Yesterday the United Farm Workers (UFW) launched the “Take Our Jobs” campaign, a bold effort to highlight the importance of immigrant workers to our food supply -- and the difficulties agricultural employers have in maintaining a stable, legal workforce.  As UFW points out on their campaign website, “We are a nation in denial about our food supply."

During a news conference yesterday, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez argued:

Farm workers do the work that most Americans are not willing to do. Our current labor force is comprised of professional farm workers who possess essential skills needed to maintain the viability of the agricultural industry. But our nation’s struggling economy has fueled an increasingly ugly debate on immigration policy and many Americans believe that undocumented farm workers are taking jobs from our citizens and legal residents.

Either Congress acts to bring a solution, or we will continue to see our food production move to other countries. The United States depends on these farms and farm workers for food.

A statement by the union explains further:

County Supervisor Rubio, who represents the second largest agricultural county in the nation, said the industry is utterly dependent on a foreign-born workforce. And even with double digit unemployment rates, few legal residents are seeking jobs on the farm, he said.

According to Marisa Treviño at Latina Lista:

In a letter to U.S. lawmakers, UFW offers farm workers who are "ready to train citizens and legal residents who wish to replace immigrants in the fields," and encourages Members of Congress to refer their constituents to vacant farm worker positions.

While immigrant farm workers are the backbone of United States agriculture, many of these workers have no way to normalize their immigration status – they often live in fear of exploitation and deportation. These workers and their advocates have been asking Congress for years to fix what most everyone agrees is an outdated, ineffective, and inhumane immigration system.

Now, hoping to push Congress to pass what’s known as “AgJobs” legislation, the UFW’s “Take Our Jobs” campaign is a creative attempt to break through the right-wing media narrative that immigrants take jobs from American workers instead of contributing to the U.S. economy and U.S. food security.

So far, people in the agriculture industry appear skeptical that many unemployed Americans will sign up for the farm work, given the strenuous conditions, need to relocate one's family, and low pay. The Silicon Valley Mercury News reports:

Salinas farm labor contractor Paul Powell had not heard about the "Take Our Jobs" campaign Wednesday, but said he doubted that most unemployed Californians would be up to the challenge.

"There may be a lot of folks who show up and don’t stay for more than a day or two," Powell said. "They don’t realize how hard the work is. Field work is not easy."

Manuel Cunha, president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League, sarcastically remarked:

Come out here and climb the ladder, pick tomatoes, and oh, by the way, you’ve got to prune, and oh, by the way, it’s seasonal work so you have to move all over the place.

It seems that the UFW has set up a win-win situation. If it turns out that Americans do take them up on the offer, kudos to them for helping jobless Americans find work and gain skills. If native-born Americans balk and refuse to sign up, lawmakers will have a hard time opposing AgJobs legislation with the claim that immigrants are “stealing American jobs.”  

The offer itself should serve to highlight the hypocrisy of anti-reform politicians who continue to scapegoat vulnerable populations whose labor fuels our economy and feeds our country, instead of reforming our nation's dysfunctional immigration laws.

Even better, UFW has announced a July 8th appearance on the Colbert Report -- stay tuned.

Mismanagement by Objective Eyewitness Muse

Why am I not surprised that the Bush Administration has discovered 22 “ineffective” federal initiatives that they want eliminated and that among these programs’ intended beneficiaries are preschool children, displaced workers, at-risk youth, migrant agriculture workers, low-income college students, the disabled and families that cannot afford housing. After all, if anybody deserves to feel the pinch, it’s a grimy lot like that. Read More

On November 3rd, there will be a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot in Ohio. This is no ordinary ballot initiative. Its very existence and marketing has been bought and paid for --to the tune of millions--by national and international agri-business corporations, such as Pioneer Hi-Bred International (owned by DuPont, a "developer and supplier of advanced plant genetics"--healthy!--and grantee of 100K to the effort),the National Pork Producers Council (113K), and the United Egg Producers (200K!).

(Join our Facebook Group and help us stop this travesty!)

