Washington,U.S.A–The U.S. Senate passed the 2012 Farm Bill today, meaning the measure is a big step closer to enactment. The Farm Bill, renewed every five years, is the largest source of funding for conservation on America’s working farmland, ranchland and private forestland. In addition to funding federal conservation and nutrition programs, the bill also authorizes risk management and other programs that influence the decisions of land managers across the country.

“The Farm Bill is the United States’ primary means for engaging farmers, ranchers and foresters in stewardship of America’s natural resources,” said Sara Hopper, agricultural policy director of Environmental Defense Fund. “The continuing economic prosperity of agriculture is critical to the nation. But it is also true that agriculture has a significant environmental footprint. It affects – and is affected by – soil health, reliable supplies of clean water, and healthy ecosystems.”

As part of an effort to reduce the federal deficit, the Senate voted to cut more than $23 billion from the Farm Bill budget over the next 10 years, including $6.4 billion from conservation programs. While these cuts will hurt conservation efforts on the ground, senators made an effort to mitigate the impact of the loss in conservation funding by including policies that will make conservation programs more effective. Specifically, the Senate bill consolidates some conservation programs and creates a stronger emphasis on leveraging additional resources from local and state governments and other partners who can assist producers in voluntary, cooperative efforts to address local, state and regional conservation priorities. Senators also voted yesterday to apply to taxpayer-funded crop insurance premium subsidies the requirements that farmers of some environmentally sensitive lands currently have to meet in order to receive other farm subsidies.

“With increasing pressures to feed a growing global population, America’s natural resources are under more demand and stress than ever before,” said Hopper. “Demand for conservation assistance for farmers already outstrips available conservation dollars. Congress must maintain and strengthen its commitment to conservation in this Farm Bill and one way to do that is through innovate partnership programs that bring conservation dollars to local communities.”

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This afternoon, Putnam Circuit Court Judge Derek Swope granted preliminary approval to comprehensive settlements agreed to by  Monsanto company and the Calwell Practice PLLC that resolve all claims in all pending litigation as well as all class actions filed in West Virginia. The litigation, including the pending class action suits relate specifically to a chemical plant once located in Nitro, West Virginia and activities which took place 40 to 60 years ago.

“These settlements ensure that both individual and community concerns are addressed, and services are made available for the people of Nitro,” said Scott Partridge, vice president of Monsanto company. ”We are pleased to resolve this matter and end any concerns about historic operations at the Nitro plant.”

“The settlements provide needed medical benefits and remediation services to the people of Nitro and broader community,” said Class Counsel Stuart Calwell of the Calwell Practice. “The principal goal of the litigation was to provide long-term medical monitoring and to provide professional cleaning of individual homes.”

These resolutions provide for eligible class members in the Nitro community to have their health monitored and to have their houses professionally cleaned. Approximately 4,500 homes are located in areas where individual remediation of homes may be desirable.  A program will be created to offer free professional cleaning of these homes and provide funding of up to $9 million dollars for this purpose.

The parties have agreed that a thirty-year medical monitoring program will be established at a local hospital. Thousands of persons who lived, worked, or attended school in the Nitro area during the period of time covered by the lawsuit will be eligible to apply for benefits.  The plan will be supported by a primary fund of $21 million dollars which will pay for medical testing of eligible class members.

Up to $63 million dollars in additional funding will be available over the thirty-year life of the medical screening program. In addition to the direct benefits these agreements will provide to the residents of the Nitro area, Monsanto has agreed to pay Court approved legal fees and litigation costs incurred by Class Counsel over the last seven years.

The class action resolutions will now be fully reviewed by Circuit Judge Derek Swope to ensure the fairness of the class action settlement agreements.

Monsanto noted that this settlement will allow it to maintain its focus on its global agriculture business and its commitment of investing in improved seed products for farmers throughout the world. Monsanto indicated that, for fiscal year 2012, the settlement will not affect ongoing earnings per share but the one time expense will reduce as reported earnings per share by approximately $0.05.

