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Posts Tagged ‘Agriculture’

Roundup “Probably Carcinogenic” – and Monsanto Knew

Posted in Food, Health, Toxics, tagged , , , , , , on February 26, 2016 |

Monsanto has a bad track record when it comes to the safety of its products. From saccharin, to Agent Orange, to DDT, Monsanto has a history of producing and distributing chemicals that have serious health consequences. Most recently, the company has come under pressure for its herbicide, Roundup. After years of consumer concern, world-leading scientists at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released a study in March 2015, stating they believed glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, is “probably carcinogenic”. These findings have been echoed by the World Health Organization.

Chafer Sentry Herbicide Application

Chafer Sentry Herbicide Application

This news should bring shockwaves in regulatory policy, as glyphosate is by far the most used herbicide in the world. The use of this carcinogenic herbicide has become essential for thousands of farmers who are under contract with Monsanto to use Roundup Ready genetically modified (GM) seeds. Roundup Ready crops are most heavily applied with glyphosate and these include soy, corn, canola, alfalfa, cotton, sorghum, and wheat.

Countries such as Sri Lanka, and Bermuda have banned the use and importation of glyphosate, while Germany’s health ministers are spearheading a campaign to have the herbicide banned all across the European Union. For the US, the first instance of this can be seen in the California Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to begin labeling Roundup and other products containing the chemical as carcinogenic. Dr. Nathan Donley, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, stated,

“As far as I’m aware, this is the first regulatory agency in the U.S. to determine that glyphosate is a carcinogen. So this is a very big deal.”

Glyphosate’s carcinogenic potential has been known to Monsanto and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from long term animal experiments since the early 1980s, but the company has repeatedly dismissed such claims and refused to disclose the studies, buy claiming they contain “trade secrets”. After petitioning the EPA, Dr. Anthony Samsel, a research expert who has worked for the EPA, and as a hazardous materials expert, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the United States Coast Guard (USCG), received the lab documents.

One study shows how mice exposed to glyphosate produced renal tubular adenomas, which are tumors in kidney cancer, along with developing hepatocyte hypertrophy, which is a sign of liver cancer. In addition, lab findings show how glyphosate glyphosate stops the body from absorbing selenium, which leads to thyroid cancer growth. As a result, the EPA labeled glyphosate a Class C carcinogen in a March 4, 1985 EPA review. The Class C carcinogen label means there is suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential. This classification was changed by the EPA just six years later to a Class E category which suggests “evidence of non-carcinogenicity for humans”. Is it a coincidence that this change in glyphosate’s classification transpired during the same period that Monsanto was producing its first Roundup-Ready GM Crops?

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Farm Bill 2014 – Progress or Business as Usual?

Posted in Budget, Climate Change, Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 7, 2014 |

After years in the making, this past Tuesday the Senate voted 68-32 in favor of the new Farm Bill, which is expected to be signed into law by President Obama in the next few days. While the nearly trillion dollar bill has received a lot of media attention on its relation to its cut of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which composes 80% of the bill’s budget, it’s crucial to look at the other 20% of the bill and its environmental implications.

Senate Votes On 2014 Farm Bill

Senate votes on 2014 Farm Bill
Photo by Alex Wong, Getty Images

The bill, for the most part, has drawn a lot of praise in regards to its environmental provisions . So-called ‘highlights’ of the bill include :

• Provisions for farmers to meet certain standards of environmental protection if they wish to be eligible to receive federal crop insurance
• Funding for farmers to create wildlife habitats on their land
• Funding for on-farm renewable energy
• Removal of so-called ‘anti-environmental’ riders

However, it is possible that one of the non-environmental provisions of the bill will have an unintended consequence – stripping soils of their nutrients and increasing runoff . Perhaps the most popular provision of the bill is the fact that it cuts ‘direct payments’ to farmers, or what many people have called “welfare for farmers” . These payments are subsidies for farmers based on how many acres of land they have, regardless of whether or not that land is farmed.

