PD's "Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?" by Ernie Carpenter
Ernie Carpenter's excellent "Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?" appears in today's PD and follows. Please click on the link below and make online comments and send letters to the editor. That ad could turn out to be a big mistake for the Wine Empire.
Ernie is a former 5th District County Supervisor
Shepherd
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinio...me-is-big?menu
Close to Home: Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?
BY ERNIE CARPENTER, Press Democrat, July 15, 2015, 12:01AM
The Sonoma County wine industry is starting to look like big oil. Its leaders crow about preserving the environment when they have created an unmitigated environmental disaster. They recently received $374,000 of taxpayer money to implement “sustainability” in Sonoma County. A good thought. Suspicions arise when the first thing they did with their taxpayer grant was buy a full page ad and label themselves “sustainable.”
The history of the local wine industry is “Paint it green and buy the supervisors.” The industry is just too big to be told what to do by mere citizens or politicians. It just throws some more money at redefining the problem until it expires.
You be the judge. Sustainability is a stool with three legs: the environment, the economy and social justice. The wine industry will cut water use, cut chemicals and do lots of advertising telling us what a good job it did. It will come with a sack full of facts and figures to show it is in the right, but it will not change, if the past is to be judge.
The wine industry will not join the chorus in support of raising minimum wages, an essential part of sustainability. They want cheap workers. The industry will not provide housing. They never have beyond a few “floor show” units. They fail on the social justice aspect and must add a housing component and higher wage if they want to be sustainability advocates.
Are you up for it industry?
Environmentally, grape farming is predicated on killing all organisms and keeping them that way — dead. Poison nematodes, poison weeds, poison birds, poison critters. They clear-cut zones around the vineyard. The topsoil leaves Sonoma County vineyards to our waterways by the tons. Why no sheet mulching?
They continue to plant in riparian and wetland areas. Go to Mill Station Road near Atascadero Creek to see this sustainable approach. And, support for limiting wineries in “mapped water scarce areas” to protect neighbors, not a chance.
Interesting to see what courage the industry has to become sustainable. I know it will have its two full-time lobbyists out with their green paint brushes. I look forward to the dialogue. Some of us will know when the green paint peels and blisters.
Recently, the issue of event venters has cropped up. The county allows an event center application with hundreds of people a day on 10 acres of diverse ag land with half-acre of grapes. Industry does not want to change this. That’s how tough county regulations are. I’m intellectually amused by Kendall Jackson and Balletto Winery arguing against curtailment of event centers by regulation because it will hurt “small farmers.” Oh, please!
I have been around the wine industry for 35 years. Wine grapes are obviously a tremendous value to Sonoma County. However, the wine industry has not ever wanted to solve environmental problems that it causes. It wants exemptions and it generally gets them. Recently, they were exemption from strict water use regulations imposed on everyone else by Water Quality Control Board. They use green wash, ag wash, hog wash, until the issues go away. Now, they have a sustainability grant. If the comments at the Wine Advisory Committee and by industry lobbyist are any indication, they will join the ranks of big oil in grape washing all problems away.
I hope I am wrong, but if I am not, I’ll be there representing neighbors, fish and birds with a green poop scraper.
Ernie Carpenter, a resident of Sebastopol, is a former Sonoma County supervisor.
Re: PD's "Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?" by Ernie Carpenter
The term "sustainability" as currently used by the wine industry is just political marketing spiel, double-speak. Nothing more. True sustainability does not equate to destroying nature and blithely steam rolling over the communities of people and animals that live on the land. Sustainability does not take, it leaves. It's concept is rooted in spirituality, not economics. So that all of life can flourish for many generations to come and that's all the difference in the world.
Big oil is reaching the end of a major bull run. Steel tonnage is cheaper than cabbage in China. Also, coal, copper and other raw materials. Oil is not exempt as we enter a deflationary cycle. Commodity gluts are growing exponentially, not only in China, but in many emerging economies as a result of China's dwindling growth. It's no small secret that many "neo-farmers" in the wine industry are banking on the middle class in China for their growth. There must be consumers with disposable income for that to occur and in order for that to occur, people will have to be employed. Yet I fail to see how China can save the wine sector given their meltdown in real estate and stock market.
