EU, UN & Greens Target U.S. Industrial Agriculture For Structural Reform: Seek Regulation & Taxation to Lessen Global Warming & Other Enviro Impacts

http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/A0701E00.pdf


Livestock’s long shadow Environmental issues and options

LEAD (Livestock, Environment And Development) (a multi-institutional initiative of United Nations FAO - formed to promote ecologically sustainable livestock production systems)


By H. Steinfeld, P. Gerber, T. Wassenaar, V. Castel, M. Rosales, C. de Haan - (2006)


The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale


Executive Summary


"...A general conclusion is that improving the resource use efficiency of livestock production can reduce environmental impacts. While regulating about scale, inputs, wastes and so on can help, a crucial element in achieving greater efficiency is the correct pricing of natural resources such as land, water and use of waste sinks. Most frequently natural resources are free or underpriced, which leads to overexploitation and pollution. Often perverse subsidies directly encourage livestock producers to engage in environmentally damaging activities. A top priority is to achieve prices and fees that reflect the full economic and environmental costs, including all externalities. One requirement for prices to influence behaviour is that there should be secure and if possible tradable rights to water, land, use of common land and waste sinks. Damaging subsidies should be removed, and economic and environmental externalities should be built into prices by selective taxing of and/or fees for resource use, inputs and wastes. In some cases direct incentives may be needed."


...An important general lesson is that the livestock sector has such deep and wide-ranging environmental impacts that it should rank as one of the leading focuses for environmental policy...there is an urgent need to develop suitable institutional and policy frameworks, at local, national and international levels, for the suggested changes to occur. This will require strong political commitment, and increased knowledge and awareness of the environmental risks of continuing “business as usual” and the environmental benefits of actions in the livestock sector.


(p.4) Introduction:


"Livestock have a substantial impact on the world's water, land and biodiversity resources and contribute significantly to climate change...[T]he livestock sector occupies about 30% of the ice-free terrestrial surface on the planet. In many situations, livestock are a major source of land-based pollution emitting nutrients and organic matter, pathogens and drug residues into rivers, lakes and coastal seas.


Animals and their wastes emit gases, some of which contribute to climate change, as do other land-use changes caused by demand for feed grains and grazing land. Livestock shape entire landscapes and their demands on land for pasture and feed crop production modify and reduce natural habitats."


(p. xxii)


"...Policy measures that would help in reducing water use and pollution include full cost pricing of water [to cover supply costs, as well as, economic and environmental externalities], regulatory frameworks for limiting inputs and scale, specifying required equipment and discharge levels, zoning regulations and taxes to discourage large-scale concentrations close to cities, as well as development of secure water rights and water markets, and partipating management of watersheds."


(p. 248)


"...Practices that lead to the provision of environmental services, such as improved water quantity and quality, can be encouraged through payments to providers. Schemes of payment for environmental services [PES] rely on the development of a market for environmental services that have previously not been priced.


...Usually, PES schemes rely on external financial resources; however, the long-term sustainability of the mechanisms is often uncertain. Furthermore, the level of payment is often politically imposed and does not correspond to effective demand for services.


A few countries have specific legal frameworks for PES at the national or regional levels. Most of the existing PES schemes, however, operate without a specific legal framework. Some service providers take advantage of this legal gap to establish property rights for land and natural resources."


[IMAGINE THAT!! SOCIETIES BASED ON THE NOTION OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND FREE ENTERPRISE HAVE THE NERVE TO RECOGNIZE AND PROTECT PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND, NATURAL RESOURCES & LIVESTOCK!! HOW SHAMEFUL!!!]


[THIS REPORT SETS FORTH AN AMBITIOUS UTOPIAN FRAMEWORK FOR A NEW SUPRANATIONAL GLOBAL WELFARE SYSTEM MODELED AFTER THE EUROPEAN UNION, THAT RELIES ON SUPRANATIONAL, REGIONAL & NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL SUBSIDIES TO REFORM HUMAN BEHAVIOR. THE EUROPEAN UNION, THROUGH THE UNITED NATIONS, IS ATTEMPTING TO REACH INTO THE UNITED STATES, WITH THE HELP OF U.S. POLITICIANS & GREEN EXTREMIST GROUPS TO GOVERN EVERY ASPECT OF ECONOMIC LIFE. See, e.g., Putting Payments for Environmental Services in the Context of Economic Development (2006) UN FAO
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/ah633e/ah633e00.pdf ; From Goodwill to Payments for Environmental Services, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (Aug. 2003) at: http://www.unpei.org/PDF/budgetingfinancing/From-goodwill-payment-env-services.pdf ; http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/policy/macro_economics/our_solutions/pes/index.cfm].


