In a case brought by Center for FoodSafety and Earthjustice representing acoalition of farmers and con-sumers, a Federal Courtruled yesterday that theBush USDA’sapproval of geneti-cally engineered(GE) “RoundUpReady” sugar beetswas unlawful. TheCourt ordered theUSDA to conduct arigorous assessmentof the environmentaland economic impactsof the crop on farmersand the environment.

The federal district court forthe Northern District of Californiaruled that the U. S. Department of Agri-

nized growing and processing equip-ment has resulted in fewer humanhands working with larger machinesand larger acreage. Proponents of thecurrent food production system

applaud this transition as the liberationof millions of people from the drudgeryof farming and the isolation of rural

INSIDE THIS ISSUEFinding Common Ground on

Genetic Engineering....................2

Letter to the Editor ..........................2

Obama Caves in to Agribusiness......4

Voices of Maine’s Landless .............5

Report from the US Working Group on the Food Crisis September Meeting ....................6

Food for Maine’s Future News .........7

Crown Of Maine Organic CooperativeReceives 1st Annual Jim Cook Memorial Award .........................8

Low Down on the Newly Enacted 1000 Bird Poultry Exemption ......8

Realizing the Vision by Building Community.................................9

Groundfishing in Eastern Maine: A new beginning? .....................10

Peasants Worldwide Rise up AgainstMonsanto, GMOs .....................11

Wendell Berry Chooses Jail Over NAIS ................................11

La Via Campesina Wins First Food Sovereignty Prize ..............11

Notebook From Mexico ..................12

Agriculture Supported Community ~ The “Crop” of the Future...........14

Sign Up for Port Clyde Fresh CatchCSF Shrimp..............................15

To the Root: RCAM ........................15

Bringing Food Home: The Maine Example ...................................16

Film Review: The Fish Belong to the People.................................16

Local Food Clubs: Eating Their Words ...................17

2009 Maine Food Policy Watch Recap............................18

Wise Words From Jim Cook ...........19

17 Steps to a Successful Local Food Buying Club......................20

Ask CR . . . ...................................20

Thy No Till .....................................21

New Book Looks at Root Causes of Food Crisis...........................22

The Maine Local Twenty.................23

Stop ‘Monsantosizing’ Food, Seeds and Animals! .................23

Food for Maine’s Future LaunchesPetition Calling on on MPBN to Air ‘The World According to Monsanto’ ...........................24

Food for Maine’s Future Receives $35K Challenge Grant ..............24

Become A Member!.......................24

Issue #8 - Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

3 Flower Farm LaneSedgwick, ME 04676

At the beginning of the 20th cen-tury nearly 40% of the U.S.labor force were employed in

farming. By the end the century 1% ofpeople in the U.S. claimed farming astheir occupation and the U.S. CensusBureau was no longer counting thenumber of people who lived on farms.The trend is reversing, albeit slowly, asthe local foods movement gains steamand people hunger for good food witha name and a face. As a result, the cen-tury-long demise of the family farm isrevealing deficiencies within local andregional foodsheds. In some placesdemand is outstripping supply, as wefind there are no longer enoughproviders of the local, seasonal, chemi-cal-and-patent-free food so many nowcrave.

A number of developments areresponsible for the decline of farmingand farm life, but perhaps none moreso than large-scale mechanization.Whereas food just a hundred years agowas produced largely by hand with thehelp of animals, the advent of mecha-

culture’s Animal and Plant HealthInspection Service (“APHIS”) violated

the National EnvironmentalPolicy Act (“NEPA”)

when it failed to pre-pare an Environmen-

tal Impact State-ment (“EIS”)before deregulat-ing sugar beetsthat have beengenetically engi-neered (“GE”) to

be resistant toglyphosate herbi-

cide, marketed byMonsanto as Roundup.

Plaintiffs Center for FoodSafety, Organic Seed Alliance,

Sierra Club, and High Mowing Seeds,represented by Earthjustice and the

FREE

Will Work for Food & CommunityCo-Producers and the New Food Economy

by Bob St.Peter

Center for Food Safety, filed suitagainst APHIS in January 2008, alleg-ing APHIS failed to adequately assessthe environmental, health, and associ-ated economic impacts of allowing“Roundup Ready” sugar beets to becommercially grown without restric-tion.

“This court decision is a wakeup callfor the Obama USDA that they will notbe allowed to ignore the biological pol-lution and economic impacts of genealtered crops,” stated Andrew KimbrellExecutive Director of the Center forFood Safety. “The Courts have made itclear that USDA’s job is to protectAmerica’s farmers and consumers, notthe interests of Monsanto.”

While industry asserts that the

Court Finds USDA Violated Federal Law by AllowingGenetically Engineered Sugar Beets on the MarketGovernment Failed To Evaluate Environmental and Economic Risks of Monsanto Product

by Center for Food Safety

MAINE’S FOOD SOVEREIGNTY JOURNAL

“Building a just, secure, sustainable and

democratic food system.”

See WILL WORK FOR FOOD on page 3

Kat

hryn

Sim

onds

pho

to

See USDA VIOLATED LAW on page 4

LOOK INSIDE:• Food for Maine’s Future News

$35K Challenge Grant - See pages 7 & 24FMF Participates in US Working Group on the Food CrisisMore!

• 2009 Maine Food Policy Watch Recap

• New FeaturesTo the Root: RCAM ProfileDIY: Saving Seeds, Growing Great Corn, Buying Clubs

• Creating Agriculturally Supported Communities

WWW.FOODFORMAINESFUTURE.ORG 3 FLOWER FARM LANE, SEDGWICK, MAINE 04676 207-244-0908

Page 2 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

ABOUT

Food for Maine’s Future is pleasedto present our eighth issue of SavingSeeds. Named after the age old prac-tice threatened by a rapidly consoli-dating seed industry and U.S. andinternational laws that restrictfarmer’s rights, to the benefit ofpowerful multinational corpora-tions, this bi-annual newspaperprovides readers with the latestnews and views from the growinginternational movement for foodsovereignty. Please share it with afriend.

Eighth Issue: Fall 2009 / Winter 2010

Circulation: 7,500 print run

SAVING SEEDSA Publication of

Food for Maine’s Futurewww.foodformainesfuture.orgFood for Maine’s Future3 Flower Farm LaneSedgwick, ME 04676

PublisherFood for Maine’s Future

EditingBob St.Peter CR Lawn

Layout/Design/ProductionLynn Pussic

Food for Maine’s Future GraphicEric G

Saving Seeds Logo DesignBeehive Collective

Board of Directors:

Rachel Katz, PresidentCR Lawn, TreasurerMerry Hall, ClerkTess WoodsBetsy GarroldLogan PerkinsHowdy HoughtonJim Amaral

Food forMaine’s FutureMission Statement

Food for Maine’s Future seeks to

build a just, secure, sustainable and

democratic food system to the bene-

fit of all Maine farmers, communi-

ties, and the environment. U

Editorial

The articles in this publication do notnecessarily reflect the views or posi-tions of Food for Maine’s Future.

Following the ACF Committee’s April17 hearings on three GMO bills I took theopportunity to talk with three organicdairy farmers who had come for themorning’s hearings. Just prior to lunch,all stood and testified that they had cometo oppose any and all bills that wouldplace restrictions on the growing of GEcrops in the state on the grounds that“farmers need to be working together.”Since I agreed that farmers workingtogether is generally a good idea I won-dered why we couldn’t agree on othersthings. Like supporting LD 1202, whichhad nothing to do with restricting thegrowing of GMO crops in Maine andeverything to do with protecting basiclegal rights for farmers.

After introducing myself I said I sup-ported LD 1202 because a large numberof farmers and farm businesses in theU.S. have been investigated and sued forpatent violations. They have paid Mon-santo over $160 million in damages, cre-ating a culture of fear and intimidation inrural communities. My beef, I told them,was with the aggressive targeting offarmers by Monsanto and unjust patentlaws, not with Maine farmers who do ordo not want to grow GMOs.

They listened, then told me a littleabout being a dairy farmer in Maine. Los-ing a contract with a hundred lactatingcows in the barn and a lifetime of invest-ment on the line. Facing bankruptcybecause you have no place to sell yourmilk. Or if you can sell it, facing a pricethat is so low you can’t make a living anyway. Just a few minutes into the con-versation I could see we were approach-ing common ground. Soon we were inagreement as to the real enemies of thefamily farmer — Big Business and theGovernment Policies that help them atthe expense of small and medium-sizedproducers.

These are the conversations farmers,farm advocates, and food buyers ought tobe having. Instead we often get distractedby manufactured issues, like how regu-lating corporate control of the food sys-tem is “pitting farmer against farmer”. Ilearned in public speaking class that redherrings are a good way to keep peoplefrom focusing on the issue at hand. Per-haps this is why we have heard this linerepeated so often in the ten-plus yearsMaine has been debating GMOs. It’s easyto dismiss concerns about health implica-tions, corporate accountability, thepreservation of biodiversity, and the fail-ure of GMO technology to increase yieldsor help people out of poverty if theycome from “anti-farmer activists”.

The real issues, however, are a littleharder to dismiss.

The right of farmers to save seed and haveaccess to diverse seed stocks. As the seedindustry has consolidated into relativelyfew hands farmers have found them-selves facing rising seeds costs and feweroptions. I have heard farmers from bothIowa and Arkansas say how difficult it isto find nonGMO seed for certain crops.Even those who want to grow GMOs arefinding they have to buy the latest, morecostly, seed varieties. This means farmershave less choice about the seeds theygrow and which companies they buyfrom.

The narrow choice in seed options isalso reducing the genetic diversity of theworld’s major grain crops. Research andtraditional plant breeding suffer whenthey can’t have access to patent-protectedgenetic material. Funding for land-grantuniversities has been slashed, allowingthe private sector to step in with themoney and direct research heavilytowards genetic engineering. In somecases corporations are able to fund publicuniversities and claim ownership overthe research products, effectively usingpublic universities for their private gain.

Most troubling is the disproportionateamount of money and support forbiotechnology R&D, which comes at theexpense of agroecological research andsuccessful traditional methods. TheGMO crops thus far commercializedhave failed to produce better seeds or bet-ter crops, or even come close to solvingthe problem of global hunger. Two recentstudies have found this to be the case: theUnion of Concerned Scientist report Fail-ure to Yield found that traditional plantbreeding far exceeded genetic engineer-ing in boosting crop yields; and the Inter-national Assessment of AgriculturalKnowledge, Science, and Technology forDevelopment found that agriculturalbiotechnology has primarily benefitedcorporations and the wealthy at theexpense of the poor.

As long as patent laws continue toallow corporations like Monsanto to usetheir ownership of seeds to intimidateand sue farmers, claims of human or eco-logical benefit are suspect. Let’s talkabout the “promise of biotechnology”after the right to save seed is returnedand diverse seed stocks are rebuilt andplaced back in the public domain.

The right of food buyers to be reasonablyand responsibly informed about what they areeating. U.S. food and beverage regula-tions require labels for all sorts of reasons;ingredients, cooking instructions, choles-terol content, whether it’s a threat to thehealth of pregnant women. Why not alabel that says “contains genetically-modified ingredients”? There are labels

in other countries, including England,which means labels are already beingprinted in English. In the spirit of com-promise, the same companies that nowconduct the tests used to sue U.S. farmersfor tens of millions could be hired toserve the public interest by testing prod-ucts for GMOs.

There are no labels in the U.S. becausethe government says genetically-engi-neered food is “substantially equivalent”to non-genetically-engineered food andthat it is “Generally Regarded as Safe”(GRAS). But U.S. regulatory agencieshave made mistakes before. DDT, leadpaint, and a long list of food and drugrecalls come to mind. Genetic engineer-ing of our food has been around for lesstime than the band U2. If one chooses tobe cautionary and avoid GMO food, orjust avoid too much of it, is it unreason-able to ask for a label? Shoppers who readcan easily avoid transfats, Yellow #5, andeven 500 calorie microwavable breakfastsandwiches. But not GMOs. What gives?

What gives is that there is enormousfinancial incentive for maintaining thestatus quo. The substantial equivalenceand GRAS designations minimize testingrequirements, reducing R&D costs andspeeding the route to market. But moreimportantly, U.S. people have been veryclear in polls that they don’t want GMOsin their food. Labels would give them achoice, and if true to their word, mostpeople would not buy transgenic food. Soas long as GMOs are not labeled the buy-ing public can be kept ignorant aboutwhat they are buying.

The official line on GMOs is bolsteredby the revolving door between thebiotechnology industry and key U.S.health, safety, and environmental protec-tion agencies. The Supreme Court, Foodand Drug Administration, EnvironmentalProtection Agency, and the Pentagon haveall had high level biotech executives orattorneys in high-level positions. As oneexample among many, Former Secretaryof Defense Donald Rumsfeld was chair-man and chief executive officer of G. D.Searle & Co., which Monsanto purchasedin 1985. Rumsfeld personally made at least$12 million from the transaction.

Whatever the intentions of corporateexecutives and government power bro-kers the result is a food system wherefarmers have less choice about what theygrow and consumers are kept in the darkabout what they are eating. If we are to beinformed food buyers and effective pro-ducers with basic rights we need to starttalking about what is really at stake.Choice and rights for the farmer, choiceand rights for the eater. May this be ourcommon ground. U

Finding Common Ground on Genetic Engineeringby Bob St.Peter

Sunday at the Fair Yields Bounty

Dear editor,The 2009 growing season is coming

to an end. It was a bit of a rainy begin-ning, the slugs were in full force, but it’sfall now and everyone loves fall! Fallhere in Maine means colors, apples, andwhat a lot of us wait all year for, theCommon Ground Fair. I was luckyenough to have a booth with somefriends in the farmers’ market sectionthis year. It was a great experience to bepart of the vending side of the fair. Wegot the chance to talk to all walks of life

Letter to the Editor about our products and make some real-ly cool connections. We even had a highschool class come to our booth for somehomework! The Common Ground Fairis just what it says, we all come out of thewood work for three days to share ourstories, lives, and all the products wehave been working so hard on all year.The last day of the fair was a bit of a wetone. My product can’t stand out in therain so I had to be innovative if I didn’twant to go home with what I brought. Inall the other farmers markets I have par-ticipated in we barter at the end. It’s agreat way to go home with all sorts offarm fresh goodies like goat cheese,meat, milk, veggies, or even homemadesoap. I went around to some vendors

and started asking if they would like tobarter and had tremendous success.Some folks there were really excitedabout trading goods. That’s all I endedup doing the whole last day. Goinghome with everything from apple pie,honey, and winter squash, to Christmascards and candle holders was way betterthan trading my product for papermoney. There is something so magicalabout bartering. We get so much happierabout the exchange. It feels more likethat’s the way life should be. Only untilthe last tree is cut down and the last riveris polluted will we realize that we can’teat money.

Travis Roderick, Living Roots FarmMilbridge U

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 3

life. Even if one doesn’t associate farm-work with drudgery or likes living inthe country, it is hard to disagree thathaving such a small number of peoplefeeding such a large population isindeed a stunning achievement ofhuman ingenuity.

Critics, however, challenge thevalue of basing success on how muchfood can be produced by how few peo-ple. The rapid and large-scale mecha-nization of our food system is cited asthe death of rural communities and thepoint of departure from where humanbeings began to disconnect with theearth and each other. It is also the pointat which human health began to dete-riorate as the common diet of whole,organic foods was replaced with themodern diet of highly processed foodsladen with new chemical additives.Agrarian and poet Wendell Berry con-sistently reminds us that what we havegained in technological advancementshave come at a great price. He writesthat industrial agriculture has “calledfor the massive use of chemical fertiliz-ers to offset the destruction of topsoiland the depletion of natural fertility. Itcalled also for the displacement ofnearly the entire farming populationand the replacement of their labor andgood farming practices by machinesand toxic chemicals.”

The growth of the local food move-ment has brought about a wave of nos-talgia for farm life and a newfoundrespect for working with the hands. Ithas also brought about a resurgence ofsupport for family farms that is chal-lenging some of the assumptions of theindustrial food paradigm. The grow-ing popularity of open farm days,community-supported agriculture,and agro-tourism (where someone elsebesides the farmer has to pay to farm)all indicate a collective yearning toreconnect with food at the source andwith the people who provide it. Itseems that after three-generations ofturning our collective backs on sweat,dirt, manure, and those who work theland many are beginning to realizewhat they have been missing.

Enter the Co-ProducerSlow Food founder Carlo Petrini

coined the term “co-producer”because for him a “consumer is some-one who steals from and destroys theplanet. To be a co-producer means tobe responsible. It means to be rich inculture, education, understandinghow food is made, understanding thenecessities of farmers.” For Petrini andSlow Food, a co-producer is someonewho makes buying choices that “main-tain a close relationship with smallfarmers, fishermen, livestock breeders,producers of wine or cheese. A co-pro-ducer not only purchases from thesepeople but asks them for informationand advice so as to recognize qualita-tive differences and be able to eat in ahealthier, tastier and more responsibleway.”

While buying good food from peo-ple you know and trust may beenough participation for some, otherco-producers choose to keep theirmoney in their wallets and put on apair of work gloves instead.

Mia Strong of Blue Hill is one of agrowing number of co-producers whoare lending a hand to build a morefamily-farm centered food system. Shefirst went to work as a co-producer forthe food but stayed for the community

she soon became part of. “At first I didit for the food you receive for thework,” says Mia, “which is alwaysgood with a large family. But nowbecause it is helping out friends.”

Mia, husband Al, son Steven, andmom, Caroline, have helped out fami-ly farms in her community by doing avariety of farm chores, like weeding,processing chickens, attending farm-ers’ markets, and preparing farmlunches. The Strong family live andwork within a new food paradigm that

bridges the gap between food buyerand food producer. They teach us thatthere this an important role for peoplewho desire the connections of familyfarm life but who don’t want to dropeverything to take up commercial orsubsistence farming themselves.

For those who want to do morethan shop their way to a better foodsystem, hands-on co-production offersa remedy for both bad food and thedisconnection from the land and peo-ple who keep us well-fed and nour-

ished. This growing recognition - thatthrough food we can build community- is creating an army of people readyand willing to acquaint themselveswith the tactile work of providing fortheir sustenance. Most will buy a CSAor CSF share or shop at farmers’ mar-kets for the social connections. Somewill put on muck boots and clean astall in exchange for milk and veggies.In this evolution known as the localfoods movement there is room and arole for everyone.

Bringing it HomeOld Ackley Farm in Blue Hill is one

of a growing number of farms embrac-ing co-production and finding thepartnerships that develop to be invalu-able to their operations. On any givenday at the farm you may find a co-pro-ducer weeding gardens, preparingfarm lunch, processing pasture-raisedpoultry, or packing up farm productsfor one of the three summer farmers’markets they attend each week. Hav-ing embraced co-production, the farmhas become a place where many handsmake for lighter work.

Bob Sullivan, owner of Old AckleyFarm, and his partner Colleen Prentissfind that operating a diversified farmrequires a lot work. “We can’t do thisall ourselves,” Bob says. But the eco-nomics of small-scale farming makepaid farm labor prohibitive. Scaling upto earn more money to pay help is notan attractive option for maintainingthe quality of life on the farm, nor

would it attract the same type of peo-ple. “[Co-production] gives peoplewho really want to do it an opportuni-ty to do it,” he notes. As a result, thefolks who come are generally self-motivated and enthusiastic. Someeven get the priceless opportunity to“relive their childhood.”

When asked if there is any kind ofscreening process, Colleen replies thatthey simply “tell people the truth - weneed your help.” She explains what isneeded and plugs people in where

they can be of most benefit to the farm.This involves a sizing-up of sorts to geta sense of what the prospective co-pro-ducer has in his or her skill set. Occa-sionally someone will do a mediocrejob, but Colleen notes that “the majori-ty of people who come to help havereally done a good job.”

Occasionally pay is offered for lessglamorous chores like weeding, butthose who sign up are just as likely totake food instead. One co-producerwho spent a morning weeding was to

receive a chicken and $10 an hour, butchose the chicken, milk, eggs, and adelicious farm lunch instead. Colleenrecounted the surprise of another whoexpected nothing at all in return for herefforts. This co-producer was takenaback when offered a chicken inexchange for making a delivery to arestaurant 15 miles away. “She washappy just to help,” laughs Colleen.

Although Bob technically owns thefarm, he views it as more of a commu-nity resource with he and Colleenserving as stewards shepherding thefarm along. “The farm is not reallyours,” he says, “it’s part of the commu-nity.”

“My friends are fascinated by lifehere,” says Colleen, then quickly adds,“and supportive.” This was apparentthe day we talked. By the time we satdown no less than eight people hadbeen working on the farm, nearly alltrading their labor for food. Otherscame by to chat, borrow equipment,and buy food. All before lunch.

Towards an Agriculturally-Supported Community

The idea that industrial agriculturefrees people from toil and burdenmisses two key points of what somehave called “the good life” - completedependency on others for the basics ofsurvival is not freedom; and being aproducer of food, especially one’sown, is neither toil nor burdensome.The latter has perhaps been this cul-ture’s best kept secret, hidden away by

WILL WORK FOR FOOD continued from 1

the agro-industrial complex so theymay profit from the fracture of bothfood and community. People like Mia,Bob, and Colleen have figured out thatproducing food is personally satisfy-ing and lots of fun. Working with otherpeople towards a common goal onlyadds to their bounty.

Producers and co-producers work-ing together to feed their community isa triple-threat to industrial agriculture.By providing access to good food out-side the market economy in return forhelping family farmers competeagainst unfair subsidies andeconomies of scale, social relationshipsare being rebuilt that undermine ananonymous, corporate food chain. Inthe process a new food system is beingcreated that is nourishing to the body,spirit, and a rural way of life.

