This is an improvement: Teens applying pesticides

Photo credit: Valley_Photographs via Flickr

by Fawn Pattison, Senior Advocate

This ought to give you a sense of just how inadequate the US EPA’s Worker Protection Standard for agricultural pesticides has been over the last 22 years:

Last week the EPA announced a proposal that would significantly strengthen the Worker Protection Standard, designed to prevent hazardous exposure to pesticides for the 2+ million people who harvest our food in the US. One of the proposal’s hallmarks: a new minimum age of 16 to mix, load and apply pesticides, or to re-enter fields for work before the required safety interval has expired (with an exemption for farm family members). The previous rule posed no minimum age at all (though separate regulations from the Department of Labor prevent teens younger than 16 from applying a subset of highly-toxic pesticides).

Does anyone else feel a little concerned about 16 and 17 year-olds applying pesticides on farms? Toxic Free NC asked North Carolina farmworkers – people who know a thing or two about how dangerous pesticides can be – what they believed should be the minimum age to work as a pesticide handler.

“One should be a responsible person, direct, who focuses, who is attentive to what he is doing.  Because one error can cost your life,” says Alfredo, a North Carolina tobacco worker interviewed by Toxic Free NC. “So, this person should be prepared in everything and be careful of doing the job, be responsible with the job. And well, a person of 16, 17, 14 years of age…they are not responsible.” Many workers felt that a pesticide handler should be someone over twenty. None of the 45 workers we asked said that anyone under 18 should perform tasks involving pesticide use.

To be sure, the proposed changes to the Worker Protection Standard would make work with pesticides on farms significantly safer, if implemented well and properly enforced (that’s a big “if”). For example, the EPA has proposed annual safety trainings – a huge step forward from the current standard of training workers on pesticide safety only once every five years. The training content would be expanded to make sure that workers know about the long-term health effects of pesticide exposure, and how pesticide exposure can affect the health of their spouses and children when pesticide residues travel home on their hair, skin and clothes.

But the proposal also takes some notable steps backwards – like removing the requirement that employers post all the information about recent pesticide applications at a central point where workers can review it. EPA declined to require medical monitoring for workers handling the most toxic pesticides – a step that health agencies have been encouraging for years as a way of tracking whether the safety measures are actually working.

Overall, the proposed rules – which will affect more than 150,000 farmworkers in North Carolina, and upwards of 2 million across the US – are indeed a significant improvement over the current state of affairs. But this statement may sound like faint praise, considering just how ineffective the current state of affairs has been at preventing worker pesticide exposure. Recent studies have found that North Carolina farmworkers and their families experience widespread pesticide exposure, even when following the current safety requirements.

The chemical industry will argue energetically that new regulations are not needed – that just enforcing the rules we already have would fix the problem. For the EPA to pass stronger pesticide rules, it’s critical that those who support them make their voices heard. EPA will be accepting public comment on the proposed rule for 90 days through the regulations.gov website. For those of us who want safe food, and care about the people who harvest it, this is a great opportunity to make a difference – and one that we’re not likely to have again anytime soon.

Not up for writing your own comment letter? Sign our petition to raise the minimum age for pesticide handlers to 18 years old.

The Bees are speaking: It's time to act

By Jean Strandberg & Fawn Pattison

Bombus terrestris, the beloved bumblebee

This October, Toxic Free NC is focusing on our friends, the pollinators. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard that domestic honeybee populations have plummeted in recent years. Farmers in North Carolina and across the US face a dramatic shortage of hives to pollinate their crops. Nearly half the managed beehives in NC have been lost since the mid-1980’s.

But did you know that wild pollinators are even worse off? While their populations are hard to track, biologists estimate that wild pollinators have suffered a 95% population decline in NC in the same time period. New research shows that wild pollinators are even more important to our food supply than domesticated bees. A recent study looking at 40 different crops across the globe showed that wild pollinators are twice as effective as honeybees in their pollination efforts. This is in part due to the variety of pollination techniques used by wild pollinators, as well as a tendency to cross-pollinate (honeybees usually pollinate within a single plant). 

We must act now to stop the pollinator collapse, or we will be very hungry people before long. We're already seeing the effects of fewer pollinators on the planet. Yields in crops that do not require pollination are growing at a much faster rate than those that do, and more and more farmers are finding it necessary to rent hives from around the country to ensure the success of their crops. Among crops requiring pollination are some of our favorite foods: cucumbers, almonds, blueberries, watermelon, apples, strawberries, melons and peaches all require pollination. If we fail to address the causes of these losses, we may soon have to give up many of the foods we love.

