Tensions rise as world faces short rations
By Russell Blinch and Brian Love
WASHINGTON/PARIS (Reuters) - Food prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers can't keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it's already boiling over.
Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports -- a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century.
Plundered by severe weather in producing countries and by a boom in demand from fast-developing nations, the world's wheat stocks are at 30-year lows. Grain prices have been on the rise for five years, ending decades of cheap food.
Drought, a declining dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and use of farm land to grow fuel have all contributed to food woes. But population growth and the growing wealth of China and other emerging countries are likely to be more enduring factors.
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Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Argentine farm strike enters 13th day
By BILL CORMIER, Associated Press Writer
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports Tuesday, facing down angry farmers embroiled a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-eating and beef-exporting nations.
At least 9,000 cattle normally enter this capital's sprawling stockyard each day for slaughter, yet not a single animal arrived this week due to the biggest farm and ranch strike in decades.
Scattered shops began emptying of beef, milk, chicken and cooking oil Tuesday as farmworkers mounted the most serious challenge yet to Fernandez's fledgling government.
South America's second-largest economy — a leading exporter of soybeans, beef and wheat — is in full farmbelt rebellion over a new sliding-scale increase in export taxes. Soybean taxes are being hiked from 35 percent to 45 percent, with smaller increases on corn and other farm products.
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By BILL CORMIER, Associated Press Writer
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - President Cristina Fernandez refused to ease tax hikes on agricultural exports Tuesday, facing down angry farmers embroiled a nationwide strike that has all but halted production in one of the world's biggest beef-eating and beef-exporting nations.
At least 9,000 cattle normally enter this capital's sprawling stockyard each day for slaughter, yet not a single animal arrived this week due to the biggest farm and ranch strike in decades.
Scattered shops began emptying of beef, milk, chicken and cooking oil Tuesday as farmworkers mounted the most serious challenge yet to Fernandez's fledgling government.
South America's second-largest economy — a leading exporter of soybeans, beef and wheat — is in full farmbelt rebellion over a new sliding-scale increase in export taxes. Soybean taxes are being hiked from 35 percent to 45 percent, with smaller increases on corn and other farm products.
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Grain prices soar globally
Rice shortages are appearing across Asia. In Egypt, the Army is now baking bread to curb food riots.
By Daniel Ten Kate
Bangkok, Thailand - - Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week.
Around the world, governments and aid groups are grappling with the escalating cost of basic grains. In December, 37 countries faced a food crisis, reports the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and 20 nations had imposed some form of food-price controls.
In Asia, where rice is on every plate, prices are shooting up almost daily. Premium Thai fragrant rice now costs $900 per ton, a nearly 30 percent rise from a month ago.
Exporters say the price could eclipse $1,000 per ton by June. Similarly, prices of white rice have climbed about 50 percent since January to $600 per ton and are projected to jump another 40 percent to $800 per ton in April.
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Rice shortages are appearing across Asia. In Egypt, the Army is now baking bread to curb food riots.
By Daniel Ten Kate
Bangkok, Thailand - - Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week.
Around the world, governments and aid groups are grappling with the escalating cost of basic grains. In December, 37 countries faced a food crisis, reports the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and 20 nations had imposed some form of food-price controls.
In Asia, where rice is on every plate, prices are shooting up almost daily. Premium Thai fragrant rice now costs $900 per ton, a nearly 30 percent rise from a month ago.
Exporters say the price could eclipse $1,000 per ton by June. Similarly, prices of white rice have climbed about 50 percent since January to $600 per ton and are projected to jump another 40 percent to $800 per ton in April.
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Wind power breaks records in Spain (AFP)
MADRID (AFP) — Wind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend, the country's wind power association said Tuesday.
As heavy winds lashed Spain on Saturday evening wind parks generated 9,862 megawatts of power which translated to 40.8 percent of total consumption due to low demand during the Easter holiday weekend, AEE said.
Between Friday and Sunday wind power accounted for an average of 28 percent of all electricity demand in Spain, which is a leading world producer of such energy, a statement from the association said.
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MADRID (AFP) — Wind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend, the country's wind power association said Tuesday.
As heavy winds lashed Spain on Saturday evening wind parks generated 9,862 megawatts of power which translated to 40.8 percent of total consumption due to low demand during the Easter holiday weekend, AEE said.
Between Friday and Sunday wind power accounted for an average of 28 percent of all electricity demand in Spain, which is a leading world producer of such energy, a statement from the association said.
LINK TO CON
Meat wagon: pork superbug!
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thrives in CAFO pork, and Wall Street gobbles up Big Meat shares
Posted by Tom Philpott
Back in December, Michael Pollan wrote a important article about the antibiotic resistant bacteria MSRA, which Pollan decsribed like this:
... the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS -- 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Pollan writes that such strains have been around for a while, emanating from hospitals, where our medical experts quixotically drench patients with antibiotics, inevitably incubating resistant -- and virulent, for those of us who avoid antibiotics -- bacterial strains.
Now, Pollan reports, "a new and even more virulent strain -- called 'community-acquired MRSA' -- is ... killing young and otherwise healthy people who have not set foot in a hospital." Evidence is mounting that the source is that other great center of antibiotic reliance: the concentrated-animal feedlot operation, or CAFO.
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Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thrives in CAFO pork, and Wall Street gobbles up Big Meat shares
Posted by Tom Philpott
Back in December, Michael Pollan wrote a important article about the antibiotic resistant bacteria MSRA, which Pollan decsribed like this:
... the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS -- 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Pollan writes that such strains have been around for a while, emanating from hospitals, where our medical experts quixotically drench patients with antibiotics, inevitably incubating resistant -- and virulent, for those of us who avoid antibiotics -- bacterial strains.
Now, Pollan reports, "a new and even more virulent strain -- called 'community-acquired MRSA' -- is ... killing young and otherwise healthy people who have not set foot in a hospital." Evidence is mounting that the source is that other great center of antibiotic reliance: the concentrated-animal feedlot operation, or CAFO.
LINK TO CON
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Leftwing activists flock to Venezuela to soak up the socialist 'revolution'
Like Havana, Cuba, and Chiapas, Mexico, before it, Caracas draws liberals from around the world who want to experience Hugo Chavez's experiment in socialism.
By Sara Miller Llana
Caracas, VENEZUELA - The "hot corner" stands in the center of Caracas, in Plaza Bolívar. It's a makeshift booth papered with fliers that marks itself as the "launching point to the revolution." There militants rail against imperialism and greedy Yankees all day.
But this is not the excesses and exuberance of a few hometown activists. Across Caracas, appeals for social revolt are the city's constant background music. No matter what you do during the day – jog, ride the subway, simply cross the street – it's there. The murals and banners that drape the city – of revolutionaries "Che" Guevara and Simón Bolívar, of Fidel Castro, and now, of course, of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez – are the curtains onto the hottest stage along the "revolutionary circuit" in the world today. And leftists from everywhere are swarming in to see the show.
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Like Havana, Cuba, and Chiapas, Mexico, before it, Caracas draws liberals from around the world who want to experience Hugo Chavez's experiment in socialism.
By Sara Miller Llana
Caracas, VENEZUELA - The "hot corner" stands in the center of Caracas, in Plaza Bolívar. It's a makeshift booth papered with fliers that marks itself as the "launching point to the revolution." There militants rail against imperialism and greedy Yankees all day.
But this is not the excesses and exuberance of a few hometown activists. Across Caracas, appeals for social revolt are the city's constant background music. No matter what you do during the day – jog, ride the subway, simply cross the street – it's there. The murals and banners that drape the city – of revolutionaries "Che" Guevara and Simón Bolívar, of Fidel Castro, and now, of course, of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez – are the curtains onto the hottest stage along the "revolutionary circuit" in the world today. And leftists from everywhere are swarming in to see the show.
LINK TO CON
Monday, March 24, 2008
GMO and Morgellons Disease
by Barbara Peterson
I am currently reading William Engdahl's Seeds of Destruction, which documents the takeover of our global food chain by giant transnational agri-business concerns intent on enslaving the population through GMO technology. I am having difficulty reading this book because after a few pages, I become enraged at the colossal greed and corruption that exists in our corporate government, which has no problem murdering whole populations and eco-systems, and reducing the survivors to a life of abject misery and poverty. I find that after reading just a few pages, I have to put the book down, cool off, then pick it up again and read a few more pages before going through the cycle again. Anyway, as I was going through this cycle of reading, fuming, cooling off, then reading again, a thought occurred to me. What if the advent of Morgellons Disease has something to do with the ingestion of GMO foods? The timing seems to be rather coincidental, so I did some web research, and here is what I found.