Mia Strong and her family havecontributed to the viability of familyfarming and found an important rolefor themselves in their local food econ-omy. They sowed seeds that bore thefruit of good food and good friend-ships. “That has been our greatestreward,” says Mia, “that not only arewe eating healthy local foods but thatwe have gained so much just fromknowing [such] wonderful hard work-ing people.”

And for Bob and Colleen at OldAckley Farm, “there really is no betterway to feed our community.”

People with gratitude doing mean-ingful work together producing greatfood? Sounds like an idea whose timehas come. Again.

Epilogue: On Saturday, October 17Colleen gave birth to Charles in Blue Hill.Food for Maine’s Future wishes Bob,Colleen, and Charles happiness and goodhealth. U

Kat

hryn

Sim

onds

pho

to

“The farm is not really ours, it’s part of the community.”

Old Ackley Farm42 Ackley Farm RoadBlue Hill, ME 04614

Old Ackley Farm is a small familyfarm serving the Blue Hill peninsu-la. We are pasture based whichmeans our animals are raised out-doors on pasture and moved tofresh pasture on a regular basis.Our beef and dairy are 100% grass-fed (our raw milk is available onlyat our farm store). Our poultry(chicken, duck, turkey, eggs) are allraised on pasture and fed organicgrain. Our pigs are raised on pas-ture and allowed to root. They aresupplemented with grain and veg-etables from the garden. All of ouranimals are raised naturally and ina stress free environment. They areallowed to express themselves asnature intended. U

1,600,000 acres - The amount of land the MaineDepartment of Agriculture estimates to be currently inuse as farmland. Maine’s Farmland ProtectionProgram has set a goal of permanently protecting250,000 of those acres by 2025.

400,000 acres - The amount of productive farmlandMaine Farmland Trust (MFT) expects to change handsover the next 15 years as the older generation of farm-ers retire and pass on. MFT, through its conservationand Buy-Protect-Sell programs, have set a goal of per-manently protecting 100,000 of those acres.

160,000 acres - The amount of Maine’s highly-pro-ductive farmland that has been lost to residential andcommercial development over the last 10 years.

160 acres - The average farm size in Maine, accordingto the 2007 USDA census data. Ninety-four percent ofthe farms included in the report are less than 500acres, with nearly 2/3 of those farms under 99 acres.

5 acres - The amount of land M.G. Kains wrote in1973 was necessary for “happy, prosperous, andinteresting lives.”

BT SWEET CORN GIVEN THE GREEN LIGHT IN MAINE

In June 2009 Maine became thelast state in the U.S. to permit thegrowing of genetically-engineered Btsweet corn. This follows the 2008decision to allow Maine to becomethe last state in the U.S. to allow Btfield corn to be grown. Bt, or bacillusthuringiensis, is a soil-dwelling bac-terium that is inserted into the DNAof the corn, causing the corn itself tobecome a pesticide for controllingcabbage worm, tomato and tobaccohornworm, European corn borer, andother insects. The bill allowing Btcorn was passed by the MaineLegislature on June 2 and singed intolaw on June 9.

GERMANY BANS CULTIVATION OF GM CORNSpiegel Online (Germany)

(April 14, 2009) Germany hasbanned the cultivation of GM corn,claiming that MON 810 is dangerousfor the environment. But that argu-ment might not stand up in court andBerlin could face fines totaling mil-lions of euros if American multination-al Monsanto decides to challenge theprohibition on its seed.

The sowing season may be justaround the corner, but this yearGerman farmers will not be plantinggenetically modified crops: GermanAgriculture Minister Ilse Aignerannounced Tuesday she was banningthe cultivation of GM corn inGermany.

Under the new regulations, thecultivation of MON 810, a GM cornproduced by the American biotechgiant Monsanto, will be prohibited inGermany, as will the sale of its seed.Aigner told reporters Tuesday shehad legitimate reasons to believe thatMON 810 posed “a danger to theenvironment,” a position which shesaid the Environment Ministry alsosupported. In taking the step, Aigneris taking advantage of a clause in EUlaw which allows individual countriesto impose such bans.

“Contrary to assertions statingotherwise, my decision is not politi-cally motivated,” Aigner said, refer-ring to reports that she had comeunder pressure to impose a ban fromwithin her party, the conservativeBavaria-based Christian Social Union.She stressed that the ban should beunderstood as an “individual case”and not as a statement of principleregarding future policy relating togenetic engineering.

Ed. Note: MON 810, also knownas YieldGuard Corn Borer, is a Btvariety permitted for use in Maine.

MONSANTO FILES LAWSUITAGAINST GERMANY OVERBT CORN BAN

Monsanto, the world’s biggestseed company, filed a lawsuit lastApril to end Germany’s ban on grow-ing its genetically modified (GMO)maize.

On Tuesday, Monsanto said it hadstarted legal action against the deci-sion on April 14 by GermanAgriculture Minister Ilse Aigner to bancultivation and sale of Monanto’sMON 810 GMO maize which stoppedit being sown for this year’s harvest.

Monsanto hoped a court decisionwould be available by mid-May whichwould permit the maize to be sownfor this year’s harvest, a Monsantospokesman said.

An application for an urgent hear-ing had been made in a German dis-

Page 4 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

continued on page 6

NEWS & NOTES

“Lobbyists won’t find a job in myWhite House.” President Obamaassured us with this claim upon inau-guration. And yet he just nominated totwo key posts “Big Ag” industry powerbrokers, who come straight from thechemical pesticide and biotechnologysectors. While they may not be regis-tered as lobbyists, both men come fromorganizations representing powerfulagribusiness interests, which everyyear spend millions of dollars in lobby-ing to advance their companies’ chemi-cal and transgenic products.

Obama has tapped Roger Beachy,long-time president of the DanforthPlant Science Center (Monsanto’s non-profit arm) as chief of the USDA’snewly created National Institute ofFood and Agriculture (NIFA). Createdby the 2008 Farm Bill, NIFA is the newmeans of awarding the USDA’s exter-nal research dollars. As the director ofNIFA (a nomination that doesn’t re-quire congressional approval), Beachywill oversee the distribution of nearly$500 million in grants and otherresearch funding. Sustainable agricul-ture initiatives are likely to suffer, asresearch dollars are awarded to projectsthat promote Beachy’s vested interestsin biotechnology.

Islam Siddiqui, currently the VP ofScience and Regulatory Affairs atCropLife USA, was nominated to thepost of Chief Agricultural Negotiatorfor the U.S. Trade Representative’soffice. Why the president would nomi-nate someone from the group that infa-mously chided the First Lady for refus-ing to use pesticides on the WhiteHouse garden is a bit of a mystery, butperhaps it has something to do with all

the money and work as a fundraiserthat Siddiqui put into Obama’s cam-paign. This critical position is designedto use free trade agreements to open upforeign markets for U.S. agriculturegoods-mostly to promote chemical-intensive, genetically modified prod-ucts that undermine local food culturesin developing countries.

It’s crucial that the Senate FinanceCommittee hears from public witness-es while investigating his past roles. AtCropLife International, Siddiqui led aninitiative to weaken restrictions againstfertilizers and pesticides, as part of theWorld Trade Organization’s DohaRound of negotiations. He also servedas the senior agricultural trade advisorduring the Clinton administration, andpressed for getting genetically modi-fied crops and seeds approved for com-mercial use in the United States.

Now the United States will continueits efforts to export the worst aspects ofU.S. agriculture to other countries,many of which are deeply wary ofgenetically modified seeds and theimpacts of toxic pesticides on theircommunities. Mirroring those con-cerns, a landmark comprehensive Unit-ed Nations and World Bank- sponsoredInternational Assessment of Agricul-tural Knowledge, Science, and Technol-ogy for Development (IAASTD) hassaid that one of the best ways to feedthe world is to increase investments inagro-ecological science and farming.

We don’t need more geneticallymodified seeds. What we need isenforcement of antitrust laws to breakup monopoly control of the global foodsystem, and fairer-not “freer”-tradearrangements to overcome poverty and

adoption rates of GE sugar beets hasbeen high, food producers have shownreluctance in accepting GE beet sugar.Over 100 companies have joined theNon-GM Beet Sugar Registry opposingthe introduction of GE sugar beets, andpledging to seek wherever possible toavoid using GM beet sugar in theirproducts.

Sugar beet seed is grown primarilyin Oregon’s Willamette Valley, which isalso an important seed growing areafor crops closely related to sugar beets,such as organic chard and table beets.GE sugar beets are wind pollinated andwill inevitably cross-pollinate the relat-ed crops being grown in the same area.Such biological contamination wouldbe devastating to organic farmers, whoface debilitating market losses if theircrops are contaminated by a GE variety.Contamination also reduces the abilityof conventional farmers to decide whatto grow, and limits consumer choice ofthe foods they can eat. In his September21, 2009 order requiring APHIS to pre-pare an EIS, Judge Jeffrey S. Whiteemphasized that “the potential elimi-nation of a farmer’s choice to grownon-genetically engineered crops, or aconsumer’s choice to eat non-genetical-ly engineered food, is an action thatpotentially eliminates or reduces theavailability of a particular plant has asignificant effect on the human envi-ronment.”

The Court concluded that there was“no support in the record” for APHIS’conclusion that conventional sugarbeets would remain available for farm-

ers and consumers and held that theagency’s decision that there would beno impacts from the GE beets “unrea-sonable.”

The Court also held that APHISfailed to analyze the impacts of biologi-cal contamination on the related cropsof red table beets and Swiss chard.“Organic seed is the foundation oforganic farming and organic foodintegrity, said Mathew Dillion, Directorof Advocacy of the Organic SeedAlliance. “We must continue to protectthis natural resource, along with therights of organic farmers to be protect-ed from negative economic impactfrom GE crops, and consumers rights’to choose to eat food free of GE compo-nents.”

“The ruling is a major consumer vic-tory for preserving the right to growand eat organic foods in the UnitedStates,” stated Neil Carman of the Sier-ra Club. “Environmental impacts ofRoundup Ready sugar beets were alsonot considered by APHIS, and theyneed to be fully evaluated.”

“Roundup Ready” crops allowfarmers to douse their fields with Mon-santo’s Roundup herbicide withoutkilling the crop. Constant application ofthe herbicide has resulted in the rapidemergence of Roundup-resistantweeds. There are now millions of acresacross the U.S. infested with such“superweeds,” including marestail,pigweed and ragweed, and farmers areusing greater applications of Roundupor other, even more toxic chemicals.According to an independent analysisof USDA data by the former ExecutiveDirector of the National Academy ofSciences’ Board on Agriculture, Dr.

Charles Benbrook, GE crops increasedherbicide use in the U.S. by 138 millionpounds in the nine years from1996(when GE Roundup Ready crops wereintroduced) to 2004.

Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoffnoted, “Although touted by Monsantoas offering all sorts of benefits, GEcrops offer consumers nothing, and aredesigned primarily to sell herbicides.The end result of their use is more toxi-cs in our environment and our food,disappointed farmers, and revenue forMonsanto.”

A 2008 scientific study revealed thatRoundup formulations and metabolicproducts cause the death of humanembryonic, placental, and umbilicalcells in vitro even at low concentra-tions. Other recent studies suggest thatingredients in Roundup are endocrinedisrupters, and that exposure toRoundup is lethal to some species ofamphibians.

In addition, Judge Jeffrey S. White -in his ruling - has scheduled a meetingin his courtroom on October 30, 2009 todiscuss the remedies phase of the case,including potential injunctive relief.There is increasing speculation that theDepartment of Justice’s antitrust divi-sion is scrutinizing Monsanto’sallegedly anticompetitive practices inthe markets for GE seeds and traits.The case is Center for Food Safety v.Vilsack, No. C 08-00484 JSW (N.D. Cal.2009). The decision follows on the heelsof a June 2009 decision from the NinthCircuit Court of Appeals affirming theillegality of the APHIS’ approval ofMonsanto’s genetically engineeredalfalfa. U

USDA VIOLATED LAW continued from 1

hunger around the world. The Obama administration has

made tremendous strides towardsencouraging the growth of the localfood movement, and its connections tohuman health and ecological impacts.The White House organic garden andthe farmers market spearheaded byMichelle Obama are important symbol-ic gestures, as is the USDA’s new“Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food”initiative. However, these latestappointments of industry insiders totwo of the most influential offices thatwill shape U.S. food and agriculturalpolicy at home and abroad call intoquestion just how committed theObama administration is to promotingsustainable agriculture and reducinghunger in the developing world.

We must also question how pre-pared the president is to break withpast administrations’ track record ofcoddling special interests.

Kathy Ozer is the executive director ofthe National Family Farm Coalition, andMarcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, is the seniorscientist at the Pesticide Action NetworkNorth America and a lead author on theUN-sponsored International Assessment ofAgricultural Knowledge, Science, andTechnology for Development (IAASTD).The National Family Farm Coalition(NFFC) is a national link for grassrootsorganizations working on family farmissues. www.nffc.net. Pesticide Action Net-work North America works to replace theuse of hazardous pesticides with ecological-ly sound and socially just alternatives.http://www.panna.org U

Obama Caves in to Agribusinessby Kathy Ozer and Marcia Ishii-Eiteman

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 5

offi ce: 207-469-6600 - email: info@weru.org WERU - PO Box 170 - East Orland, Maine 04431

89.9 FM Downeast & Midcoast Maine

102.9 FM Bangor, Maine& live on the Web at

www.weru.org!

Diverse MusicAlternative News & Public Affairs

A Voice of Many Voices...

Community Radio

Democracy Now!airs 5:00-6:00 PMMonday - Friday

Free Speech Radio Newsairs 4:30-5:00 PMMonday - Friday

In August, Saving Seeds interviewedSonia Acevedo, a single-mom struggling tofind permanent access to land for subsis-tence farming.

Saving Seeds: As someone strugglingwith land access have you researched orcontacted any of the land trust organiza-tions in the state, like Maine FarmlandTrust or the dept of ag’ farmland protectionprogram? if so what has been the responseor your impression; if not why not?

Sonia Acevedo: I’ve looked into MaineFarmland Trust, but I was pretty dis-couraged by the fact that I’d have topay a membership fee just to haveaccess to the lists. Also, Maine Farm-land Trust seems to be geared towardsfolks who are specifically into largescale market farming, and require youto have a business plan completed aspart of the application process, and inthe past eight years that i have beenfarming and involved in food securityissues, I’m pretty convinced that it ispretty impossible to make a livingthrough farming, unless you have richparents who can help you with start upcosts. It’s hard to conceptualize a solidbusiness plan before you have accessto land and the experience to knowwhat you can and can’t do business-wise. Last, I’ve heard of a couple ofcases of folks who have leased farmsthrough Maine Farmland Trust, andhave really gotten screwed over byolder farmers who aren’t willing torelinquish any power to younger farm-ers, and just ended up pouring laborand resources into farms that they willnever actually own. So I’m pretty pes-simistic about Maine Farmland Trust’sability to help younger folks who areinto subsistence and small scale agri-culture, though it may work better forfolks who have larger enterprises inmind.

SS: Do you feel as though you are ananomaly or are there others in Mainestruggling for access to land for subsis-tence living?

SA: Most of my peer group (early thir-ties) involved in food security issuesare struggling for land access, and likeme end up under the table weird worktrades with land owners in exchangefor use of their land for agriculture.The problem with this is that most ofthese situations are short term anddon’t allow for the kind of time that ittakes to build infrastructure, improvesoil quality, improve pasture, andimprove your flocks/herd of livestockthrough the years of breeding it takesto get high quality animals. Some folksI know have given up on the dream offarming and/or homesteading

because it seems impossible to accessland. The folks i know who are youngand have successful farms that theyown have them because someonehelped them with an initial down pay-ment or had a co-signer on their loans.However, my demographic of latetwenties/early thirties folks with apolitical analysis and the desire to bepart of a food security solution is a nar-row demographic and not necessarilyrepresentative of what is happeningstate wide. However, I’ve had conver-sations with young radicals across thecountry, and access to land is a hugeissue for this demographic on a nation-wide basis.

SS: What do you see as your role inMaine’s food security picture, if any?

SA: I think a big solution to food secu-rity in Maine is subsistence farming ona smaller scale, because that kind offarming does not have to be beholdento the market economy or have to facesome of the huge economic hurdlesthat face larger farmers. So by home-steading and feeding my family andmy neighbors, I feel like I’m participat-ing in a mass decentralization of foodproduction, which ultimately is a pow-erful solution to the massive scale andcentralization of food production thathas resulted in people not knowingwhere their food comes from and nothaving knowledge or control over howthey get fed. Food sovereignty beginsat home, and small scale folks havemore time and power to emphasize thepolitical nature of agriculture, becausewe’re not strapped to the wall by huge-ly high overhead and the whims of themarket economy in the way biggerfarmers are.

SS: Where have you found the most sup-port? What do you think it will take for youto find a piece of land to settle on?

SA: The most support I have had hasbeen through friends who are in thesame struggle, and from olderlandowners who see value both in thework that I do and the politics behindit, who have let me use borrowed landto grow food and medicine, or havesupported me emotionally or withother resources. I need a giant chunk ofchange and an owner willing to doowner financing to get land, and Idon’t see that happening anytimesoon, because I spend most of my timedoing (low paid) farm work and (vol-unteer) political organizing aroundissues of self determination and envi-

ronmentalism—issues of food security,sustainable health care access and landpreservation—and this path, whilespiritually fulfilling, does not raise thecapital that I need to acquire land secu-rity, and I’m not willing to work a cor-porate job off of the land to raise thecapital I need to get back on the land.Also, if I could at least have a couple ofyears in one place where I could keep agarden and save money, that would behelpful. Being landless is like a nega-tive feedback loop—I am landless so Ihave no permanent place to be, so Iend up moving from place to place,which costs a lot of resources, whichmakes it hard to save or figure out howto get land, so I remain landless, so Iend up moving from place to place,etc. I’ve moved three times this yearalone, and each of those moves hasbeen related to finding a place that Ican farm on, and moving that muchreally makes it hard to plan for thefuture and get my shit together.

SS: Are you willing to go where land ischeaper, like Aroostook or Washingtoncounty? If not, why not?

SA: I’m not interested in moving fromthe midcoast to a cheaper county atthis time. The reason that I have beenable to to the homesteading thing herein midcoast Maine is because there’s ahuge population of older back to thelanders who often have free or cheapold cabins that they are willing to rentor trade for and are down with radicalsgrowing vegetables in their backyards. I also homeschool my children,and the high percentage of liberals inthis area means that there are a lot of(non-Christian) homeschoolers for meand my daughters to get support from.Also, it takes a long time to developrelationships with folks in rural Maine,and I would lose the last four years ofnetworking that I’ve done if I moved.The desire to be connected to the landis a strong one—maybe I haven’t hadone single place to settle down in, butthese mountains and streams havebeen my home. My roots are sunk verydeeply in this region and the one timethat I left to check out a differentlyopportunity, it was heartbreaking andI came back after six months. Maybethe region becomes even more impor-tant to have a sense of place or home inwhen you don’t have a permanentland base. Practically speaking, thefarmer’s markets around here are farmore lucrative that the markets inpoorer areas, and though that is not aprimary motivation for me, it is some-thing that I keep in mind for the future.But mostly I’ve already found where Iwant to call home and want to figureout how to stay here permanently. U

Voices of Maine’s Landless

In Brazil, 1.5 million landless people have organized themselves into a successful socialmovement demanding broader access to productive land. More info at www.mstbrazil.org

ww

w.w

aron

wan

t.or

g

GraphicLayout

Design&

Lynn Pussicpagelayout2@gmail.com

Magazines � NewspapersDirectories � Books

Print Consulting

~ Publications a Specialty ~

“Land is the basis of all independence.Land is the basis of freedom, justice,

and equality.”— Malcolm X

Page 6 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

trict court. German maize is plantedin April and May.

The company would contest theban because it believed the decisiondamaged its legal rights as theEuropean Union had approved themaize as safe, he said.

Aigner had said she decided toissue the ban as information showedthere was a justifiable reason tobelieve GMO maize presented a dan-ger to the environment.Such decisions must be based onnew scientific information, theMonsanto spokesman said.

“The explanation that we receivedfrom the BVL (German federal foodsafety agency) last Friday contains nonew scientific findings and the studythat the BVL puts forward has alreadybeen examined by the European FoodSafety Authority and other agencies,”he said.

The EFSA is the EU risk assess-ment agency for food and animal feedsafety.A spokesperson for Germany’sAgriculture Ministry said: “We havetaken note of this lawsuit, which isnot a surprise.” The ministry wouldnot make detailed comment on legalcases.

The ban put Germany alongsideFrance, Austria, Hungary, Greece andLuxembourg, which also banned MON810 maize despite its approval by theEU as safe for commercial use in thebloc.

The EU Commission, the bloc’sexecutive arm, has tried without suc-cess to get the bans in other coun-tries lifted.

MAINE FOOD RESOURCEMAP NOW AVAILABLE

Eat Local Foods Coalition hascompleted the first stage of its Mainefood resource mapping project. Themap identifies farms, farmstands,community kitchens, food pantriesand soup kitchens, CSA and CSFlocations, senior farm share loca-tions, seafood markets, restaurants,buying clubs, and retailers. ELFC iscurrently working on a second versionof the map that will include resourcesfor food producers, processors anddistributors. To view the map or toadd a listing and location visitwww.eatmainefoods.org.

EQUITY TRUST RELEASESGUIDE FOR PRESERVINGFARMS AND FARMERS

Equity Trust has just published a137-page guide, Preserving Farms forFarmers: A Manual for Those Workingto Keep Farms Affordable. Copies ofthis new guide are available to thoseinvolved in farm preservation inMaine courtesy of a NE SARESustainable Community grant in sup-port the project. Please emailRebecca@equitytrust.org if you wouldlike a copy.

