Please share with farmers and your market lists.

Food Stamp Summit for Farm Direct Marketers

With the economy still causing double digit unemployment, the food stamp program has seen record level usage. In New York State, food stamp enrollment has risen 19% over the last year. This means that 1.3 million households all across New York, in September 2009, are using the food stamp program to supplement their income to purchase their family’s food.

The need is widespread. It is across every county, and it is across every demographic. From consumers with low wage jobs to those who once had high paying careers, consumers all across the state are finding that food stamp assistance is now helping them bridge their needs until they can get back on their feet.

For direct marketing farmers, the food stamp program represents an opportunity. By accepting food stamp benefits at your operation you can be a part of the solution, helping your neighbors in need, while adding income to your farm.

On January 27^th, the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets and the Farmers Market Federation of NY, in cooperation with the NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, will host a Food Stamp Summit for Farm Direct Marketers. The Summit, presented at the NYS Fruit and Vegetable Expo at the OnCenter in Syracuse, from 9am – 2:30pm, will give an overview of the food stamp program. Speakers for the NYS Office for Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) and The USDA Food and Nutrition Service will discuss the food stamp program – what is the food stamp program, who are food stamp consumers and what are the benefits to farms for being a food stamp retailer. This will be a information packed session that will inform, enlighten and encourage farm marketers to become a part of the food stamp program.

Finally, a wireless solution for farms that lack electricity and telephones to participate as a traditional food stamp retailer will be presented. This project, sponsored by the OTDA and the NYS Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the Farmers Market Federation of NY will offer wireless terminals and support services for the 2010 farm season to help farm marketers get started in the food stamp program, aid in outreach to food stamp consumers in their community and demonstrate the benefits of participating in the food stamp program for their farm. Details of the program, along with opportunities for participation, will be given out at the summit.

The Food Stamp Summit for Farm Direct Marketers runs concurrently with the NYS Fruit and Vegetable Expo. Registration is required. For more information on the Expo, contact Jeff and Lindy Kubecka, NYS Vegetable Growers Association, at 315-687-5734 or email nysvga@....

To pre-register for the Expo, download the registration form at http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/hort/expo/pdf/2010-Expo-Pre-Registration.pdf.

For more information on the Food Stamp Summit for Farm Direct Marketers, contact Diane Eggert, Farmers Market Federation of NY, at 315-637-4690 or diane.eggert@..., or Jonathan Thomson at 518-457-7076 or jonathan.thomson@....

Diane Eggert

Executive Director

Farmers Market Federation of NY

117 Highbridge St., Suite U3

Fayetteville, NY  13066

diane.eggert@...

www.nyfarmersmarket.com

Hi Farm & Fooders!

RFFP is extremely excited to be partnering with Dan Kittredge in order to bring this year long Nutrient Dense Farming & Gardening course to our area.

More detailed information below. If you are interested in taking this course, please register right away –attendance will be limited to 30 people. RFFP website: www.farmandfood.org, Eventbrite registration: http://regionalfarmandfoodremineralization.eventbrite.com/.  

We have bare-bones priced this course so that it is affordable for anyone who will benefit. We hope you can participate, our goal is to get enough growers using this system to lead to a Nutrient Dense Certification program, increasing productivity and profits and further distinguishing conscientious, small growers from industrially produced food. It’s the next major piece of the puzzle for producing safe, vibrant and life sustaining food.

Please pass on to other pertinent lists and farm and food sites.

*************************************

SAVE THE DATE!

Please join us at our Annual Members Meeting, Saturday, January 9 at noon at The First Lutheran Church, 181 Western Ave., Albany, NY. Dan Kittredge will be our keynote and speaking about the core ideas behind Nutrient Dense Farming. It is our traditional farmers pot luck, so please contact Louise Frazier, 518.489.5558, if you would like to contribute your favorite dish or to volunteer.

Thanks very much,

Gianni Ortiz

Regional Farm & Food Project

gianni@...

518.392.8545

Apologies for any cross posting.

Hi Everyone,

We have an upcoming class that may be of interest to some of you.  It’s our Annual Biodynamic Winter Intensive.  Here are the details:

“Plants, Earth and Cosmos”

A workshop for farmers, gardeners and others

seeking a working relation to the land

February 14-19 and/or February 21-26

Led by The Nature Institute and the Hawthorne Valley Farm Learning Center in partnership with the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association

The Nature Institute and the Hawthorne Valley Farm Learning Center are offering two complementary weeks of instruction to those seeking a fuller understanding of biodynamic agriculture. The first week will offer participants a way to deepen their own observations in relation to the world of plants and to practice flexible thinking as a means of becoming more perceptive land workers. The second week will focus on concepts and practices more specifically related to biodynamic agriculture including: a general introduction to the kingdoms of nature from the point of view of biodynamics; the genesis of and management of soils; the diversity of plant growth forms in relation to soil, climate and cosmos; wild relatives of our cultivated plants and weeds, ecological methods of weed management, principles of crop rotation; planting to support beneficial insects; managing orchards and other perennials; the use of planting calendars and more.

 The first week will be led by Craig and Henrike Holdrege of The Nature Institute. The second week will feature presenters including: Jean Paul Courtens of Roxbury Farm; Malcolm Gardner, editor of the Agriculture Lectures, by Rudolf Steiner; Walter Goldstein, research scientist at Michael Fields Agricultural Institute; Eric Nordell, (on DVD and by phone), of Beech Grove Farm; Claudia Knab-Vispo of the Farmscape Ecology Program; Hugh Williams of Threshold Farm and others. This is the first of two such intensives. In 2011 the workshop will focus on the animal kingdom, the integration of livestock on biodynamic farms and other, related topics.

Fees are on a sliding scale: $250-450 for each week; or $400 to 480 for both weeks. (North American Biodynamic Apprenticeship Program apprentice fees are covered by the program.) For more information, contact the Hawthorne Valley Farm Learning Center, 518-672-7500 x 105; or email caroline@...