Morgellons Disease – What is it?
LINK TO CON
by Barbara Peterson
I am currently reading William Engdahl's Seeds of Destruction, which documents the takeover of our global food chain by giant transnational agri-business concerns intent on enslaving the population through GMO technology. I am having difficulty reading this book because after a few pages, I become enraged at the colossal greed and corruption that exists in our corporate government, which has no problem murdering whole populations and eco-systems, and reducing the survivors to a life of abject misery and poverty. I find that after reading just a few pages, I have to put the book down, cool off, then pick it up again and read a few more pages before going through the cycle again. Anyway, as I was going through this cycle of reading, fuming, cooling off, then reading again, a thought occurred to me. What if the advent of Morgellons Disease has something to do with the ingestion of GMO foods? The timing seems to be rather coincidental, so I did some web research, and here is what I found.
Morgellons Disease – What is it?
LINK TO CON
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Mexico approves rules to begin planting GM corn
By Mica Rosenberg
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico, widely thought to be the birthplace of corn, said on Wednesday it will begin allowing experimental planting of genetically modified crops, despite resistance from some farmers who question their safety.
The regulations published in the official gazette are the last step needed to implement a law passed by Mexico's Congress in December 2004 that authorizes controlled GMO plantings.
Supporters of GMO foods, whose DNA is altered to be resistant to pests, say they are a way to boost world food supplies. But farmers in Mexico's rural south, where corn has been grown for thousands of years, worry GM corn will cross-pollinate with native species and alter their genetic content.
LINK TO CON
By Mica Rosenberg
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico, widely thought to be the birthplace of corn, said on Wednesday it will begin allowing experimental planting of genetically modified crops, despite resistance from some farmers who question their safety.
The regulations published in the official gazette are the last step needed to implement a law passed by Mexico's Congress in December 2004 that authorizes controlled GMO plantings.
Supporters of GMO foods, whose DNA is altered to be resistant to pests, say they are a way to boost world food supplies. But farmers in Mexico's rural south, where corn has been grown for thousands of years, worry GM corn will cross-pollinate with native species and alter their genetic content.
LINK TO CON
The Return of Sail, and Hemp?
By Andrew C. Revkin
It seems there’s a push toward the future through the past (pedicabs in Manhattan being just one example). Here are two more examples, involving sails on cargo ships and a proposal to legalize farming of hemp, a plant that was once a big crop in the United States, was banned because the industrial variety (very different than the plants grown to smoke) still has a trace of the compounds that give marijuana its punch.
The New Age of Sail
A new age of sail may be a bit closer to reality. The MV Beluga SkySails, the first freighter in the modern era using a kite-like sail along with its conventional engine when the winds are right, completed a transatlantic passage and the owners report that the sail cut fuel burning around 20 percent on days when conditions were right.
On the next trip, a sail twice the 1,700 square feet of the prototype will be used, and the owners say they will encourage the crew to deploy the sail as much as possible by offering 20 percent of saved fuel costs as a bonus. The company, Beluga Shipping GmbH of Bremen, Germany, said it expects to save about $2,000 a day when the sail is deployed. The project is partly underwritten by the European Union.
LINK TO CON
By Andrew C. Revkin
It seems there’s a push toward the future through the past (pedicabs in Manhattan being just one example). Here are two more examples, involving sails on cargo ships and a proposal to legalize farming of hemp, a plant that was once a big crop in the United States, was banned because the industrial variety (very different than the plants grown to smoke) still has a trace of the compounds that give marijuana its punch.
The New Age of Sail
A new age of sail may be a bit closer to reality. The MV Beluga SkySails, the first freighter in the modern era using a kite-like sail along with its conventional engine when the winds are right, completed a transatlantic passage and the owners report that the sail cut fuel burning around 20 percent on days when conditions were right.
On the next trip, a sail twice the 1,700 square feet of the prototype will be used, and the owners say they will encourage the crew to deploy the sail as much as possible by offering 20 percent of saved fuel costs as a bonus. The company, Beluga Shipping GmbH of Bremen, Germany, said it expects to save about $2,000 a day when the sail is deployed. The project is partly underwritten by the European Union.
LINK TO CON
VIA TRex
Dear John McCain,
Repeatedly over the last few days you have made what your fluffers call a “gaffe” in describing the current situation in Iraq. You keep trying to tell people that Iran is sponsoring al Qaeda in Iraq, which is absurd on its face, and in a moment I will explain to you why. But I would like to begin by saying that your repeated flub indicates one of two things, neither of which is just that you’re an easily confused but lovable “cranky old man” as Ana Marie Cox sighingly described you to Howard Kurtz on CNN.
Either you honestly don’t understand what’s happening in the region and that ignorance is showing, in spite of the press establishment’s (and wifey Joe Lieberman’s) feverish efforts to prop you up, or you are deliberately lying to bolster the case for a military strike against Iran, neither of which is an acceptable option for a man with his sights set on the highest office in the land. If you had made the mistake once or even twice, perhaps it would be a different matter, an honest error made by a doddering old fool who can’t keep his index cards straight. (That would be fine if we were casting a sequel to Cocoon, by the way, but not at all okay in terms of choosing a president.) But you have kept saying it again and again, which leads me to believe that you honestly don’t understand the basic facts of the war on the ground in Iraq or that you’re willing to openly lie about it to trick the American people into following you into another ridiculous, pointless, expensive war.
CLICK TO CON
Dear John McCain,
Repeatedly over the last few days you have made what your fluffers call a “gaffe” in describing the current situation in Iraq. You keep trying to tell people that Iran is sponsoring al Qaeda in Iraq, which is absurd on its face, and in a moment I will explain to you why. But I would like to begin by saying that your repeated flub indicates one of two things, neither of which is just that you’re an easily confused but lovable “cranky old man” as Ana Marie Cox sighingly described you to Howard Kurtz on CNN.
Either you honestly don’t understand what’s happening in the region and that ignorance is showing, in spite of the press establishment’s (and wifey Joe Lieberman’s) feverish efforts to prop you up, or you are deliberately lying to bolster the case for a military strike against Iran, neither of which is an acceptable option for a man with his sights set on the highest office in the land. If you had made the mistake once or even twice, perhaps it would be a different matter, an honest error made by a doddering old fool who can’t keep his index cards straight. (That would be fine if we were casting a sequel to Cocoon, by the way, but not at all okay in terms of choosing a president.) But you have kept saying it again and again, which leads me to believe that you honestly don’t understand the basic facts of the war on the ground in Iraq or that you’re willing to openly lie about it to trick the American people into following you into another ridiculous, pointless, expensive war.
CLICK TO CON
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Cows Grazing in the Rumpus Room
Allison Arieff, NY TIMES
O.K., the planet is officially out of (or back in?) alignment: American farmers are making money hand over fist while the hedge fund guys are wishing they’d put a little more cash under the mattress. Corn growers in the United States can no longer keep pace with the staggering global demand for the raw material of corn syrup and ethanol and so, seemingly out of nowhere, there’s a demand for more farmland.
That just looks wrong on the page!
But it’s true. We are running out of farmland and some people, like finance guru James Cramer in his recent column for New York magazine urging readers to invest in farm supply equipment, are suggesting — only a little facetiously — that housing developments may need to be razed to clear the way for more farmland.
LINK TO CON
Allison Arieff, NY TIMES
O.K., the planet is officially out of (or back in?) alignment: American farmers are making money hand over fist while the hedge fund guys are wishing they’d put a little more cash under the mattress. Corn growers in the United States can no longer keep pace with the staggering global demand for the raw material of corn syrup and ethanol and so, seemingly out of nowhere, there’s a demand for more farmland.
That just looks wrong on the page!
But it’s true. We are running out of farmland and some people, like finance guru James Cramer in his recent column for New York magazine urging readers to invest in farm supply equipment, are suggesting — only a little facetiously — that housing developments may need to be razed to clear the way for more farmland.
LINK TO CON
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Genetic Food Gamble
Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose
By ROBERT WEISSMAN
There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops.
Last month, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a pro-biotech nonprofit, released a report highlighting the proliferation of genetically modified crops. According to ISAAA, biotech crop area grew 12 percent, or 12.3 million hectares, to reach 114.3 million hectares in 2007, the second highest area increase in the past five years.
