Suit accuses cosmetic makers of organic ruse
Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer
A long-simmering dispute over the definition of organic personal care products boiled over into court Monday, when Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps filed a lawsuit charging many of its competitors with deceptively marketing their soaps and lotions.
The lawsuit - filed in San Francisco Superior Court - targeted many widely known cosmetic manufacturers including Estee Lauder, Kiss My Face, Hain Celestial and Stella McCartney America. It also named smaller firms such as Mill Valley-based Juice Beauty.
In the suit, Dr. Bronner's accused the firms of false advertising by labeling products "organic" that contain relatively little organic material, that contain synthetic chemicals, or that use petrochemicals in processing.
LINK TO CON.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Report Targets Costs Of Factory Farming
By Rick Weiss
Factory farming takes a big, hidden toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock increasingly demanded by American consumers, concludes an independent, 2 1/2 -year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs.
The report released yesterday, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, finds that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.
Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and the degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes.
Several observers said the report, by experts with varying backgrounds and allegiances, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the grueling research and review process, which participants said was politically charged and under constant pressure from powerful agricultural interests.
In the end, however, even industry representatives on the panel agreed to such controversial recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a huge hit against veterinary pharmaceutical companies -- a phaseout of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals, and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena.
LINK TO CON.
By Rick Weiss
Factory farming takes a big, hidden toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock increasingly demanded by American consumers, concludes an independent, 2 1/2 -year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs.
The report released yesterday, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, finds that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs.
Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and the degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes.
Several observers said the report, by experts with varying backgrounds and allegiances, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the grueling research and review process, which participants said was politically charged and under constant pressure from powerful agricultural interests.
In the end, however, even industry representatives on the panel agreed to such controversial recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a huge hit against veterinary pharmaceutical companies -- a phaseout of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals, and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena.
LINK TO CON.
Drought Is Spurring Resource Wars
By Ernest Waititu
DUBLUCK, Ethiopia -- On a warm January afternoon in southern Ethiopia, thousands of ill-tempered livestock stand in groups with the pastoralists who have guided them for dozens of miles to drink. The animals dot an expansive field of Acacia trees, severed bits and pieces of dead grass and dust.
Earlier in the day thousands of young goats, sheep and calves took turns to have their fill of water. And the show will not end with the cattle; camels are still waiting in line. For being the best able to resist drought, now they will be last.
As the sun beats down, a human chain of water fetchers forms a line down the gullies and sings work songs to help keep rhythm during the backbreaking work of drawing water from the wells and delivering it to the troughs on the surface -- sometimes from a depth of about 160 feet. This cluster of "singing wells," along with a mechanical well built by the Ethiopian government, are the only things standing between the thousands of animals here and death. Still, this is only the wind before the storm as the animals have to endure three more months of unprecedented drought before the rainy season begins.
LINK TO CON.
By Ernest Waititu
DUBLUCK, Ethiopia -- On a warm January afternoon in southern Ethiopia, thousands of ill-tempered livestock stand in groups with the pastoralists who have guided them for dozens of miles to drink. The animals dot an expansive field of Acacia trees, severed bits and pieces of dead grass and dust.
Earlier in the day thousands of young goats, sheep and calves took turns to have their fill of water. And the show will not end with the cattle; camels are still waiting in line. For being the best able to resist drought, now they will be last.
As the sun beats down, a human chain of water fetchers forms a line down the gullies and sings work songs to help keep rhythm during the backbreaking work of drawing water from the wells and delivering it to the troughs on the surface -- sometimes from a depth of about 160 feet. This cluster of "singing wells," along with a mechanical well built by the Ethiopian government, are the only things standing between the thousands of animals here and death. Still, this is only the wind before the storm as the animals have to endure three more months of unprecedented drought before the rainy season begins.
LINK TO CON.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Grain Market Manipulation = Petrofraud Redux
by Michael Fox
"This money is going to help Americans offset the high prices we're seeing at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and will also give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown.” President George W. Bush, Friday, April 25, 2008 announcing that the “stimulus package” tax rebate checks would begin to be distributed this week.
For once, I think he is being totally honest. This money is going – quite specifically – to your gasoline bill and your grocery bill. And the only reason is that those very commodity markets are being shamefully manipulated. This is a swindle, plain and simple, but one with an unprecedented dynamic: Imagine if a bank robber [Bush] not only robbed the bank, but did so with the permission of the Bank’s president, who went so far as to borrow the money [Pelosi] for the thief to steal! That’s what’s happening here! Here, then, the result…
“…the gas pump”
LINK TO CON.
by Michael Fox
"This money is going to help Americans offset the high prices we're seeing at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and will also give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown.” President George W. Bush, Friday, April 25, 2008 announcing that the “stimulus package” tax rebate checks would begin to be distributed this week.
For once, I think he is being totally honest. This money is going – quite specifically – to your gasoline bill and your grocery bill. And the only reason is that those very commodity markets are being shamefully manipulated. This is a swindle, plain and simple, but one with an unprecedented dynamic: Imagine if a bank robber [Bush] not only robbed the bank, but did so with the permission of the Bank’s president, who went so far as to borrow the money [Pelosi] for the thief to steal! That’s what’s happening here! Here, then, the result…
“…the gas pump”
LINK TO CON.
Corporate Vultures Lurk Behind the World Food Crisis
By Anuradha Mittal, AlterNet.
UN agencies are meeting in Berne to tackle the world food price crisis. Heads of International Financial Institutions (IFIs), including Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank (former U.S. trade representative) and Pascal Lamy, WTO's Director General, are among the attendees. Will the "battle plan" emerging from the Swiss capital, a charming city with splendid sandstone buildings and far removed from the grinding poverty and hunger which has reduced people to eating mud cakes in Haiti and scavenging garbage heaps, be more of the same -- promote free trade to deal with the food crisis?
The growing social unrest against food prices has forced governments to take policy measures such as export bans, to fulfill domestic needs. This has created uproar among policy circles as fear of trade being undermined sets in. "The food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalization," exclaims The Economist in its April 17, 2008 issue. Not surprisingly then, the "Doha Development Round" which has been in a stalemate since the collapse of the 2003 WTO Ministerial in Cancun, largely due to the hypocrisy of agricultural polices of the rich nations, is being resuscitated as a solution to rising food prices.
Speaking at the Center for Global Development, Zoellick passionately argued that the time was "now or never" for breaking the Doha Round impasse and reaching a global trade deal. Pascal Lamy has argued, "At a time when the world economy is in rough waters, concluding the Doha Round can provide a strong anchor." Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF, has claimed: "No one should forget that all countries rely on open trade to feed their populations. [...] Completing the Doha round would play a critically helpful role in this regard, as it would reduce trade barriers and distortions and encourage agricultural trade."
LINK TO CON.
By Anuradha Mittal, AlterNet.
UN agencies are meeting in Berne to tackle the world food price crisis. Heads of International Financial Institutions (IFIs), including Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank (former U.S. trade representative) and Pascal Lamy, WTO's Director General, are among the attendees. Will the "battle plan" emerging from the Swiss capital, a charming city with splendid sandstone buildings and far removed from the grinding poverty and hunger which has reduced people to eating mud cakes in Haiti and scavenging garbage heaps, be more of the same -- promote free trade to deal with the food crisis?
The growing social unrest against food prices has forced governments to take policy measures such as export bans, to fulfill domestic needs. This has created uproar among policy circles as fear of trade being undermined sets in. "The food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalization," exclaims The Economist in its April 17, 2008 issue. Not surprisingly then, the "Doha Development Round" which has been in a stalemate since the collapse of the 2003 WTO Ministerial in Cancun, largely due to the hypocrisy of agricultural polices of the rich nations, is being resuscitated as a solution to rising food prices.
Speaking at the Center for Global Development, Zoellick passionately argued that the time was "now or never" for breaking the Doha Round impasse and reaching a global trade deal. Pascal Lamy has argued, "At a time when the world economy is in rough waters, concluding the Doha Round can provide a strong anchor." Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF, has claimed: "No one should forget that all countries rely on open trade to feed their populations. [...] Completing the Doha round would play a critically helpful role in this regard, as it would reduce trade barriers and distortions and encourage agricultural trade."
LINK TO CON.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Uighurs struggle in a world reshaped by Chinese influx
In China's far west, the Muslim ethnic group finds itself relegated to menial jobs. Chinese officials also restrict religious practice and use of their language in schools.
By Peter Ford
Kucha, China - King Daoud Mehsut of Kucha, 12th in his royal line and the last man still alive in China to have sat on a monarch's throne, is a man of noble bearing and proud visage.
The old man's fate, however, is dispiriting. Once a leader of his Uighur people – the Muslim ethnic group that predominates in this far western province of Xinjiang – King Daoud is now wheeled out by two young Chinese female assistants presenting him as a tourist attraction to visitors prepared to buy a 200 RMB ($28.60) ticket. "I get a cut," he says simply.
King Daoud's humiliation, say some Uighurs (prounced WEE-gur), is a sign of what is in store for their culture as a whole in the face of the Chinese government's relentless drive to settle more and more ethnic Han Chinese in traditionally Uighur territory, rich in oil and minerals.
"We feel like foreigners in our own land," complains one Uighur teacher in the provincial capital of Urumqi, who offers only a nickname, Batur, for fear of angering the authorities. "We are like the Indians in America." Or Tibetans in Tibet. "Most Uighurs sympathize with the Tibetans," says Batur. "We feel we are all under the same sort of rule."
LINK TO CON.
In China's far west, the Muslim ethnic group finds itself relegated to menial jobs. Chinese officials also restrict religious practice and use of their language in schools.
By Peter Ford
Kucha, China - King Daoud Mehsut of Kucha, 12th in his royal line and the last man still alive in China to have sat on a monarch's throne, is a man of noble bearing and proud visage.
The old man's fate, however, is dispiriting. Once a leader of his Uighur people – the Muslim ethnic group that predominates in this far western province of Xinjiang – King Daoud is now wheeled out by two young Chinese female assistants presenting him as a tourist attraction to visitors prepared to buy a 200 RMB ($28.60) ticket. "I get a cut," he says simply.
King Daoud's humiliation, say some Uighurs (prounced WEE-gur), is a sign of what is in store for their culture as a whole in the face of the Chinese government's relentless drive to settle more and more ethnic Han Chinese in traditionally Uighur territory, rich in oil and minerals.
"We feel like foreigners in our own land," complains one Uighur teacher in the provincial capital of Urumqi, who offers only a nickname, Batur, for fear of angering the authorities. "We are like the Indians in America." Or Tibetans in Tibet. "Most Uighurs sympathize with the Tibetans," says Batur. "We feel we are all under the same sort of rule."
LINK TO CON.
The Politics of Food is Politics
An Alternative Agriculture is Possible
By DE CLARKE and STAN GOFF
In recent days, we have seen the rising price of oil and the devaluation of the dollar create two quantum shifts in the economy: the beginning of the collapse of the air travel industry and a global crisis of food-price inflation. These are related in ways that are crucial to understand — because we are seeing the outlines of an historic opportunity to change the terms of theory and practice for a politics of resistance. As air carriers have gone bankrupt, the knock-on effects on travel agents, airports, airport-colocated hotels, “package” vacation resorts, etc. are considerable.
This is how one cascade pours into another, as the manifold contradictions of our global system merge and co-amplify. Tourism, which was supposed to be a relatively benign, non-extractive industry for colonized nations — an alternative to brutal extraction and cash cropping — turns out to have been just as extractive all along due to the climate (and cultural) damage done by commodified air travel.
The end of cheap air tourism may seem like a good thing. And yet the collapse of tourism, in economies where the culture and scenery have become a last-ditch cash crop, can have effects just as disastrous as the collapse of any other external commodity market in a country that has been sucked into the undertow of global capitalism.
LINK TO CON.
An Alternative Agriculture is Possible
By DE CLARKE and STAN GOFF
In recent days, we have seen the rising price of oil and the devaluation of the dollar create two quantum shifts in the economy: the beginning of the collapse of the air travel industry and a global crisis of food-price inflation. These are related in ways that are crucial to understand — because we are seeing the outlines of an historic opportunity to change the terms of theory and practice for a politics of resistance. As air carriers have gone bankrupt, the knock-on effects on travel agents, airports, airport-colocated hotels, “package” vacation resorts, etc. are considerable.
This is how one cascade pours into another, as the manifold contradictions of our global system merge and co-amplify. Tourism, which was supposed to be a relatively benign, non-extractive industry for colonized nations — an alternative to brutal extraction and cash cropping — turns out to have been just as extractive all along due to the climate (and cultural) damage done by commodified air travel.
The end of cheap air tourism may seem like a good thing. And yet the collapse of tourism, in economies where the culture and scenery have become a last-ditch cash crop, can have effects just as disastrous as the collapse of any other external commodity market in a country that has been sucked into the undertow of global capitalism.
LINK TO CON.
Hope for Corporate America
By Chris Hedges
The corporate state is our shadow government. Candidates who aspire to higher office get corporate money if they promote corporate interests. They are shut out of the national debate—look at Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader—if they do not. Defy the corporate state and you get handed a ticket to oblivion. You become invisible. Work for it and you are showered with tens of millions of dollars and the possibility of political power.
