Minnesota Farmers Union

(March 18, 2011) - The issue of the impact of agriculture on the environment has long been an issue. In the early part of the 20th century, Henry A. Wallace was concerned about soil erosion and its impact on farmland as he characterized some farmers as “soil miners.”

Not many years later in the 1930s, parts of the southern Great Plains became known as the dust bowl as winds and the lack of rain combined with farming practices sent clouds of dust eastward darkening skies along the Atlantic seaboard. It took a combination of federal government action in establishing “shelter belts” and encouraging changes in farming practices along with the return of rains in 1940 to bring the dirty thirties to an end.

What did not end was the realization that agricultural practices and the protection of the environment—it was called conservation when we grew up—are inextricably linked together. As a result of this link, many farming practices, from the operation of large-scale animal operations to the application of pesticides, are regulated by public policies.

As with any public policy, there are those on each side of the issue, and nowhere is that more true that with agriculture and the environment.

(August 24, 2009) - Shortly after we began writing this column nine years ago, critics of genetically modified crops (GMO) tested some tortilla chips and found the protein from StarLink corn in the chips. That discovery set off a massive recall of corn products because the StarLink corn was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for animal feed but not for human food.

That was the first time that the EPA had approved the growing of a GMO corn for cattle feed only while awaiting results showing that the protein expressed by the StarLink gene would not create allergic problems if eaten by humans. The EPA also established a set of requirements to require farmers to segregate the StarLink corn from the rest of the corn crop. Despite all of the safeguards put on paper, they did not work very well in real life and StarLink genes ended up in the food supply.

In some ways, the USDA has replicated the problems created by EPA's split approval of StarLink corn with their decision to consider E. coli O157:H7 not to be an adulterant when found on beef primals and intact steaks and roasts, but recognizing that it is a disease causing adulterant when found in hamburger. The most common problem of this split approval arises because the bench trim from primals ends up being converted into ground beef.

(August 2, 2009) - One of the basic rules of my incredibly successful one-dog, two-ink pen operation is that if the government wants to give some of my tax money back I take it.

Depreciation? Thank you. Double declining balance, three-backflips depreciation? Thank you very much.

That simple principle, however, was trampled July 22 when a Senate Ag Committee hearing took a look at the recently passed, farmer-friendly, House climate change legislation.

While the House plan is complex, everyone-Dems and Repubs, cowboys and plowboys, geniuses and (ahem) journalists alike-agree: the ag side of the House plan will net farmers and rural communities billions in the coming decades.

Indeed, recent studies from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and Iowa State University all point to how juicy carbon trading will be for American farmers and landowners.

But that clear message was muddied at the Senate hearing. Several Repub aggies complained that farmers would be big losers under cap-and-trade. Leading the charge was Mike Johanns, this year the junior senator from Nebraska, last year the secretary of agriculture.