Umi Jenkins

Director of Mississippi Farm to School Network

Our work is centered a lot around young people in grades Kindergarten through 12th. This past year, we received the Educator of the Year Award from Young, Gifted, and Empowered, because we really put a lot of emphasis around educating the community on food literacy. We’ve had higher community engagement and that’s come with our Youth Ambassador Program. Students participated from different school districts all over the state through this program. Their parents would also join, so it became a virtual network with agricultural-based learning, cooking demos—and all these things are done virtually. This level of community engagement was what we wanted, so farm-to-school doesn’t feel like something that’s so logistical and just taking place among food service directors and specialized folks.

The Farm Bill affects us in that it allows necessary changes and improvements in our agricultural system. I see the Farm Bill as something instrumental that can get your hopes up then feel quite deflating when the implementation isn’t fulfilled.

I just think Farm Bill priorities need to be radically refocused, which, depending on who you ask, feels like a difficult thing to address. But I think the application process for a lot of folks—especially farmers and organizations—is beyond frustrating and has been overly addressed in conversations around what needs to change. And I do feel that’s part of the equity and discriminatory practices that comes up with the USDA in terms of accessibility.

There’s been a lack of investment into specialty crop producers who are not growing as much as the commodity producers. And so, therefore, a lot of the funding and resources is going to the big commodity producers. Specialty crops make up a vast majority of what people need in terms of health and wellness—they don’t need processed food that comes from commodity crops like corn or soybeans. We don’t need that for our health and well-being. We need specialty crops, okra and tomatoes and all the different varieties of fruits and vegetables. If we limit that resource, limit support to the farmers who are growing those things, we are in essence dwindling that beautiful and strong element to the community, which fuels our health. It’s our food source. So, if this keeps getting neglected year after year, or the specialty crop farmers are having more and more difficulty applying for loans or getting the support they need—it just really damages and has been damaging our communities for so long. So, that is the type of implementation that I’m not seeing in my local and regional area. It’s not impacting my region. I haven’t seen any type of significant investment into specialty crop farmers. So, that’s something I think should change. 

If the Farm Bill doesn’t prioritize communities like mine, it would create even greater fatigue in our communities. People are exhausted. They’re exhausted with solutions being present and not being accessible. Something being dangled in front of you is quite frustrating. So, if something that could benefit us is proposed and suggested but not actually implemented or passed, I do feel it’s going to affect our local economy in a way that will create greater decline. We are seeing more and more young people who are leaving the state. And how can we blame them if we’re not creating economic opportunities? In rural areas, agriculture is a really large sector of their economic mobility. So, if the agricultural sector is not being invested in and uplifted, then you’re going to see these rural areas decline even more. And that will get into other discussions like the drug issues that are happening in our communities where there is poverty. That would just exacerbate already existing issues in addition to creating a great mistrust in our ability to look to legislators to solve problems.

I think even if one or two of these things that could benefit our community were strongly implemented and the follow through was there, community morale would boost. We would see improvement in terms of mental health in our community. I think we would see a decline in social issues that come about when there is a lack of investment and just a lack of interest in the community. People are unconsciously or consciously aware when they feel like their community is not expected to thrive. If there’s a shift in that then I think we’ll have more jobs, more creative jobs, more jobs that are rooted in tech because when people have a sense of job security and food security, it allows them to be more open and receptive to learning new things. 

It feels like this spiritual component that is all together left out of the conversation with how people connect with their food and how they connect with land. There’s really not space for that at a policy discussion level, but it’s such a huge part of why people even remain in certain areas despite the poverty. There’s a cultural connection as well as a connection to how people relate to the food ways. So, I think it’s important that we’re listening to the community, that part of the narrative is taken into account in how we prioritize our communities because again, this affects mental health. These are folks’ livelihoods. In terms of farmers, this is how they earn their living and how they feed their families. So, if we’re not associating that with our overall community wellness and plans to improve our community, then I don’t think we’re actively listening to the needs of our community. We’re just putting a bandaid on it or coming up with anecdotal solutions. This isn’t just land. There was bloodshed here and babies born here and bread is broken here. There were activists and people who have fought for this land and fought for the right to grow food here and to worship here. It’s hard to give that up. It’s hard to feel like you’re being run off of something that your family has lived on and loved. 