In the next few years, China will be far more concerned about feeding their people and staving off revolution which will be very difficult given their shadow banking system with all that re-hypothecation. There's no delicate way of putting this but they're poised for a monumental crash landing which will impact the entire world economy. None of this bodes well for the wine industry, much of which has been fueled by cheap money. The Federal Reserve is talking about raising interest rates and they will have to because the bond market is set to implode. If I'm right and I suspect I am, the wine industry will enter a depression which, understandably, many people don't want to hear. Every boom is followed by a bust. During raging downturns, "luxury markets" demand dries up. A 12 year old with a pocket calculator can see that what's looming on the horizon and what's coming will make 2008 look lie a walk in the park.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:
Wine Industry Attacks Ernie Carpenter's PD Op/Ed
Today's PD has the following two letters to the editor by wine industry spokespeople. Ernie's strong PD Close to Home on Tuesday flushed out 2 letters by member of the wine industry. I consider this a step forward, since they mainly have been working behind the scenes. We now have them out in the open, so it is important to respond. I feel that we need to rally support for Ernie, since he went out on a limb. The letters include ad hominem personal attacks, which can intimidate others from challenging Big Wine. They also distort and misrepresent what Ernie wrote.
If you go to the first link below, you should be able to send your online comment. Please then consider sending it as a letter to the editor to [email protected]. The 2nd link is to Ernie's original op/ed, which I also copied and posted here at Waccobb.net.
Write On!,
Shepherd
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinio...-to-the-editor
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinio...to-home-is-big
Comments to Ernie's "Close to Home"
Surprised by columnEDITOR: Having known Ernie Carpenter for more than 20 years, I did not think I could be surprised by anything that he said. The Close to Home piece (“Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?” Wednesday) accusing the wine community of being akin to Big Oil proved me wrong.
His obvious contempt for winegrowing never kept him from asking me for wine donations for his various causes nor did it keep him from insisting on a “family and friends” discount on the rare occasions that he actually purchased wine.
Taft Street Winery MIKE MARTINI
A look at the history
EDITOR: My old friend Ernie Carpenter didn’t like the wine industry even when the United Winegrowers for Sonoma County stopped his nemesis, the developers, and forced through the 1989 General Plan update that 1) created the Open Space District, 2) won a sales tax to pay for buying thousands of acres of open space, 3) encouraged the creation of greenbelts, 4) got a Right-to-Farm ordinance passed, and 5) saved thousands of acres of farmland from development.
The United Winegrowers out-politicked not only the developers but Ernie’s lazy enviros as well. It wasn’t money that did it, as Ernie states. It was organization – an organization that included a very few, farsighted grape growers (The Northcoast Grape Growers Association was aligned with the developers), a few wineries (the Sonoma County Wineries Association majority opposed UWG). No, it wasn’t money power that did those things.
It was a small cadre of determined, dedicated, hardworking United Winegrowers members who attended and spoke at every public hearing on the General Plan update that convinced the public, the county Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors to our position.
Formerly of Matanzas Creek Winery Sausalito BILL MCIVER
1 Attachment(s)
Re: PD's "Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?" by Ernie Carpenter
https://img194.imageshack.us/img194/...1206081330.png
Close to Home: In defense of local winegrape growers
BY KARISSA L. KRUSE
KARISSA L. KRUSE IS PRESIDENT OF THE SONOMA COUNTY WINEGRAPE COMMISSION.
July 20, 2015, 12:05AM
As president of Sonoma County Winegrowers and on behalf of Sonoma County winegrape growers and their families, I wanted to take the opportunity to share how the local farming community is working together to preserve our agriculture character, including correcting the misinformation in Ernie Carpenter’s Close to Home piece (“Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?” Wednesday).
While we are very appreciative of the grant dollar support that we received to preserve and promote local agriculture, the ad that Carpenter references was actually paid for by your local winegrape growers to share our sustainability effort and inspire our community. It is our belief that our county is better when we all work together.
Carpenter’s claim of “green-washing” is disrespectful to the 1,800 grape growers, many multi-generational, who have made a very serious, long-term and expensive commitment to sustainable farming. Grape growers are local farmers and small businesses. In fact, more than 40 percent of Sonoma County’s vineyard parcels are less than 20 acres, with 80 percent less than 100 acres. And, for every four acres of vineyards in Sonoma County, our grape growers farm another acre of agriculture devoted to dairies, apples, chickens and other crops. This assures that our agricultural economy remains diversified while benefiting our entire community with local crops.