But many voices are telling us not to act. Pesticide makers argue loudly that their chemicals aren't to blame. They pay troops of scientists to create data that distract our attention from the harmful effects of agrochemicals on bees, butterflies and birds. But agrochemicals like the widely used class of insecticide, neonicotinoids, are strongly linked to declines in honey and bumblebee populations. There are plenty of other contributing factors besides pesticides, of course.

Hang around any beekeeper, and you’re sure to hear about the Varroa mite’s attack on their hives, introducing RNA viruses that disrupt hive function and can eventually lead to colony collapse. Climate change has been linked to an increasing incongruity between when bees are active and when flowers are in bloom. Pesticides, pathogens, climate change, decreased crop diversity and habitat destruction all play a part, individually, and in combination. 

But having many factors involved is no excuse to sit back and let a disaster happen. We must act now to fix what we can! The overuse of pesticides is a huge contributor to these declines. Pesticides kill beneficial insects and pollinators like bees and butterflies that are necessary to provide a healthy ecosystem where we can thrive. Pollination is required for three-quarters of global food crops, and one of the things we can do right now to conserve these essential pollinators is to use fewer pesticides.

The US Department of Agriculture, and our state Commissioner of Agriculture should be acting fast to promote farm technology that protects pollinators: More organic farming, more Integrated Pest Management, ending the use of pesticides most highly toxic to bees, and creating incentives for farmers to diversify crops and provide more pollinator habitat. The pollinator collapse is a man-made disaster, and one that we can stop if we choose to. Let's choose wisely.

Zombie Attack on North Carolina Organics

NC Department of Agriculture brings 2005 Frankenfood legislation back from the dead.

by Fawn Pattison, Executive Director

Photo by Grmisiti via Flickr

The NC Department of Agriculture has revived a bill from 2005 that directly threatens organic agriculture and small farmers in North Carolina. H 379,“Clarify Board of Ag Authority/Plants,” uses an innocuous title to launch an offensive on anyone who grows a crop in North Carolina without a corporate patent on it. Rep. Langdon (R-Johnston), chair of the Agriculture Committee, has filed the bill in the NC House of Representatives.

Here we go again. A nearly identical bill called “Plant Regulation” was filed on behalf of the NC Department of Agriculture in 2005. Like its undead counterpart, H379 would prevent any government entities – local governments in particular – from enacting any ordinance or legislation to restrict the sale or cultivation of any plant in NC, reserving that authority solely for the NC Board of Agriculture. 

Here’s a good question… Why?

Have any North Carolina cities or counties attempted to restrict genetically-modified crops, the way four California counties did in 2004? No. But that’s what triggered this inane legislation the first time around, when identical language was enacted into law in 15 different states.

So what’s the problem?

Genetic material from GMO crops can contaminate neighboring crops:

• Monsanto and other companies have aggressively defended their patents, to the point of suing farmers for patent infringement when they save and re-plant seeds that have been contaminated with genetic material from neighboring crops.
• Genetic drift can make a farmer’s crop unsaleable in places like the European Union, which has tougher restrictions on GMO crops. Genetic drift can also harm a farmer’s organic certification.

The bill also has fallout for local governments, who would be prevented from restricting the sale or cultivation of invasive species that may be affecting them locally. It could even prevent local governments from enacting notification policies to protect organic farmers from genetic drift, according to the Center for Rural Affairs.

When this legislation was first introduced in 2005, the NC Senate inserted language to protect small farmers and organic neighbors from the potential damage. The result? The bill was killed, and Dr. Frankenstein returned defeated to his lab… apparently to wait for a more favorable environment in which to raise this bill from the dead.
 
The effect of H 379 will be to further concentrate corporate control over food and farming. It’s clear why a bill like this might be good for the likes of Monsanto, but how is it really good for farmers?

Making positive change in 2013

by Ana Duncan Pardo, Communications Coordinator

We've heard a lot of worrying about what kind of impact the new state legislature will have. We agree that this will likely be a tough year in NC for the environment and social justice, but we definitely aren't throwing in the towel!

Last week, our Executive Director shared Toxic Free NC's strategy for pushing forward despite a less friendly legislature. This week, I want to share Toxic Free NC’s resolutions for how we’ll continue making positive change in 2013: 

1. We will teach more people than ever about organic gardening and organize with them for local food policy change.

One of the things we're most excited about this year is our new Organic Is for Everyone program about food access. We’re so excited about getting our hands into the dirt and helping people across North Carolina grow and eat more organic food!