RISKS INVOLVED WITHTRANSGENIC FISH

A new study by the University ofGothenburg in Sweden details therisks associated with raising trans-genic fish. Transgenic fish are creat-ed by transferring genes to fish fromother species, including humanbeings. The gene selected is propa-gated using bacteria and then isolat-ed, purified and introduced into theeggs of the host fish by microinjec-tion. The genes transferred contain aDNA sequence with codes for therequired characteristic. Risks cited inthe study include the accumulation oftoxins in humans who eat the fishand the threat of escape and out-competition of slower growing wild

NEWS & NOTES continued

continued on page 8

Editor’s Note: Food for Maine’s Future(FMF) participated in this meeting of theU.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis inWashington, DC on August 31 and Sep-tember 1, 2009. FMF also attended the fol-low up meeting in Des Moines, Iowa inOctober. Saving Seeds will continue toprovide reports on this burgeoning alliance.

Washington, D.C. - The global foodcrisis has motivated diverse groups inthe US - including progressive labor,faith, indigenous, community food,farm, environmental, and trade justicegroups - to join forces in response. Inlate spring of 2008, a number of groupsrepresenting different areas of the foodsystem came together to form the U.S.Working Group on the Food Crisis. TheWorking Group’s goal has been tobring attention to the underlying caus-es of the crisis and to promote transfor-mative solutions to fix our broken foodsystem.

Through a year of activities and dia-logues with diverse partners, the Work-ing Group identified the need for aninclusive and unifying campaign toend the ongoing food crisis, which hasbecome a daily reality for millions ofAmericans and a billion people world-wide. Such a campaign would helpcounter the well-funded propaganda ofthe corporate agrifoods industry andfurther the shared goal of a just andsustainable food system. On August 31and September 1, 2009, the WorkingGroup joined together with dozens ofgrassroots social movement leaders,community of color leaders, and NGOsto find common ground on which tocollaborate towards building a cam-paign.

With diverse representatives of over50 organizations and social move-ments, the meeting was a success. Thegroup arrived a unifying theme andspecific strategies for the next year,building upon grassroots strengths andexisting food justice movement work,while seizing the unique political

moment in Washington and interna-tionally. The proposed theme of thecampaign, ending poverty by rebuild-ing local food economies, focuses onthe poverty and injustice that the dom-inant food system creates — and on thepotential for communities, regions, andnations to build just and prosperousfood economies from the ground up.

Through breakout sessions aimed atbuilding a broad and coordinated set ofstrategies for the campaign, two pri-mary focus areas emerged. Participantsidentified corporate control of the foodsystem to be primary cause of damageto people, communities and the envi-ronment. Accordingly, anti-trust (anti-monopoly) efforts were deemed to becritically important. Taking advantageof the U.S. Department of Justice andU.S. Department of Agriculture’s lis-tening sessions on anti-trust beginningin early 2010, the campaign will bringstories, research and analysis from thegrassroots to the government. Thosehurt by the anti-competitive structureof the corporate food system will raise

their voices in the sessions and organ-ize creative street actions to highlightthe current injustices of the food systemand the positive alternatives thatdeserve support. Washington DC-based groups will reinforce the call foranti-trust legislation.

A second important focus area is tostrengthen local food systems workwith peer-to-peer training and support.Participants agreed to use the U.S.Social Forum which will bring togetheras many as 20,000 people in Detroit,Michigan on June 22-26, 2010, as animportant venue for convergence andorganizing for food systems change.This will potentially involve building adelegation of urban and rural farmers,farmworkers, food workers, and otherfood system leaders who are creatingthe solutions to the food crisis, as wellas organizing a series of workshopsand activities focused on the campaign.

For more information about partici-pation in the Working Group contactTristan Quinn-Thibodeau at Tris-tan@)whyhunger.org. U

Report from the US Working Group onthe Food Crisis September Meeting

Diverse groups unite around campaign to build a just and sustainable food system

Food for Maine’s Future director Bob St.Peter attended meetings of the U.S. WorkingGroup on the Food Crisis August 30-September 1, 2009 in Washington, DC.

Food

Firs

t ph

oto

Food for Maine’sFuture Receives$35K Challenge

GrantIn April, 2009 the Broadreach Fund

awarded Food for Maine’s Future atwo-year $60,000 grant, of which$25,000 was received. To receive theadditional $35,000 we have to raise halfof that amount. exciting opportunityfor broadening the impact of ourorganization. It is also a chance to stepup our food sovereignty activities herein Maine, nationally through our mem-bership with the National Family FarmCoalition and involvement in the U.S.Working Group on the Food Crisis, andinternationally through our affiliationwith La Via Campesina.

Our goal is to raise $17,500 by theend of the year in order to start 2010 onvery solid financial footing. You canhelp by joining Food for Maine’sFuture, renewing your membership, orgiving an additional gift. Donationscan made through our website or bycutting out the form on the page 24 andmailing it to the address provided.

MembershipSince we began our membership

drive in January over 150 people havejoined Food for Maine’s Future from allfacets of the food system. Members ofFMF receive a mailed copy of SavingSeeds and one free classified ad peryear. You also receive free admission toour annual Local and Sustainable FoodConference, and the good feeling thatcomes with supporting grassroots foodjustice activism in Maine. Thank you toour current members, and we look for-ward to partnering with our futuremembers. To become a member cut outand return the membership formbelow with a minimum contribution of$25. You can also volunteer to receivemembership. For information on vol-unteering contact Jill Day atjilladay@yahoo.com.

FMFCommittees —

MemberParticipation is Welcome!

Food for Maine’s Future has threestanding committees that are open tomembers. For more information con-tact Bob St.Peter at bob@foodfor-mainesfuture or 244-0908.

Policy & Legislative CommitteeThe Policy & Legislative Committee

(PLC) works to create and support apolicy agenda that furthers the interestof family farmers and fishers, farmworkers, landless people, and theirallies. The requirements for participa-tion are four annual meetings (in per-son or via conference call) and a com-mitment to helping build a more justand sustainable food system in Maine.

Local & Sustainable FoodConference Committee

Each year Food for Maine’s Future

• Recruit members, volunteers,interns at colleges and univer-sities and selected events

• Coordinate distribution ofFal l/WinterSaving Seeds

• 10-15 hoursper month

AdministrativeIntern

Responsibili-ties include:• Develop

& moni-tor officesystemsand calen-dars

• Set upand main-tain organi-zational fil-ing systemswith inputof staff

• Assist staffwith researchand outreach as needed

• Ensure contact details are updatedas necessary, and new contactsentered accurately

• Prepare Thank You letters and Dona-tion Receipts as needed • 3-5 hours per week

80/20 Development 80/20 is Food for Maine’s Future’s

grassroots food distribution project.Our goal is to create a direct supplychain connecting local and regionalproducers directly with the people whowant to buy their food, with an empha-sis on making high quality food avail-able to low-income people. We are alsoworking to create valuable opportuni-ties for co-production. The name 80/20comes from the 2006 Maine Food Poli-cy Working Group Report that recom-mended that Maine have the capacityto produce 80% of its food by 2020. Insolidarity with the international move-ment for food sovereignty, we envisionhaving the capacity to provide theother 20% of Mainer’s diet with fairly-traded food from “people we knowand trust elsewhere.” We are lookingfor a highly motivated person to helpwith the development of this project.Responsibilities include:

• Product identification and devel-opment (local, domestic, interna-tional fair trade)

• Develop promotional materialsand outreach campaign

• Identify potential areas in Mainefor 80/20 and buying club devel-opment

• Work collaboratively with localand regional producers, eaters,and the Crown of Maine OrganicCooperative

hosts an annual Local & SustainableFood Conference. Next March will beour 5th conference. Committee mem-bers have a variety of roles to play,including organizing workshops andrecruiting presenters, helping withpublicity, planning the Mud SeasonDinner, fundraising, and other activi-ties on the day of the event. The com-mittee is also responsible for selectingthe recipient of the Jim Cook MemorialAward. Committee members receivefree admission to the conference andtwo tickets to the Mud Season Dinner.The first meeting for the 5th AnnualLocal & Sustainable Food Conferencewill be held in November. Exact dateand location to be announced.

Saving SeedsPublishing a newspaper is highly

rewarding and satisfying. It is also a lotof work. FMF is looking for skilledwriters, editors, and researchers toassist with the biannual publication ofSaving Seeds. We are also looking forhelp with distribution and solicitingadvertisements.

VisioningSessions

Food for Maine’s Future held thefirst of four visioning sessions duringour 4th Annual Local and SustainableFood Conference last March. The grouppresent, comprised of FMF staff andmembers, discussed the broader needsand goals for building a more just andsustainable food system in Maine, andmore specifically what role FMF canand should play. The broader needsdiscussed included overcoming thelack of knowledge and concern aboutthe importance of food and the need forgrassroots organizations like FMF tohave the “freedom and flexibility” toaddress important food justice issues.

The group identified three primaryways FMF could help build a more justand sustainable food system in Maineand beyond.

1. Empower people to become pro-ducers and co-producers as a way ofgaining access to high quality localfood, with particular focus on thosewith limited income and resources.

2. Cultivate appreciation of the roleof food in community developmentand the opportunities that arise whenwe eat together.

3. Provide educational opportuni-ties that make the connection betweenfood and politics.

Additional visioning sessions willbe held in 2010. Stay tuned for moredetails.

Intern with Food for Maine’s Future

Internships currently available withFood for Maine’s Future are describedbelow. Sorry, but we are unable to offerstipends or other compensation forthese positions at this time. Some travelexpenses are available.

We also welcome enterprising peo-ple who are interested in short-termresearch or hands-on projects. Emailinternships@foodformainesfuture.orgor call 244-0908 to apply.

Outreach Intern Responsibilities include:

• Initiate and/or coordinate at leastone FMF event per month

• Develop tabling materials

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 7

La Via Campesina Youth Coordinator

La Via Campesina is an internation-al movement of peasants, small- andmedium-sized producers, landless,rural women, indigenous people, ruralyouth, and agricultural workers. Wedefend the values and the basic inter-ests of our members. We are anautonomous, pluralist, and multicul-tural movement, independent of anypolitical, economic, or other type ofaffiliation. Our members are from 56countries from Asia, Africa, Europe,and the Americas.

Food for Maine’s Future is affiliatedwith La Via Campesina through ourmembership in the National FamilyFarm Coalition. FMF has sent delegatesto La Via Campesina’s recent 5th Inter-national Conference in Mozambiqueand 1st North American Youth Campin Mexico. FMF is looking for an internto solicit and coordinate youth andgroups from within Maine interested inpartnering with FMF on La ViaCampesina campaigns and help organ-ize a U.S./Canada youth gatheringnext summer. Long-term commitmentsare welcome and may lead to travelopportunities.

• Initiate and/or coordinate at leastone FMF/La Via Campesinaevent per month

• Develop tabling materials forFMF/La Via Campesina events

• Recruit allies at colleges and uni-versities and selected events

• Assist with the coordination of aU.S./Canada La Via Campesinayouth gathering

• 10-15 hours per month U

Food for Maine’s Future News

• Healthfoods and Deli/Cafe

• Community owned and operated

• Educating on healthy living

123 High St., Belfast, ME 04915 • 338-2532

Belfast Co op Store

Page 8 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

species. To see the full report visithttp://www.science.gu.se/english/News/News_detail/Risks_involved_with_transgenic_fish_.cid889631.

STUDY LOOKS AT HEALTHRISK OF TRANSGENICS-FED FISH

An on-going study by the AppliedBiology group at the University ofAlmeria is researching whether tilapiaand sea bream fed gmo feed aredetrimental to the health of humanbeings. According to lead researcherTomas Francisco Martinez, the experi-ments conducted so far show thatthe muscles and organs of both fishassimilated genetically modified sub-stances and pose no risk to humanhealth once eaten. “Although we haveenriched the feed with more thanwhat it naturally contains, to seeresults in a shorter time-span,” theassimilation of these types of sub-stances through ingestion is some-thing “totally logical,” Martinez commented. Martinez stresses that“it is not scientifically demonstratedthat the consumption of these sub-stances is detrimental for people, atleast, in the mid-term.” The project isset to conclude in 2011.

Read full story athttp://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&country=&special=&monthyear=&day=&id=33426&ndb=1&df=0

CORNUCOPIA’S BEHINDTHE BEAN LOOKS ATORGANIC SOY INDUSTRYINTEGRITY

The Cornucopia Institute’s OrganicSoy Report rates companies thatmarket organic soy foods, such assoymilk, tofu and “veggie burgers,”based on ten criteria that are impor-tant to organic consumers’ showcas-ing companies that are truly commit-ted to the spirit and letter of theorganic law while exposing those thatdo not rate highly or were unwilling toshare their sourcing and productionpractices in our survey. The reportsheds light on questions such as: Dothe soybeans come from Americanorganic farmers, or are they importedfrom China, India or South America?;Is the company devoted to supportingorganic agriculture by sourcing onlyorganic soybeans and marketing onlyorganic products?; and Does thecompany use loopholes in the organicstandards to source cheaper non-organic ingredients even when organ-ic ones are available?The report and scorecard also high-lights the good news in the organicsoyfood industry: in every market andproduct category, there are trueheroes, both national and local manu-facturers, supplying ethically-producedorganic food that are worthy of con-sumer support. A scorecard of soyproducts can be found athttp://www.cornucopia.org/soysurvey/ and the full report can be found athttp://www.cornucopia.org/soysurvey/OrganicSoyReport/behindthebean_color_final.pdf.

TARGET ACCUSED OFORGANIC IMPROPRIETIESState and Federal Complaints AllegeMislabeling

MINNEAPOLIS, MN: A public inter-est group that focuses on food andagriculture, The Cornucopia Institute,announced this week that it had filedformal complaints with the USDA’sorganic program, and Wisconsin and Minnesota officials, alleging that Target Corporation has misled

Upon receiving the 1st Annual JimCook Memorial Award on behalf of theCrown of Maine Organic Cooperative,Marada Cook recounted how herfather used to caution that in this line ofwork personal motivation and satisfac-tion would have to be enough. Jimknew as well as anyone that there waslittle money to be had in farming andsmall-scale food distribution. Amidlaughs from the crowd, Maradarecalled how Jim would say “no one isgoing to give you an award for doingthis work.”

At the 4th Annual Local and Sustain-able Food Conference held last March,Food for Maine’s Future celebrated andhonored the legacy of Jim Cook by pre-senting Crown of Maine Organic Coop-erative (COMOC) with the inauguralJim Cook Memorial Award for “Out-standing Contributions to Local FoodAccess”. Started in 1995 by three farm-ing families from Aroostook County,COMOC distributes locally grownfood all across Maine, traveling to thefarthest reaches of the state to pick upproducts from farms and producerswho lack local markets and transport-ing the food to those markets. COMOCworks with buying clubs, restaurants,and neighborhood retail establish-ments “to provide a garden of earthlydelights produced by Maine’s farmers,fishermen, and artisans.”

COMOC aims primarily to help cre-ate “a community inter-connect-ed through a self-providingfood system that results instrong and vibrant localagriculture.” Whiletheir focus is supply-ing high quality prod-ucts from trusted pro-ducers, they recog-nize that their effortsare but one part of thethree piece puzzle ofeconomic and commu-nity self-sufficiency:locally producedfood, shelter, andfuel.

C O M O C ’ svision statementproclaims that “tohave a regionally securefood supply we must have a strongfarming base and strong support athome.” The “support at home”includes the important role of “co-pro-duction”, the work that non-producersdo to keep the local food system churn-ing. “For without [co-production],”writes COMOC, “nothing happens.”Some examples of co-production hap-pening within COMOC and its net-work of 75 producer-partners are the

continued on page 10

NEWS & NOTES continued

buying clubs that pull orders together,the restaurants who create their menuin line with the produce of the seasons,and all the individuals who patronizebusinesses that go out of their way tosupport those in Maine who workkeeping us fed and well-nourished.

Despite Jim’s passing, the vision ofCrown of Maine Organic Cooperative

lives on through the staff andsuppliers who make it

happen. They continueto pursue a distribu-

tion model that chal-lenges the idea that

centralized, spe-cialized, and glob-alized is the onlyway to do food suc-

cessfully. Throughtheir efforts to do

business as “un-usual”COMOC is creating a

food scape thatp r i o r i t i z e si m p r o v e daccess to local

foods at afford-able prices, and

makes family-scale food production amore viable way to earn livelihood inMaine. For their tireless work, Food forMaine’s Future says ‘Thank You!’ toCrown of Maine Organic Cooperative,and congratulations on a job well done.

For more information about Crownof Maine Organic Cooperative, to viewa list of their products, or to learn howyou can order visit www.crownof-mainecoop.com. U

Crown Of Maine Organic Cooperative Receives 1st Annual Jim Cook

Memorial Awardby Food for Maine’s Future Staff

Marada Cook receives the 1st Annual JimCook Memorial Award at the 4th AnnualLocal and Sustainable Food Conference inMarch 2009.

Low Down on theNewly Enacted

1000 Bird PoultryExemption

Maine produces may now raise,slaughter, and process up to 1,000chicken, turkeys, ducks, or other poul-try per year on their farm without astate-licensed facility. But to be exemptproducers must meet a number of con-ditions, including:

1. Fewer than 1,000 birds areslaughtered annually on the farm

2. No birds are offered for sale ortransportation in interstate commerce

3. Any poultry products sold aresold only as whole birds

4. The poultry producer has a validlicense

5. The facilities for slaughtering andprocessing are available for inspectionon an annual basis

6. The poultry producer assigns alot number to all birds sold and main-tains a record of assigned lot numbersand the point of sale

Restrictions on point of sale Poultryproducts sold under this section mayonly be sold by the poultry producerand in the following locations or man-ner:

1. At the farm on which the poultrywere raised

2. At a farmers’ market 3. Delivered to a consumer’s home

by the poultry producer whose nameand license number appear on thelabel

4. Received by a person who is amember of a community supportedagriculture farm that has a direct mar-keting relationship with the poultryproducer. For the purposes of this sec-tion, “community supported agricul-ture” means an arrangement wherebyindividual consumers have agree-ments with a farmer to be providedwith food or other agricultural prod-ucts produced on that farm.

Labeling RequirementTo be exempt under this rule a

poultry producer must label all poul-try with the following:

A. The name of the farm, the nameof the poultry producer and theaddress of the farm including the zipcode

B. The number of the license issuedto the poultry producer and the lotnumber for the poultry products

C. The statement “Exempt underthe Maine Revised Statutes, Title 22,section 2517-C NOT INSPECTED.”The statement must be prominentlydisplayed with such conspicuousnessthat it is likely to be read and under-stood

D. Safe handling and cookinginstructions as follows: “SAFE HAN-DLING INSTRUCTIONS: Keep refrig-erated or frozen. Thaw in refrigeratoror microwave. Keep raw poultry sepa-rate from other foods. Wash workingsurfaces, including cutting boards,utensils and hands, after touching rawpoultry. Cook thoroughly to an internal temperature of at least 165degrees Fahrenheit maintained for atleast 15 seconds. Keep hot foods hot.Refrigerate leftovers immediately ordiscard.” U

Saving Seeds Welcomes Your Letters to the Editor

E-mail them tobob@foodformainesfuture.org

or mail to: 3 Flower Farm Lane, Sedgwick, ME 04676

Jim

Am

aral

pho

to

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 9

on the way. A list of them may be foundon the NAMA web site at at <www.namanet .org/our-work/market-transformation/community-supported-fishery/list-csfs>.

The right scaleThe most recent CSF is a collabora-

tion among NAMA, the GloucesterFishermen's Wives Association, and theMassachusetts Institute of TechnologySea Grant College Program.

Serving the greater Boston area andthe North Shore, this CSF has gathereda lot of steam and garnered a lot ofattention. Nearly 780 families signed up toreceive a weekly share of seafood andmany more on waiting lists for thefuture. By the time you read this arti-cle, a second and third round alreadywill have begun, increasing the numberof families participating to over 1,000strong, not to mention the fishermensigning up to supply these conscien-tious consumers with fresh seafood.

Imagine, over 1,000 families arehearing about who catches the fish,how fishery management challengesour ocean ecosystem, and what fisher-men and fishing communities are fac-ing.

They also are learning what roleconsumers can play to ensure the oceanisn't sold to the highest bidder, butrather entrusted to the communitieswho have an intrinsic connection tothem, which includes both the peoplewho catch the seafood and those whoeat it.

Through the CSF movement, wewill add more voice to those fishermenwho advocate management thatencourages fishing on a scale thatmatches the sustainable capacity of theecosystem and allows them to feedtheir communities without compromis-ing the marine environment. This wasthe vision articulated through the FleetVisioning Process.

In the meantime, fishermen cancount on the hearts of the people intheir greater community, which werebrought together through their stom-achs and the need for and belief ingood food, to ensure they can make aliving while going through the transi-tion ahead.

Niaz Dorry is the coordinating direc-tor of the Northwest Atlantic MarineAlliance. U

of food from dairy to meat to chickensto vegetables. They are providing freshfood that speaks to the populationthrough their stomachs.

And CSA members are taking polit-ical action every time they pick up theirshare. They are standing up for a wayof doing business that they believe iseconomically and ecologically sound. By their participation, farmers are set-ting in place worthy principles, whichshareholders are so strongly committedto that they are willing to pay for thefarm-produced food and business costsup front.

CSA supporters also are ready toweigh in when it’s time to deal withlaw or regulatory proposals that wouldundermine their access to what theyare paying for.

CSFsToo often, seafood consumers are

far removed from the source of theirfood. We need to connect the seafoodlover back to the shores.

CSFs, created in the image of CSAs,are one way to get there. We havelearned enough from the farmingmovement to know this strategy canhelp create positive social and politicalchange where we need it now: on thewater.

