It’s clear that massive subsidies that favor Archer Daniels Midland and the food processing oligopoly are bad, and corn ethanol subsidies are double-plus bad. It’s not clear to me yet what a good policy would be.

When there are obvious things to advocate for, it’s not clear where to go to support those things, or who the allies are. The political landscape seems tough — both Republicans and Democrats are influenced by the ADM lobby.

There was a strong outpouring of activism around the last round of organic standards, and that battle was organic vs. agribusiness. But the interest of the agro-oligopoly in maintaining its huge subsidies is stronger even than its desire to enter the double-digit organic market.

Not sure what the answers are.

Wad — I thought about journalism for a while — I was in the “Media Fellows” program in undergrad — until I decided to bail and just graduate early instead.

I’ve been a bit scared of raw milk — for which I think are legitimate reasons. Still, we have people selling the stuff at the SM farmers’ market every week, and they seem v. healthy. Still haven’t tried it, but I get an earful from raw milk proponents once in a while (I’m a bit lactose intolerant, and the proponents say that if I drank raw milk, the intolerance would go away).

My major was journalism with a minor in political science. The milk paper was for one of my California politics classes to fulfill my minor.

As for the latter question, those notices probably came about because of a lawsuit. There is no appreciable nutritional benefit of organic food versus non-organics, and the statement was part of a settlement.

However, some farmers markets (Hollywood, for sure) have been selling “raw” (non-Pasteurized) milk. These have a high risk of illness due to milk-borne microbes, though.

http://www.mulchblog.com/

In fact, the bigger problem with organic standards — in terms of the milk products — in the US is that the standards are way too weak (big factory farms can still get through the loopholes).

Wad — What was your major? Anyway — Maybe you can answer a Q I have — I’ve often wondered about those lil notices on un-organic milk that says something about how un-organic milk has not been shown to be any more harmful than organic milk. I’m paraphrasing here, so I know the exact wording must be v. different. But I do see these lil notices often on milk cartons at Trader Joe’s. What’s up with that? Is it govt. mandated?

Most of the farmers rely on money from Europe (Agricultural subsides are by far the EU’s largest expenditure) to survive as they simply don’t make ends meet purely on economic grounds.

But there is an argument to be made about the Free market. Often when subsides are to high on one product it makes more sense for the farmer to farm the subsidy. The subsidy disrupts the market. Where as the market might say have patoto barley and lettue the subsidy says corn. So you get corn and to get rid of it people put corn surup in everything. (seems alot worse in America then Europe other then chickens nothing is raised in these large barns you have just in fields)

One thing I would like to see is that there is a kind of animal husbandry quality mark. I know that you say organic is it. But organic can be a bit exclusive and the meeting of the criteria hard.

There is many farmers out there that take excellent care of animals producing food on par with organic producers yet because they did not jump through the hoops they are labelled with all the rest of the corn feed crap. Because it is the care not the organess that gives organic it’s taste.

This dealt with state dairy policies, which are just as twisted as federal policies.

The problem with tackling the farm bill at the federal level is that there are two well-entrenched camps that are jockeying for favor in Congress, and none are beneficial for “green farming.” One group seeks to maintain subsidies, and the primary beneficiaries of these are factory farmers with notoriously un-green practices. The other group is the “free-traders,” who want the “free market” to work its magic (read: let commidities trading set the prices). So it’s either sustaining unsustainable practices or turning over governmental regulation to commodities traders.

Firing squad or guillotine. Take your pick.

The problem at the state level is regulations that price out out-of-state milk producers. Regulations set in the early 20th century, including not recognizing refrigerated transport, continue to be enforced today. Moreover, milk cannot be discounted by retailers.

It’s still Sisyphean for green farmers, though. Economically, dairy and other agricultural products are monocultures produced at massive, unsustainable scales. Second, green farmers can’t make inroads with merchandisers because the largest markets and stores’ demands cannot be met by organic farming techniques. And organic farmers are going to have to play the money game in order to get some viability.