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Organic watchdog sues USDA
(Monday, April 17, 2006 - CropChoice news) -- 1. Organic watchdog sues USDA 1. Organic watchdog sues USDA 4/12/06 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Will Fantle, 715-839-7731 CORNUCOPIA, WI: The Cornucopia Institute has filed a
lawsuit in federal
court seeking to compel the USDA to provide public
records sought through
several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
The Institute is a
Wisconsin-based farm policy research group and organic
food watchdog. "We have gone into federal court because the USDA has
been unwilling to
provide us with important records that would help us
and our farmer-members
and consumers understand why the USDA has delayed
enforcement of key federal
organic farming standards for five years," said Will
Fantle, the Institute's
Research Director. "These are documents that they are
obligated, by law, to
share with the public." At issue is the record of correspondence and
discussions that have taken
place at the USDA between USDA staff and corporate
lobbyists, farm
organizations, and the public, concerning the
requirement that organic dairy
cows have access to pasture and obtain a significant
portion of their feed
from grazing. The lawsuit comes amidst a growing national debate
occurring in the organic
farming community over the rise of factory farms in
organic dairying,
milking 2000 to 6000 cows in confinement-type
conditions, that provide
little if any pasture for their milk cows. Public
interest groups and
farmers have accused the USDA of purposefully ignoring
the matter for
years-a fact that has allowed these gigantic farms to
proliferate and gain a
growing foothold in the booming organic marketplace. "We know that powerful companies like Dean Foods, the
owner of the Horizon
organic dairy brand, spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars lobbying the
USDA last year," said Fantle. "This company and the
factory farms they are
procuring organic milk from are financially benefiting
from USDA
footdragging on this matter." When the National Organic Standards Board was ready to
close loopholes and
tighten federal organic rules in August 2005, staff at
the USDA unexpectedly
and without explanation blocked action by their expert
advisory panel. "We smell a rat," said Fantle, "and we want to see if
there are corporate
fingerprints on the USDA's critical policy reversal." Three FOIA requests, filed since August 2005, have
never been complied with
by the USDA. The agency released some documents in
response to a fourth
FOIA request but withheld several others, without
explanation, prompting an
appeal from the Institute that is also now part of the
federal lawsuit. "We expect USDA to honor the letter of the law in a
timely fashion,
something they have yet to do," said Gary Cox, counsel
for the Institute. "Transparency is important in government if the public
is to have faith in
its decisions," Cox added. "And transparency is
doubly important in organic
agriculture, where consumers care deeply about their
food and how it is
produced." Fantle noted that frustration with USDA inaction led
Cornucopia to more
closely investigate the organic dairy industry and
what goes into the dairy
foods being sold to the consumer. Their recently
released report,
Maintaining the Integrity of Organic Milk, and
accompanying scorecard, based
on a year of research, ranks 68 different retail
organic dairy brands and
measures the organic ethics and integrity involved in
their production. "If the USDA is reluctant to enforce organic
regulations, we believe
consumers should know which brands represent their
ethics and values,"
explained Fantle. "Our scorecard spotlights the
heroes and identifies
companies that are cutting corners." The report is available on the group's Web page at
www.cornucopia.org. - 30 - The Cornucopia Institute, a nonprofit farm policy
research group, is
dedicated to the fight for economic justice for the
family-scale farming
community. Their Organic Integrity Project acts as a
corporate and
governmental watchdog assuring that no compromises to
the credibility of
organic farming methods and the food it produces are
made in the pursuit of
profit. 2. The farm crisis & corporate profits Date: April 8, 2006 11:39:57 AM HST The farm income crisis has reached excruciating
intensity. For Canadian
farm families and their net incomes, 2004 was the
second-worst year in
history. But for agribusiness, 2004 was the best year
in history. Is there
a link? This report uses 2004 as a case study and
takes a detailed look at
the profitability of the dominant agribusiness
corporations. This report
follows the money. These worse-than-the-Depression net incomes have
driven farmers off the
land -- cutting their number by 11% in the five years
between the latest
agricultural censuses (1996 and 2001). If this rate of
loss persists (and
it is probably accelerating), it will cut the current
number of farmers in
half by 2025. And the negative effects are not
confined to our farms. Many
rural communities are withering. After more than a
century of developing
and populating rural Canada, today we're boarding up
stores, closing
schools, and ripping up railway tracks. The Canadian
economy suffers as it
loses the profits from food production. Taxpayers
suffer as they are made
to pay four to five billion dollars per year to
support farmers. And the
country suffers as these billions are taken away from
education,
healthcare, environmental protection, the arts, and
infrastructure. All
parts of Canadian society suffer as a result of this
unprecedented
disintegration of the systems that previously returned
adequate prices,
revenues, and profits to the families and communities
that produce our
food. The best of times Clearly, our family farms are in crisis. But to
understand this crisis, we
must understand these farms in their economic context
-- as the central
link in an agri-food chain that reaches from energy,
fertilizer, seed, and
chemical companies and banks at one end, to
processors, packers, retailers,
and restaurants at the other. Our agri-food chain
extends from the oil well
to the drive-through window.
