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Chickens pay the price for Russian farm's financial woes

By SERGEI L. LOIKO at 3:00am on Dec 16, 2010 — Los Angeles Times Modified at 7:56pm on Dec 16, 2010


Linkhttps://www.latimes.com/

MOSCOW — In what some claim has resulted from a lethal mixture of poultry and politics, 400,000 baby chicks have been put to death since Monday at a central Russian farm, another 600,000 have died of malnutrition, and the lives of 3 million more chickens remain imperiled.

Farm owner Alexander Chetverikov, a Russian parliament member, says political foes have "targeted my company," forcing it into bankruptcy over a $190,000 tax debt.
"We can't afford to feed the chickens any more, as we have no money, and we will continue to eliminate the remaining 3 million chickens if the unfair bankruptcy situation is not eased and the state doesn't come to our rescue," said Dmitry Noskov, spokesman for the Krasnaya Polyana poultry farm in the Kursk region.

Chetverikov, from the Just Russia Party, said officials of the United Russia-run regional government have been out to get him because he led an anti-corruption campaign on behalf of regional businessmen two years ago. "Since then, they were looking for a possibility to settle their political and personal scores with me," he said.

Government officials disagree, saying Chetverikov is trying to turn his financial and management failings into a political issue.

"The owner of the farm is to blame himself for the farm's problems," Viktor Alyoshechkin, deputy head of the Zheleznogorsk district administration, said in a phone interview with the Los Angeles Times. "Instead of resolving the economic issues, he deliberately politicized the conflict, incited the workers and organized a demonstration."

The protest, in front of the district administration headquarters, was staged after the farm's electricity was switched off for a day last month for non-payment. Later in November, masked riot police raided the farm's administrative building.

Authorities agree that the closure of the farm and the death of its remaining chickens - before they grow big enough to be slaughtered for food - would prove a major economic blow to the rural region. The farm employs 1,700 workers, mostly women, and its tax payments make up more than one-third of the local budget.

Earlier this week, farm workers sobbed as they dumped hundreds of thousands of baby broilers into rusty metal barrels, where they would quickly freeze to death in the snow-filled farm fields.

Water was later poured into the barrels to cover the bodies before they were taken to a nearby aviation plant to be processed into waste. By Thursday morning, the incubator was completely empty and its lights turned off, at a farm that has accounted for 13,000 to 15,000 tons of poultry meat a year, about 55 percent of the region's poultry production.

Russia already depends on imports for at least 70 percent of its food and 90 percent of medicines, said Gennady Gudkov, another Just Russia parliament member, in an interview with the Times. "Killing our own farms the way they kill Krasnaya Polyana now, we will very soon end up eating only the Bush legs they don't want in America," he added, referring to frozen chicken legs from the United States that started being imported into Russia under President George H.W. Bush.

The farm's operators say they are trying to sell off their remaining stock of poultry, even giving some away free to farm workers. But that's a lot of chickens for a rural area with fewer than 19,000 people.
On Thursday afternoon, farm officials sought in vain to reach Premier Vladimir Putin on a call-in TV show in which he took questions for more than four hours from the general public. In the end, they sent an open letter to President Dmitry Medvedev.

"This is the first time I hear of this problem," Vasily Mezhevikin, head of the Russian Agriculture Ministry's food industry department, said in an interview with the Times. "I don't understand why they are killing their poultry and not selling it to the population as they should."

In coming days, the farm plans to lay off 220 workers as it prepares for liquidation. Svetalna Grivko, 50, a mother of two who has run the farm's incubator, said she cried at the death of the chicks. "It was breaking my heart seeing the little ones die like this in the frost," she said. "We worked round the clock to keep them healthy and comfortable and now we are killing them with our own hands."

The farm workers, who were making $300 to $400 a month, will have a difficult time finding other jobs, Grivko said. "Killing the birds means killing our jobs."


