Topic: Agriculture

In [Brewster Kneen's] eyes, all fights for rights are ultimately beholden to a narrow Western concept of human rights that feeds into today’s globalized capitalism. The rights framework privileges the individual over the collective and leads us away from other notions, like responsibility and gratitude, which are central to many non-Western societies and provide, in his view, a better footing for social transformation. The rights framework also feeds into a more generalized proliferation of rights claims, which only favours corporations and the powerful. - Food politics and the tyranny of rights: A profile of Brewster Kneen

Stop the global land grab! GRAIN statement at the joint GRAIN-La Via Campesina media briefing
GRAIN International November 16, 2009

Rome - For over a year a half now, we have been watching carefully how investors are trying to take control of farmland in Asia, Africa and Latin America as a response to the food and financial crises. In the beginning, during the early months of 2008, they talked about getting these lands for “food security”, their food security. Gulf State officials began flying around the globe looking for large areas of cultivable land that they could acquire to grow rice to feed their burgeoning populations without relying on international trade. So too were Koreans, Libyans, Egyptians and others. In most of these talks, high-level government representatives were directly involved, peddling new packages of political, economic and financial cooperation with agricultural land transactions smack in the centre.

But then, towards July 2008, the financial crisis grew deeper, and we noticed that alongside the “food security land grabbers” there was a whole other group of investors trying to get hold of farmland in the South: hedge funds, private equity groups, investment banks and the like. They were not concerned about food security. They figured that there is money to be made in farming because the world population is growing, food prices are bound to stay high over time, and farmland can be had for cheap. With a little bit of technology and management skills thrown into these farm acquisitions, they get portfolio diversification, a hedge against inflation and guaranteed returns -- both from the harvests and the land itself.

To date, more than 40 million hectares have changed hands or are under negotiation -- 20 million of which in Africa alone. And we calculate that over $100 billion have been put on the table to make it happen. Despite the governmental grease here or there, these deals are mainly signed and carried out by private corporations, in collusion with host country officials. ... At GRAIN, we are extremely concerned that today's global land grab is only going to make the food crisis worse. For it pushes an agriculture geared toward large scale monocultures, GMOs, throwing farmers off the land in favour of machines, and lots of chemicals and fossil fuels. This is not an agriculture that will feed everyone. It's an agriculture that feeds speculative profits for a few and more poverty for the rest. Of course we need investment. But investment in food sovereignty, in a million local markets and in the four billion rural people who currently produce most of the food that our societies rely on -- not in a few mega-farms controlled by a few mega-landlords.

The Global Food Challenge: Towards a Human Rights Approach to Trade and Investment Policies (128 pages)
FoodFirst Information and Action Network Germany 2009

This is a synthesis of a conference held in Geneva in November 2008. It was called “The Global Food Challenge – Finding New Approaches to Trade and Investment that Support the Right to Food”.

The year, 2008, was the 60th anniversary of both the adoption of the universal declaration of human rights and the establishment of the international trading system through the General agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), an agreement that much later gave rise to the WTO (in 1995). Here is a brief summary from the book:

The number of undernourished people in the world has set a scandalous new record of one billion in 2009, in spite of a record grain harvest in 2008. This book argues that the “Global Food Challenge” requires a fundamental reshaping of international trade and investment policies and rules to put human rights, particularly the right to adequate food, at the centre of economic policy. The authors analyse the incoherence in international policy created by the separation of international human rights from trade and investment regimes. They analyse concrete cases of human rights violations of landless farm workers, smallholder farmers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples and slum dwellers; and, they look at the discrimination suffered by women in particular. All through misguided trade and investment policies, which have contributed as root causes of the global food crisis. The book also looks ahead to some of the new challenges confronting governments’ ability to realize the right to food, such as unregulated speculation and climate change. It finally proposes new and strengthened human rights instruments and new ways to integrate human rights principles into trade and investment policies.

Related: About FSC-SAC
Food Secure Canada Canada n.d.

Food Secure Canada aims to unite people and organizations working for food security nationally and globally. FSC is a registered non-profit society with a wide membership which includes local and national organizations and unaffiliated individuals. It works for its members, facilitating collaborative activities by members to advance food security. ...

Food Sovereignty
Food Secure Canada Canada n.d.

Food Sovereignty is a concept used increasingly by the global movement for justice and sustainability in the food system, led by La Via Campesina but used also by many other groups. We are developing a working group to look at the ideas expressed in the language of food sovereignty and see how they relate to the way in which Food Secure Canada thinks about food security and issues such as food localism, sustainability, and international solidarity. We are also engaged in a project to see how the concepts of food sovereignty fit with the specific food policy objectives of Food Secure Canada and its members. ...

The facts about food and farming
Russ Parsons Los Angeles Times USA January 6, 2010


The issues facing agriculture today are much more complicated than lining up behind labels such as "local" and "organic." Photo: Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times

One of the more pleasing developments of the last decade has been the long-overdue beginning of a national conversation about food -- not just the arcane techniques used to prepare it and the luxurious restaurants in which it is served, but, much more important, how it is grown and produced. The only problem is that so far it hasn't been much of a conversation. Instead, what we have are two armed camps deeply suspicious of one another shouting past each other (sound familiar?). On the one side, the hard-line aggies seem convinced that a bunch of know-nothing urbanites want to send them back to Stone Age farming techniques. On the other side, there's a tendency by agricultural reformers to lump together all farms (or at least those that aren't purely organic, hemp-clad mom-and-pop operations) as thoughtless ravagers of the environment.

Well, at least we're thinking about it, so I suppose that's a start. But the issues we're facing are not going to go away, and they are too important to be left to the ideologues. What I'd like to see happen in the next decade is a more constructive give-and-take, the start of a true conversation. With that goal in mind, I'd like to propose a few ground rules that might help move us into the next phase -- fundamental principles that both sides should be able to agree on. ...

Russ Parsons on launching a civil, inclusive food-system debate
Tom Philpott Grist USA January 7, 2010

Visit this page for its embedded links.

In a recent article, the LA Times foodie pundit Russ Parsons attempted to start a “more constructive give-and-take, the start of a true conversation” on the food system. He argues the debate has congealed into a tedious battle between “hard-line aggies” who are “convinced that a bunch of know-nothing urbanites want to send them back to Stone Age farming techniques,” and reformers who “lump together all farms (or at least those that aren’t purely organic, hemp-clad mom-and-pop operations) as thoughtless ravagers of the environment.” For all I know, Parsons places me in the latter camp; but I think he makes good sense here, and the kind of conversation he’s attempting to start would be quite valuable. I am sympathetic with anyone who’s trying to scratch a living off of the land, and recoil when sustainable food advocates demonize large-scale farmers. In the past I’ve argued—to the chagrin of mainstream green groups—against taking a simplistic anti-subsidy stance on farm policy.

And indeed, Parsons may have succeeded in starting just the kind civil conversation he set out to. The blog of the National Corn Grower’s Association, a group not normally open to criticisms of Big Ag, welcomed Parson’s piece: “You may not like all of the points made in his article, but there are some real gems that make it a worthy read.” I welcome a new, more civil conversation, too. But here’s something that Parsons didn’t mention—and that must be aired out: corporate dominance of the food system. From my view, the main problem faced by the nation’s large-scale farmers isn’t that Michael Pollan writes books critical of corn; it’s that just two buyers, ADM and Cargill, buy and process the great bulk of their product—and siphon off so much of its value. And a few input suppliers like seed giant Monsanto and fertilizer titan Mosaic (majority-owned by Cargill) siphon off much of what’s left. As long as that situation holds sway—large farms producing input-intensive monocrops for a few buyers with massive market power—the stewards of our nation’s best farmland will remain reliant on direct government payments and rigged up markets, like the one for ethanol. And they’ll face pressure to maximize gross output, to the detriment of soil, waterways, and flavor. We as a society have a stake in helping them get out of that trap—and I hope to participate in a civil conversation about how that can happen.

