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Saving the Great Plains with prescribed fire, mixed grazing
The Prairie Project focuses on research, extension and education
by Adam Russell for AgriLife Today
Rangelands in the Great Plains, and the ranchers who depend on them, are losing battles against an invasion of brush and shrubs on historical grasslands.
Morgan Treadwell, Ph.D., Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service rangeland specialist, San Angelo, lights part of a 1,000-acre prescribed burn of tall prairie grass near Fort Worth. (Photo by Brian Treadwell)
Ranchers are under increasing stress due to changing environmental conditions and subsequent losses of rangelands to woody plants, but a relatively new management approach shows promise in turning the tide against encroaching brush and shrubs.
Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist Brad Wilcox is among a group of researchers, extension specialists and educators who hope pyric herbivory will one day become a routine point of conversation in rangeland conservation and wildfire mitigation.
Pyric herbivory utilizes controlled patch burns to promote forage growth. Over thousands of years, fire and mixed animal grazing helped shape the Great Plains, which cover more than 452 million acres across 12 states.
Wilcox, Ph.D., AgriLife Research ecohydrologist in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Bryan-College Station, said the invasion by woody plants like cedar and mesquite presents a host of problems for producers, native ecosystems, and properties in both rural and urban areas.
Wilcox is leading a consortium of researchers, extension specialists and educators looking to help ranching operations and landowners prevent and reverse rangeland losses by replicating natural fire and grazing.
This undertaking, the Prairie Project, is a team effort that spans many institutions, agencies and disciplines. The project promotes pyric herbivory, mixed animal grazing and other disturbance regimens on rangelands in the Great Plains to make these areas more resilient to woody plant encroachment, wildfire and extreme heat events.
The Texas A&M University-led project is a collaboration with Oklahoma State University and the University of Nebraska and is funded via a five-year, $10 million U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant to test and promote pyric herbivory and other replicated natural disturbance regimens.
Protecting the Great Plains with fire, grazing
Native rangelands are the most endangered habitat in the U.S. and globally. Rangelands represent 30% of the land area in the U.S. and 40% of landscapes around the world, but many of these ecosystems are under pressure from encroaching, dense woodlands.
Grasses emerge and flourish following a prescribed burn. Mixed-animal grazing can follow prescribed fire to utilize grasses and keep woody plants in check. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo by Morgan Treadwell)
Woody shrubs lead to lost forage volume, which reduces producers’ operational capacity and sustainability, especially during increasingly volatile weather associated with climate change, Wilcox said. Woody shrubs also directly contribute to wildfire intensity and potential for loss of life and property.
Pyric herbivory utilizes controlled burns and a mix of grazing animals like goats and cattle to fill the roles naturally occurring fire and native grazers played in protecting prairie grasslands from encroaching woody plant species. This relatively new management approach is designed to help livestock producers reclaim rangelands lost to woody plants.
Wilcox said research has shown a wide range of benefits from using prescribed fire to minimize wildfire fuel and to create ecologic biodiversity that supports wildlife and agricultural operations. But adding the animal component with grazers and browsers and promoting ungulate species to keep woody plant species in check between burns is where pyric herbivory becomes a winning combination.
“We are trying to spark large-scale public change when it comes to utilization of this disturbance regime that these grasslands evolved under,” he said. “The science is clear about the benefits of using fire, but we are arguing that pyric herbivory and adding browsing animals such as goats and other ungulates to cattle operations is the most effective and efficient way to restore the Great Plains.”
The Prairie Project: a public, private partnership
The project is enormous in span, Wilcox said. It is an extremely collaborative effort between the institutions, the respective facets within them and the people executing the mission to produce research, extension and education elements that support the Prairie Project’s goals.
Researchers hope to provide best practice recommendations that make rangeland ecosystems more resilient and productive to support healthier environmental and economic conditions throughout the Great Plains states. Extension specialists and agents will develop ways to demonstrate to producers and the public the benefits of the science-based methods, with an eye toward fostering generational changes in how rangelands are managed.
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RANGE’s Fearless Journalism Shines
RANGE took in a number of other important awards for reporting, commentary, story-telling and photography. They are:
Those honored by NPA are gratified and humbled, but we at RANGE never rest on our laurels, or think of ourselves as more than servants to our readers, and to the truth. Editor and publisher, C.J. Hadley says, “That win for Freedom of the Press 2021 will be cherished. Our writers and photographers live in deep rural trenches which is why their stories share reality and heart. It’s nice that those Montana judged recognized that.” Now and into the future we will remain dedicated to solid journalism, and the enriching stories of Americans who make the West great.