Caroline Smialek

Farm Development Office

Hawthorne Valley Farm

327 Route 21 C

Ghent, New York 12075

518-672-7500, extension 105

Bread Baking With Local and Heirloom Grains With Matt Funiciello with Regional Farm & Food Project

Sun. Nov 29, 2009 from 10:00am - 3:00pm

Matt Funiciello is the master baker/owner of Rock Hill Bake house and has been a life long food activist. He is a spirited and deeply knowledgeable teacher. This workshop is suitable for you if you have never baked a frozen bun and also if you are an advanced baker. This man understands the true nature of grains and the alchemy of sour dough like no one else. This is a particularly exciting time to take up or expand your baking, as we are seeing the re-emergence of heirloom, non GMO grains being grown in our region.

Member $30, Nonmember $40

Contact: Gianni Ortiz

Contact Phone: 518.392.8545

Contact Email: gianni@...

Location: Triform, Phoenix Center

http://farmandfood.org

E-mail this event.

Hello,

Some of you have already seen links to this survey about the effects late blight had on organic tomato growing operations in 2009. I'm sending this to you because you signed up with NOFA/Mass to be kept in touch about developments in the Northeast concerning organic management practices to deal with late blight. Please consider forwarding this message to people you know who grew tomatoes organically in 2009. The wider we cast our net for respondents to this survey, the stronger will be our conclusions. 

Ben Grosscup
Northeast Organic Farming Association/ Massachusetts Chapter
38 Maplewood Drive, Amherst, MA 01002
Home Office: 413-549-1568
Cell: 413-658-5374
ben.grosscup@...
Sign up for free e-newsletter: "News from NOFA Massachusetts"
Learn about benefits of NOFA/Mass Membership

---------------------------------------------
Calling all Organic Tomato Growers!

If you grew or tried to grow tomatoes in 2009 and you used organic practices to do it, we want to hear from you about your experience with late blight.

NOFA/Mass is researching organic management strategies that Northeast tomato growers - both farmers and gardeners - used in 2009 to mitigate the late blight. The insights collected will be presented at the NOFA/Mass Winter Conference on January 16, 2010, in the Spring 2010 Edition of The Natural Farmer, and on the NOFA/Mass website.

By gathering responses from a significant number of growers on their experiences, NOFA/Mass hopes to contribute to our shared understanding of what organic growing practices for tomatoes were actually applied in 2009 and also hopefully shed light on strategies that can be effective in managing the disease.

We are seeking response from growers in MA, VT, CT, RI, NY, NJ, ME, NH, and PA.

Survey deadline: respond by January 1, 2010

To contribute to the collective knowledge about dealing with one of the most destructive crop diseases that has affected our region in recent memory, please click on the following link and take the survey there:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=7gWicbMRJAK9uhwb_2bBtdxw_3d_3d

NOFA/Mass has received a $5,000 grant from Whole Foods Market to support the gathering and dissemination of information for this research project.

If you have any questions about this survey, contact Ben Grosscup, ben.grosscup@..., 413-658-5374.

If Nothing Else, Save Farming

Posted November 16, 2009

It’s probably too late to prepare for peak oil, but we can at least try to salvage food production.

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 16th November 2009

I don’t know when global oil supplies will start to decline. I do know that another resource has already peaked and gone into freefall: the credibility of the body that’s meant to assess them. Last week two whistleblowers from the International Energy Agency alleged that it has deliberately upgraded its estimate of the world’s oil supplies in order not to frighten the markets(1). Three days later, a paper published by researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden showed that the IEA’s forecasts must be wrong, because it assumes a rate of extraction that appears to be impossible(2). The agency’s assessment of the state of global oil supplies is beginning to look as reliable as Mr Greenspan’s blandishments about the health of the financial markets.

If the whistleblowers are right, we should be stockpiling ammunition. If we are taken by surprise; if we have failed to replace oil before the supply peaks then crashes, the global economy is stuffed. But nothing the whistleblowers said has scared me as much as the conversation I had last week with a Pembrokeshire farmer.

Wyn Evans, who runs a mixed farm of 170 acres, has been trying to reduce his dependency on fossil fuels since 1977. He has installed an anaerobic digester, a wind turbine, solar panels and a ground-sourced heat pump. He has sought wherever possible to replace diesel with his own electricity. Instead of using his tractor to spread slurry, he pumps it from the digester onto nearby fields. He’s replaced his tractor-driven irrigation system with an electric one, and set up a new system for drying hay indoors, which means he has to turn it in the field only once. Whatever else he does is likely to produce smaller savings. But these innovations have reduced his use of diesel by only around 25%.

According to farm scientists at Cornell University, cultivating one hectare of maize in the United States requires 40 litres of petrol and 75 litres of diesel(3). The amazing productivity of modern farm labour has been purchased at the cost of a dependency on oil. Unless farmers can change the way it’s grown, a permanent oil shock would price food out of the mouths of many of the world’s people. Any responsible government would be asking urgent questions about how long we have got.

Instead, most of them delegate this job to the International Energy Agency. I’ve been bellyaching about the British government’s refusal to make contingency plans for the possibility that oil might peak by 2020 for the past two years(4,5), and I’m beginning to feel like a madman with a sandwich board. Perhaps I am, but how lucky do you feel? The new World Energy Outlook published by the IEA last week expects the global demand for oil to rise from 85m barrels a day in 2008 to 105m in 2030(6). Oil production will rise to 103m barrels, it says, and biofuels will make up the shortfall(7). If we want the oil, it will materialise.

