Image via WikipediaFarm income drops to staggering lows
From the Western Producer paper, May 6 2010
Farm income predictions grim
Projections 91 percent below 2009
The 2010 farm income projections are devastating.
Agriculture Canada released them with little fanfare in late April, which is later than normal.
A sector that will produce $41.6 billion in farmgate receipts this year will return $291.5 million to farmers in realized net income after depreciation. It is a 91 percent reduction from 2009 levels.
Several provinces will be in deficit, including Ontario and Alberta.
The hog and cattle sectors will be hit particularly hard, according to the numbers prepared by and agreed to by federal and provincial officials.
The forecast projects a 12 percent increase in program payments to $3.76 billion despite an Agriculture Canada longer-term projection of a sharp decline in government support over the next three years.
In Russia, before the 1950′s, Stalin was in power. He wanted to see state run agriculture, so he abolished all the small farms (much like the ALR grab in BC) and the entire country went into state mass production. How did he get rid of the farmers that didn’t want to give up their lands? He shot them.
I’m not kidding.
Did mass agriculture work? No, and they began to witness those results less than a decade after. Today, few people know, really know, how to grow a tomato in Russia. When you eliminate family farms, you eliminate thousands of years of information for survival. As our aging farmers die off, so will the knowledge.
Can mass agriculture work? Apparently, by the post above, it’s failing. What we need to realize, visualize and feel is how that looks to have only mass corporate farms. Only by looking into the future can we put a halt to this before we make serious mistakes with our kids futures.
The price for the food has gone down, while the cost of producing that food has increased dramatically. The only way for factory farms to survive is to wipe out all small farms and accumulate massive chunks of land and control pricing – read as “pass it on to the consumer”. So your food choices and prices will all be under a single umbrella, and you will have no control over it. No control over pricing. No control over what you eat (GMO). No control over choices.
Large mass farming practices do uncontrollable damage to the land. Their methods of pesticide use accumulate in soils, air and land, destroying nutrients in the plants and polluting our environment. Monocrops, a term meaning single crop, will no longer need the windbreaks and sheltered areas that good farm practices use. They will be open and exposed to wind and soil erosion.
Factory farms for pigs and other livestock pose even bigger threats. Single diseases could wipe out entire populations, leaving markets to look elsewhere. The pollution, while being a detriment right now, could have benefits (1), but that costs money and decreases shareholder value. So manure waste continues to pollute and build up dangerous phosphorus levels. Soon though, the Enviropig, a genetically modified pig will be able to alleviate this problem (while potentially creating a whole new one, but not a problem: remember shareholder value). And what about the pigs? Having 100,000 pigs in the same cold, concrete structure can only be a recipe for abuse.
Could we end up like Russia? If we do nothing, yes.
( I've collected a number of articles on Corporate Farming. One thing to realize is that it had been implemented by CIA Director Nelson D. Rockefeller in Central and South America over 50 years ago : destroying farming there. Monsanto stories and tales of starvation in places victimized by corporate strategists retell a common theme : our world's ability to sustain us is being destroyed and the men who make our food are themselves dying. )
Toxin Laden Meat Reaching Consumers
Together, [USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service], FDA, and EPA have not established thresholds for many dangerous substances (e.g., copper or dioxin), which has resulted in meat with these substances being distributed in commerce," The OIG also found that FSIS does not attempt to recall meat, even when its tests have confirmed the "excessive presence of veterinary drugs."
http://www.counterpunch.org/allen04132010.html
"It is time for executives and workers on factory farms to become whistle blowers. It is time for chemically assaulted farmworkers and farmers to sue these killers. It is time for chemical and food industry employees and feedlot cowboys to expose factory farming's dirty secrets, just as high-level tobacco executives and tobacco workers did in the 1990s. It is time for courageous magazines or Internet sites to refuse farm and home chemical advertisements."
Fires in factory farms are taking a heavy toll
Did you know 51,500 animals died in factory farm fires in this country in 2009? That figure is up considerably from 3,700 in 2007 and 30,500 in 2008.
Thank you to the wonderful group Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Food Animals for these figures.
Here’s the most shocking figure of all: Since the beginning of this year, 78,466 animals have died in barn fires across Canada
Canadian water supply contaminated by radioactive waste
The report, Tritium on Tap, produced by the Sierra Club of Canada, warned that radioactive emissions from various nuclear plants across the country have more than doubled over the past decade. The figures were based on statistics compiled by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission which measured pollution coming from the plants.
Although Canadian guidelines have suggested that the existing levels of tritium in the water are safe, the report cites recent peer-reviewed studies, including a recent review by the UK’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters, that suggest the opposite.
“Once in our body, tritium enters our DNA, fat, proteins and carbohydrates — and that is where it does its damage from close range,” said the Sierra Club report. “It is a carcinogen and causes birth defects.”
The report noted that other jurisdictions such as the European Union and California have drinking water guidelines for tritium that are hundreds of times stronger than Canada’s guidelines. A recent report by the Ontario Drinking Water Advisory Council, released in May, has also suggested more stringent drinking water standards to restrict tritium.
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