Scott Walker Still Targets Wisconsin Idea, Rural Wisconsin Resources

UW Extension is the Wisconsin Idea in Action

Updated - The University of Wisconsin Extension held a workshop in  December informing Bayfield and Ashland county residents of the health risks of the proposed swine CAFO. (Mullen, Ashland Daily Press (Wisconsin)) (Mal Contends)

The workshop was well-attended, northern Wisconsin communities used scientific findings to make local policy informed by the implications of the proposed swine factory, a 560-acre operation that could be sold to China (which owns one-fourth of the American pork industry and is anti-green on pollution).

Former Wisconsin attorney general J.B. Van Hollen subsequently rushed out a formal advisory opinion the Friday before Christmas Day stating agricultural operations could be sold to foreign countries, as long as the industrialized agricultural site is less than 620 acres. (Mal Contends)

Now, we learn that Scott Walker wants to eliminate myriad UW outreach and environmental programs in Walker's proposed budget, as reported in a column written by a UW graduate student studying the budget.

Such UW programs and institutions effectively blow the whistle on the destructive industrialized farming operations that have proliferated the last 10 years.

Walker's budget would terminate all manner of manifestations of the Wisconsin Idea, and environmental outreach institutions.

Targeted for defunding by Walker are the acclaimed College of Natural Resources at UW-Stevens Point (offering a water quality symposium March 19) and myriad UW Extension and environmental institutions.

Walker's Budget language is full of language such as "delete" appropriations, a radical policy move that Walker did not run on during the 2013-14 gubernatorial campaign.

"[Walker's] new budget dilutes or terminates the public interest and the public sector in Wisconsin so Republican corporate donors and Tea Party advocates who have funded his campaigns can appropriate public resources," notes The Political Environment.

Wisconsin Idea

The Wisconsin Idea remains under full-scale attack should Scott Walker's budget be passed through the GOP-gerrymandered legislature. See Walker Budget. (pp 472-473)

Walker mandates that his notoriously partisan Department of Administration would by statute "interrogate UW System Authority employees publicly or privately regarding the books, accounts, and matters examined. Provide that the UW System Authority would be required to cooperate with the DOA Secretary and comply with every request of the DOA Secretary related to his or her functions." (p.494)

After Scott Walker is humiliated in his faux run for president, Walker will move back to Wisconsin and target the state. One hopes most Wisconsinites will be awakened from their political slumber.

Target: Lake Superior and Chequamegon Bay

Are Lake Superior and Chequamegon Bay doomed? (Kaufman, NYT; The Fight for Wisconsin's Soul)

Only we can halt the destruction of Wisconsin waters and over ten percent of the world's fresh water.

From Wayne Griffiths (Facebook): Chequamegon Bay Area showing approximate location of the Bad River reservation, the proposed Penokee Hill (GTAC) mine and the proposed Bayfield County CAFO. [Meanwhile, Scott Walker is running around the country, proclaiming he wants to be president.] The blue in the upper-right of the shot is called Lake Superior.

The following GPS coordinates are approximate.
Center 46º 19.632'N 90º31.881'W.
North East boundary 46º20.311'N 90º29.334'W.
South West boundary 46º18.962'N 90º34.709'W

Wisconsin Atty Gen Gives Green Light to Foreign Ownership of Agriculture

Wisconsin Attorney General Affirms Wisconsin Agriculture Open for Sale to Foreign Ownership - Question Is How Much of Wisconsin Will Become an Offshore Economic Colony for China and other Foreign Corporations

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen gave a green light to nonresident alien and foreign corporate ownership of Wisconsin agricultural properties in a formal opinion dated December 19, 2014.

Van Hollen was responding to requests from Wisconsin legislators seeking a formal opinion concerning how a 127-year-old Wisconsin Statute [Stat. § 710.02] limiting foreign ownership of Wisconsin land affects the federal 1995 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) treaty.

"Foreign companies and individuals are exempt from a state law barring them from owning more than 640 acres in Wisconsin, but they cannot use the land for agricultural or forestry purposes, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said Friday," reports Rob Schultz in the Wisconsin State Journal.

Less than 640 acres is fine, though Van Hollen underplayed this fact in his opinion issued the Friday before Christmas Day.

The legal clarification is significant in light of the Chinese acquisition of some one-fourth of the American pork industry last year and the proposed Swine CAFO [Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operation] in Bayfield County composed of 560 acres in the Township of Eileen near Ashland County, in the center of pristine region that is a Wisconsin tourism attraction some 10 miles from Lake Superior.

Any CAFO composed of less than 640 acres in Wisconsin now is armed with a green light to sell to foreign corporations.

Foreign ownership of Wisconsin land increased more 91 percent in 2011 after doubling between 2006 and 2010, roughly tracking the enactment and implementation of administrative rules of the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting statute signed into law by Gov. Doyle in 2006.

