Posts categorized as South

Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter

“Today, the State of Maryland became the first in the nation to ban arsenic additives in chickens thereby bolstering the growing grassroots movement to remove dangerous chemicals like arsenic from food.

“By passing this important bill the Maryland State Legislature also sent a clear message to the rest of the nation that corporate agriculture must make serious changes to the way it grows our food.  The bill is all the more significant because Maryland is the eight largest producer of chickens in the nation, and the arsenic ban shows that the state is serious about safeguarding public health, protecting the environment and supporting farmers that often have no control over how their chickens are raised.

“The fact that citizens across Maryland had to fight this hard to remove a known carcinogen illustrates the power of Big Ag in our state legislatures. In fact, a few last minute changes to the Maryland arsenic law opened loopholes to reintroduce arsenic in the future.  It shouldn’t be up to corporations to decide if arsenic should be in our food, and that is why we need a nation-wide ban on arsenic use in all poultry production.

“Food & Water Watch wants to thank Delegate Tom Hucker, Senator Paul Pinsky and Attorney General Doug Gansler for fighting to pass this important bill and showing true leadership in protecting Marylanders.  We urge Governor O’Malley to sign this bill into law as soon as possible.”

Contact: Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch, (202) 683-2500, kfried(at)fwwatch(dot)org.

Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter

Washington, D.C.—“Today the Maryland State Senate passed a bill that improves upon the House of Delegates’ attempt to ban arsenic in the state’s poultry industry. The bill passed last week by the House was gutted by the poultry and pharmaceutical industries.

“Arsenic is often added to chicken feed in the form of the compound roxarsone. While it is intended to control intestinal disease and promote growth, there is little evidence that it is necessary to support these functions, and the poultry industry’s use of arsenic has been called unsustainable by the University of Maryland’s Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology. Chronic human exposure to arsenic has also been shown to increase the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurological deficits and other health problems.

“Food & Water Watch thanks Delegate Tom Hucker and Senator Paul Pinksy for their tireless work on this issue, and urges the General Assembly to send the Senate’s bill to Governor O’Malley for his signature.”

Contact: Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch, (202) 683-2500, kfried(at)fwwatch(dot)org.

Statement Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter

Washington, D.C.—“For the third year in a row, the Maryland State House has failed consumers and their vital resources by undermining groundbreaking legislation that would have banned the use of arsenic in the state’s poultry industry.

 “At the last minute the poultry and pharmaceutical industries made changes to the bill to ban arsenic, effectively nullifying the bill’s intent. They then used their political clout to pass the gutted bill through the House of Delegates.

 “The Democratic leadership of the Maryland General Assembly will need to fix this bill in order to demonstrate that their loyalties lie with their constituents, not the powerful poultry and pharmaceutical industries.

 “We urge the Maryland State Senate to implement an actual ban on arsenic in chicken production by restoring the bill’s original language.”

 Contact: Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch, (202) 683-2500, kfried(at)fwwatch(dot)org.

Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter

Washington, D.C.—“The Chesapeake Bay Program Reauthorization and Improvement Act recently introduced by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Tim Holden (D-Penn.) is designed to ignore the real problems underlying pollution in the Chesapeake Bay: industrialized agriculture and urban sprawl. Decades of bad policies have created the problems that currently afflict the Bay, and this bill would ensure continued algal blooms, deoxygenated water and fish kills.

“The environmental community failed to take a stand against pollution trading in past failed legislation and in the EPA’s Total Maximum Daily Load Program, the current plan for cleaning up the Bay. This bill and its embrace of supposed ‘free market environmentalism’ abandons the Chesapeake Bay to the whims and profiteering of industry and Wall Street.

“With its embrace of pollution trading, the Goodlate-Holden Bill would gut the federal Clean Water Act and let unsustainable industries, including concentrated industrialized poultry production, off the hook for their pollution. This bill would abandon the concept of setting enforceable standards to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, leaving it vulnerable to the whims of market-based schemes designed to allow polluters to keep polluting.” 

“The EPA attributes 45 percent of phosphorous loading, 35 percent of nitrogen loading and 60 percent of sediment loading into the Bay to agricultural sources. Animal manure accounts for about half of the nitrogen loads. Companies like Perdue are reaping immense profits while Bay aquatic life and fishing and crabbing communities suffer. We need policy that works to clean up the Bay by dealing with the fact that there are too many chickens concentrated on the Eastern Shore. This bill does the exact opposite. 

“Instead of trading schemes that let polluters pay to keep polluting and allow developers to pave over farm land, let’s instead focus on creating a system in Maryland that values small and medium-scale sustainable, healthy food production.”

Contact: Kate Fried, Food& Water Watch, (202) 683-2500, kfried(at)fwwatch.org

We’re demanding that Walmart reject Monsanto’s genetically engineered sweet corn. Join hundreds of GE activists by planning an event at your local Walmart store.

Genetically engineered sweet corn is the first Monsanto crop being marketed for direct human consumption. Walmart could have a major impact in ending the market for this untested, unlabeled and potentially unsafe GE vegetable. Walmart claims to care about the environment and the health of their customers, but actions speak louder than words. 

On Saturday, March 17th, people like you and me are organizing events at Walmart stores across the nation. The goals are to raise awareness about the problems associated with GE foods and to convice Walmart to commit not to sell GE Sweet Corn. 

Use the search tool to find an event near you! If you can’t find and event, you can host or own, or sign up to deliver petition signatures to your local store.

Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter

Washington, D.C.—“ECOCORP, Inc.’s planned manure-to-energy plant on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is just another band-aid for the state’s broken corporate agriculture system and its unsustainable practices.

“While the massive amount of chicken waste on the Eastern Shore is indeed a problem, this plant is not the solution. The fact is, too much waste is produced in too small an area of land, much to the detriment of local watersheds.

“Ultimately, this same system that is creating waste is also harming small and mid-sized farmers, while corporate agriculture giants such as Perdue reap the financial benefits of industry concentration. Rather than hatching hackneyed schemes to address the industry’s waste, lawmakers in Maryland should be examining the unchecked power of Big Ag.

“As a major integrator for Maryland’s poultry industry, Perdue is notorious for avoiding responsibility for the waste produced by their independent growers, who are beholden to unfair and abusive contracts with the company. Both the environment and poultry farmers lose when Big Ag writes the rules and avoids responsibility for the waste their products produce.

“Rather than implementing a system that allows Big Ag to continue its unsustainable practices, policy makers in Maryland and Washington, D.C. should instead force Big Ag to take responsibility for its own messes, and create a more level playing field for independent farmers.”

Contact: Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch, (202) 683-2500, kfried(at)fwwatch(dot)org.

Food & Water Watch is helping build a nationwide movement to protect our water from fracking. Along with our supporters and allies, we’re mobilizing grassroots support for a ban on this dangerous gas-drilling technique.

Across the country, activists are hosting events in their community to educate people about fracking and empower them to take action in support of a ban on fracking. Join us in your community!

Fracking is a gas drilling technique which involves the injection of millions of gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluids – a mixture of chemicals, water and sand – into a well to create pressure that cracks open rock underground, releasing natural gas. This process can deplete and contaminate local water, damage the environment and threaten public health.

The Campaign to Ban Fracking is building momentum across the nation.

This fall, the Food & Water Watch organizing team is ramping up our work for a better food system — building campaigns and meeting with food activists in order to build the momentum that we need in order to fix our broken food system.

Join us!