[IT IS INTERESTING HOW THE ACRONYM 'PES' CORRESPONDS TO THE PARTY OF EUROPEAN SOCIALISTS!! See http://www.pes.org/ ].


[THIS REPORT CONTAINS MANY CLEAR-CUT REFERENCES TO SUPRANATIONAL GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATORY GOVERNANCE TREATIES (INSTITUTIONALIZD 'SOFT' SOCIALISM BEING EXPORTED BY THE EUROPEAN UNION) THAT WOULD BE IMPLEMENTED AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL BY TREATY PARTY GOVERNMENTS. THE MENTION OF 'RESIDUES INTO RIVERS LAKES AND SEAS' IS AN INDIRECT REFERENCE TO THE VAST ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION OF SOVEREIGN U.S. TERRITORY CALLED FOR BY THE U.N. LAW OF THE SEA CONVENTION].



[While the report speaks of environmental damage caused by overgrazing and deforestation, it also speaks of the environmental damage encouraged by agricultural subsidy and liberal trade policies. Yet, what is really at work is a hidden agenda of attacking American industrial agriculture, including crop farming, livestock farming and ranching, as 'UN'sustainable. This has been one of the main arguments of Environmental Nongovernmental Organizations (ENGOs) in Europe for a long while. Unfortunately, it will drive most small U.S. farmers in the livestock industry out of business and increase the U.S. unemployment rate, AND DIMINISH THE GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS OF U.S. AGRICULTURE . U.S. policymakers and the incoming U.S. President must NOT fall prey to these economically & socially destructive ideas].


[Interestingly, on page 224, the Report refers to Europe's Precautionary Principle, as "a principle used to link environmental concerns to decision-making [. It] calls for action to reduce environmental impact even before conclusive evidence of the exact nature and extent of such damage exists. The precautionary principle stresses that corrective action should not be postponed if there is a serious risk of irreversible damage, even though full scientific evidence may still be lacking. However, there is considerable debate about the usefulness of this principle among policy-makers; a common understanding is still missing." ]


[On page 50, the Report notes how, "Responding to consumer concerns, the EU has required that products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) be labeled so that consumers can identify them. In addition, the EU is pushing for GMO soybeans to be separated from other varieties so that those purchasing them for feed or as ingredients can make a choice".]


[Actually, to the extent this Report recognizes the debate over the Precautionary Principle, it is accurate. However, the Report fails to mention how Europe has used the Precautionary Principle both as a disguised trade barrier and also AS A MEANS TO UNDERMINE AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE:


“EU officials have frequently referred to the precautionary principle as a necessary “framework for learning in the face of uncertainty” and arguably have embraced it as a metaphor for protecting the European ‘way of life’ against the ‘Americanization’ of
European commercial and agricultural practices.12


12... The most recent of three workshops previously organized by the German Marshall Fund’s U.S.-European Biotechnology Initiative to discuss U.S. and EU views toward biotechnology explains a great deal about EU reliance upon the precautionary principle. An interpretative summary of this last dialogue (prepared by a European) is extremely revealing. “The EC official stressed that the political purpose of the European rules [about GMOs] was indeed to restore consumer confidence…‘Anything less than the regulations now being proposed would not restore consumer confidence and GM crops in Europe could fail’…One NGO representative was quoted as saying that, ‘Why can’t the Americans understand that this is not specifically about health and safety and labels and traceability; it’s a rebellion against industrial agriculture. We need to be talking about the emergence of new ways of farming which take social and environmental concerns into account, not just GMOs’…An important factor often omitted from the U.S. interpretation of the European conundrum is concern over the Americanization of European agricultural practices and food habits. This concern embodies dislike and fear of globalization in general…As one European…said, ‘There is a difference in what we want our countries to look like, not only with food but with all that goes with it.’ This ‘way of life’ statement echoed similar thoughts…one European said, ‘GM food was a concrete thing that gave us the feeling that the world was going to change radically with respect to food, control of food, and ultimately democracy’…The European consumer attitude to GMOs has evolved, not out of one or two big events such as growth hormones or ‘mad cow’ disease, but for many reasons that traverse the interdisciplinary spectrum of politics, science, economics, culture and social ethics.’” Peter Pringle, “The U.S.-European Biotechnology Initiative”, Workshop 3: Segregation, Traceability and Labeling of GM Crops – An Interpretative Summary of a Transatlantic Conservation About Biotechnology and Agriculture”, The German Marshall Fund of the United States (April 29, 2002), at pp. 3-8.