Barack Obama’s campaign message, filled with lofty promises of change and hope, is also filled with repeated reassurances to the corporate elite. Pick up a copy of Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope.” The subtext is clear. It is a steady reminder to corporate America, a reminder bolstered by Obama’s voting record, that corporations would have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency.
LINK TO CON.
By Chris Hedges
The corporate state is our shadow government. Candidates who aspire to higher office get corporate money if they promote corporate interests. They are shut out of the national debate—look at Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader—if they do not. Defy the corporate state and you get handed a ticket to oblivion. You become invisible. Work for it and you are showered with tens of millions of dollars and the possibility of political power.
Barack Obama’s campaign message, filled with lofty promises of change and hope, is also filled with repeated reassurances to the corporate elite. Pick up a copy of Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope.” The subtext is clear. It is a steady reminder to corporate America, a reminder bolstered by Obama’s voting record, that corporations would have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency.
LINK TO CON.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Home Brew for the Car, Not the Beer Cup
By MICHAEL FITZGERALD
WHAT if you could make fuel for your car in your backyard for less than you pay at the pump? Would you?
The first question has driven Floyd S. Butterfield for more than two decades. Mr. Butterfield, 52, is something of a legend for people who make their own ethanol. In 1982, he won a California Department of Food and Agriculture contest for best design of an ethanol still, albeit one that he could not market profitably at the time.
Now he thinks that he can, thanks to his partnership with the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Thomas J. Quinn. The two have started the E-Fuel Corporation, which soon will announce its home ethanol system, the E-Fuel 100 MicroFueler. It will be about as large as a stackable washer-dryer, sell for $9,995 and ship before year-end.
The net cost to consumers could drop by half after government incentives for alternate fuels, like tax credits, are applied.
LINK TO CON.
By MICHAEL FITZGERALD
WHAT if you could make fuel for your car in your backyard for less than you pay at the pump? Would you?
The first question has driven Floyd S. Butterfield for more than two decades. Mr. Butterfield, 52, is something of a legend for people who make their own ethanol. In 1982, he won a California Department of Food and Agriculture contest for best design of an ethanol still, albeit one that he could not market profitably at the time.
Now he thinks that he can, thanks to his partnership with the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Thomas J. Quinn. The two have started the E-Fuel Corporation, which soon will announce its home ethanol system, the E-Fuel 100 MicroFueler. It will be about as large as a stackable washer-dryer, sell for $9,995 and ship before year-end.
The net cost to consumers could drop by half after government incentives for alternate fuels, like tax credits, are applied.
LINK TO CON.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Thinking outside the cereal box
Thoughts on the farm bill and the skyrocketing cost of food
The rising cost of food worldwide is more complex than portrayed in recent articles in The New York Times and the Washington Post.
Like a magician revealing his secrets, the once-invisible farm and food system is drawing scrutiny from the media, policymakers, and the public as we realize how intertwined our farm and food system is with the energy sector and global markets.
But how did we get here? How did our modern, abundant, and affordable food system run aground? In a sector that is global in reach, absolutely essential (we must eat, after all), and includes the politics of saving family farms and ending hunger, there is no simple, singular answer. A lot of it has to do with economics and politics. Most of it has to do with what goes into making a box of cereal, and why we even have boxed cereal.
North America has long been the breadbasket of the world -- so much so that bountiful grain surpluses lead business to find innovative alternative markets for those surpluses.
Quaker Oats and cornflakes were early ways to get Americans to consume more grains in the late 1800s. But people can only eat so much in a day, and storing cereal grains for long periods of time depresses crop prices. Over the last 30 years, once-low-value grain surpluses have found several new uses: livestock feed, sweetener (i.e., high-fructose corn syrup), raw material for plastic, and feedstock for fuel in the form of ethanol.
LINK TO CON.
Thoughts on the farm bill and the skyrocketing cost of food
The rising cost of food worldwide is more complex than portrayed in recent articles in The New York Times and the Washington Post.
Like a magician revealing his secrets, the once-invisible farm and food system is drawing scrutiny from the media, policymakers, and the public as we realize how intertwined our farm and food system is with the energy sector and global markets.
But how did we get here? How did our modern, abundant, and affordable food system run aground? In a sector that is global in reach, absolutely essential (we must eat, after all), and includes the politics of saving family farms and ending hunger, there is no simple, singular answer. A lot of it has to do with economics and politics. Most of it has to do with what goes into making a box of cereal, and why we even have boxed cereal.
North America has long been the breadbasket of the world -- so much so that bountiful grain surpluses lead business to find innovative alternative markets for those surpluses.
Quaker Oats and cornflakes were early ways to get Americans to consume more grains in the late 1800s. But people can only eat so much in a day, and storing cereal grains for long periods of time depresses crop prices. Over the last 30 years, once-low-value grain surpluses have found several new uses: livestock feed, sweetener (i.e., high-fructose corn syrup), raw material for plastic, and feedstock for fuel in the form of ethanol.
LINK TO CON.
The corn identity
How Congress is shortchanging our health and sweetening things for the food industry
by Bill Chameides
At dinner Sunday night, I asked my friend Prasad if he knew about the new farm bill and what it means for average Americans. He didn't.
I wasn't surprised. With the election, the war, and rising prices to fret about, not many people are pondering legislation about farms. But they should, because it has huge implications for the country's nutrition, environment, and health. Here are three reasons why we all should pay closer attention to the 2007 farm bill: food, fuel, and fat.
First, some background.
The farm bill, which is renewed every five or six years, is a vast set of laws and policies that governs how our food is produced and priced. Recently, it has included conservation programs aimed at setting aside land to aid ecosystem recovery and improve water quality, but historically it has provided huge payments to just a handful of crops including wheat, soybeans, cotton, and corn.
The first farm bill, passed during the Depression, established price supports to protect farmers and rural communities. The Agricultural Act of 1938 mandated price supports for corn, cotton, and wheat; the Agricultural Act of 1949 established supports for other commodities including wool, mohair, honey, and milk. These two laws form the backbone of today's farm bill, and this is part of the problem. A system established in an agricultural landscape vastly different from today's is still in place, and the effects are profound.
LINK TO CON.
How Congress is shortchanging our health and sweetening things for the food industry
by Bill Chameides
At dinner Sunday night, I asked my friend Prasad if he knew about the new farm bill and what it means for average Americans. He didn't.
I wasn't surprised. With the election, the war, and rising prices to fret about, not many people are pondering legislation about farms. But they should, because it has huge implications for the country's nutrition, environment, and health. Here are three reasons why we all should pay closer attention to the 2007 farm bill: food, fuel, and fat.
First, some background.
The farm bill, which is renewed every five or six years, is a vast set of laws and policies that governs how our food is produced and priced. Recently, it has included conservation programs aimed at setting aside land to aid ecosystem recovery and improve water quality, but historically it has provided huge payments to just a handful of crops including wheat, soybeans, cotton, and corn.
The first farm bill, passed during the Depression, established price supports to protect farmers and rural communities. The Agricultural Act of 1938 mandated price supports for corn, cotton, and wheat; the Agricultural Act of 1949 established supports for other commodities including wool, mohair, honey, and milk. These two laws form the backbone of today's farm bill, and this is part of the problem. A system established in an agricultural landscape vastly different from today's is still in place, and the effects are profound.
LINK TO CON.
Food Shortage Looming if Crop Focus Isn't Altered by Jim Goodman
As a child I was told to clean my plate because there were people starving in China. It seemed silly. How would getting sick help hungry Chinese? That was in the 1950s, the heart of the green revolution.
After college I was ready to farm as one of the green revolutionaries. I was ready to feed the world and open the cornucopia to everyone. Now, 40 years later, I admit I was wrong — high-tech agriculture wasn’t the answer. There is still plenty of hunger in the world, and it looks like our daily bread could get a lot more expensive.
In 1974 Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that by 1980 “not a single child should go to bed hungry.”
When the U.N. General Assembly opened the Second United Nations Development Decade in 1980, it set 2000 as the new deadline for eliminating hunger.
In 2000 the U.N. set 2015 as the target date for completion of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals — eight goals that respond to the world’s main development challenges. The first of these is, you guessed it, ending extreme poverty and hunger.
LINK TO CON.
As a child I was told to clean my plate because there were people starving in China. It seemed silly. How would getting sick help hungry Chinese? That was in the 1950s, the heart of the green revolution.
After college I was ready to farm as one of the green revolutionaries. I was ready to feed the world and open the cornucopia to everyone. Now, 40 years later, I admit I was wrong — high-tech agriculture wasn’t the answer. There is still plenty of hunger in the world, and it looks like our daily bread could get a lot more expensive.
In 1974 Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that by 1980 “not a single child should go to bed hungry.”
When the U.N. General Assembly opened the Second United Nations Development Decade in 1980, it set 2000 as the new deadline for eliminating hunger.
In 2000 the U.N. set 2015 as the target date for completion of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals — eight goals that respond to the world’s main development challenges. The first of these is, you guessed it, ending extreme poverty and hunger.
LINK TO CON.
Bourgeois Society (Capitalism)
Bourgeois Society is the social formation in which the commodity relation – the relation of buying and selling – has spread into every corner of life.
The family and the state still exist, but – the family is successively broken down and atomised, more and more resembling a relationship of commercial contract, rather than one genuinely expressing kinship and the care of one generation for the other.
The state retains its essential instruments of violence, but more and more comes under the sway of commerical interests, reduced to acting as a buyer and seller of services on behalf of the community.
The ruling class in bourgeois society is the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production as Private Property, despite the fact that the productive forces have become entirely socialised and operate on the scale of the world market.
The producing class in bourgeois society is the proletariat, a class of people who have nothing to sell but their capacity to work.
LINK TO CON.
Bourgeois Society is the social formation in which the commodity relation – the relation of buying and selling – has spread into every corner of life.
The family and the state still exist, but – the family is successively broken down and atomised, more and more resembling a relationship of commercial contract, rather than one genuinely expressing kinship and the care of one generation for the other.
The state retains its essential instruments of violence, but more and more comes under the sway of commerical interests, reduced to acting as a buyer and seller of services on behalf of the community.
The ruling class in bourgeois society is the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production as Private Property, despite the fact that the productive forces have become entirely socialised and operate on the scale of the world market.
The producing class in bourgeois society is the proletariat, a class of people who have nothing to sell but their capacity to work.
LINK TO CON.
Food Riots Erupt Worldwide
By Anuradha Mittal, AlterNet
Food riots are erupting all over the world. To prevent them and to help people afford the most basic of goods, we need to understand the causes of skyrocketing food prices and correct the policies that have fueled them.
World food prices rose by 39 percent in the last year. Rice alone rose to a 19-year high in March -- an increase of 50 per cent in two weeks alone -- while the real price of wheat has hit a 28-year high.
As a result, food riots erupted in Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. For the 3 billion people in the world who subsist on $2 a day or less, the leap in food prices is a killer. They spend a majority of their income on food, and when the price goes up, they can't afford to feed themselves or their families.
Analysts have pointed to some obvious causes, such as increased demand from China and India, whose economies are booming. Rising fuel and fertilizer costs, increased use of bio-fuels and climate change have all played a part.
But less obvious causes have also had a profound effect on food prices.
Over the last few decades, the United States, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have used their leverage to impose devastating policies on developing countries...
LINK TO CON.
By Anuradha Mittal, AlterNet
Food riots are erupting all over the world. To prevent them and to help people afford the most basic of goods, we need to understand the causes of skyrocketing food prices and correct the policies that have fueled them.
World food prices rose by 39 percent in the last year. Rice alone rose to a 19-year high in March -- an increase of 50 per cent in two weeks alone -- while the real price of wheat has hit a 28-year high.
As a result, food riots erupted in Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. For the 3 billion people in the world who subsist on $2 a day or less, the leap in food prices is a killer. They spend a majority of their income on food, and when the price goes up, they can't afford to feed themselves or their families.
Analysts have pointed to some obvious causes, such as increased demand from China and India, whose economies are booming. Rising fuel and fertilizer costs, increased use of bio-fuels and climate change have all played a part.
But less obvious causes have also had a profound effect on food prices.
Over the last few decades, the United States, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have used their leverage to impose devastating policies on developing countries...
LINK TO CON.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Wind power to help West Texas town desalinate groundwater
A pilot project utilizing wind power to desalinate brackish groundwater in West Texas will get a jump-start thanks to a $500,000 grant from the Office of Rural Community Affairs (ORCA) in Austin.
Announced today, the grant to the City of Seminole (Gaines County) from ORCA’s Renewable Energy Demonstration Pilot Program will help fund the $1,075,000 project.
The project holds great promise for rural communities in West Texas and the Panhandle needing to develop new sources of drinking water, said Charles S. (Charlie) Stone, ORCA executive director.
“This project could be a roadmap for how our rural communities can use wind power to help meet future water needs,” Stone said.
The project would be the first in the United States to use wind power to desalinate drinking water for an inland municipality, as opposed to a town located on a coastline.
