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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Food security is a Real Issue
  • Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 09:49:28 -0700


Food security is a Real Issue
http://www.countrysidemag.com/current.htm#article4
KATHRYN QUACKENBUSH

The practice of "dumping" by the United States which, in simple terms, means
selling agriculture commodities on international markets at prices below the
cost of production, is putting farmers in America out of business and is
hurting farmers in other countries as well. Dumping is a policy by
agribusiness and governmental bureaucrats to drive down the price of
commodities so as to open new markets in foreign countries. Small family
farmers don't get a lot of governmental help to stay in business, the ones
you see selling at your local farmer's market or at roadside stands. On the
contrary, local county and city officials enforce regulations so severe that
farmers can't afford to comply. The results are that our small rural farmers
are forced to quit the work they love, sell their farms to developers, and
move on.

It is no secret that multinational agribusiness companies have their hand in
the government subsidy trough; they are able to make huge profits while our
small farms languish and die. Those huge farms in the United States have
freedoms that small farmers simply do not have and, if the going gets tough,
they are able to move to other countries for cheaper labor and fewer
restrictions. Cheaper production costs and higher profits for agribusiness
giants can be the result of a simple move to Brazil, China or a number of
other foreign countries.

It is with sincere gratitude to T. W. Smestead that this article is being
written. I feel that a challenge was placed before the readers of COUNTRYSIDE
to brainstorm some solutions to the "Food security as part of our national
defense" situation as described in the Jan/Feb. 2004 issue. Basically, what I
heard was that the article described the problem but nothing was suggested to
fix it. At the end of the article a few things were suggested such as
relaxing rules, regulate and inspect home kitchens, allow private testing,
and basically, help farmers to survive in a changing world. How can we make
these things happen?

Before I go into that, let me explain some of the problems that exist in the
state of Washington because they may not exist elsewhere in the country; our
ideas may not work everywhere. The first thing to consider is that I live on
an island, which has, in the past, been the home of mainly farmers and
fishermen. Their way of life is dying and the island is turning into a mecca
for the rich and famous with tourism turning into the major industry. The few
farmers left on the island are fighting for their lives and there doesn't
seem to be much to stop their exodus.

A recent event became the impetus for the food security article referred to
by T. W. Smestead in the July/Aug. 2004 issue "Joining the ranks of small
property owners", page 115). A ferry landing was put out of service when a
ferry accident hit it causing huge delays by grocery trucks that deliver
dairy, meat, vegetables, the kids' breakfast cereal and all the other
commodities necessary for island living. Did anyone starve? Of course no one
went hungry but there might have been a riot if the beer trucks sat on the
mainland much longer. Fortunately there was enough stock in the local island
stores and watering holes to last. Although speedy repairs staved off
starvation, it emphasized the notion that people are at terrible risk from
major disasters.

For a closer look at how regulations are putting our local farmers of out
business, I want to cite a case about our local goat cheese maker. With only
eight goats that she calls by name she is kept busy with her daily milking.
She is a woman of great integrity who has made and sold her cheese for almost
a decade, but because she does not have a $10,000 stainless steel stand
stanchions for her goats to stand on while they are milked, she can no longer
sell her magnificent cheese which routinely passed all laboratory test
parameters; tests that she had done at her own expense. Yet, brought over
from the mainland and placed on the shelves of the local grocery store for
wealthy patrons is imported cheese from France, cheese that local regulators
haven't a clue as to what kind of milking stands the French goats stand on.
You might tell the goat cheese maker to get with the program and get a small
business loan. She already did that to purchase elaborate milking and cheese
making equipment to comply with regulations, a loan she may never be able to
pay off because she is out of business. The Health Department says she has to
do more but now she can't afford to. They say she is stubborn and just
doesn't want to comply but she rents the farm she is living on. She can't
afford to buy a farm nor invest large sums in a rented farm. The public can
personally check out her facilities, the white glove inspection that they'd
never travel all the way to France to do, but it would do no good. Her goats
stand on pristine, freshly painted and sanitized wooden stands while they are
being milked, instead of stainless steel. What a pity if she has to leave
this island because she can't make a living.