See Lawrence A. Kogan, “EU Regulation, Standardization and the Precautionary Principle: The Art of Crafting a Three- Dimensional Trade Strategy That Ignores Sound Science”, National Foreign Trade Council (Aug. 2003), at pp. 6-7. This document is accessible on the World Trade Organization website at: http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/posp47_nftc_eu_reg_final_e.pdf . ]


[APPARENTLY, U.S. POLICYMAKERS HAVE ALREADY LOOKED INTO THE PAYMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES SCHEMES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND HAVE NOT LIKED WHAT THEY HAVE SEEN]



"Further developments in agri-environmental policy in both the United States and
the EU will likely depend at least in part on outcomes from ongoing multilateral
agricultural trade negotiations. If these negotiations result in further restrictions on
trade-distorting domestic commodity support, farmers, ranchers, and policymakers
may view increased funding for green payments as an attractive alternative for
providing support to agriculture. If further restrictions are required, it seems more
likely that the United States and the EU will look at the other’s policies and
experiences more closely. If such an examination demonstrates that historic and
current differences are extensive and difficult to overcome, it may be that a broad and
imprecise definition of green payments will serve the interests of diverse parties who
participate in farm policy debates.


For U.S. policy, the status of these negotiations in early 2007, when crafting the
next farm bill is likely to start in earnest, will be particularly important because
designers of this legislation and interest groups will likely give the status and
direction of these negotiations strong consideration as they contemplate farm bill
options. If the outcome of the negotiations is uncertain while the farm bill is being
debated, this uncertainty will compound the intensity of the debate, and possibly
result in the inclusion of language in legislation giving the Department greater
flexibility in implementation.

Congressional discussion of green payments may become contentious for other
reasons as well. One source of that contention may be the translation of the concept
into policies and programs. Most interests involved in farm policy who have
expressed an opinion support the general concept of green payments. But as the
discussions become more specific, participants may find that they have different
views about program design, funding allocations, administrative responsibilities and
similar questions, making it difficult to hold together coalitions of supporters.

Among the most difficult of these questions may be deciding whether such a program
should include a significant income support component and contribute to the “bottom
line” of each participant, or should it be limited to covering costs to install and
maintain conservation practices. A related question may be deciding what is to be accomplished through a green payment approach. Some may view it as meeting
international obligations, and seek a minimal program with limited impact to current domestic efforts, while others may view it is a major new and positive direction in farm policy, and seek to make it large and far-reaching. One aspect of discussing these options may be over whether payments should be based on cost-sharing for individual practices, which has a long history in agri-environmental policies, or on
the level of improved environmental performance that results from installing
practices.

Consideration of green payments may also include a debate over questions of
scale. To this point, all conservation programs are implemented at the scale of an
individual farm. Green payments could include additional incentives for coordinated
and collective action that have much larger cumulative benefits than actions on
individual farms are likely to result in. Such programs could be designed around the
magnitude of the benefits that the group provides, and grow or shrink for all members of the group as the participation, and therefore the benefits, change.

Differences between the United States and the EU in how green payments have been defined and translated into policy and programs may make consideration of EU agri-environmental policy as a model or source of ideas problematic.

Some aspects of EU policy, e.g., compulsory cross-compliance with agri-environmental measures as a condition for receiving price and income support, differ substantially from historical U.S. practice, in which cross-compliance has been far more sparingly
applied.

