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Current Events

Current Events. Subject Source Issue Pay particular attention to identifying who the “stakeholders” are Examples of articles: air/water policy and management and animals. OUTLINE: Food and soil. Physical and social characteristics Why government regulates food and soil

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Current Events

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  1. Current Events • Subject • Source • Issue • Pay particular attention to identifying who the “stakeholders” are • Examples of articles: air/water policy and management and animals

  2. OUTLINE: Food and soil • Physical and social characteristics • Why government regulates food and soil • How government regulates food and soil • Key groups affecting food and soil • Controversies

  3. Physical and social characteristics • Human survival depends on food • Governments have always regulated agriculture 23% for a family of 3! Hi

  4. Dominant in U.S.—Mono-cropped Farms

  5. Why government regulates food and soil • Need to ensure that (1) farmers will produce food and (2) that we will have food ALWAYS! • Land grants, 19thcentury The mission of these institutions as set forth in the Morrel Act of 1862 is to focus on the teaching of practical agriculture, science and engineering (though "without excluding ... classical studies"), as a response to the industrial revolution and changing social class.[This mission was in contrast to the historic practice of higher education to focus on an abstract Liberal Arts curriculum.

  6. (1) Great Depression • Great Depression—agricultural depression starts late 1920s when exports from Europe stop after the end of WWI

  7. (2) Dust BowlObserved rainfall map—1930s Monocropping plus drought = severe ecological disaster (which meant food shortages and increased price) Red represents driest areas (NASA Earth Observatory)

  8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOmjQO_UMw

  9. June 4 1937, at Goodwell, Oklahoma. (Mrs. Emma Love, Goodwell, Oklahoma) Black Sunday April 14, 1935, Kansas

  10. How government regulates—federal government • The Farm Bill (first in 1933) • Soil conservation • Farm animals

  11. 1. 2008-2012 Farm Bill-- $287 billion • Passed every 5 years as an “omnibus bill” And is the food and ag policy tool for the federal government. • 14% commodity crops • 65% food stamps and commodity aid • 8% conservation • 8% crop insurance • Added : $4 b. supplemental disaster aid

  12. Farm Bill is a Priority • $287,000,000,000 (Farm Bill) • $37,000,000,000 (NSF) • Is food and agriculture almost 8 times as important as science?

  13. “Farmers can’t farm without a farm bill. I think most farmers would like to see a five year extension of the current farm bill,” Dodge County Farm Bureau President Johnny Johnson said. “I’m concerned about the overall picture. If we get dependent on foreign countries for food the way we are dependent on them for oil, we can hang it all up.” (Georgia Farm Bureau News, Oct. 2006)

  14. “Agricultural policy has...led to a ritual of overproduction...” “The government has provided essentially a guaranteed income to producers of these crops.” --Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) Production subsidies: Corn Wheat Cotton Rice Soybeans Import protections (tariffs): Milk Sugar Peanuts Farm Bill subsidies (commodity crops)

  15. 1. Unintended consequences--U.S. agricultural subsidies yield: Social Harms • market distortions that result in... • environmental and social harms: • U.S. farms consolidated (as small farms fail) • farmers in non-subsidy countries can't compete (international dispute--WTO) • land is degraded

  16. 2. Unintended consequences--U.S. agricultural subsidies yield: Environmental Harms March 5, 2001: Mississippi River Delta's Dead Zone (sediment and agricultural chemicals) Photo: David Alles, Western Washington University Environmental Working Group. 2006. "Farm Subsidy Reform Key to Restoring Gulf of Mexico 'Dead Zone'" [NGO news release], 4/10/06, Ascribe Newswire.

  17. Growth of GEC in US

  18. U.S. ruled as anti-free trade 3. Unintended consequences--U.S. agricultural subsidies yield: Economic Harms WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION WT/DS267/15 23 May 2003 (03-2739) UNITED STATES - SUBSIDIES ON UPLAND COTTON Constitution of the Panel Established at the Request of Brazil Note by the Secretariat Elizabeth Becker. “Global Trade Body Rules Against U.S. on Cotton Subsidies.” New York Times, 4/27/04, pp. A1, C14. AmadouToumaniTouré and Blaise Compaoré. “Your Farm Subsidies Are Strangling Us.” [Op-editorial] New York Times, 7/11/03.

