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Antibiotics, Agriculture & ResistanceThere is growing evidence that factory livestock farming produces more than cheap food-it also pumps out a bumper crop of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (first in a series). By Brian DeVore Wonder Drug Invades the Barnyard," proclaims the first frame of
a 1950s-era newsreel. A pair of white-coated scientists is shown weighing
an eight-week old chicken raised on regular feed: the bouncing needle
on the hanging scale settles on one and a quarter pounds. Next comes a
chicken that's received "wonder drugs"-antibiotics-in its feed.
The needle arcs past the two-pound mark. "Big news for farmers: antibiotics, the so-called wonder drugs,
added to the diet of poultry and pigs, bring amazing results," pronounces
the narrator in typical hyped-up newsreel fashion. "What a change
it threatens to bring about." Half a century later, that statement has turned out to be right on the
mark in more ways than one. The use of antibiotics as growth promotants
has revolutionized the livestock industry. These bacteria killers have
made it possible to raise more animals in smaller spaces in a shorter
amount of time. But the newsreel narrator's use of the word "threatens"
has proven hauntingly relevant as well. Mounting evidence, much of it
emerging in just the past few years, indicates that feeding low levels
of antibiotics to livestock is putting at risk the very survival of these
wonder drugs. Critics say the use of antibiotics in animal farming could
return us to the "dark ages" when people died of simple infections
due to a lack of effective bacteria killers. These concerns are prompting calls for restrictions on the practice of adding antibiotics to feed. Would such restrictions throw meat, milk, egg and poultry production into a dark age of its own, a time when the livestock industry is slow, sloppy and feeds a lot fewer people? Or would they open the door to a more sustainable, family-farmer based food production system?
Wendy Halterman holds charts she has developed showing antibiotic-resistant
bacteria trends on the Minnesota River. Putting on the pounds The antibiotics also help keep animals healthy enough to gain weight-that's
particularly important in less than optimal living conditions. Confining
animals their entire lives results in health problems galore. For example,
dust in swine facilities-83 percent of sows are raised in total confinement,
and 82 percent of small pigs are placed in total confinement nurseries,
according to the USDA-contains particles of feed, feces, dried urine,
swine dander, pollen, insect parts, mineral ash, mold and bacteria. This
creates respiratory problems in hogs, resulting in a form of pneumonia
in some cases. That's why respiratory diseases are the biggest cause of
pig mortality. Feeding low levels of antibiotics like tetracycline can
boost the immune systems of pigs, keeping them healthier and increasing
their feed efficiency. "It was the discovery of the effectiveness of the drugs as feed
additives in these conditions which led to the concentration of the meat
industry," said Jukes in a 1984 interview. "For the first time,
farmers could confine a large number of animals and still keep them healthy." Indeed, there's been a lot of debate in recent years as to what major
technological innovation helped make large-scale, total confinement, factory
farming possible. Lagoons, pits and pumps to handle millions of gallons
of manure? Confinement buildings that use computer managed total climate
control to create a yearlong spring inside? Yes, those and many other
technologies have made confined animal feeding operations a reality. But
it was the introduction of antibiotics-both as disease fighters and growth
promoters-that made raising large numbers of animals in closed quarters
consistently viable. By 1954, U.S. farmers were using roughly 490,000 pounds of antibiotics a year in livestock feed. Six years later that figure was over one million pounds. In 1984, it was between 12 and 15 million pounds. Today, U.S. livestock are fed more than 24 million pounds of antibiotics for purposes other than treating disease, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Many of these drugs are the same, or are closely related to, antibiotics used in human medicine. For example, amoxicillin, ampicillin, erythromycin, neomycin, penicillin and tetracycline are all used to treat human infections, as well as in livestock farming. In some cases animal agriculture antibiotics are not used in human medicine, but hold the potential for treating people down the road-unless resistance destroys that potential. The impacts on feed efficiency alone have been tremendous. In 1928, the
average broiler chicken required 112 days and 48.4 pounds of feed to reach
market weight. By 1990, broilers required 42 days and less than 8.8 pounds
of feed. Other technological and management factors have played a part
in speeding a broiler's trip to the supermarket, but there's no doubt
antibiotics have been key, particularly as poultry operations become larger
and more crowded. In hogs, antibiotics can produce a 6 to 20 percent increase in growth
from weaning through about 50 pounds, according to the University of Kentucky.
Subtherapeutic antibiotics can add $1.26 per pig in profit, according
to a University of Illinois study. That may not sound like much, but it
adds up when a farmer is marketing several thousand pigs a year. "The antibiotics are a great equalizer in the pig," says Tom
Burkgren, Executive Director of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians.
Antibiotic use is present in all aspects of livestock production: poultry,
dairy, beef and pork. In the swine industry alone, antibiotics are currently
used in almost 90 percent of starter feeds, 75 percent of grower feeds
and more than 50 percent of finishing feeds. It's important to differentiate between "therapeutic" and "subtherapeutic"-also
called "nontherapeutic"-use of antibiotics. The former is when
a farmer treats a specific disease for a short amount of time with a high
dosage of antibiotics. In theory, once the animals get better, the drug
is pulled. With subtherapeutic use, the animals receive low dosages for
an extended period of time, often for months. Such low level, long-term
dosages are fed either as a prophylactic or as a growth promoter. But
this is where things get fuzzy; sometimes it's hard to tell where the
disease prevention traits of an antibiotic stop, and the growth boosting
begins. And what was meant to be a short-term treatment can turn into something
else. Antibiotics in feed have been a boon to large operations that are maximizing
space and feed usage while relying on employees who don't have the time
or training to deal with individual animals. But subtherapeutic antibiotic use is not exclusive to mega-scale farms
raising tens of thousands of animals. One southwest Minnesota farmer who
produces just under 2,000 head of hogs a year says although he doesn't
crowd the animals in total confinement, he feels the pressure to use subtherapeutic
dosages because of the increased disease risk posed by larger, more concentrated
operations in the area. Also, antibiotics help reduce feed usage and shorten
the time it takes to get pigs to market. "Time is money," he says. Volume, volume, volume There is a precedent: overuse of antibiotics by doctors treating humans
has already created such a reservoir of resistant bacteria. As many as
one-third of all prescriptions in this country are unnecessary. Prescribing
an antibiotic for a cold, for example, doesn't help, since a cold is a
viral, not a bacterial, illness. In addition, health care professionals
are concerned about patients who don't take a full course of antibiotics,
saving some for later when they medicate themselves. This results in bacteria
being exposed to lower levels of antibiotics, providing ample opportunities
for resistance to develop. Between 1989 and 1999, American adults visited
doctors more than 6.5 million times complaining of a sore throat, according
to a study published in 2001 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In over 70 percent of those visits, the patient was treated with antibiotics,
although only 5 percent to 17 percent of sore throats are caused by bacterial
infections (antibiotics are only effective on bacterial infections). Then
there's the antibacterial craze that's saturating the consumer goods market
these days. People can now buy soaps, toys and telephone pads that contain
the kind of antibacterials formerly found only in the hands of medical
professionals. The ubiquitous nature of antibiotics today is a recipe for developing superbugs. Resistance to antibiotics evolves when bacteria are exposed to chronic, low levels of antibiotics. Such exposure selects for bacteria that can resist being killed by antibiotics. Bacteria have a generation time that can be measured in minutes, and a single resistant bacterium can spawn more than a million progeny in less than a day. And bacteria jumps species barriers-from animals to humans, for example. top Hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities are finding
old standby antibiotics like penicillin simply don't work. In 1974, 2
percent of Staphylococcus aureus (staph) bacteria in U.S. hospital patients
were resistant to drugs. Now half resist being killed by antibiotics,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This results
in extra, expensive, measures such as the use of particularly potent microbe
killers and limited contact between visitors and patients. But sometimes
it's a losing battle. In the U.S. alone, some 14,000 people die annually
from drug-resistant bacteria that infect them in hospitals. "We take a lot of responsibility for this problem," says Brendan Cullinan, a family physician in the western Minnesota community of Montevideo, referring to the medical community. "I've had days when I had thought we're going to go back to the 1920s with all these superbugs. That's not all the time I think that. Those are my dark days." The role of agriculture In January 2001, the Union of Concerned Scientists released Hogging It:
Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock (http://www.ucsusa.org/food/hogging_exec.html).