For the biotech backers, this is cause to celebrate. They claim that biotech helps farmers. They say it promises to reduce hunger and poverty in developing countries. "If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of cutting hunger and poverty in half by 2015," says Clive James, ISAAA founder and the author the just-released report, "biotech crops must play an even bigger role in the next decade."
LINK TO CON
Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose
By ROBERT WEISSMAN
There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops.
Last month, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a pro-biotech nonprofit, released a report highlighting the proliferation of genetically modified crops. According to ISAAA, biotech crop area grew 12 percent, or 12.3 million hectares, to reach 114.3 million hectares in 2007, the second highest area increase in the past five years.
For the biotech backers, this is cause to celebrate. They claim that biotech helps farmers. They say it promises to reduce hunger and poverty in developing countries. "If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of cutting hunger and poverty in half by 2015," says Clive James, ISAAA founder and the author the just-released report, "biotech crops must play an even bigger role in the next decade."
LINK TO CON
Coke and Pepsi's New Marketing Strategy: Pull at Your Heart Strings
By Richard Girard, Polaris Institute.
World Water Day 2008 (March 22) will see a flurry of announcements from bottled water companies who claim to be helping solve the globe's water crisis. The catch is that these altruistic claims are intimately tied to major advertising campaigns designed to convince the public to buy their products.
Numerous media and industry reports are saying that sales of bottled water are slowing as a result of campaigns targeting the product's environmental and social impact. In a recent article, Brandweek declared that Pepsi and Coke are facing "evaporating sales growth for bottled water and increased concerns about their products' impact on the environment."
Another report, from industry publication Beverage Digest, said that sales and growth of the bottled water industry in 2007 was about half of what it was in 2006. Recently reported annual results from the world's largest bottled water company Nestlé show a slowdown in growth in its bottled water sector from 2006. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, global sales growth has consistently dropped since 2003.
How will the BW giants fight the backlash?
LINK TO CON
By Richard Girard, Polaris Institute.
World Water Day 2008 (March 22) will see a flurry of announcements from bottled water companies who claim to be helping solve the globe's water crisis. The catch is that these altruistic claims are intimately tied to major advertising campaigns designed to convince the public to buy their products.
Numerous media and industry reports are saying that sales of bottled water are slowing as a result of campaigns targeting the product's environmental and social impact. In a recent article, Brandweek declared that Pepsi and Coke are facing "evaporating sales growth for bottled water and increased concerns about their products' impact on the environment."
Another report, from industry publication Beverage Digest, said that sales and growth of the bottled water industry in 2007 was about half of what it was in 2006. Recently reported annual results from the world's largest bottled water company Nestlé show a slowdown in growth in its bottled water sector from 2006. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, global sales growth has consistently dropped since 2003.
How will the BW giants fight the backlash?
LINK TO CON
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Corn Ethanol is Killing the Gulf of Mexico, Too
by Stacy Feldman
Each summer an oxygen-starved, lifeless “dead zone” swells in the Gulf of Mexico from the toxic nitrogen fertilizer that runs off farms in Midwestern corn country.
But now that dead zone is expanding -- dangerously. And it’s starting to put the health of a nearly $3 billion fishing industry and an entire ecosystem of aquatic life at risk.
Last year the dead zone covered an area the size of New Jersey -- 7,700 square miles.
The culprit? The USA’s corn ethanol boom. That’s the conclusion of new research published in the Proceedings of the National Journal of Sciences.
It was carried out by two professors, geographer Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia and atmospheric scientist Christopher Kucharik of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
LINK TO CON.
by Stacy Feldman
Each summer an oxygen-starved, lifeless “dead zone” swells in the Gulf of Mexico from the toxic nitrogen fertilizer that runs off farms in Midwestern corn country.
But now that dead zone is expanding -- dangerously. And it’s starting to put the health of a nearly $3 billion fishing industry and an entire ecosystem of aquatic life at risk.
Last year the dead zone covered an area the size of New Jersey -- 7,700 square miles.
The culprit? The USA’s corn ethanol boom. That’s the conclusion of new research published in the Proceedings of the National Journal of Sciences.
It was carried out by two professors, geographer Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia and atmospheric scientist Christopher Kucharik of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
LINK TO CON.
New Carbon Calculus: What's Our Meatprint?
by Sangamithra Iyer
B.Y.O.M—bring your own meat—is the strategy the U.S. Olympic committee plans to implement this summer in Beijing. Wary of steroid-laden proteins from China, U.S. Olympians are relying on Tyson Foods to send them 25,000 pounds of American meat—beef, chicken and pork—for the summer games.
Meat produced in the U.S. won’t fully alleviate their concerns. Remember the recent massive beef recall? And let’s not ignore the carbon footprint of this Olympic strategy, which is not limited to the gas-guzzling transport of goods across the globe. The other downer—the inconvenient truth the other Nobel Laureate spoke—is that “meat is a very carbon intensive commodity.” Even before you fly it across an ocean.
Meat generates greenhouse gases in every aspect of its production. Clearing land, growing grain, transporting feed and processing meat all produce carbon dioxide. And as animals are fattened for slaughter, their digestive processes and waste produce methane and nitrous oxide emissions, which are far more potent global warming pollutants than CO2.
LINK TO CON
by Sangamithra Iyer
B.Y.O.M—bring your own meat—is the strategy the U.S. Olympic committee plans to implement this summer in Beijing. Wary of steroid-laden proteins from China, U.S. Olympians are relying on Tyson Foods to send them 25,000 pounds of American meat—beef, chicken and pork—for the summer games.
Meat produced in the U.S. won’t fully alleviate their concerns. Remember the recent massive beef recall? And let’s not ignore the carbon footprint of this Olympic strategy, which is not limited to the gas-guzzling transport of goods across the globe. The other downer—the inconvenient truth the other Nobel Laureate spoke—is that “meat is a very carbon intensive commodity.” Even before you fly it across an ocean.
Meat generates greenhouse gases in every aspect of its production. Clearing land, growing grain, transporting feed and processing meat all produce carbon dioxide. And as animals are fattened for slaughter, their digestive processes and waste produce methane and nitrous oxide emissions, which are far more potent global warming pollutants than CO2.
LINK TO CON
(Good article covering spices that are benefical to your health)
The Best Home Remedies May Be Sitting in Your Spice Cabinet
By Kim Ridley, Ode.
By the middle of the afternoon, Ellen Ryan was out of steam. A community organizer in central Maine, Ryan says her energy crashed every afternoon. To get through the rest of the day, she'd grab a chocolate bar or a handful of candy kisses. "But I'm 52," Ryan says, "and those explosions of calories are becoming harder to work off."
When a friend said cinnamon helped alleviate another health problem, Ryan decided to give it a try by taking two 500-milligram capsules in the morning. "I immediately noticed a difference," Ryan says. "My chocolate cravings went away and I no longer have that crashing feeling in the afternoon. I haven't talked to a doctor; all I know is that cinnamon is inexpensive, easy to take and it stops the crash."
Clinical studies support Ryan's experience. Just half a teaspoon of cinnamon a day lowered blood sugar levels in adults with type 2 diabetes, according to a study of 60 subjects carried out at NWFP Agricultural University in Peshawar, Pakistan, and published in Diabetes Care in 2003. The same study found that cinnamon also lowered cholesterol.
LINK TO CON
The Best Home Remedies May Be Sitting in Your Spice Cabinet
By Kim Ridley, Ode.
By the middle of the afternoon, Ellen Ryan was out of steam. A community organizer in central Maine, Ryan says her energy crashed every afternoon. To get through the rest of the day, she'd grab a chocolate bar or a handful of candy kisses. "But I'm 52," Ryan says, "and those explosions of calories are becoming harder to work off."
When a friend said cinnamon helped alleviate another health problem, Ryan decided to give it a try by taking two 500-milligram capsules in the morning. "I immediately noticed a difference," Ryan says. "My chocolate cravings went away and I no longer have that crashing feeling in the afternoon. I haven't talked to a doctor; all I know is that cinnamon is inexpensive, easy to take and it stops the crash."
Clinical studies support Ryan's experience. Just half a teaspoon of cinnamon a day lowered blood sugar levels in adults with type 2 diabetes, according to a study of 60 subjects carried out at NWFP Agricultural University in Peshawar, Pakistan, and published in Diabetes Care in 2003. The same study found that cinnamon also lowered cholesterol.
