In cooperation with R-CALF USA and Colorado Independent Cattle Growers, RMFU is sponsoring workshops in Colorado and Wyoming to help farmers and ranchers prepare for the USDA/DoJ hearing in Fort Collins on August 27, which will focus on livestock markets.

On August 27,for the first time since the creation of the Department of Agriculture by President Lincoln, the USDA and the Department of Justice will hold a joint meeting. Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack are scheduled to attend.

R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard will make a whirlwind tour of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming during the fi rst week of August. His presentation, Under Siege, documents the concentration of cattle markets and the impact on both consumer prices and producer revenues. The workshop (see schedule, right) will prepare attendees with details on how corporate control of the market has driven consumer costs up while crushing the “wholesale” value of the independent ranchers’ livestock to little more than the cost of production.

We need to preserve the future of rural America and the independent livestock producer who cares about land, cattle and consumers. Bullard’s presentation will explain the threat to rural economies and to the American family farmer and rancher, leaders in agriculture for the world.

Livestock Meetings Schedule

Monday, Aug 2 – Delta, Colo.
Bill Heddles Recreation Center
530 Gunnison River Drive, Delta, Colorado
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Tuesday, Aug 3 – Steamboat Springs, Colo.
Steamboat Springs Community Center
1605 Lincoln Avenue, Steamboat Springs, Colorado
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Wednesday, Aug 4 – Lander, Wyo.
Oxbow Restaurant
170 Main St, Lander, Wyoming
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Thursday, Aug 5 – Laramie, Wyo.
Ramada Center Hotel
I-80 & Hwy 287, Laramie, Wyoming
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Friday, Aug 6 – Julesburg, Colo.
Sedgwick County Fairgrounds Exhibition Hall
Julesburg, Colorado
7:00 PM – 9 PM

Thursday, Aug 12 – Burlington, Colo.
Burlington Livestock Exchange
Burlington, Colo.
11:00 AM – 1 PM
Thursday, Aug 12 – La Junta, Colo.
La Junta Senior Center
La Junta, Colo.
7:00 PM – 9 PM

In a statement today, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union President Kent Peppler endorsed Senator Debbie Stabenow’s Growing Safe Food Act, S 2758, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.

“Grants to help small producers improve food safety benefit everybody who eats,” Peppler said. “This program will help cooperative extension services, community-based organizations, colleges and universities expand their offerings in best agricultural practices and food processing. But it’s no substitute for a real food safety bill that addresses the food handling problems in corporate industrial plants. RMFU will support a food safety bill that puts its muscle where it’s needed and doesn’t burden small producers with industrial-scale regulations. The federal government has a long history of using food regulations to bankrupt small producers and encourage the concentration of markets in the hands of a few multi-national corporations. That has to stop if Americans want beef without E. coli and peppers without salmonella.”

Concerned by the sudden rush to pass the Food Safety bill (HR 2749), Rocky Mountain Farmers Union President Kent Peppler sent a message to the congressional delegation from Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming: “Now just a dang minute!”

Although the bill was improved by amendments before reaching the House floor, it is still, as Peppler testified in Washington last week, potentially devastating for small farmers and ranchers.

The letter points out that “The bill treats the family who cans their neighbors’ peaches in Montrose as if they posed the same food safety risk as a corporate dogfood maker importing melamine-laced wheat gluten from China. That,” Peppler concludes, “is ridiculous.”

As written, the bill simply taxes the small farmer to subsidize corporate agriculture. A farm family that cans their neighbor’s peaches will be required to create a plan for ‘scientific’ maintenance of food safety and pay a $500 annual fee to cover inspection costs. “That family, making $5,000/year of supplemental income by canning peaches, will pay a fee of $500 to cover FDA ‘inspections.’ That $500 fee will also ‘cover’ inspections of plants turning out a hundred tons of canned beans a day. Does anyone seriously believe that it will cost $500 to inspect a family farm? Or that $500 will even begin to cover the cost of inspecting that industrial plant?”

“Set aside the attack on the slim profits of organic and natural food growers and local producers with small, diversified operations,” Peppler commented. “On top of that, the bill allows the FDA to require food growers to follow ‘scientific’ methods. Agriculture has spent half a century trying to get out from under the monoculture, petroleum-guzzling ‘science’ forced on us by corporate monopolies. No thanks.”
The letter to the congressional delegation concludes, “The very companies that created the problem, a problem the farmer and the consumer have been demanding solutions to for more than a century, will be coddled, subsidized, and given yet another advantage over the local, sustainable, natural food competing with them in the marketplace.”

“We need to hit the switchboards in Washington and get Congress to give this bill a closer look,” Peppler said.

RMFU President Kent Peppler called on JBS Swift & Company to follow the lead of Tyson Fresh Meats by labeling beef and pork products to meet the intent of mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL).