The study tried to accomplish what had not been done before: come up with
an accurate assessment of the amount of antibiotics in this country that
go to promote growth in livestock. What they determined is that every
year U.S. livestock producers give 10.5 million pounds of subtherapeutic
antibiotics to poultry, 10.3 million pounds to hogs, and 3.7 million pounds
to cattle. That's compared to three million pounds of antibiotics that
are used for human medicine. The Union of Concerned Scientists' estimates
are almost 40 percent higher than previous tallies of antibiotic use in
livestock. In 2000, the Animal Health Institute, a livestock pharmaceutical
trade group, said that 17.8 million pounds of antibiotics are used in
animals (this estimate included therapeutic as well as subtherapeutic
antibiotics). However, the trade organization has not disputed Hogging
It's revised estimates. Hogging It concludes that low-level, subtherapeutic use accounts for 70 percent of the total antibiotics given to livestock. The group also estimates that overall use of animal antibiotics for subtherapeutic uses has risen by 50 percent since 1985. (In March, the USDA's Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health released a survey of hog farmers showing that 63.7 percent of antibiotics given to grower/finisher pigs were for growth promotion.) The honeymoon is over In 1999, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results
of a Minnesota study where researchers concluded that the use of the antibiotic
fluoroquinolone in poultry was creating a reservoir of resistance, making
it difficult to treat with antibiotics a human ailment called Campylobacter—a
common illness that causes diarrhea and a fever. In fact, the researchers
found an eightfold increase in drug-resistant food poisoning among Minnesotans
directly followed the approval, in 1995, of the drug for livestock. In
Denmark, growing bacterial resistance to fluoroquinolone correlates with
its use in the livestock industry there as well. The antibiotic is one
of a family of drugs that have become physicians' first line of defense
as penicillin loses its effectiveness. Fluoroquinolone is also very similar
to Cipro, a drug that is used to treat human anthrax. Cipro's value has
risen considerably in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Back in 1995,
health care officials, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, opposed approval of the antibiotic for livestock use.
But the poultry industry prevailed, saying they needed the powerful drug
to treat their flocks for Escherichia coli (E. coli). On Oct. 4, 2001, the New England Journal of Medicine yet again
sounded alarm bells about antibiotic resistance. In this case, it reported
that antibiotic-resistant E. coli had made it harder to treat urinary
tract infections suffered by women in California, Michigan and Minnesota.
The implications were that since the women were from three geographically
diverse areas, the multi-drug resistant bacteria were spread via an environmental
factor, such as contaminated food. On Oct. 18, 2001, the medical journal
fired a three-study scientific broadside at the use of antibiotics as
growth promotants in livestock. One study found that 84 percent of the
isolated salmonella found in supermarket chickens was resistant to a potent
combination of antibiotics, qualifying the bacterium as a superbug. Another
study found resistant bacteria in 17 percent of chickens purchased in
four states. The final study described how antibiotic-resistant organisms
can survive human digestion and even multiply. The New England Journal of Medicine put an exclamation point on these studies with an editorial by Sherwood Gorbach of the Tufts University School of Medicine. He concluded that these and other studies are the "smoking gun" that the use of antibiotics as growth promotants are a threat to human health and should be banned. Professional health organizations such as the American Medical Association have joined in calling for such a ban. Regulatory storm clouds The European Commission has proposed a permanent ban on the use of antibiotics
as an ingredient in feed by 2006. In 2000, the World Health Organization
announced a similar goal. And how has government in this country responded? In the 1970s, efforts
to regulate the use of antibiotic feed additives on a national level were
stymied by pharmaceutical, feedstuffs and large-scale livestock interests.
But concerned lawmakers keep trying. On Feb. 27, Rep. Sherrod Brown of
Ohio introduced a bill in the U.S. House that would phase out the routine
feeding of medically important antibiotics to healthy farm animals within
two years. This spring the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a hearing
on a proposal to ban use of fluoroquinolone in livestock. Bayer, the sole
remaining manufacturer, is fighting it. In Minnesota, a proposal was introduced during this year's state legislative
session that would have prohibited putting low levels of antibiotics into
feed. The proposal, which was introduced by Rep. Phyllis Kahn, failed
75-59. The Minnesota Senate passed an amendment by Sen. Jane Krentz that
directs the state to study ways to preserve the effectiveness of some
antibiotics. Such regulatory talk concerns the livestock industry, which maintains
that antibiotic use doesn't just make livestock production easier-it has
become critical in these times of shrinking resources and concerns about
the environment. Mike Hannon, a senior technical services manager for
Roche Animal Health, a pharmaceutical company, says antibiotics cut the
amount of feed needed to produce a market weight hog by 24 pounds. If
100 million pigs are marketed annually in the U.S., that's a whole lot
of feed saved, which translates into fewer acres needed for corn and soybeans,
and 500 million pounds less manure produced each year, according to Hannon. But arguments against any restrictions on antibiotic use are beginning
to wear thin in the face of the mounting evidence, says Margaret Mellon,
director of the food and environment program for the Union of Concerned
Scientists. "The industry is going to have to make some changes," she says. One sign that it sees change on the horizon is that the U.S. livestock
industry is starting to ask itself a hard question: can livestock be produced
without subtherapeutic drugs? "Sure we can produce hogs without antibiotics-we did it 50 years ago. Fortunately I wasn't around back then," quips the American Association of Swine Veterinarians' Tom Burkgren. But Michigan State's Bo Norby isn't as quick to see the loss of growth
promoting drugs as a lifetime sentence to the Island of Archaic Agriculture.
