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Sunday, October 30, 2005
Environment- Fort Wayne paper has major editorial on big livestock operations
The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has a major, signed editorial today by Stacey Stempf titled "Mega-farms smell of money: Big livestock operations help economy, can hurt environment." A quote from about mid-point in the editorial:
Daniels is not the first to advocate for agricultural industry growth. In 1972, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz, a fellow Hoosier and Republican, bluntly told farmers to “Get big or get out.”Danielle Nierenberg, a research associate with the Worldwatch Institute and author of a study titled “Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry,” fears the push to expand livestock operations will do more harm than help.
“It’s not going to help Indiana farmers. It may increase foreign investment.” She says foreign farmers are moving to the Midwest because the environmental and health regulations are less stringent. She may have a point given a recent increase in permit applications from Dutch farmers, including the rejected Oolman Dairy Farm application in Blackford County.
“When politicians start talking about revitalizing economic development and expanding agriculture – this is not the way to do it,” Nierenberg said. “If politicians want to increase community development, they are better off supporting family farms rather than encouraging multinational corporation farms.”
She thinks Indiana’s leaders should instead encourage owners of small and medium farms to raise livestock in ways that are more in tune with the land. The ideal is mixed farming; raising both crops and animals. “It’s a system that’s cyclical and self-sustaining,” she says.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 30, 2005 05:35 AM
Posted to Environment | Indiana economic development