 There’s so much that is in this land. And so we honor it, and that has to be considered with resources and how we conserve it to ensure we’re creating a container to remember these things and still value these things as a part of our community.

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Choctaw Tribal Members

Choctaw Fresh

Tomika Bell (Choctaw Fresh Produce distribution manager): As Native Americans, we live in rural areas, which means we don’t have the ability to be near any kind of grocery stores or farm stands. But Choctaw Fresh gives people the ability to utilize our mobile market, and put farms in certain areas, which means we’re able to reach those people that live in scarce areas that aren’t able to have access to eating healthy. 

Nigel Gibson (Tribal Council member): Food is an essential need to life. Within our community, we have a high rate of diabetes with all ages within our tribe. What Choctaw Fresh is trying to provide is a healthier way of eating, and also educate tribe members on how they need to eat regardless if they’re diabetic or not. 

Bell: We consider the land our motherland and Choctaw Fresh takes care of it by growing organic. We’re not actually disturbing our soil, which is our way of taking care of our land. I feel like the Farm Bill could help us a lot by getting a lot of our land back. We don’t have much access to a lot of good farmland. 

Gibson: To be able to expand like that would not only give us opportunities food wise within the community, but it also could give us economical help within the community because when you expand, you’re able to provide more job opportunities.

We’re always looking for economical opportunities, whether it’s federal funding or revenue from your own tribal casino. Having that kind of funding for Choctaw Fresh would be tremendous. 

Bell: Access to broadband is also an issue for us because without it we’re not able to reach out and do what we need to do out there. But, personally, I don’t believe that the Farm Bill will make a big impact on us other than the ability to get a better rate of payment for our workers. We hire harvesters, harvest techs, high tunnel maintenance workers, farmers, and anyone who’s operating from the distribution side. We started out paying them $8 an hour and have been able to find the funding to increase that to $12. If Farm Bill funding goes through, we will be able to increase that to $15 an hour. Good paying wages are really important for us to be able to retain labor workers and avoid high turnover. Being able to pay them more would help with food insecurity and food access because if we don’t have workers then we don’t have food.

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Ya-Sin Shabazz

Gulf Coast Sustainable Growers Alliance

We started the Gulf Coast Sustainable Growers Alliance as a way of organizing and keeping on point with a lot of our work around food. We also started the Just Water Initiative, which maintains a two-and-a-half acre off bottom oyster aquaculture operation.

Aquaculture is definitely a challenge our organization is addressing that could be affected by the Farm Bill. There are other challenges in terms of land ownership, land stewardship, and retention. And then there’s the water systems and irrigation systems that can help advance farming. So, those are two of our biggest problems with regards to our food work. With aquaculture, we have challenges in terms of boats, equipment, temporary water closures, and reef closures, because of water quality on the coast, which is also a problem.

Whenever there are adverse effects—anything from severe rain to bad weather to hurricanes being the worst—that does damage to the fisheries. But also just too much rain can affect the water sufficiency because of salinity levels, and things like that. There’s what’s called the freshwater inversion from the Mississippi River. So, when the rivers are high, the Army Corps of Engineers has the ultimate decision-making power, and they can open the spillways from the river into the Gulf. Water that comes in from the spillway will eventually make its way to the Gulf and that really impacts salinity levels, sometimes creating a salty deadzone. All of this can impact different fish species that are dependent on certain salt levels in the water and, therefore, affect the livelihood of fishermen.

Without support from the Farm Bill, there would be a number of challenges. This area has weathered them and will continue to weather them. We just hope to be able to make sure to the best extent possible by promoting local farmers, fresh food, and trying to continually educate the youth on the importance of food and food systems.

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Darnella Winston

Project Director/Cooperative Field Specialist Federation of Southern Cooperatives

Our organization was born out of the Civil Rights movement in 1972, and our focus has been corporate development, land retention, and advocacy. But, lately, we’ve been working more with youth. What we’re realizing is that there’s a whole other audience out there that we’re missing, which is the next generation. And by the next generation I mean everyone from six years old all the way to 46 years old to move into the swing of agriculture. 