Compared to our family farms, the profit picture for
the other links in the
chain could not be more different. For the
agribusiness corporations
dominant in Canada, 2004 was the best year in history;
overall, profits hit
record highs. Of the 75 companies profiled in the
following pages and for
which profit data is available, 41 posted record
profits, and another 16
had near-record profits or their second- or third-best
year ever. Thus, 57
of 75 companies -- 76% -- had their best year, or
nearly their best. None
of the listed corporations experienced a record or
near-record loss. No
other sector experienced losses overall, and certainly
none experienced
losses comparable to those of farmers. 2004 was as
good for agribusiness as
it was bad for farmers. Farmers' 2004 Return on Equity from the markets was
negative 5.09% (see
"Farmers' profits" sidebar on page 3). Their ROE rate
was similarly
negative in 2003, and will be again negative in 2005.
And farmers' ROE from
the markets has been negative in every year of the
last 20. Overall,
Canadian farmers have not earned a single dollar of
profits from the
markets since 1984. Over the same period, agribusiness
has accumulated
profits almost certainly reaching into the trillions. How their good times create our bad times "The free market is a myth. Everybody knows that. Just
very few people say it
. . . . [I]f I'm not smart enough to know there's no
free market, I ought to
be fired. . . . You can't have farming on a total
laissez-faire system
because the sellers are too weak and the buyers are
too strong."
--Dwayne Andreas, CEO of Archer
Daniels Midland Corporation. In 2004, agribusiness posted record profits while
farmers shouldered
near-record losses. How come? In the past, the NFU has
said simply that the
farm crisis is caused by an imbalance in market power
that creates a
parallel imbalance in the allocation of profits within
the agri-food chain;
farmers are making too little because powerful
corporations are taking too
much. This report goes further -- listing and
analyzing many of the
mechanisms that agribusiness uses to extract
ever-increasing revenues and
profits at the expense of farmers. Such an analysis of
mechanisms is
essential to any process of public policy reform that
seeks to restore farm
profitability. Many economists dead wrong about farm crisis To some economists, what we call the farm crisis is
just the normal evolution
of the sector -- better technology leads to larger and
more efficient, but
fewer, farms. In this view, the expulsion of farmers
is unavoidable
short-term pain leading to long-term gain. This view might be defensible if the restructuring led
to prosperity for the
large, high-tech farmers who remain. But it does not.
Figure 1 shows that
net farm incomes for the past 20 years have been far
below "normal"
levels -- essentially zero. Economists' "evolution of
the sector" assessment
fails to predict or explain the massive shift in
profitability from farmers to
agribusiness. This shift in profitability begs explanation because
it came at a time
of rapid farm expansion, efficiency gains, and
technology adoption.
Economists should ponder whether getting bigger and
purchasing more
technology will move farmers out of the crisis, or
deeper in. As noted earlier, farmers' marketing agencies are
under attack in the
marketplace and at the trade table. The World Trade
Organization agreement
and other trade agreements are entrenching
Intellectual Property Rights
(IPR) protections -- patents, trademarks, and Plant
Breeders' Rights --
around the world. At the same time, though, the
dominant nations at the
trade tables (spurred by the agendas of the dominant
corporate players)
seem bent on using the talks and agreements to destroy
farmers' collective-
marketing agencies, such as the Canadian Wheat Board
and our
supply-management systems for poultry, eggs, and milk.