The agency does caution that conventional oil is likely to “approach a plateau� towards the end of this period(8), but there’s no hint of the graver warning that the IEA’s chief economist issued when I interviewed him last year: “we still expect that it will come around 2020 to a plateau … I think time is not on our side here.�(9) Almost every year the agency has been forced to downgrade its forecast for the daily supply of oil in 2030: from 123m barrels in 2004, to 120m in 2005, 116m in 2007, 106m in 2008 and 103m this year. But according to one of the whistleblowers, “even today’s number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.�(10)

The Uppsala report, published in the journal Energy Policy, anticipates that maximum global production of all kinds of oil in 2030 will be 76m barrels per day. Analysing the IEA’s figures, it finds that to meet its forecasts for supply, the world’s new and undiscovered oil fields would have to be developed at a rate “never before seen in history.�(11) As many of them are in politically or physically difficult places, and as capital is short, this looks impossible. Assessing existing fields, the likely rate of discovery and the use of new techniques for extraction, the researchers find that “the peak of world oil production is probably occurring now.�

Are they right? Who knows? Last month the UK Energy Research Centre published a massive review of all the available evidence on global oil supplies(12). It found that the date of peak oil will be determined not by the total size of the global resource but by the rate at which it can be exploited. New discoveries would have to be implausibly large to make a significant difference: even if a field the size of all the oil reserves ever struck in the USA were miraculously discovered, it would delay the date of peaking by only four years(13). As global discoveries peaked in the 1960s(14), a find like this doesn’t seem very likely.

Regional oil supplies have peaked when about one third of the total resource has been extracted(15): this is because the rate of production falls as the remaining oil becomes harder to shift. So the assumption in the IEA’s new report, that oil production will hold steady when the global resource has fallen “to around one-half by 2030″(16) looks unsafe. The UKERC review finds that just to keep oil supply at present levels, “more than two thirds of current crude oil production capacity may need to be replaced by 2030 … At best, this is likely to prove extremely challenging.�(17) There is, it says “a significant risk of a peak in conventional oil production before 2020.�(18) Unconventional oil won’t save us: even a crash programme to develop the Canadian tar sands could deliver only 5m barrels a day by 2030.(19)

As a report commissioned by the US Department of Energy shows, an emergency programme to replace current energy supplies or equipment to anticipate peak oil would need about 20 years to take effect(20). It seems unlikely that we have it. The world economy is probably knackered, whatever we might do now. But at least we could save farming. There are two possible options: either the mass replacement of farm machinery or the development of new farming systems, which don’t need much labour or energy. There are no obvious barriers to the mass production of electric tractors and combine harvesters: the weight of the batteries and an electric vehicle’s low-end torque are both advantages for tractors. A switch to forest gardening and other forms of permaculture is trickier, especially for producing grain; but such is the scale of the creeping emergency that we can’t afford to rule anything out.

The challenge of feeding 7 or 8 billion people while oil supplies are falling is stupefying. It’ll be even greater if governments keep pretending that it isn’t going to happen.

www.monbiot.com

Obama Nominates Pesticide Executive to Be Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/17/obama_nominates_pesticide_executive_to_be

Siddiqui

References for Monbiot:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

2. Kjell Aleklett et al, 2009. The Peak of the Oil Age - analyzing the world oil production Reference Scenario in World Energy Outlook 2008. Energy Policy. http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/PeakOilAge.pdf

3. David Pimentel, Marcia Pimentel and Marianne Karpenstein-Machan, 1999. Energy Use In Agriculture: An Overview. Agricultural Engineering International: The CIGR EJournal., Volume I. http://www.cigrjournal.org/index.php/Ejounral/article/viewFile/1044/1037

4. I first began pestering the government about this in May 2007, as you can see here: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/05/29/what-if-the-oil-runs-out/

After that, I lodged an FoI request, and returned to the theme in these articles:

5. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/02/12/the-last-straw/

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/05/27/majesty-we-have-gone-mad/

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/12/15/at-last-a-date/

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/04/14/cross-your-fingers-and-carry-on/

6. International Energy Agency, 2009. World Energy Outlook 2009. Page 73.

7. Figure 1.5, page 82.

8. p87

9. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2008/dec/15/fatih-birol-george-monbiot

10. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

11. Kjell Aleklett et al, 2009. The Peak of the Oil Age - analyzing the world oil production Reference Scenario in World Energy Outlook 2008. Energy Policy. http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/PeakOilAge.pdf

12. Steve Sorrell et al, 2009. Global Oil Depletion: An assessment of the evidence for a near-term
peak in global oil production. UK Energy Research Centre. http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/Global%20Oil%20Depletion

13. p134

14. See Figure 2.8. page 24

15. p7

16. International Energy Agency, 2009, ibid, p80.

17. Steve Sorrell et al, 2009, p169.

18. p164.

19. p18.

20. Robert L. Hirsch, Roger Bezdek and Robert Wendling, February 2005. Peaking Of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management. US Department of Energy. Available at http://www.hubbertpeak.com/us/NETL/OilPeaking.pdf

BIODYNAMIC WINTER INTENSIVE 2010

“Plants, Earth and Cosmos”

A workshop for farmers, gardeners and others

seeking a working relation to the land

February 14-19 and/or February 21-26

Led by The Nature Institute and the Hawthorne Valley Farm Learning Center in partnership with the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association

The Nature Institute and the Hawthorne Valley Farm Learning Center are offering two complementary weeks of instruction to those seeking a fuller understanding of biodynamic agriculture. The first week will offer participants a way to deepen their own observations in relation to the world of plants and to practice flexible thinking as a means of becoming more perceptive land workers. The second week will focus on concepts and practices more specifically related to biodynamic agriculture including: a general introduction to the kingdoms of nature from the point of view of biodynamics; the genesis of and management of soils; the diversity of plant growth forms in relation to soil, climate and cosmos; wild relatives of our cultivated plants and weeds, ecological methods of weed management, principles of crop rotation; planting to support beneficial insects; managing orchards and other perennials; the use of planting calendars and more.

 The first week will be led by Craig and Henrike Holdrege of The Nature Institute. The second week will feature presenters including: Jean Paul Courtens of Roxbury Farm; Malcolm Gardner, editor of the Agriculture Lectures, by Rudolf Steiner; Walter Goldstein, research scientist at Michael Fields Agricultural Institute; Eric Nordell, (on DVD and by phone), of Beech Grove Farm; Claudia Knab-Vispo of the Farmscape Ecology Program; Hugh Williams of Threshold Farm and others. This is the first of two such intensives. In 2011 the workshop will focus on the animal kingdom, the integration of livestock on biodynamic farms and other, related topics.

Fees are on a sliding scale: $250-450 for each week; or $400 to 480 for both weeks. (North American Biodynamic Apprenticeship Program apprentice fees are covered by the program.) For more information, contact the Hawthorne Valley Farm Learning Center, 518-672-7500 x 105; or email caroline@....