Related: I used to think there were four distinct pieces to a local food system: production, processing, distribution, and retail. Now I realize there is a fifth: community. Without an involved community of customers who believe in what the local farmer, miller, distributor, and grocer is doing, none of them will last very long. - Steph Larsen

It takes a community to sustain a small farm
Steph Larsen Grist USA January 5, 2010

A local grocery store in Pleasantville, Iowa. Photo: Wikipedia Commons. Visit this page for its embedded links.

These days it seems the most popular person to be in the food system is the “local farmer.” Farmers markets are popping up everywhere, and their size and popularity grow all the time. Local food is trendy—even the First Family is in on it. But as anyone who has ever raised grain or livestock can tell you, the farmer is not the only person in the chain of players from her farm to your fork. In addition to producers, your food chain includes processors, distributors or transporters, and retailers. In other words, to have a truly local food system, we also need local butchers, bakers and millers, local truck drivers, local grocers, and a community that supports them in all their efforts. ... [T]he infrastructure for small-scale processing is woefully inadequate, having suffered decades of atrophy and consolidation—to the point where an otherwise profitable farmer can be driven out of business because she has no where to take her pigs for slaughter, her grain to be milled, or her tomatoes to be “sauced.” ...

Small-scale, certified community kitchens, like this one in Montana or this one in Tennessee, are beginning to fill some of this need. There are a few mobile slaughter facilities gaining traction, but not enough to meet demand and too new to measure their long term viability. Not many community colleges offer classes on how to humanely kill and butcher an animal anymore. In the Midwest where I live, there used to be a local “meat locker” in every small town—now there are hardly any. How will we supply the food system with local meat or local flour if there the nearest facility is too far away or doesn’t exist at all? Local food distribution has received even less attention than processing, and it is a complex piece of the food chain we’ll have to get creative about if local food will be available in grocery stores. ... Local ownership of a grocery is critical so that food dollars continue to circulate within the community. Additionally, a locally owned grocery store is more likely to purchase from a local farmer than a store owned by an impersonal, profit-driven corporation. In order to have more local grocers, we need to teach young people entrepreneurship in addition to community pride and loyalty. ... Community is important in another sense as well. Most of the farmers who grow our food live in rural places, and they want to live in active, thriving communities too. Therefore, if we care about local food systems, we should all be concerned with the survival of rural communities regardless of where we live. ...

Despite all, the corporatist assault forges toward its goal of total control of the food system. Here in British Columbia another 'health-safe' slaughterhouse serving a local region for half a century has been issued a government order to shut down.

Slaughterhouse told to close up
Toby Gorman Nanaimo News Bulletin Vancouver Island British Columbia Canada January 8, 2010

A Nanaimo slaughterhouse owner says he was hung out to dry by new provincial regulations, and despite orders from the province, he won’t close his doors any time soon. Rod Plecas, owner of Plecas and Sons Slaughterhouse in South Wellington, said he has received orders from B.C.’s Ministry of Health to shut down because the operation has not complied with strict guidelines originally introduced in 2004. Those guidelines required all B.C. slaughterhouses to perform and pay for renovations that, in Plecas’s case, cost $200,000. “They want us to build a bathroom just for the inspector with a false wall, build him an office ... it’s ridiculous,” he said. “And the government won’t help by giving us money.” Plecas said he applied for matching government funds, but money was only available after all the required renovations were complete and paid for. Modern chilling coolers and removal of all wood from slaughterhouse facilities are also required.

Effective Sept. 30, 2007, all B.C. processors that produce meat for human consumption had to be either provincially or federally licensed. After processors balked at the stringent requirements, the provincial government issued six-month temporary transitional licences to allow slaughterhouses to perform the upgrades. Those interim licences were no longer issued as of Dec. 1, 2009. A spokesperson from the Ministry of Health was not available to comment on the procedure to close a slaughterhouse after it received orders to close. Plecas’s slaughterhouse has operated for 48 years and has never had a health-related issue with its product.

These are the same regulations that have devastated Salt Spring Island's indigenous meat producers. More than a century and a half of high-quality flesh production (world-famous in the case of Salt Spring lamb) has been rendered commercially nonviable within the last three years.

Go to The Bovine (Ontario, Canada) and scroll through the stories on the home page to bring yourself up to speed on the BC debate.

We can each have our views about whether raw milk is highly dangerous or a miracle cure-all. Just don't let's force our opinion on others.

Related: Getting past 'religion' in the raw milk war
David Gumpert Food Safety News USA December 30, 2009

"...to him who preserves the life of a single individual it is counted that he hath preserved the whole race." From rabbinic commentary on the Torah



... I’m doing a fair number of radio and other media interviews these days in connection with the book, and interviewers will often try to lead me into saying things that fit with their preconceptions–for example, that raw milk is safer than pasteurized milk, or that raw milk is a terrible health hazard. And therein lies an important explanation for why the debate over raw milk is so acrimonious, with name-calling and much worse among proponents and opponents of raw milk: most everyone involved has taken sides on either the risks or the health benefits of raw milk.

Those who want to make raw milk difficult or impossible to obtain point to the stories of people who have become very sick from consuming raw milk. A good example is a recent article by food poisoning lawyer Bill Marler in Food Safety News about the dangers of raw milk, in which he strings together a series of five videos of individuals, several of them children, who have become quite ill from raw milk. Some of the children have suffered permanent kidney damage from hemolytic uremic syndrome brought on as part of illness from E. coli O157:H7 contained in raw milk.

Those who want to ease or remove restrictions on raw milk have their own set of case examples–the stories of individuals, also including children, who are experiencing health benefits from raw milk. There is research out of Europe (pdf) suggesting strongly that children who regularly consume raw milk are less likely than other children to experience allergies and asthma. And there are endless case-examples of individuals who say their health has improved in important ways after drinking raw milk for extended periods.

Why do discussions about these aspects of raw milk become so emotional? I keep thinking of the phrase from rabbinic commentary on the Torah that I quote at the start of this article. What it says to me is that those on either side of this issue are so passionate because they see themselves as potentially saving lives. Those who see excessive risk feel that if they prevent one serious illness, they’ve done a wonderful deed. And those who have seen people benefit from raw milk feel if even one individual who is sick regains his or her health, they have similarly done a wonderful deed. With such mindsets, it’s not a huge leap to see opponents in a harsh light. Those who oppose raw milk availability may come to see proponents as not having a high regard for human life. Same with proponents–they can easily begin to see opponents as callously denying consumers the health-giving properties of raw milk. ...

GRAIN publications back call for action on agriculture to address climate change
Media release GRAIN Spain/Philippines December 2009

... Today's global food system needs an overhaul. According to our calculations, the expansion of the industrial food system is the leading cause of climate change. Through its reliance on fossil fuels, massive exports, market concentration, erosion of soils and expansion of plantations, it generates 44-57% of the total global green house gas (GHG) emissions. This industrial food system is also completely incapable of assuring people's food and livelihood needs as the world moves further into climate change. Already it has left a billion people without enough food to eat, and hundreds of millions of more people will go hungry in the coming years if the food system is not reorganised. The most devastating consequence of this industrial food system, however, is that it is destroying other food systems that can turn climate change around and provide for the world's food needs. Forget about carbon markets, geo-engineering and all the other false solutions. Here is a real way out of the climate crisis.*

• By using agroecological practices to rebuild the organic matter in soils lost from industrial agriculture, total GHG emissions can be reduced by 20-35%
  
• By decentralising livestock farming and integrating it with crop production, total GHG emissions can be reduced by 5-9%
  
• By distributing food mainly through local markets instead of transnational food chains, total GHG emissions can be reduced by 10-12%
  
• By stopping land clearing and deforestation for plantations, total GHG emissions can be reduced by 15-18%
  

These straightforward measures would lead to a reduction of 1/2 to 3/4 of current global GHG emissions. What is required to get there is what farmers and food producers have been defending and calling for for decades:

• decentralisation of production and distribution,
  
• effective support for agricultural practices based on agro-ecological processes, biodiversity and local knowledge, and
  
• profound agrarian reform
  

Politics is the only thing standing in the way of such a transition. The problem is that the corporations that profit from industrial food are setting the policy agenda. It's time to take the fate of the planet and humankind from the hands of big speculators and put the world's food producers first. ...

