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Huge organic farm under threat: County will invade and spray Roundup if not stopped
What?? A county government is going to destroy a massive organic farm?
By Jon Rappoport
"I have a great idea. We're the Sherman County government. We
have power. Let's claim Azure Farms can't control their weeds. Let's
come in and invade them with Roundup and other toxic chemicals. Let's
destroy their organic farm. We know the spraying won't wipe out the
weeds---it'll make the situation worse. But who cares? Let's open up
ourselves to massive lawsuits. I'm sure Monsanto will give us some legal
help. We can set a fantastic precedent. No organic farm is safe. No
organic farmer has the right to protect his land from the government.
Isn't that a terrific idea?"
So far, I have seen no coverage of this issue in Oregon
newspapers. Why not? Also, I find nothing on the Sherman County, Oregon,
government website about a massive spraying program.
A local government is going to decimate a huge organic farm with herbicide?
Azure Farms, a 2000-acre organic farm in Oregon, states it is
under threat from the local Sherman County government. Why? Because
Sherman County officials are re-interpreting a law concerning the
"control of noxious weeds," so it means "eradication."
These weeds can be controlled on an organic farm, but the
only way they can be eliminated (according to conventional "science") is
by spraying. And that means Roundup and other toxic chemicals. That
would decimate the organic nature of the farm. That would decertify it
as an organic farm.
Further, according to Azure, Sherman County plans to put a lien on the farm, forcing it to pay for the spraying.
The deadline for expressing opposition is May 22. A better deadline is May 17.
Here is the complete press release from Azure Farms and the ways to register your concern:
Azure Farms is a working, certified organic farm located in
Moro, central Oregon, in Sherman County. It has been certified organic
for about 18 years. The farm produces almost all the organic wheat,
field peas, barley, Einkorn, and beef for Azure Standard.
Sherman County is changing the interpretation of its
statutory code from controlling noxious weeds to eradicating noxious
weeds. These weeds include Morning Glory, Canada Thistle, and Whitetop,
all of which have been on the farm for many years, but that only toxic
chemicals will eradicate.
Organic farming methods - at least as far as we know today -
can only control noxious weeds-it is very difficult to eradicate them.
Sherman County may be issuing a Court Order on May 22, 2017
to quarantine Azure Farms and possibly to spray the whole farm with
poisonous herbicides, contaminating them with Milestone, Escort and
Roundup herbicides.
This will destroy all the efforts Azure Farms has made for
years to produce the very cleanest and healthiest food humanly possible.
About 2,000 organic acres would be impacted; that is about 1.5 times
the size of the city center of Philadelphia that is about to be sprayed
with noxious, toxic, polluting herbicides.
The county would then put a lien on the farm to pay for the expense of the labor and chemicals used.
Contact Sherman County Court before May 17 when the next court discussion will be held.
Contact info:
Show Sherman County that people care about their food NOT containing toxic chemicals.
Overwhelm the Sherman County representatives with your voices!
---end of Azure Farms statement---
Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor to jonathanturley.org, has
been covering this story. He reached out and obtained a devastating
letter from agricultural scientist, Charles Benbrook. Benbrook has his
critics within the conventional pesticide and GMO research community.
Here is Smith's piece and Dr. Benbrook's letter:
Yesterday I fielded an article concerning a rather
distressing mandate by an Oregon county weed control agency seeking to
force the application of hazardous herbicides onto a 2,000 acre organic
farm owned by Azure Farms. Sherman County Oregon maintains this scorched
earth policy is necessary to abate, or more specifically "eradicate",
weeds listed by state statute as noxious.
Now, the scientific community is responding to this
overreaching government action by acting in the interests of health and
responsible environmental stewardship through advocacy in the hopes that
officials in Sherman County will reconsider their mandate.
Dr. Charles Benbrook is a highly credentialed research
professor and expert serving on several boards of directors for
agribusiness and natural resources organizations. Having read news of
Sherman County's actions, he penned an authoritative response I believe
will make informative reading for those concerned by present and future
implications in the forced use of herbicides under the rubric of noxious
weed eradication, and the damage to organic farming generally arising
from such mandates.
Charles Benbrook has a PhD in agricultural economics from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison and an undergraduate degree from
Harvard University. He currently is a Visiting Professor at Newcastle
University in the UK...