The first attempt at creating a CSFbegan in Port Clyde, ME. Facingoverwhelming competitionfrom imported farmed-shrimp, something had tobe done. In 2007, NAMAworked with the PortClyde community to setup their pilot northernshrimp CSF, which hassince grown to includegroundfish.

The Port Clyde com-munity blazed a majortrail for the rest of us.What started out as anexercise in getting a bet-ter boat price for localshrimp has taken root inNew England and beyond.

Currently, eight CSFs areoperating in the region with more

to. There are two ways to move thepublic — through their hearts andthrough their stomachs.

Different strategies for reaching theheart range from focusing on the rightsof the animals to the focusing on therights of fishermen and everything inbetween. But if any of those strategiesreally were working, we wouldn’t behaving this discussion.

And, the stomach-reaching approach-es have turned out to be so confusingand myopic that they are not getting uswhere we need to be.

So, we are approaching things froma different perspective: reaching forconsumer hearts through their stom-achs with Community Supported Fish-eries (CSFs).

Heart to stomachCSFs are not a new concept. You pay

for something in advance, and you pickit up when it’s ready.

The Girl Scouts do it. Every schoolhas a candy, stationary, or magazinesale that I’m sure all of you parents arepainfully familiar with.

But where this concept has reallycreated social and political change is inthe farming movement.

Community Supported Agriculture(CSA) is one of the fastest growingarms of agriculture. CSAs helpedsmall- and medium-sized farms get afooting when farms were disappearingto agribusiness and industrialization.The old fighting strategies were notworking as farmers were using meth-ods that gained them inches at a timewhen they were losing acres.

Something had to be done to bringthe control back to the communitiesmost affected — the producers and theconsumers. CSAs became one power-ful approach.

At stake was our food sovereignty:the integrity of our food supply; thesafety of our food; our right to decidehow we want our food to get to ourtables; and what we would toleratebeing applied to our food on its way toour stomachs.

Today, CSAs are providing a range

Originally printed in the CommercialFisheries News, Sept. 09

The whole fishing industry is in astate of transition. Every which wayyou look, the various wings of theindustry are trying to figure out whatthe future holds.

How many visioning meetings havewe all been a part of over the years?The Northwest Atlantic MarineAlliance (NAMA) did a visioning proj-ect, too, under the leadership of CraigPendleton.

Aside from talking to Craig and ulti-mately not sending in the Fleet Vision-ing Project’s survey he repeatedlyasked me to fill out, I can’t claim tohave had any hand in the outcome.

But about 250 of you from variouswalks of life within and related to thefishing industry weighed in and cameup with this general vision of the futureof the groundfish fleet: A diverse, eco-nomically viable, and environmentallysustainable fleet that is managedthrough a participatory governancestructure.

Specifically, you envisioned:• A geographically distributed

commercial and recreational fleet thatincludes all gear types and boat sizes;

• An economically viable, safe, andsustainable fleet that works with shore-side infrastructure to supply seafoodand job opportunities for coastal com-munities.

• Participatory, accountable, anddecentralized governance structures atvarious scales that include localinvolvement in decision-making andmaintain an adaptive regulatory envi-ronment. And

• Fishery stakeholders who exhibitstewardship of resources that is consis-tent with the long-term health andrestoration of the marine ecosystems. I’m not really sure how many visioningefforts have come to the same conclu-sions, but I’d like to think that many ofyou who weren’t part of the FleetVisioning Project share these same con-clusions and that those of you whowere part of the process still see thatvision.

Making it happenJust like everyone else with a vision,

we at NAMA are working to figure outhow to implement what you visual-ized.

We know two things to be true.First, fishermen need to make a liv-

ing. The future under current manage-ment proposals is scary and unknown.I have yet to talk to one fisherman -groundfish fisherman or not — whohas a clear idea of how the sector man-agement process will change their livesand livelihoods.

The ones who are not groundfishingare concerned about precedent-settingpolicies, as they should be, not to men-tion possible migration into their fish-eries by yet more displaced fishermen. It’s not just the groundfish pie that isgetting smaller. Everyone is affected bythese decisions. Just like the marineecosystem, all aspects of the fishingindustry are part of a web of mutuality.Something has to be done to addressthis collective transition in the ocean,lives, and livelihoods.

Second, members of the non-fishingpublic have a role to play in this transi-tion. Too much is at stake for them not

CSFs are connecting people directly with the source of their fish, improving the quality for thebuyer and increasing income for the fisher.

Realizing the Vision by Building Communityby Niaz Dorry

Nia

z D

orry

pho

to

“Too often, seafood consumers are far removed fromthe source of their food. We need to connect theseafood lover back to the shores.” —Niaz Dorry

path leads to a gradual rebuilding of asustainable fishery with local employ-ment, protection for critical habitat,and fresh, high-quality fish sold local-ly.

Our organization is undertakingseveral projects to ensure that we takethe right path. We are partnering withthe Maine Department of MarineResources to conduct a survey of codoff Mount Desert Island using hooksonly. We have partnered with TheNature Conservancy to purchase agroundfish permit - so that we can usethe rights from this permit to enableDowneast fishermen to fish sustain-able. Without the rights, no one canfish. We have partnered withDowneast fishermen and the Martha’sVineyard/ Dukes County Fishermen’sAssociation to develop a groundfishsector - a new type of groundfish co-management with the National MarineFisheries Service. Sectors allow fisher-men to fish when they want to - inexchange for abiding by strict catchlimits. We are partnering with theIsland Institute, Midcoast Fishermen’sAssociation and other organizations tochange fisheries management so thatwe can protect critical habitat andthereby allow fish to recover. Finally,we are working with fishermen to sellas much of their catch as they can local-ly. This is a win for customers who getfresh, local fish, and a win for fisher-men who get a fair price for their catch.

Please join us in supporting a newbeginning for sustainable groundfish-ing in eastern Maine. The first step is tobuy local fish through CommunitySupported Fisheries (CSF’s). For moreinformation, please contact me, AaronDority, at our Stonington office byphone or email: 207-367-2708,aaron@penobscoteast.org.

The Downeast Groundfish Initiative isa project of Penobscot East Resource Cen-ter, a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organizationbased in Stonington, Maine. Our missionis to secure a future for fishing communi-ties from the islands of Penobscot Bay,along the Downeast coast to Canada. Tosign up for a shrimp CSF between Ston-ington and Jonesport beginning in Janu-ary, or to sign up for our groundfish CSFbeginning in June, please contact AaronDority at: 207-367-2708, or by email at:aaron@penobscoteast.org U

Page 10 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

consumers into thinking some con-ventional food items it sells areorganic.

The complaints are the latestsalvo into a growing controversywhereas corporate agribusiness andmajor retailers have been accused ofblurring the line between “natural”products and food that has beengrown, processed and properly certi-fied organic under tight federal stan-dards.

“Major food processors have rec-ognized the meteoric rise of theorganic industry, and profit potential,and want to create what is inessence ‘organic light,’ taking advan-tage of the market cachet but notbeing willing to do the heavy liftingrequired to earn the valuable USDAorganic seal,” said Mark A. Kastel,Senior Farm Policy Analyst atCornucopia.

The Wisconsin-based farm policyresearch group discovered Targetnationally advertised Silk soymilk innewspapers with the term “organic”pictured on the carton’s label, whenin fact the manufacturer, Dean Foods,had quietly shifted their productsaway from organics.

Read full story at http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/10/off-target-major-retailer-accused-of-organic-improprieties-state-and-federal-complaints-allege-mislabeling/

GM CONTAMINATION OFCANADIAN FLAX EXPORTSTHREATENS MARKETS INEUROPE

The European Commission’sRapid Alert System for Food and Feedhas confirmed the contamination ofCanadian flax exports with a geneti-cally modified (GM) flax, devastatingCanadian flax sales to Europe. TheGM flax has been illegal to grow inCanada since 2001 when flax grow-ers forced the government to take theproduct off the market. A Germancompany confirmed the GM contami-nation in its cereals and bakery prod-ucts. The GM flax, called the “Triffid”,was approved by Canadian regulatorsin 1998 but the Flax Council ofCanada convinced the Canadian FoodInspection Agency to remove varietyregistration for the GM flax in 2001,making it illegal to grow. Flax growerstook this action to protect theirexport markets from the threat of GMcontamination. Approximately 70 percent of Canada’s flax is exported toEurope.

“This is an absolute nightmare forflax growers and why we worked sohard to have the GM flax removed,”said Terry Boehm, a flax grower andVice President of the NationalFarmers Union. “Flax growers forcedthe GM flax off the market eightyears ago to prevent any threat ofcontamination and protect our exportmarkets. GM flax was never wantedor needed. We knew it would destroyour European markets and now wefear this has happened.”

“GM is out of control,” says LucySharratt, Coordinator, CanadianBiotechnology Action Network. “Weclearly need a moratorium on all newGM crops and foods until we canexamine the entire system that regu-lates GM in Canada.”

Read the full National FarmersUnion of Canada press release athttp://www.nfu.ca/press_releases/press/2009/September-09/GM%20contamination%20of%20Canadian%20flax%20exports%20threat-ens%20markets%20in%20Europe.pdf

NEWS & NOTES continued

continued on page 14

Today, no fisherman betweenPenobscot Bay and Canada catchesgroundfish.

Next summer, Penobscot EastResource Center will work with a halfdozen Downeast fishermen, usinghabitat-friendly hook fishing gear, tocatch enough fish to make a living for afew weeks. It’s a small start, but it willbe the first time in a decade that thismany fishermen from eastern Mainewill fish. They will sell much of theircatch locally, directly to customers andrestaurants.

When the hook fishery starts, thesmall-boat, part-time fishermen fromDowneast Maine will be competingwith fishermen between Maine andLong Island, New York for the rights tocatch fish. Much of their competitionwill use boats twice the size ofDowneast boats. These boats will catchover 10 times more fish than Downeastboats.

Downeast fishermen are like thesmall-scale farmers who have chosento operate family farms to make a liv-ing because it is what they believe in; itis what they love to do; it is what theyknow how to do. Yet, much in the busi-ness and the regulations works againstthem. To understand where we aretoday, we need to understand the his-tory of fishing in eastern Maine.Anyone over forty years old inDowneast Maine remembers whenfish still came across the docks inVinalhaven, Stonington, Swan’sIsland, Southwest Harbor, Bar Harbor,Prospect Harbor, Jonesport/Beals,Cutler, Lubec, Eastport and many com-munities in between. They rememberwhen an array of boats - using nets andhooks - caught a mix of cod, pollock,grey sole, and hake, along with scal-lops, lobster and other seafooddepending on the season. Their par-ents may recall the struggles in the1960s and 70’s between the domesticboats and the foreign fleets; and theirgrandparents may remember whenmost fishermen still fished with hooksand the fish still migrated inshore tospawn. Still earlier, in the 1860’s fisher-men fishing from 220 wooden sailboats caught more than twice as muchcod in Downeast Maine waters than iscaught in all of the Gulf of Mainetoday. Most of those fish were caughtclose to shore, and this doesn’t eveninclude the catch from the smallestsubsistence fishermen. Fishing - espe-

cially groundfishing - is a tremendouspart of the heritage of eastern Maine.Now, groundfish have been gone fromthe inshore waters for nearly 15 years,and federal fishery managers haveeliminated nearly all of the rights thatDowneast fishermen have to catchgroundfish.

Just as poor farming practices led tothe dustbowl, poor fishing practiceseliminated the fish from the inshorewaters. Also, just as sustainable farm-ing practices - such as those employedby small, organic, family farms -restore the environment and supplypeople with high quality food - so toocan small scale fishermen restore afishery. By using hooks, Downeastfishermen will minimize their impacton bottom habitat and dramaticallyreduce bycatch - the unwanted catchthat is discarded dead at sea. By sell-ing locally, fishermen will sustain alocal economy and supply fresh, deli-cious seafood for customers. And, byrestoring a fishery in the eastern Gulfof Maine, we will start to get informa-tion about the fish there that will helpus restore the stocks in the area.

We are currently at a crossroads inthe groundfishery. One path holds afuture where large-scale, consolidatedfishing boats catch all the fish in NewEngland with far more impact on habi-tat and spawning fish. In this scenario,no one in Downeast Maine wouldhave the rights to catch fish as theyrecover in Downeast waters. Wewould simply watch as boats from fur-ther south catch fish off our docks. Our

Groundfishing in eastern Maine:A new beginning?

by Aaron Dority

PERC is working to rebuild Maine’s groundfish stocks and keep Maine’s small familyfleets in business.

Eclectic dining from a classic kitchenFree pub dinners Wednesday 5:30-6:30 pm

Dinner served daily in Summer, Wed-Sunday in deep Winter.Reservations are a good idea.

WINTER GETAWAY SPECIAL: Room for two, dinner for two, breakfast for two $145

Peno

bsco

t Ea

st R

esou

rce

Cen

ter

phot

o

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 11

eignty was awarded in Iowa with itslarge plantations of maize and Soya,home to the corporation Pioneer Hi-bred International, and the state wholikes to be called “the state who feedthe world”

This prize is the first one awardedby CFSC during an annual conference.The decision to call it a prize for FoodSovereignty and to give it to La ViaCampesina recognize the fact that LaVia Campesina was the first to presentthe concept of Food sovereignty as analternative to the neoliberal model offood system - a system which increaseshunger, destroys peasant ways of lifeand displaces indigenous peoples, andwhich has allowed the food distribu-tion and production to be controlled bya handful of multinational corpora-tions which is currently leading to acrisis which threatens the wholeworld. U

sumers, identified transnational corpo-rations, especially Monsanto, which,together with Syngenta, Dupont andBayer control over half of theworld&rsquo;s seeds, and are thus theprincipal enemies of peasant sustain-able agriculture and food sovereigntyfor all peoples. La Via Campesina is ina daily struggle to protect native seeds,patrimony of humanity, from corpora-tions and patents.

Today, October 16, the strength ofthe movement is pushing the publicopinion to reject Monsanto&rsquo;stake-over of the food system. It is timefor all civil society to recognize thegravity of this situation, global capitalshould not control our food, nor makedecisions behind closed doors. Thefuture of our food, the protection ofour resources and especially our seeds,are the right of the people,” said DenaHoff, coordinator of Via CampesinaNorth America.

Globalize Hope!! Globalize theStruggle!!

Interviews and information:Dena Hoff, United States

+ 1 406-939-1839 (in English)Alberto Gomez, Mexico

+ 525541777846 (en español) U

(Mexico, 16 October 2009) Today,International World Food Day, asdeclared by the Food and AgricultureOrganization (FAO) of the UnitedNations, La Via Campesina is mobiliz-ing globally along with allies in anoverwhelming expression of outrightrejection of Monsanto and GeneticallyModified Organisms (GMOs), in thename of food sovereignty.

In the United States today, protestsand teach-ins against Monsanto aretaking place in Maine and Wisconsin.In Brazil, Via Campesina members arecarrying out actions in the headquar-ters of Monsanto and Syngenta. InEurope, where nine countries have pro-hibited GMOs, Via Campesina organ-ized an anti-Monsanto brigade travel-ing throughout the region.

In India, thousands of farmers andallies are carrying out hunger strikesand occupying lands. Actions are beingcarried out in at least 20 countries andall nine regions where La ViaCampesina is present. Meanwhile,world leaders are preparing to meet atthe FAO World Food Summit in Romein November, where the powers ofglobal governance and agribusinesswill utilize the desperation of starvingnations to accelerate the expansion of

GMO-based agriculture throughoutthe world. The Obama administration’sproposal to dedicate over a billion dol-lars of emergency funding to develop-ing countries for agriculture, and the

Within the framework of the annualConference of the Community FoodSecurity Coalition (CFSC) held in DesMoines, Iowa, October 10th to 13th, LaVia Campesina received the 2009 FoodSovereignty Prize for its relentlessstruggle for Food Sovereignty for peo-ple of the world and against the disas-trous neoliberal system of industrialagriculture.

In front of hundreds of delegatesfrom the United States and other coun-tries, Dena Hoff from the North Ameri-can region and Edgardo García fromthe Central American region wereawarded the prize. Introducing theprize, Molly Anderson President ofCFSC, highlighted the internationalleadership of La Via Campesina in themovement that aims at creating a moredemocratic food system to solve thegrowing problem of hunger in theplanet.

Dena Hoff, farmer from Montanaand head of the National Family Farm-ers Coalition (NFFC), speaking onbehalf of the millions of peasants,women, indigenous people, migrantrural workers and young people,accepted the prize and the distinctionbestowed upon them, repeating theengagement of La Via Campesina tokeep working for Food Sovereignty inall corners of the world.

Edgardo García, leader of the RuralWorker Association (ATC) fromNicaragua, thanked all present for theirsolidarity and called for the implemen-tation of the deep-seated changesrequired for Food Sovereignty. Nobodyshould suffer hunger and the foodneeded by the people should not be inthe hands of greedy corporationswhose only goal is for maximum profit.We should all strive for a democraticand fair society with universal dignity.

The spirits of all at the conference wereraised when Edgardo read a messagefrom Rafael Alegría, leader of La ViaCampesina in Honduras and also theNational Front of Resistance againstthe Coup, calling for concrete solidarityfrom The North American people withthe heroic struggle of the Honduraspeople. “This prize, said Edgardo Gar-cía, will accompany the peasant andpopular struggle in Honduras”

It is symbolic that this prize award-ed to La Via Campesina, should begiven only days before the opening ofanother event in the same town: theWorld Prize for Food awarded to indi-viduals for their notable contribution tobiotechnology in agriculture. This prizewas first established by the Nobel prizelaureate Norman Borlaug also knownas “Father of the Green Revolution”

It is also symbolic that the confer-ence and the 2009 prize for Food Sover-

La Via Campesina Wins First Food Sovereignty Prize

by Carlos Marentes, Border Agriculture Workers/La Via Campesina North America

Dena Hoff, Montana farmer and La Via Campesina North America Region Coordinator,and Edgardo García, leader of the Rural Worker Association (ATC) from Nicaraguareceive first-ever CFCS Food Sovereignty Prize.

U.S. government&rsquo;s Global FoodSecurity Initiative are thinly veiledefforts to this end.

Peasants, landless workers,migrants, indigenous peoples and con-

Peasants Worldwide Rise up Against Monsanto, GMOsLa Via Campesina carries out Global Day of Action against Monsanto

La V

ia C

ampe

sina

Nor

th A

mer

ica

La Via Campesina members and supporters held events around the world marking a dayof opposition to transnational corporations, Monsanto, and GMOs

Following is an excerpt of WendellBerry’s public comment at a recentUSDA listening session on the NationalAnimal Identification System held in KY- Wendell Berry will be appearing at theWisconsin Book Festival in Madison, WIon Oct. 3rd - stay tuned for details...

The need to trace animals was madeby the confined animal industry —which are, essentially, disease breedingoperations. The health issue was invent-ed right there. The remedy is to put ani-mals back on pasture, where theybelong. The USDA is scapegoating thesmall producers to distract attentionfrom the real cause of the trouble. Pre-sumably these animal factories are, in atoo familiar phrase, “too big to fail”.

This is the first agricultural meetingI’ve ever been to in my life that wasattended by the police. I asked one ofthem why he was there and he said:“Rural Kentucky”. So thank you for yourvote of confidence in the people you aresupposed to be representing. (applause)I think the rural people of Kentucky areas civilized as anybody else.

But the police are here prematurely. Ifyou impose this program on the smallfarmers, who are already overburdened,you’re going to have to send the policefor me. I’m 75 years old. I’ve about com-pleted my responsibilities to my family.I’ll lose very little in going to jail in oppo-sition to your program — and I’ll have todo it. Because I will be, in every way thatI can conceive of, a non-cooperator.

I understand the principles of civildisobedience, from Henry Thoreau toMartin Luther King. And I’m willing togo to jail to defend the young peoplewho, I hope, will still have a possibilityof becoming farmers on a small scale inthis supposedly free country. Thank youvery much. U

Wendell BerryChooses JailOver NAIS

La V

ia C

ampe

sina

Author’s Note: In August I had theopportunity to travel to Atoyac de Alvarez,Mexico to participate in the 1st La ViaCampesina North America Region YouthCamp. The following are excerpts andextrapolations from the notebook I kept dur-ing the trip.

The first day of camp yields a num-ber of surprises, including the age ofsome of the participants. They range inage from the youngest at thirteen to meand a couple others in our early thirties.Most are in their late teens and early-mid twenties. The cut-off for La ViaCampesina youth designation is 35,which means most of the teenagers inattendance have another lifetime to goif they stay with the movement. I amimpressed that teenagers would trade aweek of their young lives for lessons onhow to be better organizers and advo-cates for the people they represent,mostly rural peasants, migrant work-ers, landless people, and politicalreform activists. When I was the age ofsome of my co-campers my thoughtswere certainly not of resisting system-atic oppression and defending rurallife. I am in awe and slightly embar-rassed by a culture that prepares itsyouth for the harsh reality of our times.

* * * * * * * *

This morning we heard from La ViaCampesina North America RegionCoordinator Alberto Gomez. His affa-ble and engaging style kept the group’sattention despite the sweltering heat oflate morning. Beto, as he is known here,is a long-time campesino organizer andactivist in Mexico. He described La ViaCampesina as “an international move-ment of peasant organizations, familyfarmers, landless, and indigenousgroups.” La Via Campesina is non-par-tisan though we advocate for politicalreform. We are a movement made up ofa coalition of organizations, rather thanan organization ourselves.

Beto tells us we are part of a globalstruggle to defend the rights of peas-ants against financial institutions suchas the International Monetary Fundand the World Bank, trade agreementssuch as NAFTA and CAFTA, andtransnational corporations like Mon-santo, Cargill, and Wal-Mart. Heemphasized that peasant struggles arethe same around the world and that wehave common enemies. Globalisamo lalucha! Globalisimo la esperanza!