The veterinarian believes calls for the banning of subtherapeutic antibiotics
in livestock go too far. However, he says it's time the industry took
proactive steps to deal with a problem that could get out of hand. One
key step would be to take alternative farming systems seriously. Norby is in the middle of a research project that is comparing the amount
of antibiotic-resistant bacteria present on conventional hog farms with
those that use no antibiotics. Through his research, Norby has been on
farms that are producing hogs without antibiotics, and doing it in an
economically and environmentally sound manner. He says the key to reducing
antibiotic use is doing something that on the face of it may appear simple:
decrease the density of the facilities. But even giving animals more room
means major management adjustments on the farm, says Norby. "Sometimes it's easier to put antibiotics in feed, rather than change the way you do things." Future issues of the Land Stewardship Letter will examine the impacts antibiotic restrictions would have on agriculture and how some sustainable farmers are already successfully raising animals without... antibiotics. We will also discuss the confusion consumers face as they seek out "antibiotic-free" products. top Bacterial
backwaters Wendy Halterman loves the Minnesota River, and explores it by boat or
foot any chance she gets. The 18-year-old resident of the western Minnesota
community of Montevideo, which lies near the top of the river's watershed,
knows where the good fishing spots are, how to find the bald eagles, and
which stretches offer the best canoeing. But she recently gained an even
deeper insight into what the river offers, and it isn't pleasant. Halterman
has done a high school science fair experiment that indicates the river
is home to bacteria that don't die when exposed to various antibiotics.
And, perhaps even more troubling, the bacteria seem to become even more
resistant the further downstream one goes. In her experiment, Halterman grew bacilli bacteria from the water and
sediment samples she had collected from seven spots along the length of
the river. Once fuzzy bacterial growths were thriving in petri dishes,
she exposed them to eight commonly used antibiotics-from human drugs to
antibiotics used in livestock agriculture to triclosan, an ingredient
used in household hand soaps. The antibiotics should have killed the bacteria
Halterman was growing. But it didn't always work that way. In fact, sometimes
the antibiotics had little impact at all on the bacteria. "The overall data seemed to indicate that there was a small decrease
in the effectiveness of the antibiotics as you go downstream," the
young woman says in the careful language of a scientist. Halterman wants to be a science teacher someday, and the bacterial resistance experiment won her a trip to the International Science and Engineering Fair in California last year. But she doesn't have a college degree, much less a Ph.D., so it would be easy to pick her work apart as lacking a scientific edge. However, Halterman's research is in good company these days. Studies here and in Europe are finding many of our waterways are carrying a heavy load of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Such research has major implications as the livestock industry, a major user of antibiotics (and a big source of water pollution), struggles with ways to alleviate public concern over antibiotic resistance. These studies show not only that antibiotics are reaching our environment through various means, but also that the resistant bacteria they spawn have some staying power. And the longer they hang around, the more of a threat they pose to human health. Rx rivers That antibiotics are being found in our waterways is not surprising, considering how inefficient an animal's gut is at absorbing drugs—25 percent to 75 percent of the antibiotics given to animals can be excreted unaltered through feces. Consider that U.S. livestock facilities produce 180 million tons of manure waste annually, and animal agriculture's potential for sending resistant bacteria into the environment is staggering. In North Carolina, researchers have found three antibiotics used in pork
production in streams near hog lagoons. They also found them in the nearby
Neuse River and in tap water on one of the swine farms. But the livestock industry maintains such studies only show that antibiotics
are in our water; it doesn't prove those antibiotics are in consistent
enough concentrations for resistance to evolve. "There's a lot of interesting things that they found, but what do
they mean scientifically?" asks Tom Burkgren, Executive Director
of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians. At the 1999 meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, research
was presented that shows the extent to which antibiotic resistant bacteria
are present in the environment. One researcher sampled waterborne bacteria
from more than a dozen rivers in the U.S., including the Mississippi,
Missouri, Ohio and Colorado. He tested the microbes' resistance to ampicillin,
a synthetic penicillin. At each of the 21 sites examined, ampicillin failed
to kill between 5 and 50 percent of the bacteria. Yet another study presented at the conference showed geese living year-round
in Chicago's suburbs had bacteria in their feces that was resistant to
streptomycin, erythromycin, vancomycin, tetracycline and penicillin-type
drugs. Resistance rates ranged from 2 percent to 100 percent, depending
on the microbe and the antibiotic tested. Since the geese had little direct
contact with humans or farms, they must have picked up the resistance
through the general environment, say researchers. Perhaps the most troubling research is coming out of Illinois. Animal
scientists there found bacteria that were resistant to the antibiotic
tetracycline in two swine manure lagoons. The study, which was published
in the April 2001 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology,
found resistant bacteria in water under the lagoons. The superbugs were
also found in water as much as 820 feet downstream from the lagoons (the
plume may have extended further, but there were no test wells beyond that
point). But of even bigger concern is that the scientists found genes resistant to tetracycline in soil bacteria near the lagoons. That means the resistant genes might have been transferred from one type of bacterium to another, or that the soil bacteria had evolved resistance after being exposed to the tetracycline antibiotic. If the resistant gene is adapting to the local soil biota, that means its chances of surviving, thriving and moving outside of an animal's gut are greatly increased. What these and other studies show is that antibiotics are now so persistent
in the environment that our rivers and streams (and perhaps even soil)
are becoming reservoirs for cultivating and supporting the evolution of
resistance. But does all this pose a danger to human health? It could if those resistant
bacteria are resilient enough to make it into our guts through drinking
water. In the U.S., groundwater is the source of 40 percent of the water
used for public supplies, and 97 percent of the rural population's drinking
water. Even if one doesn't intend to drink the water-say a person accidentally
swallows a few drops during a fishing trip or while wading a stream-that
bacteria could make it into the gut. People who have ingested those resistant
bacteria may run into trouble down the road when they are being given
antibiotics to treat an infection. Bacteria that evolved resistance to
penicillin or tetracycline in farm country would present a formidable
challenge when exposed to those same drugs later in a doctor's office. Scientists say more research needs to be done before a direct connection
between antibiotic use in livestock, resistant bacteria in the environment,
and human illnesses that resist drug treatments can be made. Back in western Minnesota, Wendy Halterman has tried to follow up her
research by pinpointing what antibiotics are present in the Minnesota
River. Due to technical difficulties, that experiment didn't work out.