He was a Research Professor at Washington State University
from 2012-2015, and served as the Chief Scientist of The Organic Center
from 2006-2012. He was the Executive Director of the Board on
Agriculture in the National Academy of Sciences from 1984-1990. He was
the staff director of the Subcommittee on Department [USDA] Operations,
Research, and Foreign Agriculture of the House Committee on Agriculture
(1981-1983). He worked as an agricultural and natural resources policy
expert in the Council for Environmental Quality in the last 1.5 years of
the Carter Administration. He began Benbrook Consulting Services (BCS)
in 1990, and continues to carry out projects with a wide range of
clients via BCS
He coauthors an informative website Hygeia-Analytics.com.
I reached out to Dr. Benbrook and received permission to
reprint his letter in the hope that with more attention, including that
from the scientific community, we can arrive at a reasonable solution to
the county's concerns. Here is Dr. Benbrook's letter:...
Tom McCoy
Joe Dabulskis
Sherman County Commissioners
Lauren Hernandez
Administrative Assistant Sherman County, Oregon
Rod Asher
Sherman Country Weed District Supervisor Moro, Oregon
Alexis Taylor
Director Oregon Department of Agriculture
Dear Ms. Hernandez el al:
I live in Wallowa County. I learned today of the recent,
dramatic change in the Sherman County noxious weed control program and
the plan to forcibly spray a 2,000-acre organic farm in the county.
Over a long career, I have studied herbicide use and
efficacy, public and private weed control efforts, the linkages between
herbicide use and the emergence and spread of resistant weeds, and the
public health and environmental impacts of herbicide use and other weed
management strategies.
I served for six years, along with fellow Oregonian Barry
Bushue, past-president of the Oregon Farm Bureau, on the USDA's AC 21
Agricultural Biotechnology Advisory Committee. Issues arising from
herbicide use were a frequent topic of discussion during our Committee's
deliberations.
I have published multiple scientific papers in peer-reviewed
journals on glyphosate, its human health risks, and the impact of
genetically engineered crops on overall herbicide use and the spread of
resistant weeds. In a separate email, I will forward you copies of my
published research relevant to the use of herbicides, and glyphosate in
particular.
The notion that Sherman County can eradicate noxious weeds by
blanket herbicide spraying is deeply misguided. I cannot imagine a
single, reputable university weed scientist in the State supporting the
idea that an herbicide-based noxious weed eradication program would work
(i.e., eradicate the target weeds) in Oregon, or any other state. To
hear another opinion from one of the State's most widely known and
respected weed scientists, I urge the County to consult with Dr. Carol Mallory-Smith, Oregon State University.
I also doubt any corporate official working for Monsanto, the
manufacturer of glyphosate (Roundup), would agree or endorse the notion
that any long-established weed in Sherman County, noxious or otherwise,
could be eradicated via blanket spraying with Roundup, or for that
matter any combination of herbicides.
Before proceeding with any county-mandated herbicide use
justified by the goal of eradication, I urge the County to seek
concurrence from the herbicide manufacturer that they believe use of
their product will likely eradicate your named, target, noxious weeds.
Given that almost no one with experience in weed management
believes that any long-established weed, noxious or otherwise, can be
eradicated with herbicides, one wonders why the County has adopted such a
draconian change in its noxious weed control program. I can think of
two plausible motivations - a desire by companies and individuals
involved in noxious weed control activities, via selling or applying
herbicides, to increase business volume and profits; or, an effort to
reduce or eliminate acreage in the Country that is certified organic.
Weeds are classified as noxious when they prone to spread,
are difficult to control, and pose a public health or economic threat to
citizens, public lands, and/or farming and ranching operations.
Ironically, by far the fastest growing and mostly economically damaging
noxious weeds in the U.S. are both noxious and spreading because they
have developed resistance to commonly applied herbicides, and especially
glyphosate.
There is near-universal agreement in the weed science
community nationwide, and surely as well in the PNW, that over-reliance
on glyphosate (Roundup) over the last two decades has created multiple,
new noxious weeds posing serious economic, environmental, and public
health threats.
In fact, over 120 million acres of cultivated cropland in the
U.S. is now infested with one or more glyphosate-resistant weed (for
details, see http://cehn-healthykids.org/herbicide-use/resistant-weeds/.
The majority of glyphosate-resistant weeds are in the
Southeast and Midwest, where routine, year-after-year planting of
Roundup Ready crops has led to heavy and continuous selection pressure
on weed populations, pressure that over three-to-six years typically
leads to the evolution of genetically resistant weed phenotypes, that
can then take off, spreading across tens of millions of acres in just a
few years.
