Obama’s Manure: Millions to ADM, Financial Penalties to Amish Unless They Plant GMOs

Cows with mastitis stand in shit

By Kip Reading

In addition to the theft and corruption, how many lies are we caught in, how much deception? Just take a quick tour of “Upside Down in Agriculture and Global Warming.” Some might call it “Insane Injustice” as Obama gives ag giant, Archer Daniels Midland, millions to capture carbon in projects ADM designed itself.

How much fossil fuel does this company use to produce its industrial products, to run its massive industrial operations, to transport its products around the world, to keep the lights on in PR companies that fight organic farming (which is a solution to global warming), to fly its lobbyists around to end up with such a give away? Doesn’t industrial ag contribute 40% to global warming?

On June 11, the Associated Press posted an article entitled ADM gets $99 million for carbon-capture project, which states, in part:

“The U.S. Department of Energy will give Archer Daniels Midland up to $99 million in stimulus funds to help pay for the Decatur-based agricultural company’s second carbon-capture project.

“ADM says the money will allow it to begin designing and building the new demonstration project starting in 2012. The company hopes the project will capture and store 1 million tons of carbon dioxide a year from ADM’s ethanol plant. ADM plans to spend $43.6 million.”

This flooded manure lagoon is filled with antibiotics, GM hormones and a host of parasites and pathogens.

ADM, seeing farming as a fragmented industrial activity, has no idea how to use carbon sustainably as part of normal natural processes. So, they create genetically engineered feed for animals, increasing the risk of MSRA and making the feces from industrial animals a health hazard. Then, they’re big idea for handling such “carbon” is digging into a mountain, burying it there, and hoping it doesn’t leak out. For this corporate idiocy, wrong at every step, Obama gave them millions.

Yet, as Utah State University explains, normal “manure is full of vital nutrients (nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous) required for soil fertility and plant growth. Simple reapplication of manure may also eliminate the need for expensive storage facilities.”

Free range cattle spread healthy manure safely

When farmers do things right for generations

While Mother Nature News calls unwanted regulatory threat “unusual government collaboration,” the reality is that the Amish will be subject to rules from desk-sitters at the EPA who will “decide” how to run their beautiful farms. MNN refers to the heaps of manure generated from Amish farms, apparently with no idea it has value and isn’t contaminated:

“The EPA is walking a fine line between enforcing clean-up practices while maintaining a respectful understanding of the culture….

“The EPA officials want to communicate the need for agricultural reform before resorting to fines and penalties.

“The EPA wants to encourage the Amish to create barnyard runoff controls and streamside forest buffers, and to also adopt no-till farming practices.”

Pause for what was just slipped in there by the EPA. ‘No-till farming practices’ is code for using genetically engineered seeds and pesticides. While ‘no-till’ does reduce carbon emissions, a more sinister plan motivates the concept. Monsanto states, “farmers leave the stubble or plant residue on the soil’s surface, rather than plowing or disking it into the soil.  The new crop is planted directly into this stubble, and genetically modified (GM) herbicide-tolerant plants make it possible and practical for growers to control weeds in the crop by applying an herbicide rather than plowing.” 

“Plant the seeds, blanket spray pesticides, no need to weed.” Biotech corporations will employ PR to deny the superweeds, which have been a problem of GMO farming since at least 2005.

MNN continues:

“Many of these changes would be underwritten by federal grants, but persuading the Amish to change their farming habits with government money will be difficult.”

The “money has been lucrative for local agricultural companies …” NY Times reports.

So, Obama, under cover of carbon sequestering, is yet again betraying sustainable agriculture by pushing GMOs on the Amish, the epitome of organic farmers. This fact is hidden by the NY Times and MNN articles that suggest the EPA is sensitive to the Amish. In reality, the EPA would force them to pay for changes on their farms they may not be able to afford and then threatens them with fines and penalties if they don’t betray their own traditions. These regulations benefit Monsanto, which Obama serves over and over again (putting them at the FDA, the USDA, USAID, trade, and apparently now, the EPA is working for them, too).

The Amish farm sustainably. Carbon is automatically sequestered in the soil by organic farming. The Amish don’t need “cleaning up.” They have been helping to reduce global warming for centuries through everything they do.

Though they have been doing right by the world, they won’t be allowed to design projects that harmonize with nature, but will have to pay for changes and then pay fines and penalties if they don’t go along with government imposed regulations that do not fit their farms and threaten their families’ lives, and others, by farming and selling GMO crops. (See, e.g., Three Approved GMOs Linked to Organ Damage and Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility, Infant Mortality.)

It’s easy to see now why farmers are opposed to the Clean Air Act or Cap and Trade: “Cap farmers and give more Trade to the corporations.” The corporate fix is in with these bills and the money keeps rolling in from government to the corporations, which are writing government regulations that surreptitiously (and with sustainable-sounding terms) mandate dangerous corporate products the public rejects. That is, farmers are being targeted for doing right for generations and now will be financially punished for trying to continue to do so.

Does it get any more pro big business and corrupt than this?