BREAKING STORY: County Commissioners: Please Vote No to Theft of Agriculture Money. By Geniusofdespair

I was ushered into a County Conference room with a small group of Environmentalists years ago, was it 2007? When was that stupid bond issue? We were there to get money in the bond issue for the PDR program, farmers were working their own front (county website describing the PDR Program):

Purchase of Development Rights

Miami-Dade County's agricultural lands are a unique and economically important resource. On September 20, 2007, the Board of County Commissioners adopted a resolution creating the County’s Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) Program. The PDR Program implements the will of Miami-Dade County voters by utilizing General Obligation Bond funds to preserve agricultural land. This program serves as one mechanism for farmland preservation by providing the County with the ability to purchase residential development rights from willing property owners, ensuring that the related properties remain undeveloped and available for agricultural uses.

I went down to the county to beg for money all those years ago. I think this was the only time I did beg the County for money. Between the environmentalists and the farmers, we got the money in the bond, $30 Million. Good.

Now my farmer friend reported to me that at today's meeting of the Economic Prosperity Committee they want to take $6,000,000 of that money for Ludlam Trail, he said:

Transferring funds from the Purchase of Development Rights program to fund the Ludlam Trail is a theft that cannot be allowed to happen! Myself and many others worked hard and convinced many others to vote for this bond issue. At a time when open space, natural areas, and rural agricultural lands have been systematically reduced in the county it is beyond reason to approve this transfer.

Agriculture in Miami Dade is constantly under pressure due to suburban sprawl, rising costs and regulations. Now, we are faced with a Oriental Fruit Fly quarantine which is having a devastating economic impact on growers. This proposed transfer of funds is a slap in the face to the many citizens who voted for this program and will hurt those farmers who work hard to maintain viable agriculture which is a major part of our county.

Please consider voting this proposal down.

He is too polite. I say NO NO NO. Although Ludlam Trail is worthy, this is like taking money from Everglades National Park to give it to Biscayne National Park, it is liking choosing to clean water or clean air, Peter to pay Paul (you get it?). This PDR money is to be held to buy development rights. If it is sitting there it is waiting it should be. The farmers were waiting for the downturn to pass, now there are applications pending for the money from a few farmers. So it is working and it is one of the only ways we have of saving farmland. It is so important. We need to preserve this land. It has to be there when farmers apply for it. KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF IT COMMISSIONERS. I think the meeting is today at 2. Do I have to drag myself downtown. Really? On a Friday? To go home in rush hour? Shame on whoever thought this up for torturing me. I should be under my covers on Friday the 13th.

As a postscript: Mayor Gimenez took a loan of $10,000,000 from this PDR pot to put sand on a beach (beach renourishment program or as I call it the climate change denial program).  BUT, THIS IS NOT A LOAN. THIS LUDLAM TRAIL IDEA TAKES THE MONEY. The Ludlam Trail people did not ask for this and knew nothing about it. This was a bad idea by the mayor. Leave the money pot alone. I bet the Mayor will never repay it. As for Commissioner Sosa, she said it was not her idea, it came from the department -- she said further "It was me looking and working with the employees of the departments looking for alternative funding to prevent construction in all residential areas next to the line with the hope to make it green and a real trail." The Mayor is saying, according to his office, he knew nothing about it, it came directly from Sosa, Charles LaPradd said the same. Jennifer Moon had to find the money for Rebeca. Is Rebeca being thrown under the bus? The Mayor's Departments had to alert him on what was going on.

Postscript 2: Did the citizens committee in charge of changes to these bond funds approve the change? I called Nan Markowitz, in charge of  GOB to find out. Waiting to hear back. This story isn't over.

Citizens of REDLAND vs FDOT. Guest Blog By Fruit Farmer Frank

Dictatorial FDOT. You're not the boss of me!!!

First we have to deal with the Fruit Fly quarantine of our crops. Now it is FDOT wanting to put a wide road through our rural farmland. Doesn't anyone want to help the small farmers?

On September 30th we heard FDOT give the BCC --Commissioners and Mayors of Cities-- their plan for Krome Avenue's widening in the farming area of the Redland. There wasn't a lot of people there to talk about it and the Chair of the Commission seemed as though he had made up his mind and when we spoke he acted like he had somewhere else to go. Chairman Monestine seemed all for the plan and let people talk who wanted it. However, he cut off Farmers and those against the plan. If you needed a little more time to talk, he just cut you off. BAM!! Now mind you, there wasn't too many people there to talk -- maybe 12. Chair Monestime certainly could have let the people say a little more since we travel so far to have our voices heard and we have so much to deal with out here with the quarantine. Have a heart Jean!

Chair Monestime was even a bit arrogant and disrespectful to his own commissioners like Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava. A term, he used, "you can find it in your packet". She can ask anything she wants, even if it is in her packet because we want to know - the public doesn't have a packet. I think that was a bit abrupt to her and us. Even Commissioner Rebeca Sosa seemed disturbed by his reactions on something she was explaining.

THE BIG QUESTION i WOULD LIKE AN ANSWER TO:

WHAT ARE THE CHECKS AND BALANCES OF FDOT??? HOW DID THEY COME TO BE??

Also the residents of the Keyes are upset with FDOT.

The Great Tropical Fruit Farm Tour of 2015. By Geniusofdespair

Like any good reporter, I didn't take any notes on my farm tour. So don't expect any facts. I am not Joe Friday. Just enjoy the observations. I went to an avocado (yes it is a fruit) farm with mangoes, a lychee farm and what appeared to be a mamey and other fruit farm. The amazing thing is 2 farmers were farming on about 2 acres (one had 5). These small farms are viable and the backbone of our farming district, far outweighing our row farmers (the ones with all the clout and the tomatoes). The fruits these farmers grow CANNOT grow anywhere else in the continental United States. Please correct in comments any mistakes I have printed by photo number.

1. Tropical Fruit. That is not a grapefruit. And the little fruit has some white liquid that they once made chiclet gum out of -- Sticky, don't drink it.

