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10/28/03
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1. Action Needed Call
Today! Last Chance For the CSP
2. National Summit on Agriculture and Rural Life
3. The Global Debate Over GMO's Rages On
4. New Report on Conservation Easements On-Line
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1.
ACTION NEEDED! LAST CHANCE FOR THE CONSERVATION SECURITY
PROGRAM
Today is a crucial
day for the outcome of the Conservation Security Program (CSP),
an innovative program to promote sustainable agriculture and
environmental conservation that passed as part of the 2002 farm
bill. The CSP offers financial incentives and technical
assistance to farmers and ranchers who develop conservation
plans on their working lands. Unfortunately, the U.S. House of
Representatives has stripped all funding for the CSP for 2004,
while the Senate Appropriations Committee has fully funded the
program. Representatives Steve King (R-IA) and Tim Holden (D-PA)
are circulating a bipartisan
letter to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) urging him to
support the Senate's position on the CSP during conference
committee negotiations Your help is needed today to
contact your Representative and to urge them to sign on to this
letter. Tell them they can do so by contacting Amy Lloyd
(King) at (202) 225-4426 or Nate Muniz (Holden) at (202)
225-5546. TODAY IS THE LAST DAY! Please call
immediately. Read
this letter.
2. NATIONAL
SUMMIT ON AGRICULTURE AND RURAL LIFE
On November 15 the
League of Rural Voters and others are sponsoring a daylong
Summit in Des Moines, Iowa to showcase new directions in rural
economic policy. The event, called the National Summit on
Agriculture and Rural Life, will culminate in a plenary session
where Democratic Presidential Candidates will discuss their
plans to address the decades-old economic devastation in rural
America.
"The Iowa
caucuses give candidates an unprecedented opportunity to
understand the impacts of federal policy on our
communities," said League of Rural Voters Executive
Director, Niel Ritchie. "[This summit] will
give Iowans a stronger hand in shaping our national
policy."
The forum will
feature a diverse array of speakers focusing on issues such as
economic development, U.S. agriculture policy, trade policy,
environmental policy and community revitalization. View
the agenda or register
for the National Summit on Agriculture and Rural Life.
3. THE
GLOBAL DEBATE OVER GMO'S RAGES ON
In the southern
state of Parana, Brazil the state legislature this week approved
a law banning the import, planting and sale of genetically
modified organisms. This ban in Parana comes weeks after the
federal government in Brazil issued a provisional decree
allowing farmers already in possession of genetically modified
soy beans to plant and market them. According to an article in
the High Plains journal, the new state law bans the cultivation,
manipulation, importation, industrialization and the sale of
genetically modified organisms and was passed to protect the
state from adjacent states where the federal provisional law now
allows the planting of GMO's A spokesman for the
legislature said the move was aimed at protecting the
states' exports to European markets where genetically modified
foods are widely frowned upon. The ban passed with a vote of 36
to 12. Read
the entire article.
4. REPORT
ON CONSERVATION EASEMENTS AVAILABLE ON-LINE
Increasingly used in
the past quarter-century, conservation easements are now an
established tool for protecting farmland from urban conversion.
To help the conservation community better understand how to use
easements the American Farmland Trust, in cooperation with the
Agricultural Issues Center of the University of California,
Davis have created the first report in a series called the
National Assessment of Agricultural Easement Programs.
This publication reviews the progress and experiences of 46
leading agricultural conservation easement programs in 15
states. Collectively these local and state programs account for
a majority of the 1.8 million agricultural acres put under
easement nationwide since this technique was first seriously
applied to farmland protection a quarter of a century ago.
Each example program is profiled with details of its easement
accomplishments, funding, organization, origins, acquisition
strategies, connections to local planning, population and
agricultural characteristics. Most profiles are
accompanied by color maps showing the distribution of easements
in relation to the farmland base, urbanization and other
geographical features. A summary section compares the
major features of the 46 programs. View
the report.
Cultivating a vision where
rural and urban communities join together
to ensure abundant family farms, healthy critters, clean water and
a wild Earth.
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visit our
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Updates Subscriber Center. Read previous issues by
visiting our Rural
Updates Archive.
Rural Updates!
Scotty Johnson and Aimee Delach
National Rural Community Outreach Campaign
sjohnson@defenders.org
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