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Consumers can expect to pay even more for food at the grocery store and in restaurants if Congress adopts new legislation that over-regulates food production. The proposed legislation, HB 3798, was introduced on January 23, and would add to the 6 percent jump in grocery prices that consumers have suffered in the past year.

The proposed new legislation on egg production adopts the same concept as European government mandates that have already hurt consumers there by cutting egg production and driving up costs. At the same time, there has been no sign of higher food quality, improved animal welfare or other social benefits.

Dubbed the “Food Price Hike Bill,” the legislation is sponsored by Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon, along with several cosponsors. Keep Food Affordable (KFA), a coalition of agricultural and nutrition organizations, does not question the sponsor’s intention of ensuring that egg-laying chickens are given good care but is concerned that the real outcome will harm American families’ ability to purchase safe, nutritious food at affordable prices.

The proposed legislation would begin by over-regulating farmers who provide whole eggs to grocers, restaurant owners, bakers and others. It sets the stage for similar over-regulation of family farmers who provide meat, poultry, milk and dairy products for consumers. While animal rights activists say such over-regulation will benefit animals, the real outcome will be to harm American consumers who are still struggling with high unemployment and a tough economy.

Inevitably, the federal government would need to increase spending or divert current spending from food safety or other useful programs to enforce these counterproductive regulations. That would be a further blow to consumers.

Eggs are one of the least-expensive types of protein: A dozen eggs can feed a family of four for less than $1 per person. Eggs are also a key component of many prepared foods, from cookies to casseroles. Even a small spike in food prices will hurt every American, especially the 13 million who are wrestling with unemployment and millions more who face food insecurity.

The federal mandates in the “Food Price Hike Bill” would cost American egg farmers as much as $10 billion more, and those higher costs would drive up consumer prices. Similar mandates in European countries have forced egg farmers to increase their operating costs or go out of business. As a result, some countries are seeing 20 percent lower egg production. Across Europe, egg prices shot up nearly 8 percent in 2010-2011. American consumers do not need higher prices.

Family farmers recognize their ethical obligation to care for animals using standards developed by veterinarians and other experts. At the same time, they provide safe, wholesome and affordable food for consumers. The proposed federal mandate in HB 3798 is not just unnecessary, it is anti-consumer.

Consumers deserve affordable, high-quality food, and American farmers have invested millions of dollars to fund animal health and welfare research. Piling prescriptive, inflexible production mandates on family farmers will only add to those challenges. KFA urges members of Congress to consider the serious impact this bill will have on farming and the American consumer.

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On Tuesday, January 24 at 1:30 PM , Monsanto officers and shareholders will vote on a shareholder proposal to create a study of “material financial risks or operational impacts” associated with its chemical products and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The proposal represents one of the strongest signals to date that the biotech food conglomerate is facing growing consumer, legal, and regulatory uncertainties. As of today, however, Monsanto has told John Harrington that they will not recognize his proxy who would speak on behalf of the resolution for only three minutes under normal circumstances.

The meeting itself is only open to shareholders but concerned citizens will be demonstrating outside the northeast entrance to Monsanto’s Lindberg campus beginning at 12:00 noon. Monsanto Headquarters is located at 800 North Lindberg Boulevard in St. Louis, MO.

Adam Eidinger, an organic food activist who recently led a walk from NY to Washington DC on behalf of honest food-labeling, will present the shareholder resolution on behalf of Napa, California based Harrington Investments (HII) with help from the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA).

Eidinger will be available for interview before and after the shareholder meeting, to which he will drive a “Label GMO” art car to attend. Representatives from HII and PANNA will be available also for interview before and after the shareholder meeting. Eidinger’s written testimony is available by request.

In its statement recommending shareholders to vote against the HII resolution, Monsanto management stated that, “Farmers should have the freedom to choose which production method is best suited for their needs, whether organic, non-GM conventional or biotechnology traits. All of these systems can and do work effectively side by side…”

John Harrington, CEO of Harrington Investments questions the veracity of Monsanto’s statement: “While I am heartened by Monsanto’s sudden concern for the freedom of farmers, the unfortunate reality facing American farmers right now is that genetic drift from GMO crops is contaminating their conventional and organic crops.