I tell people that the Farm Bill sets the priorities for the food and the farm. It is one of the largest bills in terms of money that comes out of the government. We have to be able to say where we want to allocate that money. We try to come up with priorities and recommendations as far as what our members and our clients would like to see. One or two of the priorities that we push for is for the microloan to go from $50,000 to $100,000 because that’s a loan rural people are able to receive. It’s not as much based on credit as it is your work and what it is you claim that you’re trying to do. One of the things that we pushed was for the microloan’s increased limit. There’s loan forgiveness within the USDA’s Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement lending program, which has been a slow start and we’re not sure what’s going to happen with that. But our property is an issue in the BIPOC community. And in order for us to keep saving our land, we need that relending program to be able to save that land for the next generation.

Broadband is also going to be very important for us in the Farm Bill. With the way times are going, that’s almost another way of business for the BIPOC community, but in order to be a part of it, you have to have broadband.

For example, we’re to the point now that some of the grocery stores want farmers to send them an email in the morning letting them know what the farmer is going to have that day. My father would type it up on a typewriter and mail it to them. By the time the grocery store gets it, somebody else might have sent in what they had and outbidded us because we don’t have internet.

If the Farm Bill could help us access better Broadband, people would be able to have a better understanding about local and fresh produce and where it’s grown. People want to be able to see what we’re doing. They ask, “Can we see it? Do you have a website to show us?” Having functioning internet and a website would be a total game changer, especially in the cooperative movement.

If communities like ours aren’t prioritized in the Farm Bill, it’s going to be a slow demise. It would send us back to the drawing board, trying to squeeze six quarters out of a dollar to keep the work going. We can’t totally rely on these programs because we don’t know which way they’re gonna go. We have to remember to cooperatively work together in community to try to push the priorities to the best that we can. But if we don’t get them, we still don’t give up on our work.

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Calvin Head

Farmer and Director of Milestone Cooperative Association

I’m participating in a regenerative agriculture initiative with several other farmers and youth and have served as director of Milestone Cooperative Association for about 12 years. I’m also a community organizer with emphasis on economic and community development. And, historically, I’ve been in this civil rights work almost all of my adult life and most of my young life.

One of the primary purposes of our organization right now is to offset these health issues by growing quality food, which is really not accessible here for most people. We’re helping people to understand what it is to eat healthy because a lot of people don’t really know, believe it or not. We’re also just trying to enhance the quality of life for low-income individuals and limited-resource farms.

I think the Farm Bill was written with us in mind in terms of how it’s presented to Congress, but when it comes to actual distribution and allocation, I think that the rules of the game change somehow. Historically, every time we get inside the process and we get to understand and master that process, they change the rules right away. They know who gets what. It’s the same people in the same places for the most part. They’re all well connected with who they want to help. I will just say the educational piece around the Farm Bill needs to be improved. Instead of just announcing it, let people really, really know what’s in it and how to take advantage of it—especially rural people and people of color.

We have many priorities for the Farm Bill, but where our community is really, really getting left behind is with broadband access. Having access to it where we are is really difficult. Our service providers are price gouging and taking as much advantage of us as they can because they know we have few alternatives. 

Right now, we’re limited to one small hotspot at our farm store for internet access. And everything is set up online, even our surveillance system. So, we can’t run the cash register, the gas pump, the surveillance system and the credit card machine at the same time. We’re limited and that hotspot can only go so far. So, we have to rob Peter to pay Paul. Broadband is so important in everyone’s everyday life. You’re almost third world without it. When we first got certified with the USDA Food Safety Program for our vegetable initiative, there was so much stuff that you had to go online and do.

It needs to be made mandatory that some of the resources from the Farm Bill reach us. Do you know what it would mean to have access to a new tractor to do some of the work we need done in these fields? One day your tractor is working and the next day you’re just hoping it makes it through that day. Or just being able to have some upfront money would be helpful. Most of the time, we’ve invested out of our own pockets. We’ve taken on all the risk and then we’re one flood away from bankruptcy. Getting support from the Farm Bill could give us the same flexibility that big farmers have when there’s a disaster. And you wouldn’t have to spend your life’s savings just to try to get a crop in the ground. It would have a tremendous impact. I have never as a farmer operated in the black.

