VERMONT ACTION ITEM! Stop Agribusiness Power Grab

To my Vermont friends - check this out then call your Senators (it's really easy - they expect your calls)! The state's response to animal abuse is to appoint a board full of industry tradespeople and pass laws about the board, instead of just prosecuting the fuckers who've committed crimes of animal cruelty in factory farms. So please call!

Pesticide lobby bugged by White House organic garden

Sustainablog

Just a few days after Michelle Obama invited local fifth graders to help plant the White House Kitchen Garden, the MACA, a group which represents and is comprised of former executives from Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and DuPont Crop Protection, sent the White House a letter (which can be viewed in its entirety here) expressing their disappointment that she had not “recognize[d] the role conventional agriculture plays in the US.”

But that’s not all. The group went on to provide a dose of propaganda educational information, including little known fact that “technology allows for farmers to meet the increasing demand for food and fiber in a sustainable manner.” Drawing a clear line between technology, undefined, and sustainability does not, in the strictest terms, suggest the group’s total disapproval of organic farming methods.

That outright statement came in an email MACA sent their members shortly after sending the first lady aforementioned letter, in which they said that the idea of an organic garden “made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder.”

CONSERVATION CAN'T WAIT

"That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics." - Aldo Leopold, 1948

Note: The Vermont Housing and Conservation Board was last fully funded in 1987!

GREEN MOUNTAIN DAILY:- Here we go again... last week the Governor proposed a budget eliminating permanently affordable housing development efforts and completely eliminating conservation investments that boost our working land economy.

The Governor proposes a 70% reduction to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Budget on top of a series of cuts over the past seven years that had already meant a more than $30 million loss.

Let's not kid ourselves. This is a direct attack on the programs that house Vermont's workforce, provide the means to save family farms, protect recreation and sensitive natural areas and stimulate the economy.

The governor warned against the drastic wholesale elimination of programs and then proceeded to do just that. He said that it was obvious that we should eliminate our conservation program during difficult economic times.

Every day it seems we are hearing about additional losses of good jobs for Vermonters. In these times we need to look what helps Vermont's economy grow!