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11/5/03
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1. Major Victory To Protect
Family Farms and the Environment
2. Moopheous and The Meatrix
3. The Eat Well Guide
4. Attack of the Aliens
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1. MAJOR
VICTORY TO PROTECT FAMILY FARMS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Groups across the
nation are celebrating passage yesterday of an amendment in the
Senate to reduce the per farm EQIP payment limitation from
$450,000 to $300,000. This provision, now a part of the
agricultural appropriations bill, will also apply this new limit
to all the farming sites that are part of a single operation,
regardless of the number of partners investing in the operation.
The amendment
offered by Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Byron Dorgan
(D-ND) "begins to restore fiscal, environmental, and
agricultural sanity to the Environmental Quality Incentives
Program," said a release by the National Campaign for
Sustainable Agriculture. "We applaud the Senate for
starting the job of fixing a big problem," said Ferd
Hoefner, Policy Director for the Sustainable Agriculture
Coalition. "The $450,000 payment limitation skews the
distribution of EQIP funds toward the largest farms and
subsidizes expensive technologies that often end up harming
public health and the environment, like leak-prone manure waste
lagoons for large confined animal feeding operations"
Hoefner added. "We call on the House and Senate
conferees to retain this important Senate provision in support
of family farms and the environment."
2. MOOPHEUS
AND THE MATRIX
A clever spoof on
the movie the Matrix, this 2 minute internet- based animated
movie called The Meatrix
tackles the evils of factory farming with wit and formidable
presence. Instead of Matrix star Keanu Reaves, the Meatrix
features a young pig, Leo, who lives on a pleasant family farm -
he thinks. Leo is approached by a wise and mysterious cow,
Moopheus, who shows Leo the truth about modern farming - the
truth about the Meatrix!
The animation
describes the problems with factory farming and how meat
production has changed radically in the mid 20th Century by
"greedy agriculture corporations that began destroying
family farm operations to the detriment of both humans and
animals." It outlines the deadly factory farm
quadrangle: loss of family farms, anti-biotic resistance,
environmental degradation and animal cruelty. Moopheus
says to Leo, "Take the blue pill and stay here in the
fantasy, take the red pill and I will show you truth."
Join Leo in seeking
the truth. WARNING! Rural UPdates! Has rated this animation
appropriate for activists of all ages.
3. THE EAT
WELL GUIDE AVAILABLE ONLINE
If the dream of a
network of viable family farms dotting an ecologically vibrant
rural landscape is to be realized, savvy consumers are needed.
Now the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has teamed up
with G.R.A.C.E. (Global Resource Action Center for the
Environment) to make it easier for consumers to buy safer,
ecologically appropriate meat. Earlier this week the two
organizations launched the "Eat
Well Guide" to link consumers with organic,
antibiotic-free, hormone-free, pastured, cage-free and humanely
raised meat. The guide features a special turkey section just in
time for Thanksgiving and features information on beef, pork,
and chicken, as well as dairy products, eggs, and other meat
like buffalo and goat. The Eat Well Guide provides a locally-
searchable online list of producers, grocery stores,
restaurants, and mail-order outlets throughout the country.
Users can enter their zip code and find sustainably-raised meat
products close to where they live. Producers, retailers,
restaurants, and online outlets will also be able to add
themselves to the Eat Well
Guide's database.
4. ATTACK OF THE
ALIENS
Invasive species are
destroying ecosystems around the planet and the situation is
worsening. According to an Associated Press report, increased
global trade is the culprit and governments are often ill-
equipped to deal with the pests and the threat they pose to
citizens, food supplies and economies. Currently experts
estimate that in the US there are about 7,000 destructive
foreign plants, mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish,
arthropods and mollusks. According to a 1999 Cornell University
study invasive species cost US taxpayers an estimated $138
billion annually causing twice as much expense as hurricanes,
floods, tornadoes and other natural disasters. "We've
pretty well screwed up the whole ecology," said U.S. Rep.
Wayne Gilchrest, a Maryland Republican. The problem is equally
bad in other nations many of which are much less equipped to
deal with the problem. Read
the full article.
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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Updates Archive.
Rural Updates!
Scotty Johnson and Aimee Delach
National Rural Community Outreach Campaign
sjohnson@defenders.org
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