Showing posts with label Organic food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Organic food. Show all posts
Monday, 25 July 2016
Thursday, 14 July 2016
ORGANIC FARMER GROUP Dumps ORGANIC TRADE ASSOCIATION
OSGATA
By a unanimous vote of its Board of Directors, the organic farmer-controlled Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) has withdrawn its membership from the Organic Trade Association (OTA). OSGATA’s decision was prompted by OTA’s duplicity towards organic farmers and consumers when a small number of OTA board members endorsed a dangerous Senate bill that would immediately preempt existing strong state GMO Labeling laws that are widely supported by the Organic community and ninety percent of consumers.
Biotech giant Monsanto is universally recognized within the Organic community as organic’s greatest threat. Recent revelations have made clear that the OTA has created numerous close partnerships with Monsanto including intensive lobbying efforts by the notorious biotech-linked lobbyist Podesta Group on behalf of the deal brokered by Senators Stabenow (D-MI) and Roberts (R-KS). The Stabenow-Roberts (S.764) is a Senate bill - backed by industrial agriculture and large food conglomerates and whose primary intent are nullifying of historic mandatory GMO Labeling laws passed by huge margins in Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and Alaska legislatures and relieving multinational food companies of the requirement to clearly label products that were produced by genetic engineering. OTA support for the Monsanto-backed bill proved essential for passage. Last week Stabenow-Roberts passed in the Senate by a narrow four-vote margin of victory on a vote of 63-30.
Read more
Friday, 2 January 2015
Organic farming can feed the world if done right, scientists claim
Comment: The so called "scientists" have finally got around to telling us what was known by many in the field (literally) for centuries and those with any common sense whatsoever...
Conventional agriculture = foods saturated with chemicals and genetically modified. And now they are surprised when findings underscore the obvious: that natural food is best. Modern agribusiness has succeeded in turning natural into something to be avoided while manipulated food and soil is something to be encouraged. Clearly, what passes for conventionality and normality is in fact the exact opposite and more akin to pathology than wisdom.
-----------------------
The Independent
Organic farming is much more productive than previously thought, according to a new analysis of agricultural studies that challenges the conventional “biased” view that pesticide-free agriculture cannot feed the world.
The study says that organic yields were only 19.2 per cent lower, on average, than those from conventional crops and that this gap could be reduced to just eight per cent if the pesticide-free crops were rotated more frequently.
Furthermore, in some crops - especially leguminous plants such as beans, peas and lentils - there were no significant differences in yields, the researchers from the University of California, Berkeley found.
“In terms of comparing productivity among the two techniques, this paper sets the record straight on the comparison between organic and conventional agriculture,” said Claire Kremen, professor of environmental science, policy and management at Berkeley.
The study comes amid rising concerns that intense farming practices are damaging the environment, with the widespread use of nerve agent pesticides frequently blamed for declining populations of bees and other pollinators. Meanwhile, fertilisers are producing smaller and smaller increases in yields because they are now so effective they are difficult to improve upon.
“With global food needs predicted to greatly increase in the next 50 years, it’s critical to look more closely at organic farming because, aside from the environmental impacts of industrial agriculture, the ability of synthetic fertilizers to increase crop yields has been declining,” said Prof Kremen.
The researchers based their findings on a meta-analysis of 115 studies – a dataset three times greater than any previous such paper – comparing organic and conventional agriculture.
In addition to finding a smaller – 19.2 per cent – productivity difference between the two than previously calculated, the researchers also found that optimising organic productivity through different techniques could further reduce the gap.
Multi-cropping, or growing several crops together on the same field, would cut the yield difference to nine per cent, with crop rotation reducing the gap to eight per cent.
The study, published in the journal Royal Society B, suggested that the gaps could be even smaller than they have calculated because existing studies were “often biased in favour of conventional agriculture”.
“Our study suggests that through appropriate investment in agroecological research to improve organic management and in breeding cultivars for organic farming systems, the yield gap could be reduced or even eliminated for some crops or regions,” said the study’s lead author, Lauren Ponisio, a graduate student in environmental science, policy and management.
The researchers suggest that organic farming can be a very competitive alternative to industrial agriculture when it comes to food production.
“It’s important to remember that our current agricultural system produces far more food than is needed to provide for everyone on the planet,” said Prof Kremen.
