The foundation of modern animal agriculture is a lot of manure: in both the literal and metaphorical sense.
Industrial farming practices have same relation to traditional manure spreading as the BP oil spill to a grease spot.
Modern farming is a destructive and greedy giant: leaving a toxic print on the rural landscape – a bully trying to sell the image of a much abused victim while getting more perks and privileges than any other interest group.
Take a good look at the feet that our agricultural “progress” is standing on — a shitload of money.
A picture may be worth a thousand words – but there are some pictures that the public doesn’t see.
Farmers are sometimes just referred to as the “rich people” in the poor rural communities. One dental technician told me that she knew the farmer crying for subsidies on television: he has a 40-ft yacht.
“Farm Friendly” doesn’t begin to describe the deliberately biased and un-equitable treatment that exists in the rich farmer – poor unrepresented and disposable “non-farmer” rural communities.
Agricultural Law protects farming; like beheadings protect a tyrant.
It’s not surprising that most Americans don’t know what’s going on in the Agricultural Sector – they’re not supposed to.
You may know that methane emissions have the greatest short term effect on Climate Change: greater than the CO2 gasses produced by cars, trucks, and industry. What you may not know; is that Agriculture is the greatest contributor to methane emissions – and that the Agricultural Sector is the only sector where methane emissions are continuing to increase. And that the farming methods being promoted by the USDA and Agricultural Colleges are the biggest producers of methane of all farming methods. Or that our government is only using voluntary programs and incentives [paying them our tax money] to fight this pollution.
To cut straight to the punch line: When all their activities that contribute to Climate Change affect their crops —government subsidies and funding pay out our tax money to ensure that our country’s corporate agribusinesses get every penny of profit they’re destroying our climate for.
Are they fools for what they’re doing? Or are we fools for letting them do it?
This hits home – because I was sprayed with a cloud of Roundup from an agricultural boom sprayer while mowing my lawn – and ended up dazed and vomiting all over myself and the bathroom in the early morning hours.
The investigation of my complaint by the NYSDEC [documented in “Tompkins County and Tammany Hall”] did nothing to help their reputation for corruption in the rural community.
Most rural families are too poor to move and powerless to use politicians; and when the mega-million dollar factory farms took over rural Lansing, NY – they owned us and everything in it.
The only thing worse than the environmental racism of the rural blacks – is the environmental erasism of the rural whites — we have no help, no hope — and no worth.
I was talking to a neighbor today about the weather and the state of things – and he announced that his family had made plans for leaving New York State. Since the County removed rural sheriff’s patrols as being “too expensive” – He won’t even let his kids ride their bikes on Lansingville Road. “I’m planning on leaving” is a phrase that crops up in almost every conversation with younger families – while “I can’t afford to leave” is the sad statement of the elderly just trying to survive.
The millionaire farmers who have taken over give criminals free rein; as long as they don’t cut into their profits – and our once neighborly and hard-working rural community has become a dumping ground of rentals for the county’s unwanted: an Ag Ghetto of drugs, poverty, and crime.
New York policy makers are like someone who refuses to learn to swim — but when they start to drown — they pull down everyone around them while trying to keep their heads above water.
When government has no contact with the people – the noise of critical legislation is just the spinning of tires. Government’s “tell a pleasing story” messaging does nothing to change our course of inevitable death and disaster.
Government will need to step in to manage things like water distribution, economics, food, health, and housing. This means that the big players will get their cut — and the little people will get managed.
“What constitutes Fraud”: A material false statement, Victim reliance, and Damages.
In November, 2021; The White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy released the U.S Methane Emission Reduction report – “Critical and commonsense steps to cut pollution. It describes Methane as “a particularly destructive greenhouse gas” and that “one ton of methane in the atmosphere has about 80 times the warming impact of a ton of CO2.”
“A material false statement” – Agriculture is largest contributor to methane emissions at 38% of the total; but it’s not listed by name in the Emissions by Source “pie chart” and it’s pushed down to the bottom of the list [after oil and gas, landfills, and abandoned coal mines], and while Gas, Oil, and Landfills include their percentage of the total; Agriculture is just called “a major source.” Even though every other sector has reduced methane emissions – and only Agriculture continues to increase methane emissions –the Biden-Harris Administration is relying on “voluntary partnership efforts” and refusing to regulate agricultural pollution. This same report still claims that the Administration is using “all available tools” including “commonsense regulations” and “transparency and disclosure of actionable data.”
Like the receding rumble of a thunderstorm before the bolt that strikes your house; or the coffee that spills all over you because you tried to stop it from spilling — bumper stickers are back!
Although the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy [November 2021] report states; “one ton of methane in the atmosphere has about 80 times the warming impact of a ton of CO2” it removes Agriculture [the biggest contributor of methane] from its pie chart of “2019 U.S. Methane Emissions, By Source” – and breaks its contribution down into non-attributed pie sections — naming all the other sources; and leaving “Natural Gas and Petroleum Systems” as the largest and graphically enhanced culprit.
Agriculture is moved down to Section D, after Coal Mining; even though it releases 5 ½ times the methane – and while stating: “methane is a super-pollutant that disproportionately impacts climate change in the near term” – agricultural regulations are replaced with a request for “Voluntary Partnership” and with “Incentive-based” government funding that is on the same level as stopping your automobile pollution by buying you a new electric car.
Biden’s Global Warming remediation is business as usual with a smokescreen of race and ethnicity: When statistics and corruption come together — it’s a match made in Hell.
“Farm Harm” is a game where you are constantly moving forward, and moving backward; but never getting anywhere — like the mothers in “Ikiru”: passing from one section to another and ending up back where you started. That’s if you use the Bureaucrat’s Rules – if you change the rules; you can change the outcome.
“Muddying the waters – with no intention of cleaning them.” My upcoming book: “Tompkins County and Tammany Hall” will document and expose the actions of the NYSDEC at some length – so I will speak to a recent development in New York State: the passing of an Environmental Rights Amendment that declares: “Each person shall have the right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” Agricultural groups, the biggest polluters of the state’s lakes and waterways, [and political overlords of the state’s poor rural communities] strongly opposed this Amendment.
The New York State Farm Bureau President made the kind of statement to voters that could only be made when there is no one to challenge it. Hot buttons like “vague Green Amendment,” and “protect family farms from nuisance lawsuits” were freely used – but there’s a world of rural pain and suffering behind the “Berlin Wall” agricultural media: when the toxic fumes of farming practices cause brain damage in one neighboring child, and required the removal of eyelids of an elderly man: “right-to-farm” laws protected the farmer from this “nuisance lawsuit.” That’s just one glimpse behind the wall — a wall the Environmental Rights Amendment threatens to tear down.