However, she's convinced that the clock is ticking in a race between humans
and bacteria. "The evolution of a life threatening antibiotic-resistant bacteria
is not just a theme for a science fiction movie," says Halterman.
"If bacteria can develop faster than we can develop new antibiotics
then I think the health costs in the world and our nation will rise dramatically." |
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The Farm Bill: LSP makes a difference at the national levelBy Mark Schultz The Land Stewardship Project helped win a major victory with the inclusion
of the Conservation Security Program (CSP) in the 2002 Farm Bill, which
was signed into law earlier this spring. The CSP, budgeted at $2 billion
over 10 years, will reward farmers who care for the land by paying for
the public benefits that stewardship farming produces. Unfortunately, the bulk of the 2002 Farm Bill was a giant step backward
in its budget-busting support for large-scale agribusiness, to the detriment
of the land and people of rural America. That's why LSP did not support
the 2002 Farm Bill. Perhaps the worst betrayal of the public interest was the Farm Bill conference
committee's removal of the ban on corporate meatpacker ownership of livestock,
despite nationwide support for the measure by farmers and ranchers. LSP,
with our allies in the Campaign for Family Farms, brought the "packer
ban" to the brink of victory (see Nov./Dec.
2001 LSL)—an outcome all the political insiders told us we were
crazy for even considering. But the leadership of the U.S. House, and
particularly House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest of Texas,
followed orders from the packer lobby and shot the ban down. Such pro-corporate
policy shows the House leadership's true colors, despite any "free
market and opportunity" rhetoric. While the packer ban loss is bitter indeed—in a healthy democracy, the packer ban would have passed because it was truly supported by the people—we will continue to fight for the packer ban as Federal legislation. Economic justice is an essential ingredient to LSP's work, just as livestock owned and dispersed across the landscape on family farms (and not in packer-controlled factory farms) is a critical ingredient of a sustainable food and agriculture system. CSP: A major victory for sustainable, family farming In late 1998, LSP's Federal Farm Policy Committee decided to work for
a major change in the existing farm policy. Beginning with the idea of
full-cost accounting (making sure that the costs that society pays through
the loss of a farm-based rural middle class or through higher taxes for
environmental clean up, for example, are factored into the cost of agricultural
systems), LSP set a course to draft new farm policy. We wanted this policy
to be steeped in the experience of sustainable agriculture and to truly
support stewardship of the land, rural communities and the family farm
system of agriculture. At the end of February 1999, a contingent of 13 farmers from the Midwest,
led by LSP Federal Farm Policy Committee members, traveled to Washington,
D.C. In the course of three days, we held 36 meetings with U.S. Senators
and Representatives, as well as USDA officials. We promoted the idea of
a Farm Results Index, which would provide the basis for directly connecting
farm program payments to environmental and social benefits produced. Our
contingent also described how current policy is dramatically tilted against
stewardship. These ideas formed the core of Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's
Conservation Security Act, which he proposed in 1999. Since that time, LSP has continued to take leadership in Minnesota and
nationally to develop the concepts and build the public support for what
has now become the Conservation Security Program. Besides Senator Harkin
(he's now Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee), members of LSP's
Federal Farm Policy Committee have met with Minnesota's Congressional
delegation: Senators Paul Wellstone and Mark Dayton, and Representatives
Gil Gutknecht, Mark Kennedy, and Collin Peterson. During 2001, LSP committee
members Dave Serfling and Dan Specht, and LSP Board member Monica Kahout,
testified at U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee hearings in Washington
and in Minnesota. We generated letters to the editor, newspaper and magazine
stories and editorials, as well as countless calls and faxes to members
of Congress on behalf of the Conservation Security Program, eventually
winning the firm support of both of Minnesota's U.S. Senators for full
funding for the program. That support turned out to be key. The U.S. House, led by Combest, opposed
the CSP. The House instead favored increased commodity program payments
and conservation policies that are a combination of "more of the
same" -more land taken out of farming and idled, for example-and
a new subsidy for factory farms. This latter strategy involves funneling
tax money to factory farms in the name of conservation through a much-distorted
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The existing restriction
in EQIP that prevents funds from being provided to factory farms was removed
in the 2002 Farm Bill, and the maximum payment to any one operation of
$50,000 over five years skyrocketed to $450,000 over six years. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at EQIP's transformation from a solid
conservation program to a factory farm boondoggle. Overall, the 2002 Farm
Bill is an acceleration of taxpayer subsidies for industrial agriculture.
Major Senate reforms, such as the ban on packer ownership of livestock
and meaningful limits on the amount of public funds any one operation
could receive in program payments, were stripped from the bill by the
U.S. House. But through it all the CSP survived. For the first time, farmers who
have practiced good stewardship (for example, have not planted corn or
soybeans year after year on the fragile soils and steep slopes of southeast
Minnesota and northeast Iowa, and instead used sophisticated resource-conserving
crop rotations or grass-based livestock systems), will receive payments
for the multiple benefits their farming systems generate for society:
soil conservation, increased biodiversity and wildlife habitat, healthy
food, maintaining small and moderate scale farms, and enhanced water quality.
Farms representing a wide range of systems—Community Supported Agriculture,
rotational grazing of livestock, organic produce and crops, sustainable
swine operations, conservation tillage—can participate and receive
CSP payments. And these payments are not based on how much of a commodity
these farms raise, but on the environmental and conservation benefits
produced for society. That is a major victory. Farm programs have
given the public a very poor return on its investment: crop surpluses,
bigger farms and environmental degradation. Now there's an opportunity
for tax money to support positive changes on the land.
The credit for this victory belongs to many people. The Sustainable Agriculture
Coalition, of which LSP is an active member, has led the fight for the
CSP from the beginning. The Minnesota Project has provided excellent leadership
nationally with the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture in developing the CSP and educating policymakers. Members
of the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group kept pushing for
CSP and providing information about its benefits. I'm especially impressed with the difference LSP members made, particularly last fall and winter as the final policy was being debated and voted on. Many LSP members called, faxed and e-mailed Congress to push for progressive policy. Especially critical to the CSP's success nationally was the hard work
and far-reaching vision of LSP's Federal Farm Policy Committee: Dwight
Ault, Dan French, Paul Homme, Jeff Klinge, Greg Koether, Mark Schultz,
Dave Serfling, Paul Sobocinski, Dan Specht and Sister Kathleen Storms.
As committee member Dan French said in calling for change in 1998: "We
have to stop just reacting to bad proposals—we need to get ahead
of the curve and push for what we want." That is what we have done with the CSP. We had to fight off a last-minute
attempt by opponents of the program to deny farmers the right to freely
apply for and receive the benefits for which they qualified according
to the level of stewardship they were practicing. Out-of-touch environmental
groups like Environmental Defense and the Environmental Working Group
worked to undercut the CSP in favor of more EQIP money, despite EQIP's
evolving into a terrible pro-factory farm subsidy with a bloated budget.