The Siting statute has enabled the acceleration of industrial agriculture, CAFOs, in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans unsuccessfully tried to change the 127-year-old Wisconsin state law on foreign ownership through a provision in his 2013-15 budget in 2013. (Schultz, Wisconsin State Journal)

Said Gordon Stevenson, Wisconsin DNR runoff management chief (2001-2011):

Consider the Parable of Smithfield Foods. In 1936, a family built a small hog slaughtering and packing plant in Smithfield, Virginia. Their products were very good, the plant grew and town of Smithfield came to be known as the Ham Capital of the World. During the 1980s, the company vertically integrated. In plain English, that means they not only owned the processing facilities, but they figured out that if they controlled the production of hogs as well as processing they could be more profitable. By the end of 1998, Smithfield owned not only multiple packaging plants but 460 large hog farms and had contracts with 2,100 other pork producers 12 states. Smithfield Foods had become the number one pork producer in the United States and was growing internationally. They continued to grow, aggregating the assets of American pork production into larger and fewer blocks. Next time you go shopping, checkout the pork products. You will see labels like Morrell, Farmland, Armour and others. Smithfield owns all of those companies and multiple others. On September 26, 2013, Smithfield Foods and all of its holdings were sold to another company for $7.1 billion. [Bittman, NYT] The name of the company is Shuanghui International Holdings Limited.[Shuanghui changed its name this year to the 'WH Group' (BusinessWeek)]

Yes, a company from the People’s Republic of China now owns 26 percent of all of the assets of the American pork industry. This is the largest single Chinese purchase to date of American assets. China has successfully established an offshore economic colony on American soil. Let’s leave Virginia and Beijing and return to Wisconsin. We have dairy CAFOs in Wisconsin that are in the process of aggregating the assets of Wisconsin’s dairy industry into larger and fewer blocks. Any of those blocks can be bought and sold. I don’t believe I need to spell out why I told you the Parable of Smithfield Foods.

So, for example the proposed Swine CAFO in Bayfield County composed of 560 acres in the Township of Eileen would be open for sale to China.

The Iowa-based Reicks View Family Farm LLC that purchased the 560 acres has made no public comments stating selling to China is their intention.

It is easy to contemplate how domestic CAFO owners can structure their business organization, through LLCs for example, so that one business entity, each CAFO, is composed of 639 acres or less.

Van Hollen and the GOP are playing everyone for suckers, and clean and safe water is the ultimate mark, though it is conceivable this is not Van Hollen's purpose in issuing his formal opinion.

Wisconsin State Rep. Andy Jorgensen (D-Milton) called the January 2014 request for the attorney general's opinion an "end around" play to alter the the 127-year-old law. (Schultz, Wisconsin State Journal)

Van Hollen's opinion does serve as a roadmap on how to make Wisconsin Dairy and Swine CAFOs available for foreign sale.

The future for America's Dairyland looks bleak as the Walker administration calls for more production and less regulation in its 30x20 initiative as water and land are being devastated with pathogens from liquid manure runoff.

Is Lake Superior to Become Another Lake Erie

Updated - A massive swine (pig) Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operation (CAFO) proposed in Bayfield County threatens a region known for its pristine inland lakes and streams, Chequamegon National Forest, and the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Lake Superior.

America's Dairyland is currently imperiled by the proliferation of Concentration Agriculturally Feeding Operations (CAFOs) mostly by massive dairy operations.

Now, Big Ag is taking aim at the Northwood's region of Wisconsin, specifically Bayfield County, proposing a 560-acre swine CAFO in the Township of Eileen, next to Ashland County and some 15 miles from Lake Superior.

The University of Wisconsin Extension held a workshop last week to inform residents of the health and environmental risks of the proposed swine CAFO, as well as the weak state regulatory framework of CAFOs, although reportedly not described as being weak. (Mullen, Ashland Daily Press (Wisconsin))

Writes Joshua Yelle, (Western Illinois University) in an unpublished paper citing Dr. John Ikerd's The Inevitable Economic, Ecological, and Social Consequences of CAFOs:

The environmental damages that CAFOs have caused are nearly impossible to put into a numerical figure that the average individual would be able to grasp and comprehend. The primary detrimental effects that CAFOs produce consist of water pollution, air pollution, animal welfare concerns and the mismanagement of waste. EPA findings have suggested that waste generated by CAFOs have polluted over 35,000 miles of river and contaminated groundwater in 17 states (Ikerd). Pollution on a large scale such as this cannot be blamed on just individual CAFOs but is actually the result of irresponsible management across an entire industry which has a documented past of reckless pollution and disregard for environmental concerns in general.

Disregard for environmental concerns describes Wisconsin under the Scott Walker administration that has gutted the state's own Department of Natural Resources as a functioning regulatory body.

The question for residents and businesses up in northern Wisconsin is: Will this area relying on tourism and the pristine quality of the region as a value in itself allow the area and another Great Lake to be devastated like Lake Erie and Lake Michigan in Kewaunee and Door counties by not stopping this proposed CAFO owned by the Iowa-based Reicks View Family Farm LLC. (Family farm name is a sick irony.)

Just a small family farm Reicks would have you believe, a farmer that would make a walk up to Bayfield County every morning. Here is a link to their "values."

