Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Inflexible regulations giving ‘green’ a black eye

I get so tired of the almighty dollar dominating our society that I sometimes forget: While the sustainable world we environmentalists seek is about so much more, economic sustainability is crucial.

Which brings me to farmer Ted Wycall, of Greenbranch Organic Farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Ted’s delicious food is a beacon of hope in a landscape of industrial farming with its impacts on Bay water quality.

His free-range chickens, grass-fed beef, organic veggies, and pork from hogs that root acorns in his woods are a path we greenies favor for the planet—a local economy that is good for the soil, good for our health.

His little farm store hums with customers glad to pay more than supermarket price for the food, for the Earth. Ted had planned to expand, in this, his seventh year of farming the land he inherited from his grandfather.

But recently, with frustration and some bitterness, he said he is close to moving to Montana, where he went to college, where “there are almost no rules.”

More

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Him and his environmentalist types VOTED for the Democrat/Socialists that have turned the EPA into the stasi. He got what he voted for.
Now he gets to reap the benefits and enjoy the reality of Socialist Government control!

Anonymous said...

Call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye.

Anonymous said...

1:43:

Were you in the voting booth with him? The man is a farmer and a businessman, not a welfare junkie, and comes from a line of professionals and businessmen.

Get you head out of the bottle.

Anonymous said...

No way 1:43 that is not true. You need to educate yourself. It's what is known as Big Agri business that is behind all those laws because they are anti small business and don't want them to grow because they are competition. so you can blame all the big chicken companies like perdue, mountaire and Tyson for the regulations. Maybe you are fooled but not me.
It's like the raise in minimum wage. The big warehouse store Costco spent tons of money lobbying to have it passed.
The democrats so have their hands in the pockets of big business but they fool you. Then they pass the blame for these regs on some obscure environmental groups no one's heard of before that are funded exclusively on government grants and private grants given by these businesses and other democrats and then they are called in to do the dirty work and the public is none the wiser.

Anonymous said...

What 2:35 said. Read "The Meat Racket."
FYI-I am as "right wing" as they get and a fan of Micro Effect online broadcasts. Go and listen if you want the real story of the way things work.
"Big Beer" is secretly starting a war with the micro breweries now.

Anonymous said...

I see Marc Kilmer made sure his POV was posted after he made sure he got in some gratuitous self promotion...good for Marc

Anonymous said...

We are in VA during the holidays and get our turkeys from Sandy Lerner, the founder of Microsoft who now has a farm in Upperville VA. She also deals in beef, chicken and pork as well. She is quite vocal in saying that big meat packing companies, Cargill, Tyson, JBS, National Beef are instrumental in creating barriers for someone to enter into livestock farming on a smaller scale such as Wycall or to expand. She did her thesis on the anti-trust laws and how regulation is used to create monopolies.

Anonymous said...

So, you people are trying to say Democrats are for less regulation, less Government control and more freedoms for citizens?
What planet are you from? The fictional planet Utopia? Get real and take your propaganda somewhere else where people are stupid and will fall for it!

Anonymous said...

It's like this 630, democrats and big business are in cahoots, to run small businesses out of existence. The democratic plan is to have all service, commerce and trade controlled by a handful of big businesses and of course this suits the big businesses as well. It's the communist way. Then they have more control over the masses that way. THey use regulation pushed secretly by big business to run out the small businesses.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
No way 1:43 that is not true. You need to educate yourself. It's what is known as Big Agri business that is behind all those laws because they are anti small business and don't want them to grow because they are competition. so you can blame all the big chicken companies like perdue, mountaire and Tyson for the regulations. Maybe you are fooled but not me.
It's like the raise in minimum wage. The big warehouse store Costco spent tons of money lobbying to have it passed.
The democrats so have their hands in the pockets of big business but they fool you. Then they pass the blame for these regs on some obscure environmental groups no one's heard of before that are funded exclusively on government grants and private grants given by these businesses and other democrats and then they are called in to do the dirty work and the public is none the wiser.

April 19, 2014 at 2:35 PM

This sounds like a post from a true Democrat.

I happen to agree with 1:43.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
It's like this 630, democrats and big business are in cahoots, to run small businesses out of existence. The democratic plan is to have all service, commerce and trade controlled by a handful of big businesses and of course this suits the big businesses as well. It's the communist way. Then they have more control over the masses that way. THey use regulation pushed secretly by big business to run out the small businesses.

April 19, 2014 at 8:25 PM

And then they turn around and slam the Koch brothers because they are Republicans and support Republicans.