Seminole’s proposal to ORCA calls for groundwater to be pumped from the deep, brackish Santa Rosa aquifer. A 50-kilowatt wind turbine will help power a reverse osmosis plant that will make the water drinkable for the town’s residents.
LINK TO CON.
A pilot project utilizing wind power to desalinate brackish groundwater in West Texas will get a jump-start thanks to a $500,000 grant from the Office of Rural Community Affairs (ORCA) in Austin.
Announced today, the grant to the City of Seminole (Gaines County) from ORCA’s Renewable Energy Demonstration Pilot Program will help fund the $1,075,000 project.
The project holds great promise for rural communities in West Texas and the Panhandle needing to develop new sources of drinking water, said Charles S. (Charlie) Stone, ORCA executive director.
“This project could be a roadmap for how our rural communities can use wind power to help meet future water needs,” Stone said.
The project would be the first in the United States to use wind power to desalinate drinking water for an inland municipality, as opposed to a town located on a coastline.
Seminole’s proposal to ORCA calls for groundwater to be pumped from the deep, brackish Santa Rosa aquifer. A 50-kilowatt wind turbine will help power a reverse osmosis plant that will make the water drinkable for the town’s residents.
LINK TO CON.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Etran Finatawa - Surbajo
Etran Finatawa combine the rich nomadic cultures of the Tuareg and Wodaabe people from the West African country of Niger -- a region that for thousands of years has served as a crossroads between the Arabs of North Africa and the sub-Saharan traditions. Etran Finatawa blend traditional instruments with electric guitars, combining the polyphonic songs of the Wodaabe people with modern arrangements, transporting you to the Sahara with their evocative sound.
Etran Finatawa combine the rich nomadic cultures of the Tuareg and Wodaabe people from the West African country of Niger -- a region that for thousands of years has served as a crossroads between the Arabs of North Africa and the sub-Saharan traditions. Etran Finatawa blend traditional instruments with electric guitars, combining the polyphonic songs of the Wodaabe people with modern arrangements, transporting you to the Sahara with their evocative sound.
(Solvent Green? or how about something really scary created in a lab!)
Steak Without Cow
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) announced a $1-million prize for whoever comes up with a commercially viable way to produce in vitro meat by 2012.
PETA's million-dollar prize is an occasion for irony -- delicious or repulsive, depending on one's perspective. About a decade ago, an urban legend claimed that the government had barred Kentucky Fried Chicken from calling its food "chicken," because it used genetically modified Frankenbirds, brainless and grown in jars, that bore no resemblance to chicken or poultry of any kind. That supposedly explained the rebranding of Kentucky Fried Chicken as "KFC" -- a government demand for truth in advertising. Needless to say, this idiotic myth contained not even a grain of truth. KFC continued to use real chickens, and to abuse them wantonly in the production process. PETA noticed and launched a campaign, "Kentucky Fried Cruelty," to draw attention to KFC's brutal methods. Now PETA's prize suggests the organization wishes the urban legend had been true from the start. One looks forward to clever PETA graphics featuring Colonel Sanders in a lab-coat, instead of bloodstained and sporting devil-horns.
LINK TO CON.
Steak Without Cow
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) announced a $1-million prize for whoever comes up with a commercially viable way to produce in vitro meat by 2012.
PETA's million-dollar prize is an occasion for irony -- delicious or repulsive, depending on one's perspective. About a decade ago, an urban legend claimed that the government had barred Kentucky Fried Chicken from calling its food "chicken," because it used genetically modified Frankenbirds, brainless and grown in jars, that bore no resemblance to chicken or poultry of any kind. That supposedly explained the rebranding of Kentucky Fried Chicken as "KFC" -- a government demand for truth in advertising. Needless to say, this idiotic myth contained not even a grain of truth. KFC continued to use real chickens, and to abuse them wantonly in the production process. PETA noticed and launched a campaign, "Kentucky Fried Cruelty," to draw attention to KFC's brutal methods. Now PETA's prize suggests the organization wishes the urban legend had been true from the start. One looks forward to clever PETA graphics featuring Colonel Sanders in a lab-coat, instead of bloodstained and sporting devil-horns.
LINK TO CON.
Is Organic Food Really Healthier?
By Deborah Rich
Don't ask the US federal government whether there are any health benefits to eating organic food. It won't tell. No mere coincidence, then, that no pictures of farmers or farms (or fertilizers or pesticides) appear in the USDA food pyramid logo. The federal government encourages the consumption of more fruits, vegetables, and grains, but stops short of evaluating the farming systems that produce these same foods. An apple is an apple regardless of how it has been grown, the USDA food pyramid suggests, and the only take-home message is that we should all be eating more apples and less added sugars and fats.
But this message may be too simplistic. Over the past decade, scientists have begun conducting sophisticated comparisons of foods grown in organic and conventional farming systems. They're finding that not all apples (or tomatoes, kiwis, or milk) are equal, especially when in comes to nutrient and pesticide levels. How farmers grow their crops affects, sometimes dramatically, not only how nutritious food is but also how safe it is to eat. It may well be that a federal food policy that fails to acknowledge the connection between what happens on the farm and the healthfulness of foods is enough to make a nation sick.
The Results Are In
LINK TO CON.
By Deborah Rich
Don't ask the US federal government whether there are any health benefits to eating organic food. It won't tell. No mere coincidence, then, that no pictures of farmers or farms (or fertilizers or pesticides) appear in the USDA food pyramid logo. The federal government encourages the consumption of more fruits, vegetables, and grains, but stops short of evaluating the farming systems that produce these same foods. An apple is an apple regardless of how it has been grown, the USDA food pyramid suggests, and the only take-home message is that we should all be eating more apples and less added sugars and fats.
But this message may be too simplistic. Over the past decade, scientists have begun conducting sophisticated comparisons of foods grown in organic and conventional farming systems. They're finding that not all apples (or tomatoes, kiwis, or milk) are equal, especially when in comes to nutrient and pesticide levels. How farmers grow their crops affects, sometimes dramatically, not only how nutritious food is but also how safe it is to eat. It may well be that a federal food policy that fails to acknowledge the connection between what happens on the farm and the healthfulness of foods is enough to make a nation sick.
The Results Are In
LINK TO CON.
(Great article, thanks to Kadira for the heads up!)
The Political Economics of Greenwashing
Green as a Blackjack Table
By STAN COX
Hard times are looming. And in their desperation to keep the American economy afloat, government and business will be tossing overboard any proposals for real environmental protection. No time for such romantic foolishness when there are investments to be protected. Get those tax refunds back into retailers' registers, quick!
Not that we won't be hearing about the environment; indeed, the next growth spurt, if it comes, is likely to be clothed in a green as green as the felt on a blackjack table.
Earlier this year, entrepreneur Eric Janszen declared in Harper’s magazine that the next bubble – alternative energy – had already been “branded”. His projection: the eventual creation of $20 trillion in fictitious, speculative wealth, “money that inevitably will be employed to increase share prices rather than to deliver ‘energy security.’" and that "when the bubble finally bursts, we will be left to mop up after yet another devastated industry.” [1] After that next big bust, not only alternative energy but a host of other "green" industries will be left in ruin.
As long as an investing class is allowed to make all major environmental decisions, no new sources of energy will actually replace even one barrel or ton of fossil fuel; rather, they will go to further parasitizing the planet in the cause of growth. The boosters of "green" capitalism have never even bothered to argue otherwise in any effective way.
LINK TO CON.
The Political Economics of Greenwashing
Green as a Blackjack Table
By STAN COX
Hard times are looming. And in their desperation to keep the American economy afloat, government and business will be tossing overboard any proposals for real environmental protection. No time for such romantic foolishness when there are investments to be protected. Get those tax refunds back into retailers' registers, quick!
Not that we won't be hearing about the environment; indeed, the next growth spurt, if it comes, is likely to be clothed in a green as green as the felt on a blackjack table.
Earlier this year, entrepreneur Eric Janszen declared in Harper’s magazine that the next bubble – alternative energy – had already been “branded”. His projection: the eventual creation of $20 trillion in fictitious, speculative wealth, “money that inevitably will be employed to increase share prices rather than to deliver ‘energy security.’" and that "when the bubble finally bursts, we will be left to mop up after yet another devastated industry.” [1] After that next big bust, not only alternative energy but a host of other "green" industries will be left in ruin.
As long as an investing class is allowed to make all major environmental decisions, no new sources of energy will actually replace even one barrel or ton of fossil fuel; rather, they will go to further parasitizing the planet in the cause of growth. The boosters of "green" capitalism have never even bothered to argue otherwise in any effective way.
LINK TO CON.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Asia Teeters Toward Food Crisis from Lack of Water
By Daniel Pepper
Just before dusk on the central plain of India's northern Punjab state Naresh Kumar, 22, crouches under drill and sprinkles mustard oil, turmeric, raw sugar and confections inside a 10-inch circle traced in the rich soil. Hands clasped and head bowed, he offers a short prayer to a Sufi saint asking for a bountiful supply of groundwater. He then cranks up his coughing and wheezing diesel engine, lines up the tube well drill over the offerings and releases a lever that brings an iron cylinder crashing into the earth, turning a parcel of India's fertile breadbasket into Swiss cheese.
"Business is growing by the year," says Kumar. "But we've placed about as many tube wells as we can in this area." As the water table in Punjab drops dangerously low farmers across the state are investing heavily -- and often going into debt -- to bore deeper wells and install more powerful pumps. On either side of Kumar's drill the calm beauty of emerald rice patties belies a quiet catastrophe brewing hundreds of feet beneath the surface. A prayer might be this region's best chance for survival.
India's groundwater woes are, in places, at crisis levels. But the problem is not confined to a few corners of the subcontinent; groundwater depletion is a major threat to food security and economic stability in China, the US, Mexico, Spain and parts of North Africa -- just to name a few. All of these regions are grappling with the problems inherent in extracting groundwater from deep below the earth's surface
LINK TO CON.
By Daniel Pepper
Just before dusk on the central plain of India's northern Punjab state Naresh Kumar, 22, crouches under drill and sprinkles mustard oil, turmeric, raw sugar and confections inside a 10-inch circle traced in the rich soil. Hands clasped and head bowed, he offers a short prayer to a Sufi saint asking for a bountiful supply of groundwater. He then cranks up his coughing and wheezing diesel engine, lines up the tube well drill over the offerings and releases a lever that brings an iron cylinder crashing into the earth, turning a parcel of India's fertile breadbasket into Swiss cheese.
"Business is growing by the year," says Kumar. "But we've placed about as many tube wells as we can in this area." As the water table in Punjab drops dangerously low farmers across the state are investing heavily -- and often going into debt -- to bore deeper wells and install more powerful pumps. On either side of Kumar's drill the calm beauty of emerald rice patties belies a quiet catastrophe brewing hundreds of feet beneath the surface. A prayer might be this region's best chance for survival.
India's groundwater woes are, in places, at crisis levels. But the problem is not confined to a few corners of the subcontinent; groundwater depletion is a major threat to food security and economic stability in China, the US, Mexico, Spain and parts of North Africa -- just to name a few. All of these regions are grappling with the problems inherent in extracting groundwater from deep below the earth's surface
LINK TO CON.
Monday, April 21, 2008
'Hormone-free' milk spurs labeling debate
Some say chemical company is behind efforts to sink 'rBGH-free' milk choice.
By Peter Smith
What used to be a decision between whole, low fat, and skim is now a choice between whole, low fat, skim, lactose-free, flavored, organic, conventional, soy, and milk made without artificial hormones.
The dairy aisle has grown increasingly cluttered with options – and state lawmakers are now wrestling over labeling one of those options: Milk made without recombinant bovine growth hormones (rBGH).
The synthetic hormone – linked by some to health problems in humans when ingested – artificially reproduces a naturally occurring hormone found in dairy cows. It's produced by Monsanto Corp. and sold under the name Posilac. Dairy farmers administer Posilac to lactating cows to increase yields. Its use is banned in Europe and Canada, but the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the artificial hormone in 1993.
In tandem with the rise in organic milk sales, more dairies, supermarket chains, and retailers are offering milk from untreated cows. Because there are no commercially available tests for the artificial hormone, dairy farmers sign affidavits stating they do not use Posilac. Along with dairy processors, this year Starbucks, Kraft, and Wal-Mart rolled out rBGH-free milk products
LINK TO CON.
Some say chemical company is behind efforts to sink 'rBGH-free' milk choice.
By Peter Smith
What used to be a decision between whole, low fat, and skim is now a choice between whole, low fat, skim, lactose-free, flavored, organic, conventional, soy, and milk made without artificial hormones.
The dairy aisle has grown increasingly cluttered with options – and state lawmakers are now wrestling over labeling one of those options: Milk made without recombinant bovine growth hormones (rBGH).
The synthetic hormone – linked by some to health problems in humans when ingested – artificially reproduces a naturally occurring hormone found in dairy cows. It's produced by Monsanto Corp. and sold under the name Posilac. Dairy farmers administer Posilac to lactating cows to increase yields. Its use is banned in Europe and Canada, but the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of the artificial hormone in 1993.