LINK TO CON
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Here is a list of some cool ag/food related sites. Ranging from general information, resource information, to work opportunities
http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/essays/
http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/work/shortterm/farm_jobs_agriculture.shtml
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.backdoorjobs.com/farming.html
http://www.newfarm.org/depts/student-farm/index.shtml
http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/essays/
http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/work/shortterm/farm_jobs_agriculture.shtml
http://www.localharvest.org/
http://www.backdoorjobs.com/farming.html
http://www.newfarm.org/depts/student-farm/index.shtml
Spain’s Many Muslims Face Dearth of Mosques
By VICTORIA BURNETT, NY TIMES
LLEIDA, Spain — As prayer time approached on a chilly Friday afternoon and men drifted toward the mosque on North Street, Hocine Kouitene hauled open its huge steel doors.
As places of worship go, the crudely converted garage leaves much to be desired, said Mr. Kouitene, vice president of the Islamic Association for Union and Cooperation in Lleida, a prosperous medieval town in northeastern Spain surrounded by fruit farms that are a magnet for immigrant workers. Freezing in winter and stifling in summer, the prayer hall is so cramped that the congregation, swollen to 1,000 from 50 over the past five years, sometimes spills onto the street.
“It’s just not the same to pray in a garage as it is to pray in a proper mosque,” said Mr. Kouitene, an imposing Algerian in a long, black coat and white head scarf. “We want a place where we can pray comfortably, without bothering anybody.”
Although Spain is peppered with the remnants of ancient mosques, most Muslims gather in dingy apartments, warehouses and garages like the one on North Street, pressed into service as prayer halls to accommodate a ballooning population.
LINK TO CON.
By VICTORIA BURNETT, NY TIMES
LLEIDA, Spain — As prayer time approached on a chilly Friday afternoon and men drifted toward the mosque on North Street, Hocine Kouitene hauled open its huge steel doors.
As places of worship go, the crudely converted garage leaves much to be desired, said Mr. Kouitene, vice president of the Islamic Association for Union and Cooperation in Lleida, a prosperous medieval town in northeastern Spain surrounded by fruit farms that are a magnet for immigrant workers. Freezing in winter and stifling in summer, the prayer hall is so cramped that the congregation, swollen to 1,000 from 50 over the past five years, sometimes spills onto the street.
“It’s just not the same to pray in a garage as it is to pray in a proper mosque,” said Mr. Kouitene, an imposing Algerian in a long, black coat and white head scarf. “We want a place where we can pray comfortably, without bothering anybody.”
Although Spain is peppered with the remnants of ancient mosques, most Muslims gather in dingy apartments, warehouses and garages like the one on North Street, pressed into service as prayer halls to accommodate a ballooning population.
LINK TO CON.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Superweeds on the march
In Arkansas, state ag officials turn to Syngenta to solve problems caused by Monsanto
Posted by Tom Philpott
In the late 1990s, farmers in the Southeast began planting Roundup Ready cotton -- genetically engineered by Monsanto to withstand heavy doses of Roundup, the seed giant's own blockbuster herbicide. As a result, use of Roundup exploded -- and the farmers enjoyed "clean" (i.e., weedless) fields of monocropped cotton. But after a point, something funny happened -- certain weeds began to survive the Roundup dousings.
These "superweeds" had somehow gained Roundup resistance themselves, much to the vexation of the farmers. Things have gotten so grim that the Arkansas Agricultural Extension Service called in a scientist from the U.K. to study the matter, according to Delta Farm Press. He brought grave tidings: "We may expect the current weed resistance problems could be the tip of the iceberg," he declared.
The problem stems from planting the same crops year after year in the same field, and dousing those fields several times each year with the same herbicide. As Delta Farm Press reports:
LINK TO CON.
In Arkansas, state ag officials turn to Syngenta to solve problems caused by Monsanto
Posted by Tom Philpott
In the late 1990s, farmers in the Southeast began planting Roundup Ready cotton -- genetically engineered by Monsanto to withstand heavy doses of Roundup, the seed giant's own blockbuster herbicide. As a result, use of Roundup exploded -- and the farmers enjoyed "clean" (i.e., weedless) fields of monocropped cotton. But after a point, something funny happened -- certain weeds began to survive the Roundup dousings.
These "superweeds" had somehow gained Roundup resistance themselves, much to the vexation of the farmers. Things have gotten so grim that the Arkansas Agricultural Extension Service called in a scientist from the U.K. to study the matter, according to Delta Farm Press. He brought grave tidings: "We may expect the current weed resistance problems could be the tip of the iceberg," he declared.
The problem stems from planting the same crops year after year in the same field, and dousing those fields several times each year with the same herbicide. As Delta Farm Press reports:
LINK TO CON.
Coke and Pepsi's New Marketing Strategy: Pull at Your Heart Strings
By Richard Girard, Polaris Institute.
The big bottled water companies are trying to counter negative press by tying their products to charitable causes.
World Water Day 2008 (March 22) will see a flurry of announcements from bottled water companies who claim to be helping solve the globe's water crisis. The catch is that these altruistic claims are intimately tied to major advertising campaigns designed to convince the public to buy their products.
Numerous media and industry reports are saying that sales of bottled water are slowing as a result of campaigns targeting the product's environmental and social impact. In a recent article, Brandweek declared that Pepsi and Coke are facing "evaporating sales growth for bottled water and increased concerns about their products' impact on the environment."
Another report, from industry publication Beverage Digest, said that sales and growth of the bottled water industry in 2007 was about half of what it was in 2006. Recently reported annual results from the world's largest bottled water company Nestlé show a slowdown in growth in its bottled water sector from 2006. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, global sales growth has consistently dropped since 2003.
LINK TO CON.
By Richard Girard, Polaris Institute.
The big bottled water companies are trying to counter negative press by tying their products to charitable causes.
World Water Day 2008 (March 22) will see a flurry of announcements from bottled water companies who claim to be helping solve the globe's water crisis. The catch is that these altruistic claims are intimately tied to major advertising campaigns designed to convince the public to buy their products.
Numerous media and industry reports are saying that sales of bottled water are slowing as a result of campaigns targeting the product's environmental and social impact. In a recent article, Brandweek declared that Pepsi and Coke are facing "evaporating sales growth for bottled water and increased concerns about their products' impact on the environment."
Another report, from industry publication Beverage Digest, said that sales and growth of the bottled water industry in 2007 was about half of what it was in 2006. Recently reported annual results from the world's largest bottled water company Nestlé show a slowdown in growth in its bottled water sector from 2006. According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, global sales growth has consistently dropped since 2003.
LINK TO CON.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Got chemical and pesticide residues in your milk?
Conventional milk contains toxics, says the USDA
Posted by Tom Philpott
The Organic Center acts as a kind of shadow USDA, digesting the latest peer-reviewed research on organic food, translating it into English, and issuing summary reports.
Consumers won't want to miss the center's newest one on pesticide residues [PDF]. It contains one of those handy guides on which conventional fruits and veggies convey the most toxic traces to eaters (here's a handy two-pager [PDF] for the fridge), as well as a blunt and important discussion of the plant- and mineral-based pesticides allowed in organic production.
But what really caught my eye was the bit about milk -- and how it brims with industrial-chemical and pesticide residues.
The Organic Center points us to 2004 testing of 739 samples of conventional milk, performed by the USDA's Pesticide Data Program. Here's what they found.
LINK TO CON.
Conventional milk contains toxics, says the USDA
Posted by Tom Philpott
The Organic Center acts as a kind of shadow USDA, digesting the latest peer-reviewed research on organic food, translating it into English, and issuing summary reports.
Consumers won't want to miss the center's newest one on pesticide residues [PDF]. It contains one of those handy guides on which conventional fruits and veggies convey the most toxic traces to eaters (here's a handy two-pager [PDF] for the fridge), as well as a blunt and important discussion of the plant- and mineral-based pesticides allowed in organic production.
But what really caught my eye was the bit about milk -- and how it brims with industrial-chemical and pesticide residues.
The Organic Center points us to 2004 testing of 739 samples of conventional milk, performed by the USDA's Pesticide Data Program. Here's what they found.
LINK TO CON.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Fall of the American Consumer
by Barbara Ehrenreich
How much lower can consumer spending go? The malls are like mausoleums, retail clerks are getting laid off and AOL recently featured on its welcome page the story of a man so cheap that he recycles his dental floss — hanging it from a nail in his garage until it dries out.
It could go a lot lower of course. This guy could start saving the little morsels he flosses out and boil them up to augment the children’s breakfast gruel. Already, as the recession — or whatever it is — closes in, people have stopped buying homes and cars, and cut way back on restaurant meals. They don’t have the money; they don’t have the credit; and increasingly, they’re finding that no one wants their money anyway. NPR reported on February 28, that more and more Manhattan stores are accepting Euros and at least one has gone Euros-only.
