Press Release Clear Lake Workshop on Living Near Large Feedlots Iowa Farmers Union President Chris Peterson, Vice President Kevin Miskell and Colorado rancher Sue Jarrett headline a Monday June 27 workshop in downtown Clear Lake. Jarrett is the former co-chair of the USDA committee on Small Farms. The event begins at 7:30 pm at the Lanes on Highway 15. Former legislator Bob Weber will also appear along with Bill Du Bois. The workshop is sponsored by the I-29ers for Quality of Life and is free to the public. Du Bois notes, the workshop provides an opportunity to hear from those with first hand experience living with large feedlots. “The giant feedlots promoters are looking for land all up and down the I-29 Corridor. Tomorrow they could be next door to you.” During the 2004 Iowa presidential primaries, Peterson and Miskell were on hand to give candidates a first hand look at Iowa feedlots. “We took them all on the same tour of sites and smells,” Miskell says. He lives in north central Iowa within a few miles of the counties with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th largest number of hogs in the nation. The New York Times in December2004 called “the concentration of animal agriculture …. a social and environmental disaster” saying “the evidence isn't hard to find. All [one] needs to do is take a drive through central Iowa, where corporate factory farms are a blight on the land.” The Des Moines Register, Iowa’s leading paper agreed four days later saying, “Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to give you a better perspective on yourself.” This year under Peterson and Miskell’s leadership, the Iowa Farmers Union called for a moratorium on construction of new feedlots over 1,000 animal units. This followed the release of a University of Iowa study showing people living near a large feedlot are 50% more likely to develop asthma. The Iowa Farmers Union also called for monitoring and limiting air pollution emissions from factory farms and creating effective penalties for non-compliance. In 1999, Peterson was a member of the national Task Force giving advice on rewriting EPA regulations for large feedlots. Peterson has appeared on PBS and on the BBC in England. In April 2000, he was interviewed by Mike Wallace on the CBS television show 60 Minutes. The program criticized the Farm Bureau for investing money from its insurance customers in the very large agribusinesses that are driving family farmers out of business. Peterson later noted the Farm Bureau has “built an empire worth billions while tens of thousands of farmers are sinking in Debt.” Peterson’s own 400-acre hog farm near Clear Lake, Iowa went bankrupt a year later. He says he began to discover the necessity of collaborating with other groups and individuals to fight the big factory farms. “I plan on spending the rest of my life raising hell for everything they have done to the family farmer.” Today, he consults nationally and continues to farm 50 acres part-time, raising specialty Berkshire pigs, garden produce and eggs for local consumption. “Iowa has about the same number of hogs today as it did in the 1960’s” Peterson notes. “The only difference is now there are only a few producers. The big farms have driven everyone else out of business.” Miskell warns the tricks the large agribusiness corporations use on local farmers “are similar whether it’s beef, hogs or chickens.” He plans on disclosing the tricks at the workshop. Sue Jarrett and her husband raise beef on the farm on which she grew up. Jarrett was central in passing Colorado’s Amendment 14 and appeared on Jim Lehr’s PBS New Hour. The amendment requires hog feedlots to pay for cleaning up spills from their liquid manure lagoons rather than passing the cost on to taxpayers. It also increased setbacks, required testing of ground water, regulated manure application, and dealt with problems of severe odor. She has testified in Congress on trade issues and their effects on her as a small rancher. She also testified at Congressional hearings on food safety and addressed issues of sustainable food production at the World Water Forum in Japan. Jarrett has worked in the fight against corporate agriculture in Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming and nationwide. Bob Weber will be giving the 7 minute presentation he recently gave to the State Banking Convention in Pierre. In it he documented the advantages of small and medium sized farms compared to large industrial style operations.
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