“Eradicating world hunger requires increasing the access to food, not simply the production. Also, increasing the proportion of agriculture that uses sustainable, organic methods of farming is not a choice, it’s a necessity. We simply can’t continue to produce food far into the future without taking care of our soils, water and biodiversity,” she added.
Conventional agriculture = foods saturated with chemicals and genetically modified. And now they are surprised when findings underscore the obvious: that natural food is best. Modern agribusiness has succeeded in turning natural into something to be avoided while manipulated food and soil is something to be encouraged. Clearly, what passes for conventionality and normality is in fact the exact opposite and more akin to pathology than wisdom.
-----------------------
The Independent
Organic farming is much more productive than previously thought, according to a new analysis of agricultural studies that challenges the conventional “biased” view that pesticide-free agriculture cannot feed the world.
The study says that organic yields were only 19.2 per cent lower, on average, than those from conventional crops and that this gap could be reduced to just eight per cent if the pesticide-free crops were rotated more frequently.
Furthermore, in some crops - especially leguminous plants such as beans, peas and lentils - there were no significant differences in yields, the researchers from the University of California, Berkeley found.
“In terms of comparing productivity among the two techniques, this paper sets the record straight on the comparison between organic and conventional agriculture,” said Claire Kremen, professor of environmental science, policy and management at Berkeley.
The study comes amid rising concerns that intense farming practices are damaging the environment, with the widespread use of nerve agent pesticides frequently blamed for declining populations of bees and other pollinators. Meanwhile, fertilisers are producing smaller and smaller increases in yields because they are now so effective they are difficult to improve upon.
“With global food needs predicted to greatly increase in the next 50 years, it’s critical to look more closely at organic farming because, aside from the environmental impacts of industrial agriculture, the ability of synthetic fertilizers to increase crop yields has been declining,” said Prof Kremen.
The researchers based their findings on a meta-analysis of 115 studies – a dataset three times greater than any previous such paper – comparing organic and conventional agriculture.
In addition to finding a smaller – 19.2 per cent – productivity difference between the two than previously calculated, the researchers also found that optimising organic productivity through different techniques could further reduce the gap.
Multi-cropping, or growing several crops together on the same field, would cut the yield difference to nine per cent, with crop rotation reducing the gap to eight per cent.
The study, published in the journal Royal Society B, suggested that the gaps could be even smaller than they have calculated because existing studies were “often biased in favour of conventional agriculture”.
“Our study suggests that through appropriate investment in agroecological research to improve organic management and in breeding cultivars for organic farming systems, the yield gap could be reduced or even eliminated for some crops or regions,” said the study’s lead author, Lauren Ponisio, a graduate student in environmental science, policy and management.
The researchers suggest that organic farming can be a very competitive alternative to industrial agriculture when it comes to food production.
“It’s important to remember that our current agricultural system produces far more food than is needed to provide for everyone on the planet,” said Prof Kremen.
“Eradicating world hunger requires increasing the access to food, not simply the production. Also, increasing the proportion of agriculture that uses sustainable, organic methods of farming is not a choice, it’s a necessity. We simply can’t continue to produce food far into the future without taking care of our soils, water and biodiversity,” she added.
Monday, 25 August 2014
Let’s reimagine the way we connnect with food: The Open Food Network
C4SS
We are the Open Food Foundation and the Open Food Network is our first project. It is a free and open source project aimed at supporting diverse food enterprises and making it easy to access local and sustainable food.
The Open Food Foundation is a non-profit, registered charity established in October 2012, to develop, accumulate and protect open source knowledge, code, applications and platforms for fair and sustainable food systems.
While established in Australia, we support global collaboration on open projects for food system transformation. We want to build and support communities that bring the people who need the software together with those who can develop it. We are currently working with communities in the UK, Europe, US and Canada on developing OFN pilots.
The Open Food Network is being brought to life by many wonderful people and organisations. Special thanks to VicHealth, WiCreate, Matt Arnold, Random Hacks of Kindness, DiUS computing, City of Casey and Stroudco and other members of the Online Food Hubs Network. Amazing tech guys: Rohan Mitchell, Rob Harrington, Raf Schouten, Andrew Spinks, David Cook, Alex Serdyuk, Will Marshall, and Yin Shen. Early adopters and trial partners: Amoro Foods, Earth and Sky, East Food Hub, Eat Local Eat Wild, Eaterprises Australia, Farm Hack, Fife Diet, Folk Labs, Food Connect Brisbane, Food Coop, Greenhorns, Kildonan Uniting Care, Local Organics, Northcote Bulk, Grow Lightly Connect, Jonai Farms, Mildura Healthy Food, South East Food Hub, StroudCo Food Hub, and other Food Hubs networks around the world.
