Volunteers Needed for Less=More Farmers Market Blitz This Summer!

The Less=More Coalition Needs Your Help!

The Less=More Coalition is looking for volunteers to help collect petition signatures at farmers markets around the state this summer. We need help harnessing the voice of concerned consumers like you who want to help even the playing field for sustainable agriculture in Michigan by sending a message to Garry Lee, the Michigan State Conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, to stop using taxpayer subsidies to support polluting factory farms.

Lee has the power to reapportion how Farm Bill subsidies are distributed, and right now, they heavily favor massive animal factories that cram thousands of animals into warehouses and pollute our water and air. (If you haven't already, click here to send him an email.)

If you have an hour or two to spare this summer, spend it at your local farmers market getting signatures for our petition! A small amount of your time can yield big benefits for sustainable farming in Michigan. For details, contact gail.philbin@sierraclub.org. Thank you!

Consumer Reports finds superbugs in turkey

Consumer Reports finds superbugs in turkey Our new study found more evidence that raising food animals on antibiotics can impact the effectiveness of our life-saving drugs. If you want antibiotics to work when you need them, tell Congress to stop the mass feeding of drugs to animals.

Consumer Reports’ latest investigation confirms that all those antibiotics being fed to our food animals domatter.

Released today, our study found meat from conventionally raised turkeys – which can be routinely fed antibiotics –had bacteria resistant to more drugs than birds raised without antibiotics. Since one way superbugs can spread to people is through raw meat, it’s crucial you know these findings.

It's important to cook turkey thoroughly, and we have tips to help you avoid antibiotic-raised meat. But just avoiding the problem isn’t the solution. Industrial food producers must stop playing this dangerous game with our life-saving drugs – and a bill has been introduced to do just that!

Email Congress to stop mass feeding of antibiotics to food animals, and check out our new investigation and tips.

Eighty percent of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used by beef, pork and poultry producers so healthy animals can plump up faster and tolerate crowded, unsanitary conditions. This daily use of antibiotics kills off those bacteria vulnerable to drugs, leaving immune ‘superbugs’ to flourish and spread to animals, the environment, and eventually, us. 

We’re tackling this problem from every angle. Consumer Reports is testing food for these bacteria, and making sure labels mean what they say so you can shop smart. We’re backing a bill in Congress to end the routine use of antibiotics on food animals. It would preserve our antibiotics by phasing out mass-feeding of drugs to food animals, restricting their use to sick animals.

And we’re on the ground asking Trader Joe's – one of the nation’s most progressive grocers that has already demonstrated care for customers' health on other issues – to lead the way and stop selling meat raised on drugs.

Tell Congress to save our antibiotics for when we need them. Get this bill moving.

Ask your friends and family to join you in taking action – this is a problem we can fix if we all demand action.

Sincerely,
Jean Halloran, Consumers Union
Policy and Action from Consumer Reports

Less=More Provides Subsidy Info for Sustainable Farmers

Less=More is a coalition of advocacy groups, farmers and consumers that supports sustainable agriculture in Michigan. It seeks to level the playing field for sustainable livestock farmers so they can compete with factory farms by tackling inequitable farm subsidies in Michigan.

 

To this end, the Less=More coalition is making information available to sustainable farmers about Farm Bill subsidies that might be applicable to their needs. Below are links to information about the 2013 EQIP subsidies in Michigan.  For questions, contact lynn.henning@sierraclub.org.

 

Michigan EQIP General Information ( May 17th deadlines for some)

http://www.mi.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/eqip.html

Listing of all Michigan EQIP Practices Eligible for Funding in 2013

http://tinyurl.com/c9ss55o

EQIP Application Form

http://forms.sc.egov.usda.gov/efcommon/eFileServices/eForms/NRCS-CPA-1200NRCS-CPA-1200.PDF

Less support for polluting factory farms means a more sustainable Michigan. For details, visit MoreforMichigan.org.

Two stories in the news about factory farms that you need to see:

Spring Rain, Then Foul Algae in Ailing Lake Erie--from the NY Times, an article about the runoff from industrial ag that is choking the life out of Lake Erie

 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/science/earth/algae-blooms-threaten-lake-erie.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

Ag Gag': More States Move to Ban Hidden Cameras on Farms

---Mainstream TV news coverage of the vital issue of our right to know what goes on behind barn doors

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/states-move-ban-hidden-cameras-farms/story?id=18738108

Take the Crap Out of Farm Subsidies!

Want to help level the playing field so sustainable farmers can compete with factory farms? Join the Less=MoreCoalition and its fight to end subsidies to polluting factory farms! 

Show your support by signing up at: http://tinyurl.com/LessIsMoreCoalition

To learn more about Less=More, visit MoreforMichigan.org.

Last Call at the Oasis and Lynn Henning at Allegan Theater March 10

The 2nd Annual Allegan Green Film Fest runs throughout March, and on March 10, they're featuring Last Call at the Oasis, a documentary about our dwindling clean water resources that features the Michigan Chapter's Lynn Henning!  Details below.  Lynn will be at the screening to answer questions afterwards. Please join us!                           

Last Call at the Oasis
Sunday, March 10,  4 p.m.Allegan Regent Theatre, 211 Trowbridge St., Allegan
Admission: $5
RSVP to mary@honorhealnurture.com

Last Call at the Oasis presents a powerful argument for why the global water crisis will be the central issue facing our world this century. Illuminating the vital role water plays in our lives, the film exposes the defects in the current system and depicts communities struggling with its ill-effects. Featuring activist Erin Brockovich and such distinguished experts as Peter Gleick, Alex Prud’homme, Jay Famiglietti and Robert Glennon, it also showcases the work of Michigan farmer and Sierra club activist Lynn Henning.