We are looking forward to working with communities in NC to grow more organic food, and to push for policy changes at the city and county level that pave the way for thriving, sustainable local foodsheds.

2) We'll continue pushing for common sense reform of federal toxic chemicals regulation.

Over the past two years, we’ve collected thousands of petitions and galvanized the environmental and health communities in the movement for safer chemicals policy. We will organize even more advocates to meet with NC Congressional delegates. We’ll share tips and tools to help you to be a savvy consumer. And we’ll keep pushing our message about the need for federal toxic chemical reform out through the media.

3) We will work with NC's largest child care chains to help them switch to safer pest control in child care centers.

By educating the leadership of the biggest companies in the NC child care industry, we expect to reduce tens of thousands of North Carolina children's exposure to toxic pesticides by helping them switch to least toxic Integrated Pest Management.

4) We will ensure that farm workers' voices are heard on the issues that affect them.

We spent much of last year collecting farm workers' ideas for improving workplace standards for pesticide safety. This year, we'll be helping to bring North Carolina farm workers' own words into the national conversation about laws that directly impact their health and safety.

Our success depends on you. Effective community organizing means that the people who really care about these issues lead the way. How do you plan to keep making positive change in 2013? Share your ideas with us on Facebook!

Thank you for being an ally we can depend on. Toxic Free NC is stronger because you're with us.

Here's to the New Year!

Our plan for Toxic Free NC in 2013

by Fawn Pattison

It's a New Year like we’ve never known before.

In the wake of November’s election, 2013 ushered in the harshest political environment that North Carolina’s health and environment have ever known. The state legislature can and will inflict plenty of damage. But that doesn’t mean we should despair!

The state legislature does not lead social change – it only follows. Their job is to codify the change already taking place within our communities. That’s why Toxic Free NC always focuses our work where it matters most – in the communities around North Carolina where real change begins.

We’ll never cease to watchdog state government and speak out for health and justice, but our work doesn’t depend on them. Here’s our plan to keep moving forward in this harsh political environment:

• We'll work with folks like you to change city and county ordinances to bring healthy, pesticide-free food to more of the people who need it most. Local policies can promote local and organic foods, gardening, beekeeping and urban farming, and reduce pesticide pollution.

• We’ll continue to sweep though the child care sector – public and private – with a safer approach to pest control that protects our children from chemical harm.

• We’ll target the corporations that neglect our health and well-being with shoddy products that over-use hazardous chemicals, and we'll help you to be a savvy consumer.

• And most of all, we will keep building our base of power by bringing the voices and ideas that matter most – yours – into powerful collaboration with new allies around the state. Whether it’s helping your child care drop the toxic chemicals, or taking citizen lobbyist teams to Congress for federal chemical reform, we will use this time to keep getting smarter and stronger. 

Working together, we will continue to make real change on the ground throughout North Carolina. And when the state legislature’s iron is hot again, we’ll be ready to strike!

Now more than ever, we are so grateful to have you with us. And now more than ever, we need your help.Make a gift to Toxic Free NC and lend your support to make us even stronger. Even better, if you're not already a monthly donor, consider making a recurring gift so we can count on you to be with us every step of the way. When the going gets tough, we’re in it together. Please make a donation today.

P.S. Next week, we're sharing details about our community organizing plans for 2013. We're excited to share them with you. Stay tuned!

New short film reveals teens’ experiences being sprayed with pesticides

Last week Toxic Free North Carolinareleased our latest Farm Worker Documentary Project film, Overworked & Under Spray. It’s a six-minute piece featuring six high school-aged farm workers’ stories about being sprayed with agricultural pesticides while tending crops in fields across NC.

For two months this summer, full-time Student Action with Farmworkers intern Abi Bissette and I crisscrossed the eastern side of the state. We visited farm worker families in their homes, giving out pesticide safety information and discussing their rights as farm workers. By midsummer we had assembled a group of motivated, outspoken teenagers who have worked cultivating and harvesting blueberries, strawberries, sweet potatoes, green beans, grapes, cucumbers and tobacco.

“You could see the spray coming at you...but we kept on working. The next day I didn't feel so good,” Felix Rodriguez, one of the youth featured in the film, told us during his interview. “I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about pesticides to the owner or supervisor because they'll see you as nagging. They just really want you to work.”

