Oppose Obama’s Big Agriculture Nominee

The following was sent to us from the Center for Biodiversity, please read and take action…

Does the talking head of Big Agriculture belong in charge of America’s agricultural trade relations? Obama thinks so. Despite claiming that lobbyists wouldn’t find jobs in his White House, Obama recently nominated former pesticide lobbyist Islam Siddiqui to be Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

Siddiqui’s record is abysmal. He led the development of the first national organic labeling standards, which allowed sewage-sludge fertilized, genetically modified, and irradiated food to be labeled as organic before public outcry forced more stringent standards. Siddiqui currently works for CropLife America, a pesticide and biotechnology trade group that fights to weaken environmental laws and treaties and keep persistent organic pollutants like DDT in use.

Siddiqui’s pro-pesticide group launched a petition campaign chiding Michelle Obama for planting an organic, pesticide-free garden and lobbied to allow pesticide testing on children. CropLife America also intervened in a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit to protect endangered species from pesticide exposure. CropLife America’s Web site declares that pesticides “contribute to biodiversity conservation” and “positively impact” endangered species. No one told that to the California tiger salamander, delta smelt, and countless other species that have been sickened and killed by toxic pesticides.

Siddiqui’s agenda is a threat to biodiversity and human health worldwide. The planet can’t afford to have Big Agriculture’s talking head in charge of America’s agricultural trade relations.

Please contact your senators today and ask them to vote against the confirmation of Islam Siddiqui as Chief Agricultural Negotiator. Urgent action is needed — the vote could happen in the next two days.

Please click here to take action!

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Change We Can Eat!

A 64 year old man is living in the back of a grocery store and wants recipes from us so that he can make bread with his hot-plate. Kathleen’s  family of five was plunged into 14 months of unemployment and she, “literally wept when milk reached $3 a gallon.” Will Wilson in Anchorage had to quit his job to take care of his son, and the money his wife makes barely covers the utilities. These are people in America. Their stories are documented here as comments throughout our blog, and they are not isolated cases.

Many of you have posted your tips, ideas, and comments about how to cut food costs, all of which are vital for many people who are trying to make ends meet. However, Wilson is smart to point out that, “the government controls everything.” The great majority of us will do what we can to make the best choices available regarding the economics of food, but the policies of our government play a large role in framing how the food system in our country works.

As someone who is staunchly independent when it comes to political affiliation, and sees the two party system as two strands of the business party, I patiently waited for either of the presidential candidates to talk about food. While concerns about health care, foreign policy, and the economy are essential to our progress as a nation, how we feed people should have played a more significant role in the campaign. Quite simply, everyone has to eat in order to survive, and so, few things could be more important than how we feed ourselves.

Around 700k people have visited our little blog, and if that isn’t evidence that this is a crucial conversation to have, just read some of the stories from people around the country (and the globe).

The current system in the United States, overseen by the Department of Agriculure, is actually subsidizing the foods that are the least healthy for us. As Nicholas Kristoff notes in a recent New York Times piece, “The Agriculture Department — and the agriculture committees in Congress — have traditionally been handed over to industrial farming interests by Democrats and Republicans alike. The farm lobby uses that perch to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.”

And this is just part of the problem with how our food system works in the United States.

Kristoff goes on to challenge Obama to pick a new “Secretary of Food” that will represent the interests of 300 million Americans instead of a system that undermines the health of our citizens and our planet. Knowing that we can’t rely solely on politicians to get things done, we must continue this dialogue about food until we have a system that doesn’t force people to make choices between bread and fresh vegetables.

Which is why I have signed the Food Declaration.  It’s starts off…

“We, the undersigned, believe that a healthy food system is necessary to meet the urgent challenges of our time. Behind us stands a half-century of industrial food production, underwritten by cheap fossil fuels, abundant land and water resources, and a drive to maximize the global harvest of cheap calories. Ahead lie rising energy and food costs, a changing climate, declining water supplies, a growing population, and the paradox of widespread hunger and obesity.”

It doesn’t matter where you stand politically, the future of food depends on what we do right now.

– Christopher

P.S. If you have a library card, I also recommend the book “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn, as it provides some interesting ways of looking at the implications of the agricultural revolution.