There’s money allotted just for farmers in the Farm Bill and we just want our fair share. At least, before I leave this earth, I would like to see it. I would just like to see a level playing field just for once. All we want is the opportunity to work hard. Nobody is asking for a handout, just some flexibility.

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The post Farmers Fought a Factory Farm and Won appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Many labels that guarantee humane treatment of farm animals (e.g., “humanely raised”), do anything but and are largely meaningless. Only recently did the USDA announce that it might regulate some of these labels after a push from advocates (we aren’t holding our breath). If this is the case of animal welfare labeling, consumers are right to be concerned that it is likely true of “green” labeling as well, particularly for the dairy industry, which is one of the most environmentally intensive industries on Earth. 

Farm Forward recently published a major investigative report detailing systematic animal suffering and consumer fraud at Alexandre Family Farm—a leading large-scale organic dairy company with “well over 9,000 head of cattle,” according to co-owner Blake Alexandre—whose products are covered in certification labels. The details of this investigation and the facts about large-scale dairy production should call into question the idea that the industry can be compatible with a more sustainable and humane food system. 

Farm Forward’s investigation and deceptive labeling

One of the key findings of Farm Forward’s investigation into Alexandre was this: Certifications such as Regenerative Organic Certified and Certified Humane were, sadly, insufficient to stop widespread abuse of cows and apparent environmental violations of land and water. This means that the primary function of labels—to give consumers assurances that a given product meets their values—frequently fails. In other words, humane labels aren’t there to help the consumer find better products. They’re tools for the meat and dairy industry to market their products. It’s unlikely, for example, that when a consumer sees one of these labels on Alexandre milk products in a Whole Foods Market, they imagine a field of dead cows being used as compost, or decaying cow corpses dangling into waterways, likely violating state water quality laws. Yet that’s exactly what Farm Forward’s investigation found. 

And then there’s the halo effect. Other companies that use Alexandre as a supplier, whether for ice cream, cheese, or even toddler formula, have used marketing based off of Alexandre’s humanewashing and greenwashing, and reaped the benefits. For a long time, Alexandre—and companies that have Alexandre as a supplier—have touted the Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) label, a certification with genuinely high standards for cow treatment. However, Farm Forward learned from its investigation that only a relatively small number of Alexandre cows (fewer than 300 of the more than 5,000 to 9,000 cows raised by Alexandre, or roughly three to six percent) actually qualify under the label. Yet, companies bathe in the good image of Alexandre all the same, touting Alexandre’s ROC certification whether or not the actual milk used in their products came from ROC cows (as of writing, Alexandre’s ROC certification was suspended after a February 2024 audit, pending conclusion of the investigation).

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Green Guides require that marketers “ensure that all reasonable interpretations of their claims are truthful, not misleading, and supported by a reasonable basis” and that environmental marketing claims “not overstate, directly or by implication, an environmental attribute or benefit.” The FTC itself states that “…sometimes what companies think their green claims mean and what consumers really understand are two different things.” A consumer buying milk adorned with labels such as ROC and “Certified Humane” ought to have confidence that those products were actually made from properly treated cows by a company following environmental guidelines and ordinances, and free from the systematic abuse documented in the investigation. 

Large-scale dairy is incompatible with net zero

In order to understand deceptive labeling, however, we have to go back to the beginning: Why do massive dairy companies feel a need to plaster their products with misleading labels that may violate FTC guidelines? There’s a simple answer: They know the reputation of industrial dairy is faltering and are desperate to remedy the problem with claims that their industry can both expand and save us from climate disaster. And if the recent industrial dairy ad campaigns are any indication, it would seem that they are quite desperate. 

On an ultra-small scale, a sincere commitment to regenerative agriculture is compatible with reducing many of the harms of industrial animal agriculture, including harms to the climate. However, Alexandre and so many other companies that want to rehabilitate dairy farms are not small-scale; they may have thousands of animals under their care. And recent research into the ability of large-scale “regenerative” cow operations to offset as much greenhouse gas emissions as they produce is quite clear: It won’t work. The authors conclude that soil-based carbon sequestration “has a limited role to mitigate climate warming caused by the ruminant sector.” According to the study, offsetting the methane associated with global ruminant farming annually—a massive 135 gigatons—with soil-based sequestration is biophysically impossible. 

And yet, for decades, the broader dairy industry has been pushing smaller farmers out of business, the very farm operations that can represent a legitimate attempt at a regenerative system. 

Playing dairy roulette 

Farm Forward’s investigation didn’t just reveal that one particular company eschewed these standards, but also that the entire dairy system is flawed. Several certifications failed to see animal abuse happening right under their noses. USDA Organic requires that producers that treat an organic cow with antibiotics must remove that cow from the organic program. In doing so, the USDA inadvertently creates a financial disincentive for producers to treat suffering cows with the proper care, since non-organic milk and meat is sold at a far lower price point (see the report’s appendix); and many companies have benefited from the halo effect of Alexandre’s deceptions. What makes this all especially sad is that there are labels—Regenerative Organic Certified and Animal Welfare Approved among them—that genuinely have high standards relative to many other labeling schemes on the market. They can represent a small piece of the path toward a more sustainable and humane food system. But in the context of dairy production, the findings of the investigation have led Farm Forward to think that guaranteeing proper care of thousands of dairy cows just isn’t possible, given the unique challenges of dairy at scale and given the bad incentives. 

Alexandre’s failures are just one example of the dairy industry failing to live up to its promises. It tells us it can save the planet while treating cows humanely, while raking in unprecedented profits with its mega-dairies. How many more instances of animal abuse and climate devastation do we need to see before we stop believing that the industry that creates these harms also somehow holds the key to fixing them?

When a consumer buys milk from the grocery store—milk that they cannot guarantee came from an ultra small-scale operation with high standards of care—they are playing a game of dairy roulette. And in a world of such extreme levels of consumer deception, it becomes an easy choice to try oat milk. 

Farm Forward is a team of strategists, campaigners, and thought leaders guiding the movement to change the way our world eats and farms. Its mission is to change the way our world eats and farms end factory farming by changing farming, changing policy, and changing the stories we tell about animal agriculture. Learn more at https://www.farmforward.com/

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Communities living near these operations bear the brunt of air and water pollution, among other things. Animal advocates say that the way animals are raised in this system is inhumane from start to finish. Lakes, rivers, and streams experience unprecedented environmental degradation. The producers themselves, many of whom get into the business for a stable farming job, experience demoralization and unsafe working conditions. 

All of us, in some way, are impacted by industrial animal agriculture. This series of stories looks at the impacts, but also some of the ways that people are advocating against this system and looking for a way of farming that is sustainable—for communities, the environment, animals, and farmers themselves.

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Sonoma County is the heart of California wine country. With a population of almost half a million, the region is known for its arable land and stunning vistas – the “Tuscany of America,” according to local rancher Bronte Edwards.

But Sonoma has a less genteel side: The area is also home to approximately 3 million head of livestock held in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These factory farms not only force animals to live in overcrowded, dirty conditions, they also produce copious amounts of manure, which can cause water pollution and other health hazards.

In November, county residents will have the unique opportunity to ban CAFOs with a ballot initiative that would completely prohibit industrial livestock operations. If “Measure J” passes, Sonoma will be the first county in the United States to ban CAFOs. It would call for a moratorium on the creation of future facilities, along with a three-year phase-out period for current operations. The petition to get Measure J on the ballot garnered 17,000 signatures more than the minimum of 20,000 needed to get on the ballot.

“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind,” said Cassie King, an organizer with the Coalition to End Factory Farming, a collection of groups backing Measure J.

According to the Sierra Club, “large, high density CAFOS have reduced the number of livestock farmers in the U.S. by 80%.” In a tight-knit agricultural county like Sonoma, though, even the big players are friendly faces at the grocery store. And if Measure J passes, it would force these larger enterprises in Sonoma to change their practices or shut down.

“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind.”

The measure faces strong opposition, even from some small-scale farmers and ranchers, who fear that banning CAFOs will disrupt an economy grounded in agritourism and gastronomy. The measure has split Sonoma County, with local farmers and concerned citizens lining up on both sides of the proposed ban. Both the “Yes on J” website and the one belonging to “No on J” feature numerous local farms and advocacy groups.