When we asked the youth how they would fix the situation, they had a range of impressively astute answers:  put more inspectors in the fields, get rid of child labor in agriculture, make stronger regulations for crew leaders. But one message we heard loud and clear from everyone interviewed was “enough is enough”. The exploitation of children (or anyone) for cheap food—and the poisoning of the people who work to fill our grocery store shelves—has gone on for far too long. It’s time for eaters of conscience to demand an end to abusive, toxic agriculture.

Here in North Carolina we're actively working to protect children, and all workers, from exposure to toxic pesticides and other dangerous working conditions. Want to take action for farm workers in NC? Check out our website for three simple steps you can take.

Good news for a new year

Here's a little tidbit of good news to start your new year right. Last week a California appeals court upheld a previous, landmark ruling that organic farmer Larry Jacobs has the right to sue a neighboring farm for pesticide drift that occurs through volatilization. The lawsuit was on behalf of Jacobs Farm Del Cabo, whose organic herbs are sold in Whole Foods stores all over the country. Jacobs' farm was contaminated in 2007 when pesticides from a neighboring Brussels sprouts field volatilized and made their way to his fields, making his entire dill and rosemary crops unmarketable.

We hear on a pretty regular basis from organic farmers and gardeners in North Carolina who are frustrated and concerned about the risk of pesticides drifting onto their crops. This ruling may set a positive precedent for not only those farmers and gardeners, but also for farm workers who are often on the receiving end of pesticide drift.

There is of course, still plenty of bad news to go around. Here's a story about a group of South Carolina hunters who were hospitalized after they were exposed to the pesticide Temik while hunting. Temik is used a lot in North Carolina, and many of the violations that the NC Pesticide Board settles each year involve the mishandling of this particular toxic pesticide.

Here's to progress, and a whole new year of working to make harm from pesticides a thing of the past!

Agrarian Road Trip with the Presbyterian Hunger Program

Guest post by Toxic Free NC Intern Laura Valencia.

After interning with Toxic Free NC in the summer of 2009, working specifically on farm worker advocacy, I was left with the nagging sensation that the global food system was seriously ill. I learned first-hand about the symptoms of the sickness through sharing stories with farm workers who provide much of the labor that keep the food system chugging along. Pesticide exposure, poor housing, and unsafe working conditions were just a few aspects of the status quo that I not only heard about, but saw with my own two eyes. It wasn’t hard to come out of the summer with the idea that the food system is an unbridled beast, a problem that neither law nor economy would be able to fix.

Then, in the spring of 2010 I heard about the Presbyterian Hunger Program’s Agrarian Road Trip to the US Social Forum. Although the name is a total mouthful, the idea is quite simple: get together 15 people from across the country to road trip through eight states and visit just and sustainable agricultural projects. Or, in other words, my dream vacation. This trip gave me the opportunity to see the local agriculture movement as up close and personal as I saw the problems with conventional agriculture, and learn about much needed local solutions to national and global problems!

We toured from Louisville, KY to Detroit, MI by way of Berea KY, Maryville TN, Asheville NC, Wytheville VA, Mullens WV, and Youngstown & Cleveland OH (map). I’d like to report on the NC projects that our group visited and commend your state on a fantastic variety of agrarian projects!

The Veteran’s Restoration Quarters and Transitional Housing in Asheville, NC is a converted Motel 8 with over 150 rooms. According to Director Michael Reich, the facility is in the top 5 of 600 similar facilities in the United States, evidence that they run a tight ship! One project, the Victory Garden, was started by two current residents who asked for a garden when they moved in. They now work a large piece of land sunrise to sunset every day of the week. This victory garden not only provides food to the men’s quarters, but also to the women’s quarters in the city. The two men also run a weekly tailgate market to support their project! Produce also goes to the culinary classes where other veterans work to develop skills. The Victory Garden serves the community: it is not divided into plots for different people, it is a garden that is completely communal. While giving us a tour, the men mentioned their composting initiatives and also their use of IPM. In the photo to the left, Ed, a resident of the Veteran’s Restoration Quarters talks with Talitha, a Road Tripper from California. If you look closely, you can see a patriotic scarecrow in the background!