Many Big Ag owners try to escape even the weak regulatory apparatus by owning 999 animals, one less than the 1,000-animal necessary for an operation to be a state-sanctioned CAFO.

The future for America's Dairyland looks bleak as the Walker administration calls for more production and less regulation in its 30x20 initiative.

Said Gordon Stevenson, runoff chief for the DNR (2001-2011):

"Manure management is essentially the same as it has been since the Middle Ages; untreated manure is disposed on untreated on the landscape. We have already seen severe public health consequences from these practices and I am certain that we will see more. Much of Wisconsin’s environmental protection efforts with agriculture center on nutrient management planning. Many of my former colleagues have labored long and hard to persuade farmers to adopt the NRCS 590 Nutrient Management Standard. The problem is that 590 is not a water quality standards, it as an agronomic standard that seeks to optimize crop production. Plus evaluation of a farmer’s compliance with that standard is somewhere between difficult and impossible."

Consider the Parable of Smithfield Foods. In 1936, a family built a small hog slaughtering and packing plant in Smithfield, Virginia. Their products were very good, the plant grew and town of Smithfield came to be known as the Ham Capital of the World. During the 1980s, the company vertically integrated. In plain English, that means they not only owned the processing facilities, but they figured out that if they controlled the production of hogs as well as processing they could be more profitable. By the end of 1998, Smithfield owned not only multiple packaging plants but 460 large hog farms and had contracts with 2,100 other pork producers 12 states. Smithfield Foods had become the number one pork producer in the United States and was growing internationally.  They continued to grow, aggregating the assets of American pork production into larger and fewer blocks. Next time you go shopping, checkout the pork products. You will see labels like Morrell, Farmland, Armour and others. Smithfield owns all of those companies and multiple others. On September 26, 2013, Smithfield Foods and all of its holdings were sold to another company for $7.1 billion. [Bittman, NYT] The name of the company is Shuanghui International Holdings Limited.[Shuanghui changed its name this year to the: WH Group (BusinessWeek)]

"Yes, a company from the People’s Republic of China now owns 26 percent of all of the assets of the American pork industry. This is the largest single Chinese purchase to date of American assets. China has successfully established an offshore economic colony on American soil. Let’s leave Virginia and Beijing and return to Wisconsin. We have dairy CAFOs in Wisconsin that are in the process of aggregating the assets of Wisconsin’s dairy industry into larger and fewer blocks. Any of those blocks can be bought and sold. I don’t believe I need to spell out why I told you the Parable of Smithfield Foods."

Big Ag could not care less about the health of the Great Lakes. Big Ag owned by China even less so.

Mega-Factory Farms Threaten Wisconsin Waters, Bayfield County Now Eyed

Bayfield County, Wisconsin - Proposed
site of new CAFO that would vector millions
of tons of liquid cow manure into Lake Superior

A water-polluting CAFO is planned in Bayfield County in Wisconsin's most northern county that juts out into Lake Superior (Mullen, The Daily Press), the massive Great Lake that will absorb much of the liquid cow manure discharges with predictably tragic consequences

Corporate 'CAFO' entities have largely replaced the small family farm in America's Dairyland with catastrophic consequences.

Pathogens in millions of tons of liquid cow manure annually are being vectored into Wisconsin rivers, lakes and aquifers and the solution by the Scott Walker administration and his Big Ag campaign funders is to accelerate the destruction.

Wisconsin is approaching the point where swimming in rivers and lakes will become an exercise in risking your very health as the carrying capacities of liquid cow manure in major geologic regions in central and eastern Wisconsin have been exceeded with severe contamination of drinking water.

The abandonment of beaches on Lake Michigan in the summer is now common in northeastern Wisconsin as Ecoli and other pathogens make the tourism and recreation industry of Wisconsin imperiled and health concerns from the water in Kewaunee County has become so bad that a full one of three tested water wells are too contaminated to draw safe drinking water and parents have to use bottled water for such simple family concerns as washing out a child's scrape or minor cut.

This week the news is more alarming as Scott Walker has rewarded his campaign special interests by firing the eminent George Kraft, Professor of Water Resources and Director of the Center for Watershed Science and Education at UW-Stephens Point from the Wisconsin Groundwater Coordinating Council, and replaced Dr. Kraft with Stephen Diercks, a Big Ag honcho, a special interest that rewarded Walker with $Millions. (The Political Environment)

Meanwhile, with massive Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operations (CAFOs) proliferating, the northern part of Wisconsin has been spared the siting of CAFOs partially because of protected national forests.

Last month comes news that a CAFO is planned in Bayfield County (Town of Eileen) in Wisconsin's most northern county that juts out into Lake Superior (Mullen, The Daily Press), the massive Great Lake that will absorb much of the liquid cow manure discharge with predictably tragic consequences.

Educational and clean water groups are mobilizing and establishing allies with other clean water activists as the political conspiracy of silence is leading to the great waters of Wisconsin becoming dangerous and polluted as Big Ag pockets the money in exchange for the health of our grandchildren's clean and safe water and the bagging of money via Big Ag by Wisconsin politicians led by Scott Walker as he sounds off about running for president.