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by Charlotte Mitchell and James Gordon for The Daily Mail
Forestry student-turned-shaman, 30, faces nine years in jail for ‘starting California’s Fawn Fire’ that has burned 8,500 acres and destroyed 41 homes: DA suspects she could be ‘serial arsonist’
Alexandra Souverneva, 30, of Palo Alto, has been charged with felony arson to wildland and is suspected of starting the Fawn fire – she was seen to be carrying CO2 canisters and a cigarette lighter
Workers saw her acting strangely and trespassing in Shasta County where the Fawn Fire sparked Wednesday
Souverneva was seen walking out of brush, telling firefighters she was dehydrated
The 30-year-old was arrested Friday and booked into jail after being taken for evaluation and treatment
Evacuations have been ordered as the Fawn Fire continues to rage, threatening about 2,000 structures
It has so far scorched more than 13 square miles (34 square kilometers) of heavy timber in rugged terrain
Alexandra Souverneva, Photo by Shasta County Sheriff’s Office
A former forestry student-turned-shaman and yoga teacher has been charged with starting a huge California wildfire that has destroyed 41 homes – and was being investigated in connection with other fires – after claiming the blaze was triggered accidentally while she tried to boil bear urine so she could drink it.
Alexandra Souverneva, of Palo Alto, was charged Friday with felony arson to wildland with an enhancement because of a declared state of emergency in California, Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett said. The 8,500 acre blaze the 30 year-old is accused of starting has wrecked 41 homes, and 90 other structures.
Souverneva pleaded not guilty but could face up to nine years in state prison if convicted. She is also suspected of starting additional fires in Shasta County and throughout the state, Bridgett said. It wasn’t immediately known if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
During questioning by investigators, Souverneva, who previously worked as a scientist, but whose most recent job was as an SAT tutor, claimed that she had been thirsty whilst out hiking and found a puddle in a dry creek bed which contained bear urine.
She then claims she attempted to filter the water using a tea bag but when that failed tried to start a fire to boil the water. Souverneva said that it was too wet to start a fire so she drank the water and continued walking.
The Fawn Fire has charred more than 13 square miles of heavy timber in the latest destructive blaze to send Californians fleeing this year. As of Monday morning, the fire was 45 per cent contained. CAL FIRE reported on Sunday night that three firefighters were injured while battling the inferno.
Souverneva is known to be a graduate of the California Institute of Technology and former Bay Area biotech employee.
She has also worked as a yoga teacher and describes herself as a shaman – a person who claims to have a direct connection with the world’s good and evil spirits.
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By Jimmy Orr, Cowboy State Daily
Gordon Optimistic Grizzlies Will Be Removed From Endangered Species Act
Wyoming will try once again to gain the authority to manage the grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Gov. Mark Gordon said Thursday he is confident the federal government will side with the state.
Referring several times to the catchphrase “Follow the science” used frequently by the Biden administration, Gordon announced during a news conference the state is filing a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to win the right to manage the bears inside its borders.
“I am optimistic,” he said. “If this administration, which continues to talk about the science and how we need to follow the science, Wyoming has the very best science so I’ll take them at their word.”
During his news conference, Gordon said the state will submit a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking for Yellowstone grizzlies to be removed from the endangered species list, clearing the way for state management of the animals. The Fish and Wildlife Service has 90 days to issue a recommendation on the petition and then will have a full year to make a decision on the request.
Grizzly bears were removed briefly from the endangered species list in 2017, but a federal judge ordered them to be returned to the list, returning management of the animals to the federal government.
Agreement
Today, estimates set the number of grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem at more than 1,000 — which is nearly 10 times what it was when the bear was first listed under the Endangered Species Act. And this doesn’t count the number of bears outside of the area, which is believed to be significant.
There is agreement between the state and federal government on some of the requirements to remove the bears from the list.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does consider Yellowstone’s grizzlies “biologically recovered,” with the bear’s population meeting recovery goals in 2003.
Today, estimates set the number of grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem at more than 1,000 — which is nearly 10 times what it was when the bear was first listed under the Endangered Species Act.
And this doesn’t count the number of bears outside of the area, which is believed to be significant.
The push for delisting has been ongoing for years.
In 2015, President Obama’s Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said he was in favor of it.
Two years later, delisting did occur under the Trump administration, but only briefly. The courts intervened, relisted the animal, and management authority went back to the federal government.
Changes
Game and Fish Director Brian Nesvik said the State of Wyoming has addressed the concerns expressed by the court in its 2017 ruling, giving him confidence the State will be victorious.
“We were very, very close to the finish line [in 2017],” Nesvik said. “I think if we make these changes, I’m optimistic that once they evaluate the petition based on science and its merits, that we will prevail.”
Those changes, according to a release from the governor’s office, include:
Amending grizzly bear management policies that will adjust the annual management and mortality targets.
Using the updated population model now adopted by grizzly bear experts.