The Free Store at Warren Wilson College was started in 1999 as a part of Warren Wilson College’s super progressive recycling program. As a college student, I was blown away by WWC’s initiatives across campus: local food advocacy in the cafeteria, sustainable ag practices taught in the classroom, and an eco-dorm for leisure activities! As a college student, I am also sensitive to big-budget college spending vs. small-budget college student saving. The project that I saw that really appeared to not only be cutting-edge environmentally but also progressive socially was the Warren Wilson Free Store. The Free Store is an initiative to divert waste from the landfill – the message on their website is clear: “If you have some stuff you want to get rid of, no matter what it is, and you think that someone else might still be able to use / salvage it, bring it down.” Shelves upon shelves are filled with half-used shampoos, old cell phone chargers, dirty shoes, and suitcases. Just about everything a college student would throw away is found there, and more! I even picked up a “Warren Wilson Admissions” polo shirt. This project is part of WWC’s awesome recycling program, which you can check out here.

Our group spent the night at Warren Wilson College and had the pleasure of making Marc Williams’, local ethnobotanist, acquaintance. Marc led us through a meal that used over 30 ingredients, the vast majority local and harvested just that day. The menu included: herbal tea of monarda, spearmeint, sassafras leaves; pesto of lamb’s quarter and basil; garden salad with more lamb’s quarter and lettus, garnished with day lilies and monarda (left); and for dessert, juneberry-blackberry cobbler. Marc Williams, our favorite genius, is an ethnobotanist, teacher, chef, and farmer who went to Warren Wilson College and Appalachian State University. He is leading an online course that is donation based and based on the book Botany in a Day. Check it out!

One last story I’d like to tell is about a lunch our group shared in Brevard, NC at Fred and Elizabeth Bahnson’s homestead. Because our trip was sponsored by the Presbyterian Hunger Program, we often spent time with theologians and learned specifically about faith-based organizing around the local foods movement. The Bahnson couple, who are building an eco-house just up the hill from their gravity-fed edible forest and permaculture garden (idyllic, no?) are both theologians who met at Duke Divinity. My fellow roadtripper Bethel (her blog here) describes the Bahnson’s projects with detail:

Where the Bahnsons live is actually a microclimate in the midst of the mountains – a tropical rainforest, receiving nearly 80 inches of rain each year – as much as Seattle. As they build their new house, the Bahnsons have planned to harvest the rainwater, situating their catchment system on top of a hill – to gravity-feed to their biointesive growing beds. In addition to rainwater catchment, Fred has designed swales on the contour of the land to irrigate native fruit trees and prevent erosion on the steep slope on which their farm is southerly-facing. Other highlights of their farm-to-be are living mulches that fix nitrogen (lupine) and accumulate other deep nutrients (comfrey), as well as growing their own grains (Hopi blue corn for grinding). Elizabeth is currently dreaming of a goat dairy.

If you are interested in the connection between food and faith, check out an article Fred Bahnson co-wrote for the organization he founded, the Anathoth Community Garden. He points out, as many agrarian theologians do, that human and humus are not so far apart, a fact often supported by the Bible’s stories. The Bahnson’s are a living example of a desire to serve the soil rather than dominate it.

Goodbye, Endosulfan!

One year ago this week, Toxic Free NC joined farmworker, health and environmental advocates around the nation calling on the US EPA to take the notoriously dangerous pesticide, endosulfan, off the market in the US. Read our blog post from June 8, 2009.

Today the EPA announced that it would do just that, to protect the health of farmworkers and wildlife.

Many thanks to all of you who joined the petitions to reconsider the scientific evidence, and cheers to EPA for getting rid of this persistent pollutant!

NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council - Meeting #2, Earth Day 2010

The new NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council met for the second time yesterday. Here's a little report on the highlights:

Federal food safety legislation - Several members of the Council have been at work trying to figure out how proposed federal food safety legislation might affect small farmers in NC, and representing that perspective in the national discussion. The general sense is that the federal legislation isn't considering the needs of small farmers nearly enough, and that though the Senate bill is better than the House version, neither are great. The Council members asked for materials they can use to contact their representatives about this issue. More info on this issue and how to take action is available from the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (check out the "Action Alerts" section).

CEFS Farm to Fork Guide - This publication, just released, is the result of a statewide Farm-to-Fork initiative and includes lots of good ideas for the Council about where to start and what topics to tackle. They got a quick summary of the highlights in their meeting, and started discussing its implications. Get the guide from CEFS (right side of the page).

Funding for the NC Ag Development & Farmland Preservation Trust Fund - This Trust Fund is at risk of losing all funding for the 2010-11 fiscal year, and that would be a real shame, because it has been a source of funding for great initiatives in the state, and already in just 2 grant cycles, it has helped many farmers to stay on their land. The Council passed a resolution to submit a joint letter to the NC General Assembly leadership and request that the Trust Fund receive $5 million this year, and also talked about contacting legislators as individuals. More information and how to take action for farmland preservation funding.