In tandem with the rise in organic milk sales, more dairies, supermarket chains, and retailers are offering milk from untreated cows. Because there are no commercially available tests for the artificial hormone, dairy farmers sign affidavits stating they do not use Posilac. Along with dairy processors, this year Starbucks, Kraft, and Wal-Mart rolled out rBGH-free milk products
LINK TO CON.
We need more than good "energy policy"
Michael Pollan, in Sunday's New York Times Magazine's green issue, had an excellent article called "Why Bother?"--about whether individual lifestyle change is worthwhile (there is also, by the way, a little snippet in the issue about yours truly). Pollan writes (with my emphasis):
"It’s hard to argue with Michael Specter, in a recent New Yorker piece on carbon footprints, when he says: 'Personal choices, no matter how virtuous [N.B.!], cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money.' So it will. Yet it is no less accurate or hardheaded to say that laws and money cannot do enough, either; that it will also take profound changes in the way we live. Why? Because the climate-change crisis is at its very bottom a crisis of lifestyle — of character, even. The Big Problem is nothing more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday choices, most of them made by us (consumer spending represents 70 percent of our economy), and most of the rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires and preferences."
And he's (mostly) right of course, but I'd like to add a little something, too, and then make a small correction.
As for what I'd like to add: At the moment, the public and political discourse, when it comes to climate change, is all about "energy policy." Should we charge industry for their emissions? Should we invest hugely in solar? Can we find a way to store (or sequester) the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil-fuel-burning power plants?
Suppose that we come up with a solution to these problems. Suppose we figure out a way to power the entire planet while reducing our carbon emissions 80% by 2050 (the goal suggested by the International Panel on Climate Change). Suppose that we get to carry on with business as usual except that we do it with clean energy. What will happen?
LINK TO CON.
Michael Pollan, in Sunday's New York Times Magazine's green issue, had an excellent article called "Why Bother?"--about whether individual lifestyle change is worthwhile (there is also, by the way, a little snippet in the issue about yours truly). Pollan writes (with my emphasis):
"It’s hard to argue with Michael Specter, in a recent New Yorker piece on carbon footprints, when he says: 'Personal choices, no matter how virtuous [N.B.!], cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money.' So it will. Yet it is no less accurate or hardheaded to say that laws and money cannot do enough, either; that it will also take profound changes in the way we live. Why? Because the climate-change crisis is at its very bottom a crisis of lifestyle — of character, even. The Big Problem is nothing more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday choices, most of them made by us (consumer spending represents 70 percent of our economy), and most of the rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires and preferences."
And he's (mostly) right of course, but I'd like to add a little something, too, and then make a small correction.
As for what I'd like to add: At the moment, the public and political discourse, when it comes to climate change, is all about "energy policy." Should we charge industry for their emissions? Should we invest hugely in solar? Can we find a way to store (or sequester) the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil-fuel-burning power plants?
Suppose that we come up with a solution to these problems. Suppose we figure out a way to power the entire planet while reducing our carbon emissions 80% by 2050 (the goal suggested by the International Panel on Climate Change). Suppose that we get to carry on with business as usual except that we do it with clean energy. What will happen?
LINK TO CON.
The Way We Live Now
Why Bother? By MICHAEL POLLAN
Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change, and it’s not an easy one to answer. I don’t know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in “An Inconvenient Truth” came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to . . . change our light bulbs. That’s when it got really depressing. The immense disproportion between the magnitude of the problem Gore had described and the puniness of what he was asking us to do about it was enough to sink your heart.
But the drop-in-the-bucket issue is not the only problem lurking behind the “why bother” question. Let’s say I do bother, big time. I turn my life upside-down, start biking to work, plant a big garden, turn down the thermostat so low I need the Jimmy Carter signature cardigan, forsake the clothes dryer for a laundry line across the yard, trade in the station wagon for a hybrid, get off the beef, go completely local. I could theoretically do all that, but what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where ours was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling no longer to emit. So what exactly would I have to show for all my trouble?
LINK TO CON.
Why Bother? By MICHAEL POLLAN
Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change, and it’s not an easy one to answer. I don’t know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in “An Inconvenient Truth” came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to . . . change our light bulbs. That’s when it got really depressing. The immense disproportion between the magnitude of the problem Gore had described and the puniness of what he was asking us to do about it was enough to sink your heart.
But the drop-in-the-bucket issue is not the only problem lurking behind the “why bother” question. Let’s say I do bother, big time. I turn my life upside-down, start biking to work, plant a big garden, turn down the thermostat so low I need the Jimmy Carter signature cardigan, forsake the clothes dryer for a laundry line across the yard, trade in the station wagon for a hybrid, get off the beef, go completely local. I could theoretically do all that, but what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where ours was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling no longer to emit. So what exactly would I have to show for all my trouble?
LINK TO CON.
In Lean Times, Biotech Grains Are Less Taboo
By ANDREW POLLACK
Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.
In Japan and South Korea, some manufacturers for the first time have begun buying genetically engineered corn for use in soft drinks, snacks and other foods. Until now, to avoid consumer backlash, the companies have paid extra to buy conventionally grown corn. But with prices having tripled in two years, it has become too expensive to be so finicky.
“We cannot afford it,” said a corn buyer at Kato Kagaku, a Japanese maker of corn starch and corn syrup.
In the United States, wheat growers and marketers, once hesitant about adopting biotechnology because they feared losing export sales, are now warming to it as a way to bolster supplies. Genetically modified crops contain genes from other organisms to make the plants resistance to insects, herbicides or disease. Opponents continue to worry that such crops have not been studied enough and that they might pose risks to health and the environment.
LINK TO CON.
By ANDREW POLLACK
Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.
In Japan and South Korea, some manufacturers for the first time have begun buying genetically engineered corn for use in soft drinks, snacks and other foods. Until now, to avoid consumer backlash, the companies have paid extra to buy conventionally grown corn. But with prices having tripled in two years, it has become too expensive to be so finicky.
“We cannot afford it,” said a corn buyer at Kato Kagaku, a Japanese maker of corn starch and corn syrup.
In the United States, wheat growers and marketers, once hesitant about adopting biotechnology because they feared losing export sales, are now warming to it as a way to bolster supplies. Genetically modified crops contain genes from other organisms to make the plants resistance to insects, herbicides or disease. Opponents continue to worry that such crops have not been studied enough and that they might pose risks to health and the environment.
LINK TO CON.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Hidden Battle to Control the World's Food Supply
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!.
The rise in global food prices has sparked a number of protests in recent weeks, highlighting the worsening epidemic of global hunger. The World Bank estimates world food prices have risen 80 percent over the last three years and that at least thirty-three countries face social unrest as a result. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned the growing global food crisis has reached emergency proportions.
In recent weeks, food riots have also erupted in Haiti, Niger, Senegal, Cameroon and Burkina Faso. Protests have also flared in Morocco, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Mexico and Yemen. In most of West Africa, the price of food has risen by 50 percent -- in Sierra Leone, 300 percent. The World Food Program has issued a rare $500 million emergency appeal to deal with the growing crisis.
Several causes factor into the global food price hike, many linked to human activity. These include human-driven climate change, the soaring cost of oil and a Western-led focus on biofuels that critics say turns food into fuel.
LINK TO CON.
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!.
The rise in global food prices has sparked a number of protests in recent weeks, highlighting the worsening epidemic of global hunger. The World Bank estimates world food prices have risen 80 percent over the last three years and that at least thirty-three countries face social unrest as a result. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned the growing global food crisis has reached emergency proportions.
In recent weeks, food riots have also erupted in Haiti, Niger, Senegal, Cameroon and Burkina Faso. Protests have also flared in Morocco, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Mexico and Yemen. In most of West Africa, the price of food has risen by 50 percent -- in Sierra Leone, 300 percent. The World Food Program has issued a rare $500 million emergency appeal to deal with the growing crisis.
Several causes factor into the global food price hike, many linked to human activity. These include human-driven climate change, the soaring cost of oil and a Western-led focus on biofuels that critics say turns food into fuel.
LINK TO CON.
Hole in the Middle
To make local food more accessible, time to revive mid-sized farms
By Tom Philpott
Most people probably don't think of Carrboro, North Carolina -- a bustling town just outside of Chapel Hill -- as a food lover's paradise. But walk into the town's beloved farmers market on a spring Saturday morning, and you see an impressive bounty on display.
Right now, it's still greens season. Table after table bursts with bright stacks of collards, kale, and all manner of mustards, plus arugula, spinach, and many kinds of lettuce. Ahead of the summer harvest, farmers are offering green garlic -- the immature stalk of the garlic plant that adds an incomparable zip to whatever it touches. It won't be long before radishes and peas come along; and soon after, strawberries, tomatoes, eggplant, and other glories of the hot months. Already, there's plenty of raw-milk cheese, and a host of farms offer delicious pastured pork and poultry -- as well as grass-fed lamb and beef -- along with their veggies. Several farmers cook up samples of their sausage, perfuming the air with savory scents.
While taking in this scene recently, I got to thinking of the minor stir I created in my last column, when I argued that higher prices for industrial food won't necessarily inspire more people to choose sustainably grown, healthier fare. Instead, I claimed, the price squeeze will likely push people deeper than ever into the clutches of large-scale food marketers, companies that know how to economize on ingredients and labor costs while producing stuff people like to eat. Since then, I've pointed in Gristmill to fast-food execs hailing high commodity prices as good for business, and cash-strapped school-cafeteria administrators spurning fresh fruit for pre-fab cookies.
LINK TO CON
To make local food more accessible, time to revive mid-sized farms
By Tom Philpott
Most people probably don't think of Carrboro, North Carolina -- a bustling town just outside of Chapel Hill -- as a food lover's paradise. But walk into the town's beloved farmers market on a spring Saturday morning, and you see an impressive bounty on display.
Right now, it's still greens season. Table after table bursts with bright stacks of collards, kale, and all manner of mustards, plus arugula, spinach, and many kinds of lettuce. Ahead of the summer harvest, farmers are offering green garlic -- the immature stalk of the garlic plant that adds an incomparable zip to whatever it touches. It won't be long before radishes and peas come along; and soon after, strawberries, tomatoes, eggplant, and other glories of the hot months. Already, there's plenty of raw-milk cheese, and a host of farms offer delicious pastured pork and poultry -- as well as grass-fed lamb and beef -- along with their veggies. Several farmers cook up samples of their sausage, perfuming the air with savory scents.
While taking in this scene recently, I got to thinking of the minor stir I created in my last column, when I argued that higher prices for industrial food won't necessarily inspire more people to choose sustainably grown, healthier fare. Instead, I claimed, the price squeeze will likely push people deeper than ever into the clutches of large-scale food marketers, companies that know how to economize on ingredients and labor costs while producing stuff people like to eat. Since then, I've pointed in Gristmill to fast-food execs hailing high commodity prices as good for business, and cash-strapped school-cafeteria administrators spurning fresh fruit for pre-fab cookies.
LINK TO CON
Friday, April 18, 2008
(The next black gold? only helps companies like Monsanto, etc., and what about greenhouses)
The U.S. Nears the Limits of Its Water Supplies
By Shiney Varghese
I am amazed: since last summer, almost every day we see at least one news story on another water crisis in the U.S. The water crisis is no longer something that we know about as affecting developing countries or their poor in particular. It is right here in our own backyard. Today, in many parts of the U.S. we are nearing the limits of our water supplies. And that is getting our attention. The writing has been on the wall for some time. The private sector has been showing much interest in water as a source of profit, and water privatization has been an issue in many parts of the country.
The failure in public water systems has indeed been a contributing factor for this interest. In many cities, consumers have been organizing and opposing the privatization of water utilities, because they have been concerned about affordability or deterioration in the quality of service. Environmental organizations and consumer activists have also been concerned about the socio-economic, health and environmental implications of ever increasing bottled water use. But for most of us living in the U.S., water is something we take for granted, available when you turn your tap on -- to brush your teeth, to take a shower, to wash your car, to water your lawn, and if you have your own swimming pool then, to fill that as well.
So it was with alarm that many of us read the story of Orme, a small town tucked away in the mountains of southern Tennessee that has become a recent symbol of the drought in the southeast. Orme has had to literally ration its water use, by collecting water for a few hours every day -- an everyday experience in most developing countries, but unusual for the U.S. This is an extreme experience from the southeast region that has been under a year long dry spell. In fact, the region's dry spell resulted in the city of Atlanta setting severe water use restrictions and three states, Georgia, Florida and Alabama, going to court over a water allocation dispute (settled in favor of Florida and Alabama early last month).
LINK TO CON.
The U.S. Nears the Limits of Its Water Supplies
By Shiney Varghese
I am amazed: since last summer, almost every day we see at least one news story on another water crisis in the U.S. The water crisis is no longer something that we know about as affecting developing countries or their poor in particular. It is right here in our own backyard. Today, in many parts of the U.S. we are nearing the limits of our water supplies. And that is getting our attention. The writing has been on the wall for some time. The private sector has been showing much interest in water as a source of profit, and water privatization has been an issue in many parts of the country.