* * * * * * * *

This morning I had one of the bestmeals of my life, the kind you tellgrandkids about. Following a tour of asmall organic diversified fruit, veg-etable, and flower farm we were treat-ed to a late breakfast of fried fresh-caught whole fish, tortillas, rice, twosalsas, and plenty of limes to dress it all.There was freshly squeezed juice froma blend of fruit gathered off the farm byour generous hosts. Our meal was pre-pared by the wives, mothers, anddaughters of the men who caught thefish early that morning. As we dined alfresco, shaded by palm trees, the smileson our hosts faces revealed the univer-sal pleasure cooks, gardeners, and for-agers receive upon witnessing a groupof people passionately imbibing thefruits of their labor. The French have aword to describe their relationship tofood, terrior, which roughly translatesto “taste of the land.” Engulfed inreverie, I failed to ask if there was acomparable word in Spanish to de-scribe my experience. Nevertheless,today I tasted the coast of Mexico in allit’s glory and abundance and for that Iam eternally grateful to everyone andeverything.

* * * * * * * *

Today we traveled to Aguas Blan-cas, a village high in the mountainsabout two hours drive from our camp.This will be the first of four visits wewill make to villages to share withthem the work of La Via Campesinaand to ask for their support in our cam-paigns, including keeping Monsantoand genetically-engineered crops out ofMexico. Along the way we stop at amemorial for 15 political activists fromthe village who were murdered in 1995by assassins while on their way to arally in Atoyac. We lay flowers, lightcandles, and read poetry. We convenewith the dead, our compañeros.

As we pull out of Aguas Blancasafter our hour-long visit my thoughtswander to that morning in 1995. I won-der what the mood was among thosewho would soon meet their fate as theyembarked down this dirt road we now travel. Excitement? Anticipation?Could any have known what await?Quiet has come over the 15 or so of uspiled in the back of the pick-up truck.Perhaps they wonder, too.

Currently Bob is working on a presenta-tion about La Via Campesina and theircampaigns with photos from his trip toMexico. To schedule a presentation in yourcommunity contact me at 244-0908. U

Page 12 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

Notebook From Mexicoby Bob St.Peter

Composting with worms is increasingly common in rural Mexico and produces an impor-tant source of fertility for small organic farms.

Youth from Mexico, the U.S., and Canada gathered for a week in Atoyac, Mexico toshare experiences and develop leadership skills.

The host organization for the camp, UNORCA (Unión Nacional de OrganizacionesRegionales Campesinas Autónomas) operates a number of enterprises, including an api-ary run by a women’s cooperative.

A taste of Mexico. Bags of finished worm compost, a sign of good things to come.

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 13

cide; diversity is the stuff and the staffof life. Which will we support?

We can further strengthen our com-munity involvement and gain its bene-fits by supporting the emerging localfood community as an alternative tothe anonymity and alienation of global-ized production and big-box distribu-tion. Our local farmers, gardeners, arti-sans, craftspeople, and entrepreneursare at the heart of this new community.They share our concerns about health,wages, equity, and human rights thatgo hand-in-hand with issues aboutwater, climate, soil, and biodiversity. AsMasanobu Fukuoka, points out: “Theultimate goal of farming is not thegrowing of crops, but the cultivationand perfection of human beings.”Through the cooperating, sharing,growing, empathizing, and lovingrequired to become a community, werefine our humanity. In a self-sufficientcommunity, we get to set the rules andenforce them. We are no longer hostageto the unsustainable growth demandedby institutions whose primary purposeis to create wealth.

Community is homegrown. It arisesfrom the ground up. It is seeded by per-sonal commitment. Its soil is fertilizedby the experiences, knowledge, creativ-ity, hopes, and dreams of our neigh-bors. Community is empowered by ourown energies. It is watered by our dailysweat and tears. It is weeded and tend-ed by our communal good judgmentand common sense. It is harvested byour children and stored for our descen-dents.

This article is based on excerpts fromBRINGING FOOD HOME: THEMAINE EXAMPLE by Merry StetsonHall. Involvement in permaculture, a localCommunity Supported Agriculture farm,and Maine’s Common Ground Fairinspired Merry to use her writing talents,education, and experience to share herresearch about how an alternative, resilientcommunity, economy, ecology, and ethicare growing up in Maine around sustain-able local agriculture. She can be reached at mainelyorganic@yahoo.com. U

instrument for growing peace. It helpsto take the pressure off internationalresources, disempowers the avariciousgiant corporations and re-empowersindigenous people. As it reduces ourcarbon footprint, it should correspond-ingly reduce our reasons for the aggres-sive policies, postures, and practicesthat ignite wars. Peace grows and theEarth recovers in every garden or farmthat depends on Mother Nature’s coop-eration rather than on artificial, corpo-rate inputs. If anybody is going to bringhealing to the earth, healthful food toour tables, sanity to our economics,sustainable prosperity to our commu-nities, and a peaceable lifestyle tohumanity, it is our small sustainablefarmers, gardeners, fisherfolk, forest-ers, and locavores.

Do you grow community as one ofyour garden crops? Yes, just being out-doors in your yard attracts neighbors tostop by to chat. Gardeners swap seedsand gardening advice. Flowers beauti-fy the whole neighborhood. We sharethe vegetables we grow...especially thezucchinis! Almost all our social gather-ings include food. Families cometogether around fresh, home-raisedfood. Farmers nurture community asthey feed the world. Community maybe the most important crop growing inMaine fields and gardens.

When we get to know our neighborsand to support them, we will belong tothe community we cherish. Belong-ing—not belongings—is at the root ofsustainable human satisfaction. Home-grown community within which wecan situate ourselves and with whichwe can identify is a crucial element ofhuman identity. We can insure ourfuture happiness and security only byrebuilding human scale communitiessupported by local agriculture.

As gardeners and farmers, we arereclaiming our intimacy with our foodas our birthright that nature hasbequeathed us instead of throwing itaway at our peril for the profit of corpo-rations in return for “convenience”food. Do we want food as a commodityor as a companion? Homogeny is geno-

As farmers and consumers share inthe cultivation of our heritage, ourfields, and our gardens, we are discov-ering that, together, we are also culti-vating community. We are feeding andenriching each other, thereby nurturingsocial justice. We are forming consumerand farmer cooperatives, strengtheningties that bind us to one another. Farmsare turning to Community SupportedAgriculture (CSAs) in record numbers.Over backyard fences, we are sharingfood and garden lore with our immedi-ate neighbors. At the farmstands andfarmers’ markets we are meeting ourslightly more distant neighbors. As welearn more about our interdependence,we are creating numerous organiza-tions and events supporting local farm-ers. Community is springing up every-where around food. A MOFGA bumpersticker reads “Local Farms, HealthyCommunities.” Our state recognizesthis connection with a new “SupportLocal Agriculture” license plate.

Maine’s local sustainable farmersare acting upon the wisdom expressedby Wes Jackson, co-founder of TheLand Institute, “We live off of whatcomes out of the soil, not what’s in thebank. If we squander the ecologicalcapital of the soil, the capital on paperwon’t much matter.” I have hope thatthey can lead us into developing a cul-ture that uses energy and the soil fru-gally and sustainably.

I will never again think of theexpression, “dirt farmer,” as pejorative.The true “black gold” for the 21st cen-tury is not oil but humus. Our localfarmers are the geologists/chemists/biologists/artisans/magicians who willassist nature to produce it. We shouldgain respect for humus and the peoplewho husband it. I have written them apoem:

Farmers’ Communion

We sowAnd growHarvestAnd rest

And soWe knowSeasons’Reasons

AttunedTo moonAnd soilWe toil

Our GodAnd sodBecomeAs One

When we become advocates for ourlocal food community, we protect farmore than our immediate neighborsand our local environment. We redressthe global problems that threaten allhumanity. “Think globally; act locally”contains a seed of universal truth. Localagriculture is inextricably tied to globalhealing. Many people throughout theworld, especially in developingnations, are realizing this and reclaim-ing their land from corporate coloniz-ers. As we localize at home, we free upothers abroad to do likewise. We nolonger need to commandeer theresources sorely needed in their home-land.

Local agriculture is an important

Page 14 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

UN ISSUES REPORT ONSEED POLICIES AND THERIGHT TO FOOD

The UN Special Raporteur’s reporton the Right to Food titled “Seed poli-cies and the right to food: enhancingagrobiodiversity and encouraging inno-vation” is available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/docs/A-64-170.pdf.

From the report’s summary: “Theprofessionalization of breeding andits separation from farming leads tothe emergence of a commercial seedsystem, alongside the farmers’ seedsystems through which farmers tradi-tionally save, exchange and sellseeds, often informally. This shift hasled to grant temporary monopoly privi-leges to plant breeders and patent-holders through the tools of intellec-tual property, as a means to encour-age research and innovation in plantbreeding. In this process, however,the poorest farmers may becomeincreasingly dependent on expensiveinputs, creating the risk of indebted-ness in the face of unstable incomes.Private-led research may seek to sat-isfy the needs of farmers in industri-alized countries, while neglectingthose of poor farmers in developingcountries. The farmers’ seed systemsmay be put in jeopardy, althoughmost farmers in developing countriesstill rely on such systems, which, forthem, are a source of economic inde-pendence and resilience in the faceof threats such as pests, diseases orclimate change. Finally, agrobiodiver-sity may be threatened by the uni-formization encouraged by the spreadof commercial varieties.”

ORGANIC GROWERINSPIRES BEET LAW SUITCapital PressBy Mitch Lies

PHILOMATH, Ore. - Frank Mortonsaid he was told he should sue theUSDA if he didn’t like Roundup Readysugar beet seed being produced inOregon’s Willamette Valley.

“I was literally told three timesthat if you don’t like that, you’ll haveto sue USDA,” Morton said.

In January 2008, the Philomath-area organic vegetable seed growercontacted the Center for Food Safetyand helped instigate the suit that hasput in question the future of trans-genic sugar beet production.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S.White, a Bush-administrationappointee, last week ruled the USDAviolated the National EnvironmentalPolicy Act when it failed to prepare anenvironmental impact statementbefore deregulating the geneticallyengineered beets in 2005.

White has scheduled an Oct. 30meeting to discuss remedies. TheCenter for Food Safety andEarthjustice are expected to ask foran injunction banning new plantingsuntil USDA can complete the environ-mental assessment.

Morton said his primary objectivewas protecting his business.

“This is not a political concern,”he said. “I was concerned that con-tamination events would begin tooccur that would make my seedworthless.”

Read full story at http://www.capitalpress.com/content/ml-beet-seed-suit-100209-art.

NFFC URGES DIRECTDAIRY FARMER PAYMENTS

The National Family Farm Coalitionheld a press teleconference, Oct. 13,to thank Congress for $350 million inemergency appropriations for dairy

NEWS & NOTES continued

continued on page 16

Groups like Cultivating Community in Portland use food and gardening to bring youthtogether to teach life skills and improve neighborhoods.

Phot

o co

urte

sy C

ultiv

atin

g C

omm

unity

©2003

Agriculture Supported Community ~ The “Crop” of the Future

by Merry Stetson Hall

ORGANIZATION: Rural CommunityAction Ministry

CONTACT: 81 Church Hill Road, LeedsME 04263 (207) 524-5095;524-379; 224-7505

Executive Director:rcam98@fairpoint.net

Garden Program Coordinator:rcamgarden@aol.com

SERVICE AREA: Canton, Hartford,Sumner, Leeds, Livermore, Buckfield, Turner, Wayne, Monmouth, Greene, Litchfield,Wales, Sabbatus

WHO THEY ARESince 1970 Rural Community

Action Ministries (RCAM) has beenhelping people to meet their needs forsafe and adequate shelter, clothing,food, and basic well-being in a mannerthat maintains or improves their selfworth and dignity. Located in Leeds,RCAM reaches out to people in ruralMaine who are in need and assiststhem to help themselves. RCAM offersa number of training and direct assis-tance programs, including emergencyand long-term housing services and aprogram to connect volunteers withfrail elderly and disabled persons.RCAM also helps operate 13 foodbanks in their service towns.

PROGRAM PROFILE: RCAM Gardening Program

The mission of RCAM’s GardeningProgram is “to encourage and assistlow income persons to alleviate hungerand improve nutrition by helping themgrow and preserve their own food.”

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 15

RCAM works with people of differentskill levels, assisting those who are lessexperienced growing food and mentor-ing those who have more. Through thisprogram rural people are feedingthemselves and their families fresh,delicious, and nourishing food. TheGardening Program provides servicesin 13 rural and largely low incomecommunities, including offering seeds,seedlings, roto-tilling, research basedinformation, on-site visits to supportand encourage success, and education-al programs. Workshops include “Howto Plant,” “Green Manures,” “CoverCrops and Composting,” “ContainerGardening,” “Preserving your Harvestby Canning, Freezing and Dehydrat-

ing” and “Growing and Using Herbs”.RCAM staff and volunteers providedirect assistance with the planning,planting, and harvesting of gardens, asneeded.

RCAM incorporates cooking classesinto their gardening program as part ofa holistic approach to food security.Participants learn basic cooking skillsthat allow them to integrate their owngarden produce and other nutritiousfoods into their meals. The classesinclude a “mystery cooking day”where dishes are prepared with unfa-miliar ingredients. Students identifythe ingredients and learn new ways ofincorporating them into their gardensand kitchens.

According to their website, RCAMruns the only program of this type inthe state of Maine!

KEYS TO SUCCESSVolunteers. RCAM’s Gardening Pro-

gram relies on volunteers who are will-ing give their time and resources. Vol-unteers help clients with planning,weeding, planting, and harvesting.They also assist in RCAM’s 100x80 footoverflow garden that provides produceto those who experience crop losses orare in need emergency food assistance.Cooperative Extension Master Garden-ers provide volunteer labor and men-torship.

In addition to local volunteers,RCAM receives church and youthgroups from around country who comeannually to help with the program.

Dedicated Staff. Running a successfulprogram on a tight budget would notbe possible without dedicated staff.Wanda Braithwaite-Baril, RCAM Gar-dening Program Coordinator, personi-fies dedication. Braithwaite-Baril was a“young mom from NYC didn’t knowanything” when she first came toMaine and signed up for the programshe now heads. What made the differ-ence for her was the personal attentionand genuine care she received. She con-tinues this tradition by visiting eachclient every year. According to Braith-waite-Baril, an important key to suc-cess is “treating people like you’d wantto be treated.”

HOW YOU CAN HELPDonations. The RCAM Gardening

Program use to run from mid-March toNovember, but because of funding cutsit now starts in mid-May. The later startmakes good publication difficult andreduces the program options. It alsocuts out a very active and productivetime of the year for gardeners. A year-round program would have the most tooffer, according to Braithwaite-Baril,and get the program the proper start itneeds in Spring.

Materials. Lumber for raised gardenbeds, canning materials, garden tools.

Volunteers. Volunteers of differentskill levels accepted.

To learn more about the Rural Com-munity Action Ministry or for a sched-ule of programs and activities call theiroffice at 524-5095. U

To The RootProfiles of groups working in Maine to build a nourishing food system

with justice and dignity for all.

Saving Seeds Ad Policy We will accept paid ads from all non-

profit organizations, educational insti-tutions and locally-owned commercialbusinesses who support sustainableagriculture. Submissions may be madein PDF, TIF or scanable hard copy, grayscale only. Digital images, includingthose embedded in PDFs, should be at180 dpi. Payment must be receivedbefore the ad can go to print unless priorarrangements are made. Ads submittedwithout payment or prior arrangementare held until the next issue or until pay-ment is sent. Food for Maine’s Futurepublications are not “ad rags”, so spaceis limited. Ads will be run on a first-

come, first-served basis. We reserve theright to refuse any ad.

Note: Discounts are available formultiple ads or multiple runs. Contactus for more information.Ad Sizes AvailableA) Size: 2 3/8" x 2 3/8" – ($20.00 per

issue/program)B) Size 3 3/16" x 2" – standard business

card ($35.00 per issue/program)C) Size: 2 3/8" x 4 7/8" ($50.00 per

issue/program)D) Size: 4 7/8" x 2 3/8" ($50.00 per

issue)E) Size: 4 7/8" x 4 7/8" ($100.00 per

issue) U

Sign Up for PortClyde Fresh Catch

CSF ShrimpPort Clyde Fresh Catch is currently

enrolling subscribers for this winter’sMaine shrimp CSF-sign up today!

Shrimp subscriptions will begin theweek of December 20th and run for 12weeks. Sign up for a subscription of anylength, and at anytime during the CSFseason. Lobsters, crabs, lobster meatand crabmeat may also be available.

Ask us for details!

CSF SHRIMPSUBSCRIPTION PRICING

Half shares (3 lbs of shrimp per week):Raw picked shrimp meat: $15 per week ($5/lb)Cooked picked shrimp meat: $18 per week ($6/lb)

Whole shares (6 lbs of shrimp per week):

Raw picked shrimp meat: $30 per week ($5/lb)Cooked picked shrimp meat: $36 per week ($6/lb)

CSF shares will be available forpick-up at the following locations:

Gardiner Farmers Market: Pick upon Mondays on the 1st and 3rd weeksof the month between 2pm and 5:30pmlocated at Episcopal Christ Church onthe corner of Dresden and ChurchStreets

St. George: Pick-up on Saturdaysbetween 9am and 10am at the PortClyde Fresh Catch processing facilityon Marshall Point road in Port Clyde,behind Herring Gut Learning Center

Bath Farmers Market: Pick-up onthe 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the monthbetween 9am and 12pm at the BathFarmers Market located at 150 Con-gress Street

Rockland: Pick-up on Sundaysbetween 11am and 12pm at the FirstUniversalist Church in Rockland locat-ed at 345 Broadway

Camden: Pick-up on Sundays be-tween 1pm and 2pm at Farmers Farelocated at the corner of Route 90 andCross St

Belfast: Pick-up on Sundays be-tween 3pm and 4pm at the Belfast FoodCooperative located at 123 High Street

For further information about win-ter CSF subscriptions, please contactCSF Manager Jessica Libby at (207) 975-2191 or jessica@midcoastfishermen.org.

Please visit the Port Clyde FreshCatch website for more informationabout the winter’s shrimp CSF or theMidcoast Fishermen’s Cooperative orPort Clyde, Maine. www.portclyde-freshcatch.com U

Volunteer Justin helps break-down seeds and prepare them for distribution.

Volunteer youth group from Williamsville, NY helps build a raised garden bed for a pro-gram participant.

RC

AM p

hoto

RC

AM p

hoto

Maine to make this film, his first fullfeature. He tells us:

“I was exiting a Los Angeles free-way when I received a call from myfather who had just reconnected withGlen Libby, a childhood friend... Itdidn’t take long after hearing aboutGlen’s work with the Midcoast Fisher-men’s Association and the struggleshis group are facing for him to put twoand two together. Three weeks later Iquit my job and drove across the coun-try from Los Angeles to Maine to beginthe film... I have been determined tomake this film without the use of a nar-rator so the fishermen could tell theirstory how they see it, and as a result Ibelieve the film is an honest look into

their struggle.”The Fish Belong to the People will moti-

vate Mainers to support our local fish-erfolk in many ways, including joiningthe newly emerging Community Sup-ported Fisheries. The fish belong to thepeople, according to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation andManagement Act. Let’s support ourcoastal neighbors who go out on thewaters in small, sustainably operatedfishing craft to bring them home to ourtables. “I’d like to see a fifth generationdoin’ what I’m doin’,” says one of thefisherfolk in the film. Only we canmake it possible for that dream tocome true. U

“Imagine a situation here in Mainewhere you’ve got an ocean full of fishand people standing on the shore, butno way to access it. That’s what we’reheaded for if we don’t make some seri-ous changes.”

So says one of Maine’s fisherfolk inThe Fish Belong to the People, a featurelength documentary that will be pre-miering at the Camden Film Festival inOctober. The film exposes us to one ofthe most crucial issues facing Maine:the loss of a local livelihood to theindustrialized fisheries of mega-corpo-rations. “Family fishermen have de-fined the coast of Maine,” according toone local fisherman profiled in the film,but the federal ‘Bigger is better!’ mind-set has taken over, introducing a tech-nology that the ecosystem can’t sustain.“If these guys give up what they have,they’ll never get back. They can’t com-pete,” exclaims another fisherman.With each passing season their way oflife has slowly been extinguished bypractices and policies that favor themost efficient and destructive ways offishing over sustainability.

The Fish Belong to the People featureslocal salts like Glen Libby, Gary Libby,Randy Cushman, Doug Anderson,Laura Kramar, Jen Litteral, Justin Libby,Matty Thompson, and Carrie Gleason.Will Hyler, director and cinematogra-pher of award winning shorts at homeand abroad, came back to his native

ment toward local food security. Weneed to quickly find that passage weread so we can quote it to our class, ourboard, our members, a local donor. Weneed to grab that story our legislatorcould use to make a key point at ahearing.

Merry Hall spent hundreds, per-haps thousands of hours compilingthese eyewitness accounts, these ‘bestpractices’, these ‘lessons learned’.Maine food producers don’t have timeto talk to all of us, but it’s imperativethat we know what they think shouldhappen, and what they would need inorder to deliver greater food securityto us. Those who are working to endhunger and malnutrition, to get health-ier food into our schools, to preservefamily farming and fishing businesses,and to close the gap between food pro-ducer and consumer as directly andfairly as possible-they need to be abouttheir work. Yet all Mainers need to heartheir thoughts and benefit from theirexperience and knowledge.

