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| Socialist Party USA: 2012-2013 National
Platform |
Agriculture
The Socialist Party supports a system of
ecologically based, sustainable, organic agriculture based on family
farms and farming cooperatives that guarantee full workers’ rights to
their employees, uphold all environmental and safety standards, and
treat their live-stock in a humane manner. We support the creation of
socially owned enterprises in the areas of transportation, storage, and
processing of agricultural goods, controlled by boards comprised of
farmers, farm workers, and community members.
- We
call for strong organic standards, gradually lessened government price
supports for non-organic food production, and strong government
incentives for conservation initiatives.
- We call for public ownership and worker
control of existing corporate farms, support exiting state bans on
corporate farms, and support a federal ban on the establishment of new
corporate farms.
- We call for the repudiation of all current
farm debts for working farmers.
- We call for family farmers whose land was
taken in foreclosures to be given their land and equipment back, or be
given comparable land and equipment or monetary compensation
- We call for a total ban on Genetically
Engineered crops.
- We encourage plant diversity, and oppose
the creating, patenting, and licensing of life forms.7. We oppose
industrial meat production in all its environmentally destructive
forms, including hog confinements, cattle feedlots, and industrial
poultry production.
- We call for a ban on irradiation of food.
We particularly condemn the 2002 Farm Bill which allows irradiated food
to be mislabeled “pasteurized.”
- We support the right of farm workers to
negotiate contracts with canneries.
- We call for country-of-origin labeling on
agricultural products.
- We call for the elimination of the use of
pesticides.
- We call for low-cost loans, grants, and
technical help to farmers including help shifting farm production from
non-essentials to staple foods and fibers.
- We encourage the reintroduction of hemp
farming.
- We call for legislation banning the
practice of plowing under fields in order to manipulate market forces
so as to increase price.
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