PBS/ Monsanto/Factoryfarm

[Guest guest]

S

Mon, 20 Jun 2005 10:34:56 -0700 (PDT)

PBS/ Monsanto/Factoryfarm

 

 

Global Resource Action Center for the Environment

(GRACE) is looking

for

organizations to sign-on to the letter below regarding

an industrial

agriculture series on public television stations that

is sponsored by

Monsanto and the American Farm Bureau Federation.

 

Dear friends:

 

We need your help!

 

This fall, Monsanto and the American Farm Bureau

Federation (with

additional funding from the American Soybean

Association, National Corn

Growers Association, National Cotton Council, United

Soybean Board and

U.S. Grains Council) have teamed up to produce a piece

of propaganda

designed to whitewash the true story of industrial

agribusiness in the

United States.

 

America's Heartland is a weekly television series that

these shills of

industrial agriculture intend to offer to more than

300 public

television

stations for airing in September. The 20 half-hour

episodes claim to

help " raise awareness of the significant contribution

American

agriculture makes to the quality of life here and

abroad. " However,

the

failure to include any group representing America's

traditional family

farmers raises suspicions that the series is nothing

more than a public

relations ploy by corporate agriculture interests.

 

We have drafted a letter (below) to alert public

television station

managers to the bias behind this rogue gallery of

corporate players

presuming to represent the state of agriculture in

rural America. It

is critical that those who make programming decisions

for America's

public television stations understand that there is

another, more

destructive side to industrial agriculture.

 

Please join us in this effort by having your

organization sign on to

this letter. Also, pass it along to other

organizations that might

want

to join in. A final letter, signed by all supporting

groups, will be

distributed to every public television station manager

in mid-July.

 

Please RSVP your support to Chris Cooper at GRACE

(<ccooperccooper)

 

Thank you!

 

GRACE (Global Resource Action Center for the

Environment)

 

Letter:

 

In the next few weeks you will be solicited to carry a

television

program produced by KVIE Public Television entitled

America's

Heartland.

Contrary to the producers' press release, this

program is not a

celebration of our nation's agriculture. Instead, it

is a piece of

bald-faced propaganda from those who make their money

from corporate

agriculture-the Monsanto Company, the American Farm

Bureau Federation,

the American Soybean Association, National Corn

Growers Association,

National Cotton Council, United Soybean Board and U.S.

Grains

Council.The destruction of America's rural communities

and the

disappearance of its small farmers is an important

story that needs to

be told. This story, one of rural depopulation,

dwindling economic

opportunities, industrial levels of pollution and

their attendant

health

and social concerns, is the ugly reality of the

excesses that come from

the unregulated large-scale industrialized

agricultural system promoted

by corporate America. America's Heartland is being

produced to put a

friendly face on the very forces that are causing

these problems.

 

Policies promoted by Monsanto and the American Farm

Bureau, if

successful, will place the US food supply into the

hands of a few major

corporations. This would devastate independent family

farmers who will

be priced out of the market not because they can't

compete, but because

corporate farms are specifically structured to capture

government

subsidies. Lobbyists for corporate agriculture and the

Farm Bureau use

political pressure to direct federal subsidies to

corporate farms where

a significant part of these subsidies then flows

directly to Monsanto

from the purchase of genetically modified seed and

artificial hormones

(to increase milk production at mega dairies) that put

small farmers

out

of business. The American Farm Bureau, which sells

insurance, supports

this strategy by investing its assets in corporate

agriculture while

claiming for lobbying purposes that its 5 million

insurance

policyholders are active Farm Bureau members. (There

are less than 2

million actual farmers in the US and many don't belong

to the Farm

Bureau). There is a growing backlash in both rural

areas and urban and

consumer markets against the practices advocated by

Monsanto, the Farm

Bureau and the owners of factory farms. Shoppers are

flocking to

organic products in an effort to escape the health

consequences of the

kind of agriculture these groups promote. Traditional

family farmers

are working to expose the corporate whitewashing of

industrial

agriculture. The program you are

being asked to show is an important part of a strategy

to silence this

backlash by making American consumers think that

corporate farming

practices are harmless and inevitable. Nothing could

be further from

the truth.

 

We ask you to please make a fully informed decision

about America's

Heartland and either not air it or, if you elect to

show it, schedule

it

 

alongside a program presenting the alternative point

of view as you

would for any other piece of propaganda. There is

another side to this

story and the public deserves to hear it.

Sincerely,

[NAMES OF SIGNATORIES]

 

 

 

 

Production Shifting to Very Large Family Farms

 

U.S. farm production is shifting to larger operations

at the same time

that people are continuing to be involved with

part-time, small-scale

farming operations. Small family farms (annual sales

below $250,000)

still account for most of the Nation's farms, but

their share of the

value of U.S. agricultural production fell by nearly a

third between

1993 and 2003. (Sales and production are adjusted for

price changes and

are reported in 2003 dollars.)

 

The number of small family farm operators who reported

farming as their

primary occupation has declined. In 1993, these farms

accounted for 37

percent of all farms and 32 percent of the value of

production. By

2003,

their shares had fallen to 27 percent of all farms and

20 percent of

production. By contrast, residential farms—or small

farms whose

operators report off-farm work as their primary

occupation—rose from

36 percent of all farms in 1993 to 42 percent in 2003.

But their

average

sales were very low ($12,000 in 2003), accounting for

only 5 percent of

production. In addition, small family farms with

retired operators also

increased as a proportion of all farms over the last

decade.

 

Where did production go? Between 1993 and 2003, the

number of nonfamily

farms, which include farms with hired managers as well

as farms

organized as nonfamily corporations and cooperatives,

grew by about a

fourth to 35,000, and their share of production rose

from 10 to 14

percent. But the major production shift is attributed

to very large

family farms, which have at least $500,000 in annual

sales. The number

of very large family farms rose by nearly half to

66,600 over the

period, while their share of production grew from 33

to 44 percent.

Production of livestock and fruits and vegetables has

long been

concentrated among very large family farms;

substantial shares of field

crop production are shifting to those operations as

well.

 

This article is drawn from...

 

Structural and Financial Characteristics of U.S.

Farms: 2004 Family

Farm Report, edited by David E. Banker and James M.

MacDonald, AIB-797,

USDA, Economic Research Service, March 2005.

 

For more information on the characteristics of U.S.

farms and changes

in their size distribution, visit the ERS Briefing

Room on Farm

Structure.

 

 

 

 

 

***

Audrey Hill

Organizer, Public Citizen

(202) 454-5185

 

 

If you would like to be added to the FACTORYFARM list,

please visit

http://www.citizen.org/enteremail.cfm and select the

FACTORYFARM list.

 

To learn more about factory farms, visit

www.foodactivist.org and

www.factoryfarm.org . Questions about the FACTORYFARM

list can be directed

to FACTORYFARM-request