Of itself GRAIN says in part:

GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Our support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and international levels, and fostering new forms of cooperation and alliance-building. Most of our work is oriented towards, and carried out in, Africa, Asia and Latin America. ...

Today’s global food system, with all its high-tech seeds and fancy packaging, cannot fulfil its most basic function of feeding people. Despite this monumental failure, there is no talk in the corridors of power of changing direction. Large and growing movements of people clamor for change, but the world’s governments and international agencies keep pushing more of the same: more agribusiness, more industrial agriculture, more globalization. As the planet moves into an accelerating period of climate change, driven, in large part, by this very model of agriculture, such failure to take meaningful action will rapidly worsen an already intolerable situation. But in the worldwide movement for food sovereignty, there is a promising way out.

The international food system and the climate crisis
GRAIN Spain/Philippines October 2009

This year more than one billion people will go hungry, while another half a billion people will suffer from obesity. Three-quarters of those without enough to eat will be farmers and farm workers (those who produce food), while the handful of agribusiness corporations that control the food chain (those who decide where the food goes) will amass billions of dollars in profits. Now the latest scientific studies are predicting that, in a business-as-usual scenario, rising temperatures, extreme climate conditions and the severe water and soil problems related to them will push many more millions into the ranks of the hungry. As population growth raises demand for food, climate change will sap our capacities to produce it. Certain countries already struggling with severe hunger problems could see their food production cut by half before the end of this century. Yet where elites gather to talk about climate change, very little is being said about such consequences for food production and supply, and even less is being done to address them.

There is another dimension to this interaction between climate change and the global food system that reinforces the urgent need for action. Not only is today’s dysfunctional food system utterly ill-equipped for climate change, it is also one of the main engines behind it. The model of industrial agriculture that supplies the global food system essentially functions by converting oil into food, producing tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the process. The use of huge amounts of chemical fertilisers, the expansion of the industrial meat industry, and the ploughing under of the world’s savannahs and forests to grow agricultural commodities are together responsible for at least 30 per cent of the global GHG emissions that cause climate change. [1]

But that is only a part of the current food system’s contribution to the climate crisis. Turning food into global industrial commodities results in a tremendous waste of fossil-fuel energy in transporting it around the world, processing it, storing it and freezing it, and getting it to people’s homes. All these processes are contributing to the climate bill. When added together, it is not at all an exaggeration to say that the current global food system could be responsible for nearly half of the world’s GHG emissions.

The rationale and urgency for an overhaul to the world’s food system has never been more stark. From a practical point of view, there is nothing preventing transition to a saner system, and people everywhere are showing willingness to change – whether they be consumers searching out local foods or peasants barricading highways to defend their lands. What stands in the way is the structure of power – and it is this, more than anything, that requires transformation. ...

Jim comment: Thanks to the folks at The Bovine for pointing us to this item from South Dakota. Having grown up on a Schuylkill County, PA dairy farm (Guernsey cows) and—as an adult—having operated my own commercial diary goat operation on Salt Spring Island (French Alpine dairy goats, I found myself deeply troubled by its report.

South Dakota milk producers under fire by Department of Agriculture
Lila Streff, Streff Ridge Farm Goat Dairy Black Hills Today USA December 10, 2009

Publishers Note: Dear readers the following letter was mailed to me from Lila Streff of Streff Ridge Farm Goat Dairy in Custer South Dakota. I find this letter to be one of the most critical letters to the editor I have received in years and highly recommend you read it in its entirety.

I am the youngest of 10 children raised in the country on real food. We had a huge garden, raised our own beef, chickens, and even a pig once. Of course we had eggs from free-range chickens, we made bread everyday, and milked cows and goats. The goats were added to the farm when I was born. My wonderful mom, who is 85 years old now, nearly died having me. She lived through it, Praise God, but after hemorrhaging so badly, she could not breast feed me. Doctors tried every different kind of formula and store produced milk that they could find, but I couldn’t keep any of it down. Basically I was dying, is what the doctors said. Then one doctor said he thought goat’s milk might be my last hope. My parents purchased a goat and as I thrived, my whole family was also blessed with goat’s milk from that day on. We all grew up milking goats and cows learning many valuable lessons from farm life. We sold and shared milk with a whole lot of people.

My mom became the “goat lady” in our area. There were so many “real- life” stories of how people were helped by this unique commodity. Mostly I heard of those who had babies that needed it as I did. Goat’s milk digests in about 20 minutes and the nutrients are “bio-available” or “readily accessible”. Then there were those who had ulcers and found immediate relief. Goat’s milk has Alkaline Ash in it that neutralizes the acid in the stomach so that an ulcer can heal. This raw milk helped so many people. I never ever heard of anyone who got sick from it. At the age of 18, I went away to college to major in vocal music. This was when I was first introduced to “pasteurized milk”. I remember my strong dislike to the taste at first, but being a milk drinker, my taste buds finally adapted. It took me 20 years however, to figure out that the rest of my body didn’t do so well with pasteurized milk. I encountered regular stomach aches right away blaming it on being homesick, eating different foods and the stresses of studying so much. It became a normal routine to take antacids and I washed down spoonfuls of baking soda with glasses of water. I also developed sinus problems which as a vocal major was messing things up. As soon as spring hit that year, I was hit with what I thought was an ongoing cold. Finally it dawned on me that I had hay fever and other weird allergies showing up for the first time in my life. I began taking over-the-counter antihistamines and decongestants that would cover every hour. Eventually none of these helped anymore. Three years later when I got married, my allergies were so bad, that a doctor gave me a prescription for prednisone. I finally found some relief, but couldn’t take that forever, so I was put on a cortisone nasal spray which alleviated the symptoms greatly. ...

When our 6th child was two years old, my allergies were so bad that I could hardly even be outside to enjoy the gardening or animals. I also was becoming very sick in many other ways too, including extreme headaches. ... One year after my surgery, I realized that our 6 year old son was allergic to the cow’s milk that we had been purchasing at the store (pasteurized, of course). He had been severely constipated since he was a baby. A friend of mine had recently been informed by a specialist that her son had an allergy to cow’s milk. His symptoms were identical to my son’s. It suddenly dawned on me that my son had been needing goat’s milk just as I did as a baby. I wasn’t interested in having dairy goats that you had to milk morning and night, but as several events conspired, I was convinced that this was my calling—that God had raised me up to do this. I prayed about it a lot and then visited with my husband about getting just one goat to milk. Next, a friend who enjoys organic and healthy foods asked if I had ever considered milking goats. She was not aware that I was already praying about this. Then I stumbled across a scripture in the Bible, Proverbs 27:27 that says, “You shall have enough goat’s milk for your food, the food of your household and the nourishment of your maidservants.” Oh, how I didn’t want to be tied down to this; I had grown up with the chore of milking morning and night. I knew what this would mean, but I also knew what God was telling me. Goat’s milk had saved my life and now it was time to help provide it for the health of others. ...

At 42 years old, I became the new “goat lady” in our area. In September, two Nubians were added to the farm and then in October, four Saanens from Iowa were added. Within two years, I was milking 14 goats. My barn was a little shack basically with no electricity, running water or heat, and it had a dirt floor. Though I was animate about producing a good tasting, clean product – it was not sufficient enough to me. I had to carry the 4 gallons of milk back to the house where I strained it and cooled it. At this time, I began getting a clear vision of a new barn and its entire layout. This would be very costly – could I do this? Again I was praying fervently. One thing that came to me was that if I were to spend this much money ($85,000), I better check with the state to see what the legalities were. The SD Department of Agriculture informed me that under the current laws, I could legally sell “raw” milk if I labeled it as such. I was set to go, but I wanted their advice on building my barn so that it would meet Grade A dairy specs. They were very helpful and I proceeded to build a barn to meet the standards that they advised. It includes a large kitchen (16’ x 18’) with a triple stainless steel sink, cement floors, etc... The milking parlor has four custom stanchions each with four headlocks so that I can bring in 16 goats at a time. I also have milking machines now. Yay! Well, a few months after I began enjoying my most beautiful barn, (and willingly spending every last penny to make the payments on it), the Dept of Ag decided that their interpretation of the law went a little deeper. They decided that I also had to pass an inspection and get a permit. So I worked with them, jumping through a few more hoops, passed their inspection, and got a permit. ...