This winter intensive has been developed as part of the North American Biodynamic Apprenticeship Program and fulfills one its diploma requirements. It is open to the public.

Caroline

Caroline Smialek

Farm Development Office

Hawthorne Valley Farm

327 Route 21 C

Ghent, New York 12075

518-672-7500, extension 105

“Since last spring and the onset of the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza outbreak in humans, USDA has consistently asked that the media stop calling this “novel” pandemic virus “swine flu.” By continuing to mislabel the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus that is affecting human populations around the world, the media is causing undue and undeserved harm to America’s agriculture industry, especially to pork producers.”
—From the USDA Website

Novelist-turned-anti-meat-pamphleteer Jonathan Safran Foer made a stark claim about swine flu on The Ellen DeGeneres Show recenly:

“This swine flu that’s now an epidemic, they’ve been able to trace it back to a farm in North Carolina… A hog farm. Nobody knows this. Nobody talks about it. We’ve been told this lie that it came from Mexico.”

Well, the situation is even worse than Foer suggests. Authorities aren’t actually saying the novel strain of swine flu “came from Mexico.” That would be uncomfortable, because it first cropped up there a few miles from vast hog operations run by U.S. pork giant Smithfield.

But they are insisting that “pork is safe”—and doing little or nothing to monitor hog confinements for evidence of infection.

For years before the current outbreak, scientists openly worried that CAFOs (concentrated animal feedlot operations) provided excellent arenas for the generation and spread of dangerous new flu varieties.

Yet another bit of evidence on this score crossed my desk this week: a “News Focus” piece that ran in Science back in 2003 called “Chasing the Fickle Swine Flu.” (PDF) It’s jumping-off point is the very incident Foer pointed to on Ellen—the outbreak of a novel strain of flu, genetically related to the current strain, on a North Carolina farm in 1998. The opening is worth quoting at length:

One of the first signs of trouble was a barking cough that resounded through a North Carolina farm in August 1998.  Every pig in an operation of 2400 animals
sickened, with symptoms similar to those caused by the human flu: high fever, poor appetite, and lethargy. Pregnant sows were hit hardest, and almost 10% aborted their litters, says veterinary virologist Gene Erickson of the Rollins Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Raleigh. Many piglets that survived in utero were later born small and weak, and some 50 sows died.

The culprit, a new strain of swine influenza to which the animals had little immunity, left veterinarians and virologists alike puzzled. Although related flu strains in birds, humans, and pigs outside North America constantly evolve, only one influenza subtype had sickened North American pigs since 1930. That spell was suddenly broken about 4 years ago, and a quick succession of new flu viruses has been sweeping through North America’s 100 million pigs ever since. This winter, for example, up to 15% of the 4- to 7-week-old piglets on a large Minnesota farm died, even though their mothers had been vaccinated against swine flu, says veterinary pathologist Kurt Rossow of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. [Emphasis added.]

Here we have a phenomenon I’ve written about before: the flu strains circulating through the U.S. swine herd didn’t mutate much after 1930—until 1998. The novel strain that emerged in a North Carolina CAFO then was devastating for pigs, whose immune systems did not recognize it; but luckily, it didn’t have the genetic chops to jump to humans.

By 2003, scientists were actively worried that would soon change, the Science article reveals.

“Within the swine population, we now have a mammalian-adapted virus that is extremely promiscuous,” one researcher told the magazine. “We could end up with a dangerous virus,” i.e., a mutation that jumps to humans.

And researchers were looking to the CAFO as the site where such a thing could rear up. In the 1990s, hog farming underwent an unprecedented process of intensification and consolidation. As Science put it:

In the past decade, big swine producers have gotten bigger, and many small producers have gone out of business. The percentage of farms with 5000 or more animals surged from 18% in 1993 to 53% in 2002, according to Rodger Ott, an agricultural statistician at the National Agricultural Statistics Service in Washington, D.C.

Back in 2003, there was no taboo about stating the obvious:

“With a group of 5000 animals, if a novel virus shows up, it will have more opportunity to replicate and potentially spread than in a group of 100 pigs on a small farm,” [University of Minnesota veterinary pathologist Kurt] Rossow says.

But giant hog confinements weren’t the only sites of concern: Another vet-science expert warned Science of the concern that small-scale, pasture-based operations are even more menacing than CAFOs, because “pigs in outside pens, as is common on small farms, can be exposed to the droppings of migratory waterfowl, which may contain infectious viruses; large-scale confinement agriculture may prevent such exposure.”

Right. But that particular expert happened to be the “director of veterinary science at the National Pork Board in Clive, Iowa.” Now, there may be risk associated with keeping pigs outdoors where they can come into contact with birds. But the small size of outdoor herds means much less opportunity for the kind of mixing and reassortment to create a high probability for jumping to humans. Can anyone name a vet-science expert seriously concerned about this factor—that is, who doesn’t draw a salary from the industry?

In addition to sheer numbers, the Science piece points to another factor linking CAFOs to the generation of new strains: an explosion in vaccinations.

In 1995, swine flu vaccination was so new that the National Swine Survey conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture didn’t bother to assess its extent. ... Today [i.e, back in 2003], more than half of all sows are vaccinated against both H1N1 and H3N2 viruses, says Robyn Fleck, a veterinarian at Schering-Plough, one of the nation’s three producers of swine influenza vaccine.

All those vaccines created concerns of a treadmill effect—when all the pigs in a buiilding are vaccinated, only vaccine-resistent flu mutations can survive, creating a constant need for new vaccines. Already in 2003, Science reported, researchers were finding flu in vaccinated pigs. “Flu is also showing up in piglets thought to be protected by maternal antibodies passed on from vaccinated sows,” the article states. Here’s a choice bit:

Widespread vaccination may actually be selecting for new viral types. If vaccination develops populations with uniform immunity to certain virus genotypes, say H1N1 and H3N2, then other viral mutants would be favored. [Molecular virologist Richard] Webby suggests that the combination of avian polymerase genes generating errors in the genetic sequence and immunologic pressure from vaccination may be selecting for unique variants.

