Organophosphates were actually developed by the Nazis … cheap food thanks to the Nazis! ibid.
In the land of opportunity there are 34 million people living in poverty. 20 million a day go hungry. 2 million are homeless. Here in the heartland of America there is great devastation. The family farmer, the backbone of America, is being driven off his land. Down and Out in America, 1986
Ten years ago the banks encouraged these farmers to borrow and expand. The policy has backfired, and now the Farm Credit system is in trouble. They are calling in old loans and denying new ones. ibid.
The summer of 1973 was one of the roughest we’ve had. Two of our strikers were killed. Dozens of our people were beaten. Thousands were arrested and thrown in jail. And all because we dared to stand up to the growers when they made one more desperate attempt to crush our union. Fighting for Our Lives, 1975
Some of the complaints the workers were making … forcing workers to sign cards … ‘We believe in justice for farmworkers’ … Our union was the United Farm Workers. ibid.
The effort of farmworkers to unionise themselves is not a recent effort – it’s been going on for 85 years in this state. ibid.
When we tried to reach the workers from outside the fields they drowned out our loudspeakers … Once we were in the labour camps they’d kick us out. ibid.
The growers called in the Teamsters … A whole group of Teamsters attacked our picket line. ibid.
58 different court orders … the arrest of 3,538 of our brothers and sisters. ibid.
They [police] beat the hell out of them. ibid. union guy
And take our cause to the people. ibid.
We used to be a nation of farmers but now it’s less than 2% of the population. The Future of Food, 2004
Nerve gas developed during World War II was slightly modified to make insecticides. DDT was the hero of its generation. ibid.
97% of the varieties of vegetables grown at the beginning of the 20th century are now extinct. ibid.
A pesticide treadmill: the more they sprayed, the more they had to spray. The increased use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides increased costs, polluted water and created health risks. Then in the 1970s Monsanto introduced Round Up, because of its ability to kill most weeds it became one of the most popular herbicides in history. ibid.
Monsanto genetically modified its seeds to be Round Up ready. ibid.
Estimates are that Monsanto has sent out 9,000 letters to farmers; most farmers choose to pay to avoid lawsuits. ibid.
‘They’re opposing labelling … A key way to get these corporations liable for the health affects.’ ibid.
Britain is facing the biggest shake-up in food and farming since the Second World War. Some farmers feel a bad Brexit deal could drive them out of business. Others say food standards could drop. But could food costs actually be lower when we’re out of the EU? Panorama: Britain’s Food and Farming: The Brexit Effect, BBC 2017
Today, my Lord, the moon hangs high above,
And grey cloud smothers hoar the furrowed down
Where peels the farmer late with carefree love
To ply his thick-hide hand and scatter ground.
Lord of bleak, barren fields the scarecrow lurks,
Whistling wastes the wind and breaks aloft
The burly thistled leaves and brushes soft
To strangle, strafe and gouge the farmer’s work.
Warped sickles, shovels, picks and bogwood scythes
To heave and harvest before blind snowdrifts drive,
Alone, one hand rotates till night to free
The fallow fields fret-crossed with straggle-weed.
Fragments of field-dead soldiers churn’d and chopp’d
By the blades of the plough a second death,
They serve to seed in rank an autumn crop,
Ignored unseen a harmless shibboleth.
The potted path is trod, now seas of rain
Sluice slabs of mud and by the clocktower face
Bespatter him, the hero will remain
Apart from Life’s mad rat-infested race.
The aching chores have ceased, the charcoal flue
Burns through the night, the barn owl cries anew,
Perhaps the fallen fields will yield their due,
One hand moulds the landscape’s unhurried hue.
esias ryder, Adam’s Brow, 1982
Surprisingly, farming brings new problems: early farmers concentrate on growing too much of one crop: wheat. As a result, we shrink. These humans are five inches shorter than their nomadic predecessors. Secret History of Humans V: Plants: Eat It, Drink It, Smoke It
2003: As the WTO floods local markets with imports, 40,000 Indian farmers commit suicide to escape their debt. Battle in Seattle 2007 starring Woody Harrelson & Andre Benjamin & Jennifer Carpenter & Martin Henderson & Ray Liotta & Connie Nielsen & Michelle Rodriguez & Channing Tatum & Charlize Theron et al, director Stuart Townsend, caption
In fact, less than a half of one per cent of [South African] farming land has been given back. John Pilger, Apartheid Did Not Die, ITV 1998
It killed insects: it was called DDT … The United States was a continent plagued with insects. Farmers lived in perpetual fear of finding a new infestation. Whole crops were regularly destroyed by pests. DDT and the other insecticides invented in its wake promised victory in this war. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box IV: Goodbye, Mrs Ant, BBC 1992
It was a decade-long natural catastrophe of Biblical proportions when the skies refused their rains. And plagues of grasshoppers and swarms of rabbits descended on parched fields. When bewildered families huddled in darkened rooms while angry winds shook their homes. Pillars of dust choked out the midday sun. Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl: The Great Plough-Up, PBS 2012
The worst man-made ecological disaster in American history. ibid.
It was an epic of human pain and suffering. ibid.
Special excursion trains brought prospective buyers to the region by the thousands. ibid.
But as the Depression deepened elsewhere, prices of farm commodities collapsed. ibid.
Throughout 1933 the drought continued, and the black blizzards kept engulfing the southern plains. ibid.
‘We realise that some farmers have themselves contributed to this reaping of the whirlwind ... a direct punishment for our sins.’ Ken Burns' The Dust Bowl: Reaping the Whirlwind, letter Caroline Henderson to Secretary of Agriculture
‘It was a brown world.’ ibid. Dorothy Kleffman
By 1933 the people of the southern plains were already weary of the draught that had struck more than a year earlier, withering their crops and turning their barren fields into pulverized dust which the constant winds picked up and transformed into fearsome black blizzards ... In truth, the worst was yet to come. Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl: Dust to Eat
‘Dust to eat, and dust to breathe, and dust to drink, dust in the beds and in the flower beds, on dishes and walls and windows … ibid.
One quarter of the county’s population now depended on New Deal jobs. ibid.
By 1936 nearly a quarter of the people living in the southern plains had begun to leave. Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl: Hardy Ones
By the end of July the number of destructive storms would rise to 79, by the end of the year to 110. ibid.
Then in the early 1950s, when the wet cycle ended and a two-year draught replaced it, the dust storms picked up once more. ibid.
Brazil: where huge areas of wilderness have been turned over to farming … When it comes to farming, Brazil is a global superpower. Simon Reeve’s South America IV, BBC 2022