Merry Hall has made that all possi-ble in this self-published book whichcan be obtained for distribution bygoing to www.booksurge.com or as aretail copy at www.amazon.com . Lastyear, I made holiday gift baskets formy family: Goodwill-recycled baskets,filled with Maine-made goodies likesmoked salmon, Ray’s mustard,organic blueberry vinegar, maplesyrup, pear wine, pickled fiddleheads.They were a huge hit. This year, I’mputting a copy of Merry Hall’s bookfront and center. Right where itbelongs on your bookshelf!

Jane Livingston designed and coordi-nated the Maine Feeds Maine project andcan be reached at jane_livingston@myfair-point.net U

Page 16 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

farmers. However, NFFC warned thatunless a broken pricing system isreplaced and antitrust measures aretaken to address the lack of competi-tive markets for farmers’ milk, thou-sands of dairy farms will still be lostthis year. Paul Rozwadowski, aWisconsin dairy farmer and NFFCDairy Subcommittee chairman, said,“Dairy farmers from across the coun-try stand united in requesting thatthe $290 million in appropriations goto direct payment funding to putmoney in farmers pockets without lim-its on production. While we appreci-ate this money, it won’t be enoughthough to keep farms from goingbroke. While a recent WashingtonPost editorial blamed farmers for ourplight, we do not have control overthe price of milk. If dairy processorscurrently making windfall profits paidus fairly, then there would be no needfor these taxpayer bailouts.”

For more info visit www.nffc.net.

NATIONAL LEAFY GREENSMARKETING AGREEMENTCOULD HARM LOCAL,FAMILY-SCALE ANDORGANIC GROWERSCornucopia Institute

A proposed marketing agreementwould allow leafy green handlers toattach a USDA-backed "food safetyseal" to lettuce, spinach, cabbageand other vegetables while prohibitingmost organic and local farmers sell-ing through farmers markets, CSAs,roadside stands, and those sellingdirectly to retailers from using thesame seal.

The plan, hatched and promotedby some of the nation's largest corpo-rate agribusinesses that distributevegetables, is similar to a controver-sial California agreement that wasput into place after spinach, contami-nated with E. coli bacteria, sickened199 people in 26 states and leftthree dead in September, 2006.

"This proposed food safety agree-ment will do nothing to tackle theroot cause of the food safety prob-lem, which is, in most cases, manurefrom confined animal feeding opera-tions that is tainted with diseasecausing pathogenic bacteria," saidWill Fantle, of the Wisconsin-basedfarm policy group, The CornucopiaInstitute.

But the proposed safety stan-dards, which have been described asa "corporate-backed marketing ploy,"may give agribusinesses using thenew food safety seal a boost andlead many consumers to assume thatvegetables from industrial-scalemonoculture farms, primarily inCalifornia, are safer than the leafygreens available from local growersaround the country. And that hassome farmers worried.

"I am concerned that organic, andsmall and medium sized local grow-ers like myself, will become market-place ‘second-class citizens' in theeyes of some consumers, by implyingthat my produce is less safe - whenthe very opposite is likely to be true,"said Tom Willey, a certified organicvegetable grower from Madera, CA.

NAIS RECEIVES $5.3 MILLION IN FEDERALFUNDING

A conference committee report onthe Agricultural Appropriations bill,issued September 30, allocates $5.3million for the National AnimalIdentification System (NAIS), downnearly two-thirds from the $14.67 mil-lion originally requested by the U.S.Department of Agriculture (USDA).

“It’s a great first step towardsstopping a bad idea,” said rancherDeJon Bakken, a Dakota ResourceCouncil member from Adams County,

NEWS & NOTES continued

continued on page 18

shortcoming can be remedied in futureprintings. Lyrical chapter headingsmight have a line of explanationbeneath them in the table of contents,revealing the criteria Hall used todivide her anthology. Introducing sub-headings in the text would make it farmore readable. That’s why editors usethem, to reinforce key points that ourbrains need to have repeated, in orderto retain them.

Another printing would also benefitgreatly from an index. (I’m making myown while I wait for a better one.) Firstof all, there are hundreds of livingMainers named in these pages. We allwant to highlight those pages we’re on,to send to our grandmas or, in somecases, our grandkids.

Second, and more important, weneed to use this book as a powerful ref-erence tool in the broad-based move-

Bringing Food Home: The MaineExample by Merry Stetson Hall is apriceless collection of tales the authorgathered traveling around the state in2007 and 2008. Weaving these first-per-son stories together, Hall adds her ownvoice-establishing herself as aninformed proponent of local foodreliance, from page one:

“Many of us want to convert ourfears about contaminated food [etc.]into hope for an alternative, sustainablefuture. We know we must makechanges in lifestyle. Yet we don’t knowhow to move outside the roles of‘breadwinner’ and ‘consumer’ intowhich global corporations have boxedus. We can’t seem to ‘afford’ thechanges we know we need to make. Yetwhile we despair, a solution is growingright under our noses.”

As chief storyteller around thecampfire, she has passed the micro-phone like a modern-day talking stickfrom one person-one ‘stakeholder’ per-spective-to another: farmer, fisher, mar-ket gardener; processor, distributor,retailer; advocate, activist, organizer,policymaker. These folks get to speakfor themselves. Hall directs the read-er’s attention here, points out a detailthere, adds her own references for fur-ther exploration. All in large, bold typethat will be warmly welcomed by any-one with impaired eyesight.

The book, which Hall publishedherself with help from friends, hangstogether like a vintage patchwork quiltor a biodynamic garden: dense, rich,many-layered and fruitful. It’s best per-haps to access it that way. Just wanderin and start nibbling. Believe that thepage you open is the page you’remeant to read.

This lack of guidance may, however,reduce the book’s usability though the

Bringing Food Home: The Maine ExampleBook Review by Jane Livingston

Film Review: The Fish Belong to the Peopleby Merry Hall

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 17

GOULDSBORO, MAINE — A saladof mixed baby greens, organic aspara-gus and fiddleheads led the menu at a“Local Luncheon” held at OceansideMeadows Inn in Prospect Harbor. The190-year old inn overlooks Sand Coveon the northern shore of Frenchman’sBay, smack dab in the middle ofMaine’s Down East coast.

The three-course meal-which alsoincluded potato soup, bean pate, arti-san cheeses, homemade rolls andrhubarb-cranberry crisp-marked atasty mid-point in a workshop fororganizers of local food buying clubs.The workshop was part of the DownEast Route Cultivation project, fundedby an anonymous Maine donor.

Most of the fourteen groups at theworkshop were from Washington andHancock Counties, with three groupsrepresented from the Bangor area, andone from Farmington. Trainers camefrom around the state, representingsuccessful local food buying clubs andlocal distributors.

Some of the buying clubs represent-ed have not yet begun to order. Someare a year or two old. A few have beencollectively ordering packaged foodfrom Associated Buyers for decades.They break down bulk orders into indi-vidual members’ orders. They are nowlooking for local sources for more oftheir food.

Local focus has many facetsWorkshop participants learned that

all it takes to get a local food buyingclub going is a nucleus of determinedconsumers. A handful of “peer train-ers” from around Maine whoexplained how their local food buyingclubs succeeded provided informationand inspiration.

“Buy local” has become a mantra formany people involved in Maine’s foodproduction business. There are a num-ber of ways to make the connectionfrom field to fork.

Community Supported Agriculture(CSA) farms and Community Support-ed Fisheries (CSF) offer consumers away to support sustainable agricultureby giving producers a guaranteed baseincome to work with.

Family farming and fishing opera-tions sell “shares” up front that entitlethe bearer to collect food at regularintervals when it becomes available.Sometimes the food is distributed at thefarm or dock. In other cases, it may bepicked up at a Farmers Market or someother venue.

Farmers Markets are also thriving.Consumers flock to these cheerful out-door clusters of producers, who may betraveling across the state to get to amarket. As with the CSA, the FarmersMarket vendor is selling direct to theconsumer, and usually for considerablymore than the wholesale price thatsame food would bring in the com-modity marketplace. And for manyproducers and consumers, the mostimportant thing of all is the personalcontact.

Why buying clubs are a good betBut bad weather, other commit-

ments, gas prices, or sleeping in on Sat-urday morning can keep customersaway from the Farmers Market, whichmakes it a costly trip for the vendor.Plus, of course, most Farmers Marketsand CSAs are seasonal.

The workshop at Oceanside Mead-

ows Inn included several producersand distributors of Maine food as wellas buying club organizers. Almosteveryone in the room was either a ven-dor or a customer of at least one Farm-ers Market, and several owned CSAand CSF shares. So they know and likethese ways of marketing, yet they seethe buying club as an important option.

Local producer Carly DelSignoreBell of Tide Mill Organic Farm inEdmunds has helped a handful of buy-ing clubs get started. They order fromseveral Washington County producersand from the statewide distributorCrown O’Maine Organic Cooperative.Bell was one of five peer trainers at theworkshop.

She explained that local food buy-ing clubs, if operated efficiently, canleave producers with more time andless traffic on the farm than selling at aFarmers Market or having a CSAallows. And, they are a year ‘roundoption. Still, distribution takes moretime than she would like.

The distribution factorCrown O’Maine’s Marada Cook

and Mike Gold were also peer trainers.In addition to natural food stores andrestaurants, the company distributeslocal food to a rapidly growing numberof buying clubs. They pioneered in“Maine feeding Maine”.

Most of the items on CrownO’Maine’s 13-page availability sheetare organic Maine products (includingthose of the Bell family’s Tide MillFarm). Many come from family farmslocated in Aroostook County, the state’sagricultural stronghold, where farmersincreasingly look at Maine as a viablemarket alternative to wholesaling outof state.

Some local food buying clubs sup-plement their Crown O’Maine orderwith “micro-local” products from theirneighbors. Many of them don’t knowabout the clubs or can’t find a way todistribute to them efficiently.

As these micro-local suppliersbecome involved and distribution andstorage issues are addressed, orders toCrown O’Maine from some clubs mayfall. This doesn’t worry Marada Cook,who followed her father, the late JimCook, as the company’s chief execu-tive.

“If we put ourselves out of businessthrough the promotion of small-scalelocal farms, we will have succeeded alltoo well,” says Cook, who is also anorganic farmer, the mother of two tod-dlers, and a Hampshire College gradu-ate.

“In the meantime,” she adds,“Crown O’Maine has ample work to dogetting Maine food into the hands andmouths of Maine families, And rightnow, local food buying clubs are one ofthe most direct and affordable means ofgetting the job done right.”

Other local sourcing models One workshop trainer, who was

prevented from attending by a familyillness, was Bob St. Peter. He has organ-ized a local food buying club on theBlue Hill peninsula and, as director ofFood for Maine’s Future, supported theworkshop through its planning stages,as did other peer trainers.

Trainer Brent Hall represented thevery successful Union Supported Agri-culture (USA) program of Food ANDMedicine. USA links Happytown Farm

in Hancock County with union familiesand others who buy shares, just as in aCSA. They pick up their food at the Sol-idarity Center of Eastern Maine LaborCouncil in Brewer or several other ven-ues. USA also offers ‘work shares’ topeople who want to barter farm workfor food.

Another peer trainer at the work-shop was Lucie Bauer of the First Uni-versalist Church in Rockland. Bauerhelped organize the buying club, withdelivery at the church-from a local CSAfarm-taking place on Sunday morn-ings. Maine Organic Farmers and Gar-deners Association (MOFGA) and theMaine Council of Churches sponsoredthe initial effort under the guidance ofAndy Burt, a widely respected organiz-er.

This is the buying club that firstoffered CSF-community supportedfisheries-shares from a local fisher-men’s co-op, which now markets to atleast nine outlets along the coast. PortClyde Fresh Catch has been widelyhailed in the media.

Online technology featuredAlison LePage came from Portland

Food Co-op’s buying club, Food Now,to share the knowledge her club hasgained. Using the LCD projector pro-vided by friends of Food AND Medi-cine, she led the group through theonline ordering process her club uses.Some clubs who had been struggling tosimplify this process were delighted.

Workshop participants were treatedto a demonstrated of an interactiveonline food map of Maine that AlisonLePage recently developed for the EatLocal Foods Coalition. The map can beused to locate sources of Maine food, aswell as potential users (food pantries,institutions, etc.). And, the map can beused to plan ways to move food alongthe “food chain” more sustainably, forinstance by leaving the smallest “car-bon footprint” in terms of total energydemand.

LePage also shared the club’s orien-tation materials and job grid, notingthat these documents were not createdovernight and are constantly improv-ing. Food Now was begun two yearsago and today has around 100 activemembers, ordering biweekly fromCrown O’Maine and monthly fromUnited Natural Foods, Inc.

Discontent with United Natural’sproduct offerings and its increasingrestrictions on buying clubs havefueled greater interest in forming localfood clubs. Information on the superiornutrition of fresh food, concerns aboutfood-related illnesses, and support forlocal farming and fishing families areother factors contributing to the localfood movement.

Local links make strongerchains

In a final round of comments, every-one who attended the workshop atOceanside Meadows Inn indicatedthey felt their most important issuesand questions had been addressed.They stressed the need for more educa-tion in local sourcing and distributionroutes and strategies; ways to betterintegrate low-income consumers intolocal food webs, and how to use themedia to attract buyers and local sup-pliers.

A strong desire was expressed bymany to build more solidarity among

neighboring buying clubs, both in theWashington-Hancock County area andin the Bangor area, which was repre-sented by three groups. A new clubforming in Farmington also attended.

One reason Oceanside MeadowsInn was chosen was its renovated barn,a beautiful meeting and performancespace that comes complete with “wifi”(remote Internet access). Inn ownersBen Walter and Sonja Sundaramoffered the space for the workshop aspart of their commitment to supportingthe local economy and local food pro-duction.

Who made the workshop possible?

The Inn also provided technicalassistance in the person of their sum-mer intern, Diana Schwartz, a recentgraduate of Boston University. Shehelped Bill Phillips, a co-founder of theCommunity Media Center based at thePeace & Justice Center of EasternMaine, who videotaped the workshop.Mary Phillips took still photos. TheInn’s manager and chef, Marla Kenneyof Jonesport, provided the sumptuous“Local Luncheon” and took superbcare of the group.

The workshop concludes The DownEast Route Cultivation project, a sequelto Maine Feeds Maine, a series of multi-stakeholder teleconferences held in2007 to discuss how to cooperativelyadvance the state’s local food move-ment.

Both projects were funded by ananonymous Maine donor through theMaine Community Foundation, andwere administered and advised by theCooperative Development Institute,particularly Jen Gutshall and LyndaBrushett. Thanks are also due to CrownO’Maine and especially to Jim Cook,whose vision and friendship made theproject possible.

Johnny’s Seeds donates $600At the end of the workshop, project

coordinator Jane Livingston displayeda check for $600 from Johnny’s SelectedSeeds. She explained that the companyhad contacted her asking how theycould support the local food buyingclub effort. Her reply? A revolving loanfund of $600 would enable at least twoclubs to buy decent digital scales tosimplify and speed the breaking downof cases of squash, bags of onions,blocks of cheese as well as packages ofmeat and other products to weigh outindividual members’ orders.

Livingston invited workshop partic-ipants to suggest how to dispense theloans. A good scale typically can costaround $300. It was decided that thefund will be held in escrow while aplan is being developed that mightenable more clubs to purchase scalessooner rather than later.

Ideas for the “Johnny’s Seed Fund”include finding local donors to match a$150 loan to four clubs. Loans might berepaid by further fund-raising, perhapsamong buying club members; by plac-ing a small surcharge on orders; bycharging an annual membership fee; byall of the above, or by some other strat-egy.

For a final report on the Down EastCultivation project, contact the coordi-nator at:jane_livingston@myfairpoint.net. U

Local Food Clubs: Eating Their Wordsby Jane Livingston

Page 18 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

N.D. “Congress should end funding,period.”

NAIS would identify and track alllivestock and poultry animals ownedby producers and others across thecountry. Bakken said NAIS would not be an improvement over existingdisease programs run by state agen-cies, and would simply impose highcosts and paperwork burdens on fam-ily farmers. The conference commit-tee noted that USDA has alreadyspent more than $140 million in fund-ing for NAIS, but has registered onlyabout 37% of the estimated numberof properties under the first phase ofNAIS.

For more information visitwww.nonais.org.

SIMPLY SEEDSATIONALGrowers planting biotech seed

next spring will certainly have a broadarray of corn and soybean options tochoose from, including the industry’sfirst eight-stacked trait offerings. Infact, 2010 may well be rememberedas the “mother of all biotech seedyears” if all the anticipated seed reg-istrations are approved.

That is, until the 2011 season,when another strong group of geneti-cally modified (GM) seed commerciallaunches are anticipated. Then again,the 2012 pipeline is said to be solid,too.

If there was any doubt before, it’sa certainty now that many of theNorth American crop protection mar-ket leaders - including BayerCropScience, Dow AgroSciences,DuPont Crop Protection, MonsantoCo., and Syngenta Crop Protection -have successfully hit their stride inthe seed market by utilizing acquisi-tions, restructuring, and research anddevelopment (R&D) during the pastdecade.

The blurring line between seedand ag chemicals emphasizes thatthose tiny corn and soybean nuggetsin your hand are the food, feed, fiber,and fuel currency of not just yourbusiness and community, but theworld. With that kind of revenuepotential, it’s no wonder manufactur-ers dedicate key resources to theirseeds business.

Excerpted from an article by AmyL. Fahnestock, Senior AssociateEditor, CropLife. Read the full text athttp://croplife.com/clmag/?sto-ryid=2118

MONSANTO FORCASTSAFRICA TO INCREASEBIOTECH CROP PLANTING

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) — MonsantoCo., the world’s biggest seed produc-er, expects African countries toincrease planting of genetically-modi-fied crops to boost food security andeconomic development as the regionis affected by climate change.

Burkina Faso plans to double thearea planted with the company’sinsect-resistant cotton next year from129,000 hectares (318,766 acres)this year, Natalie DiNicola, director atMonsanto’s public policy and sustain-able yield division, said in an inter-view yesterday. Corn modified to toler-ate drought may be introduced to thesub-Saharan region by 2017, shesaid.

Farming in developing countriesneeds $83 billion of annual invest-ment for production to feed the worldin 2050, the United Nations’ Foodand Agriculture Organization said in apaper this week. Monsanto is intro-ducing new modified seeds to boostyields as part of a plan to doublegross profit from 2007 to 2012.Africa is affected by climate changeas more than 95 percent of sub-Sahara cropland is rain-fed, DiNicolasaid in Tokyo.

Article by Aya Takada. Read full

NEWS & NOTES continued

continued on page 20

LD 965 An Act To Establish AnnualReporting for Genetically EngineeredCrops

PROPOSED: LD 965 would require amanufacturer selling genetically engi-neered plant parts, plants or seeds inthe State to annually report to the Com-missioner of Agriculture, Food, andRural Resources the total potentialacreage at a given planting density ofgenetically modified crops that couldbe grown based on the amount of eachgenetically engineered product sold inthe State.

FMF POSITION: Support. Trackingtrends in the use of genetically-engi-

neered crops is essential forboth advocates and oppo-nents of the technology tomake informed decisionsabout the future of thesecrops in Maine.

RESOLVED: LD 965 wassigned into law on June 9,2009. The final bill includedan amendment requiring thecommissioner to provideaggregate data on sales ofgenetically engineered trees,tree seedlings, tree seeds,tree scions and other prop-agative materials to theDepartment of Conserva-tion, Bureau of Forestry. Thebill also included a confiden-tiality provision that protectsdata received from beingmade available to the public.

The commissioner shall make publicaggregate data that does not reveal thesales activities of an individual manu-facturer.

LD 1028 An Act To Enhance MunicipalHome Rule Statutes

PROPOSED: This bill would allow amunicipality to adopt an ordinancethat denies corporations constitutionalrights. It would also allow a municipal-ity to adopt an ordinance that statesthat a corporation may not be recog-nized as a person.

FMF POSITION: Support. LD 1028allows municipalities to assert theirrights ahead of the rights of corpora-tions who seek to profit from Maine’snatural resources. The bill challengesthe rights of personhood given to cor-porations, one of the greatest and far-thest reaching errors ever made by theSupreme Court, and provides greaterprotections over our commons fromcorporations whose legally-mandatedgoal is maximizing profit. Finally,through enforcing the rights of com-munities LD 1028 encourages food sov-ereignty in Maine, which in the face of abreakdown of food safety mechanismswithin the global food system is need-ed now more than ever.

RESOLVED: LD 1028 received an 11-2Ought Not To Pass vote in the Commit-tee on State and Local Government andis procedurally dead.

LD 1034 An Act To Create RegulatoryExemptions for Poultry

PROPOSED: This bill allows a poultryproducer to sell uninspected poultry atthe producer’s farm, at farmers’ mar-kets and to restaurants. The maximum

In 2009 the Maine Legislature hearda number of bills on genetic engineer-ing, the National Animal IdentificationSystem, corporate control of publicresources, and scale-appropriate foodprocessing regulation. Below is recap ofthe bills Food for Maine’s Future waswatching.

LD 557 Resolve, Directing the Depart-ment of Agriculture, Food and RuralResources To Study Potential Uses of aPotato Plant That Is Toxic to the Col-orado Potato Beetle

PROPOSED: This bill directed theDepartment of Agriculture, Food andRural Resources to conduct a study toexamine the potential uses ofa locally developed potatoplant, known as the “ShawPotato” that is purported tobe toxic to the Coloradopotato beetle.

FMF POSITION: Supported.During our testimony FMF,along with MOFGA, sug-gested that the first step inthe study process should beto determine whether theShaw Potato is not a hold-over from Monsanto’sNewLeaf potato which waspulled from the market bythe company in 2001 due topoor sales. The NewLeafpotato was genetically engi-neered to resist the Coloradopotato beetle.