Ensuring the bear’s long-term genetic health and and providing for translocation of bears into the population, as needed to maintain genetic diversity.
Geography
The third point, however, does not mean other parts of Wyoming could see a reintroduction of the grizzly.
Nesvik said only the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is large enough to sustain the population.
“Frankly, there’s really not a lot of other places where grizzly bears could do well and be successful because of other uses,” he said pointing to the Big Horn mountains as an example.
Because of the agricultural and recreational interests, there’s not enough space there, he said, that would keep the grizzly “out of trouble.”
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WOLF NECROPSY
Introduction by Editor
This compelling video begins with the necropsy of a cow killed by wolves. Filled with facts about the impact of swelling wolf populations in Mountain West states, this video is both alarming, and an excellent resource for educating those who have been misled to believe that wolves are necessary to achieve ecological balance. ~Ed
This educational video was produced by the Idaho Rangeland Resource Commission
by NuVisionProductions
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Opinion: Muddying the Clean Water Act
If you Don’t Get the Answer You Want, Go Ask Your Father
By: Conner Nicklas
Budd-Falen Law Offices LLC
Remember when you were a kid and you would calculate whether to ask your mother or your father depending on the answer you wanted? That is exactly what the Biden Administration did with the definition of “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act (CWA). As of today, there are two opposing court decisions regarding the effect of the Trump definition of a WOTUS, followed by an announcement by the Biden Administration picking which court it wanted to follow.
On March 2, 2021, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it did not have the jurisdiction to stop the enforcement of the Trump WOTUS rule until there was a ruling on the merits of the case or Biden had legally issued a new rule. In stark opposition, on August 30, 2021, a Federal District Judge vacated the enforcement of the Trump rule even before the Biden Administration had a new rule to put in its place. Thus, in contrast to the 10th Circuit’s decision, with the stroke of a pen, the Arizona Judge vacated the application of the Trump rule throughout the nation.
The decision is very frustrating. Normally, the previous regulation remains in place until it is replaced. However, instead of simply dismissing the case and sending the regulation back to the EPA and Corps of Engineers to revise, the Arizona judge, appointed by President Obama, issued a national vacatur of Trump’s WOTUS definition. Her ruling brings up a major issue– should a federal district judge in Arizona, who does not have any jurisdictional authority outside of the state of Arizona, have the power to nationally end a legally adopted rule?
Judge Marquez’s ruling once again muddies the waters and allows the EPA and Army Corp. of Engineers to arbitrarily enforce a law that could result in thousands of dollars in fines and jail time to a violator. The CWA was passed in 1972 to protect the “Waters of the United States” by making it illegal to discharge a pollutant into a WOTUS unless a permit is obtained. However, the law became mired in controversy when the federal agencies began charging people with CWA violations for discharging pollutants in waters that were never intended to be regulated, including irrigation ditches, stock ponds, and isolated and seasonal wetlands. The lack of a tangible statutory definition for a WOTUS has generated hundreds of cases to ascertain the span of the federal government’s jurisdiction. In turn, the CWA has a history of being weaponized to prevent development projects from moving forward and harassing farmers and ranchers.
Also, it is important to note that just because a body of water may not be defined as a WOTUS does not mean that it is not protected. All waters not directly under the federal government’s jurisdiction usually fall into the state’s jurisdiction. For example, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality is the state agency tasked to protect Wyoming’s water quality.
By killing the Trump CWA rules, we are once again left in an impossible position because no one actually knows what a “Water of the United States” is. Does the federal government have jurisdiction over your irrigation ditch? How about the bog down the street? In its pleadings before the court, the EPA identified 333 projects it believed it would have had jurisdiction over prior to the Trump rules. Disturbingly, the Trump rule has only been in place for less than a year. Thus, Washington DC will again arbitrarily insert itself into our lives.
The situation surrounding the national demise of the Trump CWA rules begs an even bigger question. How does a single judge in Arizona have the power to invalidate legally enacted regulations for the entire nation? By allowing district court judges to invalidate regulations on a national scale, we are giving an undemocratically elected judge the ability to affect people outside of their jurisdiction. It is particularly egregious when the 10th Circuit Court came to the opposite result. This unprecedented power encourages the worst kind of forum shopping in which organizations target specific judges to advance their radical agendas. In the past couple years, the Supreme Court has questioned the authority of district courts issuing nationwide injunctions. The hope is that the Supreme Court finally puts an end to this form of radical lawmaking and forum shopping from the judge’s bench.
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In practical terms, the decision will make it tougher for ranchers to transfer private property, including to family members, without encountering heavy regulatory burdens, he said.
by Mateusz Perkowski for Capital Press
Oregon ranchers lose appeal over “grazing priority”
An Oregon ranch family has failed to convince a federal appeals court to preserve their property’s “priority” to graze livestock on public allotments.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that ranchers automatically lose the “grazing preference” for their property upon the expiration of their permit to release livestock onto federal allotments.