Read more: https://www.kentucky.com/2010/12/16...the-price-for-russian.html#more#ixzz18uKFzQZa

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Archie Moses said:
I just took that quiz and got... haha It says I scored better than 99% of the public. You know there's a serious problem when even I, Archie Moses, out score anyone in the public let alone 99% of them.

Thanks for posting.

+1
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I got 11 out of 15 correct and I have no religious affiliations whatsoever.
 
One of the most important videos you'll ever watch...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
 
https://wikileaks.ch/cable/2007/12/07PARIS4723.html

Classified by Ambassador Craig Stapleton; reasons 1.4 (b), (d) and
(e).

¶1. (C) Summary: Mission Paris recommends that that the USG reinforce
our negotiating position with the EU on agricultural biotechnology by
publishing a retaliation list when the extend "Reasonable Time
Period" expires. In our view, Europe is moving backwards not
forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with
Austria, Italy and even the Commission. In France, the "Grenelle"
environment process is being implemented to circumvent science-based
decisions in favor of an assessment of the "common interest."
Combined with the precautionary principle, this is a precedent with
implications far beyond MON-810 BT corn cultivation. Moving to
retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to
EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.
In fact, the pro-biotech side in France -- including within the farm
union -- have told us retaliation is the only way to begin to begin
to turn this issue in France. End Summary.

¶2. (C) This is not just a bilateral concern. France will play a
leading role in renewed European consideration of the acceptance of
agricultural biotechnology and its approach toward environmental
regulation more generally. France expects to lead EU member states
on this issue during the Slovene presidency beginning in January and
through its own Presidency in the second half of the year. Our
contacts have made clear that they will seek to expand French
national policy to a EU-wide level and they believe that they are in
the vanguard of European public opinion in turning back GMO's. They
have noted that the member states have been unwilling to support the
Commission on sanctioning Austria's illegal national ban. The GOF
sees the ten year review of the Commission's authorization of MON 810
as a key opportunity and a review of the EFSA process to take into
account societal preferences as another (reftels).

¶3. (C) One of the key outcomes of the "Grenelle" was the decision to
suspend MON 810 cultivation in France. Just as damaging is the GOF's
apparent recommitment to the "precautionary principle." Sarkozy
publicly rejected a recommendation of the Attali Commission (to
review France's competitiveness) to move away from this principle,
which was added to the French constitution under Chirac.

¶4. (C) France's new "High Authority" on agricultural biotech is
designed to roll back established science-based decision making. The
recently formed authority is divided into two colleges, a scientific
college and a second group including civil society and social
scientists to assess the "common interest" of France. The
authority's first task is to review MON 810. In the meantime,
however, the draft biotech law submitted to the National Assembly and
the Senate for urgent consideration, could make any biotech planting
impossible in practical terms. The law would make farmers and seed
companies legally liable for pollen drift and sets the stage for
inordinately large cropping distances. The publication of a registry
identifying cultivation of GMOs at the parcel level may be the most
significant measure given the propensity for activists to destroy GMO
crops in the field.

¶5. (C) Both the GOF and the Commission have suggested that their
respective actions should not alarm us since they are only
cultivation rather than import bans. We see the cultivation ban as a
first step, at least by anti-GMO advocates, who will move next to ban
or further restrict imports. (The environment minister's top aide
told us that people have a right not to buy meat raised on biotech
feed, even though she acknowledged there was no possible scientific
basis for a feed based distinction.) Further, we should not be
prepared to cede on cultivation because of our considerable planting
seed business in Europe and because farmers, once they have had
experience with biotech, become its staunchest supporters.

¶6. Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target
retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a
collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the
worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and
must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an
early victory.

¶7. (C) President Sarkozy noted in his address in Washington to the
Joint Session of Congress that France and the United States are
"allies but not aligned." Our cooperation with France on a range of
issues should continue alongside our engagement with France and the
EU on ag biotech (and the next generation of environmental related
trade concerns.) We can manage both at the same time and should not
let one set of priorities detract from the other.

PARIS 00004723 002 OF 002
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