Now, that same virologist, Richard Webby, goes on argue that mass vaccination is important, drawbacks aside. The “benefits of vaccination outweigh this side effect,” Webby told Science, because “If you can decrease the amount of virus, you can reduce the chances of interspecies transmission.”

To me, this statement illuminates a gaping dilemma presented by industrial-scale hog farming: we’re forced to choose between a vaccination treadmill, which reduces the incidence level of flu in CAFOs but predictably generates novel, vaccine-resistant strains; or not vaccinating at all, which would allow flu to run rampant among millions of hogs.

Even a veterinary expert for Schering-Plough, the pharmaceutical giant (now owned by Merck) with a large position in the swine-vaccine market, seemed a little concerned about the situation—not just the vaccine treadmill, but the whole game of factory hog farming.

Schering-Plough veterinarian Terri Wasmoen acknowledges that vaccines “may be pressuring change.” But she also notes that larger hog confinement operations and more shipping from state to state may play a role. “We need epidemiological work to understand these issues, and there is no funding now,” she says. [Emphasis added.]

That last bit is jaw-dropping for several reasons. Here are two: 1) With a known and obvious public-health threat brewing, public-health authorities had zero political will to even muster funding to study it; and 2) a multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical company was minting profits from a growing market it knew contained a serious public-health risk, yet could itself find “no funding” to research it.

Well, here we are, six years later. The scenario that scientists feared and predicted would unfold has unfolded: a novel strain of H1N1 has jumped to humans, and is now spreading rapidly. Scientists are now hoping the strain won’t mutate into one that’s more difficult to shake off. But as we know now, hope doesn’t do much to stop the evolution of flu strains. There remains no large-scale effort to investigate CAFOs as engines of new swine flu strains—or even monitor them for infections.

“[T]here is no systematic monitoring of [human] populations where there may be interspecies transmission between humans, birds, and pigs,” a CDC epidemiologist complained to Science six years ago, referring to the lack of monitoring of CAFO workers for infection. Amazingly, that remains true today.

Our political culture has proven itself incapable of challenging the multibillion-dollar pork industry. But what about our media culture—the watchdogs who keep democratic society safe from unaccountable power?

As Foer says, nobody—besides him, me, and a few others—is talking about this link. The Washington Post made a game try a few weeks ago, but not before ludicrously taking pains to stress the “pathogen-free” nature of CAFOs.

Who will be the first mainstream journalist to train a sharp eye—and stake the prestige of big-name publication—on this question? Perhaps the New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter, who recently published a book on scientific “denialism,” will raise his voice against the systematic denial of evidence that CAFOs generate dangerous flu strains.

Please broadcast widely.

Hi Everyone,

Regional Farm & Food Project is partnering with NOFA NY in a call to action and to alert the public of the impending dangers of the proposed hydraulic fracing of the Marcellus Shale and to strongly encourage producers, eaters and anyone who relies on clean, safe water for drinking, home use, agriculture and environmental integrity to speak out against this profoundly misguided project. Halliburton is a major player in this scheme and financially stressed property owners and farmers are being offered extremely lucrative contracts with long term residuals to allow drilling with toxic chemical compounds on their properties, the details of which the energy companies refuse to disclose as they are ‘proprietary information’. Governor Patterson has allowed the DEC process to be fast tracked in a desperate hope to generate state revenue. The comment period has been extended to December 31, 2009 and there are several scheduled listening sessions throughout the state (see below). We need as many bodies as possible at those sessions and for farmers and others to comment on how this will impact their farms, the integrity of their soils, biodiversity and food and water safety.

ProPublica has done some very impressive investigative journalism and has found of the permanently contaminated water/sludge, “It's radioactive… New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, which analyzed 13 samples of wastewater brought thousands of feet to the surface from drilling and found that they contain levels of radium-226, a derivative of uranium, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink.” Sending the tailings ‘out west’ does not solve that problem, it only moves the highly concentrated residue after filtration, into someone else’s backyard, shipped across the country – maybe – even that may not be a legal means of disposal. The net gain of the natural gas extracted is the equivalent of national consumption for estimates of 2-50 years. The half life of radium in the resulting sludge is 1,600 years.

Please take action – call, show up, review, share your concerns. To say that this plan is short sited is an almost comical understatement. We need long term sustainable solutions to our energy needs, not short term environmental disasters and long term contamination to our soils and water and wildlife extinction. The political process has become largely unresponsive unless there is a critical mass of respondents, stakeholders, voters and there is a general election next year. Together, our calls and actions will make a difference. Please pick up the phone and if possible, testify and show up at these listening sessions. Each of these calls will take less than a minute.

Thanks very much,

Gianni Ortiz

Executive Director

Regional Farm & Food Project

Governor Patterson: 518-474-8390

Senator Schumer: D.C., 202.224.6542, Albany, 518.431.4070

Senator Gillibrand: D.C., 202.224.4451, Albany, 518.431.0120

Congressman Murphy: D.C., 202.225.1168, Saratoga, 518.581.8247

Stephen Saland: Poughkeepsie, 845.463.0840

Marcus Molinaro: Red Hook, 845.758.9790

Tim Gordon: Castleton-on-Hudson, 518.479.0542

Find your Representative: http://www.congress.org

Judith Enck: I can’t find her at the moment, she has just been appointed by the Obama Administration as the Regional Head of the Environment, including New York, New Jersey and parts of the Caribbean (?)

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 From the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York For more information contact: Lea Kone, NOFA-NY Assistant Director 585-271-1979, policy@... <mailto:policy@...>, www.nofany.org <http://www.nofany.org/>

November 9, 2009

*Farmers United Against Gas Drilling in the Marcellus Shale*

The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY) is appalled at the shallow analysis of the environmental consequences of hydraulic fracing in the Marcellus Shale in New York State provided by the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS) released by the New York State Department of Conservation (DEC). NOFA-NY condemns the proposed regulations set forth by the DEC of hydraulic fracturing as utterly inadequate to protect New York State’s water, agriculture and citizenry.