Or take another farmer and his family. He raises a wide variety of lettuce on
his small well-managed farm, trying to make a decent living. He has no
trouble selling a head of lettuce at the local farmer's market, but the
restaurants around town that cater to the tourists like his mixed greens
better, for ease of salad preparation. As soon as he mixed his lettuce he was
out of business. It did no good to label his packages with the cautionary
statement "wash before using" which the local chefs were more than willing to
do. It didn't matter that the lettuce was fresher and that the farmer used
few, if any, pesticides in his operation. It didn't matter if he washed off
the produce himself before putting the label on. He lost his most lucrative
customers and the wealthy patrons are now fed lettuce that is less than fresh
shipped on the ferry from the mainland.

This is a good one. Local island farmer makes USDA inspected sausage and he
flavors it with his locally grown herbs. It was so good that his sausage
established a grand reputation that gained mainland attention until the local
health inspector told him that he couldn't use the herbs out of his own
garden to flavor the sausage. Instead, he had to buy herbs from a California
herb farm, which wholesaled in $600 packages. Mind you, the local farmer's
annual run of sausage gained him only $400, so buying the California herbs
would lose money.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, and we aren't talking iceberg lettuce
here; we're talking about the iceberg that took down the Titanic! Can we
staunch the holes in our leaking vessel? The answer remains to be seen. U.S.
farmers are sinking fast. Information was just received regarding a local
island sheep farmer who can no longer run enough sheep to feed his family
because grazing land is being gobbled up by developers. He has indicated that
he might have to sell and move.

Another dedicated farmer is working hard with his pasture-raised chickens. He
uses certified organic feed and has been successfully butchering these
chickens in a USDA certified processing facility on his property. For five
years his chickens have been sold and enjoyed by islanders. Even though he is
allowed to sell his chickens with no encumbrances placed by the health
department, he is not allowed to butcher chickens raised on any other farm.
In other words, he cannot provide a cooperative use of his expensive
processing facility and the other chicken farmers are unable to afford their
own separate facility. These are a few of the arcane rules that make no
sense. Furthermore, the local health department wants the farmer to get a
license and pay for inspections when neither are necessary in the state of
Washington when there are less than a thousand birds. We are talking about
very small farms.

If that doesn't touch a nerve, try this. A farmer was actually arrested for
selling his daffodils on public property when there is an RCW (Revised Code
of Washington) that clearly states:

"It shall be lawful for any farmer, gardener, or other person, without a
license, to sell, deliver, or peddle fruits, vegetables, berries, eggs, or
any farm produce or edibles raised, gathered, produced, or manufactured by
such a person and no city or town shall pass or enforce any ordinance
prohibiting the sale by or requiring license from producers and manufacturers
of farm produce and edibles as defined in this section."

There are some exceptions but this certainly covers the daffodil farmer who
was arrested. The police and judge ignored the RCW. I believe the farmer is
still fighting this in court and in the meantime he has lost the money his
daffodils would have brought because they wilted away just like our farmers
are going to do if something isn't done to correct the situation.

The irony of all this is that the developers and Realtors are quick to point
out to potential buyers the pristine beauty of our farm lands and pastures.
People want to move to the island because they love the rural countryside,
the sheep, goats and llamas out grazing in pastures; trees, birds and deer.
As farmers leave, will these new people continue to love the islandwhen it is
built up with nothing but condos and big expensive homes? How will it be if a
national disaster upsets ferry service, cruise or cargo ships and airplanes?
Millions of dollars go into national defense and not much is going into food
security. In reality it wouldn't take a lot of money to fix the problem if
the food regulations were modified to help farmers and ranchers instead of
putting up barriers. Value-added is an important issue and for most small
farms it is a necessity if they want to make a living. Being able to butcher
and sell chickens, mixing lettuce for restaurant sales, making jams and
jellies from farm grown fruit, etc., is where they can make enough money to
live on and stay with farming. Selling their products with as low an overhead
as possible is a necessity. Home kitchens should come back so that a farm
doesn't have to spend thousands of dollars for a separate kitchen lined with
stainless steel. Home kitchens can be as easily inspected as one sitting
alongside of and separated from the house. So here goes, with some thoughts
on solutions:

It didn't take a whole lot of digging in the RCW before I found chapter 24.28
on Granges. If it is in the RCW, it is Washington law.