The failure in public water systems has indeed been a contributing factor for this interest. In many cities, consumers have been organizing and opposing the privatization of water utilities, because they have been concerned about affordability or deterioration in the quality of service. Environmental organizations and consumer activists have also been concerned about the socio-economic, health and environmental implications of ever increasing bottled water use. But for most of us living in the U.S., water is something we take for granted, available when you turn your tap on -- to brush your teeth, to take a shower, to wash your car, to water your lawn, and if you have your own swimming pool then, to fill that as well.
So it was with alarm that many of us read the story of Orme, a small town tucked away in the mountains of southern Tennessee that has become a recent symbol of the drought in the southeast. Orme has had to literally ration its water use, by collecting water for a few hours every day -- an everyday experience in most developing countries, but unusual for the U.S. This is an extreme experience from the southeast region that has been under a year long dry spell. In fact, the region's dry spell resulted in the city of Atlanta setting severe water use restrictions and three states, Georgia, Florida and Alabama, going to court over a water allocation dispute (settled in favor of Florida and Alabama early last month).
LINK TO CON.
Face It, We All Aren't Going to Become Vegetarians
By George Monbiot
Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the great food recession that is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch.
You have probably seen the figures by now: The price of rice has risen by three-quarters in the past year, that of wheat by 130 percent. There are food crises in 37 countries. One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices. But I'll bet you have missed the most telling statistic. At 2.1 billion tons, last year's global grain harvest broke all records. It beat the previous year's by almost 5 percent. The crisis, in other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline?
There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13 billion tons likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01 billion, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), will feed people.
I am sorely tempted to write another column about biofuels. From this morning all sellers of transport fuel in the United Kingdom will be obliged to mix it with ethanol or biodiesel made from crops. The World Bank points out that "the grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol ... could feed one person for a year."
LINK TO CON
By George Monbiot
Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the great food recession that is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch.
You have probably seen the figures by now: The price of rice has risen by three-quarters in the past year, that of wheat by 130 percent. There are food crises in 37 countries. One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices. But I'll bet you have missed the most telling statistic. At 2.1 billion tons, last year's global grain harvest broke all records. It beat the previous year's by almost 5 percent. The crisis, in other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline?
There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13 billion tons likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01 billion, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), will feed people.
I am sorely tempted to write another column about biofuels. From this morning all sellers of transport fuel in the United Kingdom will be obliged to mix it with ethanol or biodiesel made from crops. The World Bank points out that "the grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol ... could feed one person for a year."
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Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger
By MARC LACEY
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti’s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country’s prime minister packing.
Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.
Saint Louis Meriska’s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, “They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.”
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By MARC LACEY
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti’s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country’s prime minister packing.
Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.
Saint Louis Meriska’s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, “They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.”
LINK TO CON
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Canada first to label bisphenol A as officially dangerous
Would pave way for a federal ban
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
Health Canada is calling bisphenol A a dangerous substance, making it the first regulatory body in the world to reach such a determination and taking the initial step toward measures to control exposures to it.
Although the government won't announce specific bans or restrictions, the designation as dangerous could pave the way for the hormonally active chemical to be listed as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which would allow Health Minister Tony Clement to issue specific measures to curb its use.
Bisphenol A, or BPA, is one of the most widely used synthetic chemicals in modern industry. It is the basic building block for polycarbonate, the see-through, shatter-proof plastic that resembles glass, and is also used to make the epoxy resins lining the insides of most tin cans, along with some dental sealants, sports helmets, and compact discs.
LINK TO CON
Would pave way for a federal ban
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
Health Canada is calling bisphenol A a dangerous substance, making it the first regulatory body in the world to reach such a determination and taking the initial step toward measures to control exposures to it.
Although the government won't announce specific bans or restrictions, the designation as dangerous could pave the way for the hormonally active chemical to be listed as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which would allow Health Minister Tony Clement to issue specific measures to curb its use.
Bisphenol A, or BPA, is one of the most widely used synthetic chemicals in modern industry. It is the basic building block for polycarbonate, the see-through, shatter-proof plastic that resembles glass, and is also used to make the epoxy resins lining the insides of most tin cans, along with some dental sealants, sports helmets, and compact discs.
LINK TO CON
UN biofuel warning, call for return to traditional farming
Date: Sun 13 April 2008
Despite being highly productive, modern agricultural practices have exhausted land and water resources, squelched diversity and left poor people vulnerable to high food prices, according to a United Nations scientific report.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says that the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report is the result of three years of cooperation between nearly 400 scientists, the governments of developed and developing countries, and representatives of civil society and the private sector.
The report recommends that agricultural science place greater emphasis on safeguarding natural resources and on ‘agro-ecological’ practices, including the use of natural fertilizers, traditional seeds and intensified natural practices, and reducing the distance between production and the consumer.
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Date: Sun 13 April 2008
Despite being highly productive, modern agricultural practices have exhausted land and water resources, squelched diversity and left poor people vulnerable to high food prices, according to a United Nations scientific report.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says that the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report is the result of three years of cooperation between nearly 400 scientists, the governments of developed and developing countries, and representatives of civil society and the private sector.
The report recommends that agricultural science place greater emphasis on safeguarding natural resources and on ‘agro-ecological’ practices, including the use of natural fertilizers, traditional seeds and intensified natural practices, and reducing the distance between production and the consumer.
LINK TO CON
A man-made famine
There are many causes behind the world food crisis, but one chief villain: World Bank head, Robert Zoellick
Raj Patel
For anyone who understands the current food crisis, it is hard to listen to the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, without gagging.
Earlier this week, Zoellick waxed apocalyptic about the consequences of the global surge in prices, arguing that free trade had become a humanitarian necessity, to ensure that poor people had enough to eat. The current wave of food riots has already claimed the prime minister of Haiti, and there have been protests around the world, from Mexico, to Egypt, to India.
The reason for the price rise is perfect storm of high oil prices, an increasing demand for meat in developing countries, poor harvests, population growth, financial speculation and biofuels. But prices have fluctuated before. The reason we're seeing such misery as a result of this particular spike has everything to do with Zoellick and his friends.
Before he replaced Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, Zoellick was the US trade representative, their man at the World Trade Organisation. While there, he won a reputation as a tough and guileful negotiator, savvy with details and pushy with the neoconservative economic agenda: a technocrat with a knuckleduster.
LINK TO CON
There are many causes behind the world food crisis, but one chief villain: World Bank head, Robert Zoellick
Raj Patel
For anyone who understands the current food crisis, it is hard to listen to the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, without gagging.
Earlier this week, Zoellick waxed apocalyptic about the consequences of the global surge in prices, arguing that free trade had become a humanitarian necessity, to ensure that poor people had enough to eat. The current wave of food riots has already claimed the prime minister of Haiti, and there have been protests around the world, from Mexico, to Egypt, to India.
The reason for the price rise is perfect storm of high oil prices, an increasing demand for meat in developing countries, poor harvests, population growth, financial speculation and biofuels. But prices have fluctuated before. The reason we're seeing such misery as a result of this particular spike has everything to do with Zoellick and his friends.
Before he replaced Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, Zoellick was the US trade representative, their man at the World Trade Organisation. While there, he won a reputation as a tough and guileful negotiator, savvy with details and pushy with the neoconservative economic agenda: a technocrat with a knuckleduster.
LINK TO CON
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Putting your money where your mouth is
How expensive is food, really?
Posted by Sharon Astyk
There is no doubt whatsoever that rising food costs are hurting people all over the world. More than half of the world's population spends 50 percent of their income or more on food, and the massive rise in staple prices threatens to increase famine rates drastically. We are already seeing the early signs of this in Haiti and in other poor nations.
It is also undoubtedly true that rising food prices are digging into the budgets of average people, including me. And I've got it easy. The 35 million Americans who are food insecure (that is, they may or may not go hungry in any given month, but they aren't sure there's going to be food) are increasingly stretched. Supportive resources like food pantries are increasingly tapped. And regular folks are finding that food and energy inflation are cutting into their budgets substantially. The rises in food and energy prices alone have eroded real wages by 1.2 percent. The USDA chief economist has announced that overall food prices will probably rise by another 3 to 4 percent this year, and grain products will rise considerably more.
But there's another side to this coin. Rising food prices are, to some extent, good for farmers. Certainly, large grain farmers in the U.S., Canada, and many other rich nations have been experiencing a well deserved boom. And there are plenty of people, myself included, who have been arguing for years that we don't pay enough of the true costs of our food. Who is right? How do you balance the merits and demerits of food prices?
LINK TO CON
How expensive is food, really?
Posted by Sharon Astyk
There is no doubt whatsoever that rising food costs are hurting people all over the world. More than half of the world's population spends 50 percent of their income or more on food, and the massive rise in staple prices threatens to increase famine rates drastically. We are already seeing the early signs of this in Haiti and in other poor nations.
It is also undoubtedly true that rising food prices are digging into the budgets of average people, including me. And I've got it easy. The 35 million Americans who are food insecure (that is, they may or may not go hungry in any given month, but they aren't sure there's going to be food) are increasingly stretched. Supportive resources like food pantries are increasingly tapped. And regular folks are finding that food and energy inflation are cutting into their budgets substantially. The rises in food and energy prices alone have eroded real wages by 1.2 percent. The USDA chief economist has announced that overall food prices will probably rise by another 3 to 4 percent this year, and grain products will rise considerably more.
But there's another side to this coin. Rising food prices are, to some extent, good for farmers. Certainly, large grain farmers in the U.S., Canada, and many other rich nations have been experiencing a well deserved boom. And there are plenty of people, myself included, who have been arguing for years that we don't pay enough of the true costs of our food. Who is right? How do you balance the merits and demerits of food prices?
LINK TO CON
Disintegration is Everywhere
The Politics of Distraction in an Age of Gotcha Capitalism
By RALPH NADER
In this year's presidential campaign, the major media want you to focus on the candidates' gaffes, their tactics toward one another's gaffes, the flows of political gossip and four second sound bytes.
Over and over again this is the humdrum pattern. Is Obama an elitist because of what he said about small towns in Pennsylvania? Why do Hillary and Bill exaggerate? Will Bill's mouth drag Hillary down? Will Barack's pastor drag him down? What about the gender factor? The race factor? Will they figure?
Who has more experience on Day One? What is McCain's wizardry over the reporters on the campaign trail? Can McCain project any human warmth? Which state must Hillary win and by what margin to continue in the race?
On the Sunday talk shows, it is the same couple dozen members of the opinion oligopoly. There is Bill Kristol bringing home the neocon bacon with dreary frequency. There is the James Carville/Mary Matalin spouse show featuring their squabbling over ideology.
LINK TO CON
The Politics of Distraction in an Age of Gotcha Capitalism
By RALPH NADER
In this year's presidential campaign, the major media want you to focus on the candidates' gaffes, their tactics toward one another's gaffes, the flows of political gossip and four second sound bytes.
Over and over again this is the humdrum pattern. Is Obama an elitist because of what he said about small towns in Pennsylvania? Why do Hillary and Bill exaggerate? Will Bill's mouth drag Hillary down? Will Barack's pastor drag him down? What about the gender factor? The race factor? Will they figure?
Who has more experience on Day One? What is McCain's wizardry over the reporters on the campaign trail? Can McCain project any human warmth? Which state must Hillary win and by what margin to continue in the race?
On the Sunday talk shows, it is the same couple dozen members of the opinion oligopoly. There is Bill Kristol bringing home the neocon bacon with dreary frequency. There is the James Carville/Mary Matalin spouse show featuring their squabbling over ideology.
LINK TO CON
Time running out for U.S. farm bill
As deadline looms, lawmakers make a last-ditch effort to resolve funding and policy disputes.
By Amanda Paulson
Chicago - This was supposed to be the week that Congress finally passed a new farm bill, to replace the one that expired six months ago.
It still might happen. But the behemoth $300 billion piece of legislation – which covers not just commodities subsidies and payments to farmers, but also food stamps, nutrition programs, and numerous conservation and energy programs – is having a rough time in congressional conference as leaders in both houses try to hammer out the differences between their two bills and figure out how to pay for the extra spending.
The idea that a farm bill might not get passed – necessitating a one-year extension of the 2002 Farm Bill or, in the worst-case scenario, a reversion to the antiquated 1949 "permanent law" – has numerous constituencies up in arms.
"The single most important thing that hungry Americans and food banks need right now is a farm bill," says Maura Daly, vice president of government relations for America's Second Harvest. Describing a "perfect storm" of spikes in food prices, decreasing food donations, and skyrocketing energy and health care costs, she says a simple extension of the 2002 bill would be unacceptable.
LINK TO CON.
As deadline looms, lawmakers make a last-ditch effort to resolve funding and policy disputes.
By Amanda Paulson
Chicago - This was supposed to be the week that Congress finally passed a new farm bill, to replace the one that expired six months ago.