In January 2014, Sonoma County Winegrowers made a bold commitment to being 100 percent certified sustainable by 2019. This effort is the first of its kind in any farming community in America and something we should all feel very proud of. It supports the very fabric of this community and our desire to always improve and treat one another with respect. Specifically, to avoid any claim of green-washing, our sustainability initiative is a formal program, California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, and includes 138 assessments and best practices for grape growers, entailing everything from water conservation, soil management, worker safety and training and even business planning.
Sustainability is a complicated process with a simple result. It is about minimizing our impact on the land and being environmentally conscientious. It is about treating our workers, community and neighbors with respect and engaging with them in the process. And we must ensure that our businesses are economically viable over the long term so that we can keep our land in agriculture.
In addition to the sustainability assessment and following of best management practices, we only work with sustainability programs that have a third party audit process which validates the assessments and provides the certification. This way the grower, the community and the consumer can all feel confident that the best management practices are being followed.
To date, we have made unparalleled progress in our sustainability efforts with more than 62 percent of the vineyard acres completing a sustainability assessment and more than 33 percent having been certified. We are well on our way to reaching 100 percent.
In addition, we made a commitment to transparency — through local presentations, a bi-weekly radio show and, most importantly, by publishing a first-of-its-kind 24-page sustainability progress report. We have extra copies if anyone would like to learn more.
Just as recently as last week, your local winegrape growers stepped up again to become a founding member of the North Bay Water Sustainability Coalition, an unprecedented public-private partnership aimed at water conservation.
We cordially invite Mr. Carpenter and any interested community member to reach out to us directly at [email protected]. We are proud of our sustainability program, and we would welcome the opportunity to walk you through one of our vineyards so that you can experience local, sustainable agriculture.
I am honored to represent local farmers, and I am proud to be a Sonoma County grape grower.
Karissa L. Kruse is president of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission.
Re: PD's "Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?" by Ernie Carpenter
I live in Sonoma and love our fast-shrinking undeveloped land. A Chinese group has bought 186 acres of the loveliest pieces of open space along Highway 12, right by Lawndale--with plans to develop a winery, resort, high-end houses...I haven't heard much reaction to this and don't know where to start myself--but wanted to add this to the ones we're already protesting. Please let me know of any correspondence or actions already begun, or interest in same. I have no idea if it's too late.
Here's the article describing this:
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/3...hase-of-sonoma
Re: PD's "Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?" by Ernie Carpenter
Seems you should contact the group referenced in the article: "Kathy Pons, the president of the Valley of the Moon Alliance, opposes the development of the 186-acre La Campagna property."
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by kpage9:
...I live in Sonoma and love our fast-shrinking undeveloped land. A Chinese group has bought 186 acres of the loveliest pieces of open space along Highway 12, right by Lawndale--with plans to develop a winery, resort, high-end houses...
2 Attachment(s)
Article: California’s North Coast Wine Industry: How “Sustainable” Is It?
California’s North Coast Wine Industry: How “Sustainable” Is It?
By Shepherd Bliss
WaccoBB.net
Sonoma County Winegrowers bought an expensive, full-page, color ad, using tax dollars [this is disputed here - Barry] , in the July 12 daily Santa Rosa Press Democrat and in various weeklies, such as the North Bay Bohemian and Sonoma West. The ad ignited a firestorm of protest with angry letters to editors and online comments from the community storming local publications that ran the ad.
As someone who practices, writes about, and teaches college students at Sonoma State and Dominican Universities about what “sustainable” really means, the ad offends me. It is blatant propaganda of false advertising to hoodwink readers.
Winegrowers received a $377,282 federal grant in 2014 for their “branding campaign.” That followed a state grant that brought their total to $756,000, according to the North Bay Business Journal. The fact that tax payer dollars funded the wine industry's Public Relations campaign hit a sensitive nerve county-wide, a nerve already frayed by the overdevelopment of wineries as event centers hosting weddings and entertainment unrelated to wine. This changes the face of this once bucolic region.
The glossy ad offers no proof or third party verification by an independent group not employed by the wine industry of their alleged sustainability. The Winegrowers self-regulate, thus co-opting and green-washing the word, like a fox guarding the chicken coop. To be “sustainable” requires having a triple bottom line: profit, environmental protection, and social justice.