RESOLVED: The Maine Potato Breed-ing Program established at the Univer-sity of Maine shall determine the genet-ic integrity of the potato variety knownas the “Shaw Potato.” If the director ofthe Maine Potato Breeding Programdetermines that the potato does notcontain any proprietary material, thedirector shall work with the MainePotato Board to develop a plan for thestudy of the Shaw Potato, its resistanceto the Colorado potato beetle, and itssuitability for commercial production.The Maine Potato Board shall submit acopy of the study plan and provide aprogress report to the Joint StandingCommittee on Agriculture, Conserva-tion and Forestry and to the MaineState Grange no later than December15, 2009.

LD 708 An Act to Create a Moratoriumon the Open-Air Production of Geneti-cally Engineered PharmaceuticalCrops in Maine

PROPOSED: As written, LD 708defines pharmaceutical or industrialcrops and restricts production toindoor laboratory and research settingsto prevent release of genetically engi-neered material from these crops. LD708 would place a ten-year moratoriumon the open-air production of thesecrops. The bill would also require theCommissioner of Agriculture, Foodand Rural Resources to monitor andreport changes in the federal regulationof these crops.

FMF POSITION: Supported. Of thecrops currently being considered orused for open air pharmaceutical test-ing three could likely be grown inMaine: barley, corn, and safflower.Corn and barley are wind pollinated.Safflower is largely self-pollinating

though bees are active pollinators. Theuncertainty of the safety of geneticengineering and the near certainty ofcontamination means that pharmaceu-tical crops pose too great a risk to ourfood supply. While Food for Maine’sFuture would support an outright banon the production of pharmaceuticalcrops, having a moratorium on out-door production in place is far betterthan not having one.

RESOLVED: LD 708 was signed intolaw on June 12, 2009. The final lan-guage of the bill was largely the sameas proposed, with a significant excep-tion being the ten-year moratoriumreduced to a three-year moratorium.

LD 804 An Act To Ensure the Integrityof Organic Agricultural Crops

PROPOSED: This bill requires all pro-ducers engaged in organic crop pro-duction to file an organic system planwithin 30 days of planting. The planmust include evidence that sufficientbuffer zones are incorporated into theoperation to ensure the integrity of theorganic crop operation. If the Commis-sioner of Agriculture, Food and RuralResources finds that an organic systemplan does not provide evidence ofsound measures to ensure the integrityof the organic crop operation, the com-missioner is authorized to report inade-quate buffer zones to the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture, NationalOrganic Program. If the commissionerfinds that a farmer using geneticallyengineered plant parts, seeds or plantsis not adhering to the use of best man-agement practices or that the organicsystem plan filed by a producer doesnot ensure the integrity of the organiccrop operation, the commissioner isdirected to recommend best manage-ment practices to the farmer or the pro-ducer.

FMF POSITION: Opposed. Despite it’sfavorable title, LD 804 was an attemptto place additional burdens on organicproducers The bill, if passed, wouldhave placed the burden for preventing GMO contamination on the organicproducer.

RESOLVED: LD 804 received a unani-mous “Ought Not To Pass” vote fromthe Agriculture, Conservation, andForestry Committee and never came tothe full legislature for a vote.

2009 Maine Food Policy Watch Recap

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 19

number of poultry that can be soldunder this exemption is 1000 per year.LD 1034 also establishes labelingrequirements and requires identifica-tion of uninspected products on restau-rant menus. For other provisions in thebill see “Low Down on the NewlyEnacted 1000 Bird Poultry Exemption”on page 8 in this issue.

FMF POSITION: Support. LD 1034gives Mainers more options andopportunities to be successful smallbusiness owners. Raising poultry on asmall-scale, particularly pasturedorganic poultry, and selling throughdirect markets provides a high returnand is a good way for new and existingfarms to increase their income withminimal investment. Slaughtering ani-mals on the farm where they wereraised reduces costs associated withtransportation and fees for processing.Minimizing transportation of farm ani-mals also reduces stress on the animalsand their handlers. Identify preserva-tion (through labeling) results inaccountability and easy traceabilityand is the best way to ensure the safetyof the food system.

RESOLVED: The bill’s title waschanged to An Act To Increase Accessto Farm Fresh Poultry and was signedinto law on June 10, 2009.

LD 1202 An Act To Establish aFarmer’s Rights in an Investigation ofIntellectual Property Theft of Geneti-cally Engineered Material

PROPOSED: LD 1202 creates a set ofminimum standards for biotechnologycompanies to adhere to when investi-gating farmers for the alleged theft oftheir intellectual property. If a farmer isto be subjected to investigation privateinvestigators must give farmers 5 daysnotice before coming onto their land tocollect samples of their crops. It wouldalso allow farmers to request that anofficial from the department of Agri-culture accompany the private investi-gators, and at the request of the farmertake independent samples in order toverify the test results of the privateinvestigators. Finally, LD 1202 makesthe technology manufacturer legallyliable for contamination and the associ-ated damages to farmers crops andlivelihood.

FMF POSITION: Support. This billwould provide basic protections forMaine’s farmers should they findthemselves under investigation foralleged illegal possession of patentedgenetically engineered material. Byrequiring a court order be obtainedprior to investigation of Maine farmers,LD 1202 affords farmers basic dueprocess rights. Requiring 5 daysadvanced notice is fair and neighborly.And allowing for independent testingguarantees that sampling with be fairand conclusive. The liability compo-nent of this bill is critical to ensuringthat farmers who suffer losses as aresult of genetic contamination, includ-ing loss of market and loss of seedstock. The question of who is liable iscentral to the genetic engineering ques-tion. The analogy of the cow that getsout of the field and tramples her neigh-bor’s crops is appropriate. Liability inthat case is clear. Why does the sameprinciple not hold for pollen drift?

RESOLVED: LD 1202 went through aseries of changes in the Agriculture,Conservation, and Forestry Commit-tee, including a title change to “An Act

Regarding the Use of Genetically Engi-neered Plants”. The bill had two com-mittee amendments that removed thesubstance of the bill - protectingfarmer’s rights against illegal searchand seizure and liability for gmo con-tamination - and replaced it with a billnot reflective of the original intent. Thefinal bill removed everything exceptthe provisions requiring the manufac-turer of genetically engineered plants,plant parts or seeds to provide writteninstructions to a grower that includesthe identity, relevant traits or charac-teristics of the genetically engineeredplant and requirements for its safehandling, storage, transport and use.The final bill also directed the Com-missioner of Agriculture, Food andRural Resources to provisionally adoptmajor substantive rules requiring aperson planning to grow a geneticallyengineered crop to select fields andcultivate the crop in a manner thatmaintains the integrity of all crops andminimizes potential conflicts betweenfarmers

LD 1202 died before coming to a voteand cannot be brought to the legisla-ture again until 2011.

to prevent or control a disease or toprotect the public health, safety or wel-fare. This bill does not prohibit theCommissioner of Agriculture, Foodand Rural Resources from participat-ing in a disease control program orimplementing an animal identificationsystem or prohibit a private agricultur-al industry organization from estab-lishing a voluntary source verificationprogram.

FMF POSITION: Opposed. Enactingany bill that would make it easier forthe State of Maine to create a mandato-ry animal id program is unacceptable.Mainers have expressed strong oppo-sition to this program at a state andfederal level. Should the federal gov-ernment choose to make this programmandatory Maine is likely be amongother states in challenging that deci-sion. Enacting LD 1238 would make itharder for Mainers to oppose a federalprogram and set an unwise precedentfor other states.

RESOLVED: LD 1238 was held over for2010. U

to look beyond those things to survivethe political pressure from big agribusi-ness.”“The old farmer that sold me this

farm, 70 at the time, used to talkto me about planting by themoon. I was skeptical at firstabout what difference the phaseof the moon could make forplanting, but observation overthe years has born out hiswords.”“21st century local farmers

won’t get rich, but thatdoesn’t seem to be the motivationfor those who understand thenecessity for building a viablealternative farm and food com-munity. We all-farmers, proces-sors, inspectors, distributors, andconsumers-we all need to startthinking outside the box.”“When it all shakes out,

there will be a change.The pressures are buildingthroughout society. It’s going toget more and more intense untilwe turn the corner on it. Mean-while, we make the changes wecan individually and support theinitiatives of others that nurtureour communities, farms, andfamilies. Maybe we will inspiredoctors, artisans, educators, and

other to do likewise. Farming can’ttotally outstrip the other fields in devel-oping a local community and economy.It’s all of one piece. There’s an opportu-nity for thinkers in all fields to thinkoutside our cultural box, if they arestrong in their understanding and canproceed, knowing it will take a longtime. These things don’t happenovernight. We must sow the seeds, butwe must do it now, because the crisis issurely coming.”“Living here is my biggest luxury! I

live to work. I need to be doingthis. I look at distribution as a way tobuild community, not to make money.My mission, what I was brought here todo is to look at the bigger picture.Because I am living my mission, I amenriched beyond what money can buyme.” U

Editor’s Note: In the Spring/Summer2009 issue of Saving Seeds we ran an arti-cle titled “A Tribute to Jim Cook” by MerryHall. Editorial errors resulted in a poor dis-tinction between the author’s words andJim’s. In the interest of clarity andaccuracy Saving Seeds is repub-lishing Jim’s quotes from the articlein their entirety.

“We need to honor peoplefor what they do. That

would go a long way towardsreducing the need for a bigsalary. This fear of not making abig salary is a mirage. We haveto let go of it. The farmers can’tget too far out ahead of the restof the community in this though.If some doctors, for instance,could let go of the profit motiveand fear of malpractice suits,they could realize there aregreater rewards in building true,holistic doctor-patient relation-ships, treating the distressinstead of buying into expensivetests and interventions. Thenthese doctors would be part ofthe kind of community you and Iare working towardsbuilding.”“Iguess we do what we can

with what we’ve got wherewe are right now. I know I lookat the Amish with admiration for theirhorse-drawn agriculture and bicyclesfor local transportation, but even theyget together to hire a truck to transporttheir crops downstate, where there’s agreater market. Making the leap fromconvenience to ethics is hard for all ofus. Convenience and consumerism arethe new slave-masters.”“The trouble is that big agribusi-

ness, with its “one size fits all;bigger is better” mentality, is gettingthe enforcement inspectors to stomp onthe little guy. Problems like agriculturalrun-off that caused the spinach pollu-tion need to be solved by commonsense hygiene and smaller feedlots, notby stomping on the diversified farmer.If they propose to make us separateanimal and crop farming or outlaw theuse of properly composted manure oncrops, they will have gone too far. This

is one issue where we need to stand upand say, “Enough is enough! We refuseto do this and we won’t, period.” Theproblem for MOFGA is that it is aUSDA certifying organization, so it has

to step too carefully. They need to bestrengthened by a grassroots demon-stration from within their ranks. Maineis in a position to be a leader in thesethings. If MOFGA fails to take anassertive leadership role, who will?”“The answer for right now has to

be to build a strong communityto do it. Then, when the shit hits thefan, we’ll all be ready to take a strongstand for what we know is right. Thegovernment and big corporationsweren’t ready for us in the ‘60s, butthey learned from it. They are ready forus now. The cost—especially for thoseof us that now have established farms,a great deal to lose, and aging bodies—is just too high for anybody to take onindividually. We have to have a grass-roots network. We’re so focused on ourindividual farms, CSAs, and farmers’markets (and rightly so!) but we need

Wise Words From Jim Cook

LD 1238 An Act Concerning theNational Animal Identification Sys-tem

PROPOSED: This bill requires theCommissioner of Agriculture, Foodand Rural Resources to adopt rules toimplement a national animal identifi-cation system if federal law makes thesystem mandatory including inform-ing farmers of their right to opt out ofthe system if the system has an opt-outprovision. If the national identificationsystem is voluntary, this bill prohibitsthe commissioner from forcing partici-pation in the system, withholdingindemnity from a person who does notparticipate in the system or denying orrevoking permits, licenses, services,grants or other benefits or incentives toa person who does not participate inthe system. The bill also prohibits amunicipality or political subdivisionfrom enacting or maintaining an ordi-nance requiring participation in an ani-mal identification system except toconform to a state requirement and thecommissioner from disseminating anyconfidential information to the nation-al animal identification system unless

Kat

hryn

Sim

onds

pho

to

Page 20 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

text at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=aO85e4QscSuE#

MAINE RECEIVES $4.4 MILLION IN FEDERAL AGRICULTURALAPPROPRIATIONS

The Maine funding includes:• $450,000 for an information pro-

gram to minimize pesticide use andimprove crop production for potatofarmers, run by the University ofMaine Cooperative ExtensionService;

• $700,000 for the Maine CattleHealth Assurance Program;

• $200,000 for blueberry productionresearch at the University of Maine;

• $295,000 for research by the NewEngland Invasive Plant Center;

• $2.25 million for the U.S.Department of AgricultureAgricultural Research Service lab inOrono and Presque Isle to studypotato management practices, theefficient use of nutrients and waterand the control of pathogens,insects, and weeds; and

• $499,000 for the AroostookEmpowerment Zone to provideapplicants with additional grants foreconomic development projects.

View full article by Mechele Cooper,Kennebec Journal, at http://ken-nebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/6960074.html

U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCYCALLS FOR GRANT PROPOSALS TO STUDYGMO ALLERGENS

The U.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency (EPA), as part of its Scienceto Achieve Results (STAR) program, isissuing this request for applications(RFA) for applied research on innova-tive or improved methods to predictwhether or not a pesticide protein isa food allergen. Research to charac-terize the key factors that influencehuman immune responses to dietaryproteins is needed in order to betterassess potential food allergy fromgenetically engineered plants.Proposals are requested on the roleof dose, route of sensitization,and/or the physicochemical proper-ties of ingested proteins and theirinfluence on the development ofimmune sensitization, oral tolerance,or the elicitation of allergic symp-toms. Also of interest is how the foodmatrix and gastrointestinal environ-ment in which proteins are ingestedmay affect these immune responses.

The deadline for proposals isJanuary 7, 2009. For eligibilityrequirements contact William Stelz atstelz.william@epa.gov.

THOUSANDS OF IRISHFARMERS PROTEST ATFALLING INCOMESPaul Spackman, Farmers WeeklyInteractive

(October 13, 2009) - Thousandsof farmers have taken part inprotests across Ireland to highlightthe devastating impact of falling farmincomes and government fundingcuts. About 6000 tractors werereportedly brought onto the streets of29 towns and cities across theRepublic yesterday (12 October),blocking roads and causing traffic dis-ruption, particularly in Limerick andKilkenny.

Irish Farmers Association presi-dent Padraig Walshe said the supportfor the “tractorcade” highlighted theanger felt by many farmers who faceda winter of cash shortages, while try-ing to provide for their families andkeep businesses afloat.

The IFA predicted farm

NEWS & NOTES continued

Ask CR is a Q&A by Fedco Seedsfounder and FMF board member CRLawn. To submit a question for CR emailaskcr@foodformainesfuture.org.

Q.What is the best way to storeseeds?

A.The year before I foundedFedco Seeds I organized a

group seed order with WCP,Central Maine’s co-operativeproduce ordering region in the‘70s, plus a growers’ group fromSomerset County. Being mostlyinexperienced growers andwanting to support a local busi-ness, we chose a fledglingWinthrop seed company toreceive our business. Theirprices couldn’t be beat, but wefound they had stored seeds andonion sets in their greenhousewhen we arrived to get ourorder. Unsurprisingly, the setsalready had 2-4 inch sprouts.Needless to say, we didn’t givethem more business in subse-quent years.

They couldn’t have picked aworse place to store their seed. Neverleave seeds in a greenhouse for even afew minutes. Heat and humidity arethe great enemies of seed longevity. Ofthe two, humidity is the worst and a10% increase for only a short period oftime can halve seed shelf-life. In gener-al, the sum of your temperature andrelative humidity should be under 100for good storage, although seed com-panies and professionals prefer consid-erably lower than that. That means thatif you keep your house at 70˚, you needhumidity of under 30%, not easy toachieve. Some seed savers put silica gelin their seed jars to absorb moisture.

Many folks order enough seeds of avariety to last two or three years, think-ing to save money by buying biggerpackets. But unless they make morethan a casual commitment to good stor-age, that is likely to prove a false econo-my. I found that unless I took precau-tions, most seeds were good only forthe year I bought them or for one yearmore at the most. Vigor declined, espe-cially for beans, corn and squash, aswell as germination for almost all therest. While tomato, cucumber andsquash seed of the pepo species are

17 Steps to a Successful

Local Food Buying Club

from Co-Operating Our Communities(2010 pub. date) by J.H. Livingstonjane_livingston@myfairpoint.net

1. Identify and Obtain Permissionfrom Prospective Sites

2. Identify, Obtain Commitmentsfrom Suppliers

3. Collect Product Availability/Price Information from Suppliers

4. Create Buying Club Order Docu-ments (listings, order forms)

5. Form a Group into a BuyingClub (meeting schedule, name,policy)

6. Distribute Ordering Informationand Open ‘Ordering Window’

7. Members Place Initial Orders;Deal with ‘Splits’, Place FinalOrders

8. Final Member Orders Are Com-piled, Club’s Order Placed withSupplier

9. Club’s Order is Filled by Supplier(s)

10. Distribution Site is Openedand Set Up

11. Club’s Order(s) are Deliveredto Distribution Site

12. Order is Unloaded, Reviewed,Accounts Adjusted, InvoicesPrepared

13. Order is Broken Down,Weighed, Re-Packaged, etc.as Member Orders

14. Members Pick-Up Orders,Pay Invoices

15. Clean Up Buying Club Distri-bution Site

16. Outreach/Feedback to andfrom Existing/ProspectiveSuppliers

17. Outreach/Feedback to andfrom New/Existing BuyingClub Members U

exceptions and often last much longer,peas, lettuce, root crops, peppers andmost herbs and flowers are finicky. If indoubt about held-over seeds, you cantest them for germination by sproutinga few in moist paper towels before try-ing them outdoors.

A few seeds are not worth storing at

all because they have such poorlongevity. Parsnips, parsley, anythingin the allium family, scorzonera, shisoand some other herbs, larkspur anddelphiniums are notorious for shortshelf-life and need to be renewed eachyear.

Probably the best place to keepseeds, provided they are sufficientlydry when you put them in, is in a jar inthe freezer or refrigerator. Rememberwhen you take them out to leave themin the jar for a while to allow for thecondensation that will occur in theirwarmer environment. If a fridge orfreezer is unavailable, try to find a cooldry place that is out of the sunlight.Remember that mice can climb andgnaw and will consider your seeds,especially cucumbers, melons andsquashes, to be yummy food.

Q.What are the best seeds for abeginner to start saving?

A.Open-Pollinated and F-1 hybrid.Self-pollinating and cross-polli-

nating. Wet seed and dry seed. Annu-als and biennials. If you want to saveseeds, it helps to think about the sepa-

rate categories thatmake up the alphabetof the seed saver.

At least tobegin, you’ll wantopen-pollinated vari-eties (op for short)because these willcome true from onegeneration to the next.If you save their seed,you will get the samevariety next year, pro-vided that you do notallow other varietiesto cross with them. F-1 (meaning first filial

Ask CR . . .by CR Lawn

Cou

rtes

y of

A S

eed

Euro

pe

RESISTANCE IS FERTILE

Do It

continued on page 22

Tomato seeds are a good choice for the beginningseed saver.

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 21

and smelly and then you can decantthe moldy stuff and draw off the seed.The fermentation helps kill off seed-borne diseases. Of these, tomatoes areprobably the easiest. You can get aremarkably large quantity of seed froma relatively small effort from thesecrops. And you can get to have yourcake and eat it, too as you can save theseed and still enjoy the fruits.

Annuals set seeds the first year and,as a result, are the easiest. Some, such

Experiments with No-till Mulching

SpringMy quest is to reduce tilling and

weeding in my garden. This year Istarted as soon as frost was out. First Ilayed 1” of crushed crab then 2”manure compost. I also include char-coal pieces as a carbon sink thatsponges air, water, nutrients, and

microorganisms. Then a 3’ mulch goeson, leaving a foot between rows. Here Itried grain bags, cardboard, newspa-per, or reused plastic (bags or whatev-er). This year I tried a permanent mulchproduct with a 20 year warranty -3’x50’ for $3 to say by to weeds.(Sounds good, but then you need sta-ples to hold it down. At first I usedsticks at an angle, then slabs of old lum-ber to hold down the corners.) Then alayer of sawdust on top. As you canimagine these took hours to do.

generation) hybrid ASK CR . . . seeds will not come true the followingyear. Because these varieties were theproduct of a cross of two or more differ-ent varieties, in the next generation thedifferent traits that comprise these vari-eties will segregate out, creating amishmash of possible combinations. Itwill take at least 5-7 years of selectionand breeding to get back to anythingclose to the original varieties.

Self-pollinating varieties are easierfor the beginner to work with thancross-pollinating varieties. That’sbecause self-pollinating varieties don’treadily cross with other varieties of thesame species. So you can grow morethan one pea, bean, lettuce or tomatovariety not far from one anotherbecause they are unlikely to cross. Butthey do occasionally cross, so I recom-mend a distance of 20 feet or morebetween different varieties to keep theseeds true. Cross pollinating varietiessuch as squash, cucumbers, melons,mustards and radish cross readily. Forabsolute purity you will need to keep atleast a half mile between varieties. Sev-eral hundred feet should be sufficient ifyou can tolerate a small amount ofcrossing. This distance is known as theisolation distance. Other means areavailable of ensuring purity if you can-not maintain isolations, but they aremore labor-intensive and require moreskills. Consult a book on seed savingfor additional information on them.

Dry-seeded crops generally set theirseeds in pods. Often, as with peas andbeans the part we eat is the immature

The garden is 16’x50’. Here I triedpotatoes, tomatoes, corn, and squash,not realizing I would need to get thepotatoes back out somehow. The toma-toes had 4’ of growth but not manytomatoes. The corn and squash seem todo best. All the plants were containerstarted except potatoes. I realize nowthat a soaker hose buried in each rowwould have been a good addition.