Subcommittees of the Council - The Council spent the remainder of the meeting approving a set of guidelines and a structure for subcommittees, which of course they can change later as needed. For now, they'll have three subcommittees. These are not the exact titles, but the topic areas are: Public health, hunger & fighting obesity; land, people & natural resources; economic development & infrastructure. Subcommittees will have to keep minutes, and report back to the whole Council on what they do. I expect that subcommittee members will be posted to the Council's webpage soon. The presentation slides from yesterday's meeting are also posted here.

The general feeling of this meeting was somewhat tedious and bogged down. Discussions and decisions that ought to have been relatively straightforward took a long time to muddle through, and it seemed the main culprit was not so much disagreement, but that "Robert's Rules of Order" weren't working so well for them. I for one really hope that a solution to that problem can be worked out ASAP, because it seems a real shame for a group of such interesting and inspired people to come together, in many cases from very far away, and then to have to spend their precious little time together bumbling through the small stuff.

Future meeting dates have been set for July 22 in Raleigh and September 9 in Asheville. We'll keep on keeping you posted!

Mujeres sin Fronteras - Women without Borders

I am so pleased to introduce the Mujeres sin Fronteras ("Women without Borders") to the blogosphere! It's a privilege to know these amazing ladies in the Kinston area who are starting a cooperative organic farm on land owned by a local church. The group is facilitated by Melissa Bailey, with support from Toxic Free NC's Leadership Council.

The Mujeres are migrant farmworkers with a home base in North Carolina. Ironically, even though they work 10-to-12 hour days, 6 days a week growing and harvesting vegetables all through the growing season, they have a hard time affording food for their families during the winter months. This is a common challenge for North Carolina's farmworkers - in fact, a 2004 study from Wake Forest University found that among the 100+ NC farmworkers they interviewed, "food insecurity" was about 4 times more prevalent than for the US population overall.

The Mujeres sin Fronteras initially came together out of a desire to support one another through those lean months of the year. After talking through their needs and hopes, they decided to pursue a cooperative farming model, since after all, farming is what they know best, and food is what they needed most immediately! From their mission statement:

The Mujeres sin Fronteras (Women Without Borders) has the single goal of organizing impoverished women, their families and youth to create sustainable communities.

We work with those who care about us to:
- Educate people about the need for sustainable community environments;
- Increase our ability to affect change where we live, work and learn;
- Advocate for the resources we need locally to achieve the American Dream; and
- Promote farmworkers as farmers and directly assist with the creation of sustainable food systems.

The Mujeres sin Fronteras broke ground on their new cooperative farm in early March. (At left is a photo of volunteers and youth on ground-breaking-day at the Mujeres sin Fronteras farm site - photo courtesy of Melissa Bailey. The photo above is of a new vermicomposting bin donated to the Mujeres, complete with labels and instructions in Spanish! Photo by Billie Karel.)

There are so many benefits to cooperative organic farming for this group of women. The Mujeres will supplement their families' diets with healthy organic foods year-round. They intend to sell their organically grown produce locally, which will diversify their families' incomes. They are very deliberately involving their children and other young farmworkers in the project in order to connect youth to the land and educate them about food, farming, and sustainable business. Ultimately, what they're doing is so powerful to me because they are building a community based on cooperation and sustainability, instead of exploitation. Their organic farm will reduce their families' dependence on conventional agriculture as an occupation, which exposes them all too often to dangerous chemicals, unfair labor practices, and drastic seasonal fluctuations in income.

The Mujeres sin Fronteras are taking greater control of their community's food supply, and of their own livelihoods, and I just can't say enough about how inspiring they are, and how proud Toxic Free NC is to support them!

You can donate directly to the Mujeres sin Fronteras to support their cooperative organic farm by sending a check to their fiscal sponsor:
Home Missions and Evangelism of OFWB
2600 West Vernon Ave.
Kinston, NC 28504
(Please make out your check to "Home Missions and Evangelism of OFWB," and put "Women without Borders" in the memo line.) The Mujeres are collecting private donations to use for seed, tools, training on organic farming and interpretation of organic farming resources, and transportation. If you're in the Kinston area and would like to help out at the garden, contact Melissa Bailey at 252-286-7064.

Toxic Free NC is working with rural communities all across the state to get sustainable food projects like this one off the ground. Thank you for supporting our shared work!