2. A flowering tree. forgot the name.

3. Mango blossoms.

4. This is a graft. The tree was cut and now they are making it into a different variety of Mango. The graft will grow into the branch. They will cut the branch and the graft will take over with the new variety.

5. This is an invasive species lizard. Forgot the name.

6. Hmmm. Now what are these.

7. Lychee trees on a two acre farm.

8. Mamey Fruit.

9.  Ripe Mamey. Tastes pretty good and doesn't give you the runs. I just scoop it out and eat it. I even put it in my salad. Looks pretty erotic to me.

10. Mango grove all those flowers, Mangoes.  This farmer cuts out the middle of the tree so it can get more sun. He also leaves room in between the trees so they can get sun. He said to keep them at about 12 feet to make them healthy.

Okay there you have it. My tour. The farmers were concerned for the future of farming in Miami Dade County.  People are moving in and you need lots of farms to survive. Sprawl and farming don't mix. If you want to comment on a specific photo with information, use the numbers.  I love farmers. County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava has been out here but not the Mayor. Mayor Gimenez get to these farms!!!

Let's buy one of them a new cherry picker. The old one was dying.  He used to just pull down the branches to pick them.  These farmers work hard. Make sure you read the comments for real information. I am just an observer, and a bad listener.

One farmer said if we don't preserve the UDB farming in South Miami Dade will be over. Please say it ain't so. Commissioner Zapata are you listening?

County Commissioner Lynda Bell Sucks up to Farmers At the Expense of the Everglades and the Environment and Outright Lies to Voters about it. No Public testimony was allowed.

Petting the monkey, feeding the shark: Lynda Bell -- beleaguered county commissioner facing a tough re-election -- was caught in the commission chamber  pandering to the constituency that most cares about her reign of petty jealousies at the Miami-Dade county commission: wealthy farmers and developers whose main goal is and has always been their own bank accounts. 

It was a sly little move that Bell pulled, a resolution asking for an increase in flood protection in an area where flood protection has already been locked down by special interests, as a state and federal matter. Likely, she was given the task in return for "support" during this last phase of her campaign against challenger Daniella Levine Cava.

EOM guest blogger, Ann Hinga, details the action in Part 2, but here is a quick interpretation.

Miami-Dade's industrial farmers (row crop farmers) and developers pay lip service to the environment. Lynda Bell pays lip service to the environment. The big industrial farmers and Lynda Bell see eye-to-eye.

What they really want is to control regulations: in particular, they want to control whatever flood control measures are implemented by regulatory agencies in state and federal government. When they can't get what they want, their fall back position is to delay, delay, delay.

Big industrial farmers who have taken taxpayers to the cleaners get whatever they want.  What Lynda Bell did the other day is the best example how they do it; the best example taxpayers and voters have had in a long time.  In putting a resolution outside the four day rule, Lynda Bell straight out lied.

She lied when she claimed to have gotten support from the environmentalists. That's utter, complete bullshit. (In fact, it serves the Everglades Foundation right -- that's the one group Bell called out -- they were taken advantage of.  But Bell had reason to believe they would be her patsies because she used the photo op they created for her on a recent Everglades "tour". When she used the photo op to claim her environmental credentials, the Everglades Foundation did not complain. Her thinking: why would they raise a fuss, now?) But they did, they said publicly they did NOT support Lynda's resolution.


The intent of the Bell resolution to INCREASE flood control for farmers shows that the incumbent county commissioner is willing to go to bat for them -- despite the fact they already dominate water supply in South Florida. The flood control for farmers was settled many years ago with the Army Corps and Lynda knows that.

So, yes. This is about politics. It is also as Ann Hinga -- our guest blogger -- points out, about Jim Humble, the South Dade multi-millionaire from the Frog Pond hijacking (another story) -"ringing the Bell" just like reviving the engines at a drag race.

It is also about Bell's colleagues on the county commission. Any one of them could have pulled this item from the county commission agenda because it hadn't been properly noticed within the required time frame. The public could have been given the chance to speak.

Who knows why the county commissioners turned a blind eye: was it ignorance, cowardice, or simply the privilege of incumbency being offered to one of their own, so that when it is time for their own re-election, they can pull similar tricks? (Remember then county commissioner Joe Martinez -- now running for Congress -- and the egg lady from the 8.5 Square Mile Area performance? Check our archive.)

In any case, Lynda Bell was asked to perform, but to perform in a way for her backers in a way that shows a sly disregard for fact, a willingness to toe the line for special interests, and talent for pushing around fellow county commissioners on the dais.  Jim Humble is tickled pink and so are the Miami industrial farmers and developers, too, who are being called upon to support Bell's political campaign.

As for voters in District 8, we expect they will know what to do when their elected representative is caught petting the monkey and when there is a good challenger to do the right thing by them and not for special interests.

See Part 2  or hit link

The most recent pandering by County Commissioner Lynda Bell: THIS SUCKS … guest blog by Ann Hinga

Part 2 also see Part 1:
 

Lynda Bell at May 6th County Commission Meeting.

In 2000, Congress authorized the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan to restore the Greater Everglades Ecosystem. Among the conditions placed on CERP by Congress, CERP implementation required the maintenance of then-current flood protection levels.

Since CERP was authorized, some agricultural interests, some development interests, and some elected officials have sought to misrepresent the authorization and claim that CERP is meant to provide enhanced flood protection. This is untrue. Yesterday, Miami Dade County Commissioner Lynda Bell actively participated in this misrepresentation by putting forth a resolution she claims was in support of full implementation of the C-111 CERP project and the Modified Waters Delivery Project (which is a foundation ecological restoration project that was meant to pre-date CERP). If her intention was truly to forward these critical CERP projects for ecological restoration, LYNDA BELL would not have included the language highlighted below:

RESOLUTION URGING THE SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT AND U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS TO FULLY IMPLEMENT AND OPERATE THE MODIFIED WATER DELIVERIES PROJECT AND THE C-111 PROJECT TO END FLOOD IMPACTS TO AGRICULTURAL PROPERTIES IN SOUTHERN MIAMI-DADE COUNTY CAUSED BY WATER MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES 

The full resolution language is available here.