Now, six months later, the Dept of Ag has decided that the existing laws still just don’t cover all of the standards that they see fit for what they call the “fears of Raw Milk”. So they have introduced some new rules. Guess what? My barn isn’t adequate anymore. I would have to build another building to house an expensive bottling machine (which I would have to purchase also). I would also have to submit numerous tests that don’t apply to the big dairies. These tests would not only be expensive, but nearly impossible to pass. The new proposed milk rules (supposedly) are to make selling raw milk legal in SD. However, the stipulations are so strict, that the producers of raw milk will not be able to afford to offer it. We were given just a few weeks to scramble our resources before the hearing on Nov. 17th , 2009 in Pierre, SD . About 25 -30 raw milk producers and customers showed up at the hearing to oppose the new rules. Then there was a 10 day window for the public to write letters. The closing day was the day after Thanksgiving, so we lost a few days in the postal service due to the holiday. Now we are waiting in SD for the Dept of Ag to make their decision so that we can defend our rights at the next hearing before the Rules Review Committee. The original date for this hearing was Dec.15th, but it got moved to Dec. 21st which is the Monday before Christmas and (interestingly enough) the same date as the big Wisconsin raw milk hearing/ rally. As I have become more involved in this, I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t about the benefits of raw milk –vs- pasteurized milk at all. You see, we weren’t even supposed to bring those pertinent issues up at the hearing. This is because there is way too much proof that raw milk is healthy and safe—and pasteurized milk is neither. This is really about government regulations and who controls our commodities. Our health is our food and someone wants to control all of this. ...

Related: Asserting the right to healthy food: How ugly is the battle going to become?
Salt Spring News November 10, 2009

Five links. The industrial food system is playing for keeps.

Dispatches from the war going on over North America’s food
Salt Spring News November 20, 2009

Two links. From one of them:

“First, there is “this world” [referring to those of us in the ballroom], of people who welcome and respect nutrient dense foods. Then there is the other world, those who disparage nutrient dense foods. The only problem is, they are medical, public health and government health and agricultural regulators, who are very powerful people. It is essential to know the mind of your enemy. Get inside their mind, gain insights into what is really going on. Learn their attitudes, approaches. What are they thinking?” ...

“The battle over raw milk is a proxy battle. Food safety people want all food “treated” before we eat it. Raw milk is the first skirmish.” ...

“The government tends to need enemies. The Soviet Union, terrorists, and “nutritionally dense food” advocates are the enemy. What can we do? Five things.” ...

Dairy regulation a “protection” racket?
The Bovine Canada December 9, 2009

Here’s the latest word from David E. Gumpert’s “The Complete Patient” blog:

“….Ironically, Wisconsin’s Division of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has the word “protection” in its name, and it plays the protection game with the state’s dairy farmers much like the mafia plays with merchants in areas it controls.

I’ve gradually come to understand DATCP’s approach over the last few months, but at the Acres conference just concluded, I learned about it first-hand, from a number of dairy farmers agonizing over how to handle the matter of selling raw milk.

Here’s the game. Wisconsin is a huge dairy state, just behind California. Unlike California, Wisconsin’s milk tends to come from many smaller dairy farms, rather than a few large feed-lot operations.

Because milk prices for conventional milk are below the cost of production, lots of Wisconsin dairy farmers—likely more than 100—are selling raw milk quietly, under the radar. And because the market is growing so rapidly, these farmers have little difficulty selling significant amounts simply via word of mouth. Many of these have Grade A dairy licenses, which entitles them to sell conventional milk as well.

DATCP is aggressively seeking those people out. It’s sent warning letters to dozens (the equivalent of the initial visit from the mafia, seeking protection money), and then one at a time, it’s been suspending their licenses for selling raw milk, or watching as their licenses are voided because a processor won’t take the milk. Working them over, in the mafia terminology.

Without a market for their conventional milk, which even though it’s a money-losing operation is less of a money-losing operation than having no market at all, DATCP offers to give them their license back, if they promise not to sell raw milk. What a deal. You can go back to losing money slowly rather than quickly (by being out of business)….”

"My uncle and I conversed a long time last night about what profession Ernest should follow...and now that he enjoys good health, he is continually in the open air, climbing the hills, or rowing on the lake. I therefore proposed that he should be a farmer; which you know, cousin, is a favorite scheme of mine. A farmer's is a very healthy happy life; and the least hurtful, or rather the most beneficial profession of any...it is certainly more creditable [than to be a lawyer] to cultivate the earth for the sustenance of man." - from a notebook. Must find the attribution.

Left: Bust of Janus, Vatican Museums. In Roman mythology, Janus (or Ianus) was the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings.


Factoid: Seventy-five percent of the food and fiber we grow today was discovered and cultivated by the native farmers and hunter-gatherers of North, Central and South America. Millions of indigenous people continue to farm and raise animals the ancient way, the organic way.

"Organic Bytes #201": Thanksgiving and the organic revolution
Edited by Alexis Baden-Mayer and Ronnie Cummins Organic Consumers Association USA November 26, 2009

Today, November 26, the Organic Consumers Association gives special thanks to the indigenous farmers and wildcrafters of the Western Hemisphere for cultivating and preserving our food, fiber, medicinal herbs, and biodiversity for thousands of years. We also bow our heads to our contemporary farmers, gardeners, ranchers, farm workers, food workers, cooks, and holistic healers who are following the ancient Via Organica, the organic way. As we give thanks to our organic ancestors and contemporaries, let us renew our essential pledge as organic consumers and activists to protect and safeguard the global commons. Let us pledge to build a healthy organic future of peace, justice, sustainability, and participatory democracy. Let us promise one another today that we will rescue and re-stabilize our climate, clean up our air and water, rebuild our soils, and protect our precious biodiversity from the ravages of "profit-at-any-cost" corporations and indentured politicians and scientists. ...

Right: Members of the Frey family. Frey Vineyards was the first organic winery in the U.S., founded in 1980, and always family-owned and operated. Today a third generation continues the family’s tradition of sustainable grape growing and award-winning winemaking. Their delicious no-sulfites-added organic and biodynamic wines continue to win new converts. Organic farming is a fundamental step towards sustainability, and on the slopes of the Redwood Valley AVA (American Viticultural Area) in Mendocino County, California, the Freys were the first to set the example of making wine organically, from the vineyard to the cellar. Thirty years later, Mendocino County has more acreage of organic wine grapes than any other county in the U.S. Frey Winery is also solar powered, practices cultivation methods that cut back on energy and water consumption, and preserves woodlands adjacent to the vineyards.



Frey Vineyards – A history of America's first organic winery

Paul Sr. and Beba Frey grew up a few blocks apart in the gritty Brooklyn, New York of the 1930's and 40's. Paul relished his summer escapes to the Poconos Mountains, Pennsylvania. And Beba found bliss each summer on a Catskill Mountains dairy farm (see photo above). Each vowed to escape the city permanently. They later met and married in medical school. While their family grew, they longed for a life closer to nature and finally settled down in Northern California in the early 1960's on their ranch in Redwood Valley, Mendocino County. The 12 children grew up instilled with love and respect for the natural environment, and picked up gardening, farming, and agricultural skills, as their parents had dreamed. Paul Sr. and Beba rounded out their children’s education by schooling them in the sciences, history, literature, classical arts and music, as well as appreciation for world cuisines paired with wine.