This can be disastrous because many GMO crops cannot be sold to important markets, such as Europe, China and Japan. The potential legal implications for Monsanto are staggering.”

Eidinger, who organized last October’s 100-person, 313-mile “Right2Know March” from New York City to the White House for federally mandated GMO food-labeling says: “With the rise of Round-Up resistant ‘superweeds’ the company is simply telling farmers to spray even more toxic herbicides including 2,4 D, the main ingredient in Agent Orange.

Many people are struggling to avoid GMOs and chemicals used on them in the food they eat due to serious health and environmental concerns yet Americans have no right to know what we are eating largely due to the close ties Monsanto has to President Obama’s USDA and FDA which has ignored more than 500,000 Americans who have signed on to the JustLabelIt.org petition to the FDA.”

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The 50-year-old herbicide atrazine, renowned for controlling weeds, is instrumental to conservation as well, according to a new study. University of Wisconsin-Madison economist Paul D. Mitchell, Ph.D., found the use of atrazine helps farmers reduce aggregate soil erosion by up to 85 million tons per year — enough to fill more than 3 million dump trucks.

Mitchell will present the findings of his paper, “Estimating soil erosion and fuel use changes and their monetary values with AGSIM: A case study for triazine herbicides,” Jan. 10, 2012, at the Wisconsin Crop Management Conference in Madison, Wisc.

The study’s other key findings include:

• Atrazine and sister triazine herbicides, simazine and propazine, benefit U.S. society by up to $350 million in soil erosion costs per year.

• By encouraging conservation tillage and no-till farming, atrazine and the other triazines reduce soil erosion, decrease fuel use and improve water quality.

• Increased farmer adoption of conservation tillage and related practices, made possible in part by popular herbicides such as atrazine, led to a 43-percent decrease in soil erosion from U.S. farmland over the past three decades.

• Because atrazine increases corn and sorghum yields, farmers use less land for crops. This allows as many as 875,000 acres to remain in the Conservation Reserve Program, where it generates environmental benefits for everyone, including wildlife habitat and reduced soil erosion.

Mitchell also will discuss a second paper he authored, “Economic assessment of the benefits of chloro-s-triazine herbicides to U.S. corn, sorghum, and sugar cane producers.” This study demonstrates that atrazine and chloro-s-triazines simazine and propazine benefit U.S. corn, sorghum and sugar cane farmers up to $3.3 billion in value annually.

“We are just beginning to understand the full environmental economic impact atrazine has on the agriculture industry and global food markets in this new agricultural economy,” said Mitchell. “Atrazine effectively controls weeds and significantly increases corn, sorghum, and sugar cane yields. But it also supports conservation tillage and no-till farming, which are critical to protecting the environment and providing food and clean water to our world’s population.”

Findings from the two studies show atrazine and its sister triazines generate a $4.4 billion consumer surplus annually. Combining the consumer surplus estimates with the soil erosion benefits, atrazine’s value to the U.S. economy totals up to $4.8 billion, with most of these benefits going directly to consumers.

Mitchell, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, grew up on his family’s farm in Iowa and received his doctorate from Iowa State University. Before joining University of Wisconsin-Madison, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. His current research and outreach programs focus on the farm-level economics of crop production, emphasizing pest management, risk management and specialty crop economics.

Syngenta, the principal registrant for atrazine, provided resources and support for Mitchell’s research. His papers are part of a broad assessment by Syngenta to examine the value of atrazine in today’s agricultural economy. Other papers include:

• “A biological analysis of the use and benefits of chloro-s-triazine herbicides in U.S. corn and sorghum production,” David C. Bridges, Ph.D.

• “The importance of atrazine in the integrated management of herbicide-resistance weeds,” Micheal D. K. Owen, Ph.D.

• “Efficacy of best management practices for reducing runoff of chloro-s-triazine herbicides to surface water: A review,” Richard S. Fawcett, Ph.D.

For more information about atrazine, visit www.atrazine.com.

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