It still might happen. But the behemoth $300 billion piece of legislation – which covers not just commodities subsidies and payments to farmers, but also food stamps, nutrition programs, and numerous conservation and energy programs – is having a rough time in congressional conference as leaders in both houses try to hammer out the differences between their two bills and figure out how to pay for the extra spending.
The idea that a farm bill might not get passed – necessitating a one-year extension of the 2002 Farm Bill or, in the worst-case scenario, a reversion to the antiquated 1949 "permanent law" – has numerous constituencies up in arms.
"The single most important thing that hungry Americans and food banks need right now is a farm bill," says Maura Daly, vice president of government relations for America's Second Harvest. Describing a "perfect storm" of spikes in food prices, decreasing food donations, and skyrocketing energy and health care costs, she says a simple extension of the 2002 bill would be unacceptable.
LINK TO CON.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
The solution beneath our feet
As food prices rise, policymakers ignore potential of home and community gardens
"Gardens are viewed as 'hobbies' by most politicians/bureaucrats and administrators and are seldom taken seriously as real sources of real food," says a University of Connecticut agricultural extension specialist, speaking of the United States Department of Agriculture. This attitude represents a serious impediment to a healthy, and sustainable food supply and society.
Feeding a growing population with shrinking resources without polluting the planet is one of the greatest challenges facing us, locally and globally. The USDA is the world's largest agricultural research and extension organization. If it doesn't take gardens seriously as "real sources of real food," we are in real trouble.
Although we know that organic food sales are growing at over 20 percent annually, the USDA hasn't collected statistics on organic farms. In Connecticut, there are about 40 certified organic farms, which, like many of the farms in this country, tend to be small and part-time. They probably produce and sell less than a million dollars worth of produce a year.
LINK TO CON.
As food prices rise, policymakers ignore potential of home and community gardens
"Gardens are viewed as 'hobbies' by most politicians/bureaucrats and administrators and are seldom taken seriously as real sources of real food," says a University of Connecticut agricultural extension specialist, speaking of the United States Department of Agriculture. This attitude represents a serious impediment to a healthy, and sustainable food supply and society.
Feeding a growing population with shrinking resources without polluting the planet is one of the greatest challenges facing us, locally and globally. The USDA is the world's largest agricultural research and extension organization. If it doesn't take gardens seriously as "real sources of real food," we are in real trouble.
Although we know that organic food sales are growing at over 20 percent annually, the USDA hasn't collected statistics on organic farms. In Connecticut, there are about 40 certified organic farms, which, like many of the farms in this country, tend to be small and part-time. They probably produce and sell less than a million dollars worth of produce a year.
LINK TO CON.
Scientists Flesh Out Plans to Grow (and Sell) Test Tube Meat
By Alexis Madrigal
In five to 10 years, supermarkets might have some new products in the meat counter: packs of vat-grown meat that are cheaper to produce than livestock and have less impact on the environment.
According to a new economic analysis (.pdf) presented at this week's In Vitro Meat Symposium in Ås, Norway, meat grown in giant tanks known as bioreactors would cost between $5,200-$5,500 a ton (3,300 to 3,500 euros), which the analysis claims is cost competitive with European beef prices.
With a rising global middle class projected by the UN to double meat consumption (.pdf) by 2050, and livestock already responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gases, the symposium is drawing a variety of scientists, environmentalists and food industry experts.
"We're looking to see if there are other technologies which can produce food for all the people on the planet," said Anthony Bennett of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. "Not only today but over the next 10, 20, 30 years."
LINK TO CON.
By Alexis Madrigal
In five to 10 years, supermarkets might have some new products in the meat counter: packs of vat-grown meat that are cheaper to produce than livestock and have less impact on the environment.
According to a new economic analysis (.pdf) presented at this week's In Vitro Meat Symposium in Ås, Norway, meat grown in giant tanks known as bioreactors would cost between $5,200-$5,500 a ton (3,300 to 3,500 euros), which the analysis claims is cost competitive with European beef prices.
With a rising global middle class projected by the UN to double meat consumption (.pdf) by 2050, and livestock already responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gases, the symposium is drawing a variety of scientists, environmentalists and food industry experts.
"We're looking to see if there are other technologies which can produce food for all the people on the planet," said Anthony Bennett of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. "Not only today but over the next 10, 20, 30 years."
LINK TO CON.
Can People Have Meat and a Planet, Too?
By Andrew C. Revkin
The world has seen the first international conference on manufacturing meat. This is the process, tested so far only at laboratory scale, of growing pork, chicken, or beef through cell culture in vats instead of raising and slaughtering animals.
My colleague Mark Bittman wrote a fine piece recently about the greenhouse-gas consequences of conventional meat production. Others have explored the environmental and ethical impacts of factory and feedlot farming. Manufactured meat, in theory, provides an end run around these issues. What if you can have your meat, be ethical, and environmental, too? (And presumably they’ll engineer the bad fats out as well….)
The three-day meeting of the In Vitro Meat Consortium, held at the Norwegian Food Research Institute, is wrapping up today. (They might want to do something about that name.) It brought together biologists, engineers, government officials and entrepreneurs seeking – for both environmental and ethical reasons – to move from animal husbandry to technology as a means of providing the kind of protein people crave in a world heading toward 9 billion ever more affluent mouths.
LINK TO CON.
By Andrew C. Revkin
The world has seen the first international conference on manufacturing meat. This is the process, tested so far only at laboratory scale, of growing pork, chicken, or beef through cell culture in vats instead of raising and slaughtering animals.
My colleague Mark Bittman wrote a fine piece recently about the greenhouse-gas consequences of conventional meat production. Others have explored the environmental and ethical impacts of factory and feedlot farming. Manufactured meat, in theory, provides an end run around these issues. What if you can have your meat, be ethical, and environmental, too? (And presumably they’ll engineer the bad fats out as well….)
The three-day meeting of the In Vitro Meat Consortium, held at the Norwegian Food Research Institute, is wrapping up today. (They might want to do something about that name.) It brought together biologists, engineers, government officials and entrepreneurs seeking – for both environmental and ethical reasons – to move from animal husbandry to technology as a means of providing the kind of protein people crave in a world heading toward 9 billion ever more affluent mouths.
LINK TO CON.
Food crisis looms in Bangladesh
By JULHAS ALAM, Associated Press Writer
DHAKA, Bangladesh - For a 13-year-old boy in this impoverished, teeming city, some things are more important than classes — rice, for one.
I need to eat first, then school," said Mohammad Hasan, standing at the back of a line of hundreds of people waiting to pick up government-subsidized rice.
With the price of food skyrocketing around the world, desperately poor and overpopulated Bangladesh is considered one of the world's most vulnerable nations.
An adviser to the country's Ministry of Food, A.M.M. Shawkat Ali, warned of a "hidden hunger" in Bangladesh and economists estimate 30 million of the country's 150 million people could go hungry — a crisis that could become a serious political problem for the military-backed government.
LINK TO CON.
By JULHAS ALAM, Associated Press Writer
DHAKA, Bangladesh - For a 13-year-old boy in this impoverished, teeming city, some things are more important than classes — rice, for one.
I need to eat first, then school," said Mohammad Hasan, standing at the back of a line of hundreds of people waiting to pick up government-subsidized rice.
With the price of food skyrocketing around the world, desperately poor and overpopulated Bangladesh is considered one of the world's most vulnerable nations.
An adviser to the country's Ministry of Food, A.M.M. Shawkat Ali, warned of a "hidden hunger" in Bangladesh and economists estimate 30 million of the country's 150 million people could go hungry — a crisis that could become a serious political problem for the military-backed government.
LINK TO CON.
US gives Dar $2.3m to promote horticulture
By JOSEPH MWAMUNYANGE
Special Correspondent
The United States government is to support the horticulture sector in Tanzania under a $2.3 million sponsored projects programme.
The country’s ambassador to Tanzania, Mark Green, said the projects seek to foster economic growth by strengthening smallholder horticultural export market linkages for high-value vegetables and increasing air-freight utilisation by horticultural organisations.
Mr Green said the $2.3 million provided by the American people for projects is part of overall US government direct and multilateral assistance to Tanzania worth more than half a billion dollars in 2008.
According to Mr Green, the US has also provided funding for two years for the Arusha-based Smallholder Horticultural Out-grower Promotion project, which has a field office in Lushoto, Tanga region.
“In collaboration with private sector partners, the project will assist smallholder farmers’ groups to become reliable suppliers of high-value export vegetables through a combination of capacity building, technical training, infrastructure upgrading and market linkages,” said Mr Green.
The US government, through USAid, is funding the Tanzania Airfreight Project (TAP) in collaboration with the Tanzania Horticultural Association.TAP is addressing the airfreight challenges faced by exporters.
LINK TO CON.
By JOSEPH MWAMUNYANGE
Special Correspondent
The United States government is to support the horticulture sector in Tanzania under a $2.3 million sponsored projects programme.
The country’s ambassador to Tanzania, Mark Green, said the projects seek to foster economic growth by strengthening smallholder horticultural export market linkages for high-value vegetables and increasing air-freight utilisation by horticultural organisations.
Mr Green said the $2.3 million provided by the American people for projects is part of overall US government direct and multilateral assistance to Tanzania worth more than half a billion dollars in 2008.
According to Mr Green, the US has also provided funding for two years for the Arusha-based Smallholder Horticultural Out-grower Promotion project, which has a field office in Lushoto, Tanga region.
“In collaboration with private sector partners, the project will assist smallholder farmers’ groups to become reliable suppliers of high-value export vegetables through a combination of capacity building, technical training, infrastructure upgrading and market linkages,” said Mr Green.
The US government, through USAid, is funding the Tanzania Airfreight Project (TAP) in collaboration with the Tanzania Horticultural Association.TAP is addressing the airfreight challenges faced by exporters.
LINK TO CON.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Plant a Garden, Get a Tax Break?
By Roger Doiron, AlterNet.
From times immemorial, gardeners throughout the world have endured hardships of all kinds: floods, droughts, blights, swarming locusts, and, in the case of Dutch growers, centuries of uncomfortable footwear.
As a gardener from Maine, I have my own share of climate-related issues. Scientists have been noting that spring arrives earlier each year in the Northeast, a phenomenon I've been observing in my own yard. Last year, for example, spring started in Maine on May 2, almost two weeks earlier than usual, and ended on May 7.
For those of you who haven't been to Maine before, we have a fifth season -- mud season -- which is sandwiched between winter and spring and which helps explain why babies here are born wearing miniature LL Bean boots instead of pink and blue booties. Summer begins in Maine with the arrival of the first mosquito or out-of-state tourist, whichever comes first, and officially ends when all of them, tourists and stinging insects, have left.
LINK TO CON.
By Roger Doiron, AlterNet.
From times immemorial, gardeners throughout the world have endured hardships of all kinds: floods, droughts, blights, swarming locusts, and, in the case of Dutch growers, centuries of uncomfortable footwear.
As a gardener from Maine, I have my own share of climate-related issues. Scientists have been noting that spring arrives earlier each year in the Northeast, a phenomenon I've been observing in my own yard. Last year, for example, spring started in Maine on May 2, almost two weeks earlier than usual, and ended on May 7.
For those of you who haven't been to Maine before, we have a fifth season -- mud season -- which is sandwiched between winter and spring and which helps explain why babies here are born wearing miniature LL Bean boots instead of pink and blue booties. Summer begins in Maine with the arrival of the first mosquito or out-of-state tourist, whichever comes first, and officially ends when all of them, tourists and stinging insects, have left.
LINK TO CON.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
LV GRN: 42 ways to not make trash
In the last, for a while, of the LV GRN posts about how to bring No Impact measures to your own life, I've decided to list 42 ways we adopted to avoid making trash. If you've been reading for a while, you'll have seen these before. But I thought the newer readers might like to take a look. The list is in no particular order:
1. No soda in cans (which means we’re probably less likely to get cancer from aspartame).
2. No water in plastic bottles (which means we get to keep our endocrines undisrupted).
3. No coffee in disposable cups (which means we don’t suffer from the morning sluggishness that comes from overnight caffeine withdrawal).
4. No throwaway plastic razors and blade cartridges (I’m staging the straightedge razor comeback).
5. Using non-disposable feminine-hygiene products that aren’t bad for women and are good for the planet.
CLICK FOR THE REST
In the last, for a while, of the LV GRN posts about how to bring No Impact measures to your own life, I've decided to list 42 ways we adopted to avoid making trash. If you've been reading for a while, you'll have seen these before. But I thought the newer readers might like to take a look. The list is in no particular order:
1. No soda in cans (which means we’re probably less likely to get cancer from aspartame).
2. No water in plastic bottles (which means we get to keep our endocrines undisrupted).
3. No coffee in disposable cups (which means we don’t suffer from the morning sluggishness that comes from overnight caffeine withdrawal).
4. No throwaway plastic razors and blade cartridges (I’m staging the straightedge razor comeback).
5. Using non-disposable feminine-hygiene products that aren’t bad for women and are good for the planet.
CLICK FOR THE REST
Gut Reaction: Cow Stomach Holds Key To Turning Corn Into Biofuel
ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2008) — An enzyme from a microbe that lives inside a cow's stomach is the key to turning corn plants into fuel, according to Michigan State University scientists.