LINK TO CON.
by Barbara Ehrenreich
How much lower can consumer spending go? The malls are like mausoleums, retail clerks are getting laid off and AOL recently featured on its welcome page the story of a man so cheap that he recycles his dental floss — hanging it from a nail in his garage until it dries out.
It could go a lot lower of course. This guy could start saving the little morsels he flosses out and boil them up to augment the children’s breakfast gruel. Already, as the recession — or whatever it is — closes in, people have stopped buying homes and cars, and cut way back on restaurant meals. They don’t have the money; they don’t have the credit; and increasingly, they’re finding that no one wants their money anyway. NPR reported on February 28, that more and more Manhattan stores are accepting Euros and at least one has gone Euros-only.
LINK TO CON.
The Coming Economic Catastrophe
by max blunt
American Capitalism: Cracks in the Pyramid
Now that the economic crunch is reaching those near the top of the pyramid, there is finally a sense that the U.S. is facing a real crisis.
Forget about a soft landing. The subprime mortgage debacle has morphed into a full-fledged panic. And Joe Stiglitz is telling us the war in Iraq will cost $3 trillion.
Maybe now we can stop listening to the geniuses who insisted that the way to nirvana was to ignore the broad national interest while catering to the desires of those who were already the wealthiest among us.
We have always gotten a distorted picture of how well Americans were doing from politicians and the media.
The U.S. has a population of 300 million. Thirty-seven million, many of them children, live in poverty.
Close to 60 million are just one notch above the official poverty line. These near-poor Americans live in households with annual incomes that range from $20,000 to $40,000 for a family of four.
It is disgraceful that in a nation as wealthy as the United States, nearly a third of the people are poor or near-poor.
Former Senator John Edwards touched on the quality of the lives of those perched precariously above the abyss of poverty in his foreword to the book, “The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near-Poor in America,” by Katherine S. Newman and Victor Tan Chen. Mr. Edwards wrote:
LINK TO CON.
by max blunt
American Capitalism: Cracks in the Pyramid
Now that the economic crunch is reaching those near the top of the pyramid, there is finally a sense that the U.S. is facing a real crisis.
Forget about a soft landing. The subprime mortgage debacle has morphed into a full-fledged panic. And Joe Stiglitz is telling us the war in Iraq will cost $3 trillion.
Maybe now we can stop listening to the geniuses who insisted that the way to nirvana was to ignore the broad national interest while catering to the desires of those who were already the wealthiest among us.
We have always gotten a distorted picture of how well Americans were doing from politicians and the media.
The U.S. has a population of 300 million. Thirty-seven million, many of them children, live in poverty.
Close to 60 million are just one notch above the official poverty line. These near-poor Americans live in households with annual incomes that range from $20,000 to $40,000 for a family of four.
It is disgraceful that in a nation as wealthy as the United States, nearly a third of the people are poor or near-poor.
Former Senator John Edwards touched on the quality of the lives of those perched precariously above the abyss of poverty in his foreword to the book, “The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near-Poor in America,” by Katherine S. Newman and Victor Tan Chen. Mr. Edwards wrote:
LINK TO CON.
Public, media losing sight of Iraq, study finds
Only 28 percent know that nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have been killed
By Karen DeYoung
Twenty-eight percent of the public is aware that nearly 4,000 U.S. personnel have died in Iraq over the past five years, while nearly half thinks the death tally is 3,000 or fewer and 23 percent think it is higher, according to an opinion survey released yesterday.
The survey, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that public awareness of developments in the Iraq war has dropped precipitously since last summer, as the news media have paid less attention to the conflict. In earlier surveys, about half of those asked about the death tally responded correctly.
Related Pew surveys have found that the number of news stories devoted to the war has sharply declined this year, along with professed public interest. "Coverage of the war has been virtually absent," said Pew survey research director Scott Keeter, totaling about 1 percent of the news hole between Feb. 17 and 23.
LINK TO CON.
Only 28 percent know that nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have been killed
By Karen DeYoung
Twenty-eight percent of the public is aware that nearly 4,000 U.S. personnel have died in Iraq over the past five years, while nearly half thinks the death tally is 3,000 or fewer and 23 percent think it is higher, according to an opinion survey released yesterday.
The survey, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that public awareness of developments in the Iraq war has dropped precipitously since last summer, as the news media have paid less attention to the conflict. In earlier surveys, about half of those asked about the death tally responded correctly.
Related Pew surveys have found that the number of news stories devoted to the war has sharply declined this year, along with professed public interest. "Coverage of the war has been virtually absent," said Pew survey research director Scott Keeter, totaling about 1 percent of the news hole between Feb. 17 and 23.
LINK TO CON.
Collapse of Salmon Stocks Endangers Pacific Fishery
By FELICITY BARRINGER, NY TIMES
Federal officials have indicated that they are likely to close the Pacific salmon fishery from northern Oregon to the Mexican border because of the collapse of crucial stocks in California’s major watershed.
That would be the most extensive closing on the West Coast since the federal government started regulating fisheries.
“By far the biggest,” said Dave Bitts, a commercial fisherman from Eureka, Calif., who is at a weeklong meeting of the Pacific Coast Fisheries Management Council in Sacramento.
“The Central Valley fall Chinook salmon are in the worst condition since records began to be kept,” Robert Lohn, regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Portland, Ore., said Wednesday in an interview. “This is the largest collapse of salmon stocks in 40 years.”
LINK TO CON.
By FELICITY BARRINGER, NY TIMES
Federal officials have indicated that they are likely to close the Pacific salmon fishery from northern Oregon to the Mexican border because of the collapse of crucial stocks in California’s major watershed.
That would be the most extensive closing on the West Coast since the federal government started regulating fisheries.
“By far the biggest,” said Dave Bitts, a commercial fisherman from Eureka, Calif., who is at a weeklong meeting of the Pacific Coast Fisheries Management Council in Sacramento.
“The Central Valley fall Chinook salmon are in the worst condition since records began to be kept,” Robert Lohn, regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Portland, Ore., said Wednesday in an interview. “This is the largest collapse of salmon stocks in 40 years.”
LINK TO CON.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Ethanol: By the Way, You'll Need Water
by David Sassoon - Mar 11th, 2008
It's a longstanding joke among people who sell land. The closing is over, signatures secured, the deed transferred, and after a final handshake, this offhand comment is delivered over-the-shoulder: By the way, you'll need water.
That's become the story of corn ethanol in the US, and it's no laughing matter.
Last year's energy bill requires 36 billion gallons of annual biofuels production by 2022 -- probably about half of them from corn. The measure, largely a giant gift to agribusiness interests, appeared to address both environmental and energy security issues, while really doing neither. And now what's surfacing is a threat to the nation's water security.
The question of water, like oil supply, takes us deep underground, where deposits of sand, gravel and silt store water in ancient aquifers. This supply of groundwater, which is what half of the nation relies on for drinking, is not inexhaustible.
LINK TO CON.
by David Sassoon - Mar 11th, 2008
It's a longstanding joke among people who sell land. The closing is over, signatures secured, the deed transferred, and after a final handshake, this offhand comment is delivered over-the-shoulder: By the way, you'll need water.
That's become the story of corn ethanol in the US, and it's no laughing matter.
Last year's energy bill requires 36 billion gallons of annual biofuels production by 2022 -- probably about half of them from corn. The measure, largely a giant gift to agribusiness interests, appeared to address both environmental and energy security issues, while really doing neither. And now what's surfacing is a threat to the nation's water security.
The question of water, like oil supply, takes us deep underground, where deposits of sand, gravel and silt store water in ancient aquifers. This supply of groundwater, which is what half of the nation relies on for drinking, is not inexhaustible.
LINK TO CON.
(Something I have been thinking the last couple of years. In addition to the arguments below, here is one of my own...think about professional sports in the USA and its resemblance to roman gladiator fighting. The mostly rich pay athletes to play for their team, while the common worker pays the rich to watch the athletes play...not quite the same, but switched into a modern context in the era we live in, the similarities are there).
Is America the new Rome?
By Noel Malcolm
The American edition of this book, which came out a few months ago, bore the title Are We Rome? Apparently that was the sort of question for which ancient Romans would have used the word ‘nonne’, expecting the answer ‘yes’; for the British edition is baldly entitled The New Rome. Sidney and Beatrice Webb did something similar when they dropped the question mark from their Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? - but at least they waited a couple of years before they did so.