The Wine Empire is certainly profitable, for a few. It’s all about money. It cuts off hilltops, converts redwood forests, oak woodlands, and apple orchards into regimented, industrial mono-crop rows, which is not nature’s way. It leaves a path of destruction. It fences out wildlife, poisons bees and other critters, leaves the soil naked, and hoards water—not very environmental.
Big Wine does not treat or pay its workers living wages. The ad shows clean, white hands. Yet most of the real growing is done by Latinos with brown skin and other workers of color, with soil often further darkening their working hands.
These so-called “winegrowers” are often merely managers, with some notable exceptions among the few real small family vineyards left that are truly sustainable. Their practices include things such as dry farming, cover crops, and vineyards within a diverse ag and natural environment.
“THE MYTH OF THE FAMILY WINERY”
The wine may be “world-class,” as claimed. Wall Street and foreign investors own most of it, so most money leaves the county. Multi-national alcohol corporations—like Altira, Brown-Forman, Constellation, and The Wine Group—own much of the wine production.
Wine industry lobbyists and PR people present the industry as mainly small mom and pop operations is a lie. “The Myth of the Family Winery: Global Corporations Behind California Wine” by the Marin Institute documents this ownership. “Preserving local agriculture,” the ad claims. This study reveals how they preserve agri-business.
“Nearly all the leading wine producers in California are massive corporations integrated with ‘Big Alcohol,’ multinational conglomerates promoting and controlling politics in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.,” the study opens.
“We’re growing a better place for us all to live, work, and play,” the ad deceptively claims. Meanwhile, they spray poisonous chemicals, without even informing neighbors. They crowd narrow, rural roads with tipsy drivers. They dig 1000-foot wells and take as much water from streams as they want, even during the drought, sometimes drying up neighbor’s wells. Big Ag does not have to conserve, like the rest of us.
A visual parody of the ad by artist Perro Aulando was posted on WaccoBB.net. It includes the following words: “Our marketing hype is so slick, you’ll think you’re saving the planet while our chainsaws, agrichemicals, and pumps destroy whatever we haven’t already.”
Aulando suggests a campaign “to heap scorn and ridicule on the most egregious examples of green-washing and tourism uber-hype.” It could use “adbuster-style tactics and humor to undermine.”
RURAL NEIGHBORS FIGHT BACK
On the day that the ads appeared, letters to editors and online comments by irate residents began flooding in. The wine industry used to be seen as Sonoma County’s darling industry, because of its economic benefits. In recent months Big Wine has been compared in articles to Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Tobacco, because of its unethical practices.
“The culprits who get off scot free are our county leaders from the Supervisors on down through the Board of Zoning Appeals and the Permit and Resource Management Department. A sustainability problem is that leaders in the planning areas don't even think about sustainability. They only see a stream of tax dollars and campaign contributions,” commented Reuben Weinzveg of Preserve Rural Sonoma County (PRSC), a grassroots organization that challenges new winery projects in rural areas.
Wineries pave over productive ag land for their event centers. They build large parking lots to accommodate weddings and other entertainment events. But wait, this is on land zoned exclusively for ag., where they are not supposed to have commercial kitchens. The ag component of this new business model is minimal, compared to the industrial and commercial elements needed to process the grapes and water into wine.
"Some local vintners play by the rules and strive to be good stewards of our land and environment. The backlash is about the 'bad apples' in the industry, as well as the County of Sonoma that continually approves more and more wineries, expansions, and event centers. We have nearly 600 wineries here, and the community thinks that is enough to maintain a vibrant tourist economy," says Padi Selwyn, PRSC Co-chair,
“Sustainability is an empty word,” writes investigative reporter Will Parrish. He has covered the North Coast wine industry for a least a decade for the AVA (Anderson Valley Advertiser) in Mendocino County, the next county north of Sonoma. He also keynoted two of the five monthly Four County Network gatherings, published the cover story “Turning Water into Wine” in the May 27 East Bay Express, expanding the issue into a regional concern. Parrish was also interviewed on Pacifica radio’s KPFA, which reaches throughout California.