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Are you inflamed over GMO foods?
Erica Burt
Sott.net
Several years ago the general public was completely unaware of GMOs and GE foods (genetically modified organisms or genetic engineering), but today the topic is becoming rather well known, thanks to growing education and alternative media coverage. The general public is becoming better informed about the potential harms and health issues associated with biotechnology and bioengineered foods, but the smoke and mirrors the mega-corporations use to obfuscate deeper understanding of the dangers inherent in such 'mad science' increases in tandem with growing awareness.
Ok, so a lot of people know they are eating GMO's and what they are, but the real question is: are GMOs actually safe, as proponents and supporters of biotechnology claim, or are they not? Should we be worried about the long-term health and environmental effects of genetically altered foods? In the following article I hope to present clear evidence and data for stating very definitively: YES! We should be very concerned!
As an organic farmer, agriculture consultant and researcher, I became interested in the GMO issue over seven years ago, particularly their effects on the soil and the contamination or mutation of various plant species. 'Connecting the dots', so to speak, it dawned on me how serious this issue is, not just in terms of the environmental effects of GMOs, but also the consequences of eating GMO foods for human health.
A very disturbing picture began to emerge.
As I realized that this 'genetic engineering' is essentially a mad science, I joined a local group called 'Seeds of Truth'. We began meeting weekly to discuss how to get the word out about the growing takeover of Hawaii's agricultural lands by several biotechnology corporations.
Read more
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Gamma-Irradiated, Virus-Sprayed Frankenfoods
There is a profound misunderstanding in the mass market today about the value of certified organic food. The question is not whether the 30% or more you pay at the register for an organic product is really worth the added vitamin, mineral and phyto-nutrient content you receive.
Even though organic food does usually have considerably higher nutrient density, it is not always the positive quality of what it contains that makes it so special. Rather, it is what you know the organic food does not contain, or what has not happened to it on its journey to your table, that makes buying organic a no-brainer to the educated consumer.
Let me explain.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Organic versus Monsanto
UTNE
More than 270,000 organic farmers are taking on corporate agriculture giant Monsanto in a lawsuit filed March 30. Led by the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, the family farmers are fighting for the right to keep a portion of the world food supply organic - and preemptively protecting themselves from accusations of stealing genetically modified seeds that drift on to their pristine crop fields.
Consumers are powerful. For more than a decade, a cultural shift has seen shoppers renounce the faster-fatter-bigger-cheaper mindset of factory farms, exposéd in the 2008 documentary Food, Inc. From heirloom tomatoes to heritage chickens, we want our food slow, sustainable, and local - healthy for the earth, healthy for animals, and healthy for our bodies.
But with patented seeds infiltrating the environment so fully, organic itself is at risk. Monsanto's widely used Genuity® Roundup Ready® canola seed has already turned heirloom canola oil into an extinct species. The suing farmers are seeking to prevent similar contamination of organic corn, soybeans, and a host of other crops. What's more, they're seeking to prevent Monsanto from accusing them of unlawfully using the very seeds they're trying to avoid. [...]
Consumers are powerful. For more than a decade, a cultural shift has seen shoppers renounce the faster-fatter-bigger-cheaper mindset of factory farms, exposéd in the 2008 documentary Food, Inc. From heirloom tomatoes to heritage chickens, we want our food slow, sustainable, and local - healthy for the earth, healthy for animals, and healthy for our bodies.
But with patented seeds infiltrating the environment so fully, organic itself is at risk. Monsanto's widely used Genuity® Roundup Ready® canola seed has already turned heirloom canola oil into an extinct species. The suing farmers are seeking to prevent similar contamination of organic corn, soybeans, and a host of other crops. What's more, they're seeking to prevent Monsanto from accusing them of unlawfully using the very seeds they're trying to avoid. [...]
