Farm and Food File

FARM & FOOD FILE By Alan Guebert OPINION Agreement.

While most farmers and ranchers cheered these deregulatory actions, upstream food and fiber users were busy identifying, buying, packaging, and retailing clothing, food, and beverages that mostly younger, more affluent customers saw as “green” or

“sustainable” or “regenerative.”

In short, they were demanding — and getting — through their purchasing power the exact opposite of what U.S. farmers and ranchers and their commodity lobbying groups were actively fighting against.

In late January, Tyson Foods, Inc. joined the fight on the side of its customers by announcing it would help form and fund, according the to Wall Street Journal, “a world-wide coalition of protein producers, academics and environmental and human-rights groups to work together on social and One thing Big Ag has gotten very good at over the last two decades is fighting what it sees as the “green” invasion of do-good outsiders into American farming and ranching.

You know who I’m talking about; these tie-dyed, righteous interlopers of Eastern Elites and Left Coast Libs riding impossibly white unicorns into battle in defense of climate change, natural resources, governmental environmental rules and — warning: hum loudly if you don’t want to hear this one — over-population.

For the most part, however, Big Ag’s powerful lobbying arms have grabbed these environmental anarchists and tossed them and their Birkenstocks aside. This is especially so since the beginning of the deregulation-driven Trump Administration. Gone or made toothless is the Waters of the U.S. rule, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Paris Climate

To the Editor,

I wonder how it is that all the farm organizations say they want/need to get younger farmers involved. Ninety percent of these meetings are held on Wednesday at 10 in the morning — i.e. the upcoming (MN) Ag Expo. Letter: Meetings not held at convenient times marketplace, “…everything in on the table.”

And, added the professor of food distribution and policy at Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University, Maple Leaf Foods is “becoming a completely different company” in order to “adapt to a wider variety of customer situations” it now faces due to environmental challenges.

Players in other industries are feeling the same urgent environmental concerns as their customers. It’s been widely reported that Nestle SA intends to cut its use of oil-based plastic by one-third. Microsoft Corp. recently said it intends to cut its carbon emissions to zero.

Curiously, however, as these customer-driven, globe-spanning giants move into greener pastures, American farmers and ranchers are openly celebrating (what almost certainly will be) their short-lived, rule-tossing victories that will make rural America and what it grows less green and less customer friendly. Worse, in today’s world of perverse politics, these farmers and ranchers — and their powerful allies in Congress and the White House — believe they are winning the day for themselves when, in fact, they’re losing the future for all who follow.

The Farm and Food File is published weekly through the United States and Canada. Past columns, events and contact information are posted at www. farmandfoodfile.com. v environmental issues.”

Wring the PR from that sentence and what Tyson hopes to do is take on animal agriculture’s biggest problems: an enormous greenhouse gas footprint, increasing water pollution, an at-best spotty record on animal rights and worker rights; so it can tell its customers, “We care about the same things as you do so buy Tyson protein.”

And Tyson has a lot of protein to sell. Each week the big-shouldered butcher, according to 2018 data, slaughters 37 million chickens, 408,000 hogs, and 133,000 head of cattle in 50 U.S. facilities.

Little wonder then that a new Tyson heir, 29-year-old John R. Tyson, returned to the family business (after acquiring a MBA from Stanford University) as the company’s new chief sustainability officer. He knows that in the long run, an environmentally greener Tyson means a profitably greener Tyson, too.

Tyson isn’t the only major food company to see green. Last November, Maple Leaf Foods, Canada’s leading animal and plant protein purveyor, announced it was the “first major food company in the world to be carbon neutral.” It did so as a way to “acknowledge… the urgent need for transformative change” in “the global food system…”

A big part of the change, explained Sylvain Charlebois, writing in the Nov. 28 Manitoba Co-operator, is that in today’s hyper-competitive, global

I know several young guys that would love to get more involved, but work full time in town and farm on the side. All these organizations need to remember that a lot of us still have a 8-to-5, then do our chores. Nate Johnson Nicollet, Minn.

Send your letters to: Editor, The Land P.O. Box 3169, Mankato, MN 56002 e-mail: editor@thelandonline.com All letters must be signed and accompanied by a phone number (not for publication) to verify authenticity.

Letter: Schwaller column reached many readers

OPINION To the Editor,

Concerning the Nov. 15/22 issue of The Land, I really enjoyed the article written by Karen Schwaller.

I am now 98 years old (that’s why you have to excuse my messy letter here). I lived on farms all my life until Aug. 5, 2015 when I moved to the independent living campus of the Chosen Valley Care Center. Now I’m in the assisted living campus.

When I wrote to you a few months ago, I told you I was sharing The Land. So I passed the Nov. 15 issue to the usual ones. All of them loved (Schwaller’s) article. One told me he called his son in Duluth and read it to him over the phone. When he finished, his son said, “I can identify with everything she said.”

So I ended up passing it around here for the residents, the help and families.

One of my friends who owns and lives on a farm I lived on from 1934-1937 took a copy to show her family and asked for the cost and address of The Land publisher. Her name is Roberta Copeman. She said she planned to send for it. So, thought you would like to sell rather than have me share mine. Well, if she ordered, that’s one sold and I forgot to mention the price change if one is actively farming. I’m still interested in industrial hemp. I think it could be a great crop for farmers in the future if they read up on the laws and growing it.

Tell Karen I know at least 40 people here enjoyed her article. Wouldn’t it be fun to see a similar one about growing up in the city?

By the way, through all of this I discovered it was time to renew my subscription again. I hope you are optimistic about all the people you are helping to be happy with your magazine. Marjorie Scott Chatfield, Minn.

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