Now why, you ask, would these Big Agra players get involved in a state issue, and to support a campaign that is for touchy feely things like "food safety" and "local control?" I'm not sure, but it might be that this corruption of Ohio's Constitution will provide "food safety" much like George W. Bush provided "healthy forests," "clear skies" and a "mission accomplished." In other words--and I know this will shock you--they're lying. And they're lying with millions of dollars they've acquired, by being, like their "products," pigs at a trough.

So what is Issue 2, what will it do, and why should you care about it if you're not a resident of the Buckeye State? It's simple: Issue 2 was put on the ballot overnight by state legislators bought off by Big Agri-Business and their mouthpiece here, the Ohio Farm Bureau. Why? So that they can corrupt Ohio's Constitution to give the Governor the power to appoint a board of unaccountable agri-business cronies to make decisions in smoke-filled rooms about all farming practices in Ohio.

I know what you're thinking. Unaccountable, corporate-influenced governing has worked out so well with TARP money and preemptive war, we might as well try it with farm policy.

With Issue 2's passage, those only interested in their bottom line can (and you can bet will) stuff millions more animals into smaller and smaller crates together, increasing the likelhood of H1N1 and E. Coli outbreaks and mutations and their capacity for animal cruelty. They can ignore the waste caused by big factory farms that contaminates the water we drink. They can allow workers to be exploited and placed in situations that endanger their health, while putting family farms--held for generations--out of business.

And why should you care if this passes in Ohio? For all the reasons above, but also...because you're next. This amendment was a reaction to successful efforts to rein in their greedy, dangerous and abusive practices in California (Prop 2), Arizona and Florida, among others. If they can use the camouflage of bought off Democratic and Republican Establishments, millions of dollars in lies, and an off-year low-turnout election to enshrine their corporate malpractice into state constitutions, they can fly under the radar while endangering our health, undermining the people's right to petition (another amendment would be needed to overturn it if passed, as the new board's decisions would supersede ballot initiatives, legislative decisions and opinions by the State Department of Agriculture) and spiking their profits.

How can you help? Well, we only have 10% of their budget. But we have the grassroots energy. We have you.

So please join our Facebook group. Tweet this. Blog it. Call and email everyone you know in Ohio. And be prepared when this garbage dressed up as a gift inevitably makes its way to your state.

(Watch this video for more on this - the 1st minute and then from 5:22 on)

Full Disclosure: I am proud to be a consultant in the effort to beat back Issue 2 in Ohio

(graphic via SBS U Texas)

This sounds like a horror movie. Only in Texas, my friends:

Pesky Ants Becoming Zombies That Die

Some researchers in Texas are trying an unusual approach to combat fire ants -- parasitic flies that turn the pesky insects into zombies whose heads fall off. "It's a tool. They're not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it's a way to control their population," said Scott Ludwig, an integrated pest management specialist with Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service in Overton, in East Texas. The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.

So far, four phorid species have been introduced in Texas, where fire ants cost the economy about $1 billion annually by damaging circuit breakers and other electrical equipment, according to a Texas A&M study. They can also threaten young calves. The flies "dive-bomb" the fire ants and lay eggs, and then the maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain. Later, the ant gets up and starts wandering for about two weeks, said Rob Plowes, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin...read on

Emailer Tom writes: Hi John, I can't help but think there is a connection to Washington in here somewhere.

There's a lot of places I could go with this one, but I'll leave it up to you.

I have a deal with my kids on Sunday mornings. They leave me alone to review the bobbleheads on the Sunday shows in exchange for me making them a Sunday breakfast with the works: bacon, fresh berries, hash browns and above all, light, fluffy pancakes with lots of warm, real maple syrup. They get their carbohydrate overload while I try to keep down my heart-healthy oatmeal as I listen the the latest spin.

But it looks like Mother Nature may be forcing me to renegotiate the deal:

Sadly, thanks to increasingly ‘weird’ and warming weather, the long-standing tradition and $65 million business of “maple sugaring” in the northeastern U.S. is in danger of becoming a historical footnote.

It’s because the cycles of what is called ‘cold recharge’ – where weeks of below-freezing temperatures, followed by warmer temperatures – are shortening to the point where sugar maples are not producing the sap which is later boiled down to make maple syrup.