The ruling has broad implications for Western ranchers, since it rejects legal arguments that a private “base” property must retain its grazing preference even if a grazing permit isn’t renewed.
“It could be the death knell of the Taylor Grazing Act,” he said, referring to the federal statute that regulates public land livestock allotments.
In practical terms, the decision will make it tougher for ranchers to transfer private property, including to family members, without encountering heavy regulatory burdens, he said.
The case demonstrates the difficulty of litigating against the federal government, particularly in the 9th Circuit, Hanley said. “In the long term, you’re going to lose.”
Grazing preferences provide private ranch properties with the top priority to obtain grazing permits on neighboring federal allotments.
Within the livestock industry, such preferences are crucial to the financial value of private ranches. They’re also considered to stabilize the long-term connection between ranchers and surrounding federal lands.
After the U.S. Bureau of Land Management refused to renew their grazing permit, Mike and Linda Hanley of Jordan Valley, Ore., leased their 1,900-acre private ranch to their daughter and son-in-law, Martha and John Corrigan.
However, in 2017 the BLM refused to issue the Corrigans a permit to graze cattle on about 30,000 acres of nearby federal allotments across the border in Idaho.
The agency decided the Oregon base property had lost its grazing preference when the Hanley permit wasn’t renewed, which both couples challenged in federal court.
The BLM’s decision raised an alarm among ranch organizations, such as the Owyhee Cattlemen’s Association and Idaho Cattlemen’s Association.
The groups argued the agency’s interpretation undermines due process rights and “threatens to subvert the entire system of public land livestock grazing.”
The 9th Circuit has now upheld a court ruling that determined BLM’s actions were consistent with the Taylor Grazing Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which govern public allotments.
Read the full article HERE on Capital Press
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Opinion Editorial- Is Your Local Government a Champion for its Citizens?
By: Karen Budd Falen
Press Release: Budd Falen Law Office, LLC
One of the greatest dangers to our rural way of life is allowing people on the coasts (people who often have never visited, much less lived in, our communities) make decisions in an ideological “vacuum” regarding our local natural resources, economies, customs and culture, and property rights. The Trump Administration fully understood that local governments have the expertise to advocate for our economic, environmental and social well-being because we elect those officials from our communities and counties. Local governments can and should be a champion for their local citizens.
While federal statutes have long recognized that local governments should have a voice in federal decisions impacting their constituents through consistency review with local land use plans, cooperating agency status or coordination, President Trump championed that notion. For example, Trump’s regulatory reform addressed long overdue updates to the regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The intent of NEPA was to create a process for the federal government and the public to consider potential effects of major federal actions on the human environment. However, before the Trump reform, NEPA had been abused by radical groups to advance their agenda often to the detriment of the citizens who live with the impact of these federal decisions. To many, NEPA had become a tool to manipulate the federal government to bow to their whims or face years of lawsuits.
In an attempt to de-weaponize NEPA, the Trump regulations clarify that NEPA is not only supposed to analyze the effects that a decision may have on the environment, but also must analyze how it will affect a local community’s economy, customs, and culture. Additionally, the Trump rules gave local governments the ability to participate in the federal decision-making process, not only when state law allows, but also by defining “special expertise” in areas within the local government’s mission or experience. For local governments that are not “home rule,” this change gives you a voice.
The updated regulations mandate greater up-front participation in NEPA’s process rather than providing environmental groups a way to sandbag agency decision-making with lawsuits. For example, the notice of intent to complete an environmental impact statement (EIS) must be much more detailed than required under prior regulations and must also include a request for comments. An extra comment period was also added at the end of the process that mandates inclusion of local governments. Another recognition of the importance of local government participation was the revamping of the requirement to write an EIS’s environmental consequences section to include a discussion of possible conflicts (consistency review) between the proposed action and its alternatives with the objectives of local governments’ land use plans, policies and controls.
The NEPA regulations additionally clarified what constitutes a “major federal action significantly affecting the human environment.” Following the commands of the U.S. Supreme Court, an environmental impact must be “proximately caused” by the proposed federal decision. If there is an environmental impact (either positively or negatively), economic impacts must be considered.
The regulations included a two-year time period to complete an EIS. NEPA is a process-not a substantive mandate. The public and agency decision makers should understand the environmental and economic impacts of decisions and make informed choices within this two-year timeframe. NEPA was not enacted by Congress to simply create reams of paper with no end in sight.
