This article by Sherry Dugger was published on Hoosier Localvore, January 1st, 2018.

A brief response to this article by Paul Cienfuegos, Founder and Co-Director of Community Rights US:

Truly disgusting. But not at all surprising, given the wholesale corporate takeover of our government at all levels.

Let’s not forget that the 29 states that have thus far passed marijuana legalization through their ballot boxes have all passed state laws that totally violate federal drug laws. They’ve done it because it’s the right thing to do. They’ve pushed back on illegitimate federal preemptive power and authority.

This situation is no different. The states that are being challenged by this new federal law, assuming it gets passed, need to stand strong, together, and refuse to remove their laws. It’s really that clear-cut.

When Dodge Ram aired its two-minute “God Made a Farmer” commercial during the 2013 Super Bowl, I, like thousands of others, applauded the commercial’s focus on our nation’s unsung workers: the family farmer.

At that time, my husband and I had just purchased a small plot of land in rural Indiana, and we were working every weekend to restore the home so that we could one day move in. By day, I was a professional magazine editor with several publications under my care. One of those publications focused on farms and local food systems. Although I assigned and edited stories about agriculture every month, I didn’t see what the commercial missed. It’s something I am positive most viewers didn’t understand, either.

Much of what we eat in America has nothing to do with what we saw on the television screen that day. The industrial agriculture system in America today is dominated by four corporations, which account for the production of billions of animals in intensive confinement “factory farm” operations each year. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, four companies produce 84 percent of our beef; four companies produce 64 percent of our pork, and three companies produce nearly half the chicken. MORE…