To cease what many see as handouts, the government as slashed this program and expanded its crop insurance program, one where the government pays the difference to farmers when slips in revenue and/or crop yield occur. While this is particularly useful in ensuring that there is ‘stable’ agricultural production, it also continues to incentivize producers (including many mega ‘agribusiness’ conglomerates) to produce as much as possible. Such large scale agricultural production can and has led to increased fertilizer runoff (causing aquatic ‘dead zones’ and contaminated drinking water ), nutrient-depleted soil and increased greenhouse gas emissions , due to insufficient environmental protection requirements.

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On global warming, the science is solid

Posted in Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 9, 2010 |

Last weekend professors and scientists from four major Texas universities joined forces to write an editorial in the Houston Chronicle defending the science of global warming from skeptics and deniers.  Check it out!

On global warming, the science is solid

In recent months, e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in the United Kingdom and errors in one of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s reports have caused a flurry of questions about the validity of climate change science.

These issues have led several states, including Texas, to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide (also known as greenhouse gases) are a threat to human health.

However, Texas’ challenge to the EPA’s endangerment finding on carbon dioxide contains very little science. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott admitted that the state did not consult any climate scientists, including the many here in the state, before putting together the challenge to the EPA. Instead, the footnotes in the document reveal that the state relied mainly on British newspaper articles to make its case.

Contrary to what one might read in newspapers, the science of climate change is strong. Our own work and the immense body of independent research conducted around the world leaves no doubt regarding the following key points: (more…)

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Texas Ag Commissioner Todd Staples says Agriculture Hurt by Federal Climate Legislation – We beg to differ

Posted in Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 9, 2010 |

Back in the movie/musical “Oklahoma”, we got a musical lesson that the farmer and the cowman should be friends.  They seem to have bridged that divide rather well in the intervening decades, but today the question remains whether the farmers and ranchers and the climate should be friends.

Agricultural Commissioner Todd Staples certainly doesn’t think so.  On his Twitter account last week, he asked “How could anybody involved in agriculture think the proposed Cap &Trade legislation is good for Texas?”

Well, we’ll tell you.  It’s a combination of solving the climate crisis which will disproportionately hurt agriculture in Texas, not using faulty studies cooked up for partisan purposes (which Staples does) and about the jobs and savings to everyday Texas families, which helps everyone  whether you’re a farmer or not.

First, no other industry is so exposed as agriculture to the impacts of climate change. Agriculture is almost completely dependent on relatively stable patterns of rainfall and temperature to get a good yield.  Climate change threatens not only how much rainfall we get, but also how we get it.  Predictions are that some areas may actually see more rain, but in fits and starts with large storms that flood and then wash away topsoil rather than absorb moisture.

Texas is still in the midst of one of the worst droughts in its history. Australian scientists have linked 37% of this drought to anthropogenic climate change. Recent drought has brought record breaking agricultural losses to Texas both this last year in 2009 and in 2006,  when billions of dollars in crops were lost and cattle had to be culled in mass numbers because feed and water was too expensive and they were dying in the field from the heat.  Some are even asking if this prolonged drought is actually just the beginning of “the new normal,” a frightening prospect for anyone with a farm or ranch in West, Central, or South Texas where drought has been the most extreme.

The USDA’s study of impacts of climate change on agriculture, as part of the consensus opinion of 13 federal agencies, is that Texas stands to lose up to 35% of its agricultural yield from just 2 degrees of warming.  And that’s not all — check out this press release from the USDA:

The report finds that climate change is already affecting U.S. water resources, agriculture, land resources, and biodiversity, and will continue to do so. Specific findings include: (more…)

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Renewable Energy Opportunities for Rural Communities and Agriculture

Posted in Energy, Renewables, tagged , , , , , , on January 22, 2010 |

Live anywhere close to Stephenville?  Next Tuesday, January 26th there will be a forum there titled “Renewable Energy Opportunities for Rural Communities and Agriculture.”  Speakers will present information on how rural communitities, agriculture, and landowners can benefit from partnering to develop renewable resources such as wind and solar.  It will be held from 8 am to 5 pm at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center, 1229 N. Hwy 281. For more information, read the Jacksboro Newspaper posting.

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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.

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Green-Up your life! Start a compost pile…even in your freezer.

Posted in Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2009 |

By Kirsten Bokenkamp

Did you know that in the United States, the average person throws away around 100 pounds of food scraps per year? According to the USDA, “just over a quarter of the country’s food — about 25.9 million tons — gets thrown in the garbage can every year.”

