Bob St Peter, President of Food For Maine's Future, sees the real tragedy of this situation as being the fact that farmers are not encouraging other family members to maintain family farms due to the hard lifestyle with little compensation. This combination is destroying an ancient and honorable way of life.
According to Family Farmers (see link below), Land O' Lakes has a rather long history of undermining the Rochdale Cooperative Principles and violating the 1922 Capper Volstead Act. Beyond its ongoing collusion with Dean Foods, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), Schreiber Foods and other dairy giants in racketeering at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), Land O' Lakes has also been importing milk protein concentrate (MPC) to undercut the domestic fluid milk prices for its own members, as well as pushing dangerous biotech products such as rBGH and RR alfalfa to the detriment of the entire dairy sector.
According to the Land O' Lakes website, they are one of America's premiere member-owned cooperatives. They offer local cooperatives and agricultural producers across the nation an extensive line of agricultural supplies, as well as state-of-the-art production and business services. They also claim to be a leading marketer of dairy-based food products for consumers, food service professionals and food manufacturers.
Its interesting in this regard that many proclaim cooperatives as being a much cleaner business model than the traditional stock-held ownership. However, perhaps there are more serious and fundamental flaws inherent to our culture regardless of a particular business model. Once a business becomes large and powerful enough to dictate prices and practices for an entire industry, it becomes vulnerable to greed and arrogance regardless of its ownership model. It is also interesting to see some of the politicians that Land O' Lakes snuggles up to (link below).
The Farm Labor Reality Tour ended in Florida, bringing statements of support and marchers to the March for Rights, Respect, and Fair Food of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). The core message of this march is to bring public attention to the CIW drive to get supermarket chains to sign on to their policy of fair treatment, pay, and working conditions for farmworkers.
Another function of the Florida march was to end slave labor (see links below). Interestingly, Florida, the "Sunshine State" rates 4th in such inhumane labor treatment. In response to such working conditions, the Museum of Modern-Day Slavery came to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Sarasota to increase awareness about the working conditions of farm workers in Florida. The Museum is a replica of a produce truck in which farm workers were kept locked up. Inside, newspaper clippings tell the story of six federally prosecuted slavery cases involving over 1,000 Florida agricultural workers.
According to the author of this website, there were court victories over citrus grove owners who "hired" hundreds of workers and threatened them with death if they tried to leave. The author read about those forced into sex work and farm labor. He did not have a sense of whether these instances were merely the tip of the iceberg or whether the authorities had stopped the bulk of the atrocities. The author also talks about the Evans family, who recruited homeless citizens from shelters in the United States, assuring them of jobs and housing. Instead, these people were brought to labor camps, where exorbitant charges for food, rent, alcohol, and basic expenses outstripped what they earned, thus plunging them into perpetual debt. This last case earned a conviction in 2007.
Thus we maintain the illusion that we are a free nation. Those that are not free are not just those of different color than the whites; they are all of us. But its not just about our being ruled by the externalized authorities, for the fact is we oftentimes succumb to the tactics of these authorities and give them the thumbs up for our employment, our cars, and the jetliner systems of transportation. Yet, the trick is in really understanding the term, authority. Who has the right to author any of our lives? The President, the CEOs? The Stockholders, the 1%?
No one has that right, just as no one has the right to "own" any piece of property on this Earth. Ownership is an illusion. Even as we gaze outside, the fact is no crow landing on our garden fence gives a good hoot about what you own. Nor does he have any inkling or care about how much you paid for that little grub of land. Furthermore, chances are, if you are of normal financial means in this country, "the bank" owns your land, not you. You have a mortgage that keeps you in debt chains for 30 years. And your chances of paying that off are what?
Ownership is an illusion. At the top of this pyramid scheme we have the owners laughing at the stupidity that we have exhibited. Yet, their bank vaults are lined to the hilt with what we have put our hearts, souls and backs into.
The truth is humorous in a grotesque way. Even those of us that think we are free are nothing more than slaves. We are not only slaves to the top 1-to-5%, but we are slaves to a lifestyle. Moreover, (as Daniel Quinn explains in his books and will discuss in an upcoming episode of Envision This) we are slaves of memes, cultural teachings so pervasive that we don't even see our chains. We cannot end the slavery to the top 1-5% until we end the slavery to that lifestyle and paradigm. We must change how we see the world and ourselves in it.
As John Lennon put it in his and McCartney's song, "Revolution," we need to change our minds instead. Ours must be a new reality based on a new perception of our universe, and our place in it. Until our reality changes, life will not change. And what is reality if not how we perceive it?
The March for Rights, Respect and Fair Food led by CIW in Florida is ongoing until March 17th. Bob says that students on Spring Break, food sovereignty advocates, faith-based organizations, Florida residents and many other have all joined the farmworkers on this 200-mile march from Fort Meyers to Lakeland. If you are interested, join them or follow their progress at http://ciw-online.org/.
References and Links of Interest
The Envision This interview with Bob St. Peter is at:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/envision-this/2013/03/05/bob-st-peter-of-food-for-maines-future
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