Ask any farmer in Georgia, or Iowa, or Arkansas whether they
would call "noxious" the glyphosate-resistant kochia, Palmer amaranth,
Johnson grass, marestail, or any of a dozen other glyphosate-resistant
weeds in their fields.
It is virtually certain that an herbicide-based attempt to
eradicate noxious weeds in Sherman County would fail. It would also be
extremely costly, and would pose hard-to-predict collateral damage on
non-target plants from drift, and on human health and the environment.
But even worse, it would also, almost certainly, accelerate the
emergence and spread of a host of weeds resistant to the herbicides used
in the program.
This would, in turn, leave the county, and the county's
farmers with not just their existing suite of noxious weeds to deal
with, but a new generation of them resistant to glyphosate, or whatever
other herbicides are widely used.
Sherman County's proposal, while perhaps well meaning, will
simply push the herbicide use-resistant weed treadmill into high gear.
Just as farmers in other parts of the county have learned over the last
20 years, excessive reliance on glyphosate, or herbicides over-all,
accomplishes only one thing reliably - it accelerates the emergence and
spread of resistant weeds, requiring applications of more, and often
more toxic herbicides, and so on before some one, or something breaks
this vicious cycle.
I urge you to take into account two other consequences if the
County pursues this deeply flawed strategy. Certified organic food
products grown and processed in Oregon, and distributed by Oregon-based
companies like Azure and the Organically Grown Company, are highly
regarded throughout the U.S. for exceptional quality, consistency, and
value.
Plus, export demand is growing rapidly across several Pacific
Rim nations for high-value, certified organic foods and wine from
Oregon. Triggering a high-profile fight over government-mandated
herbicide spraying on certified organic fields in Sherman County will
come as a shock to many people, who are under the impression that all
Oregonians, farmers and consumers alike, are committed to a vibrant,
growing, and profitable organic food industry.
Does Sherman County really want to erode this halo benefiting
the marketing of not just organic products, but all food and beverages
from Oregon?
Second, if Sherman County is serious about weed eradication,
it will have to mandate widespread spraying countywide, and not just on
organic farms, and not just for one year. The public reaction will be
swift, strong, and build in ferocity. It will likely lead to civil
actions of the sort that can trigger substantial, unforeseen costs and
consequences. I am surely not the only citizen of the State that recalls
the tragic events last year in Malheur County.
Plus, I guarantee you that the County, the herbicide
applicators, and the manufacturers of the herbicides applied, under
force of law on organic or other farms, will face a torrent of
litigation seeking compensatory damages for loss of reputation, health
risks, and the loss of premium markets and prices.
I have followed litigation of this sort for decades, and have
served as an expert witness in several herbicide-related cases. While
it is obviously premature to start contemplating the precise legal
theories and statutes that will form the crux of future litigation, the
County should develop a realistic estimate of the legal costs likely to
arise in the wake of this strategy, if acted upon, so that the County
Commissioners can alert the public upfront regarding how they will raise
the funds needed to deal with the costs of near-inevitable litigation.
---end of Dr. Benbrook's letter---
Yesterday, Sunday, I emailed the Sherman County government
asking them whether they really intend to pursue this lunatic program.
If and when I receive an answer, I'll post it.
I also emailed Azure Farms, asking why they believe there is
no coverage of this issue in Oregon newspapers. If I get an answer, I'll
post that, too.
Ordinarily, local papers will print a stories about
contentious issues, however one-sided they may be. In this case, I find
nothing.
Is it possible the threat of herbicide spraying has been
overstated? Why would Azure issue a release claiming the spraying is
imminent if it weren't true? Why would Azure risk getting into a wrangle
with the County government if the threat weren't real? Why isn't there
any mention of the spraying program on the Sherman County website? Does
the County actually think they can keep their intentions under wraps?
"I have a great idea. Let's claim Azure Farms can't control
their weeds. Let's come in and invade them with Roundup and other toxic
chemicals. Let's destroy their organic farm. We know the spraying won't
wipe out the weeds---it'll make the situation worse. But who cares?
Let's open up ourselves to massive lawsuits. I'm sure Monsanto will give
us some legal help. We can set a fantastic precedent. No organic farm
is safe. No organic farmer has the right to protect his land from the
government. Isn't that a terrific idea?"
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Jon Rappoport
The
author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM
THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US
Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a
consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the
expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he
has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles
on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin
Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and
Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics,
health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.
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