Spending on agri-environmental programs in the United States has been relatively less than in the EU, both as a portion of total federal spending for agriculture and as an amount spent.

Identifying sources of increased funding for agrienvironmental programs, even in the context of possible new WTO restrictions on other forms of farm support, might still be difficult given projected budget deficits. Even with new multilateral restrictions on farm subsidies, agri-environmental programs might compete unfavorably with the more conventional forms of farm support or with other WTO-compatible programs.

Apart from funding considerations, a consensus for linking agri-environment and rural development with more traditional farm program measures has not emerged in the United States as it apparently has in the EU. So the extent to which EU agri-environmental policy could serve as a model or source of ideas for U.S. agri-environmental policy remains to be seen. See Congressional Research Service Report RL32624 "Green Payments in U.S. and European Union Agricultural Policy" at CRS-19-20, at: http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RL32624.pdf

].

Economic Sabotage IS Free Speech In The UK; Is It Now Also Free Speech In the US?

http://www.itssd.org/Publications/Rural%20News%20--%20Rural%20News_co_nz.pdf

http://www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm/index.php?caseid=archive&newsid=2380

http://www.monsanto.co.uk/news/ukshowlib.phtml?uid=9099/news/ukshowlib.phtml?uid=9099

Economic sabotage a form of free speech?

Date: 6/28/2005 11:23:15 AM

On June 10, AFP Greenpeace was fined 4,000 Euros Under a new Danish Anti-Terror Law for using an anti-GMO protest as a means of public intimidation. Some, including the author of this piece, Lawrence A. Kogan, believe other countries should follow Denmark’s example to discourage what UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s previous government called 'economic sabotage'.

The UK government has been desperately trying to keep life science and biotechnology company jobs and investments in the UK.

The five-year plan released earlier this year by the UK Department of Trade and Investment (DTI) suggests two possible reasons why such companies may be considering relocation - over-regulation and economic sabotage. According to UK trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt, the single biggest threat to the UK's "position as number two in the world on biotechnology is the threat of animal rights extremists, animal rights terrorists". And, a spokesman for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) previously remarked how extremist campaigns were having an increasingly negative impact on R&D
investment in the UK and thereby ruining the industry.

According to ABPI figures, more than 100 abusive or threatening phone calls and other communications were made to companies engaged in animal research last year, almost three times the 38 for 2003. There were 177 cases of damage to company, personal and private property in 2004, up from 146 the previous year. A recent report appearing in the Daily Mail
further corroborates this trend. It found that, during the three months ended October 2004, forty-eight attacks were committed on property belonging to pharmaceutical companies and their employees, along with countless acts of abuse and intimidation (e.g., blockades) against these companies' suppliers. In addition, such groups have engaged in personal harassment of life sciences company investors, including threats to publish their names and home addresses on the web unless they sell their shares. In fact, "abuse from animal rights militants has prompted almost 5000 directors of medical research firms and their customers to seek Government protection."

Unfortunately, as a recent BBC radio broadcast has revealed, illegal vigilante acts such as these increasingly reflect the modus operandi as well as the raison d'etre of political pressure groups once more “sophisticated” attempts at legal or public “persuasion” have failed. As emphasised by one animal rights group protestor, "You don't pick a company unless you can close it down because otherwise you just make those companies stronger. So when they are chosen - they are finished."

What is most disturbing about these activities, however, is that they do not reflect the aberrant behavior of only a small band of miscreants, as UK officials and the UK media would have the world believe. It is common knowledge that ideological extremism and criminal conduct are not entirely the province of animal rights advocates. Environmental extremism is also particularly well entrenched in UK and European daily life, where it has historically been the mainstay of such internationally recognised environmental groups as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, World Wildlife Fund and other more locally focused groups. Environmental extremists within these groups have widely disseminated misinformation to induce consumer fears and distrust of European regulators to gain credibility with the broader European public. They have employed strong lobbying pressure to shape national and regional precautionary principle-based environmental policies. And they have threatened business and personal reputations, engaged in personal harassment and physical intimidation and caused destruction of personal and business property in order to influence industry conduct. Each of the acts within this latter category of
wrongs arguably constitutes a type of criminally actionable economic sabotage or economic terrorism no less severe than the acts committed by the animal rights extremists and targeted by Tony Blair's proposed criminal legislation. That UK Ministers are still debating whether the offence should cover all extremists, not just the animal rights activists who are its principal
target, is nothing less than an acknowledgement of this sad but true fact.