Thus, global trade
agreements are focused on the seemingly contradictory
ends of destroying
farmers' single-desk selling agencies and
proliferating comparable
single-desk powers for the dominant seed, gene,
chemical, and veterinary
drug companies. Monsanto's gene monopolies must be
respected everywhere,
while the Canadian Wheat Board's monopoly powers must
be terminated. The reason given for attacking farmers'
collective-marketing agencies? They
create "market distortions." But with OPEC at one end
of the agri-food
chain and Wal-Mart at the other end, the task of
eradicating market
distortion would seem a daunting one. And with
farmers' prices and profits
at all- time lows and agribusiness prices and profits
at all-time highs,
the question is: In the virtuous crusade to rid our
markets of all
distortions, must our first task be to make farmers
surrender their
marketing agencies? Might we not better start with
Monsanto's patents or
OPEC's cartel? A cynic might even suggest that the
surest way to predict
whether a trade agreement will entrench or target a
given "market
distortion" would be to ask whether that distortion
adds to or subtracts
from the profitability of the world's dominant
corporations. Conclusion Agribusiness corporations use a vast array of
techniques to suppress
competition and maximize their profits. This report
documents their
tremendous success: their profits are at record
levels. But some policy
makers and even some farmers may still resist the
assertion that this
aggressive extraction of revenues and profits causes
the farm income
crisis. Let's examine a few economic indicators: Thus, amid record-high demand, economy-topping
efficiency, record-low
costs, and consumption outstripping production,
farmers have posted their
largest losses in history. And agribusiness
corporations have posted their
largest profits. These facts are compatible with only
one explanation of
the farm crisis: the rewards of farmer productivity,
efficiency, and
cost-cutting are being seized by more-powerful players
in the agri-food
chain. Farmers are being plundered and liquidated.
Farmers' profits haven't
just disappeared; they've been taken. The farm crisis
didn't just happen;
it was caused. The family farm isn't dying; it's being
killed. And the
perpetrations of this destruction are the agribusiness
corporations who are
using their market power to extract profits that would
otherwise end up on
our farms. Farmers can't make a living because
agribusiness giants insist
on making a killing. In the hope that our elected leaders will begin to
speak the truth about
the causes of the farm crisis, in the hope that those
leaders will have the
courage to act in accord with that truth, in the hope
that agribusiness
will be restrained from its plunder of our farms and
communities, and on
behalf of farm families around the world, respectfully
submitted by the
National Farmers Union. 3. The politics of power: BEN SHOUSE If ethanol is the poster boy for renewable energy, wind power is the red-headed stepchild. Ethanol has support from feisty corn growers, virtually every Midwest political officeholder and any presidential candidate who cares to compete in the Iowa caucus. It even has a sinister archenemy: the specter of foreign oil dependency.
Wind, though farmers usually support it, does not raise crop prices and faces complicated hurdles such as lack of electric transmission. Its competition is coal and natural gas, which are mostly produced in the United States.
Partly as a result, ethanol is roughly 2 percent of the nation's highway fuel supply, but wind accounts for 0.2 percent of its electricity. The political disparity continued last year: Congress enacted a national mandate for ethanol but rejected one for wind. Both energy sources get tax breaks, but Congress insists on extending wind's tax credit for only one or two years at a time - a policy one advocate calls "a good way to kill an industry."
"Wind energy has a lot of political support, but it is not as widely scattered, it's not as strong as ethanol. Ethanol's real strong and has a lot of money behind it," said Jaime Steve of the American Wind Energy Association in Washington.
Political support could invigorate the state's lagging industry and send renewable, relatively low-cost energy to the upper Great Plains. But some doubt that wind energy can ride the same farmland groundswell that propelled ethanol.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said the state's farmers could be "the sheiks and mullahs of wind." But he pointed out that the technology is not as mature and that dependence on foreign oil is more of a crisis than dependence on foreign fuel for electricity.
He also said political support for wind is narrower. Legislation to support wind is "definitely on the wish list," but "I will be working very aggressively, as I have for some time, on the fuels issue." Wind potential might pay off for farmers The potential for wind has been demonstrated elsewhere. Germany and Denmark mandate a higher price for wind, and those nations get about 20 percent of their electricity from turbines.
The benefits to U.S. farmers are clear. They get easement payments when they sign their land up for a new wind farm, and they get lease payments once it's built.
Lease payments can reach $3,000 or $4,000 per turbine each year. And the turbine owners pay property taxes that benefit local schools and roads - $250,000 in the case of South Dakota's only large wind farm, a 27-turbine complex near Highmore.
"What those seven turbines bring us in, in money, equates to renting out about six quarters of land," said LeRoy Ratzlaff, a rancher who is host to part of the wind farm. "It's something everyone would like to have.
"The one downside we had is they affect our television reception a little bit when they run at very low speed. But we signed up for satellite TV."
