Colorado Springs Local Food Week 2014 with Kendra Kimbirauskas
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Colorado Springs Local Food Week 2014 with Kendra Kimbirauskas
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Colorado Springs Local Food Week 2014 with Kendra Kimbirauskas
- 1. IT’S TIME TO COME TOGETHER Local Foods Week – Colorado Springs, KendraC Koimlorbaidraouskas, CEO Socially Responsible Agricultural Project
- 3. Family Farms not Animal Factories
- 5. Campaign for Family Farms & The Environment
- 8. Alabama Farmers Federation American Egg Board American Farm Bureau Federation* American Farm Bureau Women’s Leadership Committee American Farm Bureau Young Farmers & Ranchers American Sheep Industry Association American Soybean Association American Sugar Alliance Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation Association of Agriculture Production Executives California Farm Bureau Federation California Pork Producers Association Cattlemen’s Beef Board/Beef Checkoff* Federation of State Beef Councils* Georgia Farm Bureau Illinois Farm Bureau Illinois Soybean Association * Indiana Corn Marketing Council Indiana Farm Bureau Federation Indiana Soybean Alliance* Iowa Corn Growers Association Kansas Corn Commission Kansas Farm Bureau Kansas Soybean Commission Kentucky Corn Growers Kentucky Farm Bureau Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board Michigan Corn Growers Association Michigan Farm Bureau Family of Companies Minnesota Corn Growers Association Minnesota Farm Bureau Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council* Missouri Corn Growers Association Missouri Farmers Care Montana Farm Bureau Federation National Association of Wheat Growers National Cattlemen’s Beef Association* National Corn Growers Association* National Milk Producers Federation* National Pork Board* National Pork Producers Council* Nebraska Corn Board Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation Nebraska Soybean Board* New York Farm Bureau Federation North Carolina Animal
- 9. Agriculture Coalition North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation North Dakota Corn Growers Association North Dakota Soybean Council Ohio Corn & Wheat Growers Association Ohio Farm Bureau Ohio Soybean Council Pennsylvania Farm Bureau South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation South Dakota Soybean Research & Promotion Council Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation Tennessee Soybean Promotion Council Texas Farm Bureau United Soybean Board* USA Rice Federation U.S. Custom Harvesters, Inc. U.S. Poultry & Egg Association* U.S. Soybean Federation Virginia Farm Bureau Federation Washington Association of Wheat Growers West Virginia Farm Bureau Wisconsin Farm Bureau BASF Cargill CropLife America Dow AgroSciences Elanco Animal Health Farm Credit Merck Animal Health Syngenta Zoetis US Farmers & Ranchers Alliance
- 11. “Their real agenda is to make us all vegetarians or vegans.” “They want us all to go back to farming like they did in the days of 40 acres and a mule” “Next thing you know they’ll be complaining about the dust from your plows” “She’s a PETA activist masquerading as a farm kid”
- 13. Kendra Kimbirauskas, CEO Socially Responsible Agricultural Project www.sraproject.org kendrak@sraproject.org
Editor's Notes
- My name is Kendra Kimbirauskas I first, want to take a moment to thank the organizers of this conference to have this opportunity to speak to you today. It truly is an honor and I appreciate the opportunity. My talk is titled: It’s Time to Come Together and I am going to be focusing on the need for collaboration to push our movement forward for a more just, humane and ecologically responsible food system.
- I thought I would start by telling you a little about me: Grew up on a dairy farm in Michigan. We milked about 40 cows and had about 150 cows on the farm at any given time. My dad wasn’t able to make ends meet with the dairy and he was forced to either lose the farm to the bank or sell his dairy herd in the dairy herd buyout in the 80s. My dad wasn’t the only farmer to get out of dairying. In my town there were probably a dozen or so small farmers that went out of business. These were all farmers that farmed like my dad, in a socially, ecologically responsible manner. My dad chose to enter the dairy herd buyout to save the farm. To make a living, we raised beef cattle, hay, corn and soybeans. As a kid, I spent my summers bailing hay while my friends went to camp. Needless to say, I felt like I was missing out and vowed to never have anything to do with agriculture. After college, I went to work for a state legislator, met the dairy industry, lobbying me about reducing regulations and relaxing laws to help huge mega dairies to come into our state. This lead me to question why our state goverment would let people who farmed like my dad go out of business, while courting out of state mega operations. I became a community organizer working with communities across the country who were threatened by factory farms and I have spent the last 15 years working to reform industrial animal agriculture. Today, in addition to working with the Socially Responsible Agricultural Project, my husband and I farm in Scio, Oregon where we raise pastured pigs and poultry
- Provide community support to citizens that are fighting factory farms across the country We have a team of about 20 people located across the country that are on call 24/7 to help any community anywhere in the country that is threatened by an industrial livestock operation Community triage – organizing help, engineering help, media help We work with the community in what we call a thrown the spaghetti up against the wall approach and see what sticks to stop an mega livestock operation. If we are unsuccessful in stopping an operation, they we provide the community with tools to put safeguards into place to protect themselves from air and water pollution.