It this recharge cycle which allows the sap in sugar maples’ limbs to turn to ice, creating an area of lower pressure which in turn pulls up more sap into the frozen areas from the roots up. In this state, the trees convert their stored starches into sucrose that will fuel spring budding. As the warming weather melts the sap ice, liquid sap is pushed in all directions. All one has to do is drill a hole for the sap to flow.

But for some places in the Northeast, the sugar-tapping season is either getting shorter and shorter, sometimes lasting only a week, as it did in Quebec last year.

"This is a weather-related industry," says Sam Cutting, owner of Dakin Farm in Vermont and who has been in the sugar business for 40 years. "There are always problems in the maple industry: gypsy moths, floods, droughts."

Warmer weather has also translated to problems with pests such as the pear thrip, and the non-native Asian longhorn beetle destroying maple trees. Deer populations have also exploded in some places, meaning that more maple shoots are eaten before making it to maturity. It requires a mature tree of 40 to 50 years old to make maple syrup safely.

My daughter has reminded me that I could purchase the less expensive "maple-flavored" syrup instead, but given that they have found they have found mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), the primary ingredient in those syrups, I find that an unacceptable alternative.

Via The Raw Story:

As if it wasn't bad enough for the Bush Administration already, contempt charges are flying in Montana.The Administration's top forestry official has been ordered to explain why the US Forest Service failed to analyze the environmental impact of dropping a fish-killing flame retardant on wildfires -- or face contempt of court.

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey would then face jail unless the Forest Service assented to a court order enjoining the environmental review.

"Noting that Rey had blocked implementation of an earlier review, U.S. District Judge Donald W. Malloy ordered Rey to appear in his court Oct. 15 unless the Forest Service completes the analysis before that time," Associated Press reporter Jeff Barnard wrote.

Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh told AP the agency was working on the analysis, but couldn't say if the Secretary would meet the deadline; Rey did not respond to requests for comment. Read more...

I swear to you I thought this was an article written by The Onion.

CFA-CommonSense:

Offered without comment. What is there possibly to say?

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Arkansas City-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive test, too.[..]

The Agriculture Department argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry. U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that Creekstone sought to use the same test the government relies on and said the government didn't have the authority to restrict it.

Nice to see that the Feds' biggest concern is not the citizens, but false positives hurting the meat industry.

NY Times (reg. req'd.):

Government investigators said Monday that byproducts from pet food contaminated with wheat gluten imported from China were used in chicken feed on some farms in Indiana.

The latest revelation came as part of the investigation into imported rice protein concentrate and wheat gluten that have been found to contain melamine and melamine-related compounds. Pet food contaminated with melamine has killed at least 16 cats and dogs and sickened thousands of others.

The Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration said that some 30 broiler poultry farms and eight breeder poultry farms in Indiana had received contaminated feed in early February and fed it to chickens within days of receiving it. All of those potentially affected chickens have since been processed.

The two agencies said they believed the likelihood of illness to people eating contaminated chicken was low because the contamination was most likely diluted. Without evidence of harm to humans, the agencies said they were not issuing recalls of any of the processed chicken products.

Why do I not feel comforted by the assurances from the federal agencies? At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Soylent Green is in the food.

BREAKING: Americans ate 3 million melamine-tainted chickens!

Reuters:

Pet food tainted with the chemical melamine was found in feed rations on a California hog farm and may show up on other U.S. farms, state and federal officials said on Friday.[..]

California officials said Diamond Pet Foods sold pet food to American Hog Co., which used it as a feed ingredient. Tests found melamine in feed at the farm and in urine from the hogs.

Richard Breitmeyer, the state veterinarian, said it was "not uncommon" for pet food makers to sell scrap material to feedlots.

"In the course of our investigation, we may find similar situations in other parts of the country," said Stephen Sundlof, head of the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, referring to sales of scrap pet food.[..]

State and U.S. Agriculture Department officials said there was no evidence that pork products from the farm entered the food supply but that they were still tracking the whereabouts of all the hogs produced there since April 3. Some 126 of the hogs are known to have been slaughtered for meat

This story just gets worse and worse.