Show Solidarity with Blue Diamond Workers!

The almond corporations like Blue Diamond effect the livelihood of small family farmers also by flooding the markets with their pesticide soaked almonds. No way in hell would i ever buy any of the petrochemical filth peddled by Blue Diamond, regardless of what union deal gets worked out between management and workers..

Am on a long term fast from corporate agriculture and find greater purpose in supporting local organic farmers who already are treating workers with enough respect to avoid exposing them to carcinogenic chemicals in pesticide/herbicide sprays..

Matter of fact, if a blue diamond field went up in flames that wouldn't bother me one bit. fuck corporate america..

just what i was feeling. lots of pesticides in almonds.

Hey, idiot--allowing Blue Diamond workers to be defeated won't make Blue Diamond almonds any less toxic.

Indeed, if the workers are powerful (or relatively so) perhaps they'll use that power in the future to fight for a more healthful working environment, which would inevitably mean making said almonds less competetive and more healthy for everyone.

yes setting fire to plants exposed to toxins will be wonderful for our environment. just get down wind of the annual central valley rice burn and inhale deeply to feel the extra clean scrubbing power of soot, ash and carbonized fertilizers.

yes corporate systems are bad, lets punish a group of their victims (workers) for their complicity and forget about actually transforming the world into one that doesn't suck. I mean the world is chock full of jerks so lets just sit on our hands and let them kill each other off so we can inherit the glorious distopia that hollywood and video games promise... yeeehah primitivism and warlords here we come!

Since we're discussing the effects of a one time burn event compared to yearly applications by Blue Diamond corporation of various types of pesticides, fungicides, herbicides etc.. at the expense of farmworkers, ecosystem, organic farmers, etc.., it would be interesting to measure which one would have the worst effect..

Maybe i'm the worst kind of activist who talks the "primitivist" talk (whatever that means, realtime ecological sustainability?), yet won't walk the primitivist walk (evidenced by my using a computer). When other people (Jenson, McDavid) serve time in prisons for so-called ecosabatoge even if it was only talked about via hearsay of paid informant ("Anna"), not acted upon physically, the written threat of vandalism itself is a risk. Free speech protections have gone out the window following the "Patriot Act" and other forms of thought/speech policing..

Zach Jenson, Eric McDavid, Jeff Luers and many other captured ecoactivists are all in my thoughts on a daily basis, yet i have no desire to join them in prison, so i watch, wait and talk/write about what i would like to do if only i had the courage to risk several years in confinement with ruthless guards and hardened prisoners. Even if Zach snitched and cooperated, my comfort zone in an air conditioned building that i am free to leave at will doesn't put me in the position to judge him. Though i would like to think that i wouldn't snitch on my comrades, the reality of a prison sentence and whatever goes on behind closed doors could have different results, so don't tell me ANYTHING that would put either of us in danger of arrest or forced confession. The green scare pattern of arrests and confessions leaves me as not the most trusting person either (so don't ASK me anything sensitive!!), understanding that good people do succumb to the many forms of torture (psychological, physical, sensory, sexual, etc..) used by the state apparatus to extract info. Better to be called an antisocial misanthrope than be serving time in prison for being to friendly with sharing of sensitive info. Security culture trainings need to be regular events to avoid more greens getting scared of taking direct action..

Because i also ponder the downwind health effects of burning toxins i wait and think before acting. Since i also witness the yearly seasonal applications of carcinogenic/hormone disrupting pesticides and the percolation of last year's petrochemical pesticide toxins into the groundwater aquifier, watersheds, bioaccumulation up the food chain, etc.. i wonder how bad that one time burn would be, provided that nobody is injured when this occurs. This includes animal wildlife that is able to find a niche between the trees, though in corporate Blue Diamond orchards cover crops between the rows of trees are not usually there and bare open ground provides scant habitat..

Compare this lack of greenways in Blue Diamond corporate fields to organic nut growers who have mustard "weed" flowers and other seasonal vetch cover crops providing organic nitrogen and habitat for pollinators, beneficial predatory insects, mammals, reptiles, etc..