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Obama Deregulates GMO Crops Despite Supreme Court Injunction
Early this spring, while the world was distracted by Egypt's uprising, President Barack Obama pushed the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets in the United States. The USDA came through as he directed, totally deregulating these Monsanto-patented genes in early February.
In so doing, Obama and the USDA have chosen to override and ignore decisions and injunctions made by the U.S. Supreme Court that banned planting of genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets without consideration of the Environmental Impact Assessments, which showed high risks to organic and conventional (chemical) farmers.
So how does this affect you and me? Neither of us remembers seeing alfalfa or sugar beets on our breakfast table or even on our Seder table. Or do we?
Sugar beets provide over 50 percent of the sugar Americans use in their coffee, cereals, and desserts. For the moment, let's not focus on the fact that sugar beets can cross-pollinate with red beets and make our borscht genetically modified.
Alfalfa reaches our tables within milk, cream, butter, and meat, as it is used as a major animal feed in the dairy industry. It is also used to enrich soils in organic farming.
At this time, no genetically engineered crops are permitted for sale in the European Union (though WikiLeaks has revealed that the U.S. government is exerting strong pressure on the EU to allow them). Thus this new deregulation will potentially close off present markets for organic farmers' crops.
Obama's push for deregulation potentially also means the end of the organic meat and organic dairy industries as we presently know them. Essentially, he is choosing to favor the profits of big agribusiness over the survival of America's family farmers, and especially America's organic farmers.
Our democracy has to work for farmers and consumers and not just for multinational biotech corporations. It makes absolutely no sense that the economic risks to farmers are not considered before genetically engineered crops are put on the market. It is farmers who pay the costs of genetic contamination, not the biotech companies.
How else does this affect you and me? I'll defer to Canadian geneticist David Suzuki on this.
In an interview with the True Food Foundation, Suzuki said anyone who claims genetically engineered food is perfectly safe is "either unbelievably stupid, or deliberately lying," adding:
Maria Rodale's book Organic Manifesto cites shocking studies that make a strong case against chemical farming, while at the same time highlighting the positive nutritional and environmental benefits of organic farming. And according to a 2009 report from the UN Environmental Program, organic farming may be the only way we can solve the growing problem of hunger in the developing countries. Yes, organic farms can feed the world, and do it sustainably.
So why is Obama favoring Monsanto? This is the company responsible for more than fifty uncontrolled or abandoned places where hazardous waste is located ("Superfund sites" according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites). We also have Monsanto to thank for Agent Orange, PCBs, DDT, and more.
Monsanto's genetically modified seeds already dominate the entire U.S. corn, soy, canola, and cotton crops. About 93 percent of soy, 86 percent of corn, 93 percent of cotton, and 93 percent of canola seed planted in the United States in 2010 were genetically engineered. Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications, explained the company's regulatory philosophy thus:
If we follow the "historical" pattern of genetically engineered corn, soy, cotton, and canola, we will likely soon see engineered alfalfa and sugar beets, with their wind- and bee-carried pollen, completely taking over the entire seed industry for those crops. This contamination would disallow farmers' ancient practice of keeping and breeding seeds from year to year, and drive up expenses for all farmers. This is nothing new from the American government, which has historically supported policies favoring the consolidation of U.S. seed ownership in the hands of a few major corporations.
So let us remind our children that we were "slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt." For surely having one corporation control the seeds gives it unprecedented control. The state of affairs reminds me of how Pharaoh, at Joseph's urging, took control of the grain supplies of Egypt, causing Jacob's family to go down into Egypt and eventually become enslaved. Not worried yet? Chew on this: it's been said that most U.S. cities do not have three days of food supplies on their shelves.
Extremes of weather in recent years have shown us how vulnerable this situation is. Meanwhile, the National Farmers Unions in the United States and Canada have advocated support for local family farmers and the implementation of local and national programs to ensure food security and food sovereignty - programs that fail to interest corporate-controlled politicians.
The fact that the executive wing of government has chosen to override a recent major decision by the Supreme Court to stop all dissemination of genetically engineered alfalfa until the completion on an environmental assessment of its danger is certainly cause for questioning.
What's going on here? Did Obama betray us? Did Obama, a man, a charismatic politician, betray the people who voted for him, whose spirits were raised high with the slogan "Yes, we can"?