The enzyme that allows a cow to digest grasses and other plant fibers can be used to turn other plant fibers into simple sugars. These simple sugars can be used to produce ethanol to power cars and trucks.
MSU scientists have discovered a way to grow corn plants that contain this enzyme. They have inserted a gene from a bacterium that lives in a cow's stomach into a corn plant. Now, the sugars locked up in the plant's leaves and stalk can be converted into usable sugar without expensive synthetic chemicals.
"The fact that we can take a gene that makes an enzyme in the stomach of a cow and put it into a plant cell means that we can convert what was junk before into biofuel," said Mariam Sticklen, MSU professor of crop and soil science. She is presenting at the 235th national American Chemical Society meeting in New Orleans April 9. The work also is presented in the "Plant Genetic Engineering for Biofuel Production: Towards Affordable Cellulosic Ethanol" in the June edition of Nature Review Genetics.
LINK TO CON.
ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2008) — An enzyme from a microbe that lives inside a cow's stomach is the key to turning corn plants into fuel, according to Michigan State University scientists.
The enzyme that allows a cow to digest grasses and other plant fibers can be used to turn other plant fibers into simple sugars. These simple sugars can be used to produce ethanol to power cars and trucks.
MSU scientists have discovered a way to grow corn plants that contain this enzyme. They have inserted a gene from a bacterium that lives in a cow's stomach into a corn plant. Now, the sugars locked up in the plant's leaves and stalk can be converted into usable sugar without expensive synthetic chemicals.
"The fact that we can take a gene that makes an enzyme in the stomach of a cow and put it into a plant cell means that we can convert what was junk before into biofuel," said Mariam Sticklen, MSU professor of crop and soil science. She is presenting at the 235th national American Chemical Society meeting in New Orleans April 9. The work also is presented in the "Plant Genetic Engineering for Biofuel Production: Towards Affordable Cellulosic Ethanol" in the June edition of Nature Review Genetics.
LINK TO CON.
The U.S Is Heading Towards Water Crisis
By Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
I am amazed: since last summer, almost every day we see at least one news story on another water crisis in the U.S. The water crisis is no longer something that we know about as affecting developing countries or their poor in particular. It is right here in our own backyard. Today, in many parts of the U.S. we are nearing the limits of our water supplies. And that is getting our attention. The writing has been on the wall for some time. The private sector has been showing much interest in water as a source of profit, and water privatization has been an issue in many parts of the country.
The failure in public water systems has indeed been a contributing factor for this interest. In many cities, consumers have been organizing and opposing the privatization of water utilities, because they have been concerned about affordability or deterioration in the quality of service. Environmental organizations and consumer activists have also been concerned about the socio-economic, health and environmental implications of ever increasing bottled water use. But for most of us living in the U.S., water is something we take for granted, available when you turn your tap on -- to brush your teeth, to take a shower, to wash your car, to water your lawn, and if you have your own swimming pool then, to fill that as well.
LINK TO CON.
By Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
I am amazed: since last summer, almost every day we see at least one news story on another water crisis in the U.S. The water crisis is no longer something that we know about as affecting developing countries or their poor in particular. It is right here in our own backyard. Today, in many parts of the U.S. we are nearing the limits of our water supplies. And that is getting our attention. The writing has been on the wall for some time. The private sector has been showing much interest in water as a source of profit, and water privatization has been an issue in many parts of the country.
The failure in public water systems has indeed been a contributing factor for this interest. In many cities, consumers have been organizing and opposing the privatization of water utilities, because they have been concerned about affordability or deterioration in the quality of service. Environmental organizations and consumer activists have also been concerned about the socio-economic, health and environmental implications of ever increasing bottled water use. But for most of us living in the U.S., water is something we take for granted, available when you turn your tap on -- to brush your teeth, to take a shower, to wash your car, to water your lawn, and if you have your own swimming pool then, to fill that as well.
LINK TO CON.
Talks Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis
In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of "generational mission" -- the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement -- to set it right. Gore's stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates' climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.
LINK TO VIDEO
In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of "generational mission" -- the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement -- to set it right. Gore's stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates' climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.
LINK TO VIDEO
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
ALMar Orchards gains national attention for use of pigs, not pesticide
BY L.L. BRASIER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Pass by Jim Koan's 120-acre apple orchard this spring and you could well spy dozens of baby Berkshire hogs marauding under the trees -- miniature porkers scarfing up fruit and grubbing in the soil.
A case of hogs gone wild?
No. It's an experiment in organic farming gaining national attention, and the pork-and-apple program at Koan's ALMar Orchards in Flushing is getting accolades from Michigan State University researchers who say it may someday help fruit growers reduce pesticide use.
Koan, like many orchard keepers, has long been plagued by the Plum Curculio Beetle, a quarter-inch pest that burrows into the young fruit to lay its eggs. The infestation makes the apples drop prematurely.
The larvae migrate from rotting fruit into the soil. The adult beetle then emerges to attack the remaining fruit, and the cycle continues
LINK TO CON.
BY L.L. BRASIER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Pass by Jim Koan's 120-acre apple orchard this spring and you could well spy dozens of baby Berkshire hogs marauding under the trees -- miniature porkers scarfing up fruit and grubbing in the soil.
A case of hogs gone wild?
No. It's an experiment in organic farming gaining national attention, and the pork-and-apple program at Koan's ALMar Orchards in Flushing is getting accolades from Michigan State University researchers who say it may someday help fruit growers reduce pesticide use.
Koan, like many orchard keepers, has long been plagued by the Plum Curculio Beetle, a quarter-inch pest that burrows into the young fruit to lay its eggs. The infestation makes the apples drop prematurely.
The larvae migrate from rotting fruit into the soil. The adult beetle then emerges to attack the remaining fruit, and the cycle continues
LINK TO CON.
Monday, April 07, 2008
PANNA: Seed Industry Giants: Who Owns Whom?
Pesticide Action Network Updates Service (PANUPS)
A shrinking number of colossal companies -- nicknamed the "Gene Giants" -- dominate global sales of seeds and agrochemicals, according to a new report released by the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI).
The top five Gene Giants (AstaZeneca, DuPont, Monsanto, Novartis, Aventis) account for nearly two-thirds of the global pesticide market (60%), almost one-quarter (23%) of the commercial seed market, and virtually 100% of the transgenic (genetically engineered) seed market. "The Gene Giants' portfolio extends far beyond plant breeding," explains Pat Mooney, Executive Director of RAFI. "From plants, to animals, to human genetic material, they are fast becoming monopoly monarchs over all the life kingdoms."
Five years ago, none of top five Gene Giants appeared on the list of leading seed corporations. In fact, three of the top five companies didn't even exist. Zeneca and Astra merged to form AstraZeneca; Rhone Poulenc and Hoechst became Aventis; Ciba Geigy and Sandoz became Novartis; and DuPont swallowed Pioneer Hi-Bred earlier this year.
CLICK HERE FOR THE TABLE and to CON.
Pesticide Action Network Updates Service (PANUPS)
A shrinking number of colossal companies -- nicknamed the "Gene Giants" -- dominate global sales of seeds and agrochemicals, according to a new report released by the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI).
The top five Gene Giants (AstaZeneca, DuPont, Monsanto, Novartis, Aventis) account for nearly two-thirds of the global pesticide market (60%), almost one-quarter (23%) of the commercial seed market, and virtually 100% of the transgenic (genetically engineered) seed market. "The Gene Giants' portfolio extends far beyond plant breeding," explains Pat Mooney, Executive Director of RAFI. "From plants, to animals, to human genetic material, they are fast becoming monopoly monarchs over all the life kingdoms."
Five years ago, none of top five Gene Giants appeared on the list of leading seed corporations. In fact, three of the top five companies didn't even exist. Zeneca and Astra merged to form AstraZeneca; Rhone Poulenc and Hoechst became Aventis; Ciba Geigy and Sandoz became Novartis; and DuPont swallowed Pioneer Hi-Bred earlier this year.
CLICK HERE FOR THE TABLE and to CON.
Grains Gone Wild
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY TIMES
These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there’s another world crisis under way — and it’s hurting a lot more people.
I’m talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans — but they’re truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family’s spending.
There have already been food riots around the world. Food-supplying countries, from Ukraine to Argentina, have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumers, leading to angry protests from farmers — and making things even worse in countries that need to import food.
LINK TO CON.
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY TIMES
These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there’s another world crisis under way — and it’s hurting a lot more people.
I’m talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans — but they’re truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family’s spending.
There have already been food riots around the world. Food-supplying countries, from Ukraine to Argentina, have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumers, leading to angry protests from farmers — and making things even worse in countries that need to import food.
LINK TO CON.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Skewed View from the Berkeley Hills
Why Michael Pollan and Alice Waters should quit celebrating food-price hikes
By Tom Philpott
As their grocery bills rise, Americans should take comfort: the price they're paying for industrially produced food in the supermarket is starting to approach that of artisanally produced food at the farmers' market. And that might make more of them choose healthier, less environmentally destructive diets. At least, that's the message of an article in Wednesday's New York Times titled "Some Good News on Food Prices."
To make her case, reporter Kim Severson turned to two Berkeley-based icons of the sustainable-food movement, author Michael Pollan and restaurateur Alice Waters. "Higher food prices level the playing field for sustainable food that doesn't rely on fossil fuels," Pollan told Severson.
People struggling with their food bills should "make a sacrifice on the cell phone or the third pair of Nike shoes," Waters advised.
All due respect to Pollan and Waters, but I think they are grossly simplifying matters here. Nationwide, heightened food and gasoline prices, combined with an economy that's shedding jobs, are putting a hard squeeze on consumers. According to The New York Times, applications for food stamps have surged recently, and the program is projected to reach 28 million Americans over the next several months, the most since its inception in the 1960s.
LINK TO CON.
Why Michael Pollan and Alice Waters should quit celebrating food-price hikes
By Tom Philpott
As their grocery bills rise, Americans should take comfort: the price they're paying for industrially produced food in the supermarket is starting to approach that of artisanally produced food at the farmers' market. And that might make more of them choose healthier, less environmentally destructive diets. At least, that's the message of an article in Wednesday's New York Times titled "Some Good News on Food Prices."
To make her case, reporter Kim Severson turned to two Berkeley-based icons of the sustainable-food movement, author Michael Pollan and restaurateur Alice Waters. "Higher food prices level the playing field for sustainable food that doesn't rely on fossil fuels," Pollan told Severson.
People struggling with their food bills should "make a sacrifice on the cell phone or the third pair of Nike shoes," Waters advised.
All due respect to Pollan and Waters, but I think they are grossly simplifying matters here. Nationwide, heightened food and gasoline prices, combined with an economy that's shedding jobs, are putting a hard squeeze on consumers. According to The New York Times, applications for food stamps have surged recently, and the program is projected to reach 28 million Americans over the next several months, the most since its inception in the 1960s.
LINK TO CON.
Who owns your tomato?
Another big horticultural seed company bought by Monsanto
Posted by Matthew Dillon
When Monsanto buys into a market, they buy in big. In 2005, Monsanto's seed/genetic trait holdings were primarily in corn, cotton, soybeans, and canola. That year, they purchased Seminis, the world's largest vegetable seed company (see And We Have the Seed) specializing in seed for vegetable field crops. Now their takeover of the vegetable seed sector continues, as they have announced the intent to purchase the Dutch breeding and seed company, De Ruiter Seeds.
This purchase diversifies Monsanto's seed holdings in vegetable field crops (Seminis) to "protected culture" fruits and vegetables (primarily tomatoes and cucurbits produced greenhouse, hothouse, etc). Analysts from Bank of America say that this gives Monsanto 25 percent of the world vegetable seed market, but I believe that this is a low estimate. (I contacted both Monsanto and the BofA analysts to ask for their data, but they did not respond to my emails.)
In 1998, according to their own figures, Seminis already controlled 26 percent of the overall global market in vegetable seeds, 39 percent of the U.S. market, and 24 percent of the European market. This is all vegetable seeds, but in their specialties -- tomatoes, peppers, cucurbits -- the percentage market share is much higher. A case filed against Seminis in 2000 by the U.S. government stated that they controlled 70 percent of the U.S. fresh tomato seed market (the case was regarding an anti-competition agreement that kept a Israeli company from competing in the U.S. tomato seed market. Syngenta initially lost in the federal district court case, but won in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit). And in 2005, at the time of the Monsanto acquisition of Seminis, I spoke with a tomato breeder for Seminis who estimated that they had 75 percent control of the overall U.S. market.
LINK TO CON.
Another big horticultural seed company bought by Monsanto
Posted by Matthew Dillon
When Monsanto buys into a market, they buy in big. In 2005, Monsanto's seed/genetic trait holdings were primarily in corn, cotton, soybeans, and canola. That year, they purchased Seminis, the world's largest vegetable seed company (see And We Have the Seed) specializing in seed for vegetable field crops. Now their takeover of the vegetable seed sector continues, as they have announced the intent to purchase the Dutch breeding and seed company, De Ruiter Seeds.