You can view the webcast of the hearing here, it comes at 3:28 on the counter:

Some things to keep in mind as you review the resolution and video…

1) This resolution did not go to a Board of County Commissioners committee and thereby avoided public hearing.

2) This resolution was on the 4-day rule portion of the agenda, meaning Commission Lynda Bell's colleagues did not get the required four days needed for adequate review. Any of the other Commissioners could have asked for a deferral for the simple reason they did not have enough time for review. Unfortunately, the other Commissioners are not fluent enough in CERP and did not recognize the bait and switch Commissioner Bell was pulling.

3) Commissioner Lynda Bell claimed she contacted environmental groups prior to putting this forward. Another lie. Only one group - the Everglades Foundation - acknowledges they were contacted, but their representative gave public comment earlier in the day that they could not support the project because it created false expectations of flood control. (see 1:48 min. on the webcast link for the comments by the Everglades Foundation.)

4) The only non-elected person that spoke on the item was MDC Agricultural Manager Charles LaPradd. No professional staff from DERM, nor anyone that could speak about the environmental issues, provided any testimony.

5) Commissioner Bell acknowledged right at the beginning of her comments that this was related to discussions she had with the Farm Bureau and some of the South Dade growers.

Ironically, as if a well-choreographed dance, south Dade resident James Humble was at the combined Water Resources Advisory Committee / South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force meeting also asserting that south Dade is entitled to enhanced flood protection under CERP. This meeting was at the same time as the Commission meeting; one reason why the environmental groups were not present in Commission Chambers when Bell's item was heard.

If Commissioner Lynda Bell and the south Dade agricultural interests really want to advocate for full implementation of CERP, it's time for them to get real and start developing strategies to help them adapt to restoration - if adaptation is really even needed. It's more likely that full implementation of CERP is needed to protect ground water resources for their benefit and the benefit of the ecosystem.

The problem identified: Homestead, in a nutshell ... by gimleteye

The economic crisis arising out of the housing boom -- involving mainly the conversion of "cheap" farmland into suburban tract housing -- infected the entire United States. The model of destruction was clearly visible in south Florida, where so much stupidity followed the massive rezoning of open space and private property defining the once magnificent Everglades; building massive wealth and powerful political constituencies to replicate the pattern and proliferate sprawl as fast as banks would finance it.

There is an interesting article in today's Miami Herald where the formula is put right into the open by John Alger, in "Homestead, farmer look to settle lawsuit with Air Force." The issue, as described, is "balancing" the rights of property ownership of farmland located very close to the US Air Force Base at Homestead.

The array of economic and political interests to convert that air base into a massive, private (and no-bid) commercial airport consumed years of my life, beginning in the mid-1990's. At its heart, the fight, joined by civic activists and conservationists from around the nation, revolved around the focus of the Herald article: the use of thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive land, owned by large land owners, as fodder to spread sprawl against the chance to restore Biscayne Bay and the Everglades.

Mr. Alger gets straight to the point in the Herald article, "We have no immediate desire for development," said Alger, a third-generation farmer. "But the development rights allow us to preserve a hypothetical value that can be used for collateral."

"Is" used for collateral is the key point. The reason Homestead became the foreclosure capital of the nation after the recent housing bust is that banks conspired to lend farmers/developers money at values and rates that offered no chance for any outcome other than pricing to transform farm acres to zero lot line housing. Homestead continues to be the most egregious example, except perhaps for towns like Stockton in California's Central Valley.

Banks and land owners across the nation have conspired to use the developable value of real estate to finance everything from lifestyles to crops, turning once rock-solid, conservative businesses adverse to risk into gambling operations no different from casinos.

There is nothing illegal in Mr. Alger's premise, but there should be. The hypothetic value, moreover, of developable real estate is not only the foundation of banking and lending practices; it is virtually enshrined by the political order. A sane society would create financial barriers protecting communities by denying banks the opportunity to lend and to conspire on "developable values" where sprawl is the highest value. But ours is not a sane society. Even after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, there has been no public outcry or demand for change in banking regulations. In fact, as our blog has observed: the reverse is occurring. Every economic interest in South Florida, like the founders and speculators of US Century Bank, are hoarding cash and waiting for the miracle to come: the reversion to development and land use models that catalyzed growth leading up to the crash.

Our connections to democracy -- lamented on the Herald pages by FIU president emeritus Mitch Madique as "apathy" -- have been turned to dust by encouragement of land speculation.

To see how this happens, you don't have to be a farmer or property rights champion or environmentalist: you simply have to go to the county commission and watch how decisions are made on a single zoning application at the fringe of the Urban Development Boundary. To see how speculation took root and infected Florida, you just have to watch one legislative session in Tallahassee where the Great Destroyers devise one more way to socialize risk and privatize profit; it is all about encouraging the speculators.

One can empathize with farmers who don't want to be farmers: under the best of circumstances, farming is a difficult, challenging way to make a living. (And under conditions of climate change, it could get much worse, faster than anyone is talking about ...) But economic policies that reward farmers for being land speculators -- using, for example, farmland as collateral based on its developable value as suburban sprawl -- has made some people rich and powerful while destroying public discourse.

What is also unfortunate and regrettable is that this view is never given an inch of space on the Herald OPED page. That fact alone demonstrates the influence of downtown land use law firms, like Greenberg Traurig and Holland and Knight. Miami has never known another way to accumulate wealth than formulas based on speculation. It is why casinos are held in such esteem and so many land use decisions made by local government, detached from reality.

Miami Dade: Here is what the race to the bottom looks like ... by gimleteye

Here is what the race to the bottom looks like: read the nonsense, below.

I don't know whoever wrote this open letter distributed at a public meeting recently. Jose Fernandez comes from the Alice Pena School of Communication. Pena has represented the 8 1/2 Square Mile residents who hate government and agencies charged with protecting the Everglades. For more than 20 years she has obstructed, vilified, and impugned the integrity of public officials, conservationists, and by extension tax payers who are carrying the costs of protecting an area that should never have been built out, because it is so close to wetlands and prone to flooding.

