on Hog Industry
No One's Happy With Pesticide Brochure
Positions
Resources
Upcoming Events

Back Issues

This newsletter is also available to subscribers to the sanet-mg discussion group. To subscribe, send a message to: almanac@ces.ncsu.edu. Leave the subject line blank and in the body of the message type only: subscribe sanet-mg

Subscription information for the hard-copy version is available at the Wallace Institute website.

In addition to this monthly newsletter, the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture publishes the American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of research on alternative agriculture. It is a scientific forum for disseminating technical, economic, and social research findings about the character and requirements of alternative agriculture systems.

The current issue (Volume 12, No. 4) features articles on:

• The effects of clover and small grain cover crops, and tillage techniques on seedling emergence of some weed species.
• The growth of apple trees, nitrate mobility, and pest populations.
• The growth of corn roots under low-input and conventional farming systems.
• The effects of pearl millet in an arid region.
• A regional approach to soil erosion and productivity research.

Subscriptions to AJAA are $44 for libraries; $24 for individuals; and $12 for students. Find more information about AJAA at he Wallace Institute website.

Research Title Clears Conference; Fund Reduced

A House-Senate conference committee last month approved the "Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998," or research title, which reduced the annual spending for the Fund for Rural America.

The Fund for Rural America previously had been funded at $100 million a year for three years, with $100 million left for Fiscal Years 1999 and 2000. Under the new research title, that $200 million would be spread out over five years, and an additional $100 million would be added to the five-year total.

This means the Fund would receive $60 million a year for the next five fiscal years, bringing its total to $300 million, but reducing the Fund's annual allocation for the next two years. The annual amounts available within the Fund would be $20 million for research, $20 million for rural development, and $20 million for the Secretary of Agriculture to allocate between research and rural development.

The research title includes a new competitive grants program called the "Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems," which would allocate $600 million over five years. The program has six priorities:

• food genome mapping
• biotechnology
• natural resource management, including precision agriculture
• food safety and food technology
• new uses and products for agriculture commodities
• farm profitability for small and medium-sized farms

The last item was added to the program at the urging of the Wallace Institute and other sustainable agriculture organizations.

Three new programs were authorized in the research title, though no funding amounts were specified: organic farming research, a "Thomas Jefferson" initiative for crop diversification, and small and medium-sized dairy and livestock production alternatives.

"The good news is that there is significant new money for research in this," said Kathleen Merrigan, the Wallace Institute's Senior Analyst. "The bad news is that there are no fundamental changes in the research and extension system. The ugly news is that it took three years longer than we expected, which underscores a lack of consensus about what our research system should be doing."

USDA "Bowed to Biotech Pressure" on Organic Rules

In its proposed national organic standards, the USDA "has bowed to pressure from biotech interests and flouted the recommendations of a congressionally empowered board of representatives from the organic industry by including genetically engineered products in its list of substances allowed in organic food production," according to USDA documents made public by Mother Jones magazine last month.

One USDA memo "sheds light on the agency's concerns about not including genetically modified organisms in the proposed standards" by saying that "our trading partners will point to a USDA organic standard that excludes genetically modified organisms as evidence of the department's concern about the safety of bioengineered commodities."

Another memo "demonstrates the USDA's intent to ignore the recommendations of the National Organic Standards Board," and a three-page chart shows "15 areas in which the USDA's recommendations differ from the Board's."

In an op/ed piece in The Washington Post (March 22, 1998), author Reed Karaim wrote that "organic farmers, whose business is growing by 20 percent a year, had been awaiting rules they hoped would protect their industry. What they got were preliminary rulings with loopholes large enough to accommodate a factory farm, an irradiation plant and a biotech lab."

Another op/ed piece in The New York Times (March 24, 1998) by chef Peter Hoffman said the guidelines "need to be scrapped and rewritten in accordance with the original recommendations by the national standards board."

Sidey Recounts "The Greatest Story Never Told

The ability of the American farmer to produce "an abundance of food the likes of which the world had never seen or imagined" is "the greatest story never told," according to Hugh Sidey, who presented the 1998 Henry A. Wallace Annual Lecture last month.

Sidey, Contributing Editor of Time Magazine and author of its column, "The Presidency," was born in Adair County, Iowa, where Henry A. Wallace was born. His lecture, entitled "The Greatest Story Never Told: The Food Miracle in America," referred to a current generation "in their 40's who have only vague ideas of where food comes from and how it gets to them....That great cultural foundation of plentiful food at prices that anyone can afford is as taken for granted in our time as the air we breathe."

Looking back in time, Sidey said he sees how "inexorably our national dialogue moved away from the production and marketing of food. Certainly it was inevitable as cities grew and farms thinned. The political clout was not there."