"Most organic farmers, gardeners and orchardists grow their crops with as few external inputs as possible. You can reduce your need for these inputs, improve the condition of your soil and control pest problems by growing cover crops. These crops add organic matter, “catch” excess nutrients before they leach from the soil, and prevent erosion during the wet winter and spring seasons. Other benefits include reduced compaction, improved moisture levels, increased soil biological activity, increased forage and fodder (grass/legume combination) crops, and nectar for bees and other pollinators.

Cover crops are used for three different purposes – as catch crops, green manures and living mulches.

Catch crops take up excess or residual nutrients remaining in the soil after harvest. These nutrients would be washed away or returned to the air (in the case of nitrogen), so binding them in a crop that decomposes in the spring can reduce fertilization needs. Catch crops can be winter-killed (they don't survive typical winter temperatures) or overwintering. Buckwheat, oats, spring wheat, and crimson clover are winter-killed crops; fall rye, winter wheat and spelt, grasses and hairy vetch overwinter.

Green manures add nitrogen or organic matter (or both) to the soil. Bacteria known as rhizobia enter the roots of legumes like alfalfa, clovers and beans, and form nodules, converting nitrogen from the air into a form plants use. However, for legumes to add nitrogen to the soil, you'll have to plough them under intact, including the beans. If you've never grown legumes, you'll need to inoculate your soil with rhizobia before planting. Obtain the right type of inoculant for the legume(s) you'll be growing to ensure good nitrogen production."

more info on cover crops @;
http://www.life.ca/nl/56/organics.html

Community Alliance of Family Farmers (CAFF) has worked with local conventional and organic farmers to help them reducing pesticide and herbicide inputs while maintaining their yield..

"For the past seven years, a small but growing number of farmers in California's Central Valley have been successfully reducing their insecticide, herbicide, and fertilizer inputs without affecting yield or quality. Based on the experiences of these growers, their independent pest control advisors, and UC researchers, CAFF formed the BIOS program to refine these techniques and extend them to other nut growers.

In 1993, 26 Merced County, California almond growers enrolled in a BIOS pilot program. Participants receive customized technical assistance and, in return, share the information generated in their orchard with other growers in the program.

In his first year in the program, almond grower Sherman Boone of Denair, California, used BIOS techniques on 170 of his 270 acres. On that ground, he cut his synthetic nitrogen applications by 75% and did not spray any organophosphate insecticides. Meanwhile, he harvested 2,300 pounds per acre, had an insect damage reject level of 0.03%, and kept production costs 25% below normal.

BIOS has since spread from the pilot program in Merced County to Stanislaus, Madera, San Joaquin, and Colusa counties, as well as to walnut farmers in Yolo and Solano counties."

more on Biologically Integrated Orchard Systems (BIOS) @;
http://www.caff.org/programs/bios.shtml

If a farmworker was given the choice of similar pay rate and benefits, the only difference being workplace exposure to toxic pesticides or NO exposure to toxic pesticides, wouldn't most choose the latter, free from pesticides? For this reason the focus needs to be on fair labor practices applied to organic farms and dismantling corporate slave labor plantation agribusinesses like Blue Diamond. Replacing corporate plantations with community farms and less pesticides would involve ecoactivists, labor unions (UFW/IWW/CIW/etc..) and residential communities demanding an end to corporate pesticide plantations and restoration/growth of community family farms similar to south central farm, local villages of farmworkers living around shady oak tree islands, surrounded by crop diversity..

Coalition of Immokalee Workers from Florida are working on making these collective dreams into reality..

"The CIW employs a unique combination of outreach, investigation, and worker-to-worker counseling in order to combat already-existing slavery operations case-by-case. At the same time, the CIW believes that the ultimate solution to modern-day slavery in agribusiness lies on the "demand side" of the US produce market -- the major food-buying corporations that profit from the artificially-low cost of US produce picked by workers in sweatshop and, in the worst cases, slavery conditions."

more on CIW's anti-slavery campaign @;
http://www.ciw-online.org/slavery.html

home;
http://www.ciw-online.org/