Ratzlaff said he's not sure how quickly his luck might spread to the rest of the state. Many in the industry say a real surge would require a longer extension of the federal production tax credit, which gives most wind farms an extra 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said "the politics of tax breaks" is behind the brief extensions that plague the wind credit. "I think the short duration is due chiefly to the fact that Congress - particularly the Republican leadership, to be very blunt - is trying to maximize the number of tax cuts that they can create," Johnson said. Reliable tax credit could boost industry The fickle tax credit has caused a striking boom-and-bust cycle in the industry. Since 1999, odd-numbered years have seen big jumps in new turbines, and even-numbered years have seen big dives.
The industry predicts 2006 will be the first year to break that cycle, but the prospect for the five-year renewal it wants are sketchy. "I've seen the movie four times. It always ends the same way. There are a number of reasons. ... Some of them are logical, most of them are illogical," said Steve of the American Wind Energy Association. "If Congress is investing taxpayer dollars, it makes sense for them to re-examine those policies every so often, because we don't want to waste them. That makes sense."
But other reasons are mostly political, he said. He agreed with Johnson's comment about maximizing tax cuts, for example. Plus he said a longer renewal could weaken support from activist groups such as his.
"You're not showing up at their fund-raising events, you're not contributing to their campaigns." There are other issues, especially with federal agencies that govern electricity transmission. But Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., said the tax credit is the most important political issue facing wind development.
"We're just not at the stage of having made such a significant commitment to wind yet that there can be any significant movement on the regulatory front," she said after a speech about energy last month in Sioux Falls.
Still, some are starting to push federal agencies to take steps to open the nation's transmission system to wind. Johnson, along with 19 other senators, wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month asking it to ban excessive charges that discourage wind energy more than conventional sources.
These "imbalance charges" penalize a generating company if it deviates from its scheduled delivery of power. Wind, because it is much less predictable than coal or natural gas, is more vulnerable to these charges. In some cases, the penalty can be greater than the value of the energy being transmitted.
Wind advocates call that "discriminatory," but some in the industry say it's necessary to prevent "gaming." For example, a generating company could schedule a power delivery, then intentionally fail to deliver. That would leave the system operator with an unexpected shortage and the company with a chance to sell power at an inflated price.
Without substantial penalties, that could mean profit for the company at the expense of grid reliability. Better lines needed for better access Even if wind developers had better access to transmission lines, they would need improvements or even new lines in order to build new wind farms in South Dakota.
One new federal policy could make that happen. Enacted as part of last year's Energy Policy Act, the policy lets the Department of Energy create "national interest electric transmission corridors." That might cut through the red tape of multistate projects, but it is not clear how aggressively the policy will be applied. Another regulatory obstacle is the unresolved issue of who should pay for transmission upgrades. Normally, any upgrades that benefit the entire transmission system may be passed on to consumers. But if an upgrade benefits only the developer of a new wind farm, for example, that developer would pay.
A utility in Southern California tried to build a "renewable resource trunk facility" last year, arguing that it would benefit all users by opening up the windy Tehachapi region. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied the request to roll the costs into electric bills. South Dakota laws support wind power South Dakota state laws have recently turned favorable for wind, but some want politicians to go farther. In the early years of wind energy, South Dakota charged full property taxes on wind turbines, while other states were promoting wind with tax breaks.
That, along with their larger base of consumers, has so far spurred construction of 836 megawatts in Iowa and 744 in Minnesota.
A megawatt of wind energy is enough to power 225 to 300 typical American homes. The tax picture changed in 2003, and later that year, the Highmore wind farm started cranking out 40 megawatts of power. Developers have another 50 to 100 megawatts planned by 2007.
Last year, the Legislature created an energy infrastructure authority, with the ability to build a new transmission line if necessary.
This year, it allowed utilities such as Xcel Energy to more easily pass the cost of transmission upgrades on to customers. Doug Sombke of Conde, president of the South Dakota Farmers Union, said the state still needs to do more. That includes requiring electricity generators to produce a minimum percentage of their energy from renewables and working with other states to build new transmission lines.
But he said support for nationwide changes is crucial at this stage. "Our nation hasn't done a project like upgrading our electric grid since the 1950s - since we had the hydro energy. And what you're going to find is everyone is going to tell you it can't be done, it's too expensive," he said.
But even the Farmers Union's rival group, the South Dakota Farm Bureau, agrees that transformation is necessary. "If South Dakota is going to get its fair share of what the Department of Energy says we need to be producing from wind, then we need to build 50 or 100 Highmore wind farms in the next 15 years," said Mike Held, the bureau's executive director.
"A very tall order." Perhaps the only force capable of filling that order is political unity among farmers. For proof that that can work, look no further than ethanol. Reach Ben Shouse at 331-2318. For other energy stories, go to: http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060326/NEWS/603260345/1001 | |
