The News Register (Aurora, Nebraska), July 24, 2007

PREACHING THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE

[Rachel's introduction: Carolyn Raffensberger is challenging farmers to "change the story of agriculture." This can be done through use of the Precautionary Principle, an idea that Raffensberger shared Saturday with farmers from around the country recently at "The Grain Place" in Marquette, Nebraska. "The ethical way of proceeding is to prevent suffering, not just to fix it afterwards," Raffensberger said.]

By Jonna Michelle Huseman

Farmer and environmentalist Carolyn Raffensberger is calling all farmers.

She is calling them to change the face of cancer, to battle the struggles of autism and to beat diabetes head on.

Most of all, Raffensberger is challenging farmers to "change the story of agriculture." All of this can be done, according to Raffensberger, through use of the Precautionary Principle, an idea that Raffensberger shared with farmers from around the country Saturday afternoon at "The Grain Place." "The ethical way of proceeding is to prevent suffering, not just to fix it afterwards," Raffensberger said.

Developed in Germany by local citizens who were concerned that the Black Forest was drying, Raffensberger said that when applied to farming, the Precautionary Principle, which suggests that humans prevent suffering, can be life-changing.

The principle of which Raffensberger speaks and lives by has already changed her life.

The idea of preventing harm first entered Raffensberger's world when she was a child.

Her father, a doctor in Illinois, saw a steady increase in birth defects and brain tumors in children.

"He was convinced that they were related to the environment," Raffensberger said.

Touched by her father's concern for human life, Raffensberger has devoted her life to helping society through her unique farming methods.

Today, Raffensberger works with doctors and other health professionals and said the increase in debilitating diseases has only gone up since she was a child.

Raffensberger used breast cancer as a prime example and said the women of her mother's generation had a one in 25 chance of getting breast cancer. She herself faces a one in seven chance and her daughter's generation of women will face a one in three chance of getting breast cancer.

"Health statistics across the country are going the wrong way," Raffensberger said. "The genetics have not changed since my mother's generation." Raffensberger attributes such numbers to the environment and believes that diseases like breast cancer can be prevented by looking for alternative methods of farming.

"The old way of doing business was just to do a cross benefit analysis and a risk assessment," Raffensberger said, explaining that it was acceptable for some women to have breast cancer or some children to suffer from autism as a result of these "practical" farming methods.

Now, she is asking farmers throughout the country to look for different alternatives and experiment with different ways of growing crops.

"Rather than go ahead and evaluate the risk of this particular pesticide, what we do is evaluate all of the possible alternatives," Raffensberger said.

She also encouraged new ways of creating hybrid crops and called the Vetter's "Grain Place" farm a model for farmers around the world.

Though her words were encouraging, Raffensberger admitted that she understands first-hand how difficult change can be. She and her husband own farms in North Dakota and Iowa and sometimes receive negative feedback regarding the Precautionary Principle method, the main one centering around the fact that the Precautionary Principle has not yet been scientifically proven.

But, Raffensberger believes there is hope, especially through America's Midwest farmers who she calls innovative and creative.

And aside from applying the Precautionary Principal to farming, Raffensberger encourages all persons to apply it to their daily lives, in an effort to care for future generations.

"The Precautionary Principle and preventing harm to the commons is a key task of everyone," she said.