Professional research, investigative journalism and anecdotal accounts have indicated a significant gap in what is included in the dSGEIS and what research still needs to be done to answer the continually increasing list of potential concerns. The dSGEIS does not address the cumulative impact of gas wells on the environment, but addresses only the impact of one well at a time. This is a an utterly irresponsible starting point, one that begins with a growing list of general concerns NOFA-NY has for the safety and health of all of New York State’s citizens, animals, soil and water systems.

In the western states of the USA, the contamination rate of water wells runs between 2% and 8%, with many illnesses and adverse health effects recorded.

NOFA-NY recommends that the practice of drawing from aquifers for the purpose of hydraulic fracing be banned, because the water quantities in aquifers are limited, often shallow, and not measurable. Farms, private wells, and many rural townships are dependent on these finite aquifers, which often go dry in droughts. A single well requires a minimum 3 million gallons of water for this process (approximately a football field 30 feet high in water). That’s a lot of water that will be pumped out of local rivers and streams and hauled to well sites scattered around the region. Much of the 809-page document is devoted to water issues in which it considers impacts of large water withdrawals – water that, because of the chemicals used to hydraulically fracture (frac) the shale can never be returned to the watershed. New York Farm Bureau policy also supports banning the use of water from aquifers for the purpose of hydraulic fracing.

The dSGEIS does not heed the recommendation that the chemicals in hydraulic fracing fluids be publicly disclosed before drilling, because many of these chemicals are known to be toxic, endocrine disrupters and carcinogenic. The dSGEIS addresses this concern by stating that it will require disclosure of these chemicals to the DEC only, bowing to the “proprietary” rights of the gas companies, and leaving the public utterly exposed to the consequences of these poisons. It is impossible to test wells for water contamination from fracing fluids, if the presence of these chemicals are not tested for prior to drilling.

Without public disclosure of the chemicals in fracing fluids, water wells cannot be adequately tested, and gas companies will be shielded from the liability of their contamination.

Congressmen Maurice Hinchey, Eric Massa, and Michael Arcuri from the Southern Tier are co-sponsoring the FRAC Act, which, nationwide, would require public disclosure of the chemicals in hydraulic fracing fluids, and their regulation under the Safe Water Drinking Act by the EPA. NOFA-NY and New York Farm Bureau policy supports this act as well.

Is one man’s right to water more important than the next? The Chesapeake Energy Corporation (the largest leaseholder in the Marcellus Share), stated that it will not drill for natural gas in the NYC Watershed due to the pristine nature of the unfiltered water system that provides clean and safe drinking water to millions of people. But what about the rest of New York state? Sue Smith-Heavenrich, NOFA-NY policy committee member states, “Standards that are set for the New York City Watershed, should apply for all of New York.”

In Dimock Pennsylvania, only 30 miles from New York State, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracing has already begun in the Marcellus Shale.

Within a year, methane explosions of private wells and serious methane contamination of well water due to hydraulic fracing has occurred. The explosions and methane contamination were unexpected, and still have not been explained. Recently, there were three spills of fracing fluids in Dimock, seriously contaminating a stream, killing fish, and prompting the Pennsylvania DEP to suspend gas drilling by Cabot Oil and Gas Company for two weeks. In Dunkard Creek in West Virginia and Pennsylvania all 160 species of fish have died since September 1, a tragedy likely linked to an invasive specie that “hitchhiked” across state lines on drilling equipment.

With so many emerging concerns associated with fracing, New Yorkers must ask themselves is the value of natural gas such that we are willing to risk the safety and health of generations to come, the landscape of our state, and the fate of our farmland? The gas is for fifty years, the water is forever.

How can you make a difference? Attend an upcoming Public Hearing and submit comments to the DEC in response to the dSGEIS document. Comments can be submitted online anytime before the *December 31, 2009* deadline on the DEC website. <http://www.dec.ny.gov/cfmx/extapps/SGEISComments/>

A copy of the full dSGEIS can be reviewed on the DEC website <http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/58440.html>.

*DEC Public Hearings*

All Session start at 7 PM (Doors open at 6 PM for speaker sign-up)

Tuesday, November 10, Stuyvesant High School, High School Auditorium,

345 Chambers St, New York, NY 10282. (Doors will open at 5:30 PM)

Thursday, November 12, Chenango Valley High School, High School Auditorium, 221 Chenango Bridge Rd, Chenango Bridge, NY 13901.

Wednesday, November 18, Corning East High School Auditorium, 201 Cantigny St, Corning, NY 14830.

For more detailed information on the link to invasive species associated with gas drilling in the Marcellus shale, see “Invasive Species Could Become a Concern with Drilling” by Sue Smith-Heavenrich, /Broader View Weekly/ October 30, 2009.

NOFA-NY, www.nofany.org <http://www.nofany.org/>, is a non-profit educational organization committed to promoting a sustainable regional food system.

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Is New York's Marcellus Shale Too Hot to Handle?

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - November 9, 2009 5:10 am EST

As New York gears up for a massive expansion of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, state officials have made a potentially troubling discovery about the wastewater created by the process: It's radioactive. And they have yet to say how they'll deal with it. The information comes from New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, which analyzed 13 samples of wastewater brought thousands of feet to the surface from drilling and found that they contain levels of radium-226, a derivative of uranium, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink.

The findings, if backed up with more tests, have several implications: The energy industry would likely face stiffer regulations and expenses, and have more trouble finding treatment plants to accept its waste -- if any would at all. Companies would need to license their waste handlers and test their workers for radioactive exposure, and possibly ship waste across the country. And the state would have to sort out how its laws for radioactive waste might apply to drilling and how the waste could impact water supplies and the environment.

What is less clear is how the wastewater may affect the health of New Yorkers, since the danger depends on how much radiation people are exposed to and how they are exposed to it. Radium is known to cause bone, liver and breast cancers, and the EPA publishes exposure guidelines for it, but there is still disagreement over exactly how dangerous low-level doses can be to workers who handle it, or to the public.