A good example of the type of economic sabotage engaged in by environmental extremists in the UK during the past five years involves genetically modified (GM) food, feed and seed. Extremist efforts have focused, since at least 1999, on terrorizing and causing economic loss to industry (biotech and pharmaceutical companies), farmers and scientists that dared to go forward with outdoor government-planned GM trials. Their ultimate goal was to stop the trials altogether, hamper government GM research efforts, and to block industry's development and distribution of GM products to British supermarkets and retail stores. The intended effect of such conduct was to deny the British public a potentially useful, and perhaps, essential new technology. The UK government had planned to conduct trials in 55 fields by the end of 2000 - 25 fields for maize and oilseed rape and 30 fields for either sugar or fodder beets. Additional farmscale trials were planned for 2001 and 2002. While government estimates had suggested that a total of 75 participating farms were needed to conduct a viable study, mounting Greenpeace pressure during this three year period made it difficult to recruit enough farms. As the Guardian reported in September 2000, of the 31 English and Scottish farms that had originally signed up for the trials, 26 were placed on a Greenpeace hit list, and two others pulled out due to local pressure.

The trials had been facilitated by the Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops (SCIMAC), an industry group drawn from the plant breeding, agrochemical and farming sectors, whose objective was to ensure that the commercial introduction of GM crops in the UK is managed openly and responsibly. SCIMAC had drawn up a code of practice on the transfer of information about GM products along the supply chain and guidelines on the management of herbicide tolerant crops. While the UK government (DEFRA) initially welcomed this 4-year initiative, it did not, for political reasons, endorse outright SCIMAC's risk management guidelines.

Greenpeace-driven economic sabotage was catapulted into the public limelight following the non-guilty jury verdict rendered on September 20, 2000, at the criminal trial of Greenpeace UK executive director, Peter Melchett. Melchett and 27 other members of Greenpeace had been criminally charged on July 26, 1999, with raiding (trespass), damaging (vandalism) and trying to remove (theft) six acres of a GM maize crop that were being grown by local Norfolk farmers for seed company Agr-Evo Ltd (now the agrochemical company Aventis). At trial, Melchett successfully invoked the subjective facts-intensive defense known in Britain as “the Tommy Archer defense” which, as the Independent wrote, "relied on the jury accepting that the defendant genuinely believed that the action would prevent greater damage being done."

In other words, the group's otherwise illegal actions were justified because the group “honestly” believed that it was responding to an even greater potential threat posed to the environment by the pollination of GM crops. As a result, environmental extremists believed they were given the green light to destroy the UK's GM crop research program, and along with it the crops themselves. This mindset was reflected in the remarks of Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth UK: "As far as I can see this throws the door open for people to legitimately destroy GM crops that are about to go to pollen".

A number of additional attacks against GM crop trials followed the issuance of this verdict. The irony of these events was plain for all to see. Individual farmers had willingly participated in UK government planned GM crop trials facilitated by a cautious industry, which were intended to provide more information to the public about the potential scientific risks and benefits associated with herbicide-resistant crops. This was precisely the kind of information environmental extremists such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth had demanded all along but chose to ignore for political reasons.

These environmental extremists, however, were not satisfied until they could also disrupt and destroy the business relationships that existed along the British food supply chain. As early as the fall of 2000, the US Department of Agriculture had noted how Greenpeace-induced "hysteria surrounding genetically engineered (GE) food" had prompted pledges from a number of British supermarkets to phase out meat, eggs and dairy products from animals fed GM crops. In other words, Greenpeace was able to successfully shape consumer demand for GM products as well as influence producer and retailer supply of such products. This was achieved by promoting consumer misinformation and fear and by engaging in guerilla-type military tactics against companies, their employees and their suppliers. The goal was plainly and simply economic sabotage, at both a micro and macro level.