Now, Pena is at the head of a county "committee" to rewrite environmental regulations. Put there by County Commissioner Lynda Bell who has also elevated speculators and large land owners who can't wait to turn their green fields into strip malls and crappy subdivisions. Pena is their mouthpiece. Bell is her protector. The unreformable majority of the county commission and Mayor Carlos Gimenez -- who sat by idly while common sense was ground to dust -- are to blame.

The Fernandez jeremiad is filled with hatred and vitriol against government. It is complete paranoid nonsense but it is nonsense that has gained traction because elected officials refuse to call it out, for what it is.

Pena and supporters like James Humble have been stoking irrational fears against government for decades in far West Dade (Humble made millions in profit from the federal government by speculating on The Frog Pond adjacent to the Everglades with fellow big farmer investors), where nothing is a "compromise" with government so long as there is one more government bureaucrat alive to skin.

This idea of a "land grab" by DERM -- an environmental agency of the county that has been hacked to pieces the way the Hutu set upon the Tutsi in the Congo -- is ludicrous. And yet. And yet. And yet these views have been advanced by the silence of the unreformable majority of the county commission.

The destruction of public respect for government has happened right under the noses of county commissioners who not only refuse to condemn this nonsense: they actually endorse it. Alice Pena was granted the right to personally address the county commission -- outside the scheduled agenda and going around the due process to ensure that government would be fair and equitable to all points of view and perspectives -- when Joe Martinez and Pepe Diaz called her to the dais to verbally knife what remains of environmental authority and regulation in the county. It was pathetic. It was highly damaging to already damaged morale in county government. (Click the link to read the three-part essay we published on the Pena debacle.)

No one, and I mean no one stood up to condemn the Alice Pena vitriol. If you pull that thread all the way to the end, you get the kind of anti-government zealots and Tea Party crazies and elected officials -- even the highest -- who have implicitly fostered public hysteria, ignorance, and the race to the bottom.

SEE PHOTOS taken outside Derm's Office...

Reactionary farmers in South Dade most at risk from nuclear power at Turkey Point ... by gimleteye

Property rights extremists in South Dade have long fueled the battle against environmental protections and government "interference" through regulations governing zoning (ie. Urban Development Boundary), wetlands, and public lands like Everglades National Park. They have been friends to the monster next door: two aging and vulnerable nuclear reactors at Turkey Point whose failing cooling canals are speeding the intrusion of highly saline salt water into fresh water aquifers. Never mind a nuclear meltdown: there is no plan to reverse the salt water intrusion that is expanding toward South Dade farmland and residential areas. With a recent uprate of the nuclear power facility, the salt water intrusion will likely increase in velocity. (But hey, what do I know: I'm not a nuclear engineer.) The inconvenient fact of salt water intrusion has raised alarm of a nearby rock miner, ACI. But rock miners, as an industry, and farmers too are so locked into their opposition for environmental rules and regulations, what is happening at Turkey Point seems more like an act of God than of men who don't have the courage to prevent certain devastating consequences of industrial practices could have been contained by better rules and laws, a long long time ago in Miami Dade and the nation. The hubris is worthy of a Greek tragedy. (But no one goes to the theater unless it is a revival of a Broadway sequel at the Performing Arsht Center.) One of the saddest details of the nuclear catastrophe in Japan is the extent to which farmers in the region -- including farmers who have been on their land for more than 15 generations-- are finished. According to The New York Times, "At least one farmer has been pushed over the edge. The newspaper The Asahi Shimbun reported recently that a 64-year-old farmer in Sukagawa, a city in Fukushima, killed himself one day after the government imposed a ban on the sale of cabbages from the prefecture." 15 Generations. Count them, South Dade farmers.

Farming that values and is respectful of land and environmental values should be treasured by all consumers and taxpayers. Unfortunately, that counts out the farmers who are property speculators in South Dade and who turned South Florida's last rural landscape into a junior version of Kendall. It all happened in a heartbeat during the late, great land rush and housing bubble. No one went to jail for it, but there should have been laws. (Instead, what the Florida legislature and Gov. Rick Scott are now poised to do, is use the Depression to give a "free get out of jail" card to every farmer and land speculator in the state to build whatever they want, whenever they want to, eviscerating what remains of growth management.) Environmentalists were as powerless to stop the South Dade land bankers and farmers (Bill Losner, James Humble, Bob Eppling et al), as the fresh water lens supplying fresh water to agriculture and people can resist the salt water plume generated by the existing nuclear reactors at Florida Power and Light. Too bad, you won't read or hear this view about the reactionary extremist farmers in the mainstream press. Read about the fate of Japanese farmers as reported in The New York Times by clicking 'read more'. Imagine, if it happened here how quickly those same farmers who belittle environmental protections in Miami-Dade would be screaming bloody murder.
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March 29, 2011
Japan Nuclear Crisis Erodes Farmers’ Livelihoods
By MICHAEL WINES
TOWA, Japan — If Japan’s leaders regard the collapse of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex as this nation’s greatest crisis in decades, Saichi Sato has a different perspective. From where he sits in this leafy village of 8,000 about 25 miles from Daiichi, he says, this is the greatest crisis in 400 years.

Mr. Sato, 59, is a 17th-generation family farmer, a proprietor of 14 acres of greenhouses and fields where he grows rice, tomatoes, spinach and other vegetables. Or did grow: Last week, the national government banned the sale of farm products not just from Towa, but also from a stretch of north-central Japan extending south almost to Tokyo, for fear that they had been tainted with radiation.

Already, Mr. Sato stands to lose a fifth of his income because of the ban. If the government cannot contain the Daiichi disaster, he could lose a farm that his family has tended since the 1600s.

“Even if it’s not safe, I need my fields for my work,” he said. “I have no other place to go. I don’t even want to think about escaping from my land.”

Here and elsewhere in Fukushima Prefecture, the region hit hardest by the nuclear crisis, farmers are worried about their future — and convinced, like Mr. Sato, that the government is not on their side.