These groups found allies in the U.S. House and with commodity groups
like the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. However, good grassroots
organizing and coalition-building with groups like Defenders of Wildlife
and the Sierra Club prevailed, meaning stewardship farmers across the
country now have at least one important element of policy that applies
to them. As Dave Serfling, who was the key drafter of LSP's original Farm Results Index, says, "With CSP, we have made a big step forward for land stewardship and family farms. Now we need to make sure USDA implements it fairly and well, and then move on to further reforms for a policy that cares for the land, supports rural communities and provides fair opportunities for family farmers." Mark Schultz is LSP's Policy Program Director. For information on how you can help get the CSP up and running, and work to win other policy reforms, contact Schultz at 612-722-6377 or marks@landstewardshipproject.org. The security threat to end all security threat
Some cost accounting The real competition "And they will move to wherever on the globe they can pollute the most because that's what it's about, is a moving to somewhere not necessarily where it's more efficient but where you have fewer constraints on the exploitation of people and the land. Globalization today is not about a competitive advantage. It's about a comparative advantage in terms of exploitation rather than economic activity." You're the one To view many of John Ikerd's papers on sustainable agriculture and trade issues, log onto http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/JIkerd/papers/default.htm
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Protect Our Water gets mixed results at Minn. LegislatureIn 2001, the Land Stewardship Project joined the Minnesota Environmental
Partnership (MEP), a coalition of 79 state and local environmental and
conservation groups, in supporting the Protect Our Water initiative. This
campaign asked the 2002 Minnesota Legislature to support several common
sense proposals that would help protect and restore the state's rivers,
lakes and drinking water. Protect Our Water met with mixed results during (and after) the session: • In March, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura signed the Citizen
Monitoring Law. This Protect Our Water policy initiative will make it
possible for MEP member organizations to work with the Minnesota Pollution
Control Agency, other state agencies and regional and local entities to
develop a more vibrant network of monitoring and assessment in the state.
• In April, another Protect Our Water proposal was signed into law
by the governor. The phosphorus-free fertilizer bill bans the presence
of the nutrient in lawn fertilizers sold in the Twin Cities Metropolitan
Area. Non-metro area residents could use lawn fertilizers with 3 percent
phosphorus. The first-in-the-nation law does not affect agricultural fertilizers. • However, on May 22 Gov. Ventura vetoed almost all of the Protect
Our Water bonding initiatives, including funding for the remodeling of
an alternative swine facility, streambank restoration and protection,
Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM), and fisheries acquisition. "We are stunned at the message this sends all Minnesotans who care about the water they drink and the waters in which they fish, boat and swim," says John Curry, MEP Government Relations Chair. For more information on MEP and the Protect Our Water initiative,
log onto www.protectourwater.info. top
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Thanks WillieWinona County Land Stewardship Project members would like to thank musician Willie Nelson for his generosity. Nelson invited LSP members who have been working on factory farm issues in Winona County to his March 30 concert in the Twin Cities. The group had prime seats and backstage passes. Through his Farm Aid organization, Nelson has supported LSP's work through the years. |
For 15 years Jim VanDerPol raised hogs using farrowing crates. These
box-like structures are considered the cutting edge of pork production,
but the western Minnesota farmer didn't shed a tear when it was time to
retire them.
"The best day of my life is when I took the Bobcat loader and pushed
that junk out through the end of the building," VanDerPol told 50
farmers gathered in Granite Falls, Minn., on March 22.
The farmers were taking part in a special "Pig Power" meeting
on alternatives in pork production and marketing, sponsored by the Land
Stewardship Project. Many of the farmers participating in the meeting
were active in the LSP campaign to end the mandatory pork checkoff. At
a time when independent hog farmers face tough financial going, the meeting's
presenters had a positive message: there are ways to produce hogs that
are profitable, pleasant and good for the environment.
VanDerPol, for one, said he would never go back to the old method of
pork production—working with the crates in a closed building was
dirty, smelly and hard on the hogs. So a few years ago the family started
seeking out alternative methods. Today, they raise hogs using pasture
farrowing, as well as deep-straw bedding in two "hoop buildings"-open-ended
structures made from stretched fabric and metal tubing.
Farmers discuss swine production alternatives
at a March meeting in Granite Falls.
Wayne Martin, coordinator of the University of Minnesota's Alternative
Swine Task Force, discussed what research was being done to help farmers
who were seeking alternatives. He said the bulk of the research is still
focused on large-scale, expensive, confinement operations. However, there
are some hopeful signs that lower cost alternatives are catching on, said
Martin.
"A million hogs a year are raised in hoops in Iowa now. That's just
a small percentage of Iowa production, but that's happened in just five
years."
Some of the most exciting alternative swine research is taking place at the University of Minnesota's West Central Research and Outreach Center (WCROC) in Morris, said Martin. Such research has been made possible because farmers and organizations like LSP are pushing for more research in this area, he said. For example, the alternative swine research going on at Morris is the result of legislative funding that came about when LSP, farmers and other citizens lobbied for options other than large-scale factory farm production systems.
WCROC has four hoop houses set up: one for gestating sows, two for growing
pigs and one for sorting and handling pigs. The Center's research priorities
are, among other things, improving feed efficiency and investigating alternative
feeds and bedding, according to Rebecca Morrison, a Sustainable Swine
Production Systems Scientist. So far, research has shown that farms with
diverse cropping systems that include small grains-and thus access to
small grain straw-have an advantage raising hogs in deep-bedded systems.
"The key is you have to have access to good bedding and lots of
it, especially in Minnesota," said Morrison.
The major disadvantage to the deep—straw systems is that the regular
hauling of bedding can make for extra labor requirements, according to
Morrison. On the other hand, deep straw systems are less of a threat to
the environment, better for the hogs, and produce a more pleasant working
environment for farmers, said the scientist. They are also cheaper to
set up: an Iowa State University study found that deep-bedded straw systems
can be built for about a third of the per-pig cost of constructing a confinement
operation.
Another advantage to alternative systems is they make it possible to raise antibiotic-free pork, said Julie Carlson, a farmer and pig buyer for Niman Ranch, a California-based natural meats company. Niman buys antibiotic—free pork from 200 farm families in seven states.
Farmers and others interested in alternative swine production will have
an opportunity to see the latest research initiatives at the West Central
Research and Outreach Center in Morris, Minn., Aug. 1, from 10 a.m. to
3:20 p.m. The open house, which is sponsored by the University of Minnesota's
Alternative Swine Task Force, will feature the facility's deep-bedded
hoop house facilities. Speakers will include farmers, researchers and
state legislators who helped make the research center a reality.