“In adopting new ‘sustainable’ practices, their political focuses are to protect their image and circumvent regulation” Parrish added. “There are almost no regulations on their water use, none on felling oak woodlands, and extremely little monitoring of pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide use -- all by design and a consequence of the industry's political power.”
BIG WINE OVER-USES WATER DURING THE DROUGHT
Big Wine does not follow the lax rules regulating it. For example, Napa County’s Joe Wagner wants to locate a huge Dairyman Winery and Event Center in Sonoma County’s fragile Laguna de Santa Rosa. The Wagners settled with Napa in 2013 for $1 million for violating permits by bottling 20 times as much as they were allowed.
"The County is not aggressively dealing with permit violators who are running more events than permitted, and those putting in vineyards without permits,” notes PRSC’s Selwyn. “90% of wineries are in the rural areas of Sonoma County, which is being seriously impacted with traffic, safety, and water issues. The local Water Quality Control Board has demanded that property owners curtail their water use in the rural west county, while vineyards, wineries and other and commercial water users are exempt. People don't mind making some sacrifices during the drought, but they are furious that the really big water users can continue to deplete the water table and take what they want."
“I looked up water use by the Sonoma Grape Growers on the University of California Davis site,” wrote Hilary Avalon of the Watertrough Children’s Alliance (WCA) in the Sebastopol countryside. “They said 1400-1700 gallons per vine for irrigation for the season. Vineyards have between 566 and 2723 vines per acre, depending on spacing. This translates to between 99,050 and 578,637 gallons of water per month per acre.”
“Frost protection on the 68,000 acres of grapes in Sonoma County would use 1,700,000 gallons of water in one 8-hour period,” Avalon added. “With no controls and their evident lack of regard for anything but their vines, wines and profit, this is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.”
Wineries also use water for many other purposes, including cleaning equipment, toilets, and commercial kitchens, which are not permitted in areas zoned for ag. Estimates are that it takes around 30 gallons of water to make one glass of wine.
Napa Valley used to be America’s premier wine-growing area, but some of their vintners have been moving into the much larger Sonoma County recently, such as “bad apple” Paul Hobbs. The WCA has been fighting him after he broke laws to put in a vineyard in the Sebastopol countryside bordering on schools with over 500 children. Mendocino and Lake Counties risk colonization by the Wine Empire.
There’s no teeth to what they describe as “sustainable.” That’s why a growing chorus of neighbors are lifting their voices as individuals and in groups such as PRSC, Napa Vision 2050, and Four County Network against the Wine Empire’s multiple abuses of the land, water, air, and people.
This ad is a classic propaganda piece with its biased, false, exaggerated, and misleading claims. Sustainability is not all economics; it must include ethics and truth-telling. The wine industry does provide some benefits, but the costs outweigh them.
“Sustainable?” Not really. I challenge the Winegrowers to a public discussion on sustainability. Let’s have a panel and talk openly about it.
(Dr. Shepherd Bliss {[email protected]} teaches college, farms, and has contributed to 24 books.)
Preserve Rural Sonoma County can be reached at the following:
https://www.facebook.com/preserveruralsonomacounty
https://www.preserveruralsonomacounty.org
Re: Article: California’s North Coast Wine Industry: How “Sustainable” Is It?
In response to the "dispute" in the pro-wine industry's PD article about my allegation that the Winegrowers propagandistic ad was funded by your tax dollars, my proof follows. It is from the pro-wine industry North Bay Business Journal. $756,000 of your state and federal taxes for their "branding campaign."
Big Wine has high-paid lobbyists, creative accounting to hide what they want to, and the mass media on their side. The growing opposition to the Wine Empire's over-expansion is all unpaid volunteers. You decide who to trust and believe. Would you prefer to live in the natural Redwood Empire or their Wine Country?
Sonoma County Winegrowers receives $377,000 state grant
North Bay Business Journal AFF October 21, 2014, 12:16PM
SANTA ROSA -- The Sonoma County Winegrape Commission, also known as Sonoma County Winegrowers, said it received a $377, 282 federal grant to help continue funding the "Sonoma County" branding campaign. The grant will be used to raise awareness for the “Sonoma County” brand to initiate trial, build loyalty and increase purchases of Sonoma County wines, which increases demand and prices for grapes. The branding campaign is in partnership with Sonoma County Tourism and Sonoma County Vintners.