In the late 1960's, Paul and Beba and the older kids planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Gray Riesling
on the ranch's old pastureland and sold the fruit to nearby wineries. A decade later, brothers Jonathan and Matthew realized the vineyards' potential when a Cabernet Sauvignon grown by Frey's grapes won a gold medal for a Santa Cruz winery. Frey Vineyards was bonded the next year, in 1980, and soon after became the first organic winery in U.S.

The eldest brother Jonathan and his wife Katrina studied organic agriculture under the tutorship of Alan Chadwick, a green-thumb guru of the California 70's. At the winery's inception, Jonathan introduced high integrity organic practices that are still in place today. Brother Matthew, learned the mechanical and technical skills of the wine business when working at nearby wineries. A final touch to the new winery's credo was that the wine would be made not only from organically grown grapes, but without any added sulfites. In the late 1980's, Paul Frey Jr. returned from the University of California at Santa Cruz to help perfect the techniques for making wine without the synthetic sulfite preservative, and is today our main winemaker. In 1996, Luke Frey spearheaded the conversion of our estate vineyards to biodynamic cultivation, making Frey Vineyards the first producer of certified Demeter Biodynamic wines in North America.

We are pleased that many local wineries and grape growers have become certified organic and biodynamic as well, for the health of our common environment as well as our customers. Today, a third of all organic grapes in California are grown in Mendocino County, and 15 wineries making wines from organically grown grapes are located here – more than any county in the U.S. The trend of organic grape growing is rapidly spreading in Napa and Sonoma Counties, and across the U.S. Frey Vineyards is the largest of the very few wineries to have taken on the challenge of producing a true organic wine, made with no added sulfites – a practice that is now tradition for our family.

Today, nearly 30 years since the founding of Frey Vineyards, many of the 12 children and spouses work for the family business. As organic food production is reaching new heights in the U.S., we hope the trend never stops, benefiting taste buds, planet, and the future generations.

On their "Susstainability" page (which outlines their practices), the family says:

Biodynamics® has been a major influence in natural and organic farming over the last 85 years, but there is always more to learn as humankind moves towards an emerging New Natural Agriculture. We are always looking ahead, towards a New Natural Agriculture composed of natural systems, ancient farming practices, and all the latest scientific discoveries. It has been said that "Agriculture is in its infancy." It has really only begun. Stay posted as we and others explore the many facets of natural agriculture from the past, present, and into the future.

Blake Hurst and grandson on the family farm. Hurst writes:

"Places where we leave the truck, change crops, or where the combine caught fire that year. We often tell the newest members of the farm to meet us at the Hackberry Tree. This always makes me laugh, since the Hackberry Tree died during the Carter administration. Everybody knows where we mean, and it all works because of shared experience handed down through the years. There's no mission statement here, no listing of goals or procedures, no operations manual. Just the sort of knowledge and way of thinking that's been handed down through generations.

"I have a picture of my two-year-old grandson and me leaning against my pickup. He's crossed his legs in just the manner I have. That can be scary (for me) and confining (for him), but it also serves a purpose. We do things the way we do because of lessons learned by our fathers and their fathers. When my son-in-law joined the farm, I found myself having to show him things that I learned, unconsciously, as a boy. The proper way to hold a wrench so that when it slips off the nut, the knuckles are spared. The safe way to run a handyman jack, or at least the safer way. When you've seen a jack wielded by your father accidentally slip and break you mother's hand, it's a memory that sticks with you. The fact that you always turn an implement away from a fence, instead of into a fence. That lesson caused me a bit of embarrassment, as my grandfather had to rescue me, a tractor, and a disc, when we were trapped against the fence.

"Some of these things can only learned by experience, but some are learned by observation, and the only way to learn them is a long and painful apprenticeship. Family farms are populated by some of the most conservative people in the world. Conservatism learned as a child, reinforced by years of being at the mercy of bugs, wind, drought, and flood, and the conservatism that comes from being the object of government attentions. Farmers as a group aren't free marketers, but do have a well-earned skepticism about the efficacy of government attempts to make things better."


Only “industrial farming” can possibly meet the demands of an increasing population and increased demand for food as a result of growing incomes argues Blake Hurst, a farmer in Missouri. He concludes: "I use chemicals and diesel fuel to accomplish the tasks my grandfather used to do with sweat, and I use a computer instead of a lined notebook and a pencil, but I'm still farming the same land he did 80 years ago, and the fund of knowledge that our family has accumulated about our small part of Missouri is valuable. And everything I know and I have learned tells me this: we have to farm "industrially" to feed the world, and by using those "industrial" tools sensibly, we can accomplish that task and leave my grandchildren a prosperous and productive farm, while protecting the land, water, and air around us."

The omnivore’s delusion: Against the agri-intellectuals
Blake Hurst The American, Journal of the American Enterprise Institute USA July 30, 2009

Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is. This is something the critics of industrial farming never seem to understand. I’m dozing, as I often do on airplanes, but the guy behind me has been broadcasting nonstop for nearly three hours. I finally admit defeat and start some serious eavesdropping. He’s talking about food, damning farming, particularly livestock farming, compensating for his lack of knowledge with volume. I’m so tired of people who wouldn’t visit a doctor who used a stethoscope instead of an MRI demanding that farmers like me use 1930s technology to raise food. Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is.

But now we have to listen to self-appointed experts on airplanes frightening their seatmates about the profession I have practiced for more than 30 years. I’d had enough. I turned around and politely told the lecturer that he ought not believe everything he reads. He quieted and asked me what kind of farming I do. I told him, and when he asked if I used organic farming, I said no, and left it at that. I didn’t answer with the first thought that came to mind, which is simply this: I deal in the real world, not superstitions, and unles the consumer absolutely forces my hand, I am about as likely to adopt organic methods as the Wall Street Journal is to publish their next edition by setting the type by hand. He was a businessman, and I’m sure spends his days with spreadsheets, projections, and marketing studies. He hasn’t used a slide rule in his career and wouldn’t make projections with tea leaves or soothsayers. He does not blame witchcraft for a bad quarter, or expect the factory that makes his product to use steam power instead of electricity, or horses and wagons to deliver his products instead of trucks and trains. But he expects me to farm like my grandfather, and not incidentally, I suppose, to live like him as well. He thinks farmers are too stupid to farm sustainably, too cruel to treat their animals well, and too careless to worry about their communities, their health, and their families. I would not presume to criticize his car, or the size of his house, or the way he runs his business. But he is an expert about me, on the strength of one book, and is sharing that expertise with captive audiences every time he gets the chance. Enough, enough, enough. ...


This American Thanksgiving Blake Hurst muses, from his combine, do 'industrial" farms operate operate at a soul deficit? "Reading what others write about agriculture, I sometimes think that what others see as "soul," we farmers remember as grinding poverty and isolation. Does the fact that I follow the grain markets on my iPhone imply a loss of soul? If so, then this "soul" business is all cabbage, and the hell with it. But if he means a family, working together from dawn till dusk to bring the harvest in, a place where love and affection and forbearance bind the workers together, then soul still exists, and we've got plenty of it."

Give thanks for this harvest
Blake Hurst The American, Journal of the American Enterprise Institute USA November 25, 2009

Nobody but we farmers celebrates a great crop like this one. The rest of America should celebrate, and be grateful for the abundance that agriculture provides. When all the locals are combining grain here in northwest Missouri, there is so much dust in the air that it makes for beautiful sunsets. Sort of a purple haze over the Corn Belt. Makes us sneeze, as well. The fall air is clear, and the colors are sharp, shades of brown, gold, and grey. The fall days are long, lasting well into the night, as we hurry to get the crops from the field. Our harvest crew includes my two brothers, my dad, mom, wife, sisters-in-law, son-in-law, daughter, and three nephews. We're all dressed in overalls or blue jeans, heavy jackets, and baseball caps. The family resemblance is strong, and my brothers and nephews are big guys, so the overall effect is a bit spooky. Think of a Faulkner novel, substituting rusted-out pickup trucks for mules.