This purchase diversifies Monsanto's seed holdings in vegetable field crops (Seminis) to "protected culture" fruits and vegetables (primarily tomatoes and cucurbits produced greenhouse, hothouse, etc). Analysts from Bank of America say that this gives Monsanto 25 percent of the world vegetable seed market, but I believe that this is a low estimate. (I contacted both Monsanto and the BofA analysts to ask for their data, but they did not respond to my emails.)
In 1998, according to their own figures, Seminis already controlled 26 percent of the overall global market in vegetable seeds, 39 percent of the U.S. market, and 24 percent of the European market. This is all vegetable seeds, but in their specialties -- tomatoes, peppers, cucurbits -- the percentage market share is much higher. A case filed against Seminis in 2000 by the U.S. government stated that they controlled 70 percent of the U.S. fresh tomato seed market (the case was regarding an anti-competition agreement that kept a Israeli company from competing in the U.S. tomato seed market. Syngenta initially lost in the federal district court case, but won in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit). And in 2005, at the time of the Monsanto acquisition of Seminis, I spoke with a tomato breeder for Seminis who estimated that they had 75 percent control of the overall U.S. market.
LINK TO CON.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Severe Spanish drought sparks regional fights over water
MADRID: The worst drought in decades in Spain is leading to regional disputes over scarce water resources with areas with more reserves resisting transfers to more parched zones.
There has been 40 percent less rain than normal across the country since the meteorological year began on October 1, said Angel Rivera, the spokesman for the National Institute of Meteorology.
"We can say it is the most severe drought in 40 years," he told AFP.
In the traditionally drier Mediterranean regions, a lack of rain over the last 18 months means this is the worst drought since 1912, said the Environment Ministry's director general for water, Jaime Palop.
The drought has hurt crops and hydroelectric power production as water reserves have dropped to 46.6 percent of capacity, a 20 percentage point drop over the level recorded a decade ago.
LINK TO CON.
MADRID: The worst drought in decades in Spain is leading to regional disputes over scarce water resources with areas with more reserves resisting transfers to more parched zones.
There has been 40 percent less rain than normal across the country since the meteorological year began on October 1, said Angel Rivera, the spokesman for the National Institute of Meteorology.
"We can say it is the most severe drought in 40 years," he told AFP.
In the traditionally drier Mediterranean regions, a lack of rain over the last 18 months means this is the worst drought since 1912, said the Environment Ministry's director general for water, Jaime Palop.
The drought has hurt crops and hydroelectric power production as water reserves have dropped to 46.6 percent of capacity, a 20 percentage point drop over the level recorded a decade ago.
LINK TO CON.
Old Ways, New Pain for Farms in Poland
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
STRYSZOW, Poland —Depending on your point of view, Szczepan Master is either an incorrigible Luddite or a visionary. A small farmer, proud of his pure high-quality products, he works his land the way Polish farmers have for centuries.
He keeps his livestock in a straw-floored “barn” that is part of his house, entered through a kitchen door. He slaughters his own pigs. His wife milks cows by hand. He rejects genetically modified seeds. Instead of spraying his crops, he turns his fields in winter, preferring a workhorse to a tractor, to let the frost kill off pests residing there.
While traditional farms like his could be dismissed as a nostalgic throwback, they are also increasingly seen as the future — if only they can survive.
Mr. Master’s way of farming — indeed his way of life — has been badly threatened in the two years since Poland joined the European Union, a victim of sanitary laws and mandates to encourage efficiency and competition that favor mechanized commercial farms, farmers here say.
LINK TO CON.
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
STRYSZOW, Poland —Depending on your point of view, Szczepan Master is either an incorrigible Luddite or a visionary. A small farmer, proud of his pure high-quality products, he works his land the way Polish farmers have for centuries.
He keeps his livestock in a straw-floored “barn” that is part of his house, entered through a kitchen door. He slaughters his own pigs. His wife milks cows by hand. He rejects genetically modified seeds. Instead of spraying his crops, he turns his fields in winter, preferring a workhorse to a tractor, to let the frost kill off pests residing there.
While traditional farms like his could be dismissed as a nostalgic throwback, they are also increasingly seen as the future — if only they can survive.
Mr. Master’s way of farming — indeed his way of life — has been badly threatened in the two years since Poland joined the European Union, a victim of sanitary laws and mandates to encourage efficiency and competition that favor mechanized commercial farms, farmers here say.
LINK TO CON.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Why Socialism?
by Albert Einstein
This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.
LINK TO CON
by Albert Einstein
This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.
LINK TO CON
Pollan: Nutrition "Science" Has Hijacked Our Meals -- and Our Health
By Terrence McNally, AlterNet.
Why would anyone need to write a book called In Defense of Food? If we can afford it and can get our hands on it, we eat food several times a day. Or do we?
According to Michael Pollan, most of what Americans consume isn't food. He calls it "edible foodlike substances." He also says that the way we consume it is not really eating. It's something we do pretty unconsciously as we work or drive or watch TV.
We all know about the US epidemic of obesity and diabetes over the past 25 years, top of the steady rise of chronic diseases over the past 100. Paradoxically, this happens just as Americans and the food industry are ever more aware of nutrition. What's going on here?
Pollan claims that in the Western Diet, good old food has been replaced by nutrients, mom's good advice by nutritional experts, common sense by confusion, and for most, a relatively good diet by a bad and dangerous one. The book in which he makes all these claims and advises us simply to "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants," has topped the New York Times best-seller list.
LINK TO CON
By Terrence McNally, AlterNet.
Why would anyone need to write a book called In Defense of Food? If we can afford it and can get our hands on it, we eat food several times a day. Or do we?
According to Michael Pollan, most of what Americans consume isn't food. He calls it "edible foodlike substances." He also says that the way we consume it is not really eating. It's something we do pretty unconsciously as we work or drive or watch TV.
We all know about the US epidemic of obesity and diabetes over the past 25 years, top of the steady rise of chronic diseases over the past 100. Paradoxically, this happens just as Americans and the food industry are ever more aware of nutrition. What's going on here?
Pollan claims that in the Western Diet, good old food has been replaced by nutrients, mom's good advice by nutritional experts, common sense by confusion, and for most, a relatively good diet by a bad and dangerous one. The book in which he makes all these claims and advises us simply to "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants," has topped the New York Times best-seller list.
LINK TO CON
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele May 2008
Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
LINK TO CON
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele May 2008
Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
LINK TO CON
Rise in food prices sparks unrest
Sub-Saharan Africa has been particularly hard hit by the rising global food costs.
By JULIEN SPENCER
As international food prices have shot skyward, impoverished nations in Africa have been particularly hard hit. If the situation continues to deteriorate amid political turmoil and sharp inflation, unrest could deepen.
The World Food Program (WFP) says staple food prices have risen by as much as 40 percent in six months across parts of Africa. The Associated Press reports on the popular unrest in reaction to the increase:
The need for stable food supplies in Africa is especially serious, as lack of food in urban centers has driven hungry populations to riot. In February, riots hit Burkina Faso. Riots over food and fuel prices have also hit Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal in the past few months.
LINK TO CON
Sub-Saharan Africa has been particularly hard hit by the rising global food costs.
By JULIEN SPENCER
As international food prices have shot skyward, impoverished nations in Africa have been particularly hard hit. If the situation continues to deteriorate amid political turmoil and sharp inflation, unrest could deepen.
The World Food Program (WFP) says staple food prices have risen by as much as 40 percent in six months across parts of Africa. The Associated Press reports on the popular unrest in reaction to the increase:
The need for stable food supplies in Africa is especially serious, as lack of food in urban centers has driven hungry populations to riot. In February, riots hit Burkina Faso. Riots over food and fuel prices have also hit Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal in the past few months.
LINK TO CON
Rapists in the Ranks
By Jane Harman , Los Angeles Times.
The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.
These are true stories, and, sadly, not isolated incidents. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.
The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives have since taken.
CLICK TO CON
By Jane Harman , Los Angeles Times.
The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.
These are true stories, and, sadly, not isolated incidents. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.
The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives have since taken.
CLICK TO CON
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Brewing Trouble: How to Drink Beer and Save the World
By Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet.
Beer, like so many other products, is largely in the hands of giant corporations. Therefore, drinking beer can often enrich the same systems of power we as activists are fighting against. Fermenting Revolution: How To Drink Beer and Save the World by Christopher O'Brien is a book about how the people can take back the brew and join together in saying, "If I can't drink good beer, it's not my revolution."
It is satisfying and rebellious in this increasingly corporate world to make your own beer. In Vermont, homebrewing and microbrewing is a state-wide past time; a 2005 census shows that there is one microbrewery for every 32,792 people in the state, which is the highest number of microbreweries per capita in the country. As many people know, beer drinkers can be activists in how they choose and make their own beer. Interested in changing the world through drinking?Fermenting Revolution can serve as a kind of bible for the beer activist that's bubbling inside each and every one of us.
LINK TO CON
By Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet.
Beer, like so many other products, is largely in the hands of giant corporations. Therefore, drinking beer can often enrich the same systems of power we as activists are fighting against. Fermenting Revolution: How To Drink Beer and Save the World by Christopher O'Brien is a book about how the people can take back the brew and join together in saying, "If I can't drink good beer, it's not my revolution."
It is satisfying and rebellious in this increasingly corporate world to make your own beer. In Vermont, homebrewing and microbrewing is a state-wide past time; a 2005 census shows that there is one microbrewery for every 32,792 people in the state, which is the highest number of microbreweries per capita in the country. As many people know, beer drinkers can be activists in how they choose and make their own beer. Interested in changing the world through drinking?Fermenting Revolution can serve as a kind of bible for the beer activist that's bubbling inside each and every one of us.
LINK TO CON
Patagonia Without Dams
Published: April 1, 2008
Recently, environmental activists and local residents gathered near the small Chilean town of Cochrane to protest a plan to build a series of hydroelectrical dams. Cochrane is part of Chilean Patagonia, and it would be transformed beyond recognition if the project goes ahead. But the change in Cochrane would be nothing compared with the change in Patagonia.
The dams — two on the Baker River and three on the Pascua — would irretrievably damage one of the wildest and most beautiful places on earth. Building the dams would also mean building a thousand-mile power-line corridor northward toward the Chilean capital, Santiago — the longest clear-cut on the planet and a scar across some of Chile’s most alluring landscape. Most of the electricity generated by the project would go not to residential use but to mining and industry.
In a sense, the proposed dams are a relic of the Pinochet government, which privatized water rights in Chile. The Chilean subsidiary of a Spanish company, Endesa, now owns the rights and is pressing the project. Chile’s democratically elected government is allowing it to move forward. The government has postponed the release of an environmental assessment until June. It needs to reconsider the project entirely.
LINK TO CON
Published: April 1, 2008
Recently, environmental activists and local residents gathered near the small Chilean town of Cochrane to protest a plan to build a series of hydroelectrical dams. Cochrane is part of Chilean Patagonia, and it would be transformed beyond recognition if the project goes ahead. But the change in Cochrane would be nothing compared with the change in Patagonia.
The dams — two on the Baker River and three on the Pascua — would irretrievably damage one of the wildest and most beautiful places on earth. Building the dams would also mean building a thousand-mile power-line corridor northward toward the Chilean capital, Santiago — the longest clear-cut on the planet and a scar across some of Chile’s most alluring landscape. Most of the electricity generated by the project would go not to residential use but to mining and industry.
In a sense, the proposed dams are a relic of the Pinochet government, which privatized water rights in Chile. The Chilean subsidiary of a Spanish company, Endesa, now owns the rights and is pressing the project. Chile’s democratically elected government is allowing it to move forward. The government has postponed the release of an environmental assessment until June. It needs to reconsider the project entirely.
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Analyst Predicts Corn Rationing in 2008
© 2008 The Associated Press
NEW YORK — A BB&T Capital Markets analyst said Monday corn rationing may be necessary this year, following a U.S. Department of Agriculture report predicting farmers would plant far fewer acres of corn in 2008.
According to the March Prospective Plantings Report, farmers intend to plant about 86 million acres of corn this year, down 8 percent from 2007, when the amount of corn planted was the highest since World War II.
Analyst Heather L. Jones said in a note to investors if the USDA estimate proves accurate, the year may produce just 200 million bushels of corn. That, she said, wouldn't be enough to meet demand, given current export and feed demand trends and higher ethanol demand. Both ethanol and animal feed are made with corn.
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© 2008 The Associated Press
NEW YORK — A BB&T Capital Markets analyst said Monday corn rationing may be necessary this year, following a U.S. Department of Agriculture report predicting farmers would plant far fewer acres of corn in 2008.
According to the March Prospective Plantings Report, farmers intend to plant about 86 million acres of corn this year, down 8 percent from 2007, when the amount of corn planted was the highest since World War II.
Analyst Heather L. Jones said in a note to investors if the USDA estimate proves accurate, the year may produce just 200 million bushels of corn. That, she said, wouldn't be enough to meet demand, given current export and feed demand trends and higher ethanol demand. Both ethanol and animal feed are made with corn.
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