Perhaps. Yet I am reminded that to run a presidential campaign requires a great deal of money. And since the Supreme Court Citizens United decision - supported by Clarence Thomas, a former attorney for Monsanto - to allow corporations the unlimited ability to anonymously fund political campaigns, it is becoming obvious that Obama owes something to many rich people.
U.S. corporations have gained inordinate power over all our politicians by manipulating the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment was adopted in 1868 to protect the rights of newly freed Blacks, yet by 1886 the Supreme Court had begun recognizing it as a protection of the rights of the "persons" called corporations - persons which do not breath, do not have consciences, and are mandated to make a profit for their shareholders.
Which group would you betray? Your funders or your fans?
When Obama cried, "Yes, we can!" he obviously was speaking for a different "we" than those who voted for him imagined.
Monsanto's seeds are genetically engineered for use with the company's chemical herbicide RoundUp. Last year we learned that weeds are growing resistant to RoundUp. Monsanto's profits and stock prices began dropping.
A failed technology is now getting another chance to dance and prop up a failing corporation. Oddly, alfalfa (Arabic for "king of herbs") does not need herbicides for more than 93 percent of its common applications. Farmers have been growing it for many centuries and know how to do so without herbicides. The push for genetically engineered alfafa is just a game move toward controlling the food supply.
After all, what will we eat when America's family farmers are all driven off their farms and into our cities? We would then be dependent on corporate factory farms, whose managers are far from the soil and lack experience in dealing with the whims of nature and weather. We would also be dependent on oil and the prices of oil to supply us with imported food. WikiLeaks has just revealed dispatches from Saudi Arabia to the United States from 2007 - 9 stating that Peak Oil is happening now: reports of oil in the ground were exaggerated by 40 percent. Thus shipping prices, and agrichemical prices are soon to rise even further.
In the 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in 9 percent of the nation's total income. Today, the top 1 percent take in 23.5 percent of total income. With median workers earning less than they did thirty years ago, who will be able to afford food, let alone nourishing food?
Even in the face of these dire circumstances, however, the consciousness of humans is rising. People are increasingly demanding to know where their food comes from. People are supporting organic production even in the face of recession. People are taking up gardening and shopping at farmers markets.
Obama taught us not to look for a charismatic messiah, while also teaching us those magic words, "yes, we can!" The coalitions that came together to elect Obama can be revived, as can the networks, and the social media to keep alive the connections.
The Center for Food Safety has already filed a legal brief to halt the actual dissemination of these genetically engineered seeds, and Canadian Organic Growers and several other organizations have joined in on the lawsuit. This struggle needs our support. We all eat; it goes beyond all differences. In addition to supporting the legal struggle for food safety, we can also make our voices heard by refusing to invest in big genetic engineering companies such as Monsanto and Bayer.
We can do it. We can craft food security and food sovereignty for the people of America and beyond.
About the author
Robbie Hanna Anderman co-founded Morninglory Farm in Eastern Ontario in 1969 and is blessed to live there with his family (including four grandsons) and extended family. An organic orchardist, gardener, and cook - as well as a musician and craftsman - he is grateful to be alive and at home on Liferaft Earth at this moment.
In so doing, Obama and the USDA have chosen to override and ignore decisions and injunctions made by the U.S. Supreme Court that banned planting of genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets without consideration of the Environmental Impact Assessments, which showed high risks to organic and conventional (chemical) farmers.
So how does this affect you and me? Neither of us remembers seeing alfalfa or sugar beets on our breakfast table or even on our Seder table. Or do we?
Sugar beets provide over 50 percent of the sugar Americans use in their coffee, cereals, and desserts. For the moment, let's not focus on the fact that sugar beets can cross-pollinate with red beets and make our borscht genetically modified.
Alfalfa reaches our tables within milk, cream, butter, and meat, as it is used as a major animal feed in the dairy industry. It is also used to enrich soils in organic farming.
At this time, no genetically engineered crops are permitted for sale in the European Union (though WikiLeaks has revealed that the U.S. government is exerting strong pressure on the EU to allow them). Thus this new deregulation will potentially close off present markets for organic farmers' crops.
Obama's push for deregulation potentially also means the end of the organic meat and organic dairy industries as we presently know them. Essentially, he is choosing to favor the profits of big agribusiness over the survival of America's family farmers, and especially America's organic farmers.