In interviews, several said they believed that leaders in Tokyo had mishandled the Daiichi disaster, sending conflicting signals on radiation dangers that fed panic among citizens. And they nurse a grievance, justified or otherwise, that in this moment of national peril the powers that be have thought first about Tokyo and only later about the hinterlands that are hurting the most.

And they are clearly hurting. Japan depends heavily on foreign suppliers for most food, but up to 80 percent of all vegetables are locally grown. Fukushima’s 70,000 commercial farmers produce more than $2.4 billion worth of spinach, tomatoes, milk and other popular foods a year.

The government’s ban on produce sales last week stopped that industry — and those in three adjacent prefectures to the south, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma — in their tracks. Across the region, farmers are dumping millions of gallons of milk and tons of ripe vegetables into pits and streams, unable to sell their products legally on the open market.

“I can’t keep going for too long,” said Kenzo Sasaki, 70, who milks 18 cows on a farm outside the city of Fukushima, the local capital. Mr. Sasaki estimates that he is losing nearly $31,000 — not including the cost of feeding his herd — for every month that the sales ban continues.

Across town, Shoichi Abe, 62, milks about 30 cows in his own dingy barn. He has been unable to sell his 1,100 pounds of daily production since the March 11 earthquake damaged the milk-processing plant at the local farm co-op.

Now the government has extended that prohibition indefinitely.

Mr. Abe said, “It’s costing us 70,000 yen a day” — about $860.

“We have no income,” he said, “and the truth is that we don’t want to continue this. All the agriculture is gone. The consumers don’t want to buy products from Fukushima Prefecture, so we can’t sell them. It’s the rumor problem.”

To a person, the farmers say their products are safe to eat and drink. None of the growers interviewed had been visited by anyone seeking to monitor radiation on their land. The government’s radiation readings — to the extent that they have been publicized — have been ambiguous at best.

The government has ordered residents to leave a zone within 12 miles of the stricken Fukushima nuclear complex, while American regulators have suggested that people stay at least 50 miles away from the plant. Officials in the city of Fukushima, about 40 miles from the stricken reactor, have regularly posted analyses of radiation levels in drinking water — levels that approached official safety limits early on, but that have since dropped.

Outside the city, however, readings have been spotty, and some local residents feel overlooked. “They found radiation in the water in Tokyo, so they announced about Tokyo,” said Miyoko Abe, 57, the wife of a Fukushima diary farmer, referring to radiation reports that caused a run on bottled water in Tokyo last week. “But we know nothing about water north of Tokyo. The government is trying only to protect Tokyo.

“Maybe the prime minister is hiding in the nuclear shelter,” she said. “We don’t see him anywhere.”

More confusing to growers and consumers alike is the opaque official stance on what is safe and unsafe to buy and eat. The National Health Ministry, which had no limits on radiation in food, scrambled to set safety standards after the Fukushima crisis erupted. The new provisional rules, modeled on international criteria, generally deem a food unsafe if consuming it daily for one year would be likely to cause health problems.

Japanese officials began by banning the sales of only certain foods, including spinach and milk, which are especially prone to absorbing radiation. But the ban was later extended to a broad range of produce, even as officials stressed that the radiation level in any single product was not dangerous for anyone who consumed it at ordinary levels.

Farmers say the ambiguity has effectively shut down their sales. “We think we’ll lose 80 percent of our income,” Ryuji Togashi, who runs a Towa-area farmer’s co-op store, said last weekend. “We’ve been damaged by rumor. People think that all our vegetables are affected by radiation. We can’t even sell the products that aren’t affected.”

The central government has promised that farmers will be compensated for their losses, and Fukushima officials have urged growers to keep records documenting crops that are thrown away and milk that is dumped. But how farmers will be paid, and how much, remains in limbo.

The government has said that the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the Fukushima reactors, may be held liable for farm losses, but the utility has yet to address the issue. Farmers say the government’s record on compensating them for losses from other problems like bird flu and mad cow disease does not inspire confidence.

“What the government offers is much less than what we expect,” said Mr. Sasaki, the dairy farmer. “It has always been like this. But this time, we’re on the edge.”

At least one farmer has been pushed over the edge. The newspaper The Asahi Shimbun reported recently that a 64-year-old farmer in Sukagawa, a city in Fukushima, killed himself one day after the government imposed a ban on the sale of cabbages from the prefecture.

The farmer, who was not identified, was reported to have lost his house in the earthquake but had a field of 7,500 organically grown cabbages ready for harvest when the prohibition was announced.

“Vegetables in Fukushima are finished,” his son quoted him as saying.

Katie Edwards is Running...Too Bad it is for Office. By Geniusofdespair

Can't wait to see Katie Edwards' campaign report. Edwards, Executive Director of the Dade County Farm Bureau, is kicking off her campaign for the Florida House of Representatives, District 119. According to the 2000 census, that District has 40.9% White, 50.2% Hispanic and 5.5% Black registered voters. The district is equally split between Republicans and Democrats. So far there are 3 Republicans running for that distrct, Frank Artiles, Juliana Velez and Italo Andres Zanzi. There is also Graziella Renee Denny - no party affiliation. Hello, any Democrats out there? Katie has to be a Republican.

Lennar: land inventory value plummets in Miami ... By Geniusofdespair & Gimleteye

Lennar is one of Miami's largest corporate citizens (and measured by value, the nation's third largest production homebuilder). The company has a major stake in zoning changes to move the Urban Development Boundary that separates environmentally sensitive lands near the Everglades from areas that receive public subsidies through infrastructure investment.

Last week allegations that Miami's largest corporate production homebuilder engaged in systematic fraud through land development partnerships shocked investors. According to Bloomberg, "Lennar fell $2.27 to $9.15 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares fell 51 percent last year. Credit-default swaps linked to Lennar bonds climbed 95 basis points to 640 basis points, according to broker Phoenix Partners Group. That means it would cost $640,000 a year for five years to protect $10 million of Lennar bonds. A basis point is equal to .01 percentage point."

I'm not sure how to compare Lennar's difficulty in obtaining low cost insurance measures to either its difficulties or others with whom it competes. From Eyeonmiami's research: if Lennar owns land outside the UDB in Miami-Dade, its value is plummeting. The heart of the Ponzi-scheme allegation is Lennar's use of real property to leverage for other partnerships and with other partners.

