8/4/04

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1. ACTION: Stop Massive Factory Farm Near Wildlife Refuge
2 California Goes No-GMO
3. US Subsidies Reduced Under Trade Pressure
4. EPA Cuts Wildlife Service From Pesticide Review

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1. TAKE ACTION: STOP MASSIVE FACTORY FARM NEAR WILDLIFE REFUGE

Rose Acre Farms, an Indiana-based agribusiness company, wants to locate 4 million egg laying chickens and 750,000 young chickens on one factory farm in Hyde County, North Carolina. The site is next to Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge and less than 30 miles from the Alligator River, Swanquarter, and Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs). This concept puts these outstanding ecological areas at risk, and threatens to reverse progress made in cleaning up the nearby Pamlico estuary. Rose Acre Farms admits the facility will produce roughly 50 tons of dry chicken waste per year, 1,000 dead birds a day, and 20,000 gallons of wastewater a day. The operation will produce as many eggs and as much waste as all of North Carolina's existing egg laying operations combined. Read more information about this proposal.

The company does not explain where and how the compost will be disposed of and plan to store the wastewater in open-air lagoons and then spray it onto nearby fields – the same failed approach used 
to manage hog waste across eastern North Carolina. As required by federal law, the company has applied for a permit for its proposed discharge of wastewater. 

North Carolina's Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is seeking public comment until August 25. Please urge the DENR to deny Rose Acre Farm's application for a permit. You can e-mail your comments to Bill Ross, Secretary of DENR at denr.secretary@ncmail.net. 


2. CALIFORNIA GOES NO-GMO

Last April, citizens in Mendocino, California, voted to ban the use of genetically modified seeds in their county. In doing so they started a trend that is spreading rapidly across the state. This November, four other California counties, Marin, Humboldt, Butte and San Luis Obispso have citizen spurred initiatives seeking to block GMO production. Elsewhere in the golden state, Trinity County supervisors this week voted 3 – 1 to ban GMO's making them the second county in the nation to do so. The no-GMO initiatives in California are a step toward making the state a GMO-free zone, say leaders of the BioDemocracy Alliance, created by 
GMO opponents and the Organic Consumers Association. 

"BioDemocracy is spreading throughout California and the United States," said Ronnie Cummins, spokesperson for the BioDemocracy Alliance and Director of the Organic Consumers Association. "In light of the lack of regulation at both the federal and state levels of these increasingly controversial GE crops, Trinity's Supervisors have taken an important step to protect their communities." Read more.


3. US SUBSIDIES REDUCED UNDER TRADE PRESSURE

The last year has seen increasing pressure on the US from the global trade community to stop price supports and agriculture subsidies. Last week, in Geneva during the latest round of World Trade Organization talks, the Bush Administration succumbed to an agreement to cut subsidies for such crops as corn, rice, wheat and soybeans. They also agreed to demands by four West African countries for eventual cutbacks in subsidies paid to American cotton growers. 

According to an AP article by Elizabeth Becker, the World Bank, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and private charities like Oxfam International all agree that the subsidies are unfair. The organizations maintain that subsidies allow rich countries to flood the global market with inexpensive food and commodities that make it impossible for largely rural, poor countries to trade their way out of poverty. The US also agreed to stop illegal dumping and to use credits and money to buy food locally in areas where food was needed.


4. EPA CUTS WILDLIFE SERVICE FROM PESTICIDE REVIEW

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced last Thursday that it would no longer consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) over whether pesticide use would harm threatened and endangered species. 

In several cases in recent years, the EPA violated the law by approving new pesticides without first consulting with the FWS about their potential impacts to imperiled species, particularly salmon in the Pacific Northwest and sea turtles in the Chesapeake Bay. Instead of mending its ways and undertaking the required review, the EPA decided to dispense with the requirement and has announced that it will make its own determination of whether or not a pesticide will impact threatened or endangered wildlife species. CropLife America, a pesticide industry association, called the new rule "a sensible approach that strengthens protections to endangered animal and plant species." 

Wildlife advocates, however, said that the new rules would weaken protections for wildlife to benefit the pesticide industry. "Instead of upholding the law, the president has chosen to let EPA off the hook," said Rodger Schlickeisen,president of Defenders of Wildlife. Read more.

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Scotty Johnson and Aimee Delach
National Rural Community Outreach Campaign
sjohnson@defenders.org