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Experts: Farmers, Consumers Need to Cooperate

Posted on: Monday, 12 June 2006, 21:00 CDT

By Steve Tarter, Journal Star, Peoria, Ill.

Jun. 13--PEORIA -- Consumers need to get closer to the farm.

They don't need to move, just understand more about how food is raised, said Kendall Thu, an anthropology professor at Northern Illinois University.

As an organizer of the Illinois Farmer Consumer Coalition, Thu on Monday attended a coalition seminar at Wildlife Prairie Park that focused on environmental and local food issues.

Michele Merkel, senior counsel for Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Integrity Project, called for increased governmental scrutiny of large confinement farms raising livestock. "Agriculture is the number-one source of impairment to water quality," she said.

Merkel noted that although federal laws call for stringent oversight of large farms, state enforcement has been lacking.

"Illinois, in particular, hasn't done much in the way of enforcement since 2003 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new rules for confinement operations," she said.

According to the Illinois EPA, nearly 85 percent of total public acreage in the state is impaired, said Merkel.

Most of today's livestock operations don't resemble livestock farms of the past, she said. "Many are industrialized operations that confine thousands of animals at a single location, often generating the waste equivalent of a small city," said Merkel.

The public needs to get involved to enforce rules that are on the books to protect the water supply, she said.

Citing research done by Danielle Diamond, an attorney and NIU graduate student, Merkel said that of 35,000 livestock facilities of varying sizes in Illinois, only 40 state permits have been issued to date.

Fines levied for past violations haven't been much of a deterrent, she said. "It seems to pay to pollute in Illinois," she said.

More citizen involvement is needed, she said. "State legislators have to know that people care -- and not just a few people," said Merkel.

State oversight is more important than ever due to broad agricultural changes, said Thu. Large confinement operations are often owned by large companies rather than farmers who are responsible to their neighbors, he said. "That's a fundamental shift in rural living," said Thu.

Citizens across the state need to work together when it comes to understanding where their food comes from, he said.

Addressing the issue of local food production at Monday's conference was Rob Marqusee, director of rural economic development for Woodbury County in Iowa.

Last year Woodbury County adopted a policy encouraging farmers to go organic. Earlier this year, the county also adopted a local food purchase policy.

The policy requires Woodbury County and its food service contractor to buy organic food grown and processed within a 100-mile radius. Organic foods from farther away or nonorganic foods may be purchased when a sufficient supply of a particular organic food item is not available locally.

The policy helps provide local producers with a market and will hopefully increase food processing business in Woodbury County, said Marqusee.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Journal Star, Peoria, Ill.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Journal Star

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