“This is great recognition from the California Department of Food and Ag for our local wine industry and their sustainable approach to business proving that it not only benefits the environment but the economic viability of our businesses and the communities in which we work," said Karissa Kruse, president of the Sonoma County Winegrowers.
The federal Specialty Crop Block Grant Program channels money through state agriculture departments to boost competitiveness of specialty fruit, vegetable, nut, dried fruit and nursery crops. This is the second specialty block grant awarded to Sonoma County Winegrowers from the Calfornia Department of Food and Agriculture, totaling more than $756,000.
In 2012, a similar grant was channeled to support winegrape growing in Sonoma County. Sonoma County Winegrowers said it plans to continue the promotional campaign of its members' activities and sustainability practices, communicating this in local, regional, and national promotional campaigns in print, digital and social media, on radio and video, and through website enhancements.
In January, Sonoma County Winegrowers announced a commitment to become the nation’s first all- sustainable wine region through a three-phase, five-year program. The group of predominantly family- owned wine grape farmers is well on its way to meeting its 2019 goal and is now taking the next step to inform and educate wine consumers on the eco-friendly benefits of buying a Sonoma County wine with what is believed to be the first national advertising campaign specifically focused on sustainable winegrowing practices.
Read more at https://www.northbaybusinessjournal....sp?cid=4185904 &sid=778&fid=181#tDOV3P2y7MViM1tK.99
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:
...
Sonoma County Winegrowers bought an expensive, full-page, color ad, using tax dollars [this is disputed here - Barry] , in the July 12 daily Santa Rosa Press Democrat ...
Re: Article: California’s North Coast Wine Industry: How “Sustainable” Is It?
Though i like the "Close to Home" piece from Ernie Carpenter i have to ask, where the Hell was Carpenter when he was the Supervisor? Yeah, i know that was long ago. But, i do not believe he didn't recognize the birth of the Wine Industry and its ramifications. He kowtowed to them..he was a sell out to them....he was one of those Board Members back then that he now touts as sell-outs! he speaks out of both sides of his mouth! Back when he could have curtailed them he didn't!
beshiva
Re: PD's "Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?" by Ernie Carpenter
Since most of CA is naturally semi-desert or desert, all water should be considered to be owned by the public. Any water, from any source, should have user fees. Wineries are not required to report how much water they use. For example; even during the drought, Wineries can draw as much water as they want from the Russian River without paying for it or reporting it. This makes the problem worst for the rest of us.
Re: PD's "Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?" by Ernie Carpenter
I agree with the post re user fees, but once again, nobody mentions Cannabis. Why do we ignore the elephant in the room?
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Nendahwaab:
Since most of CA is naturally semi-desert or desert, all water should be considered to be owned by the public. Any water, from any source, should have user fees. Wineries are not required to report how much water they use. For example; even during the drought, Wineries can draw as much water as they want from the Russian River without paying for it or reporting it. This makes the problem worst for the rest of us.
Re: PD's "Is Big Wine the Big Oil of Sonoma County?" by Ernie Carpenter
Hello rural county ,readers,and residents, I again am disgusted,but not alarmed by the past,present and probable future of grape greed,politics,and conversion of vast sections of Sonoma,Mendocino Counties into the Vacation,wine industry destination for wealthy investors & visitors.
Tourism ,has been a part of California for many years ,but now the entire state is being converted into either a corporate investment or a sleazy tour bus destination with a bogus eco sustainable farm tag line it all feels so nice ,until you have to live next to a large vineyard with toxic overspray and depletion of ground water ,for local residents ,to say nothing of the destruction of your property values if you have any as in organic farms ,orchards ,toxic plumes and dumping,washing out of spray rigs ,directly onto ground permanently damaging your land ,that you busted ass to earn the money to purchase,...mad yet.
All the personnel on board supervisors ,and agg board a bunch of paid of tools for trillion dollar wine tourism industry ,many from outside United States,. pretty gross . It is mostly about big profits just like frac.the land for oil, short term money ,long term environmental damage. And don't forget all the Non Union labor ,illegal labor ,who are often forbidden to join a union as a term of their so called labor ,wage agreement .rich folks dirty little secret.,these people are powerful and dangerous to communities and persons, companies who do not support their scam
Solution ,rural landowners ,and organic farmers union, power in numbers.