- We also work with communities that are looking to rebuild their food system, so that they are financially independent and don’t fall to predatory agribusiness companies. Regardless of whether we are working with a community to fight a new proposed industrial scale livestock operation or whether we are working with a community to rebuild local processing infrastructure, we take an approach that is based in community, forming collaborative partnerships to achieve a common goal.
- Over the last 15 years I have had the great pleasure of traveling around the country to work with communities of all types either who are working to rebuild their food system or who are working to stop a factory farm that is looking to establish itself in their community. As a community, one thing that is incredibly clear is that we have come a long way over the last decade. Remember in the early days of organizing, the term “sustainable” was a foreign concept. Now, it is something that is on our collective minds every day. When I first started organizing, environmentalists didn’t like farmers, farmers didn’t like environmentalists. But, the groups came together in their common belief that the industrialization of agriculture is something that was bad for our air and water AND the vertical integration of animal agriculture hurt family farms. Now food and issues of food are front and center of our society. There are best selling books that have been written about food, movies produced about food and our issues are even showing up in the storylines of network programs like CSI. This is really a unique time in our movement and I think we are winning. Consumers are more aware than ever and it’s apparent when major food companies are tailoring their advertising to what they believe consumers want. McD’s advertisement
- Now food and issues of food are front and center of our society. There are best selling books that have been written about food, movies produced about food and our issues are even showing up in the storylines of network programs like CSI. This is really a unique time in our movement and I think we are winning.
- Consumers are more aware than ever and it’s apparent when major food companies are tailoring their advertising to what they believe consumers want. Because we are winning, it’s time continue our fight for a more just and humane food system. We have to learn to work together even more and pull together in our common belief that the current system that we have is failing our environment, our animals, farmer workers, our public health, our family farmers and our rural economies. Because we are winning, it’s time continue our fight for a more just and humane food system. We have to learn to work together even more and pull together in our common belief that the current system that we have is failing our environment, our animals, farmer workers, our public health, our family farmers and our rural economies.
- Because we are winning, the industry is taking note and they are forming alliances to further deceive the consumers This is a list of organizations that are a part of what is called the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance. I
- In my work, I routinely attend events, conferences and trainings that are put on by industrial agribusiness, so that I can better understand their industry and mindset. From the last few times that I attended, I had a couple of major take-aways. First, the industry is coming together like they have never done before. Do they agree on everything? Of course not. But, they recognize if they don’t build a common alliance, they will be forced to make changes that will impact their bottom line. Second, the language that we are using is working and they are changing their language to reflect the educated consumer in an attempt to not change their practices, but to be more deceptive in their marketing. Third, when we fight they win. In one of the presentations I attended last January, one presenter said that his favorite thing is when the ethical meat people and the vegans fights on social media. This presenter told the group to “let them fight” it makes us look reasonable and we win the public perception.
- We are winning and as a community it’s time to double down and truly shift our food system. In my training as a young organizer, one of my mentors once told me to remember there are always strange bed partners and there’s no such thing as permanent friends or permanent enemies. If we are working to build power in a coalition and we agree with everyone in our coalition on every single issue, well then maybe the coalition isn’t as powerful as we’d like to think. Sometimes working in coalitions with people that you don’t always see eye-to-eye on isn’t easy. I know this from experience. But, I also know that our adversaries like to make some of us scapegoats while demonizing others. They do this because they know that when we come together, we will realize that we probably agree on more than we originally thought and we will be stronger for it. We really need to shed our labels and come together on what we can agree on. When we make progress on reforming a food system. Down the road, we can have further discussions about what specifically that food system looks like.
- The challenge that I would like to leave you today is to step out of your comfort zone. Whether you are tea party or green party, liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, ethical meat eater or vegetarian, carnivore or vegan – ask yourself why you are here and why you care. While we may not agree on all issues all the time, there are surely some issues we can agree on move together on to reform our food system. There is a role for everyone to play if we can find a common cause to move our current system to something that is more just and fair, better for our environment, better for our animals and better for human health. Goose story I would like to leave you with an analogy of Geese that was shared with me by Ms. Shirley Sherrod, the former state Director of Rural Development. Shirley said that we need to think of geese flying when we think of our movement. Geese, fly in a V, with one or two geese out in front all of the time. When those geese tire, they drop back and other geese take over leading the “V.” We need to be like the Geese all flying individually, but working together to move the whole flock forward. When some of us tire or our issues play out, we need to drop to the back and support our collaborative partners. When we get to the final destination, we can talk about our places, but in the mean time we need to just keep flying forward for a more just food system.