Our democracy has to work for farmers and consumers and not just for multinational biotech corporations. It makes absolutely no sense that the economic risks to farmers are not considered before genetically engineered crops are put on the market. It is farmers who pay the costs of genetic contamination, not the biotech companies.
How else does this affect you and me? I'll defer to Canadian geneticist David Suzuki on this.
In an interview with the True Food Foundation, Suzuki said anyone who claims genetically engineered food is perfectly safe is "either unbelievably stupid, or deliberately lying," adding:
"The reality is, we don't know. The experiments simply haven't been done, and now we have become the guinea pigs.... I am most definitely not in favor of release of GMOs in the food stream and given that it's too late, I favor complete labeling of GMO products."In "More Science Needed on Effects of Genetically Modifying Food Crops," a September 2009 article for the Vancouver news site Straight.com, Suzuki wrote:
"Some have argued that we've been eating GM foods for years with few observable negative consequences but as we've seen with things like trans fats, it often takes a while for us to recognize the health impacts. With GM foods, concerns have been raised about possible effects on stomach bacteria and resistance to antibiotics, as well as their role in allergic reactions. We also need to understand more about their impact on other plants and animals."And in "Experimenting With Life," an article in Yes! magazine, he wrote:
"We have learned from painful experience that anyone entering an experiment should give informed consent. That means at the very least food should be labeled if it contains GMOs so we each can make that choice."Like Dr. Suzuki, I think it's worthwhile to acknowledge that we are also guinea pigs in another big experiment. Ours is the first generation to ever eat food that has been intentionally sprayed with poison before being eaten. While it may be argued that we need greater quantities to "feed the world," the truth is that we've lost quality, we've lost fertility in humans and in the soil, and our health care budgets are indicative of the effects of this path.
Maria Rodale's book Organic Manifesto cites shocking studies that make a strong case against chemical farming, while at the same time highlighting the positive nutritional and environmental benefits of organic farming. And according to a 2009 report from the UN Environmental Program, organic farming may be the only way we can solve the growing problem of hunger in the developing countries. Yes, organic farms can feed the world, and do it sustainably.
So why is Obama favoring Monsanto? This is the company responsible for more than fifty uncontrolled or abandoned places where hazardous waste is located ("Superfund sites" according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites). We also have Monsanto to thank for Agent Orange, PCBs, DDT, and more.
Monsanto's genetically modified seeds already dominate the entire U.S. corn, soy, canola, and cotton crops. About 93 percent of soy, 86 percent of corn, 93 percent of cotton, and 93 percent of canola seed planted in the United States in 2010 were genetically engineered. Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications, explained the company's regulatory philosophy thus:
"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is FDA's job."To assure the Food and Drug Administration and USDA do not regulate genetically engineered crops, biotech has spent more than half a billion dollars lobbying Congress since 1999.
If we follow the "historical" pattern of genetically engineered corn, soy, cotton, and canola, we will likely soon see engineered alfalfa and sugar beets, with their wind- and bee-carried pollen, completely taking over the entire seed industry for those crops. This contamination would disallow farmers' ancient practice of keeping and breeding seeds from year to year, and drive up expenses for all farmers. This is nothing new from the American government, which has historically supported policies favoring the consolidation of U.S. seed ownership in the hands of a few major corporations.
So let us remind our children that we were "slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt." For surely having one corporation control the seeds gives it unprecedented control. The state of affairs reminds me of how Pharaoh, at Joseph's urging, took control of the grain supplies of Egypt, causing Jacob's family to go down into Egypt and eventually become enslaved. Not worried yet? Chew on this: it's been said that most U.S. cities do not have three days of food supplies on their shelves.
Extremes of weather in recent years have shown us how vulnerable this situation is. Meanwhile, the National Farmers Unions in the United States and Canada have advocated support for local family farmers and the implementation of local and national programs to ensure food security and food sovereignty - programs that fail to interest corporate-controlled politicians.
The fact that the executive wing of government has chosen to override a recent major decision by the Supreme Court to stop all dissemination of genetically engineered alfalfa until the completion on an environmental assessment of its danger is certainly cause for questioning.
What's going on here? Did Obama betray us? Did Obama, a man, a charismatic politician, betray the people who voted for him, whose spirits were raised high with the slogan "Yes, we can"?