Reviewing the era of Henry Wallace, Sidey referred to the "good things happening in the world" then that Wallace had put in motion. "Almost every week the family newspaper had stories about new terraces being built, tree shelters being planted, farm ponds dug," he said.

"The electric lines stretched farther and farther into the county, and the 4-H clubs became a young army. When I fly across the country these days and I see the glint of thousands of farm ponds in the setting sun, when I glimpse the graceful designs of crops in contours and the enduring shelterbelts that march from Canada to the Gulf, I think that these are the fingerprints of Henry Wallace put down on our land over the last 65 years, a stunning legacy from an uncommon man."

But today the population of Adair County is roughly half of what it was when Henry Wallace was born there, and the farms are twice or three times as large, Sidey said.

"We could use another Henry Wallace, or maybe many Henry Wallaces, and not necessarily those who experiment with new crops and have technical skills in growing and marketing food," Sidey said. "The time calls for men and women who understand this is a quietly crucial moment for our exuberant, well-fed nation. Decisions made now will as in Wallace's day echo through the next 65 years.

"Henry Wallace above all else understood the crisis of his time -- spiritual as well as physical -- and the need for bold action to use and preserve this greatest of all resources -- our land and those people who tend it."

Institute Elects Officers, Installs Johnson

The Wallace Institute Board of Directors last month elected new officers for the coming year, re-elected three members, and installed one new member. The newly installed member is Paul Johnson, former Chief of the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service and now a farmer in Iowa.

The new President is Cornelia Butler Flora, Director, North Central Region Center for Rural Development, Iowa State University; Vice President is Dr. Frederick Magdoff, Professor, Department of Plant and Soil Science, University of Vermont; Secretary is Christine (Cass) Peterson, owner/operator, Flickerville Mountain Farm and Groundhog Ranch; and Treasurer is Jose Montenegro, Director, Rural Development Center, Salinas, California. Members re- elected for a second term were Dr. Frederick Kirschenmann, manager, Kirschenmann Family Farms; Frederick Magdoff; and James Stephenson, Executive Director, Pamlico-Tar River Foundation, North Carolina. The Board also conducted a major discussion of the findings of a report prepared by Robert Gray of Resource Management Consultants that is part of the Institute's long-range planning process currently underway.

EPA To Crack Down on Large Livestock Farms

The EPA has proposed increasing its regulation of large livestock farms, also called animal feeding operations or factory farms.

Of the approximately 450,000 animal feeding operations in the country, about 6,600 are large concentrated units. The EPA would set new standards for allowable levels of waste flows from poultry and swine facilities by 2001, and from cattle and dairy operations by 2002.

The plan also calls for aggressive enforcement of Clean Water Act permit requirements, implementation of expanded regulatory and permitting tools by the EPA and the states, and an increase in the number of concentrated animal feeding operations that are regulated and permitted under the Clean Water Act. EPA and the states would fully regulate and issue Clean Water Act permits to the largest operations by 2002, and fully regulate and permit all others in impaired watersheds by 2005.

Copies of the draft strategy are available on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/owm.

Iowa Court Rejects County Ordinances on Hog Industry

The Iowa Supreme Court last month declared Humboldt County's livestock ordinances to be invalid because they were inconsistent with state regulations. The county enacted the ordinances in 1996 in response to citizen concerns about "the potential of groundwater pollution and abandonment of waste storage facilities," according to Feedstuffs (March 9, 1998).

"The long- awaited verdict sparked elation among producer leaders who believe county ordinances will stifle expansion of Iowa's hog herd. Some producers, however, fear the ruling will fuel pork industry consolidation in the state and promote an environmental catastrophe and moratorium like one adopted last year in North Carolina, and a similar ban being considered in Oklahoma."

The Supreme Court justices concluded that the county ordinances were "irreconcilable" with state regulations, and conflict with rules administered by the Department of Natural Resources.

No One's Happy With Pesticide Brochure

A draft version of an EPA consumer brochure about pesticides on food has "become the government brochure that everyone loves to hate -- and for totally opposite reasons," according to The Washington Post (March 11, 1998).

Industry representatives "feel strongly that the brochure goes overboard in endorsing organic food," while "environmental and consumer groups, on the other hand, believe the brochure fails to inform people on the risks of pesticides and delivers a mixed message," the article says.

The brochure, which must by law be available in supermarkets by August, is available on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-PEST/1998/January/Day-14/s-p925.htm.

Positions

• Wayne County (N.Y.) Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board seeks an agricultural economic development specialist; contact Wayne County Personnel Office, 26 Church St., Lyons, N.Y. 14489; (315) 946-5883.
  