Now, the Biden Administration seeks to revise the Trump NEPA rules. Although Biden cannot just simply undo these changes with the stroke of a pen, the current rhetoric is concerning. So called “fly-over country” can’t afford to go back to NEPA documents that take 5 or 10 years to complete and never consider local impacts. We don’t know when these Biden changes will be proposed, but we will have the ability to analyze and combat them if necessary. In the meantime, local governments have the regulatory authority to be involved in decisions that impact our rural way of life. Are your local governments ready and willing to take on this responsibility?
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“In her book, Food Bullying, author Michele Payn points out that people may find themselves selecting certain food products or labels because of how it will make them feel, increase their status, or earn praise from peers. The choices they make aren’t necessarily derived from nutrition or safety, but from an elitist mindset.”
THE IMPACT OF FOOD ELITISM
By Jaclyn Krymowski for Protect The Harvest
Access to adequate food is an extremely important topic. All people deserve to have access to safe and nutritious foods. In today’s society, there are numerous questions to ask about food, food security, and the recent focus on elite foods.
• Are various food-focused social justice initiatives really pushing towards the goal of safe, nutritious foods, or are they working to redefine what safe and nutritious means?
• Do the groups who are trying to make “safe” and “nutritious” simultaneous with buzzwords like “organic,” “plant-based,” and “all-natural,” know what impact their actions have on food equity?
Food Bullying is a Reality and It Starts with Food Marketers and Their Counterparts: Animal and Environmental Extremists
In her book, Food Bullying, author Michele Payn points out that people may find themselves selecting certain food products or labels because of how it will make them feel, increase their status, or earn praise from peers. The choices they make aren’t necessarily derived from nutrition or safety, but from an elitist mindset.
We Support All Forms of Agriculture – We Do Not Support Misinforming the Public
There is nothing wrong with providing high quality products to the elite buyer. We support organic farming and conventional farming. We also support different types of animal production systems. What we do not support is the practice of misinforming the public about our food system and the nutritional value of the foods. We believe it is morally wrong to provide disinformation about affordable foods that are the staple of the American public.
Why are We Making the Statement that these Groups are Partners in Crime?
Many of these elite food marketing groups and companies tap into the false narrative established by animal and environmental extremist groups to push their own products. Elitist marketers and their counterparts, animal and environmental extremist groups, have purposely overlooked and ignored the reality that our modern food systems provide safe, nutritious, humane and most importantly, affordable food. Through their marketing they repeat the negative disinformation about modern agriculture propagated by animal and environmental extremist groups. Keep in mind that animal extremists want to end all animal agriculture and view animal ownership as akin to slavery and abuse. Environmental extremist groups view humankind as a global parasite and they have been pushing this narrative for years. This provides a convenient, already established narrative that elite food companies and marketers can tap into. Animal and environmental extremist groups are in a sense, saving elite food marketers money since they have already worked to establish a false narrative in which they can use as a platform to sell their food products. They use the false narrative designed and marketed by extremist groups to enforce the false notion that vegan and elite type foods are the epitome of good health.
What is worse is that marketers for elite foods frown upon families who choose products they deem are “over-processed” or “unhealthy.” Not only are these accusations unfounded, but those same families simply don’t have the money to spend on expensive alternatives. Without affordable animal protein products like eggs, dairy, beef, pork, and poultry, they’d have no other choice but to go hungry.
Veganism is Elitist and Unhealthy
One of the dangers of the vegan animal extremist ideology is their insistence that their proposed diet is suitable for everyone and entirely “natural.” They ignore the facts and put the health of people at risk in favor of their radical ideology. Animal extremist groups also ignore the stark reality that the animal extremist vegan lifestyle requires some degree of supplementation to meet lacking nutrients found in abundance in animal products like B12, iron, and Vitamin D to name a few. Additionally, vegan meat and dairy substitute products like fake bacon, processed pea patties, fake cheese and nut juices that are supposed to replace milk, are significantly more expensive compared to wholesome real meat and dairy products. If those manipulated into following the vegan ideology cannot afford those products they are then only able to afford produce and grain staples.
From a health perspective, vegan diets are not recommended for everyone. Physicians from all over the world have warned against the dangers of vegan diets in children, citing multiple instances of malnutrition and average delayed growth patterns. In some countries forcing children to eat a vegan diet is considered child abuse and a crime.
Food Elitism is Not Family Friendly
Unfortunately, years of plentiful eating have blinded a lot of the elite to the fact that so many under-privileged families rely on our affordable and sustainable food system. The trend of companies serving the elite and wealthy have taken advantage of this ignorance in their marketing tactics.
Most people cannot afford to shop at high-end grocery stores like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and types of farmers’ markets. On average, their groceries are about 20% more expensive compared to traditional stores reflecting a privilege of the elite class.