I had to laugh at a recent Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times, in which he had traveled back to his family's farm in Oregon and was remembering how it was when he was a boy. But that idyllic time is lost, all lost, and Kristof concluded that farms have lost their soul. Or at least "industrial" farms operate at a soul deficit. I don't know exactly what Kristof meant by the loss of soul. Reading what others write about agriculture, I sometimes think that what others see as "soul," we farmers remember as grinding poverty and isolation. Does the fact that I follow the grain markets on my iPhone imply a loss of soul? If so, then this "soul" business is all cabbage, and the hell with it. But if he means a family, working together from dawn till dusk to bring the harvest in, a place where love and affection and forbearance bind the workers together, then soul still exists, and we've got plenty of it. My grandkids ride with me on the combine (no emails please: the machine has an extra seat, complete with seatbelt, inside a roll bar–equipped, air-conditioned cab) and my grandson just sits, grins, and at intervals tells me that "I like the combine, Poppa!" Poppa is better than a video. Of course, combines come complete with a video screen that has global positioning information, yield totals, and moisture content of the grain. All of which my granddaughter finds boring, and she asks me to change the channel.

The fact that we love each other doesn't preclude some tension between family members. Intergenerational tension, for example, as Dad, 75, refuses to go gently into the night and works each day like a man half his age. This is admirable, of course, and his wisdom and experience are invaluable. You rarely have to ask in order to benefit from that accumulated knowledge; he freely shares his thoughts on most any subject. This can cause friction with the younger generation. That would be young in agricultural terms, as the average farmer is 57 years old. There is also brotherly competition, as each strong personality is convinced he knows best. Wives add spice to the mix, and, finally, the next generation is surprised to find that the latest ideas from our state's land grant institution are not always met with wide open arms. Jane Smiley wrote a novel about an Iowa farm family, using King Lear as her model. I didn't read it, but I can understand where she might have gotten the idea. None of this is unique to our farm. Kristof and others constantly romanticize the life they imagine we live, or used to live, and I wouldn't trade it for any other. But it can be as sharp as a serpent's tooth. Once, several years ago, CNN did a story about our farm. They brought a film crew that took video of us harvesting, asked us some questions, and insisted that we have a picnic lunch in the front yard. The story ran with a voice-over by a "reporter" who wasn't along with the film crew. You can't expect the "talent" to travel to the back end of nowhere, I suppose. After the story ended, one anchor commented to the other that it sure looked relaxing out there on the farm. This brought a chuckle. Soul we've got, but harvest time can be tense. In fact, as they were interviewing my father for the piece, my brothers could be heard in the background, chasing cows out of the corn. In this picture of pastoral innocence, if you listened carefully, you could hear language so salty it would make a sailor blush. Critics of the food industry are upset that we feed cows corn, by the way, convinced that it's unnatural, and gives cows a bellyache. Cows, on the other hand, routinely break down fences to get at corn. Maybe if we would have screened Food, Inc. in the pasture, the cows would have stayed where they belonged. ...

If the movie Food, Inc. can be said to have a theme, it is that corn is too cheap. Cheap corn has led to industrial uses, cheap fast food, and, horror of horrors, corn fed to cows. This year's harvest is bad news for documentary makers, because we're bringing in a tremendous crop. Corn prices are at two-year lows. Author of Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser's pain is palpable, but a big harvest should be a cause for celebration for everyone else. Farmers make the news when weather causes low yields and high prices, but plentiful and reasonably priced food is such a given that nobody but we farmers celebrates a great crop like this one. The rest of America should celebrate, and be grateful for the abundance that agriculture provides. There is nothing more fun than a record crop, if you're a farmer. We have a monitor in the combine that approximates yields as we pass through the fields. In the last several years, due to floods, droughts, and a very memorable wind storm (if you recognize your farm on one of those tornado-chaser videos, it's a very bad sign), we've rarely hit 200 bushels per acre on that monitor. This year, I've had days when I barely dropped below 200 bushels per acre. I'm old enough to try to capture this crop, this year, in my memory, given the very real possibility that I'll not farm long enough to see its like again. We farmers are protected from extremely low prices by the government, our crop insurance is subsidized by the taxpayers, biotechnology has made yields and pest control more predictable, we can harvest and plant in a fraction of the time it took my grandfather, but we're still at the mercy of Mother Nature, and she's a tough taskmaster. When we escape her worst, it's a harvest of joy.

Hell-bent for leather: Moving recklessly fast, as in "Out the door she went, hell-bent for leather." The use of hell-bent in the sense of "recklessly determined" dates from the first half of the 1800s. Leather alludes to a horse's saddle and to riding on horseback.

Intro: Robert Zeigler, director general of the [International Rice Research Institute], noted that genetic research led to the development of high yielding varieties which helped in stabilizing food prices, lower hunger incidence and kept natural ecosystems from being converted into farmlands. - Xinhua, "Genetic research key to solving rice problems", November 23, 2009

In the final analysis, if the history of the Green Revolution has taught us one thing, it is that increased food production can - and often does - go hand in hand with greater hunger. If the very basis of staying competitive in farming is buying expensive inputs, then wealthier farmers will inexorably win out over the poor, who are unlikely to find adequate employment to compensate for the loss of farming livelihoods. Hunger is not caused by a shortage of food, and cannot be eliminated by producing more. This is why we must be sceptical when Monsanto, DuPont, Novartis, and other chemical-cum-biotechnology companies tell us that genetic engineering will boost crop yields and feed the hungry. The technologies they push have dubious benefits and well-documented risks, and the second Green Revolution they promise is no more likely to end hunger than the first. - Peter Rosset, Joseph Collins and Frances Moore Lapp, "Lessons from the Green Revolution ". Tikkun Magazine, Volume 15, No.2 March/April 2000

The Green Revolution in the Punjab
Vandana Shiva The Ecologist UK Volume 21, No. 2, March/April 1991

A wealthy Punjabi farmer standing in a field of one of the high-yielding varieties of wheat on which the Green Revolution is based. The introduction of the HYVs has led to increasing rural inequalities and landlessness, and has contributed to the ethnic and communal violence which has claimed thousands of lives in the Punjab. Photo: Mark Edwards/Still Pictures

The Green Revolution has been a failure. It has led to reduced genetic diversity, increased vulnerability to pests, soil erosion, water shortages, reduced soil fertility, micronutrient deficiencies, soil contamination, reduced availability of nutritious food crops for the local population, the displacement of vast numbers of small farmers from their land, rural impoverishment and increased tensions and conflicts. The beneficiaries have been the agrochemical industry, large petrochemical companies, manufacturers of agricultural machinery, dam builders and large landowners. The “miracle” seeds of the Green Revolution have become mechanisms for breeding new pests and creating new diseases.

In 1970, Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in developing high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat. The “Green Revolution”, launched by Borlaug’s “miracle seeds”, is often credited with having transformed India from “a begging bowl to a bread basket.”, and the Punjab is frequently cited as the Green Revolution’s most celebrated success story.’ Yet, far from bringing prosperity, two decades of the Green Revolution have left the Punjab riddled with discontent and violence. Instead of abundance, the Punjab is beset with diseased soils, pest-infested crops, waterlogged deserts and indebted and discontented farmers. Instead of peace, the Punjab has inherited conflict and violence. ...

It has often been argued that the Green Revolution provided the only way in which India (and, indeed, the rest of the Third World) could have increased food availability. Yet, until the 1960s, India was successfully pursuing an agricultural development policy based on strengthening the ecological base of agriculture and the self-reliance of peasants. Land reform was viewed as a political necessity and, following independence, most states initiated measures to secure tenure for tenant cultivators, to fix reasonable rents and to abolish the zamindari (landlord) system. Ceilings on land holdings were also introduced. In 1951, at a seminar organized by the Ministry of Agriculture, a detailed farming strategy—the “land transformation” programme — was put forward. The strategy recognized the need to plan from the bottom, to consider every individual village and sometimes every individual field. The programme achieved major successes. Indeed, the rate of growth of total crop production was higher during this period than in the years following the introduction of the Green Revolution.