But food is biodegradable, and decomposes in the same manner no matter where we throw it out, right? Wrong. While we should all try to throw away less food, composting what we do toss-out reduces the impact on the environment.

Any food scraps or leftovers that the dog doesn’t eat decompose in one of two ways. Due to the airtight nature of landfills, the food we throw away with the rest of our trash decomposes in an anaerobic manner (without oxygen). One of the bi-products from anaerobic decomposition is methane, which is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. In the first 120 days in a landfill, every metric ton of food can generate .25 metric tons of methane. On the other hand, food that decomposes aerobically (with oxygen) in a compost pile generates carbon dioxide – which is 25 times less potent than methane. If the U.S. composted the 25.9 million tons of food we throw out each year, the effect would be as if we removed 7.8 million cars from the road!

Because oxygen is the golden ingredient, it is important to allow air to get to your compost through the use of a functionally designed container, through turning your compost, or by using worms as a way to ensure oxygen can do its job. Read more about the basics of composting here.

According to the Composting Council the largest benefit from composting is avoiding the production of methane. But, the benefits don’t stop there. When compost is used in agricultural practices :
• Irrigation needs decreases by 30-70%, due to improved water retention in soil;
• Fertilizer (expensive, and often harmful to the environment) needs decrease by 33-66%;
• Carbon sequestration of soil increases by 6-40 tons of carbon per hectare.

Okay, so for those of you who live in farmhouses – or at least have a backyard and a small garden – composting seems like an easy and beneficial practice. You barely have an excuse! But, this is more of a challenge for the 80% of us in the US who live in urban areas. Where do we put a compost pile, and what do we do with it? Thankfully, there are a few options.

First, you can do as my cousin Elizabeth does in New York City. She freezes her food waste, and brings it to the Union Square Greenmarket once a week, where a farmer she knows gladly accepts it for the wholesome treasure that it is. Next time you are shopping at your local farmers market – ask around! Similarly, you can find a composter that accepts food waste in your area, where you can drop off your compost.

A second option, especially if you have a bit more room, or any indoor or outdoor plants that will benefit from it, is to start a worm bin. Worms love to eat kitchen scraps, and the nutrient-rich castings they produce are great for soil. There are many resources on vermicomposting – a great one is cityfarmer.org, published by Canada’s office of urban agriculture.

The third way of urban composting, and possibly the most important way towards the institutionalization of urban composting, is to tell your city officials that you live in an apartment, that you want to compost, and that you think it is high time for them to implement a curbside composting program. If you don’t think your city is “green” enough to do such a thing, look for inspiration and practical advice from San Francisco – where starting October 21 , it will be illegal not to compost, or other cities including Seattle, Boulder, and Minneapolis-St Paul.

Finally, if composting at home just isn’t going to happen for you, (at least until your city starts providing curb-side composting), talk your employer into it. For instance, the National Press Club has just started to compost, and plans on preventing 2 tons of food per month from heading to the landfill. Some state facilities such as prisons and universities also compost – for example, the state prison facilities in Nashville composts leftovers, and uses the compost on its own 100-acre vegetable garden, and Iowa State University has a compost system that can handle more than 10,000 tons of waste per year.

As an introduction to next week’s Green-up your life! blog – getting children involved – talk to elementary and high school administrators about starting a community compost project. By throwing away less food, composting the food we do throw away, educating our community members, and getting state institutions involved, we will soon be en route to a true environmental revolution!

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Worried About Water

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 22, 2009 |

water header

I’ve been thinking (and worrying) about water a lot lately.  I suppose that the drought has brought all this concern along.  Just a few months ago, folks were comparing this drought to the one that devastated Texas agriculture in the ’50s (when crop yields dropped by as much as 50%, all but one county in Texas was declared a federal drought disaster area, and grasslands were scorched and ranchers that couldn’t afford high hay prices resorted to a mixture of prickly pear cactus and molasses), but now folks are saying that this drought is well on its way to being worse, and certainly more costly, than any other dry spell in Texas history.