On October 14, Tyson told its producers and retail markets that they will see that livestock born, raised, and processed in the U.S. is labeled with the Category A ,“U.S.” Tyson estimated that 90 percent of all the fresh, retail beef and pork cuts produced in the United States would qualify for the “U.S.” label.

“JBS Swift should take steps to comply as well,” Peppler said. In a letter to JBS, Peppler reminded them that Rocky Mountain Farmers Union has strongly supported providing American consumers with knowledge of their food’s origin. “Farmers and ranchers are proud of the food they produce in the United States,” the letter states. “We know JBS Swift is proud of the quality of meat products they provide to consumers in the United States and around the world. JBS Swift will benefit economically if they cooperate with livestock producers to implement COOL as intended by Congress.

Peppler offered to work with JBS to implement COOL. “JBS can provide the producers of livestock born, raised and processed in the United States with a label that lets consumers know where their food comes from and assures them that JBS Swift respects mandated standards for labeling of meat products.”

“The current shortage of tomatoes because of a Salmonella scare underscores the need for trusted, local sources of produce,” said Ben Rainbolt, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union Co-op Development Center Director. “The FDA is investigating around 150 Salmonella illnesses scattered over 16 states. Last year during the same period, there were only three cases nationally.”

The vast majority of Salmonella cases this year are in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. As with the spinach recall last summer, the pattern suggests that a single produce source is involved. “The best way to avoid this food risk and others like it,” Rainbolt said, “is to buy your produce from a trusted local source. Regional and national outbreaks of dangerous infections like Salmonella and E. coli are the downside of corporate agribusiness. Industrial agriculture dumps all the produce in one bin, in a sense, so that a few bushels of contaminated tomatoes harvested on one acre somewhere may be scattered across the entire state or nation. This makes tracing the source of the contamination very difficult, and it makes it almost impossible to be confident that any tomato from that ‘bin’ is safe. The bigger the bin, the bigger the risk.”

Rainbolt urged consumers to buy local and be sure their food source is clear about what ‘local’ means. “You can’t just assume that farmers market produce is local, for example. Make sure your producer is selling their own product. And shop just as carefully at your grocery or co-op.”

Buying local has its downside, too, Rainbolt added. “It means going back to seasonal produce. Local tomatoes will be scarce in Colorado until they have time to ripen from the late spring. But there’s nothing wrong with seasonal eating. A fresh tomato from your neighbors in rural Colorado beats one hauled a thousand miles any time.”

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The neighborhood store takes on new meaning with the launch this week of the High Plains Food Co-op (HPFC). Using the web to connect markets on the Front Range with producers in eastern Colorado and western Kansas, HPFC gives urban consumers instant access to a variety of wholesome local food.

Rocky Mountain Farmers Union (RMFU) helped HPFC obtain federal money to turn their idea into a reality. Through the RMFU Cooperative Development Center (CDC), RMFU also provided consulting assistance during the development process. “Moving the co-op model to the Internet poses some special challenges,” CDC Director Ben Rainbolt said. “The people at High Plains have learned from other successful web-based cooperatives like OklahomaFood.coop and NebraskaFood.org. This kind of creative problem-solving gives consumers an alternative to food of unknown origin and gives producers a market they rely on. It’s a win/win situation for urban and rural interests.”

HPFC currently offers a wide variety of products, from pork and beef to fresh eggs, vegetables, and spices (including catnip). Members order products during the first two weeks of the month for delivery on the third Thursday their pick-up location, 7th and Kalamath near downtown Denver.

HPFC is accepting charter memberships until July 1 (or 150 enrollments). Consumer members pay $100 for a charter membership. Producer members pay the same membership fee, but they must also meet an approval process that guarantees products will be local and that principles of sustainable, environmentally sound agriculture are being followed.

“High Plains Food Co-op puts your farmers market a keyboard away,” Rainbolt said. To enroll, go to highplainsfood.org.

“Farmers Union has testified twice before House committees in recent weeks to get some relief for the dairy industry. Milk prices are currently below production costs by nearly 50 percent. Dairy owners can’t afford to lose money maintaining their herds. If dairy cattle are sold for beef, that will hurt cattlemen by dropping beef prices, it will hurt dairy producers by reducing their ability to recover when prices come back up, and it will hurt consumers, who will find themselves paying whatever the surviving corporate diary monopolies care to charge for milk and cheese.”

In her letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, Markey urged him to boost milk prices through price supports. She also asked that he take steps to make standards of the USDA’s commodity credit program consistent with commercial standards, to simplify surplus sales to the CCC.

“We have called for a complete overhaul of the federal milk program,” Peppler said. “But that takes time, and time is running out for dairy producers all over the Rocky Mountain region. Between the collapse of milk prices, the disappearance of New Frontier Bank, and the increased costs for grain, feed, and operating expenses, we are looking at a disaster we will all have to deal with, producers and consumers alike. Representative Markey is right; we need to stop the bleeding or there won’t be a patient to save.”