Reply #28: The percentage of farms in Vermont During the Dean adminstrations [View All]

[Nicholas_J]

Comprised of small Family Farms prior to Dena was 70 percent of the total of Vermont Farms. After Dean the percentage dropped to 56 percent.



ADM and MONSANTO were brought into Vermont by Dean.

You know, ARCHER,DANIELS, MIDLAND, "FOOD FOR THE WORLD" corporation

ANd Monsanto with its large genetically modified foods devision in Vermont.

Deans policies led to the loss of 36 percent of small family farms in favor of large corporate entities.



"Dean's attempt to run for president as an environmentalist is nothing but a fraud," Smith told Seven Days. "He's destroyed the Agency of Natural Resources, he's refused to meet with environmentalists while constantly meeting with the development community, and he's made the permitting process one big, dysfunctional joke."

Those are not the words you'd expect to hear from an environmentalist if you relied on the mainstream press for your news. The Burlington Free Press, for example, has spent the last week putting one coat of varnish after another on Dean's tenure, including a rather smarmy salute to his eco-record. The word from those quarters is that Dean is a friend of the environment and has done nothing but anger the business community by slowing development and stymieing growth.

His record, however, shows just the opposite. Remember, when Dean took office there were 36 percent more small farmers in Vermont; there were no Wal-Marts, no Taft Corners big boxes, and no 100,000-hen mega-farms. Sprawl was not the issue du jour.

Interestingly, Dean told the Free Press last week that he wished the rest of the country was "more like Vermont." But it seems he's allowed Vermont to become more like the rest of the country.

http://www.vtce.org/deanenvironmentomya.html