We’re already seeing ranching and agriculture suffer substantially from this drought.  Agricultural officials are now pinning crop and livestock losses at $3.6 billion.  Just 12% of the cotton acreage planted this year will be harvested, and many gins won’t open up this season because there isn’t enought work to justify it.  Ranchers are also buying high priced hay and feed supplements because their own pastures haven’t produced enough to feed their herds.  Ranchers are selling off calves younger and thinner than usual, and even letting go of the mature females that sustain their herds.  In the last week, Bastrop County alone lost 12,000 cattle from the drought.  As Roy Wheeler, an Atascosa County rancher told the San Antonio Express-News, “We’re selling the factory, so they say.”

So why worry about the weather,  you may ask.  Haven’t farmers and ranchers been scraping by and beaten by the weather since the first man stuck a seed in the ground?  Perhaps, but during the dust bowl and in this last great drought in the ’50s, we could still shake our fists at the sky and vow never to go hungry again — but now we can only shake our fists at ourselves.  There’s not a doubt in my mind that this drought is a result of human interference.  I’m no scientist, just an educated girl with a blog, but I’d bet the farm that we’re seeing global warming in action.

But you don’t have take my word for it.  Take the word of Dr. Gerald North, a climate scientist at that notorious liberal holdout Texas A&M, who says that this drought is the beginning of a permanent trend for Texas.  He cites the 2007 IPCC report, which shows trends toward hotter and drier summers.  In reference to this weather pattern, North told the Environment News Service that, “It could be just a fluke that persists for a decade… But my guess is that it’s here to stay, but with fluctuations up and down.”

Of course we can’t point at any one weather event and say that it is a direct result of global warming, but we can take events as indicative of what is to come as global warming progresses.  Just as Hurricane Katrina woke up the world to the devastation that will ensue as storms of increase in frequency and severity from climate change, this current drought can give Texans a hint of what the future of Texas weather will look like.

There’s a terrible element of irony here.  Our current trajectory of unsustainable growth and energy consumption increase the likelihood that drought in Texas will become the new norm.  AND those same industries and energy sources which have poisoned our atmosphere and raised global temperatures… use enormous amounts of water.  Coal, natural gas, and nuclear — which propents are trying to sell as “the low-carbon cure we need” — are incredibly, enormously, despicably water intensive. (more…)

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Hogwash: Confined Animal Feeding Operations

Posted in Global Warming, Toxics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2009 |

Inside a Hog Confinement

Inside a Hog Confinement

I would like to discuss an issue that has been important to me for several years, but does not get much attention outside the Midwest or agriculture heavy states like North Carolina. In these states much of the landscape is covered by large indoor animal feeding units. These confinements, or Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOS), hold thousands of hogs or turkeys and are typically disliked by the people living near them.

Unfortunately, CAFOs are also common here in Texas. The last several years have seen an increase in the number of CAFOs in Texas. McLennan and Erath counties are home to many CAFOs that house cattle and chickens, and their is a major hog confinement industry in much of the panhandle.

Regardless of what kind of animals are produced in CAFOs they inevitably generate several tons of animal waste, which is accompanied by persistent and strong foul odors that are easily detectable miles away. This also generates spills and runoff that contribute heavily to water pollution, making local rivers and lakes undesirable for fishing, swimming and most other purposes. The confinements are often owned by absentee land owners, including some of America’s largest corporations, who are frequent recipients of government money which is used to expand their operations.

Here are some of the facts:

1. A typical hog confinement can hold up to 10,000 pigs.

2. Confined livestock produce an estimated 500 million tons of excrement per year.

3. CAFOs release Hydrogen Sulfide, Ammonia, particulate matter and other highly toxic pollutants into the air and water.

4. These pollutants are detrimental to human health and individuals living near these have high levels of: diarrhea, excessive coughing, sore throats, fatigue and depression.

5. Workers in CAFOs are found to be at high risk for respiratory diseases: asthma, acute bronchitis, sinusitis, rhinitis, and pulmonary endema.

6. Manure from these is stored liquid forms in lagoons that spill and leak into soil and water.

7. A spill from a single lagoon in North Carolina once released 25 million gallons of liquid hog waste into local water ways. Hundreds of smaller spills of thousands of gallons occur each year. EPA estimates: 35,000 miles of contaminated rivers. (more…)

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