[Adopted at the MOGP annual convention on 8/18/18]

Overview:

All people have the right to healthy food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods. Too many people lack access to healthy food. The systematic destruction of people's self determination to control food is a consequence of a predatory corporate controlled food system from production to marketing to distribution of food. This results in poor rural and urban communities suffering from high rates of chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. There needs to be a transformation of the chemical/fossil fuel driven food system to an enhanced organic system where the soil, water, air, plants, and animals are nurtured to optimum health, and human health is freed from exposure to toxins applied throughout the food system. Food sovereignty includes having the right to food which is healthy and culturally appropriate. Guaranteeing it requires policies which support diversified food production in each region. 

Section 1. Food Providers/Agriculture Practices:

Farming and agricultural practices must change. The Missouri Green Party will promote policies which support diversified local, food production that encourage small, community -based, ecologically sustainable agriculture. The Missouri Green Party will uphold the rights of people and their communities to determine their own systems of production and to set community rules that may be stronger than state and federal rules. A conversion to an organic agricultural system would reduce the climate impact and restore the health of the food ecosystem.

Section 2. Food for Human and Global Health

Public policies in the food system have evolved to favor large-scale corporate chemical and industrialized farming, marketing, and retailing of food. Large scale animal agriculture contributes to climate change, human sicknesses, destruction of wild land, loss of biodiversity and contamination of water. The raising of livestock and poultry in CAFOs as well as their slaughter are often carried out in the most inhumane way. To address the threat to human and global health:

2a. Abolish patenting laws that allow created life forms to become private property.

2b. Restore Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for beef and pork for the benefit of both the local farmer in competition with cheaper, lower quality foreign meat, and the consumer wanting a healthy diet and to know where retail food comes from.

2c. Eliminate tax incentives and USDA programs that support and promote industrialized and chemical agriculture practices, and give full support and incentives for enhanced organic practices.

2d. Encourage localized food processing facilities. 2e. Adopt policies to encourage locally -grown food purchases.

2f. Phase out large-scale industrial farms, —CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) — for chickens, turkeys, cattle, pigs, and fish because they introduce antibiotics into retail meats, and transfer life killing patented GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) traits and the associated toxic sprays in and on grains and hence into the retail meat, and pollute the soil, water and air around the processing plants. Establish a moratorium on new CAFOs. Affirm the right of communities to regulate CAFOs in ways that protect the health and safety of their residents.

2g. Phase out herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers because they damage ecosystems, reduce biodiversity, adhere to the surface of foods, and are absorbed into grains and fruits and vegetables. These tainted foods lead to maladies such as heart disease, allergies, obesity, low sperm count, colon and rectal cancer, and chronic gut conditions, and may contribute to autism, birth defects and attention deficit disorders.

2h. Repeal “ag-gag” laws, which are meant to hide animal abuse from the public by prohibiting or restricting recordings at industrialized farming operations, or which limit the time for reporting abuse to authorities (“rapid-reporting” laws).

2i. During a 10 year transition to a diet with less meat, establish a campaign to reduce over-consumption of meat, using education about the health and environmental hazards involved in the production and consumption of non-organic and industrialized meats, and to teach consumers how to prepare healthy alternative plant-based dishes in place of meat-centered diets, and to proclaim official meatless days of the week.

2j. Reduce meat consumption in state-run eating facilities, public schools (including institutions of higher learning) and all other schools and facilities receiving state funding.

2k. Guarantee income and quality of life at least as high as currently earned (or a living wage, whichever is more) to all those who currently earn income working in agriculture (including meat-related industries).

2l. Shift subsidies for large scale animal and grain agriculture to providing alternative opportunities for farmers (such as growing food crops or fiber).

Section 3. Healthy Food Vision: What would a world look like where healthy food is the norm for all people?

3a. All food would be grown by enhanced organic practices in healthy soil.

3b. Each community, rural or urban, would be as self-contained as possible, with local growers selling to local buyers and to local processing plants and to local retail centers and restaurants, and the price of growing and handling and buying food would be based on a living wage.

3c. Food deserts in rural and urban areas would be eliminated because all food would be organically based, healthy food free of dyes, chemical additives, excessive amounts of salt and sugar, and all other unnecessary and harmful additives. In rural and urban areas without grocery stores, community stores would provide enhanced, organic healthy food.

3d. Higher public subsidies would be given to lower income people for the purchase of organic/healthy food.

3e. Monoculture farming would move to diversified organic production with multi-seasonal rotations of crops that include frequent cover crops in the rotation.

3f. As an alternative to CAFOs, livestock would be raised according to the natural rhythms of life and in sync with nature, including giving them a natural diet.

3g. Agricultural research would shift away from the manufactured chemical mindset to research into what makes foods nutrient-dense and how to more effectively grow it organically.

3h. An organic and healthy food system would align with nature and a healthy ecosystem.