Examples of Nefarious Marketing Tactics Which Mislead the Public
Nefarious food product marketing tactics take many forms. Many marketing firms and elite food companies use scare tactics to sell their products. Using false or exaggerated disinformation, their messaging heavily implies that other foods are nutritionally inferior and unsafe compared to certain products that are produced the “right” way. Of course, the “right way,” is their way. Their marketing messaging fully ignores the facts about food safety and the USDA’s role in ensuring the food items people purchase are safe to consume. What these marketing tactics don’t tell people is that conventionally raised meat, eggs, and dairy fall under the safest food inspections and regulations in the world. Likewise, they have a very similar nutritional profile to food items which are marketed as “pastured raised” or “organic.”
These scare tactics can be especially harmful to low-income and underprivileged families who are led to believe that they are not and cannot feed their families properly.
Cooks Venture is an example of elitist marketing and pricing. They are a food delivery service focused on pasture-raised beef and chicken (they have plans to expand their lineup soon). A 9 to 10-pound box of their assorted beef and chicken cuts goes for $149.99. By comparison, the average cost per pound of conventional whole chicken is just $1.70 and beef is $4.73.
“Good food is vital for health and happiness,” says their website, heavily implying that their meats are ‘good’ compared to other conventionally raised products.
The site continues:
“Despite the pastoral images and marketing claims, almost all meat today comes from mainstream operations that are labeled with greenwashed buzzwords. Finding food that is good for both us and the planet doesn’t have to be this hard.”
While marketing language, this tone is harmful as it reinforces a misconception that is already so rampant among consumers: that products derived from conventional animal agriculture is inferior to niche products sporting labels like “grass-fed” “pasture-raised” “organic” or “all-natural.” Keep in mind that the definitions for some of these products are not even officially defined.
A company with a similar marketing approach is ButcherBox, which says it “was started with the idea that everyone should have access to high-quality, humanely raised meat.” But is their $149/month delivered box of 9 to 14 pounds of meat really accessible to everyone?
“We only work with companies and farmers that are dedicated to doing the right thing,” continues the website, “never cutting corners…”
This is yet another example of a company which is painting conventional, modern animal agriculture as the enemy. The goal is to the shame the elite into purchasing their products and it fully ignores those who cannot afford the high-end products they are pushing.
Food Insecurity is the Real Issue
Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world, Americans still fall into the “food insecure” category making up about 10.5% of households in 2019, according to data from the Department of Agriculture. In poorer countries, that number is much higher with some having notable portions of their populations being chronically malnourished.
A pivotal solution to all of this starts, of course, at the farm level. However, the disconnect between large farms, modernization and food equity is unfortunately ongoing. A Global Washington article cites increasing farm efficiency productivity as being necessary to help alleviate the rising cost of food products. This includes “a comprehensive approach that includes access to heartier seeds, more effective tools, improved farm management practices, locally relevant knowledge and reliable markets.” University researchers and livestock veterinarians have dedicated decades to refining modern farming practices to provide humane, sustainable, wholesome, and affordable foods. Large farms, especially those in first-world countries, have embraced the research available to them and implemented modern practices. Unfortunately, the Global Washington article leaves out the vital role of research and modern farming practices. Instead, it cites small farms (without defining what that term means) as being part of the solution.
Diane Sullivan Fights for Food Security
In her testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy on February 6, 2020, food security activist Diane Sullivan, shared her insight into the real-world implications of food elitism as a mother who has experienced hunger and homelessness.
“Too often, food policy debate in this country exclusively takes place among those in power—elected officials, scholars, researchers, both for-profit and non-profit special interest groups, and more,” she shared. “Rarely are those of us with lived experience in hunger invited to the table when the policies that directly impact our lives are discussed, designed, and implemented. This is increasingly the case as retailers, policymakers, state ballot initiatives, and more press to regulate farmers in such a way that eliminates affordable, safe and nutritious food choices and drives up the cost of our food.”
Sullivan also commented on the significant role that hardworking farmers and ranchers play in the conventional food system to make food equitable to struggling households.
“My experience has taught me that productive farmers and ranchers in this country are perhaps among the best friends low-income people could have,” she stated. “They provide us the broadest choices of safe and affordable food options in the world, so long as they are permitted to do so. As low-income consumers, we remain stuck in the middle of policies that increase the cost of our food…”
In 2016, Sullivan was the campaign manager for a ballot committee that opposed a ban on sales of meat and eggs from animals raised in large modern farms (Massachusetts Question 3) – which is the vast majority of affordable and conventionally raised animal products.
“On so many occasions, I’ve been in a position where I haven’t been able to feed my children an appropriate meal,” Sullivan shared in an interview for a local publication. “When my SNAP benefits have run out, my paycheck is still a couple of days away, I’ve been able to go to the grocery store, gather up a dollar in change, purchase a dozen eggs and feed my children at least a source of protein.”
“My passion is driving me. I know what hunger looks and feels like. Who’s going to take on an organization like the Humane Society of the United States to defend poor people? Poor people are too often voiceless.”