Perhaps. Yet I am reminded that to run a presidential campaign requires a great deal of money. And since the Supreme Court Citizens United decision - supported by Clarence Thomas, a former attorney for Monsanto - to allow corporations the unlimited ability to anonymously fund political campaigns, it is becoming obvious that Obama owes something to many rich people.
U.S. corporations have gained inordinate power over all our politicians by manipulating the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment was adopted in 1868 to protect the rights of newly freed Blacks, yet by 1886 the Supreme Court had begun recognizing it as a protection of the rights of the "persons" called corporations - persons which do not breath, do not have consciences, and are mandated to make a profit for their shareholders.
Which group would you betray? Your funders or your fans?
When Obama cried, "Yes, we can!" he obviously was speaking for a different "we" than those who voted for him imagined.
Monsanto's seeds are genetically engineered for use with the company's chemical herbicide RoundUp. Last year we learned that weeds are growing resistant to RoundUp. Monsanto's profits and stock prices began dropping.
A failed technology is now getting another chance to dance and prop up a failing corporation. Oddly, alfalfa (Arabic for "king of herbs") does not need herbicides for more than 93 percent of its common applications. Farmers have been growing it for many centuries and know how to do so without herbicides. The push for genetically engineered alfafa is just a game move toward controlling the food supply.
After all, what will we eat when America's family farmers are all driven off their farms and into our cities? We would then be dependent on corporate factory farms, whose managers are far from the soil and lack experience in dealing with the whims of nature and weather. We would also be dependent on oil and the prices of oil to supply us with imported food. WikiLeaks has just revealed dispatches from Saudi Arabia to the United States from 2007 - 9 stating that Peak Oil is happening now: reports of oil in the ground were exaggerated by 40 percent. Thus shipping prices, and agrichemical prices are soon to rise even further.
In the 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in 9 percent of the nation's total income. Today, the top 1 percent take in 23.5 percent of total income. With median workers earning less than they did thirty years ago, who will be able to afford food, let alone nourishing food?
Even in the face of these dire circumstances, however, the consciousness of humans is rising. People are increasingly demanding to know where their food comes from. People are supporting organic production even in the face of recession. People are taking up gardening and shopping at farmers markets.
Obama taught us not to look for a charismatic messiah, while also teaching us those magic words, "yes, we can!" The coalitions that came together to elect Obama can be revived, as can the networks, and the social media to keep alive the connections.
The Center for Food Safety has already filed a legal brief to halt the actual dissemination of these genetically engineered seeds, and Canadian Organic Growers and several other organizations have joined in on the lawsuit. This struggle needs our support. We all eat; it goes beyond all differences. In addition to supporting the legal struggle for food safety, we can also make our voices heard by refusing to invest in big genetic engineering companies such as Monsanto and Bayer.
We can do it. We can craft food security and food sovereignty for the people of America and beyond.
About the author
Robbie Hanna Anderman co-founded Morninglory Farm in Eastern Ontario in 1969 and is blessed to live there with his family (including four grandsons) and extended family. An organic orchardist, gardener, and cook - as well as a musician and craftsman - he is grateful to be alive and at home on Liferaft Earth at this moment.
Monday, 23 May 2011
14 Foods To Buy Organic
The growing consensus among scientists is that certain doses of pesticides and other chemicals can possibly cause lasting damage to human health, especially during fetal development and early childhood. Some scientists are warning of the long-term consequences of ingesting these powerful chemicals and advise that we minimize our consumption of pesticides.
According to the Environmental Working Group, consumers can reduce their pesticide exposure by 80 percent by avoiding the most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating only the cleanest. If consumers get their USDA-recommended five daily servings of fruits and veggies from those that are most contaminated, they could possibly consume an average of 10 pesticides a day. Those who eat the 15 least contaminated conventionally grown produce will likely ingest fewer than two pesticides daily.
EWG has been publishing guides to the "dirty dozen" of the most pesticide contaminated foods since 1995, based on statistical analysis of testing conducted by the USDA and the FDA. The dirty dozen list only reflects measurable pesticide residues on the parts of the foods normally consumed (i.e. after being washed and peeled). Below is the latest EWG guide to the "dirty dozen," along with recommendations for foods other than fruits and vegetables that are best bought organic, along with information about antibiotics, hormones and the impact of producing food on the surrounding environment.[...]
Go to link to see list
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