Cullen Murphy, an author of stylish think-pieces in Atlantic Monthly and Vanity Fair, has become obsessed with the resemblances between the present-day US and ancient Rome. The big similarity, of course, is in geopolitics: at its height, the Roman Empire was a military superpower which dominated much of what is tendentiously called ‘the known world’ (known by whom? - answer: by people in the Roman Empire). Rome’s imprint on that large part of the world was not just military. The material culture of Roman life - art and architecture, clothes and food, even including the Romans’ disgusting fermented fish sauce - had an overwhelming allure for almost everyone who became part of the empire, or was in regular contact with it. And for those brought into the empire, Roman law and Roman moral values were powerful influences, often superseding the value-systems they had lived by before. For fish sauce, read McDonald’s; for Roman values, liberal democracy (or neo-con dogma, according to taste).
LINK TO CON.
Is America the new Rome?
By Noel Malcolm
The American edition of this book, which came out a few months ago, bore the title Are We Rome? Apparently that was the sort of question for which ancient Romans would have used the word ‘nonne’, expecting the answer ‘yes’; for the British edition is baldly entitled The New Rome. Sidney and Beatrice Webb did something similar when they dropped the question mark from their Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? - but at least they waited a couple of years before they did so.
Cullen Murphy, an author of stylish think-pieces in Atlantic Monthly and Vanity Fair, has become obsessed with the resemblances between the present-day US and ancient Rome. The big similarity, of course, is in geopolitics: at its height, the Roman Empire was a military superpower which dominated much of what is tendentiously called ‘the known world’ (known by whom? - answer: by people in the Roman Empire). Rome’s imprint on that large part of the world was not just military. The material culture of Roman life - art and architecture, clothes and food, even including the Romans’ disgusting fermented fish sauce - had an overwhelming allure for almost everyone who became part of the empire, or was in regular contact with it. And for those brought into the empire, Roman law and Roman moral values were powerful influences, often superseding the value-systems they had lived by before. For fish sauce, read McDonald’s; for Roman values, liberal democracy (or neo-con dogma, according to taste).
LINK TO CON.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Today's Must Read
By Paul Kiel - March 10, 2008, 9:45AM
It is the closest thing I've seen to a complete explanation of the surveillance program the Bush Administration has assembled.
Siobhan Gorman of The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the National Security Agency has assembled what some intelligence officials admit is a driftnet for domestic and foreign communications.
Here's the way the whole thing works, according to Gorman: into the NSA's massive database goes data collected by the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Treasury. This information includes data about email (recipient and sender address, subject, time sent), internet searches (sites visited and searches conducted), phone calls (incoming and outgoing numbers, length of call, location), financial information (wire transfers, credit-card use, information about bank accounts), and information from the DHS about airline passengers.
LINK TO CON.
By Paul Kiel - March 10, 2008, 9:45AM
It is the closest thing I've seen to a complete explanation of the surveillance program the Bush Administration has assembled.
Siobhan Gorman of The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the National Security Agency has assembled what some intelligence officials admit is a driftnet for domestic and foreign communications.
Here's the way the whole thing works, according to Gorman: into the NSA's massive database goes data collected by the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Treasury. This information includes data about email (recipient and sender address, subject, time sent), internet searches (sites visited and searches conducted), phone calls (incoming and outgoing numbers, length of call, location), financial information (wire transfers, credit-card use, information about bank accounts), and information from the DHS about airline passengers.
LINK TO CON.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Michael Pollan: Don't Eat Anything That Doesn't Rot
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!.
Amy Goodman:"You are what to eat." Or so the saying goes. In American culture, healthy food is a national preoccupation. But then, why are Americans becoming less healthy and more overweight?
Michael Pollan: Food's under attack from two quarters. It's under attack from the food industry, which is taking, you know, perfectly good whole foods and tricking them up into highly processed edible foodlike substances, and from nutritional science, which has over the years convinced us that we shouldn't be paying attention to food, it's really the nutrients that matter. And they're trying to replace foods with antioxidants, you know, cholesterol, saturated fat, omega-3s, and that whole way of looking at food as a collection of nutrients, I think, is very destructive.
Goodman: Shouldn't people be concerned, for example, about cholesterol?
Pollan: No. Cholesterol in the diet is actually only very mildly related to cholesterol in the blood. It was a -- that was a scientific error, basically. We were sold a bill of goods that we should really worry about the cholesterol in our food, basically because cholesterol is one of the few things we could measure that was linked to heart disease, so there was this kind of obsessive focus on cholesterol. But, you know, the egg has been rehabilitated. You know, the egg is very high in cholesterol, and now we're told it's actually a perfectly good, healthy food. So there's only a very tangential relationship between the cholesterol you eat and the cholesterol levels in your blood.
Goodman: How is it that the food we eat now, it takes time to read the ingredients?
Pollan: Yeah.
LINK TO CON INTERVIEW
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!.
Amy Goodman:"You are what to eat." Or so the saying goes. In American culture, healthy food is a national preoccupation. But then, why are Americans becoming less healthy and more overweight?
Michael Pollan: Food's under attack from two quarters. It's under attack from the food industry, which is taking, you know, perfectly good whole foods and tricking them up into highly processed edible foodlike substances, and from nutritional science, which has over the years convinced us that we shouldn't be paying attention to food, it's really the nutrients that matter. And they're trying to replace foods with antioxidants, you know, cholesterol, saturated fat, omega-3s, and that whole way of looking at food as a collection of nutrients, I think, is very destructive.
Goodman: Shouldn't people be concerned, for example, about cholesterol?
Pollan: No. Cholesterol in the diet is actually only very mildly related to cholesterol in the blood. It was a -- that was a scientific error, basically. We were sold a bill of goods that we should really worry about the cholesterol in our food, basically because cholesterol is one of the few things we could measure that was linked to heart disease, so there was this kind of obsessive focus on cholesterol. But, you know, the egg has been rehabilitated. You know, the egg is very high in cholesterol, and now we're told it's actually a perfectly good, healthy food. So there's only a very tangential relationship between the cholesterol you eat and the cholesterol levels in your blood.
Goodman: How is it that the food we eat now, it takes time to read the ingredients?
Pollan: Yeah.
LINK TO CON INTERVIEW
Fighting on a Battlefield the Size of a Milk Label
By ANDREW MARTIN, NY TIMES
Published: March 9, 2008
IT may be the last stand of Posilac.
A new advocacy group closely tied to Monsanto has started a counteroffensive to stop the proliferation of milk that comes from cows that aren’t treated with synthetic bovine growth hormone.
The group, called American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, or Afact, says it is a grass-roots organization that came together to defend members’ right to use recombinant bovine somatotropin, also known as rBST or rBGH, an artificial hormone that stimulates milk production. It is sold by Monsanto under the brand name Posilac.
Dairy farmers are indeed part of the organization. But Afact was organized in part by Monsanto and a Colorado consultant who lists Monsanto as a client.
LINK TO CON>
By ANDREW MARTIN, NY TIMES
Published: March 9, 2008
IT may be the last stand of Posilac.
A new advocacy group closely tied to Monsanto has started a counteroffensive to stop the proliferation of milk that comes from cows that aren’t treated with synthetic bovine growth hormone.
The group, called American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology, or Afact, says it is a grass-roots organization that came together to defend members’ right to use recombinant bovine somatotropin, also known as rBST or rBGH, an artificial hormone that stimulates milk production. It is sold by Monsanto under the brand name Posilac.
Dairy farmers are indeed part of the organization. But Afact was organized in part by Monsanto and a Colorado consultant who lists Monsanto as a client.
LINK TO CON>
A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill
By DAVID STREITFELD, NY TIMES
Published: March 9, 2008
LAWTON, N.D. — Whatever Dennis Miller decides to plant this year on his 2,760-acre farm, the world needs. Wheat prices have doubled in the last six months. Corn is on a tear. Barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soybeans are all up sharply.
“For once, there’s great reason to be optimistic,” Mr. Miller said.
But the prices that have renewed Mr. Miller’s faith in farming are causing pain far and wide. A tailor in Lagos, Nigeria, named Abel Ojuku said recently that he had been forced to cut back on the bread he and his family love.
“If you wanted to buy three loaves, now you buy one,” Mr. Ojuku said.
Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Whether the world is in for a long period of continued increases has become one of the most urgent issues in economics.
