Newspaper Article

Mad cow is a symptom of sick agriculture

Vallianatos, E G

2005

Overview

The most lasting effects of agribusiness include the suppression of the middle class and the decline of democracy, toxins in water and food, high rates of debilitating disease and often death from poisoning, incidence of monstrous malformations of the newborn in or near factory farms, higher rates of cancer among farmers and others living close to farmers, and the drastic decline of the small white family farmers and the near disappearance of the black family farmers. The Agriculture Department wrecked the lives of the family farmers, telling them to get big or get out. Its advice was wrong most of the time. Its science was not science but a technology of conquest, which it gold-plated with lavish subsidies, research and policies disdainful of democracy, nature and human culture. Sowing pro-agribusiness seeds in rural America brought forth the desired harvest -- 29,862 farmer millionaires in 2002, while 35 per cent of America's farmers earned less than $2,500. There are about 2.1 million farmers in America.

• Publisher: Torstar Syndication Services, a Division of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited