We need someone more in touch with farmers’ needs
To the editor:
You report that Antonio Delgado is appointing “farmers” to his Agriculture Advisory Committee “to help him better serve the farmers who live and work within his district.” My concern is that his committee does not seem to include any small or organic/biodynamic farmers, which we have a lot of in this district.
Though I preferred another candidate, I voted for Delgado because we needed to get rid of Faso. Now, I am starting to think we need someone more in touch with the real necessity of protecting our environment, not just for, but also from the farmers like the ones Delgado is listening to.
For instance, non-farmer Decker stated that she wants to loosen labeling for what qualifies as good food and then, according to the Register-Star, went on to say that she would like to see Delgado “address soil erosion and diminishing available valuable farm land.” First of all, the “all natural” label means nothing at all, and secondly, the type of farming those chosen for his committee are doing is the cause of that soil erosion and diminishing available valuable farm land. The problem is not the population increase as much as the depletion of the soil, pollution of soil and ground water, and nutrition lacking in food that results from their farming practices. Organic and biodynamic farming practices do not cause soil erosion, do not pollute the waters, do leave the soil fertile, and do produce good, nutritional food.
One of the farms owned by an appointee to his committee has 400 cows that never see the light of day. They have 2000 acres that the cows do not graze on. Do you call that farming? I call it animal abuse. And if the corn they grow is GMO, they are using huge amounts of an extremely toxic pesticide (glyphosate), which pollutes the soil, the water, and the crops.
We all need to pay attention to the disturbing realities of pollution, genetically modified foods, and toxic chemicals in our food that are caused by non-organic farmers, especially the factory farmers, when considering what food to buy and whom to appoint to committees.
Jan Kibler
Ghent