LINK TO CON>
By DAVID STREITFELD, NY TIMES
Published: March 9, 2008
LAWTON, N.D. — Whatever Dennis Miller decides to plant this year on his 2,760-acre farm, the world needs. Wheat prices have doubled in the last six months. Corn is on a tear. Barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soybeans are all up sharply.
“For once, there’s great reason to be optimistic,” Mr. Miller said.
But the prices that have renewed Mr. Miller’s faith in farming are causing pain far and wide. A tailor in Lagos, Nigeria, named Abel Ojuku said recently that he had been forced to cut back on the bread he and his family love.
“If you wanted to buy three loaves, now you buy one,” Mr. Ojuku said.
Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Whether the world is in for a long period of continued increases has become one of the most urgent issues in economics.
LINK TO CON>
Friday, March 07, 2008
Brazil activists vandalize Monsanto farm
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Activists opposed to genetically modified crops invaded an experimental farm owned by Monsanto Co. on Friday, destroying a greenhouse and a field of corn.
About 300 members of the Via Campesina rural farm workers group vandalized the company's property before dawn and then left the premises, the group said in a statement.
Monsanto, a worldwide leader in genetically modified seed development, denounced the invasion and vandalism as "illegal acts."
Differences of opinion over genetically modified crops "should be expressed through legal means and freedom of expression, not by attacks against people and individuals," Monsanto said in a statement. The company did not immediately disclose the cost of the vandalism.
LINK TO CON>
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Activists opposed to genetically modified crops invaded an experimental farm owned by Monsanto Co. on Friday, destroying a greenhouse and a field of corn.
About 300 members of the Via Campesina rural farm workers group vandalized the company's property before dawn and then left the premises, the group said in a statement.
Monsanto, a worldwide leader in genetically modified seed development, denounced the invasion and vandalism as "illegal acts."
Differences of opinion over genetically modified crops "should be expressed through legal means and freedom of expression, not by attacks against people and individuals," Monsanto said in a statement. The company did not immediately disclose the cost of the vandalism.
LINK TO CON>
Thursday, March 06, 2008
(Here are a couple of news events not covered in the main media!)
Vigilante justice rocks once quiet Mozambique
Lynchings of suspected thieves – and riots over lack of police protection – have shaken the southern African donor darling.
By Stephanie Hanes | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Chimoio, Mozambique - The robbers struck again during the early morning hours of Feb. 23 – the latest in a string of violent home invasions in this normally calm city.
Within days, at least two suspected bandits had been lynched, the police station had been damaged, a child had been shot, and Chimoio was added to the list of Mozambican cities that have been rocked by riots in recent weeks.
In early February, more than 250 people were injured and at least four killed during riots in Mozambique's capital, Maputo, after the government upped the cost of the minibus taxis that many rely upon for transportation.
LINK TO CON>
In Tijuana, police battle drug cartels after targeting safe house
Rival drug cartels suspected in the latest confrontation in the Mexican border town.
The Washington Post
mexico City - Mexican soldiers and federal police fought a five-hour gun battle with suspected drug gang hitmen late Sunday and early Monday in a residential area of Tijuana. At least one of the heavily armed suspects was killed and two were injured, authorities said.
The confrontation was the latest in a series of street battles that have terrorized the border city, where rival drug cartels also turn their weapons on each other.
Monday's battle took place in Tijuana's La Mesa neighborhood, a troubled area where the police commander was killed in January, a spokesman for the Baja California public safety agency told reporters. Federal police and soldiers were conducting an operation to shut down a suspected cartel safe house. Local police, many of whom are suspected of helping cartels, did not take part.
LINK TO CON>
Vigilante justice rocks once quiet Mozambique
Lynchings of suspected thieves – and riots over lack of police protection – have shaken the southern African donor darling.
By Stephanie Hanes | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Chimoio, Mozambique - The robbers struck again during the early morning hours of Feb. 23 – the latest in a string of violent home invasions in this normally calm city.
Within days, at least two suspected bandits had been lynched, the police station had been damaged, a child had been shot, and Chimoio was added to the list of Mozambican cities that have been rocked by riots in recent weeks.
In early February, more than 250 people were injured and at least four killed during riots in Mozambique's capital, Maputo, after the government upped the cost of the minibus taxis that many rely upon for transportation.
LINK TO CON>
In Tijuana, police battle drug cartels after targeting safe house
Rival drug cartels suspected in the latest confrontation in the Mexican border town.
The Washington Post
mexico City - Mexican soldiers and federal police fought a five-hour gun battle with suspected drug gang hitmen late Sunday and early Monday in a residential area of Tijuana. At least one of the heavily armed suspects was killed and two were injured, authorities said.
The confrontation was the latest in a series of street battles that have terrorized the border city, where rival drug cartels also turn their weapons on each other.
Monday's battle took place in Tijuana's La Mesa neighborhood, a troubled area where the police commander was killed in January, a spokesman for the Baja California public safety agency told reporters. Federal police and soldiers were conducting an operation to shut down a suspected cartel safe house. Local police, many of whom are suspected of helping cartels, did not take part.
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'Frankenfoods' Giant Monsanto Plays Bully Over Consumer Labeling
By Scott Thill, AlterNet.
Since 1901, Monsanto has brought us Agent Orange, PCBs, Terminator seeds and recombined milk, among other infamous products. But it's currently obsessed with the milk, or, more importantly, the milk labels, particularly those that read "rBST-free" or "rBGH-free." It's not the "BST" or "BGH" that bothers them so much; after all, bovine somatrophin, also known as bovine growth hormone, isn't exactly what the company is known for. Which is to say, it's naturally occurring. No, the problem is the "r" denoting "recombined." There's nothing natural about it. In fact, the science is increasingly pointing to the possibility that recombined milk is -- surprise! -- not as good for you as the real thing.
"Consumption of dairy products from cows treated with rbGH raise a number of health issues," explained Michael Hansen, a senior scientist for Consumers Union. "That includes increased antibiotic resistance, due to use of antibiotics to treat mastitis and other health problems, as well as increased levels of IGF-1, which has been linked to a range of cancers."
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By Scott Thill, AlterNet.
Since 1901, Monsanto has brought us Agent Orange, PCBs, Terminator seeds and recombined milk, among other infamous products. But it's currently obsessed with the milk, or, more importantly, the milk labels, particularly those that read "rBST-free" or "rBGH-free." It's not the "BST" or "BGH" that bothers them so much; after all, bovine somatrophin, also known as bovine growth hormone, isn't exactly what the company is known for. Which is to say, it's naturally occurring. No, the problem is the "r" denoting "recombined." There's nothing natural about it. In fact, the science is increasingly pointing to the possibility that recombined milk is -- surprise! -- not as good for you as the real thing.
"Consumption of dairy products from cows treated with rbGH raise a number of health issues," explained Michael Hansen, a senior scientist for Consumers Union. "That includes increased antibiotic resistance, due to use of antibiotics to treat mastitis and other health problems, as well as increased levels of IGF-1, which has been linked to a range of cancers."
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Tuesday, March 04, 2008
What It Will Take to Save the Wild Salmon
By Joseph Friedrichs, Plenty Magazine.
Each spring tribal communities in the Columbia River basin in the Pacific Northwest host a salmon feast honoring the sacrifices the fish make for the welfare of the Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribes. The fishing communities rely on the once-bountiful salmon to support their livelihood. But several years, ago salmon runs were so low that they had to buy the fish in order to have enough for the feast.
The scarcity of salmon is not new. For hundreds of years the fish have been vital to the culture, economy, diet, and religion of the four tribes. But last century, America's charge for hydroelectric power traveled west, and dam construction radically altered the mighty Columbia River and its tributaries. The Dalles Dam, built in 1957, drowned Celilo Falls, a stretch of river once heralded as "the Wall Street of the West" because of its supreme fishing. One of the most notorious fisheries of the West vanished, and energy development continued at the expense of tribal communities.
"We rely on the salmon for our ceremonies, subsistence, and livelihood," says Fidelia Andy, chairwoman of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, a nonprofit created by members of the four tribes. Because of their inherent sovereignty, like federal agencies, Columbia Basin tribes are responsible for protecting the fish.
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By Joseph Friedrichs, Plenty Magazine.
Each spring tribal communities in the Columbia River basin in the Pacific Northwest host a salmon feast honoring the sacrifices the fish make for the welfare of the Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribes. The fishing communities rely on the once-bountiful salmon to support their livelihood. But several years, ago salmon runs were so low that they had to buy the fish in order to have enough for the feast.
