La Vida Locavore is the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!
Agriculture
Chair: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Max Baucus (D-MT)
- Michael Bennet (D-CO)
- Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
- Bob Casey (D-PA)
- Kent Conrad (D-ND)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Pat Leahy (D-VT)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Mike Johanns (R-NE)
- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Pat Roberts (R-KS)
- John R. Thune (R-SD)
Appropriations
Chair: Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Robert Bennett (R-UT)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Arlen Specter (R-PA)
Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Agriculture
Chair: B Collin Peterson (D-MN)
V. Chair: B Tim Holden (D-PA)
B Joe Baca (D-CA)
- John Boccieri (D-OH)
B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Bobby Bright (D-AL)
B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
- Travis Childers (D-MS)
B Jim Costa (D-CA)
- Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
- Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)
B Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
- Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
B Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
- Steve Kagen (D-WI)
- Larry Kissell (D-NC)
B Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
- Betsy Markey (D-CO)
B Jim Marshall (D-GA)
P Eric Massa (D-NY)
B Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
- Walt Minnick (D-ID)
B Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
- Mark Schauer (D-MI)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
B David Scott (D-GA)
B Zachary Space (D-OH)
- Timothy Walz (D-MN)
- Frank Lucas (R-OK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- K. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Sam Graves (R-MO)
- Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Mike Rogers (R-AL)
- Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA) *=House Organic Caucus member B=Blue Dog Democrat
Appropriations
Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
- Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
*P Sam Farr (D-CA)
*P Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
- Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
- Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
* Tom Latham (R-IA) *=House Organic Caucus member
P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Education and Labor
P Chair: George Miller (D-CA)
- Jason Altmire (D-PA)
- Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
- Timothy Bishop (D-NY)
P Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
- Joe Courtney (D-CT)
- Susan Davis (D-CA)
P Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
P Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
P Phil Hare (D-IL)
- Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
P Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
- Rush Holt (D-NJ)
- Dale Kildee (D-MI)
P Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
P Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
- Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)
P Donald Payne (D-NJ)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Robert Scott (D-VA)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
P John Tierney (D-MA)
- Dina Titus (D-NV)
- Paul Tonko (D-NY)
P Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
- David Wu (D-OR)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Rob Bishop (R-UT)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
- Luis F Fortuno (R-PR)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
- Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA)
- John Kline (R-MN)
- Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
- Tom McClintock (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Thomas Petri (R-WI)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- Mark Souder (R-IN)
- GT Thompson (R-PA)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC) P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Mendocino County, CA broke new ground when it banned GMOs in its county. Since then other cities and counties in the U.S. and Canada have followed suit. GMOs aren't just an environmental issue. They also foster suspicion among neighbors for three good reasons:
1. Biotech companies offer rewards for anyone who reports his or her neighbors for illegally growing GMOs.
2. A farmer who uses GMOs may fear being sued for contaminating his or her neighbors' property.
3. Biotech companies get farmers caught with GMO crops they did not purchase (i.e. crops grown from seeds blown in the wind or via cross-pollination) to sign gag orders. This means that a farmer found contaminated with GMOs cannot discuss it with their neighbors (like, to find out where the GMOs came from or to compare notes on how to deal with Monsanto in such a case) after signing such an agreement.
In other words, as Schmeiser infers, GMOs contribute to the breakdown of community in rural areas.
Well, these local GMO bans are making some in Nebraska nervous. With its bill LB263, Nebraska stands poised to forbid cities and counties from regulating seeds, including GMOs, and fertilizer. It would become the 19th state to pass a pre-emptive seed law, according to the article, and the 14th to pass a law on fertilizer. This was put forward by Nebraska Sen. Kent Roberts. Please note that Nebraska has a unicameral (one house) legislature, so if the bill passes its one house, it goes to the governor - there's no second house that it has to pass. The Center for Rural Affairs calls the bill "a solution in search of a problem."
As you can see below, Sen. Carlson, who chairs the Ag committee, fully buys into the myth that the U.S. needs to boost production to feed the world - an argument often made to force those who might otherwise oppose GMOs to support them.
Nebraska needs to double its food production in the next 20 years to help feed the world, said Sen. Tom Carlson of Holdrege, chairman of the Agriculture Committee.
Genetically modified seeds will allow this to happen, he said.
"I think we are taking a proactive step," he said.
Several senators said they were uncomfortable approving a bill without clear problems, but the measure gained 35-2 first-round approval.
It seems that the only roadblock to this bill passing might be the provisions pre-empting local control of fertilizer. My hope is that the fertilizer issue is big enough to sink the bill, even though it could easily be amended to just cover seeds and then passed. Fertilizer runoff is a major environmental problem and local areas should have the ability to regulate it to keep their drinking water clean and their waterways healthy. As for the GMO part of the bill that seems inevitable? Well... write your Senators if you're in Nebraska, but it seems like it's too late.
I've been following the Scott Kleeb Senate race in Nebraska, and not only because Scott Kleeb is incredibly HOT. Kleeb raises beef (and even if he didn't - coming from Nebraska he'd have to know a thing or two about farming and ranching). The New Yorker has a piece on him called Where's the Beef? ... not terribly informative about how Kleeb will be for food and ag policy but at least it's not the hit job they did on Obama.
And he made references to his childhood: he grew up moving with his parents from one military base to another and spent time with his grandparents in Broken Bow, Nebraska. Then, in 1998, he started working summers on a ranch while getting his Ph.D., in American history. As part of his dissertation research, he spent a year living in his old pickup and driving around to state parks. Once, he was chased by a bear. The thesis topic? "The Atlantic West: Cowboys, Capitalists and the Making of an American Myth." "What's interesting is we tend to think about the cowboy as being this iconic American image, but in reality he resold his cattle globally, and he was part of the world economy," Kleeb said. He does something similar, raising organic Kobe beef, which he sells to restaurants in Los Angeles and Europe. "I spend my days doing paperwork," he said.
I guess we'll have to work on converting Kleeb over to the idea of local food?
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