I’m encouraged to see that the publisher of The Union, in his editorial today (“Can we have our milk and drink it, too?“), supports the sustainability movement

“Who doesn’t support the sustainability movement?” you might ask.

Well, in Jeff Ackerman’s account, mostly the federal government:

Last week I went to see a documentary called “Farmageddon,” which convinced me that our government has declared war on this sustainability movement. The last thing Uncle Sam wants today is a society able to think and act for itself. He’d rather have us clamped firmly on his teat and as far away from a goat or cow’s udder as he can keep us.

If we start drinking milk straight from a goat or cow — like our ancestors did before us — what would happen to the food industry, or the federal Food and Drug Agency that controls it?

… Most of the small farmers grow food and milk cows and goats to feed their families, friends and neighbors. This country was once a nation of farmers, and that’s the way we operated. The upside to this down economy is this sustainability movement, which is encouraging us to return to the days when we fed ourselves, our families and our neighbors with food and milk we grew and raised with our own two hands.

It’s nice to see an editorial in The Union in support of sustainability.

I’m curious to know, though, whether this now means that Jeff Ackerman has joined the growing number of Nevada County residents who oppose the ginormous local non-sustainable project being considered by the City of Grass Valley, the re-opening of the Idaho-Maryland Mine for speculative exploration, a project that he has previously supported? Hardrock mining for gold, a non-renewable resource, is the epitome of non-sustainability.

But back to Farmageddon. I need to understand this better: Is the government at war with organic farming, at war with sustainability, or just at war with raw milk?

Maybe I’ll start by watching Farmageddon, which I’ve not yet seen.