The scarcity of salmon is not new. For hundreds of years the fish have been vital to the culture, economy, diet, and religion of the four tribes. But last century, America's charge for hydroelectric power traveled west, and dam construction radically altered the mighty Columbia River and its tributaries. The Dalles Dam, built in 1957, drowned Celilo Falls, a stretch of river once heralded as "the Wall Street of the West" because of its supreme fishing. One of the most notorious fisheries of the West vanished, and energy development continued at the expense of tribal communities.
"We rely on the salmon for our ceremonies, subsistence, and livelihood," says Fidelia Andy, chairwoman of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, a nonprofit created by members of the four tribes. Because of their inherent sovereignty, like federal agencies, Columbia Basin tribes are responsible for protecting the fish.
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Monday, March 03, 2008
The next green revolution
From The Economist print edition
Europe may not like it, but genetic modification is transforming agriculture
FOR a decade Europe has rebuffed efforts by biotechnology firms such as America's Monsanto to promote genetically modified crops. Despite scientific assurances that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe for human consumption, and a ruling by the World Trade Organisation against national import bans in the European Union, many Europeans have yet to touch or taste them. But that may soon change, according to Iain Ferguson, boss of Tate & Lyle, a British food giant. “We sit at a moment of history when GM technology...is a fact of life,” he said this week.
Mr Ferguson, who is also the head of Britain's Food and Drink Federation, argues that because many large agricultural exporters have adopted GMOs, it is becoming expensive to avoid them. Copa-Cogeca, a farmers' lobby, this week warned that the rising cost of feed could wipe out Europe's livestock industry unless bans on GMOs are lifted. Meanwhile, European agriculture ministers failed to agree on whether to allow imports of GM maize and potatoes; the decision will now be made by the European Commission, which is likely to say yes.
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From The Economist print edition
Europe may not like it, but genetic modification is transforming agriculture
FOR a decade Europe has rebuffed efforts by biotechnology firms such as America's Monsanto to promote genetically modified crops. Despite scientific assurances that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe for human consumption, and a ruling by the World Trade Organisation against national import bans in the European Union, many Europeans have yet to touch or taste them. But that may soon change, according to Iain Ferguson, boss of Tate & Lyle, a British food giant. “We sit at a moment of history when GM technology...is a fact of life,” he said this week.
Mr Ferguson, who is also the head of Britain's Food and Drink Federation, argues that because many large agricultural exporters have adopted GMOs, it is becoming expensive to avoid them. Copa-Cogeca, a farmers' lobby, this week warned that the rising cost of feed could wipe out Europe's livestock industry unless bans on GMOs are lifted. Meanwhile, European agriculture ministers failed to agree on whether to allow imports of GM maize and potatoes; the decision will now be made by the European Commission, which is likely to say yes.
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'Superchile' a source of hope, concern
Scientists aim to use genetic engineering to create a wilt-resistant plant, but some growers say biotechnology could backfire
Staci Matlock | The New Mexican
New Mexico's spicy chiles can make grown men cry and ease the common cold, but they haven't fared well against root-rotting organisms known as Phytophthora.
Decades-long efforts by New Mexico State University researchers to grow a Phytophthora-fighting chile have proven largely futile. But scientists are now hoping that biotechnology and genetic research will help them create a new version lacking none of its ancestor's spice — and the state Legislature is providing some help.
Lawmakers recently approved a $250,000 annual appropriation to New Mexico State University for both genetic-engineering research and mechanical harvesting. Both are key to the industry's survival, say commercial chile growers.
"A lot of problems are solvable through conventional breeding," said Steve Hanson, assistant professor in NMSU's Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology and Weed Science. "Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems conventional breeding hasn't solved, like chile wilt."
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Scientists aim to use genetic engineering to create a wilt-resistant plant, but some growers say biotechnology could backfire
Staci Matlock | The New Mexican
New Mexico's spicy chiles can make grown men cry and ease the common cold, but they haven't fared well against root-rotting organisms known as Phytophthora.
Decades-long efforts by New Mexico State University researchers to grow a Phytophthora-fighting chile have proven largely futile. But scientists are now hoping that biotechnology and genetic research will help them create a new version lacking none of its ancestor's spice — and the state Legislature is providing some help.
Lawmakers recently approved a $250,000 annual appropriation to New Mexico State University for both genetic-engineering research and mechanical harvesting. Both are key to the industry's survival, say commercial chile growers.
"A lot of problems are solvable through conventional breeding," said Steve Hanson, assistant professor in NMSU's Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology and Weed Science. "Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems conventional breeding hasn't solved, like chile wilt."
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Sunday, March 02, 2008
Spain's Reconquest of Mexico Through Deep Pocket Investments and High Fashion Clothing Lines
The New Conquistadores
By JOHN ROSS
When Christopher Columbus sailed out of the port of Huelva on Spain's Atlantic coast in 1492, heading east towards the Mysterious Orient to conquer new markets for his king and queen, the business of his mission was business, and, after accidentally bumping into the New World en route, Columbus and his bosses did exactly what any average avaricious businessperson would do - they set up shop on American shores, stole the gold, slaughtered the Indians, and converted those who remained to the Spaniards' brand of God.
By 1519, on the Good Friday morning that Hernan Cortez dropped anchor off Veracruz, that business had flourished into an empire. Cortez, a private entrepreneur, set out to conquer Mexico in a prototypical hostile takeover. His weapons were the Cross and the Cannon and the Plague, his horses, bristly beards, and clunky suits of armor - and the treachery of those native peoples who had grown disaffected with Aztec domination, and, in the end, he toppled Moctezuma's dynasty, took over the franchise, and re-named the place, what else? New Spain.
500 years down history's highway, the Conquistadores have returned to the New World. From Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, the "Reconquista" is in full swing:
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The New Conquistadores
By JOHN ROSS
When Christopher Columbus sailed out of the port of Huelva on Spain's Atlantic coast in 1492, heading east towards the Mysterious Orient to conquer new markets for his king and queen, the business of his mission was business, and, after accidentally bumping into the New World en route, Columbus and his bosses did exactly what any average avaricious businessperson would do - they set up shop on American shores, stole the gold, slaughtered the Indians, and converted those who remained to the Spaniards' brand of God.
By 1519, on the Good Friday morning that Hernan Cortez dropped anchor off Veracruz, that business had flourished into an empire. Cortez, a private entrepreneur, set out to conquer Mexico in a prototypical hostile takeover. His weapons were the Cross and the Cannon and the Plague, his horses, bristly beards, and clunky suits of armor - and the treachery of those native peoples who had grown disaffected with Aztec domination, and, in the end, he toppled Moctezuma's dynasty, took over the franchise, and re-named the place, what else? New Spain.
500 years down history's highway, the Conquistadores have returned to the New World. From Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, the "Reconquista" is in full swing:
LINK TO CON>
Soaring food prices imperil U.S. emergency aid
Government to scale back donations, reduce number of recipient nations
By Anthony Faiola
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government's humanitarian relief agency will significantly scale back emergency food aid to some of the world's poorest countries this year because of soaring global food prices, and the U.S. Agency for International Development is drafting plans to reduce the number of recipient nations, the amount of food provided to them, or both, officials at the agency said.
USAID officials said that a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months has generated a $120 million budget shortfall that will force the agency to reduce emergency operations. That deficit is projected to rise to $200 million by year's end. Prices have skyrocketed as more grains go to biofuel production or are consumed by such fast-emerging markets as China and India.
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Government to scale back donations, reduce number of recipient nations
By Anthony Faiola
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government's humanitarian relief agency will significantly scale back emergency food aid to some of the world's poorest countries this year because of soaring global food prices, and the U.S. Agency for International Development is drafting plans to reduce the number of recipient nations, the amount of food provided to them, or both, officials at the agency said.
USAID officials said that a 41 percent surge in prices for wheat, corn, rice and other cereals over the past six months has generated a $120 million budget shortfall that will force the agency to reduce emergency operations. That deficit is projected to rise to $200 million by year's end. Prices have skyrocketed as more grains go to biofuel production or are consumed by such fast-emerging markets as China and India.
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Saturday, March 01, 2008
My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)
By JACK HEDIN, NY Times
IF you’ve stood in line at a farmers’ market recently, you know that the local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are having a tough time keeping up with the demand.
But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.
As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As I’ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.
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By JACK HEDIN, NY Times
IF you’ve stood in line at a farmers’ market recently, you know that the local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are having a tough time keeping up with the demand.
But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.
As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As I’ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.
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