Yourself

seed (and sometimes its pod aswell). As the pods dry, theseseeds mature. When the podsare dry and brittle, the seedsare ready to harvest. Once youcan no longer dent the seedswith your thumb-nail, they aredry enough to store. Beans arethe easiest seeds for beginnersbecause they are large and dry-seeded and can be easilyshelled. Also they are distinc-tive and beautiful with theirpatterns and colors, and it iseasy to tell when the varietiesget crossed because their colorsand markings change. Peas arealso easy, but prone to diseasein our moist climate. Oftensaved pea seed is better thancommercial seed of the samevariety because peas adaptquickly to their growing condi-tions, but do not save seed ifyou have any diseases such aspowdery mildew or fusariumin your patch, or you risk trans-mitting disease into the nextgeneration. Lettuce seeds arealso dry self-pollinators, butunlike peas and beans, requirepatience to clean from the chaff.

Wet seeded crops are those found inmoist cavities such as cucumbers,squash and melons, or surrounded bygel sacs inside wet fruit like tomatoes.These should generally undergo a fer-mentation process. Squeeze them intoa dish with their surrounding mois-ture, add water and allow to fermentfor several days. They will get moldy

SummerI had another another pick-up load

of crab come in late June. Knowinghow that would smell I crushed itimmediately with a tractor then backspread it with the bucket to 1” thick onthe lawn. This made about 12’x40’.Next came 2 or 3 bales mulch hayspread out. Some composted cowmanure (I let the red worms do most of

Thy No Tillby Nat Birdsall

the work) 2” thick, then a 1/2” layer ofsawdust to cap it off. This acts like asponge to absorb excess nitrogen andalso deter seeds and weeds from grow-ing.

As anyone who has worked withcrab waste knows it is hard to save thenitrogen in the meat for the soil. Usual-ly, flies lay eggs immediately. Thenmaggots eat out all the meat, making aterrible stink, which is part of the nitro-gen loss. Then they fly away with therest of the nitrogen in their bodies. Withthese methods there was virtually nosmell and relatively few flies.

On July 1st I planted 5 day old cornfrom 2” cone starter flats. Workedgreat. Today is August 23rd and thecorn is all dark green, in tassle, and uni-form 6’. Best looking corn I’ve evergrown. The variety was Sugar Buns, anolder yellow sugar-enhanced hybridwith excellent sweetness and sweet-ness retention. What we don’t eat I cutoff the cob, scrape for the heart, andthen freeze for later.

Closing thoughtsBoth gardens are doing well and I

have spent approximately 1 hourweeding in each. The second gardenwas a lot easier to build and less expen-sive. Next year I am going to try grow-ing potatoes no-till in a mulch hay bed.I have started laying down hay in aweedy spot that used to be a garden.

The worst weed I know is Galenso-ga. Small, with 1/4”daisy-like flowers.It can come up and produce seeds inless than 1 month! Kill this and bamboo(Japanese knotweed) with a mulch of18” clay fill or used rugs covering thebed. Takes 2+ years.

Save a few tons of carbon and justsay no to burning brush. Pile it insteadwhere it can break down into humus,organic matter, and nitrogen! The nextgeneration will thank you! U

Bountiful corn grown with sheet mulch no-till method.

as lettuce or mustards, grow taller andtake longer than we are accustomed towhen we arrest their growth to eatthem as food crops. Lettuce must bestarted indoors in our climate to setseed reliably in time. Biennials set seedthe 2nd year. Except for parsnips, inour climate, we must harvest biennialsin the fall, bring them inside and re-setthem in the spring. They don’t set seedtill the second year. Carrots, leeks,onions and parsnips are in this catego-ry. Parsnips are the easiest, becausethey will over-winter in Maine withoutnecessitating removal, and grow hugeand set copious seed in year two. Also,homegrown parsnip seed germinatesbetter and has more vigor than anyyou can buy.

Good luck with your seed savingadventures! U

Laurie McKenzie of Gathering Together Farm in Philo-math, Oregon demonstrates winnowing techniques.

Slo

w F

ood

Port

land

(O

R)

phot

o

“My quest is to reduce tilling and weeding in my gardens.”

—Nat Birdsall

Page 22 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

incomes would fall by up to 25% thisyear to an average of below 15,000and a 35% fall was likely over thenext two years.

Read full story athttp://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/10/13/118303/thousands-of-irish-farmers-protest-at-falling-incomes.html

EUROPEAN FARMERSPROTEST MILK CRISISExcerpted from NY Times article byStephen Castle

BRUSSELS (October 5, 2009) -After months of complaints byEuropean dairy farmers angry overlow prices, protesters in Brussels onMonday poured milk onto the streets,hurled eggs and other missiles, andstarted fires that filled the air withblack smoke.

Police helicopters hovered over-head as hundreds of tractors - andsome cattle - blockaded the area out-side the European Union’s headquar-ters while agriculture ministers met inan emergency meeting.

The gathering of ministers, con-vened after pressure from France,failed to produce any breakthroughsapart from a decision to set up acommittee to report on the dairyindustry in June.

Monday’s protest was the latest byfarmers who dumped around threemillion liters of milk on fields inBelgium last month.

The protest organizers, theEuropean Milk Board, said that morethan 1,000 tractors and 5,000 peo-ple took part on behalf of “more than80,000 dairy farmers”.

The group said milk prices arebelow 75 percent of production costs.Another European farm union organi-zation, Copa-Cogeca, says that milkprices have plummeted 30 percent ina year and that dairy producers willlose up to 14 billion euros before theend of the year if nothing is done.

Read full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/busi-ness/global/06milk.html?_r=5&hp

GATES BLAMES ANTI-GMOENVIRONMENTALISTS FORSTARVING POOR AFRICANS

October 21, 2009 - In a speech atthe World Food Prize gathering lastweek, Bill Gates himself chided the crit-ics of GMOs-and shed some sunshineon the foundation leadership's philoso-phy on ag development. At one point,he declared, “some of our grants [inAfrica] do include transgenic approach-es, because we believe they have thepotential to address farmers' chal-lenges more efficiently than convention-al techniques.”

“This global effort to help smallfarmers is endangered by an ideologi-cal wedge that threatens to split themovement in two,” Gates declared. Hedecried what he called a “false choice”between a “technological” approachgeared to boosting productivity and an“environmental” one geared to sustain-ability. “We can have both,” he said.

He went on: “Some people insist onan ideal vision of the environmentwhich is divorced from people and theircircumstances. They have tried torestrict the spread of biotechnology intosub-Saharan Africa without regard tohow much hunger and poverty might bereduced by it, or what the farmersthemselves might want.”

In an apparent reference to this proj-ect with GMO seed giant Monsanto,Gates allowed that “one of our[unnamed] private-sector partners” isworking on a genetically modifieddrought-tolerant corn variety for Africanfarmers. The seeds will be available tofarmers royalty-free-meaning that farm-ers will pay market price for the seedsthemselves, but not pay the heftybiotech premium Monsanto normallyslaps on top. It’s unclear whetherseed-saving will be allowed under thearrangement.

Excerpted from Tom Phillpot’s ‘BillGates reveals support for GMO ag’.Read full article at http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-21-bill-gates-reveals-support-for-gmo-ag U

NEWS & NOTES continued

Today there are over a billion hun-gry people on the planet, more thanever before in history. While the globalfood crisis dropped out of the news in2008, it remains a painful reality for theworld’s poor and underserved. Why,in a time of record harvests, are arecord number of people going hun-gry? And why are a handful of corpo-rations making record profits? In theirnew book, Food Rebellions! Crisis andthe Hunger for Justice, authors EricHolt-Giménez and Raj Patel withAnnie Shattuck offer us the real storybehind the global food crisis and docu-ment the growing trend of grassrootssolutions to hunger spreading aroundthe world.

Food Rebellions! contains up todate information about the currentpolitical and economic realities of ourfood systems. Anchored in politicaleconomy and an historical perspective,it is a valuable academic resource forunderstanding the root causes ofhunger, growing inequality, the indus-trial agri-foods complex, and politicalunrest. Using a multidisciplinaryapproach, Holt-Giménez and Patelgive a detailed historical analysis of theevents that led to the global food crisisand document the grassroots initia-tives of social movements working toforge food sovereignty around theworld. These social movements andthis inspiring book compel readers toconfront the crucial question: Who ishungry, why, and what can we doabout it?

Food Rebellions! has received

praise from the highest levels of inter-national governance. Olivier de Shut-ter, the UN Special Rapporteurcharged with defending the humanright to food notes, “The 20th centurywas the century of technological revo-lutions. This century is that of theknowledge revolution, and Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel are in its van-guard. At long last, a book which con-fronts the real issues: How do wereform our food systems to avoid envi-ronmental disaster? How do we recap-ture the production and distribution offood from the tyranny of uncheckedmarkets? This book is vital reading forall concerned with the right to food.”

President of the U.N. GeneralAssembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brock-mann praised the book saying, “FoodRebellions! provides an analysis that isclear, documented and searing in itschallenge to the powers that be. It pro-vides solutions appropriate to our eco-logical age and to a new era of fooddemocracy and food sovereignty. Itreflects the vision of those most affect-ed by the food crisis. I strongly endorsethis book and I hope that it gets a widereadership. More importantly though,I hope that it gets the support of thenations of the world suffering fromhunger and poverty. It providesinsights from those directly sufferingfrom hunger and poverty, who have aright to be heard.”

In a time on our planet when offi-cial plans to solve the world food crisiscall for more subsidies and greatertechnical fixes, here is finally a manual

for creating sustainable resilient foodsystems. Food Rebellions! is a trailmarker on the journey to end hungerand build food sovereignty.

—To interview the authors, call 510-654-4400 ext 234 or e-mail marbor (at)foodfirst.org

—To order Food Rebellions! Crisisand the Hunger for Justice, call 510-654-4400 ext 232 or go tohttp://www.foodfirst.org/en/cata-log/101/book

—To invite one of the authors tospeak at a campus or communityevent, call 510-654-4400 ext 221. U

New Book Looks at Root Causes of Food Crisis

Food Rebellions!: Crisis and the Hunger for Justice

Imag

e by

Stig

, co

urte

sy o

f ET

C G

roup

Farmers’ organisations fromaround the world, breeders, UN insti-tutions as well as development andenvironmental organisations haverepeatedly raised major concernsabout the increasing monopolisationof seeds and farm animals via patentsover the last few years. The loss ofindependence and rising indebtednessfor farmers, a reduction of plant andanimal diversity, and ever higher con-straints for breeding and researchactivities represent some of the mostworrying impacts of this trend. Butdespite these alarming experiences sofar no legal measures are in sight tostop this trend. On the contrary, arecent survey of applications filed atthe World Intellectual Property Organ-isation (WIPO) shows that the biginternational seed corporations still tryto push through their monopolyclaims without caring about the conse-quences for global food security andthe livelihoods of farmers around theworld. This is becoming obvious byanalysing the recent patent applica-tions by the top three global seed com-panies, Monsanto (US), Dupont (US)and Syngenta (Switzerland).

The undersigned individuals,organisations and institutions call ongovernments and patent offices to stopthis worrying development and torevise existing patent regulations. Thepatent regulations in the EU, US and inmany other countries, as well as theWTO Trips Agreement, urgently needto be reviewed in order to stop themonopolisation and corporate controlof the world’s genetic resources. Thisreview should lead to a regulation thatguarantees the right to food and a pro-hibition of patents on plants and farmanimals.

The following examples showsome patent applications carried toextremes. Many of the claims present-ed in these applications can only bedescribed as ludicrous. These patentsdemonstrate how far we have got withexisting patent regulations, which arecompletely deficient. In only fouryears, between 2005 and 2009, Mon-santo filed nearly 150 patent applica-

tions on plant breeding at the WIPO.These applications show a growingtendency to claim exclusive propertyrights not only on genetically modifiedplants and animals, but also on exist-ing biodiversity and traditional breed-ing. While in the years before 2005 onlyvery few such patents were filed, morethan 30% of Monsanto’s patent appli-cations between 2005 and 2009 includeconventional plant breeding. Thistrend can also be observed with otherbig seed corporations. In the sameperiod Dupont filed about 170 patentapplications in plant breeding, 25%involving conventional plant breeding.Syngenta filed about 60 applications,with 50% targeting traditional breed-ing. Amongst the big seed companies,Monsanto is the only one filing patentapplications on farm animals too.Since 2005 about 20 patents on animalbreeding have been filed by the UScompany. Examples:

• In Monsanto’s patent applicationWO2008021413, ‘the patent of monsan-tosizing maize and soy’, methods areclaimed that are widely used in con-ventional breeding. On more than 1000pages and in 175 claims Monsantoclaims various gene sequences andgenetic variations, especially in soyand maize. Monsanto even goes as faras explicitly claiming all relevantmaize and soy plants, inheriting thosegenetic elements. Furthermore, all usesin food, feed and biomass are listed. Byfiling specific regional applicationsMonsanto shows especial interest inapplying for this patent in Europe,Argentina and Canada.

• In Patent application WO2009011847, ‘the patent of monsanto-sizing meat and milk’, Monsantobroadly claims methods for cattlebreeding, the animals, as well as “milk,cheese, butter and meat.”

• Other companies are also aggres-sively filing patents on geneticresources needed for feed and foodproduction. An example is patentapplication WO2008087208, ‘Syngen-ta’s patent on maize yield’, which istargeting genetic conditions in maize

www.foodformainesfuture.org Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 Page 23

for grain yield. Syngenta claims theplants and even their harvest.

• Several similar patents arealready granted, such as a patent onbreeding in soy beans like WO98/45448, ‘Dupont’s patent on tofu’,granted in Australia, Europe and USA,which covers soy sauce, tofu, soy milkand infant formula made from thesesoybeans. This patent (or patents of thesame family) have also been filed forBrazil, Canada, China, Japan, Norwayand New Zealand.

These kinds of patents are the back-bone of a strategy for taking over glob-al control on all levels of food produc-tion. These patents do not stifleresearch and innovation; they aremeant to block access to geneticresources and technology and to estab-lish new dependencies for farmers,breeders and food producers. Howev-er, resistance is growing. In 2007farmer organisation and NGOs fromall over the world created the ‘nopatents on seeds’ global platform”. In2008 hundreds of letters were sent tothe European Patent Office (EPO) in‘the patent on broccoli’ case, EP1069819, which was a precedent. In2009 thousands of farmers and citi-zens, many NGOs and even govern-mental authorities filed an oppositionto the European ‘patent on pig breed-ing’ , EP 1651777, a patent applied forby Monsanto in 2004.

Individuals, organisations andinstitutions are urging politicians andpatent offices around the world toensure that patents such as those men-tioned above cannot and will not begranted. A radical change both inpatent legislation and the practice ofpatent offices is needed to eliminatepatents on plants and farm animals.Corporations should not be allowed tocontinue misappropriation and mon-polisation of seeds, plants and farmanimals via patent law. Otherwisethese patents will become a majorthreat to global food security andregional food sovereignty.

To sign on to the campaign visithttp://www.no-patents-on-seeds.org.U

Stop ‘Monsantosizing’ Food, Seeds and Animals! Global alert from the No Patents on Seeds! Coalition

The MaineLocal

TwentyHere are 20 foods that Maine can pro-duce for its citizens to enjoy all year.

1.Potatoes

2.Apples

3.Milk/Cheese /Dairy

4.Blueberries

5.Eggs

6.Maple Syrup, Honey

7.Carrots

8.Fresh And Processed Tomatoes

9.Grains

10.Dry Beans

11.Garlic

12.Onions

13.Greens, Spinach, Kale

14. Seafood: Shrimp, Scallops, Lobster, Mussels, Clams, Fish

15.Ground Meats: Beef,Turkey, Lamb, Chicken,Sausage, Pork

16.Root Vegetables: Beets,Parsnips, Turnip, Rutabaga, Sunchokes,Leeks, Celeriac

17.Winter Squash AndPumpkin

18.Cabbage

19.Processed Vegetables:Corn, Beans, Broccoli,Peppers, Peas

20.Mushrooms

For more information, please contactMOFGA’s organic marketing team:Cheryl Wixson, Starchef99@aol.comand Melissa White Pillsbury, melis-sa@mofga.org 207-568-4142. U

Rey

mon

d Pa

ge,

cour

tesy

of

ETC

Gro

up

Page 24 Saving Seeds — Fall 2009 / Winter 2010 www.foodformainesfuture.org

BECOME A MEMBER! SUPPORT FOOD FOR MAINE’S FUTUREFood for Maine‘s Future is now a membership organization! Being amember gets you two issues of Saving Seeds mailed to you, and onefree classified ad per year. You also receive free admission to our annu-al Local and Sustainable Food Conference and the good feeling thatcomes with supporting grassroots activism in Maine. Membershipsstart at $25.

____ Yes! I support Food for Maine’s Future and would like to become a member.

Name ______________________________________________________________________

Address ____________________________________________________________________

Phone _______________________________E-mail ________________________________

Enclosed please find my tax-deductible contribution of:

___$25 Membership level ___$35 ___$50 ___$100 ___$250 ___$500+

___ Monthly donor (see below) ___other $____

___ Yes! I want to support Food for Maine’s Future on a monthly basis. My credit

card pledge

per month is: ____$10 ____$25 ____$35 ____$50 ____$100+ ____$ other______

Credit card information: Visa or Mastercard (circle one)

Credit Card #________________________________Exp. Date ______________________

Please make checks for $100 or more to Food for Maine’s Future/SHI (our fiscal sponsor).Checks less than $100 can be made directly to Food for Maine’s Future.

Mail to: Food for Maine’s Future, 3 Flower Farm Lane, Sedgwick, Maine 04676

To join Food for Maine’s Future visit our websitewww.foodformainesfuture.org or call our office at 207-244-0908.

Food for Maine’s Future Receives $35K Challenge Grant

In April, 2009 the Broadreach Fund awarded Food for Maine’s Future atwo-year $60,000 grant, of which $25,000 was received. To receive the addi-tional $35,000 we have to raise half of that amount. exciting opportunity forbroadening the impact of our organization. It is also a chance to step up ourfood sovereignty activities here in Maine, nationally through our member-ship with the National Family Farm Coalition and involvement in the U.S.Working Group on the Food Crisis, and internationally through our affilia-tion with La Via Campesina.

Our goal is to raise $17,500 by the end of the year in order to start 2010 onvery solid financial footing. You can help by joining Food for Maine’s Future,renewing your membership, or giving an additional gift. Donations canmade through our website or by cutting out the form below and mailing it tothe address provided. U

Tell American Public Media to stop airing Monsanto’s

deceptive ads!

Tell Maine PublicBroadcasting Network to air The World According

to Monsanto!

SIGN THE PETITION TODAY AT

www.foodformainesfuture.org

Jim Dowe, President / CEO, MPBN Charles Beck, Vice President / Director ofRadio, MPBN Brad Robideau, National Public RelationsManager, American Public Media Bill Kling, President and Chief ExecutiveOfficer, American Public Media

Dear American Public Media and MPBN,

I am listener/supporter/member of theMaine Public Broadcasting Network. I amdeeply troubled by the continued airing ofMonsanto’s false and misleading under-writing ad that airs on Marketplace. Mon-santo has a history of producing some ofthe world’s most toxic chemicals, includingDDT and PCBs, both of which are bannedin the U.S. Despite a growing record of evi-dence linking genetically-engineered foodto allergic reactions in humans and a vari-ety of health problems in lab animals Mon-santo continues to aggressively resist thelabeling of GE foods.

Monsanto’s investigations and law-suits against farmers are creating a cultureof intimidation in rural America. Theirpatent-protected seeds have not produced

any significant yield increases and onlyserve to increase their profits at the expenseof poor peasants and farmers throughoutthe world. The use of the herbicideglyphosate has created super weeds and isnow causing farmers to use even morechemicals to manage their crops. The factthat Monsanto is now selling corn seedwith 8 different herbicide and pesticide tol-erant genes is evidence that their technolo-gies are short-lived, and increasinglyexpensive.

Monsanto’s technologies are neithersustainable, nor do they conserve naturalresources. The record shows the opposite tobe the case. This is not just a matter of acorporation using dubious marketing andadvertising to sell their products. Monsan-to is deliberately misleading the Americanpeople in order to sell their seeds and chem-icals, at the expense of farmers, eaters, andecosytems worldwide.

I strongly urge American Public Mediato stop airing Monsanto’s deceptive under-writing ads.

I strongly urge Maine Public Broad-casting Network to air the film “The WorldAccording to Monsanto” by MarieMonique-Robin.

For more information please see:“Failure to Yield: The Broken Promises

of Biotechnology”, Union of ConcernedScientists

“Monsanto v. US Farmers”, Center forFood Safety

“Genetic Roulette”, Jeffrey Smith,Institute for Responsible Technology

“Agriculture at a Crossroads,” Inter-national Assessment of AgriculturalKnowledge, Science and Technology forDevelopment (IAASTD)

Sincerely,

U

Food for Maine’s Future Launches Petition Calling on MPBN to Air ‘The World According to Monsanto’

Come to the next Community Advisory Board Meetingto tell MPBN in person that you want American PublicMedia to drop Monsanto and for MPBN to air TheWorld According to Monsanto!

MPBN Community Advisory Board MeetingSaturday, November 21 at 10am

Press Conference at 9:30amMPBN Studios

63 Texas Ave, Bangor

Join Food for Maine’s Future at the Maine Ag Trades Show

January 12 - 14, Augusta Civic Center

And keep on the lookout for details aboutFMF’s 5th Annual Local and Sustainable

Food Conference and Mud Season Dinnercoming next Spring!