Last week, President Biden announced food shortages are coming due to sanctions against Russia. Christian, the Ice Age Farmer, predicts there will be food rationing and digital ID will be required to purchase food similar to a food passport. Food supply chains are being disrupted by the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. He described two massive attacks on our food supply: a phony “bird flu” epidemic, based on faulty PCR tests, is sweeping through Europe and the US, and is forcing mass depopulation of poultry & “backyard flocks.” And farms contaminated with PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ from using sewer bio-sludge as fertilizer are being shut down. Christian explores what is going to happen next: a great awakening.
Link for video: https://www.bitchute.com/video/1WyyFV7CYzhV/
Show notes: https://www.iceagefarmer.com/2022/03/25/biden-food-shortages-real-bird-flu-pcr-pfas-closes-farms/
‘I Don’t Know How We’ll Survive’: the Farmers Facing Ruin in Maine’s ‘Forever Chemicals’ Crisis
Songbird Farm’s 17 acres (7 hectares) hold sandy loam fields, three greenhouses and cutover woods that comprise an idyllic setting near Maine’s central coast. The small organic operation carved out a niche growing heirloom grains, tomatoes, sweet garlic, cantaloupe and other products that were sold to organic food stores or as part of a community-supported agriculture program, where people pay to receive boxes of locally grown produce.
Farmers Johanna Davis and Adam Nordell bought Songbird in 2014. By 2021 the young family with their three-year-old son were hitting their stride, Nordell said.
But disaster struck in December. The couple learned the farm’s previous owner had decades earlier used PFAS-tainted sewage sludge, or “biosolids”, as fertilizer on Songbird’s fields. Testing revealed their soil, drinking water, irrigation water, crops, chickens and blood were contaminated with high levels of the toxic chemicals.
The couple quickly recalled products, alerted customers, suspended their operation and have been left deeply fearful for their financial and physical wellbeing.
“This has flipped everything about our lives on its head,” Nordell said. “We haven’t done a blood test on our kid yet and that’s the most terrifying part. It’s fucking devastating.”
Public health advocates say Songbird is just the tip of the iceberg as Maine faces a brewing crisis stemming from the use of biosolids as fertilizer. The state has begun investigating more than 700 properties for PFAS contamination. Few results are in yet but several farmers’ independent testing revealed high PFAS levels, and statewide contamination has disrupted about 10 farms.
Farmers who spoke with the Guardian say other growers have admitted to hiding PFAS contamination because they fear economic ruin.
Maine is hardly alone. It is finding more contamination because it’s doing more testing, experts say. All sludge contains some level of PFAS, and farms across the country have increasingly used the substance as fertilizer in recent decades. Michigan, one of the only other states to monitor biosolids and to test agricultural products, recently discovered PFAS-contaminated beef.
“Many other states are going to be facing what Maine is facing now,” said Nancy Raine, secretary for Sierra Club’s wastewater residuals team. “Who is responsible for the harm done – the loss of livelihoods and property values?”
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds used to make products heat-, water- or stain-resistant. Known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, they have been linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, liver problems, birth defects, immunosuppression and more. Dozens of industries use PFAS in thousands of consumer products, and often discharge the chemicals into the nation’s sewer system.
Sludge is a by-product of the wastewater treatment process that’s a mix of human excrement and any number of more than 90,000 human-made chemicals or substances discharged from industry’s pipes. “It’s a toxic soup,” said Laura Orlando, a Boston University civil engineer who studies sludge contamination.
Sludge is expensive to landfill but as human excrement holds nitrogen, phosphorus and other plant nutrients, it’s often lightly treated, marketed as “biosolids” and sold or given to farmers who view it as a cost-saving fertilizer.
Maine’s unfolding crisis is prompting fresh calls to ban the practice and PFAS. In July, the state’s government became the world’s first to approve a near ban of PFAS, and a proposal to prohibit biosolids that haven’t been tested for PFAS is moving through the Maine legislature.
Meanwhile, farmers in financial ruin are demanding an aid package including immediate emergency relief funds, funding to help them move to a new income source and lifelong health monitoring.
“It’s going to be expensive but the state signed these sludge licenses and we can’t wait,” Nordell said. “Our businesses are in limbo right now, our lives are in limbo.”
Read full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/22/i-dont-know-how-well-survive-the-farmers-facing-ruin-in-americas-forever-chemicals-crisis