According to property records, there is one 49 acre parcel for sale outside the Miami-Dade Urban Development Boundary now listed for sale at $1.7 million or $34,694 an acre. A Costa Rican speculator bought the 49 acre property in 1989 for $975,000 for almost $20,000 an acre. If the speculator sells it for his asking price today of $34.6K per acre, his average return on investment in 3.8 percent per year. It should be noted that the county has the acreage assessed for $3,008,145.

Nearby South Florida's top lobbyists turned developers purchased Krome Gold Ranches (Rodney Barreto, Agustin Herran, Armando Guerra) at the peak of the market in December 2005 for $44,608,600 for 466 acres, or, $95,726 an acre. A far cry from $34K.

Just east of this property are 125 acres owned by Neighborhood Planning Company (Armando Guerra, Agustin Herran, Ramon Rasco, Carlos Garcia and Sergio Pino), bought in July 2005 for $15,000,000, or, $120,000 an acre.


Krome Investments, LLC (Sergio Pino and Armando Guerra), in the same area, bought 59 acres in December 2005 for $6,621,440 or $112,227 an acre.

This property is near Lennar's proposed Parkland 1000 acre development, where land speculators invested outside the UDB in anticipation of paving farmland and platted subdivisions to the Everglades. The bulk of Parkland property was purchased by Ed Easton as trustee for Krome Gold Land Trust; approximately 614 acres were purchased in late 2004 for nearly $65,000,000 according to County Property Appraiser records. Easton and others, including Sergio Pino, appear to have paid over $100,000 per acre for land that is in an area where the selling price today is a third of the purchase price then.

This "A Team" persists despite the fiercest headwinds in a century and ample evidence that the model of suburban sprawl is finished; depending on debt and mortgage schemes that caused a national economic crisis.

The Miami speculators and developers who own land far above market price often partner with Lennar, on both sides of the wholesale transactions of lots or houses (sometimes cutting in county commissioners like Joe Martinez. See our posts on 'Martinez' and 'Parkland' in the archive section.) Lennar and its land aggregators, Rosen and Latterner, had planned to massively expand suburban sprawl in South Florida during the boom. Its first plan, pushed forward in 2002, was for a new suburb in Florida City outside the UDB and virtually at the edge of Biscayne National Park. The ease with which company lobbyists persuaded county commissioners to allow Florida City to annex the land in question (thus, depriving opponents of a focused battle on the basis of county regulations) predicted smooth sailing for corporate lobbyists and engineers whose business models is based on arguing at state and federal levels, too, that existing regulations adequately protect the environment. (In one of the more bizarre moments of Florida environmental history, environmental activists opposing the Florida City development witnessed the death of a panther, Florida's signature endangered species, on a darkened road near the development site.) In fact, environmental regulations to mitigate the effects of sprawl were the FIRST indicators neutered during the biggest real estate asset bubble in Florida's history.



Lennar had the backing of the unreformable majority of the county commission to move its Florida City plan forward until the markets began to crash. Although the company dropped its 1000 acre plan for Florida City in 2007, it retained and focused its energy on a second front: Parkland is a major development of regional impact that Lennar continues to advance through the permitting process and a partnership whose details have not been disclosed, but include a who's who of Miami development and lobbyist interests.

But will the project be financially viable, any time soon? In “Build Them, and They Will Come” (May 21, 2005), an editorial published in The Miami Herald, Willy Bermello--former president of the Latin Builders Association-- confidently predicted: “... real estate continues to still be a safe harbor for investors, whether it be equity or the purchase of a condo in South Florida, where doubling of your investment in less than two years is commonplace. If you have euros or British pounds, then you buy with a built-in 30 percent to 40 percent discount. Miami deserves its place next to Shanghai and Dubai. More important, it deserves our confidence. The bubble is not latex but stainless steel.”

Miami deserves its place next to Moscow, where stock market prices declined more than 70 percent in 2008.

Are we worried that federal dollars through Obama's fiscal stimulus plan will be used to bail out the speculators who control the county commission? You bet. Moving the UDB sets in motion a whole suite of investments in infrastructure to benefit the supply chain of real estate development whose model depends on large scale consumption of farmland and open space at the edge of cities. There is no demand, today, in the ocean of foreclosures in the western suburbs. Still, production homebuilders and Lennar CEO Stuart Miller are pleading to Congress for bailouts.

When civic activists and volunteers complained at endless public hearings about where unsustainable development was leading us, they were blasted as being elitist.

Do they get bailed out, for being 'right', or, do you only get bailed out for being wrong?

Guest Blog by WeRWatching: More non-profit donations by Seijas. Posted by Geniusofdespair

Commissioner Natacha Seijas Millan, her name on campaign documents, has a way of rewarding her loyal supporters with county funds.

In August 2006 she distributed a glossy, expensive no doubt, news letter to her constituents. This “campaign piece” was produced while she was battling a citizen’s recall. Among the list of organizations to which she donated public funds was a $10,000 donation to the Dade County Farm Bureau (detailed in a Miami New Times story by Francisco Alvarado). The Dade County Farm Bureau is the non-profit arm of Farm Bureau Insurance. The Dade County Farm Bureau is more a property rights than farming organization, consistently adopting the policy of “let market forces control the UDB”. Their board members include bankers and big farmers with large tracts of land to develop. They have long fought to remove zoning restrictions on farmland and were key players in burying both the Agriculture and Rural Retention Study and the Watershed Study (with a lot of help from Seijas). They also spend a lot of time giving each other awards.

If Seijas has warm fuzzy feelings for farmland destruction that’s her business, but why would she donate funds that should be spent for projects in District 13. The last I heard, District 13 is not a bastion of agriculture. She can really support agriculture by voting against projects outside the UDB but that won’t happen.

But one good turn deserves another. A few months later, the Dade County Farm Bureau held a fundraiser for Seijas to battle her recall; not that she needed the money because the developers gave her megabucks.

This exchange of money keeps the campaign wheels turning but it’s our money, washed.