In an email to High Country News, Roy Smith, a Sonoma County farmer who runs a seven-acre hay operation, wrote that the debate lacks nuance: “Both sides argue a truth, and both sides permit a falsehood,” he said. Still, he applauded Measure J for “rais(ing) awareness of the presence of industrial confinement facilities in our backyard.”

In a country dominated by large-scale farming operations comprising thousands of acres of monocrops, Sonoma County is an outlier. Forty-three percent of its farms are very small — around one to nine acres — and 32% are 10 to 49 acres. (The average U.S. farm is 464 acres.) In 2022, Sonoma County farmers produced half a billion dollars’ worth of wine grapes. Livestock, poultry and animal products brought in approximately $140 million.

A series of recent legal fights over water pollution set the stage for Measure J. Last year, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs), a nonprofit that focuses on chemical pollution, sued Reichardt Duck Farm, a 373-acre duck-processing facility in Sonoma County. CATs alleged that Reichardt was discharging storm water into an unnamed creek, which eventually made its way to Tomales Bay and ultimately the Pacific Ocean. Reichardt Duck Farm settled the suit.

“We heartily support curbing CAFOs. They’re disgusting. They have a horrific impact on the environment,” said Patty Clary, executive director of CATs, which is a member of the coalition backing Measure J.

This year, on July 5, CATs gave a dairy CAFO in Sonoma a 60-day notice of the group’s intent to file suit for violations of the Clean Water Act. Almost all waterways in Sonoma County are considered “impaired” by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning they’re too polluted for swimming and boating.

Clary, who grew up in Sonoma County, is not only concerned about the animals in CAFOs, but also the lives of the people who work in them. Measure J declares that the county must provide “a retraining and employment assistance program for current and former CAFO workers.” She hopes that a ban on CAFOs would create a “lower-key” agricultural environment.

“Without a giant CAFO, this sort of animal production would be more spread out in the community, where people could develop little co-ops and have a number of small farms providing the product that one big CAFO is producing,” she said.

Measure J is more complicated for many local farmers, including Smith, who raises sheep, poultry and swine, in addition to hay. But he agrees with one major aspect of it: a ban on poultry confinement facilities in Sonoma.

“They are an abomination in every possible way,” he said.

Smith grew up in Sonoma and laments the changes he has witnessed; a shift from small-scale operations dotting the landscape to large-scale enterprises that gobble everything up. “CAFOs, local and national, continue to drive retail prices down below levels that can sustain small, humane, agroecological producers,” he said.

But he fears that Measure J will impact some medium-sized dairies that, in his opinion, do not meet the standard definition of a CAFO.

Bronte Edwards and her wife, Liz Bell, who run Rainbow Family Ranching, share these concerns. Edwards and Bell are self-described “queer first-gen livestock ranchers.” They describe their farm as “carbon negative” and try to purchase locally grown hay. The prospect of Measure J worries them, especially its proposed definition of a CAFO, which denotes facilities where “animals … have been, are, or will be stabled or confined and fed or maintained for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period.” This “45-day” rule is part of the same definition that the EPA uses for CAFOs.

Other provisions in the measure — such as language specifying the number of animals confined and how waste is discharged — appear to protect farms like the Rainbow Family Ranching from the ban. Advocates for Measure J have identified 21 “large CAFOs” in Sonoma County that house anywhere from 900 to 600,000 animals. A spokesperson for “Yes on Measure J” said that an operation that meets the 45-day rule, but none of the other CAFO definitions, would not be affected.

“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed.”

Despite this, Edwards and Bell remain concerned about what the measure will mean for their neighbors, some of whom operate facilities with over 200 head of livestock — which might render them a CAFO under Measure J.

“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed,” Edwards said.

She added that keeping farms together is important for conservation, as it allows wildlife to move between open spaces and grazing lands. In her day job, Edwards works with a land trust to purchase development rights and easements to keep farms whole, preserving land for future generations.

Regardless of the result at the ballot box in November, both sides of the Measure J debate agree on one thing: The proposal will leave a mark on Sonoma County. According to Clary, if Measure J passes, it could set an example to other counties across the nation.

“If it loses, it will have made a crack in the in the eggshell, and it will still have an impact,” she said.

This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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