I see, as predicted, this has devolved into its standard “police are the devil” discussion, which is a classic. But if we stick to the topic, I think a lot of it is clickbait.
Disclaimer - I watched most of the video but it was a bit hard to watch, and I love the calm objective title of the article, “engineered famine.” Hmmmm.
CAFO - not too much to say about that. There’s always been an effort in every sector for the big guys to push the little guys out of business. Industry and deeper pockets use government to try to legislate the little guys to death. It sucks. Any industry. Dairy or livestock is no different.
But I think in some ways headway has actually been made. I’ll use raw milk as an example because our family has been buying and drinking it since 2008 here in Oregon where it’s legal to do so but only from farm to consumer, not from stores. Example: in 2000 raw milk was only legal to buy in about half of the country. 24 years later now it’s available to buy in 43 states. I think that’s actually progress for smaller farms who aren’t in the bigger “commercial” style production, and definitely progress for healthy options for food.
Not having much info on CAFO’s and realizing each situation is different I’ll stay out of any more discussion due to lack of knowledge. But what I see in the article and video is that this relates to commercial endeavors. Not individuals living off of their own land and feeding their own families etc.
Water…..oh boy. Here we go.
They reference her case in the video. Here’s a more in-depth article:
As Oregon more actively enforces state rules around water usage, some farmers have learned that they’ve been operating illegally for years.
www.opb.org
This problem wasn’t created by the government, and certainly not by the police. The great citizens of Oregon (and I’m guessing here, but probably including the very lady in Eugene that the article references that I am guessing moved here from Cali, and if not then I apologize to her) voted to make marijuana legal. Much like many states are doing or have done or are trying to do. I’ll give you one guess why there is a growing water problem and why there’s more funding for regulators and enforcement. And I totally support it. Go drive or fly around the west side of Oregon and especially southern oregon. Everyone is growing marijuana. And they are sucking the ground dry to do it. They are impacting actual “farmers” and disregarding water rights that have been established for over a century.
There’s nothing that says she can’t irrigate her 1/2 acre garden for her own consumption. But when she moves into the Lorane area, which does have areas where people have to truck water to their homes just to flush their toilets due to well water inadequacies you’re gonna have neighbors who care that she decides to start a commercial operation and water it liberally. And honestly, she’s probably fine, as she uses very little in the grand scheme and the article says there’s chances that some people who received letters are actually operating within the law.
Again, this is marijuana, greed, criminal endeavors, and frankly - out of staters who have moved in, bought traditional farm land to grow marijuana, and guzzled the ground dry in their efforts. There’s literally regular folks who live out in the country whose wells have gone dry only to find out it was because of commercial style (mostly illegal) marijuana grows around them who use incredible amounts of water without water rights so they can sell and ship the weed to, you guessed it, other states where it’s illegal. So enters the government, at the normal people’s request, to better regulate the water use. Not engineered famine, but actually protecting the legit small farmers and regular folks.
She may be an unintended “victim” (I use that term very loosely) but that’s what you get when you want to legalize weed and have zero checks on people who move here and exploit the state, it’s land, it’s resources, and it’s lack of policing or enforcement of a newly legal (using that term loosely as well) product that isn’t legal in the large consuming metro areas in other parts of the US.
That’s why the water resources department and laws were bolstered up in 2021 because this problem really started appearing before then. In 2020 all people did was smoke weed and then go “lawfully assemble” so consumption went up dramatically. Old news. It’s not new news around here. And frankly, she should support it more than anyone, because in reading her bio on her website she studied environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz and then worked as a natural resources management volunteer. She should completely understand the regulation, but I’m guessing since it’s impacting her “commercial” endeavors that she deems important it’s suddenly a problem. Subjective, not objective.
Frankly you’re seeing this with another brilliant piece of Oregon voter intelligence, measure 110, which they are now hugely regretting and are going to recriminalize drugs to some degree. But they won’t recriminalize weed, so they have to be better at regulating water because they can’t keep up with the weed. Sounds like weed is on the decline now though, thanks to the rest of the US trying to be like Oregon, so I suspect folks might get a little relief from the problems of weed growers in rural areas….but only to a small degree.
But engineered famine? I’m not buying that in Oregon based on what I read in this article. Not saying it isn’t happening but these examples aren’t freaking me out. They don’t need to engineer famine. Modern lazy lifestyles and lack of work ethic is doing that just fine on its own. It takes work to feed yourself without a credit card, and most aren’t willing to do the work.
Rant over, continue off topic police hating rhetoric below.