Officers of the Dade County Farm Bureau:

Title P
DUNAGAN, LARRY
15025 SW 232 ST
HOMESTEAD FL 33170
Title P-EL
CARPENTER, KERN
18285 SW 264 STREET
HOMESTEAD FL 33031
Title D
WILSON, MARK
16350 SW 77 COURT
MIAMI FL 33157
Title S
SHEKELS, ROBERT L
28100 SW 194TH COURT
HOMESTEAD FL 33031
Title V
ALGER, JOHN
P.O. BOX 1253
HOMESTEAD FL 33030

Here is an event I am glad I missed. By geniusofdespair

From The Miami Herald, two of our favorite women (not!) in one photograph:

"Katie Edwards (far right), executive director of the Dade County Farm Bureau for the past four years accepts the certificate inducting her into the Bureau's Hall of Honor from Commissioner Natacha Seijas at the 30th Annual Barbecue and Fun Raiser."

For those of you not in the know, the Farm Bureau is more of a property rights advocacy group.

Mom, can we have cloned meat for dinner? by gimleteye

For years I was mad about supermarkets that tried to pass tomatoes grown in South Dade as tomatoes. No one seemed to mind as the perfectly red and round tomatoes tasting like the telephone book took over the grocery shelves. Then there was the FDA approval of genetically modified food crops to get me hopped up. Now the FDA is approving food from cloned animals, a bonanza for industrial food chain suppliers.

In the blissfully ignorant United States, freedom means nothing left to alter for profit. Mom, can we have cloned meat for dinner?

The “experts” at the FDA, probably mid-level executives from the farming industry, have proof we have nothing to fear from cloned animals.

What ordinary people feared about GMO food crops has come to pass: GMO altered organisms that scientists and their advocates guaranteed would be segregated from the food supply have infiltrated farmland never intended to host them.

As a result, there is no turning back from GMO, nor from any adverse consequences that arise from tampering with nature, or, only at a very great cost.

Approving the sale of meat from cloned animals is another drastic step for consumers, promoted by industry.

I will never, ever buy cloned meat from an animal, but I also don’t trust the US government to properly label food.

My choice is to shop for food nearly exclusively at supermarkets that advertise as organic. The “green” section at Publix and other chain supermarkets strike me as false advertising.

So far I have been able to afford to pay for organically grown produce and meat but I’m still angry at the way our government has allowed the food supply to be contaminated by industrial products.

Our nation may not always be so rich and wealthy to afford the ways we have abused our food supply.

The road to perdition is paved with this sort of demonstrated competence. Please pass the cloned brisket.

Global warming, sea level rise and Florida: "we're on the way to something else", by gimleteye

I understand the mind-set of the Chamber of Commerce perfectly well, especially in Florida where the only perceivable industry is health care, where patients are a constantly renewable resource, and construction and development, where keeping costs low means constantly deferring the true costs of infrastructure: promote anything that puts cement on ground and steel in the air and people in more and more houses even if they are in flood plains.

And I understand perfectly well the mind-set of the Farm Bureau, that opposes anything that might obstruct their spontaneous transformation into builders and developers.

So in Florida, there is nothing by way of long-term planning that works.

And what exists, only does so by dint of a few people, a few agencies, a few activists who stand in the way but only temporarily and depending on the impermanence of public office and laws protecting the environment and land use that exist mainly to generate fees for lobbyists chiseling away at.

So it is no surprise that in Miami Dade county, where more than three dozen experts and civic leaders are meeting in standing committees as part of a good faith effort by local government to offer recommendations to deal with climate change, that there was not a single person representing either the Chamber of Commerce, the builders, or the farmers except the odd informant employed by the county whose task is to report back to the special interests, what is going on in proceedings they couldn’t care less about. And no reporters from the mainstream press.

Yesterday, Dr. Harold Wanless—chair of the geology department at the University of Miami—made the presentation for the science committee, that includes more a dozen scientists, on sea level rise. The committee report is the result of several months of meetings and consultation.

Based on analysis and conversation with leading scientists on climate change, the committee report offers the position that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has understated by a country mile what is now happening in terms of sea level rise and global warming.

Prior to yesterday's meeting in Miami, Dr. Wanless sent the science committee statement on sea level rise to several members of the IPCC who have been involved in drafting the sea level rise portion of the panel’s recommendations: none disagreed with the committee’s assessment.

To underscore the point, Dr. Wanless said that "we are on the way to something else". That something else is a rapid rise in sea level beyond any human experience.

"Since 1932, south Florida has had about a 9 inch relative rise of sea level. This is a rate of one foot per century and is about 8 times the average rate over the past 2,500 years."

"The 2007 IPCC report... did not incorporate the significantly accelerated melting being observed in the Greenland Ice Sheet... Simply put, climate and glacial scientists now see that models failed to predict the rapidity and quickness with which these critical changes would occur."

"... many respected scientists now see a likely sea level rise of at least 1.5 feet in the coming fifty years and a total of at least 3-5 feet by the end of the century, possibly significantly more."

"It should be pointed out that the highly porous limestone and sand substrate of Miami-Dade County (which at present permits excellent drainage) will limit the effectiveness of widespread use of levees and dikes to wall off the encroaching sea."

In other words, South Florida is not like New Orleans or the Netherlands that can survive living below sea-level.


(Dr. Harold Wanless is giving the luncheon speech today at the annual Everglades Coalition meeting in Captiva.)


Type the rest of the post here

And speaking of fraud done to the public interest… by gimleteye

Today's Miami Herald “Protesters to join tax-cut debate” reports that a fair number of citizens being bused to Tallahassee to demand property tax reform have been paid for “by mortgage brokers and the Latin Builders Association, who see the House plan as a sure-fire way to revive their struggling businesses.”

As housing markets crash and property taxes remain very high, it is important clarify that the struggling business--indeed the economic model for growth of suburban sprawl in Miami Dade-- was built on subprime mortgages in former farmland, liar loans signed by mortgage brokers and bleak, platted subdivisions advocated, lobbied for, and promoted by leadership of the Latin Builders Association.

