Archive for the 'Food' Category

This future farmer has already mastered the most important agricultural skill: crying about inadequate subsidies

The Wall Street Journal reports that California farmer are getting their panties in a wad because EPA officials are doing their jobs and enforcing the law:

California has a new endangered species on its hands in the San Joaquin Valley—farmers. Thanks to environmental regulations designed to protect the likes of the three-inch long delta smelt, one of America’s premier agricultural regions is suffering in a drought made worse by federal regulations.

The state’s water emergency is unfolding thanks to the latest mishandling of the Endangered Species Act. Last December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued what is known as a “biological opinion” imposing water reductions on the San Joaquin Valley and environs to safeguard the federally protected hypomesus transpacificus, a.k.a., the delta smelt. As a result, tens of billions of gallons of water from mountains east and north of Sacramento have been channelled away from farmers and into the ocean, leaving hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land fallow or scorched.

Whatever. The only reason that California farmers have enough water to grow their crops is because of government-built aqueducts and federal subsidies. Only a year ago, these same farmers were selling their subsidized water to the cities at inflated rates instead of growing crops with it.

And now they’re whining because federal environmental regulations are preventing them from defrauding taxpayers and gouging people in the cities? Give me a break.

Also, the folks at the Wall Street Journal are ignoring the fact that the Endangered Species Act is not a set of optional guidelines, it’s the law of the land. The editorial writers at WSJ love to squawk about the Rule of Law when they feel that they can use that principle to defend a fascist coup d’etat in Honduras (despite the fact that there is no Honduran law which would permit a military takeover of the government). When it comes to protecting the environment, though, enforcing the law becomes a “mishandling of the Endangered Species Act”.

I got an email today from my dad asking me to sign a petition. I generally agree with him about most issues, and I often sign the petitions that he forwards to me. Not this time. Here’s the email and my reply:

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I hope you like what this guy is pouring, because you’ll be eating it soon

From Green Daily:

The Bush administration has abruptly halted a program that tests levels of pesticides in fruits, vegetables and other crops, arguing that the $8 million dollar a year program is too expensive. $8 million.

The decision to cut this program came as a shock to the EPA, who says they will now have to buy expensive private data. The EPA used the USDA data to set acceptable levels of pesticides in foods.

No doubt, this will be a big windfall for a private testing company, whose lobbying firm will soon be giving a lucrative job to the person who persuaded Bush to end government testing.