The Farm Systems Reform Act Will Drive Up the Price of Affordable Food
In addition to recent attacks on affordable food and modern agriculture like Mass Question 3, California’s Prop 2 and Prop 12, there are animal extremist influenced politicians continuing to push their ideology while ignoring the impact on American families.
Consider the average monthly expenses of an American family on their grocery bill. Many familes are going hungry now and that is without a major disruption to the conventional food system. Such a disruption to animal-derived proteins in particular would be catastrophic. The Farm Systems Reform Act is one of the latest legislative efforts being pushed by vegan extremist Senator Cory Booker. This piece of legislation will harm families in the name of food elitism and vegan ideology and it is being done on the national level.
Animal Extremist Ballot Initiatives to Drive up the Price of All Food
In addition to federal legislation, state ballot initiatives in Colorado and Oregon are the most recent targeted attacks on animal agriculture by animal rights vegan extremists. They are pushing to eliminate animal protein products from the diets of citizens in those states under a false animal welfare pretense. These initiatives would cripple the states’ animal industries and force an unhealthy diet on growing families by making affordable and nutritious animal protein products prohibitively expensive. Not only would this cripple animal agriculture, but those farmers growing feed for the animals would also be hit hard if they had fewer ranchers buying their products.
A Balanced Food System
Each year hundreds of millions of people go hungry around the globe. Many of those who do have access to food are still deficient in essential vitamins and nutrients. In the U.S. alone, it is estimated over 92% of the population suffers from at least one vitamin or mineral deficiency. At least 10% have a broader type of nutritional deficiency.
Many of the most common deficiencies found throughout the world can be easily addressed by consuming animal protein products. Iron deficiency, for example, affects over 25% of the world. A single three-ounce serving of ground beef (one of the most affordable beef products) covers almost 30% of the recommended daily value for iron.
Because vitamin B12 absorption decreases with age, there is an estimated 20% of older adults that are deficient in this vitamin. Meat, milk, and eggs are all abundant accessible sources.
These are just a few brief examples of vitamins that are essential and found easily in animal products.
Modern Agriculture Provides Affordable, Nutritious, and Sustainable Food
Modern agriculture and livestock production practices make food affordable and are more sustainable. They help control food byproduct waste and decrease food disparity among households. Americans today only spend less than 10% of their income on food. For poorer nations, and low-income American households, that percentage is easily 40% or higher.
Modern state of the art practices in American agriculture have been developed to feed citizens efficiently and affordably. Everything in our food system including research, farming practices, and subsidies all reflect this mindset. Not only are nutritious foods plentiful and accessible, but they also empower consumers with freedom of choice.
The pursuit of an equitable food system should be about offering more choices, not less, to consumers to meet their dietary needs. Restricting them with only expensive alternatives is food elitism that leaves so many vulnerable families to struggle with life’s most basic necessities.
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By Edward Ring
Originally published by American Greatness in September, 2020
Environmentalists Destroyed California’s Forests
Millions of acres of California forest have been blackened by wildfires this summer, leading to the usual angry denunciations from the usual quarters about climate change. But in 1999, the Associated Press reported that forestry experts had long agreed that “clearing undergrowth would save trees,” and that “years of aggressive firefighting have allowed brush to flourish that would have been cleared away by wildfires.” But very little was done. And now fires of unprecedented size are raging across the Western United States.
“Sen. Feinstein blames Sierra Club for blocking wildfire bill,” reads the provocative headline on a 2002 story in California’s Napa Valley Register. Feinstein had brokered a congressional consensus on legislation to thin “overstocked” forests close to homes and communities, but could not overcome the environmental lobby’s disagreement over expediting the permit process to thin forests everywhere else.
Year after year, environmentalists litigated and lobbied to stop efforts to clear the forests through timber harvesting, underbrush removal, and controlled burns. Meanwhile, natural fires were suppressed and the forests became more and more overgrown. The excessive biomass competed for the same water, soil, and light a healthier forest would have used, rendering all of the trees and underbrush unhealthy. It wasn’t just excess biomass that accumulated, but dried out and dead biomass.
What happened among California’s tall stands of Redwood and Ponderosa Pine also happened in its extensive chaparral. Fire suppression along with too many environmentalist-inspired bureaucratic barriers to controlled burns and undergrowth removal turned the hillsides and canyons of Southern California into tinderboxes.
In 2009, after huge blazes wiped out homes and forced thousands to evacuate, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich observed: “The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today.”
In 2014, Republican members of Congress tried again to reduce the bureaucracy associated with “hazardous fuel projects” that thin out overgrown forests. True to form, the bill got nowhere thanks to environmental lobbyists who worried it would undermine the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the law that requires thorough impact assessments ahead of government decisions on public lands.