However, while Indian scientists and policy makers were working out self-reliant and ecologically sound alternatives for the regeneration of agriculture in India, another vision of agricultural development was taking shape within the international aid agencies and large US foundations. Alarmed by growing peasant unrest in the newly independent countries of Asia, agencies like the World Bank, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the US Agency for International Development and others looked towards the intensification of agriculture as a means of “stabilizing” the countryside - and in particular of defusing the call for a wider redistribution of land and other resources. Above all, the US wished to avoid other Asian countries’ following in the revolutionary footsteps of China. In 1961, the Ford Foundation thus launched its Intensive Agricultural Development Programme in India, intended to “release” Indian agriculture from “the shackles of the past” through the introduction of modern intensive chemical farming. Adding to the perceived geopolitical need to intensify agriculture was pressure from western agrochemical companies anxious to ensure higher fertilizer consumption overseas. ... [Emphasis added. Those highlighted institutions are among the partners & donors involved in the International Rice Research Institute.]

Lessons from the Green Revolution
Peter Rosset, Joseph Collins and Frances Moore Lapp Tikkum Magazine/Third World Network March/April 2000

This article is based on research presented in World Hunger: 12 Myths, second edition by Frances Moore Lapp, Joseph Collins, and Peter Rosset, with Luis Esparza (Grove Press/Earthscan, 1998).

Faced with an estimated 786 million hungry people in the world, cheerleaders for our social order have an easy solution: we will grow more food through the magic of chemicals and genetic engineering. For those who remember the original ‘Green Revolution’ promise to end hunger through miracle seeds, this call for ‘Green Revolution II’ should ring hollow. Yet Monsanto, Novartis, AgrEvo, DuPont, and other chemical companies who are reinventing themselves as biotechnology companies, together with the World Bank and other international agencies, would have the world’s anti-hunger energies aimed down the path of more agrochemicals and genetically modified crops. This second Green Revolution, they tell us, will save the world from hunger and starvation if we just allow these various companies, spurred by the free market, to do their magic. ...

By the 1970s, the term ‘revolution’ was well deserved, for the new seeds - accompanied by chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and, for the most part, irrigation - had replaced the traditional farming practices of millions of Third World farmers. By the 1990s, almost 75% of Asian rice areas were sown with these new varieties. The same was true for almost half of the wheat planted in Africa and more than half of that in Latin America and Asia, and about 70% of the world’s corn as well. Overall, it was estimated that 40% of all farmers in the Third World were using Green Revolution seeds, with the greatest use found in Asia, followed by Latin America. ...

Items: Solving hunger with super-rice
Jessica Leeder Globe and Mail Canada Last updated November 23, 2009

In a humid faux-tropical haven set in a Toronto basement and lit with near-blinding artificial sunlight, Herbert Kronzucker has begun to save the world. As a starting point, he chose the three billion people – just under half the globe's current population – who subsist mainly on rice. The logic of doing so occurred to him while he was up to his knees in a swampy Philippine rice field more than a decade ago, on a side-trip during a tree biology project. “I will never forget that morning, the sun rising over these rice paddies, and I realized for the first time, ‘These oceans of green ... that's where the world's food comes from.' I had never realized that,” the 43-year-old researcher said. “I grew up in Europe and then came to North America. You go to Loblaws when you're hungry, or McDonald's and there is always something there.” That dawn walk has led Dr. Kronzucker to the holy grail of rice: the breeding of super grains designed to resist death by salt, which ravages crops via fertilized soil and water. The ultimate result promises more than a silver bullet for farmers struggling to grow bigger crops in a degrading environment: It could provide billions of people with the golden ticket to surviving a global food crisis that is well under way. From a continent that struggles more directly with obesity than starvation, the immense pressures on the world food system, which appear geographically confined, can seem impossible to comprehend. But global population growth is currently outpacing agricultural production by a measure of 3 to 1, according to Dr. Kronzucker. Our bread basket will never catch up: the Earth's arable land is already maxed out. “It has never been this dire. And yet the human population keeps exploding,” he said. “I can walk around and ask people to use condoms and have fewer children. That's very important.”

Instead, the University of Toronto plant biologist, who is affiliated with the renowned Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute, decided to make his mark in the lab. Rice is one of just four grains that form the foundation of the global food chain. While all grains are under stress from drought and salinity – the buildup of salt in soil and water – rice is under the most pressure because it is grown in irrigated fields where the salt problem, which is exacerbated by fertilization, is serious. “Rice uses a heck of a lot of water,” Dr. Kronzucker said. “It needs a lot of pesticides, a lot of fertilizers to give you that [big] yield in the end.” The problem is pressing across the chief rice-growing and consuming arc of southern and Southeast Asia, from India to China by way of Indonesia and the Philippines. Rice science, which took off in 1960, led to yield increases credited with saving more than 800 million lives in Asia. Now, Dr. Kronzucker, who is the Canada Research Chair in Metabolic Bioengineering of Crop Plants, is hoping a new marriage of sophisticated scientific techniques will help him uncover the genetic makeup that the rice of the future will need. ...

Genetically modified (GM) rice at IRRI
International Rice Research Institute Philippines Last updated November 20, 2009

Currently no varieties of genetically modified (GM) rice are grown commercially in the world, although several have been approved for commercialization. Many organizations around the world, including the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), are using genetic modification as a research tool and in developing potential GM rice varieties. The International Rice Research Institute believes that genetic modification and genetically modified rice have the potential to safely deliver unique benefits to rice farmers and consumers that cannot be achieved through other breeding methods. Many technologies and rice breeding techniques are needed to develop and deliver solutions to meet the challenges of food security, poverty, climate change, and resource availability that rice producers and consumers face. IRRI believes that responsible and ethical research and development of GM rice present another opportunity that should be explored to help meet these challenges. ...

Genetic research key to solving rice problems
Prime Sarmiento Xinhua China November 23, 2009

MANILA, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Unlocking the genetic diversity of rice is one of the key factors that can help increase production and stabilize the supply of one of the world's most important food crops. About 700 of the world's foremost rice scientists gathered here recently to participate in the sixth International Rice Genetics Symposium organized by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to share and discuss latest research on sequencing the genomes of various types of rice including wild rice, heirloom and modern varieties. But more than a venue to share new information, participants in the week-long conference also aim to provide solutions to some problems affecting rice cultivation.

"The solution to the future problem of rice agriculture partly involves genetics," David Makill, IRRI's program leader and plant breeder, said in an interview with Xinhua. Makill said that by having more genetic information, plant breeders can develop more rice varieties that can withstand drought and floods, are more resistant to pests, and have higher yields despite limited water supply and land. "The research done by scientists can provide the basic information needed to address these problems," he said. ...

Oops! Related: The giant steps back on two GMOs. Why?
Green Planet November 17, 2009

Monsanto has abandoned its ambitious plans for two types of a so-called "second generation GM crop" rather than accede to a request from European regulators for additional research and safety data. Monsanto has informed the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that it no longer wishes to pursue its application for approval of GM maize LY038 and the stacked variety LY038 x MON810. Both of these varieties were designed to accelerate the growth rate of animals. Two letters were sent to EFSA from the Monsanto subsidiary company Renessen at the end of April this year confirming the withdrawal of its applications originally submitted in 2005 and 2006. The letters cite "decreased commercial value worldwide" and state that the high-lysene varieties "will no longer be a part of the Renessen business strategy in the near future." There has been no announcement of these decisions on the Monsanto web site, and there are no mentions on EFSA or European Commission web sites either.
In other words, there is a conspiracy of silence involving both the applicants and the regulators.