24.28.10: Any grange of the patrons of husbandry desiring hereafter to
incorporate may incorporate and become bodies politic in this state.

28.28.020: Said grange may engage in any industrial pursuit, manufacturing,
mining, milling, warfing, docking, commercial, mechanical, mercantile,
building, farming, equipping, running railroads, or generally engage in any
species of trade or industry...
Alayne Sundberg vsits one of her goats on San Juan Island. A profitable
home-based goat cheese business has been shut down by regulations that
islanders believe are burdensome for small enterprises such as hers.

There is more written in the RCW about Granges, but the idea was planted in
my mind to go further. In my research I found that the Washington State
Grange has many Granges throughout the state and about a 60-70,000
membership. They have their own newspaper, a Legislative Director who lobbies
in Olympia, and an impressive office building across from the state capitol
building. The National Grange in Washington D.C. boasts a similar structure,
which is also located close to our country's capitol.

Some solutions that are the most apparent include talking about the problems,
writing articles, cite examples of poor regulations made by people who may
never have stepped on a farm. We need to gather all small farmers together to
work on common goals and have a power base to change damaging regulations.
Old Grange Halls in many communities have deteriorated, or, like ours, has
simply turned into a local meeting place for everything from real estates
seminars, theater groups, craft or rummage sales venues, and the inevitable
potluck dinner once in a while. There is nothing there for farmers in this
scenario. That is changing in our small community.

When it became apparent that farmers were having a difficult time, the idea
of looking at the Grange and its potential to lobby in our state capitol
became a focus. Many resolutions were written and passed at our local Grange.
From there they went to communities at the Washington State Grange Convention
in Pullman, WA where one of the finest agricultural colleges is located. Our
Grange wrote seven resolutions; they all passed the nearly 300 delegates at
that convention. From there they will be sent via our Legislative Director to
the politicians in Olympia where they, hopefully, will write bills and pass
them. The discovery that Granges have a focus, excellent reputation, strength
and political acumen to change history, quite literally, was easily
recognized through reading about its history. Witness the establishment of
rural route delivery, cooperatives, upsetting the stranglehold of the
railroad barons, bringing in rural electricity and many other battles of
survival for rural people. Some of the resolutions our Grange wrote included,
"Small Farms, a Homeland Security Issue," "Independent Testing of Food
Products," "Uphold the Revised code of Washington's RCW 36.71091" which
allows farmers to sell their products without a vendor's license on public
property; all of these went through the State Grange Agriculture Standing
committee. "Residential Kitchens," a resolution that would allow for
licensing a kitchen in a residence, passed the Health, Health Care and Safety
Committee and was adopted by delegates.

If we can make our leaders in Washington State see that the Health Department
Regulations are completely unrealistic and unfair, we will have done a great
service for our small farms, and hopefully, they will stay on our island. If
they all pack up and leave, we will be lost if we have a huge national
disaster. Interestingly enough is the fact that all the encumbrances placed
on farmers does not save us completely, because there are still outbreaks of
e-coli, Mad Cow Disease, avian flu, SARS, and other illnesses.

I'll take my food from my small local farmer, someone I know, who lives and
farms close to my home. I can witness my farmer neighbor at work and know how
he manages his vegetables, fruits and animals whereas I will never be able to
view the produce or animals raised in foreign countries that may or may not
be regulated. How can I really know?





  • [Livingontheland] Food security is a Real Issue, Tradingpost, 11/14/2004

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