"This will be an opportunity for farmers and the general public
to show their appreciation to legislators who helped gain funding for
this unique research center," says Paul Sobocinski, a Land Stewardship
Project organizer and farmer who serves on the Alternative Swine Task
Force.
Lunch will be provided. To register or for more information, call Rebecca Morrison at 320-589-1711, or Wayne Martin at the University of Minnesota at 612-625-6224.
A proposal that would have provided funding to help remodel a conventional
hog building into a deep—straw facility passed the Minnesota Legislature
this spring, only to be line—item vetoed by Governor Jesse Ventura.
The initiative would have provided $70,000 to convert a gestation building
at the West Central Research and Outreach Center in Morris.
The Land Stewardship Project, the University of Minnesota's Alternative
Swine Task Force and other groups helped push for the funding as part
of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership's Protect Our Water legislative
initiative. Aware of the state's budget crunch, supporters of the project
down—sized their original $300,000 request, which would have gone
toward the construction of a new facility. The $70,000 would have helped
refurbish an existing facility at the outreach center.
"This veto is particularly disappointing because we took extra pains to make it affordable," says Paul Sobocinski, an LSP organizer who raises hogs and serves on the Alternative Swine Task Force. "The governor shouldn't be going after budget-conscious initiatives that hold real potential for helping agriculture and the environment statewide."
The Land Stewardship Project's Policy Program office has moved. Its new
address is 2919 42nd St. E., Minneapolis, MN 55406. The phone number
will remain 612-722-6377, and the fax number is 612-722-6474.
The Policy Program is looking for donations of items to help with the
operation and upkeep of the new office. Namely, it needs a lawn mower,
snow blower, shovel, broom, file cabinets, office chairs, folding chairs,
wastebaskets, a freezer and cash donations.
The Policy Program is also looking for volunteers to help with clipping and filing news articles and other information, database entry for organizing campaigns, phoning, mailings, and other needs. Call 612-722-6377 for more information.
The Land Stewardship Project was well-represented at this year's Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference, held Feb. 28 to March 2 in La Crosse, Wis. More than half-a-dozen LSP members gave workshop presentations on various sustainable farming techniques. In addition, LSP organizer Karen Stettler talked about getting started in farming during a session that was attended by more than 60 people. Stettler coordinates LSP's Farm Beginnings Program in southeast Minnesota.
Audrey Arner, an LSP organizer who farms near Montevideo, in western Minnesota, gave a keynote address during the conference. Arner shared stories from her farming and community organizing experience, exploring core values that reside in the heart of organic agriculture. Look for an excerpt of Arner's talk in a future issue of the Land Stewardship Letter.
In recent years, the Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference has evolved into the premier meeting of its kind in the nation. For information on the 2003 conference (Feb. 27 to March 1), call Faye Jones at 715-772-3153 or log onto www.mosesorganic.org.
• LSP Executive Director George Boody spoke about agricultural policy and local food systems during the national Kellogg Food and Society Initiative Conference, April 21 to 24, in Denver, Colo. Boody gave presentations on LSP's work promoting the Conservation Security Program and the Midwest Food Alliance.
• LSP and 1000 Friends of Minnesota made a joint presentation at the ReVisioning: Building Community for a Sustainable Future conference April 26 at Macalester College in St. Paul.
Smart growth, beginning farmers, computer visualizations, erosion reduction and making money shaped the workshop, which was entitled, "Sustaining Lands in Urban Spaces."
• As part of the Living Green Expo on April 27, LSP staff presented data that correlates an eater's roast beef to the bobolink, and farm-fresh cheese to clean water. "The Landscape of Your Plate" presentation was part of the Food and Farm Festival at the Expo.
• Creating our Future: a Workshop to Get Us There, was co-sponsored by the Land Stewardship Project Feb. 23 in the southeast Minnesota community of Frontenac. The day was geared to those in or near the Wells Creek watershed who care about the future of area towns, farms and development. Core issues addressed included growth and the economics of farming, as well as bridging urban and rural concerns.
The Wells Creek Watershed Partnership was established in 1994. The Wells Creek watershed drains directly into the Mississippi River and its residents are in the midst of dealing with how to balance environmental protection with land use demands such as farming, residential and commercial development, and tourism.
LSP sponsored the workshop with the Watershed Partnership and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. For more information, contact Caroline van Shaik in LSP's Twin Cities office at 651-653-0618.
On April 22, Dana Jackson was a guest on Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning program during a special Earth Day-themed show. Jackson discussed The Farm as Natural Habitat book and fielded call-in questions related to agriculture, food and land stewardship. You can listen to a recording of the hour-long show at http://news.mpr.org/programs/midmorning/listings/mm20020422.shtml.
Britt Jacobson is leaving the Midwest
Food Alliance (MWFA) to return to her home state of North Dakota.
As the Assistant Marketing Manager for the MWFA during the past year and
a half, Jacobson played a key role in coordinating the program's retail
program. MWFA, a sustainable certification and labeling program, is a
joint project of the Land Stewardship Project and Cooperative Development
Services.
Daniel
Ungier is working as an intern for the MWFA. Ungier, a native of Corvallis,
Ore., is majoring in environmental studies and international studies at
Macalester College. He also works as a farm assistant/agriculture intern
at Dodge Nature Center in St. Paul, Minn. During his internship with MWFA,
Ungier is conducting farmer interviews, writing farmer profiles and assisting
with market research.
Adam
Warthesen is serving an organizing apprenticeship with LSP's Policy
Program through the Organizing Apprenticeship Project (OAP). Warthesen
has been serving an internship with LSP since February, fulfilling a graduation
requirement for a major in environmental studies from Bemidji State University.
From now until November, he will be paid by OAP to train as an organizer, and will be mentored by LSP staff member Mike McMahon. Warthesen will also participate in monthly OAP training retreats.
Warthesen grew up on a farm near Theilman, in southeast Minnesota.
Leslie
Bardo is volunteering with LSP's
Policy Program. Bardo coordinates the Home Gardening Project at the
Sustainable Resources Center in Minneapolis. She is pursuing a master's
degree in environmental education in an agricultural setting at the University
of Minnesota-Duluth.
Three Land Stewardship Project farm families recently received Farm Family of the Year awards for their prospective counties. The awards are given annually by the University of Minnesota to recognize successful, innovative farm families. LSP members who received recognition for 2002 include Dennis and Mary Gibson of Chippewa County, Andy and Julie Hart of Olmsted County and Dale and Carmene Pangrac of Winona County.
Copies of The Multiple Benefits of Agriculture: An Economic, Environmental & Social Analysis are still available from the Land Stewardship Project's Twin Cities office. This report shows how establishing more perennial plants, multiple crop rotations, wetlands and other features of a diverse landscape can produce significant environmental and economic benefits from working farmland. The study, which LSP coordinated, also found that Minnesota residents on average are willing to pay more than $200 per household annually for such benefits.