  
• Independent Television Service seek a Midwest-Based rural outreach coordinator for a PBS series, "The Farmer's Wife;" send resume, letter, and references to Pamela Calvert, Outreach Manager, ITVS, 51 Federal St., #401, San Francisco, CA 94107; (415) 356-8383, ext. 242; e-mail Pamela_Calvert@itvs.pbs.org
  
  
• Nick's Organic Farm seeks part-time workers; contact Nick Maravell, 8565 Horseshoe Lane, Potomac, MD 20854; (301) 983-2167.
  
  
• Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group seeks a part- time grassroots organizer; send resume, references, writing sample, and cover letter to Kris Thorp, Center for Rural Affairs, P.O. Box 406, Walthill, NE 68067; (402) 846-5428.
  
  
• Center for Rural Affairs seeks staff to work on rural and farm policy reform initiatives, and Nebraska state policy; for description, contact the Center, P.O. Box 406, Walthill, NE 68067; (402) 846-5428.

Resources

• "The Economic Merit of Animal Manures as a Source of Plant Nutrients or Energy Generation" is $13 from UC Agricultural Issues Center, University of California, Davis, CA 95616; (530) 752-2320.
  
  
• "Public Programs for Private Forestry: A Reader on Programs and Options" is $20 from American Forests, 1-800-368-5748; findings are available on the Internet at http://www.amfor.org
  
  
• "Time for a Change: Pesticides and Wine Grapes in Sonoma and Napa Counties, California" is $5 plus $2 shipping from Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, P.O. Box 1195, Arcata, CA 95518; (707) 822-8497; e-mail cats@igc.org

Upcoming Events

For additional listings, see the Sustainable Agriculture Network's Calendar of Events.

• May 1 is the deadline for abstract submittals for the 1999 International Erosion Control Association Conference and Trade Show in Nashville, TN, Feb. 22-26; and the Asia-Pacific Conference and Exposition on Ground and Water Bioengineering for Erosion Control and Slope Stabilization, to be held in The Philippines, April 19-21, 1999; contact IECA, P.O. Box 4904, Steamboat Springs, CO 80477-4904; 1-800-455-4322; e-mail ecinfo@ieca.org
  
  
• May 4-6, 28th Annual BioCycle National Conference on Composting and Recycling will be held in Kansas City, MO; contact BioCycle, 1-800-661-4905.
  
  
• May 12-13, "Working with Wetlands and Wildlife" will be held in New Orleans, LA; contact Wildlife Habitat Council, 1010 Wayne Ave., #920, Silver Spring, MD 20910; (301) 588-8994.
  
  
• May 17-19, National Extension Tourism Conference will be held in Grantville, PA; contact Conference and Short Courses Office, Pennsylvania State University, 306 Ag Admin Building, University Park, PA 16802; (814) 865-8301; e-mail grp1@psu.edu; on the Internet, http://www.cas.psu.edu/docs/casconf/nercrd/NTC/ntc.html
  
  
• May 22-24, "EarthSpirit Rising" will be held in Cincinnati, OH; contact EarthSpirit Rising, 553 Enright Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45205; (513) 921-5124.
  
  
• May 27-29, Specialty Conference on Rangeland Management and Water Resources will be held in Reno, NV; contact American Water Resources Association, 950 Herndon Pkwy., #300, Herndon, VA 20170; (703) 904-1225; e-mail awrahq@aol.com
  
  
• May 27-31, Seventh International Symposium on Society and Resource Management will be held in Columbia, MO; contact Dr. Sandy Rikoon, ISSRM Co-Chair, University of Missouri-Columbia, Rural Sociology, Sociology Building 108, Columbia, MO 65211; (573) 882-0861; e-mail ssrsjsr@muccmail.missouri.edu; on the Internet, http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/ssu/issrm
  
  
• May 30-June 1, "Medicines from the Earth" will be held in Black Mountain, N.C.; contact Medicines, P.O. Box 3427, Ashland, OR 97520; 1-800-252-0688.
  
  
• May 31-June 5, "Ethics and the Culture of Development: Building the Sustainable Economy" will be held in Havana, Cuba; contact American Friends Service Committee, Latin America and Caribbean Programs, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; (215) 241-7159; e-mail idlac@afsc.org; on the Internet, http://www.afsc.org/cubahome.htm
  
  
• May 31-June 2, "Agricultural Biotechnology and Environmental Quality: Gene Escape and Pest Resistance" will be held in Greenville, S.C.; contact Department of Plant Pathology and Physiology, Clemson University, 118 Long Hall, Box 340377, Clemson, S.C. 29634; (864) 656-5734.

Home News & Events Alternative Agriculture News -- April '98