|
Back
|
Agriculture
Hawkins and Agriculture Policy |
Food is a necessity. Access to it is a fundamental human right. All people have a right to adequate, nutritious, health and safe food. Those who grow food have a right to a decent standard of living.
We must reverse the current government polices that provide subsidies to large corporate farms while driving family farms out of business. America’s farm policy should enable farmers to significantly increase net farm income, improve the quality of rural life, and increase the number of family farmers, so that they may continue to provide a reliable supply of food and fiber and serve as stewards of our nation’s resources.
Hawkins supports the goals of the community food security movement. Community food security is a condition in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice. We must also do more to invest in rural economies.
American agriculture is being dominated by two contrary trends in the 21st Century. First, conventional family farm agricultural production is being destroyed by low prices and lack of market access due to mergers, acquisitions by big agribusinesses and their power over farmers. We cannot continue to subsidize energy and water use to grow tomatoes in the southwest to transport to New York markets while locally we convert our best farmlands to suburban sprawl. Our so-called cheap food comes at the expense of the exploitation of our farmers along with the oppression of third world peoples, inhumane treatment of animals, pollution of air and water and degradation of our land.
Second, there is a boom in more sustainable agricultural production and consumption due to increased consumer awareness and demand for healthy, fresh, and nutritious food. More people buy organic. More consumers and farmers are beginning to directly link with each other through Community Supported Agriculture.
Basic Principles of Community Food Security
Community food security represents a comprehensive strategy to address many of the ills affecting our society and environment due to an unsustainable and unjust food system. Following are six basic principles of community food security:
Low Income Food Needs
Like the anti-hunger movement, CFS is focused on meeting the food needs of low-income communities, reducing hunger and improving individual health.
Broad Goals
CFS addresses a broad range of problems affecting the food system, community development, and the environment such as increasing poverty and hunger, disappearing farmland and family farms, inner city supermarket redlining, rural community disintegration, rampant suburban sprawl and air and water pollution from unsustainable food production and distribution patterns.
Community focus
A CFS approach seeks to build up a community's food resources to meet its own needs. These resources may include supermarkets, farmers' markets, gardens, transportation, community-based food processing ventures and urban farms to name a few.
Self-reliance/empowerment
Community food security projects emphasize the need to build individuals' abilities to provide for their food needs. Community food security seeks to build upon community and individual assets, rather than focus on their deficiencies. CFS projects seek to engage community residents in all phases of project planning, implementation and evaluation.
Local agriculture
A stable local agricultural base is key to a community responsive food system. Farmers need increased access to markets that pay them a decent wage for their labor, and farmland needs planning protection from suburban development. By building stronger ties between farmers and consumers, consumers gain a greater knowledge and appreciation for their food source.
Some agriculture recommendations of Howie Hawkins and the Green Party.
Hawkins supports legislation that assists new farmers and ranchers, that promotes widespread ownership to small and medium-sized farms and ranches, and that revitalizes and repopulates rural communities and promotes sustainable development and stewardship.
The Greens advocate regionalizing our food system and decentralizing agriculture lands, production, and distribution. We need public support for producer and consumer cooperatives, community kitchens, Community Supported Agriculture, urban agriculture and community farms and gardens.
Hawkins supports the creation of Food Policy Councils at the municipal, regional, state and national levels, composed of farmers, including small farmers and consumers, to oversee the USDA and all food policies at the local, state, and national level.
The Green Party supports shifting price supports and government subsidies to organic food products so that they will be competitive with chemically-produced food. We believe that everyone, not just the wealthy, must be able to afford safe and healthy food.
Environmental Issues
Hawkins supports banning sewage sludge or hazardous wastes as fertilizer, and of irradiation and the use of genetic engineering in all food production.
We should phase-out man-made pesticides and artificial fertilizers. The Greens support Integrated Pest Management techniques as an alternative to chemical-based agriculture.
Food prices ought to reflect the true cost of food, including the health effects of eating processed foods, antibiotic resistance, pesticide effects on growers and consumers, soil erosion, water pollution, pesticide drift and air pollution. Indirect costs (loss of rural communities, a heavily subsidized transportation system, cost of the military necessary to defend cheap oil, and reduced security), though more difficult to calculate, should be factored into the cost of our highly centralized food system.
Because of the tremendous amount of energy used in agriculture, Hawkins supports farm subsidies to encourage the transition from dirty fuels to clean renewable energy as one of the most effective ways to move our country to a sustainable future. Hawkins support legislation to promote energy and fuel conservation through rotational grazing, cover-crop rotations, nitrogen-fixing systems, and fuel-free, clean renewable energy development on the farm.
World hunger can best be addressed by food security - being self-sufficient for basic needs. Overpopulation is largely a consequence - not simply a cause - of poverty and environmental destruction, and all remedial actions must address living standards and food security through sustainable production.
Animal farming must be practiced in ethically and environmentally sustainable ways. Rapidly phase out the use of confined animal feeding operations and factory farms.
Halt Genetic Engineering of Our Food System
Applying the Precautionary Principle to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Hawkins supports a moratorium until safety can be demonstrated by independent (non-corporate funded), long-term tests for food safety, genetic drift, resistance, soil health, effects on non-target organisms and cumulative interactions.
Americans have become guinea pigs for the biotechnology industry due to the negligence of federal policies to protect consumers. Genetic engineering represents nothing less than a going-out-of-business sale on genetic diversity. We need a dramatic shift away from the industry-dominated laissez-faire non-regulation of GMOs.
Potential hazards from GE foods include: introduction of an allergen into a familiar food; crops with unexpected characteristics or side effects (e.g., a food’s nutritional value could change or a food could suddenly become more toxic); the development of insect and weed resistance to pesticides (e.g., superweeds); injury or death of non-target species; loss of biodiversity; crop loss from seeds that do not yield or perform as expected; genetic foods can promote antibiotic resistance. Crops engineered to tolerate weed killers (herbicides) promote increased use of these herbicides and potential greater residue on food.
Hawkins also supports the elimination of patent rights for genetic material, lifeforms, gene-splicing techniques, and biochemicals derived from them.
Full Food Labeling
Hawkins supports mandatory, full-disclosure food and fiber labeling. A consumer has the right to know the contents in their food and fiber, how they were produced, and where they come from. Labels should address the presence of GMOs, use of irradiation and pesticide application (in production, transport, storage, and retail). |
| |
 *Website by David Doonan, Labor Donated to Hawkins for Senate Campaign* |
|
|