The price of the 52-page publication is $12 ($12.78 for Minnesota residents; LSP members receive a 10 percent discount), plus $3 shipping and handling. A brief executive summary of the report is free. Send a check payable to LSP to: Louise Arbuckle, LSP, 2200 4th St., White Bear Lake, MN 55110. For credit card orders, or for more information, call 651-653-0618, or e-mail lspwbl@landstewardshipproject.org.
A free copy of the report can be downloaded as a PDF document. An executive summary of the report is also available as a PDF document.
As part of the Land Stewardship Project's 20th Anniversary Celebration, we are updating the LSP logo to better reflect our mission, past accomplishments and future goals. If you are a graphic designer or know of someone who might be interested in helping with this redesign on a pro bono basis, please contact our Twin Cities office at 651-653-0618 or E-mail lspwbl@landstewardshipproject.org .
Helene Murray has been appointed director of the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (MISA). For the past eight years, Murray was the coordinator of MISA.
Murray is an adjunct professor in the University of Minnesota's Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, and is on the faculty of the MacArthur Interdisciplinary Program on Global Change, Sustainability and Justice. Murray succeeds Don Wyse, who resigned as MISA's director in April 2000.
The Land Stewardship Project and other members of the Sustainers' Coalition helped start MISA in 1992. MISA is recognized nationally as an innovative experiment creating links between a land grant university and the public.
For more information on MISA, call 800-909-6472 or log onto http://www.misa.umn.edu/.
topNon-sensual characteristics of food are increasingly influencing people's grocery buying decisions, according to Kevin Edberg, Executive Director of Cooperative Development Services.
"An example of a non-sensual... characteristic is 'I care about the people who produced this food,' " Edberg told the 20-some farmers who attended the first annual meeting of the Midwest Food Alliance, held Feb. 12 in Bloomington, Minn. "The Japanese call it 'food with a human face.' "
Edberg was the keynote speaker at the day-long meeting, which offered opportunities for farmers who have received MWFA's seal of approval to get updates on consumer preference surveys as well as to participate in discussions featuring retailers who are carrying MWFA-approved products. Paul Hugunin of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Minnesota Grown program also talked about the role the MWFA seal can play in direct marketing.
The MWFA is a sustainable food certification and labeling initiative of the Land Stewardship Project and Cooperative Development Services. For more information, contact Jim Ennis at 651-265-3682, or Ray Kirsch at 651-653-0618. For a list of retailers carrying MWFA products, visit the MWFA info in our Program section.
Midwest Food Alliance has an immediate opening for a marketing coordinator position. Responsibilities include: a) assisting in the development of annual marketing and consumer education plans and strategies; b) implementing marketing plans that effectively promote the MWFA seal of approval and MWFA-approved growers, c) coordinating retail partnerships and promotions, and d) coordinating marketing support materials for MWFA-approved growers. Qualifications of potential candidates include: a) excellent verbal and written communication skills; b) experience developing and implementing successful consumer education programs; c) experience in the grocery trade industry (helpful); d) energy, enthusiasm, and a commitment to the project's goals.
The position is based in St. Paul, Minn., with some travel required. Salary is competitive, depending on experience, with excellent benefits and flexible work schedule. The position remains open until a suitable applicant is found. To apply, please submit a resume and a letter of introduction of no more than two pages to Jim Ennis, Project Director, Midwest Food Alliance, Blair Arcade West, Suite Y, 400 Selby Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55102.
topThe Midwest Food Alliance is looking
for volunteers to help with in-store demonstrations of local, sustainably-produced
foods. Past use of volunteers has proven to be a very effective way of
reaching out to consumers who are seeking information on the MWFA seal
of approval. MWFA will provide training for volunteers, who are needed
from July through November in the Twin Cities, St. Cloud and Rochester.
If you're interested, call the MWFA at 651-265-3678 and ask for Vicky.
Consumers looking for sustainable sources of local food braved blustery weather April 27 to attend the Community Food and Farm Festival in St. Paul, Minn. Farmers who direct market produce, meat and dairy products were on-hand to answer questions about their production methods.
Lisa Klein discusses the meat products her farm produces
in southeast Minnesota.
Volunteer Greg Bernstein of Minneapolis talks about the importance of
membershipin LSP.
For a listing of farmers who sell food direct, call 651-653-0618 or download
the Stewardship Food Network (available
as a PDF document).
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OFFICE UPDATE
By Richarda Ruffle
I grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and although I have since traveled and experienced different places, I have always lived among mountains. Naturally, in choosing a graduate school to attend in the fall of 2000, I was drawn to the University of Montana, where snow-capped peaks rise on the horizon in every direction from the university. As an Environmental Studies student, I found my niche in community organizing, focusing on sustainable agriculture and the promotion of local food systems. I earned a fellowship for my second year of study, which included funding for a 10-week internship at a nonprofit organization of my choice. When my adviser suggested the Land Stewardship Project, I agreed that it sounded like a great match for me. I hesitated for a moment, though; could I really survive in the prairie, without mountains rising above me, protecting me? At the end of May 2001, however, I put my rock climbing and hiking gear in storage, my hesitations aside, and drove from the mountains in Montana to the flat, open prairie of western Minnesota.
I have to admit that when I arrived in Montevideo and looked around at what would be my home for the next three months, I felt a flash of panic. No mountains, no forested hills.... instead vast, stretching fields, and horizon. Lots of it. So much space. Yet I barely had time to dwell on this before I began work.
One of my first days in Minnesota I participated in two farm tours that had been organized through LSP's Farm Beginnings program. Farm Beginnings acknowledges the difficulties with establishing a farm, and it draws upon the idea that farmers do best when they are able to work together and support one another in their agricultural endeavors.
The first tour was at The Lamb Shoppe, where Connie Karstens and Doug Rathke were showing their sheep farm to others interested in livestock farming and rotational grazing. We followed the farmers through their pastures, sheep skittering away and newborn lambs wobbling on skinny legs. Connie and Doug explained the details of their farming business as we walked. They frequently stopped to point out different plants, birds, or other natural phenomenon on their farm. I was impressed with these farmers' attention to detail, the obvious joy they took in learning the intricacies of nature, and the role they as farmers played in nurturing this diverse environment.
topAfter the sheep farm tour, I hustled off to catch the end of another tour at MOM's (Minnesota Organic Milk), a dairy farm where they process milk, ice cream and cheeses. I arrived just in time: the vanilla ice cream mix was being poured into cups and topped with a bit of root beer-a deliciously unique twist on the root beer float delicacy. As I sipped this sweet, creamy treat and listened to the owners talk with student- farmers about marketing techniques they had learned, I realized I had caught the excitement around me. It was hard not to. Not only was there an evident enthusiasm for the details of farm life, of working with animals and the land, there was also a great deal of excitement about sharing knowledge with others. I sensed this summer would be different than any other. Instead of looking up at grandiose mountains, I would be paying closer attention to the land (and the people) right in front of me.
