Difference between revisions of "Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Agriculture"

Revision as of 12:17, 3 March 2010

H. Agriculture

[Food is a necessity and a fundamental human right. All people have a right to adequate, safe, nutritious and high quality food; and those who grow it have a right to a fair return for their labor. Our current food system is dominated by corporate agribusiness and unsustainable practices that threaten our food security, destabilize the climate, degrade the environment, destroy rural communities, and squeeze out family farmers. Our so-called cheap food comes at the expense of the exploitation of our farmers along with the oppression of people in the developing worls, inhumane treatment of animals, pollution of air, atmosphere, and water, and degradation of our land.]

The agricultural system for the 21st Century must provide a high quality of life for farmers, nutritious and safe food for consumers, and reward farming methods that drastically reduce greenhouse gases, enhance biodiversity, the quality of water, soil, and air, and the beauty of the landscape. [Non-chemical, non-GMO organic farms and ranches that are energy efficient and carbon-sequestering must become the norm, rather than just the alternative.]

1. [We support legislation that assists new farmers and ranchers, that provides technical and financial assistance to small and medium-sized farms and ranches, that revitalizes and repopulates rural communities, and promotes sustainable organic development and stewardship.]

2. We support new farming and growing opportunities and urge the inclusion of non-traditional crops and foods in farm programs.

3. [We advocate relocalizing and regionalizing our food system, including, ownership, production, and distribution.] [Our goal is a relocalized food and farming system, whereby local and regional farmers (and urban gardens) can produce organic foods in sufficient quantities to supply the overwhelming majority of local and regional needs.] We encourage public support for producer and consumer cooperatives, community kitchens, Community Supported Agriculture, urban agriculture, and community farms and gardens.

4. [We advocate the creation of a Food Policy Councils composed of farmers, including small farmers and consumers, to oversee the USDA and all food policies at the local, state, and national level. These councils should adjudicate conflicts of interest that arise when industries police themselves.]

5. [We support the enforcement of strict organic standards in accordance with the USDA National Organic Program. We advocate shifting price supports and government subsidies to organic and transition to organic food practices while eliminating subsidies for energy intensive, water intensive, GMO, factory farm and chemically-produced food. We believe that everyone, not just the wealthy, should have access to affordable, healthy, organic food.]

6. [We urge the banning of sewage sludge or hazardous wastes as fertilizer, a carbon tax or ban on nitrate fertilizers and pesticides, and an end to irradiation and genetic engineering in all food production.]`

7. [We need to phase-out chemical pesticides and nitrate fertilizers. We support organic farming techniques as an alternative to chemical-based agriculture.]

8. Given that chemical and industrial agriculture directly produces 35-50% of climate destabilizing greenhouse gases (CO2, methane and nitrous oxide), we need to convert U.S farm and ranchland to organic practices. The heretofore unpublicized “good news” on climate change, according to the Rodale Institute and other soil scientists, is that transitioning from chemical, water, and energy-intensive industrial agriculture practices to organic farming and ranching on the world’s 3.5 billion acres of farmland and 8.2 billion acres of pasture or rangeland can sequester 7,000 pounds per acre of climate-destabilizing CO2 every year, while nurturing healthy soils, plants, grasses, and trees that are resistant to drought, heavy rain, pests, and disease. And of course organic farms and ranches can provide us with food that is much more nutritious than industrial farms and ranches—food filled with vitamins, anti-oxidants, and essential trace minerals, free from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), pesticides, antibiotics, and sewage sludge.]

[In 2006, U.S. carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels (approximately 25% of the world’s total) was estimated at nearly 6.5 billion tons. If a 7,000 lb/CO2/ac/year sequestration rate were achieved on all 434 million acres of cropland in the United States, nearly 1.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide would be sequestered per year, mitigating close to one quarter of the country’s total fossil fuel emissions. If pastures and rangelands were similarly converted to organic practices, we would literally be well on our way to reversing global warming.]

9. [Food prices ought to reflect the true cost of food, including the health effects of eating processed foods, antibiotic resistance, pesticide effects on growers and consumers, soil erosion, water pollution, pesticide drift, greenhouse gas pollution, and air pollution. Indirect costs (loss of rural communities, a heavily subsidized transportation system, cost of the military necessary to defend cheap oil, climate destabilization and reduced security), though more difficult to calculate, should be factored into the cost of our energy, chemical, and water-intensive globalized food system.]

10. [World hunger can best be addressed by food security--with each country and region being self-sufficient for basic needs. Overpopulation is predominately a consequence--not simply a cause--of poverty and environmental destruction, and remedial actions must address living standards and food security through organic and sustainable production.]

11. [Because of the tremendous amount of fossil fuels used in agriculture, we support farm subsidies to encourage the transition from fossil fuels to clean renewable energy as one of the most effective ways to move our country to a sustainable future.]

12. [We support legislation that sequesters greenhouse gases, provides energy and fuel conservation through rotational grazing, cover-crop rotations, nitrogen-fixing systems, and fuel-free, clean renewable energy development on the farm.]

13. We encourage states to promote net-metering to make decentralized energy production economically viable.

14. [Animal farming must be practiced in ethically and environmentally sustainable ways. We need to rapidly phase out the use of confined animal feeding operations and factory farms, which not only produce unhealthy, contaminated food, but emit tremendous mounts of methane gas, a potent climate destabilizing greenhouse gas.]

15. [Applying the Precautionary Principle to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we support a moratorium until health and environmental safety can be demonstrated by independent (non-corporate funded), long-term tests for food safety, genetic drift, resistance, soil health, effects on non-target organisms, and cumulative interactions. Most importantly, we support the growing international demand to eliminate patent rights for genetic material, lifeforms, gene-splicing techniques, and biochemicals derived from them. This position is defined by the Treaty to Share the Genetic Commons, which is available through the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (www.iatp.org). The implications of corporate takeover and the resulting monopolization of genetic intellectual property by the bioengineering industry are immense.]

16. [We support mandatory, full-disclosure food and fiber labeling. A consumer has the right to know the contents in their food and fiber, how they were produced, and where they come from. Labels should address the presence of GMOs, grenhouse gas emissions, use of irradiation, pesticide application (in production, transport, storage, and retail), and the country of origin.]