  19. How government regulates—federal soil conservation

  20. (1) government regulates—federal soil conservation programs

  21. (2) How government regulates—federalConcentrated animal feeding operations largely exempt from environmental rules Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Eric Schaeffer, “An Ill Wind from Factory Farms.” [op-editorial] New York Times, 9/20/03.

  22. Actors outside government • American Farm Bureau Federation • Environmental Working Group • Riverkeeper • Center for Science in the Public Interest (food and health NGO) • Animal rights groups • Farmers • Food processors (very powerful) • Consumers

  23. Controversies • U.S. subsidies • Farms largely exempt from • Labor and worker safety laws • Environmental laws • Agricultural biotechnology • Animal rights movement • Eat locally movement

  24. Animals!

  25. OUTLINE: Animals • Physical characteristics and human use • Why government regulates animals • How government regulates • Key political actors • Controversies

  26. Animals, characteristics and human use (1) Utility (2) Emotional attachment

  27. Pets are a luxury good?

  28. Why government regulates animals—encouraged hunting, 19th century Buffalo skulls, mid-1870s, waiting to be ground into fertilizer.

  29. (1) Regulated hunting, early 20th century Old magazine illustration of hunters shooting passenger pigeons. Note the density of the flight. (From copy in Schorger, 1955.) Passenger pigeon net in Canada mid-1800s. Experienced sharp declines due partially to commercialization as a cheap food for slaves

  30. (2) Shift to ecosystems, late 20th century Photographs of: stream by Kevin Schafer/WWF; freshwater mussel courtesy the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

  31. How government regulates animals • Wildlife • Animals used for work or food • Pets • Lab animals

  32. Wildlife: A misleading focus on charismatic megafauna--cute Photograph of panda cub by Li Wei Sc/Imagine China Photos.

  33. Not as cute Photograph of aye-aye from AFP/Getty Images.

  34. How federal government regulates: wildlife • Endangered and threatened species • Ecosystem protections (by public lands agencies)

  35. Endangered Species Act, 1973 Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation."

  36. To petition to be on the ESL • Petition and listing To be considered for listing, the species must meet one of five criteria (section 4(a)(1)): • 1. There is the present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range.2. An over utilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes.3. The species is declining due to disease or predation.4. There is an inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms.5. There are other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence.

  37. The annual rate of listing (i.e., classifying species as "threatened" or “Endangered") • Ford administration (47 listings, 15 per year) • Carter (126 listings, 32 per year), • Reagan (255 listings, 32 per year), • George H. W. Bush (231 listings, 58 per year), • Clinton (521 listings, 65 per year) • decline to its lowest rate under George W. Bush (60 listings, 8 per year as of 5/24/08)

  38. (a) Plants (b) birds (c) fish (d) mollusks

  39. Recent battle over implementation A U.S. District judge has returned the gray wolf to the federal endangered list. September 2008. http://youtu.be/4F8GaxVsA8I

  40. How federal government (USDA) regulates other animals—humane ideal • Animals used for food • USDA inspections, education • Lab animals • “minimize animal pain and distress when it cannot be eliminated” • animal care review boards in universities

  41. How state governments regulate • regulate hunting and fishing (seasons, take limits) • implement Endangered Species Act • animal cruelty laws (implemented locally) http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2010/05/us-global-exotics-fugitive.html

  42. Controversies—animal rights vs. humane treatment ideals • Humane treatment: treat animals with care and respect; still can use animals for food, products, and labor • http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/21676588/maui-mayor-wants-humane-society-to-combat-feral-chicken-problem • Animal rights: Animals have the same rights as humans. Animal use is slavery and immoral

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