Ambassadors Workshops & Friday News Roundup for 3/12/10

Toxic Free NC's staff is giving three upcoming workshops on Ambassadors for Just & Sustainable Agriculture. More about that program here.

• Black Mountain this Sunday, 3/14 at 3:30 (don't forget about daylight savings), Lakeview Community Center, 401 Laurel Circle Drive, Black Mountain, NC. Questions or RSVP: ana@toxicfreenc.org.
• Greensboro next Thursday, 3/18, 6 pm on the campus of Bennett College. Full details on Facebook and Google Calendar. Contact Billie with questions or to RSVP: billie@toxicfreenc.org.
  
• Pittsboro on Tuesday, 3/23 on the campus of Central Carolina Community College. Full details TBD - contact Billie to RSVP and get the full details as they become available: billie@toxicfreenc.org.
  

Want us to come give a workshop for Ambassadors in your neck of the woods next? We love giving these workshops, and love working with activists who are passionate about fighting pesticide pollution and promoting a healthier and more equitable food system in our state. Invite us to give this dynamic workshop to your group/church/class, or just in your living room!

In other good foodie news:

5% Day for Toxic Free NC at Whole Foods in Cary set for 4/6/10

The next meeting of the NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council has been set for April 22nd - Earth Day! - in Raleigh. More about their first meeting in Feb. Full details on the April meeting TBA - keep an eye on this website for updates.

Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduces Farm to School legislation in Congress. Here's a video of Holt speaking about this bill in a House committee - nice!!

herbicide hormone havoc

The Washington Post is reporting on yet another study that shows that the widely-used herbicide, Atrazine, scrambles hormones in wildlife.

In this study, Dr. Tyrone Hayes at UC-Berkeley found that male frogs who as tadpoles swam in water tainted with low levels of Atrazine (within the US EPA's drinking water limits) developed female sex traits. 10% of the male frogs even laid eggs that hatched!

Syngenta, the chemical company that makes Atrazine, continues to stick to their story that Atrazine does no such thing. Every study they've released shows the opposite.

Meanwhile, the US EPA is taking another look at Atrazine, which they re-registered for use in 2006 based on Syngenta's safety data. It seems all this independent research has shown things in a different light. Perhaps EPA will start making a practice of considering independent research - not just the company's own data - when evaluating a pesticide's risks. It would be long overdue.

New NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council convenes

North Carolina's brand new Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council met for the first time on Feb 2nd in Raleigh. The Council is charged with making recommendations to the NC General Assembly about how to grow and strengthen North Carolina's sustainable and local food system.

Thank you to everyone who helped Toxic Free NC and our partners at the NC Sustainable Food Systems Coalition advocate for the legislation that created this Council last year. Nice work, folks - we couldn't have done it without you!

Below are some of my notes and impressions from the meeting, but here's the super short version: The Council is a very impressive group of people, and while they didn't actually get to start doing much of anything yet in their first meeting, my sense coming out of it was one of sincere optimism for what they'll achieve.

* Lots of people: All but one Council member was in attendance, and this with the roads still a bit dicey across the state because of snow a few days earlier. Nice! Lots of other people also came to watch - the Department of Agriculture had to pull out more chairs, and it was still standing-room-only.

* Input from the public (or lack thereof). Open meeting laws mean that all the Council's meetings must be open to the public, and that there must be minutes or recordings also made available to the public - keep an eye on this website for meeting agendas and notes. Anything sent to or from the Council about this body is also public record. But, there was no time for public comment at the Council's meeting. There's a way to submit comments over their website, which will then become part of public record, but what's the plan for actually reading and following up on them? That hasn't been discussed yet, but based on attendance at the first meeting, it sure seems like North Carolinians have a lot to say to this Council!

* The Council members. Everyone on the Council introduced themselves and their motivations for serving at this meeting, which made me think a lot about the Council's make-up and how that will affect the recommendations they make. The full membership list is posted here. My observations:

FARMERS: There are 8 farmers and one person in commercial fishing on the Council by my count - mostly small or medium-scale, and mostly organic or sustainable. I think this will give the Council's work a solid grounding. There's lots to talk about, but there's also lots to DO, and farmers tend to be doers, so this is a good thing indeed.