For a complete listing of films in the Allegan Film Fest, visit www.honorhealnurture.com.

Panel Featuring Food Fight Author Dan Imhoff to Explore Disconnect in Our Food System Mar. 21

Michigan consumers seeking safe, locally-grown, healthy food at farmers markets and other outlets are currently forced to subsidize corporate agricultural giants through taxpayer subsidies. An expert panel sponsored by a new sustainable agriculture coalition, Less = More, will address the situation and opportunities to change the food system and the federal Farm Bill to better serve consumers.

Nationally known author and farmer Daniel Imhoff joins other farmers and experts to explore the disconnect in our food system and how to begin to create a fair playing field for sustainable livestock farmers in the discussion, Less=More: Restoring the Balance to Our Food System.  The event is free and open to the public.  RSVP by Mar. 18 to gail.philbin@sierraclub.org or 312-493-2384.

Most industrial livestock ‘farms’ operate like a factory and confine animals in warehouses or crowded feedlots with no vegetation. Although they generate millions of gallons of waste, these facilities receive substantial taxpayer subsidies even when they pollute the water, air and land through poor disposal of that waste, violating state and federal environmental laws. Meanwhile, farmers with good practices that produce healthy, clean food and don’t harm our natural resources struggle to survive.

Less=More: Restoring the Balance to Our Food System will look at the economic, environmental and health impacts of polluting livestock factories and how taxpayer subsidies perpetuate their existence. The panel, hosted by a new sustainable agriculture coalition called Less=More, will also look at ways to address the unfair advantage these subsidies give factory farms over sustainable livestock farms, including recommendations from the coalition’s recently released report, Restoring the Balance to Michigan’s Farming Landscape, available at www.MoreforMichigan.org.

          

Panelists

Daniel Imhoff, Co-founder of Watershed Media and an author and farmer—Imhoff will discuss the economics of factory farms and the Farm Bill. He is an author, publisher and small-scale farmer in California who has focused for more than 20 years on issues of food, agriculture and the environment. Co-founder of Watershed Media and Wild Farm Alliance, he has written many articles, essays, and books, including Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill; CAFO: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories, and Farming with the Wild.

Gail Hansen, Senior Officer and Staff Veterinarian, Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming, Pew Charitable Trusts—Hansen looks at the role factory farms play in antibiotic resistance and other health impacts. Hansen served as the state epidemiologist and state public health veterinarian for 12 years with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment where her work centered on infectious diseases and developing public health policy. Prior to that, she was a principal investigator and coordinator of blood borne pathogen studies at the Seattle and King County Department of Public Health. She has served on or chaired numerous state and federal infectious disease committees, served as a scientific advisor for national and international conferences and is adjunct faculty at Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine. 

Joe Maxwell, President of Outreach and Engagement at The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)—Maxwell examines the lives of animals and farmers in the factory farm system. He grew up on a family farm in the small town of Rush Hill, Mo., the son of a hard-working family farmer. In his role at The HSUS, he works directly with family farmers, helping them organize into producer groups to open direct markets for their own products. Maxwell is a former president of the Association of Family Farmers, an organization associated with the Agriculture of the Middle Project, and a member of the Organization for Competitive Markets and the Missouri Farmers Union.

Lynn Henning, Sierra Club Water Sentinel—Henning will discuss the relationship between environmental pollution and farm subsidies in Michigan. She received the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize for North America for more than a decade’s worth of work tracking environmental abuses at factory farms around her small family farm in south central Michigan. Her painstaking research is the basis of the Less=More report, Restoring the Balance to Michigan’s Farming Landscape. She’s been featured in O Magazine and the 2013 water documentary Last Call at the Oasis and appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher in 2012.

Maynard Beery, Beery Farms of Michigan-- Beery raises grass-fed beef and goats in Mason, MI and will give the perspective of a sustainable livestock farmer on how the lopsided subsidy system affects his ability to compete with industrial livestock operations. A former large-scale livestock confinement operator, he switched to humane, environmentally friendly farming more than a decade ago. He uses the Argentine grazing style of a diverse array of perennial grasses and summer-winter annuals to meet year-round forage needs of the animals, and his farm is in transition to organic certification.

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The Less=More Coalition is a group of organizations engaged in various aspects of our food system who seek to level the farm field for sustainable farmers in Michigan. They include: Beery Farms of Michigan, LLC, the Center for Food Safety, Crane Dance Farm, LLC, Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan, Food & Water Watch, Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council, Groundswell Farm, Zeeland, The Humane Society of the United States, Michigan Farmers Union, Michigan Voices for Good Food Policy, Michigan Young Farmers Coalition, Sierra Club Michigan Chapter and Socially Responsible Agricultural Project.  Learn more at www.MoreforMichigan.org.

SAVE THE DATE!

Restoring the Balance to the Farm Landscape
Thurs., March 21, 6:30pm

B119 Wells Hall Auditorium, MSU, East Lansing

A panel discussion about factory farms and their impact on the environment, economy, public health and animals, and what we can do to change the system. Featuring:

• Daniel Imhoff, author of Food Fight: Citizens Guide to the Next Farm Bill and founder of Watershed Media
• Lynn Henning, Sierra Club Water Sentinel and winner of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize for North America
• Gail Hansen, Senior Officer, Pew Health Group, Pew Charitable Trust 
• Joe Maxwell, VP of Outreach and Engagement at Humane Society of the US  and former president of Association of Family Farmers.