Last week, The New York Times' David Streitfeld told the story of one J.R. Paterakis, a Baltimore "baker" who opposes the Conservation Reserve Program, which provides incentives to farmers to set aside their land for wildlife, clean water, and (incidentally) massive carbon sequestration. Seemed like an opportunity to deploy my rye wit.
The program has been a huge success -- protecting 35 million acres of land and partially restoring the "duck factory" of the upper Midwest that fills the skies of North America with quacks and hunting opportunities -- so why has Mr. Paterakis put this great environmental success story in his sights?
The bakers and their allies have a different set of overriding issues: high commodity prices. The rising cost of feed is hurting ranchers, the rising cost of corn is hurting ethanol producers and the rising cost of wheat is hurting bread makers.
"We're in a crisis here. Do we want to eat, or do we want to worry about the birds?" asked J.R. Paterakis, a Baltimore baker who said he was so distressed at a meeting last month with Edward T. Schafer, the agriculture secretary, that he stood up and started speaking "vehemently."
The Paterakis bakery, H&S, produces a million loaves of rye bread a week. The baker said he could not find the rye flour he needed at any price. That gives him two unwelcome options: close half of his operations starting in July, or experiment with a blended flour that will yield a different and possibly less-than-authentic rye bread.
So, who is this humble baker with the big heart for the hungry (and the correctly proportioned pastrami sandwich)? Turns out J.R. Paterakis is anything but a lowly dough boy. Instead, he's a big-time businessman whose bakery once supplied every McDonald's on the East Coast with buns, who's now known in Baltimore more for his controversial real estate empire than his pumpernickel. He's also a political tycoon who distributes so much largesse (including thousands to both John McCain and the Bush-Cheney campaigns) that he and his father have earned the nickname among Maryland politicos as "the bread men." All that cash has helped them millions in tax breaks for their real estate projects.
But it doesn't mean the Paterakis family is neglecting the profits from their baking operations or Bush's political fortunes. But it seems like they may put more emphasis on the latter. Even though the United Nations just declared biofuels a "crime against humanity," Paterakis hasn't spoken out against them or tried to do something about the rising meat consumption also responsible for rising food prices (after all, people have to have something to put between their bread).
Duck pastrami on white, anyone?
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Soda lobby gets its game on
Comments
View as Flat
Russ Posted 6:03 am
21 Apr 2008
They also said bakers and others are lobbying for bans on export of wheat and rice, like what's happening in so-called 3rd world countries (though I can't see how that would help with prices - you'd need price controls as well).
It's just unbelievable (and scary) what's happening. Peak oil and a terminal food crisis - perhaps unfolding right now.
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Biodiversivist Posted 6:04 am
21 Apr 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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caniscandida Posted 3:45 pm
21 Apr 2008
Here is the website for this conservationist group, Ducks Unlimited, mentioned in the NY Times article:
http://www.ducks.org/
Cute; short and to the point. The big headline, over a photo of some darling ducklings, says "Ducks nesting in your yard? Here is what to do" -- not the kind of problem that we in NYC often have to face.
What I find even more alien, and alienating, is the apparently happy marriage between animal conservation and hunting. But apparently that is a fact of life in much of the country.
It is amusingly ironic that in the New York Bird Club, I get yelled at for being a wimp on animal rights, because I entertain the question whether confinement of animals is sometimes OK; but here in Grist, by contrast, I feel sometimes that I have to pull my punches. Obviously, ducks are wonderful, beautiful creatures, and we should want them to flourish, for their own sakes, just because they are so good.
Anyway, the farmers will just have to do what they feel they have to do, right now. But meanwhile, we hope that the ducks, and other ground-nesting birds, will manage somehow. Probably many pairs will not be able to breed this year.
At least, presumably, there will be no hunters, with their water-dogs, to shoot at them.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Pangolin Posted 4:09 pm
21 Apr 2008
What is an absolute fact though is that conservation areas increase both the numbers of waterfowl and the "take" of hunters.
Here in the rice growing region there are huge flocks of geese but when you go to view the geese at the reserve you can hear hunters guns going the whole time. It takes some getting used to.
The geese and ducks are also being credited with maintaining the fertility and health of the rice fields as they stomp the straw into the mud and add nitrogen. They can turn a 20 acre field white when they decide that is the location of todays feeding. So there is another interest in their preservation on that front.
If it helps these areas also mitigate habitat loss for other species. Last time I was at the conservation area a family of river otters (very rare here) felt comfortable posing for the guided tour walking through. Only my second wild river otter sighting ever.
Put the Carbon Back
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caniscandida Posted 8:32 pm
21 Apr 2008
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/19/scotus.cheney.s ...
In that case, the location was private property in Louisiana; whether rice is cultivated thereabouts is uncertain, but is certainly possible.
(And at least that time, Cheney is not reported to have shot anybody -- which is unfortunate, actually, because Scalia would have made a wonderful target. He was not too far from there, in east Texas, when he shot his pal the Texas lawyer; on that occasion I think his stated intention was to shoot not ducks but quail.)
Also, at around the same time, in early 2004, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was believed to have been re-discovered in a swampy forest in eastern Arkansas. That forest is said to be valuable as a resource for the region, because it is a destination for duck-hunters.
Bass Pro Shops, a major hook-and-bullet-crowd supplier, have their headquarters a bit further north, on a large compound outside Springfield, Missouri. My mother-in-law, who lives in Springfield, likes their restaurant, so a couple of times I have got her gift certificates to use there.
Her late husband was an accomplished skeet shooter; I do not know if he ever shot ducks or other animals. She has got rid of all his guns, or so I understand. But she can be deadly, regardless, when she needs to be.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Black Wallaby Posted 10:16 pm
21 Apr 2008
There are several species in Australia that seem to pair-off maybe for life, and they raise families.
They clearly have emotions and caring.
The Wood-Ducks are lovely and a family group of ~12 is common, here in the South East. I and even my car have been "threatened" by male wood-ducks in defence of his family or spouse!
Perhaps you are a tolerable person after-all.
Just one question; What is a Skeet shooter?
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amazingdrx Posted 10:47 pm
21 Apr 2008
It is plants that store carbon. And living soil that dequesters the carbon.
This commodity "bread man", needs to lose all his tax subsidies doled out by the politicians he buys.
Organic farmers need those subsidies. So we can all afford to bake with organic flour. Local bread from your local bakery. Put fake bread and the bread men out of business.
They have enough loot to retire. Their time is passed.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 10:53 pm
21 Apr 2008
As for your defensive ducks, Black Wallaby: Well, I do not know if you yourself deserve such aggressive treatment; but perhaps we should import such valiant ducks, for use when vehicles get out of hand in this country.
"Skeet shooting" I believe involves ejecting a clay disk into the air by a mechanical sling, which disk, slung into the air at the marksman's command, is then to be shot by the marksman. So nothing directly dies. Hopefully, the sling-loader is paid fairly, and tipped generously, but who knows about such things.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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