In a blistering report published in the California Globe on how environmentalists have destroyed California’s forests, investigative journalist Katy Grimes interviewed Representative Tom McClintock, a Republican who represents communities in and around the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. McClintock has worked for years to reform NEPA and other barriers to responsible forest management.
“The U.S. Forest Service used to be a profitable federal agency,” McClintock told Grimes.
Up until the mid-1970s, we managed our national forests according to well-established and time-tested forest management practices. But 40 years ago, we replaced these sound management practices with what can only be described as a doctrine of benign neglect. Ponderous, Byzantine laws and regulations administered by a growing cadre of ideological zealots in our land management agencies promised to save the environment. The advocates of this doctrine have dominated our law, our policies, our courts and our federal agencies ever since.
But these zealots have not protected the forests. They have destroyed them. The consequences are far-reaching.
Decimating the Timber Industry, Disrupting the Ecosystem
Few people, including the experts, bother to point out how overgrown forests reduce the water supply. But when watersheds are choked with dense underbrush competing for moisture, precipitation and runoff cannot replenish groundwater aquifers or fill up reservoirs. Instead, it’s immediately soaked up by the trees and brush. Without clearing and controlled burns, the overgrown foliage dies anyway.
A new activist organization in California, the “California Water for Food and People Movement,” created a Facebook group for people living in the hellscape created by misguided environmentalist zealotry. Comments and posts from long-time residents of the Sierra foothills, where fires have exploded in recent years, yield eyewitness testimony to how environmentalist restrictions on forest management have gone horribly wrong. Examples:
“I’m 70, and I remember controlled burns, logging, and open grazing.”
“With the rainy season just ahead, the aftermath of the Creek Fire will challenge our water systems for years to come. Erosion will send toxic debris and sediment cascading into streams, rivers, and reservoirs, reducing their capacity to carry and hold water. Dirty air, dirty water, and the opposite of environmentalism are on full display right now, brought to us by the environmental posers who will no doubt use this crisis to unleash a barrage of ‘climate change did it’ articles.”
“Many thanks to Sierra Club and other environmental groups. You shut down logging/brush removal and had a ‘don’t touch’ approach to our forests. You shut down access roads and let them get overgrown, so now they can’t be used for fire suppression and emergency equipment. You fought ranchers for grazing, which helped keep the forest floors clean. You made fun of Trump when he said we need to rake the forest. Trust me these forest rakes and logging would have prevented the devastating fires we see now.”
The economics of responsible forest management, given the immensity of America’s western forests, requires profitable timber harvesting to play a role. But California has no commercial timber operations on state-owned land. And since 1990, when the environmentalist assault on California’s timber industry began in earnest, its timber industry has shrunk to half its former size. Reviving California’s timber industry, so the collective rate of harvest equals the collective rate of growth, would go a long way towards solving the problem of catastrophic fires.
Instead, California’s environmentalists only redouble their nonsense arguments. Expect these fires to justify even more “climate change” legislation that does nothing to clear the forests of overgrown tinder, and everything to clear the forests, and the chaparral, of people and towns.
Expect these fires to fuel a new round of legislation containing urban growth while mandating suburban densification, with increased rationing of energy and water.
Expect the “climate emergency” to accelerate in synergistic lockstep with the pandemic emergency and the anti-racism emergency. Expect all three of these emergencies to become issues of public health, thereby eliminating inconvenient constitutional roadblocks to swift action.
Misdirected Union Priorities
Meanwhile, tragically, expect California’s politically powerful firefighters’ union to do little or nothing to support the timber industry or rural inhabitants who don’t want to move into urban condos.
As Steve Greenhut explained in a recent column in the Orange County Register:
Frankly, union power drives state and local firefighting policies. The median compensation package for firefighters has topped $240,000 a year in some locales. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection firefighters earn less, but their packages still total nearly $150,000 a year. The number of California firefighters who receive compensation packages above $500,000 a year is mind-blowing.
No wonder firefighters are overwhelmed during California’s wildfire season. The state can’t afford to hire enough of them.
And when these firefighter unions could have been pushing for legislation to clear the forests back in 2019, where instead did their leftist leadership direct their activist efforts? They marched in solidarity with the striking United Teachers of Los Angeles. The teachers’ unions have done to California’s public schools what environmentalists have done to California’s forests.
If an honest history of California in the early 21st century is ever written, the verdict will be unequivocal. Forests that thrived in California for over 20 million years were allowed to become overgrown tinderboxes. And then, with stupefying ferocity, within the span of a few decades, they burned to the ground. Many of them never recovered.
This epic tragedy was the direct result of policies put in place by misguided environmentalist zealots, misinformed suckers who sent them money, and the litigators and lobbyists they hired, who laughed all the way to the bank.
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