The DEC has yet to address any of these questions. But New York's Health Department raised concerns about the amount of radioactive materials in the wastewater in a confidential letter to the DEC's oil and gas regulators in July. "Handling and disposal of this wastewater could be a public health concern," DOH officials said in the letter, which was obtained by ProPublica. "The issues raised are not trivial, but are also not insurmountable." The letter warned that the state may have difficulty disposing of the drilling waste, that thorough testing will be needed at water treatment plants, and that workers may need to be monitored for radiation as much as they might be at nuclear facilities.

Health Department officials declined to comment on the letter. The DEC sent an e-mail response to questions about the radioactivity stating that "concentrations are generally not a problem for water discharges, or in solid waste streams" in New York state. But the agency did not directly address the radioactivity levels, which were disclosed in the appendices of the agency's environmental review of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, released Sept. 30.

The review did not calculate how much radioactivity people may be exposed to, even though such calculations are routinely completed by scientists studying radiation exposure. Yet the review concluded that radiation levels were "very low" and that the wastewater "does not present a risk to workers." DEC officials declined to explain how they reached this conclusion. Although the review pointed to a possible need for radioactive licensing and disposal for certain materials, and it looked at other states with laws aimed at radioactive waste from drilling, the DEC said there is no precedent for examining how these radioactive materials might affect the environment when brought to the surface at the volumes and scale expected in New York. And it said that more study is needed before the DEC can lay out precise plans to deal with the waste. In comments to ProPublica, the DEC emphasized that the environmental review proposes testing all wastewater for radioactivity before it is allowed to leave the well site, and said that the volumes of brine water, which contain most of the radioactivity detected, would be far less than the volumes of fluid from hydraulic fracturing that are removed from the well.

What scientists call naturally occurring radioactive materials -- known by the acronym NORM -- are common in oil and gas drilling waste, and especially in brine, the dirty water that has been soaking in the shale for centuries. Radium, a potent carcinogen, is among the most dangerous of these metals because it gives off radon gas, accumulates in plants and vegetables and takes 1,600 years to decay.  Geologists say radioactivity levels can vary across the Marcellus, but the tests taken so far suggest the amount of radioactive material measured in New York is far higher than in many other places.

The state took its 13 samples -- 11 of which significantly exceeded legal limits -- between October 2008 and April 2009. The DEC did not respond to questions about whether additional sampling has begun or whether the state would begin issuing drilling permits before the radioactivity issues are resolved. The DEC told ProPublica it did not know where the wastewater would be treated. "It's got to go somewhere," said Theodore Adams, a radiation remediation and water treatment consultant with 30 years of experience with radioactive waste. "It's not going to just go away."

A Vague Threat: Determining the health threat that radioactive material poses to workers and to the public is complicated. Measuring human exposure -- which is quantified in doses of millirems per year -- from radiation is notoriously difficult, in part because it depends on variables like whether objects interfere with radiation, or how sustained exposure is over long periods of time.

Gas industry workers, for example, would almost certainly face an increased risk of cancer if they worked in a confined space where radon gas, a leading cause of lung cancer and a derivative of radium, can collect to dangerous levels. They would also be at risk if they somehow swallowed or breathed fumes from the radioactive wastewater, or handled the concentrated materials regularly for 20 years. But without these types of intensive or confined exposures, the materials may be less dangerous, making it difficult to discern effects on workers' health, experts say.

People absorb radioactivity in their daily routines, complicating health assessments. Eighty percent of human radioactivity exposure comes from natural sources, according to the EPA. Everything from granite countertops to a pile of playground dirt can emit radioactivity that is higher than the EPA, which regulates based on a theory that zero exposure is best, may prefer. "You start with the world where you and I are getting an exposure from the sun, from the soil we walk on, from the brick in our house that on average is about 400 millirems a year -- which is dangerous," said Tom Lenhart, a former member of the federal-state Interagency Steering Committee on Radiation Standards. "The EPA would never allow that kind of exposure. So you are starting from a baseline of dangerous exposure, and this is what makes regulating it a nightmare."

The EPA estimates that Americans are exposed to about 300 to 360 millirems per year, including routine artificial exposures like getting an X-ray or flying in an airplane. Each multiple of this "background level" denotes a proportional increase in the chance of getting cancer. The natural radioactivity of the Marcellus Shale has caused concern since the mid 1980s, when high levels of radon gas were found in the basements of homes in Marcellus, a town in upstate New York, where the shale reaches the surface. The question has long been, if the Marcellus can cause radioactive gas to seep into people's basements, how much radioactivity might be infused into the water left over from drilling? Add to that the question of how much human exposure can be expected from the radiation detected at some Marcellus drilling sites.

In its environmental review, the state said it couldn't answer those questions because exposure depends on so many variables and because the units of measurement for human exposure and concentrations in water are incompatible. There is "no simple or universally accepted equivalence between these units," the DEC wrote in its environmental review. But Rick Kessy, operations manager for Fortuna Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Talisman Energy and the largest gas producer in New York, says his company has assessed worker exposure at two of the company's well sites in Pennsylvania, where it found no serious risk. And a U.S. Department of Energy expert who specializes in such exposure conversions said an analysis in New York should be "very easy to do." "If they know the concentrations and they know the exposure pathways it should be straightforward to calculate that,"  said Charley Yu, who runs the national computer dose modeling program at Argonne National Labs for the U.S. Department of Energy.

In fact, New York's DEC used Yu's government modeling program, called RESRAD, in a 1999 study to establish radioactivity exposure risks for oilfield brine spread on roads, a common disposal practice. Its brine samples in that case contained far less radium than the Marcellus water. It laid out a simple scenario, assuming a person walked on the road for two hours a day over 20 years and a fixed quantity of brine was spread there. That study found no threat to human health. No such analysis was included in the state's recent supplemental environmental impact statement.

Few Disposal Options: All this would be of substantially less concern if New York were like most of the other states that produce some radioactive waste during natural gas drilling. In those states, the waste is re-injected underground. But in New York, injection disposal wells are uncommon, and those that do exist aren't licensed to receive radioactive waste or Marcellus Shale wastewater, according to the EPA. Instead, most drilling wastewater is treated by municipal or industrial water treatment plants and discharged back into public waterways.