These are the struggling businesses that state tax policies and the Florida legislature is meant to “revive”?

In the past five years, low quality suburban sprawl has lain waste to at least 20,000 acres of farmland and open space, making a few landowners, lawyers, and lobbyists very wealthy and leaving infrastructure nightmares in their wake.

Big farmers are on the same side of the equation as the mortgage bankers and the Latin Builders Association. That is the point of last weeks’ story in Miami Today, “Development threatening crops, agricultural experts say.”

The appropriate context of this story is in combination with an entirely separate story in today’s Miami Herald, “Drought may force Glades action”.

South Florida water managers are warning Governor Crist that the historic drought we are now experiencing “has all the makings of becoming one of the worst in state history”. Lake Okeechobee, for this time of year, is lower than at any time in recorded history. Water managers are concerned about salt water intrusion ruining municipal drinking water wells.

In combination with a ruinous business model--that lead to oversupply of suburban platted subdivisions in aquifer recharge areas--the drought would argue for Miami-Dade County to take emergency measures to protect all farmland that protects aquifers, but big landowners, mortgage bankers, consultants, engineering companies, development economists, lobbyists—the list goes on and on—are amassing yet again to petition the county commission to move the Urban Development Boundary.

Politically connected developer Ed Easton has one such project—planned in conjunction with Lennar—to bust the Urban Development Boundary in far West Kendall.

Consultants have been making the rounds of business executives making their case, again, that “market forces” require moving the UDB.

In Miami Today, county commissioner Katy Sorenson says, “County commissioners are "treading on dangerous water" by allowing development so close to agricultural areas …"This is a compatibility issue," she said. Agriculture "is an important industry for Miami-Dade. It would be tragic to create residential [development] where we have a thriving industry.”

But it is hard to keep a thriving industry going when subprime mortgage brokers and the Dade County Farm/Development Bureau is lobbying to kill the Watershed Study and every other measure that might protect farming.

Some of these interests actually WANT angry neighbors in platted subdivisions next to row crops. And some of those neighbors might be the same ones being bused to Tallahassee by the Latin Builders Association today.

Turn on that TV and Buy Local Tomatoes! By Geniusofdespair

The County Commission will be discussing the effect of the Strong Mayor Charter changes April 9th. That should be good: Tune in, it is usually on some channel in the 70’s range.

Today in the Herald it said that local tomato growers are Seeking a safer tomato, looking to strenghten safety standards for their produce (This Article printed in the Herald is not a Herald article by the way, it is from the Palm Beach Post). Tomato growers want the State Legislature to require food-safety inspections of all tomato fields, greenhouses and packinghouses.

Okay, do I really give a crap about tomatoes? Well, apparently I do.

I don’t know why growers are doing this: Making it harder for themselves. But I think it is a good idea.

I am a proponent of buying local produce and I would pay extra for it (if I ever went food shopping).

I think the grocery stores should label produce as local, they should buy local produce and we should buy local produce. I love our farmers and want them to make money growing food, landscape trees or whatever. I think the County Commission should plunk a big tax on Publix, Costco and Walmart when these chains don’t include local as well as foreign produce. And the stores should have big inviting signs in the store telling people: “This section is local produce.”

Of course, I don’t know the politics of food buying. I did however tell my friends, that when they buy cheap produce in the dollar stores (yes some dollar stores sell produce), do they really know where it is coming from? Do some foreign growers have the same standards as we do in pesticides (we have banned some) and watering (theirs could be watered with human/animal reuse water not properly treated.) I also think the Dade County Farm Bureau should be working on marketing local produce better instead of only worrying about land use decisions.

I know squat about this subject, but I think we should buy local. Let’s keep our farmers in business.

No more water, no more housing boom by gimleteye

At the Florida legislature in Tallahassee under the main tent: ways to protect Floridians from increases in property taxes based on soaring real estate values during the housing boom.

The front page of the Miami Herald reports that Nevada found ways of addressing similar taxpayer complaints in 2006.

Nevada and Florida share a lot in common. A propensity to speculation. Although Floridians have voted against gambling, both economies are strongly rooted in the attractions of climate and postponing the costs of growth.


Take water, for example.

The growth of Florida and Nevada is based on the premise that water will always be available, endlessly, from some source if not another.

The Las Vegas Valley gets 90 percent of its water from the Colorado River. Florida’s cities, for the most part, get their water from aquifers as easily altered by drought conditions and burgeoning demand as the Colorado.

In February, the National Research Council issued a report that the Colorado River is likely to experience longer and more severe droughts that will be made even worse by the effects of global warming. The report cites research from 1983 suggesting that an increase of 2 degrees Celsius across the basin could reduce the river’s flow by almost 30 percent.

In Florida, rainfall is down 50 percent this year. Last year, the State of Florida warned Miami-Dade County that it would attach future water use permits to conservation measures, including water re-use, delicately dancing around the issue of building moratoria.

One of the key measures undertaken by local policy makers has been a multi-year, $3 million effort called the South Miami-Dade Watershed Study. It is likely the most technologically intensive and thorough watershed study ever created in the United States, and it is about to be killed by South Dade farmers and land speculators.

The purpose of the study is to reconcile available watershed budgets with what is necessary to protect Biscayne National Park's fragile water resources, and have enough water allocated to future growth.

These goals are not mutually exclusive, but they are to farmers and speculative land owners who want their turn on the carousel ride: a chance for the gold ring that some farmers grabbed during the latest, greatest housing boom to ever afflict Florida.

They are doing everything in their power to kill the South Dade Watershed Study and its recommendations that could address Florida’s central problem: postponing the costs of growth. Their allies are commissioners who face no consequences, in their own distant districts, for opposing the study and have benefited, vastly through campaign contributions from farming and development interests.

But the housing boom in Miami-Dade County is over. Caput. Our prediction: next year, homeowners’ chief complaint will be that the assessed values of Florida homes are far higher than the actual marketplace.

The high horse of the housing boom is now a hobby horse.

And still, their riders will swing into the County Chamber to kill the watershed study with all the gear of a medieval cavalry and the bravado and bluster of the Kingdom.