I consumed much more enthusiasm throughout the summer. Along with the Farm Beginnings program, I focused on Pride of the Prairie, a project to encourage the purchase of more local foods in the western Minnesota area. Quite honestly, I have never thought so much about food before in my life. As I helped develop a consumer survey which asked questions about the food people consume, their knowledge of where it came from, and how their values are reflected in the food they eat, I could not help but ask myself the same questions. How far has my food traveled? How many resources were used in getting this food to me? Was the food produced by farmers? Or was my food touched mainly by machinery on a factory farm? When I got my vegetables from a friend's farm nearby, I knew the answers to all these questions, and the food tasted richer. I felt good eating it, as if my body was not just nourished by food, but also by my friends, by the community of which I was a part.
I was fortunate to be involved in a diversity of activities with my internship; things were never static in the office. I felt like I was on a "Nonprofit Beginnings" tour, as others at LSP included me in workshops, planning sessions, group meetings and community events. One day I could be on a tour, being led through the pastures and fields of a local farmer, and the next I could be talking on the phone with someone across the country, networking and sharing ideas about local foods system successes, or putting together a brochure, or interviewing someone about their food values and preferences. Like the mentors on the farm tours, other LSP organizers answered my questions and never hesitated to share with me their experiences, ideas, and even their homes, gardens and ponds.
In the middle of my summer here, I went with friends to visit an historic mill town. The drive there was beautiful, we passed tall cornfields with feathery tips shimmering, through river valleys, and along the shores of clear, blue lakes. We stopped at the Ordway Prairie and stepped out to take in the view. Stretched out before us were wildflowers scattered across various shades of green, tall and softly swaying grasses, and hills so gentle that they had the appearance of waves rolling out to the sky. The beauty was made up of all the small things, all the subtle things. Not just one great reaching mountain peak, but a combination of beauties. This is what my experience in Minnesota was like.
For the summer, I was a part of the prairie in western Minnesota, where every little piece, every small living thing, is a particle of something that is startlingly beautiful. Although the mountains are home for me, the prairie is where I discovered all the riches a community offers, and where I learned to see beauty not in the grand and obvious, but rather in the subtle details of the land. There is a quote that hangs in the LSP office in Montevideo, paraphrased from Hans Voigt. It reads: "May friendship and trust reign amid the individuals who work in this place. May the elemental beings of the prairie incline themselves in camaraderie in this work. And then to the inquirer, reverently approaching nature, will be revealed what is now hidden."
Richarda Ruffle served an internship with LSP's western Minnesota office during the summer of 2001.
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REVIEWS
By Stuart B. Levy
2002 (2nd edition); 320 pages
$17.50 paperback
Perseus Publishing,
11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142 www.perseuspublishing.com
Reviewed by Brian DeVore
Writing a book that sounds the kind of alarm bells that prompt effective action is more about timing than anything. Absent the right societal infrastructure to make use of the information it presents, an important book can get a flash of attention, perhaps a headline or two, and then quickly fade. But if the timing is right, if politicians, activists and the average citizen happen to be paying attention-what some call a "teachable moment"-then a publication can have impacts far beyond the paper it's written on. Rachel Carlson's Silent Spring was such a book. So was Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.
So far, Stuart Levy's The Antibiotic Paradox: How the Misuse of Antibiotics Destroys Their Curative Powers has had no such luck. First released in 1992, this highly readable book is a well researched primer on how antibiotic resistant bacteria threaten to undermine one of the greatest medical advances of all time, and how the health industry and agribusiness are contributing to this destruction. Levy launches his work by setting the stage for just how much of a public benefit an antibiotic like penicillin was when it became available in 1942: "Penicillin earned the accolade 'miracle drug' because of its unique and rapid control of infectious bacteria that, before penicillin's discovery, had been fully expected to kill the patient."
Levy's book caused a minor hubbub 10 years ago, but in general the author, a renowned authority on antibiotic use and resistance, was ignored. He shouldn't feel too bad: Modern Meat: Antibiotics, Hormones and the Pharmaceutical Farm, a book written in 1984 by journalist Orville Schell, executed an even more direct hit on one aspect of antibiotic resistance, and, like Silent Spring, was even excerpted in the New Yorker magazine. But these days the only place to find Schell's tome is at a well-stocked library.
topDuring most of the 1990s, Levy's book and related articles were known only to a handful of consumer activists, science writers and, of course, pharmaceutical company officials. But the author, a medical doctor, biologist and Director of the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at the Tufts University School of Medicine, just went back to work, continuing research he had been doing for decades. For example, during the 1970s his laboratory group showed that the feeding of tetracycline to chickens created antibiotic resistant E. coli.
Earlier this year a new edition of The Antibiotic Paradox was published, and this time it comes at a very teachable moment. The evidence is mounting as to just how dire the problem of antibiotic resistance really is. Major poultry companies are rethinking their use of certain antibiotics. The threat terrorism poses to public health and our food supply has made effective antibiotics a security issue. Lawmakers are seriously considering restricting the use of antibiotics as growth promotants. Just as importantly, farmers have more alternatives available for raising livestock with fewer drugs.
This new edition reflects the troubling, and yet more aware, times we live in. Levy provides an update on the latest scientific evidence related to antibiotic resistance, including an entire section on how the use of antibiotics in the fruit industry is of increasing concern. Levy also strengthens his argument that this is an issue that must be resolved both through individual and societal action.
But the 2002 edition of his book also contains a thread of hope not present before. Levy discusses how consumers are becoming more aware of the problem and are making buying choices based on those concerns. He also devotes a section to progress made by the commercial catfish industry as it attempts to reduce its reliance on antibiotics. Finally, Levy seems quite pleased with the increasing role of nonprofit groups, professional organizations such as the American Medical Association and even governmental agencies in bringing the issue to the forefront. I talked to Levy over the telephone shortly after this new edition was published, and absent was that "lone voice in the wilderness" trait that dogs so many alarm sounders.
"It's so refreshing to have people shake their head and see what we were saying was right," Levy told me. "When we wrote this book in 1992, no one was interested."
People are interested now. And books can produce significant action in roundabout ways. For example, after writing Modern Meat, Orville Schell went on to co-found Niman Ranch, which has emerged as one of the nation's leading antibiotic-free meat companies. Let's hope Levy's book can take the antibiotic resistance issue beyond promotion of a niche market, and convince society that antibiotics are a public good we cannot afford to take for granted.
Brian DeVore is the editor of the Land Stewardship Letter.
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