The radium-laden wastewater would almost certainly need to be carefully treated by plants capable of filtering out the radioactive substances. Kessy, the Fortuna manager, which operates five of the wells with spiked readings in New York, said the levels are higher than he has seen elsewhere. Treatment plants in Pennsylvania are accepting Fortuna wastewater with much lower levels of radioactivity from the company's wells there, Kessy said, but if plants can't take the higher concentrations, it could be crippling. "In the event that they were not able to comply due to high radioactivity, they would reject the water," Kessy said. "And if we did not have a viable option for it, our operations would just shut down. There is no other option."

It is not clear which treatment plants, if any in New York, are capable of handling such material. DEC spokesman Yancey Roy said that "there are currently no facilities specifically designated for treating them." He added that the state depends on the drilling companies to make sure there is a legal treatment option for the water, and then reviews those plans. "The department has not received any permit submissions from the well operators that include details about treatment options for the brine containing NORM," he said. "So we do not know what treatment options are being considered or how effective NORM removal will be."

ProPublica contacted several plant managers in central New York who said they could not take the waste or were not familiar with state regulations. "We are not set up to take radioactive substances," said Patricia Pastella, commissioner of the Onondaga County Department of Water Environment Protection, which operates the Metropolitan plant in Syracuse, N.Y. "It does present a problem with disposal." Filtering the water is just one of several problems. Plants that can filter out the radioactive materials are left with a concentrated sludge that has substantially higher radioactivity than the wastewater. Sludge can also collect inside the pipes at well sites, in waste pits and in holding tanks.

Federal laws don't directly address naturally occurring radioactivity, and the oil and gas industry is exempt from federal laws dictating handling of toxic waste, leaving the burden on New York state. New York has laws governing radioactive materials, but the state's drilling plans don't specify when they would apply. 

Experts who reviewed the concentrations of radioactive metals found in New York's wastewater said the leftover sludge is likely to exceed the legal limits for hazardous waste and would need to be shipped to Idaho or Washington, to some of the only landfills in the country permitted to accept it. Fortuna's Kessy said that's an acceptable cost of doing business. "We'll be willing, of course, to fund the necessary disposal means," he said.

The same may be required of some of the equipment used in drilling, which can eventually emit much higher levels of radiation than the water itself. Louisiana, for example, began regulating radioactive materials after it found radioactive build-up in pipes dumped in scrap yards and in the steel used to build schoolyard bleachers. But the levels in that state were just one eighth of those measured so far in New York. "I don't believe anyone has taken a look, seriously, at what the unintended consequences are to dealing with these kinds of materials," said Theodore Adams, the radioactive waste disposal consultant. "It's a unique animal -- a unique disposal -- and depending on where it is located and who is receiving it, it could have an impact."

ProPublica's Sabrina Shankman contributed reporting to this article.

From: Stop Monsanto! <no-reply@...>
Subject: Ireland Adopts GM-Free Policy - for everything!!!
Saturday, November 7, 2009, 9:59 PM

Stop Monsanto! Bulletin

Posted by Fern Holland

(Today at 10:44am from The Organic & Non-GMO Report, Vol. 9, No.10 November 2009)

The Irish Government will ban the cultivation of all GM crops and introduce a voluntary GM-free label for food - including meat, poultry, eggs, fish crustaceans, and dairy produce made without the use of GM animal feed.

(Oh, I am just so happy I can only dance!) :-)

The policy was adopted as part of the Renewed Programme for Government agreed to by the two coalition partners, the center-right Fianna Faíl and the Green Party, after the latter voted to support it on Saturday.

"EYES OF EUROPE WILL GAZE WITH ENVY ON IRELAND"

The agreement specifies that the government will "Declare the Republic of Ireland a GM-Free Zone, free from the cultivation of all GM plants." The official text also states: "To optimize Ireland's competitive advantage as GM-Free country, we will introduce a voluntary GM-free logo for use in all relevant product labeling and advertising, similar to a scheme recently introduced in Germany."

The President of the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association, Malcolm Thompson, said he was delighted by the announcement. "The Government's new GM-free policy is the fulfillment of what we at ICSA have held for the last five years. I very much look forward to its full implementation."

Michale O'Callaghan of GM-Free Ireland said the policy signals a new dawn for Irish farmers and food producers: "The Irish Government plan to ban GM crops and to provide a voluntary GM-free label for qualifying animal products makes obvious business sense for our agri-food and eco-tourism sectors.

Everyone knows that US and EU consumers, food brands and retailers want safe GM-free food, and Ireland is ideally positioned to deliver the safest, most credible GM-free food brand in Europe, if not the world."

In London, the Irish Michelin-star celebrity chef and TV host Richard Corrigan laughed out loud when he heard the news at his Bentley's Mayfair restaurant, adding that "the eyes of Europe will now gaze with envy on Ireland!"

Ireland's geographical isolation and offshore Atlantic western winds provide a natural barrier to contamination by wind-borne GM pollen drift from countries such as the UK and Spain which still allow commercial release and/or field trials of GM crops. Together with this natural protection - and Ireland's famous green image and unpolluted topsoil - the new GM-free policy will provide Irish farmers and food producers who avoid the use of GM feed with a truly unique selling point: the most credible safe GM food brand in Europe.

GM-FREE LABEL TO BE INTRODUCED

O'Callaghan said the Irish GM-free lable for algae, meat, poultry, eggs, crustaceans, fish, and dairy produce should set a higher standard than the existing German and proposed French labels. "Ireland's GM-free label should mean what it says, i.e. no feeding of any GM-labeled feedstuffs during the entire life of the animal."

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NOW DON'T YOU JUST LOVE IRELAND?!!! I LOVED IT BEFORE AND I LOVE IT EVEN MORE NOW!!!

PLEASE, SHARE THE NOTE WITH EVERYONE! TELL THEM THERE ARE, INDEED, FOLKS WHO WALK THEIR TALK - EVERYDAY PEOPLE DOING AND BEING EXTRAORDINARY THINGS! YEAAAAAA! :-)