THEMES: One big theme in many of the Council members' introductions was a desire to preserve working farmland. Commissioner Troxler, Andrew Brannan (Farm Transitions Network), Dania Davy (Land Loss Prevention Project), and John Day (NC Association of County Commissioners) all spoke directly to the issue of keeping farmers on their land and farming during their introductions.
Another big theme that I heard in Council member introductions was improving access to healthy and affordable food, especially as it pertains to combating childhood obesity. Members who mentioned this specifically as part of their introductions include Dr. Jeffrey Engel (State Health Director), Dr. Lynn Harvey (Department of Public Instruction, Child Nutrition Services), Dr. Alice Ammerman (Center for Health Promotion and Disease Control at UNC-CH), Earline Middleton (Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC), Mary James (Dogwood Farms & Willing Workers Cooperative), and Willy Phillips (Full Circle Crab Company).

DIVERSITY: The Council is a very diverse group in terms of expertise and geography, and it could be a lot worse on gender and race. By my (strictly superficial) count, the Council is made up of 18 Caucasian men, 5 Caucasian women, and 3 African American women. That isn't nearly enough women or people of color to fairly represent our state's population, but it's more than I'm used to seeing in such contexts. Conclude from that information what you will! Notably absent are Latinos, farm workers, or anyone who could speak knowledgeably to the perspectives of those groups.

* "This is not a fad. It's a force." The Council got a little pep talk from John Vollmer of Vollmer Farms. John spoke mostly about his recent trip to New England, and his vision that North Carolina, like Vermont, could be gaining farms instead of losing them, and that we could produce enough food to feed our state year-round. Vermont's food system is like a farm-fresh tomato, he said, a tomato that's so good, it makes you wonder why you ever bothered buying lousy tomatoes out of season at the grocery store! We don't yet really know what we're missing in NC, but once we get a taste, we'll never go back. He also addressed Commissioner Troxler directly to say, "This is not a fad. It's a force."

* Leadership & Super-fast Robert's Rules. The final order of business in the first Council meeting was discussing leadership structures for the Council and electing a chair. Commissioner Troxler was elected chair and Nancy Creamer vice-chair in rapid succession. In fact, it was very rapid - the Council suddenly swung into Robert's Rules at this point, full throttle, and it moved really fast! We really hope that Council members weren't too caught off guard by the sudden transition. In any case, from the discussion around these elections, it sounded like the plan is to tap some other Council members to serve on a leadership committee that will work with the chairs to set agendas and coordinate subcommittees.

That's it! Thanks again to everyone who helped to bring this Council into being, and a huge thanks to everyone who is volunteering to serve on this Council. Please stay tuned for more updates.

Farming American Dreams

In ‘Is Becoming a Farmer the New American Dream’, Makenna Goodman writes about the recent migration of scores of city dwellers to rural farms (herself included). She notes that among these new farmers are well-educated recent college graduates and even corporate bigwigs. Goodman questions why many with steady salaries are forfeiting them in favor of the unpredictability of the farm. She concludes that it is the desire for a greater connection with nature and a return to traditional values that is driving (via horse and buggy) so many into the agrarian lifestyle.

My father was born and raised on a farm in northeastern North Carolina, where he spent summers picking, sorting, carrying, and cleaning potatoes. As his son, I think about how our lives are so different even though we are only one generation apart. I often wonder how my character would differ if I had spent my childhood in fields of corn and cotton, rather than fields of soccer and baseball. What values I’d have if my Christmas bounty and family’s wealth were tied to Mother Nature’s weather and the crop’s health.

I regret not sharing Dad’s experiences as a kid, and feel disconnected with my ancestors and environment as a result. I question whether (and fear that) it is those things I do not share with my Dad that make him the man I so admire. But it was his wishes that led him to leave the farm, pursue other interests, and raise a family in an urban setting that he thought would best suit them. He followed the path of countless farm children before him, a path many city kids desire to take back.

Goodman includes in her article an excerpt from the Gene Logsdon book ‘Living at Nature’s Pace: Farming and the American Dream’. In the excerpt Logsdon acknowledges the rise of urban farming and community based food solutions. What is driving people back to farms is the recognition that there is a need for sustainable food systems, and that the solutions require great ingenuity. Where farms were once the places parents hoped their children would escape with the help of an education, they have now become the places where the educated are returning to craft inventive solutions that help us to escape from unsustainable consumption patterns.

For some inspiring and innovative farmers check out this New York Times Magazine article profiling Will Allen (who is coming to NC in November - visit http://cefs.ncsu.edu for more information!) and the slideshow below highlighting some of North Carolina’s very own up-and-coming farmers courtesy of Mule Magazine.