The EPA helps end the era of the small farmer: an update to RFK Jr's Story

"The disappearance of the family farm has little to do with market forces. It is the direct consequence of government policies deliberately designed to favor agribusiness over traditional farmers."

So says Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in "Crimes of Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals are Plundering the Country and Hijacking our Democracy." Among the numerous scandals outlined in this book is the gutting of the EPA, how it has lost its mandate to protect the environment for American citizens, and how it has instead been converted into an enabler for polluting corporations. Kennedy explains (below):

"The fact is, an industrial meat factory cannot produce a pound of bacon or a pork chop cheaper than a family farmer without breaking the law. Several federal and state laws prohibit dumping waste into the environment. Traditional farms are exempt from these laws since they have enough land to use their manure as fertilizer to grow actual crops. Factory farms simply have too much waste per acre to put it to beneficial use. Hog barons build football-sized warehouses and cram genetically engineered hogs into tiny cages where they endure short, miserable lives deprived of sunlight, exercise, straw bedding and interaction with other animals....

"The waste stream from factory farms is prodigious, to say the least. A pig produces 10 times the fecal waste of a human being, and a facility with 50,000 hogs produces more waste than a city of half a million people."

Such waste can include any combination of nearly 400 toxins, including heavy metals, pesticides, antibiotics and disease-causing microbes.

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, did manage to win a shortlived victory for the North Carolina small farmers and fishermen directly affected by this nasty goop - a group known as the Waterkeeper Alliance who had filed a suit against the corporate polluter, Smithfield Foods. But it was only a few weeks after the Waterkeeper Alliance experienced the joy of winning their court case - the judge had determined that pig factories must have a Clean Water Act permit in order to operate legally - that they learned the EPA was going to side against them.

A group of lobbyists representing corporate farms requested that the EPA alter the pertinent Clean Air and Clean Water regulations in order to undermine the impact of the judge's earlier decision, and the EPA quickly moved to give them what they wanted, including a provision that allows such corporate polluters to pass their waste on to contract farmers, who will then be responsible for the waste. Since these contract farmers have no money, there is no way to fine them when the waste ends up polluting air and water. In a nutshell, the big corporate farms can go on freely polluting, with unfair competitive advantage over the family farmer granted by the very government organization paid for by the U.S. taxpayer for protection against polluters.

This isn't news - the story as told by Kennedy in his book is a couple of years old now, and if you've read the book, you know it already anyway. But there is a follow-up to this story, found here, EPA offers to limit fines to factory-style farms in exchange for data in the Detroit News Business section.

"Seeking data to enforce clean-air laws and possibly develop future regulations, the government on Friday told farms that generate huge amounts of animal waste they can escape potentially large fines if their air pollution is monitored.

"The offer by the Environmental Protection Agency is aimed at factory-style farms that process animals, particularly hog, chicken and egg operations.

"By signing on, the farms, increasingly run by a concentrated few companies, agree to abide by clean air, hazardous waste and emergency reporting laws after the data is collected. They would pay $2,500 into an EPA fund and agree to let EPA-approved contractors monitor the air. The fund would pay for two years of air monitoring at 28 to 30 farms nationwide at a cost of up to $500,000 each."

Note the throwaway comment that these farms are "increasingly run by a concentrated few companies" - a fact that in itself is a result of government regulations favoring the big guys. Now add to that the $2500 they have to pay - a pittance - for freely polluting the air and water which is supposed to belong to everyone.

"Environmentalists described EPA's offer as a "backroom deal" that will harm public health.

"Rural families have been suffering from this pollution for years, and now they will have to wait," said Ed Hopkins, environmental quality director for the Sierra Club. "This is an agreement of the polluters, by the polluters, and for the polluters."

Note: This is my first diary, so if I did something wrong, please point it out. I noticed this story come and go so fast, with hardly any "outrage" in the press, I thought I would bring it up here.