The two letters sent to EFSA in April requested the return of all dossier material (varietal characterization, experimental protocols, and test results) which was submitted with the applications for cultivation, animal feed and human food. EFSA acceded to this request, making it impossible for any future independent researchers to analyse the Monsanto / Renessen data. Scientists who have followed these two applications are quite convinced that the "decisions to withdraw" have nothing to do with commercial considerations and everything to do with food safety. In other words, the varieties are too dangerous to be allowed onto the open market. Objections came from scientists at the Canterbury University's Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety (INBI), New Zealand, who warned that the new corn was not safe for humans when cooked. They also expressed concerns about unpredictable health effects, increased levels of toxins in high- lysene corn, and possible allergies and links to cancer. ...

Noted: Selling Indonesia's coast for cheap prawns and profit
Jim Wickens The Ecologist UK November 24, 2009

Contains a seven minute, 34 second video clip. In an exclusive investigation, the Ecologist Film Unit reveals the impact of Indonesia's plans to privatize its entire 90,000 km coastline.

Set against the looming construction cranes and gleaming plastic roofs of the newly built factories, the last remaining fishing village in Jakarta Bay looks increasingly out of place. For countless generations the community here at Marunda Kepu village have eeked out a living from the sea; farming fish, collecting mussels and setting nets in the estuaries and shallow coastal waters of this region of Northern Java. But today they live in squalour, penned in by industrial developments all around them. Puddles of stagnant water surround the crumbling brick homes and disease is rife. 'My livelihood is the sea. If there is no more access to the coast or the sea then where should i go? How can I live?' asked Habiba, as she nursed her sick child. She is referring to the impact of the ‘coastal areas and small island management law’, or HP-3 as it is more commonly known. If passed, HP-3 will allow all of the commonly-held land on and around the Marunda Kepu community, as well as the coastal waters and the seabed up to 12 km offshore, to be offered to the highest bidder, on leases lasting up to 60 years. ...

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Unless you're a corporate food executive, the food system isn't working for you. - Economist Raj Patel

Almost 700 people from 93 countries, many of whom are small-scale food producers, have gathered outside the U.N. summit. They are there in behalf of the People’s Food Sovereignty Forum, and they are pushing for small-scale, organic, sustainable food-sovereignty and food-security programs, as opposed to large-scale agribusiness with its dependence on genetically modified organisms and chemical fertilizers and pesticides. - Amy Goodman. Around the globe, returning lands to the small- scale farmers is critical.

Farmers not invited to food summit?
Sabina Zaccaro Inter Press Service/Common Dreams International/USA November 16, 2009

Activists from the International Peasant Movement (La Via Campesina) take part in a demonstration outside the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) headquarters in Rome November 16, 2009. Photo: Giampiero Sposito/Reuters

ROME - World farmers are not part of the official delegations at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food summit on food security that opened here Monday. But they came anyhow to express their views, since, they say, it is their communities that are most impacted by the food crisis. ... Farmers' issues are not so distant from those the FAO and participant governments will be discussing. What is different is their perspective. "Those whom the World Trade Organisation (WTO), The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) consider as victims are in fact the real protagonists, they are able to produce enough food for themselves, if they are allowed to," Onorati said. Among the causes of food insecurity for indigenous communities, farmers point to the loss of land, territories and resources, and the non-recognition and violation of their indigenous rights. According to Renée Vellvé of the global Ngo GRAIN, access and right to land should be given priority. "The land-grabbing trend that is going on right now is where countries that have money, but depend on the outside for the food - like Saudi Arabia, Korea and others - are going to Africa and Asia to get farmlands to produce their own food outside," she told IPS. "Investment companies are trying to do the same just to make money, so you see governments and industries coming in and throwing farmers off their lands, especially where they don't have secure titles; this affects women first, especially in Africa." Nettie Weibe of La Via Campesina agrees that returning lands to the small- scale farmers is critical. "It is so obvious - but it has been forgotten - that food production is absolutely necessary to food security, and that it is farmers who produce food and put it into the market," she told IPS. "But we are now so increasingly distant from our food, particularly in developed countries, that the farmer part of it has been forgotten, and in fact it has been erased by a corporate, industrial production."

According to Weibe, local agriculture and local markets can even cool the planet. "Real genuine agrarian reform, which has been put on hold for decades, would do far more for the climate that any deal that could result from the upcoming negotiations in Copenhagen," she said. Vellvé said farmers' organisations no longer believe in codes of conduct, guidelines and principles that are being discussed at the FAO. "The problem is how far they will push that, and how the governments feel about it." So beyond economic resources, what small producers ask for is a change in the decision process that has an impact on their lives. "This can only happen if the local community have a role in the decision process, and if they get access and control over the local productive resources," Onorati said. ...

Hungering for a true Thanksgiving
Amy Goodman Truthdig USA November 17, 2009

“In the next 60 seconds, 10 children will die of hunger,” says a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) online video. It continues, “For the first time in humanity, over 1 billion people are chronically hungry.” The WFP launched the Billion for a Billion campaign this week, urging the 1 billion people who use the Internet to help the billion who are hungry. But if you think that hunger is far from our shores, here is some food for thought ... and action: The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a report Monday stating that in 2008 one in six households in the U.S. was “food insecure,” the highest number since the figures were first gathered in 1995. Economist Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System, told me he was “gobsmacked” by the U.S. hunger numbers, which he finds appalling: “The reason that we have this huge increase in hunger in the United States, as around the world, isn’t because there isn’t enough food around. Actually, we produced a pretty reliable solid crop last year. ... The reason people go hungry is because of poverty.” In addition to the online campaign, the United Nations is hosting the World Summit on Food Security in Rome this week, hoping to unite world leaders on the cause of eliminating hunger. Patel remarked on the U.N. summit, “They’re making all the right sounds about hunger around the world, but as some of the activists outside that summit are saying, poor people can’t eat promises.”

Almost 700 people from 93 countries, many of whom are small-scale food producers, have gathered outside the U.N. summit. They are there in behalf of the People’s Food Sovereignty Forum, and they are pushing for small-scale, organic, sustainable food-sovereignty and food-security programs, as opposed to large-scale agribusiness with its dependence on genetically modified organisms and chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Michelle Obama said last March when planting the White House’s organic kitchen garden, “It is so important for them [children] to get regular fruits and vegetables in their diets, because it does have nutrients, it does make you strong, it is all brain food.” The first lady of the U.S. made the point that a homegrown, organic garden is a sustainable and affordable way to strengthen family food security. This has led some to wonder, then, why her husband has appointed Islam Siddiqui to be the U.S. chief agricultural negotiator. Siddiqui is currently vice president for science and regulatory affairs for CropLife America, the main pesticide industry trade association. According to the Pesticide Action Network of North America, “This position will enable him to keep pushing chemical pesticides, inappropriate biotechnologies, and unfair trade arrangements on nations that do not want and can least afford them.” It was CropLife’s mid-America division that circulated an e-mail to industry members after Michelle Obama’s garden announcement, saying, “While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator, and I shudder.” Jacques Diouf, director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, engaged in a 24-hour hunger strike over the weekend, before the food security summit kicked off. He said in a statement, “We have the technical means and the resources to eradicate hunger from the world so it is now a matter of political will, and political will is influenced by public opinion.” Diouf has estimated that it would take $44 billion per year to end hunger globally, compared with the less than $8 billion pledged recently to that goal. Juxtapose those numbers with the amount being spent by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. ...

Related: Letter from FIAN to Lula regarding: Disappearance of Olindo and Jenival
Dr. Flavio Luiz Schieck Vlaente FIAN International/Conselho Indigenista Missionario Germany/Brazil, November 9, 2009

Heidelberg, 05 November of 2009
To His Excellency President of the Republic
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Respectful greetings from FIAN International, a human rights organization, which works at the global level for the human right to adequate food, with consultative status to the United Nations (UN).

Since 2005 we have been following the situation of the Guarani-Kaiowá in Mato Grosso do Sul, who suffer human rights violations, primarily the human right to adequate food due to the non-compliance with legislation that refers to land questions on the part of the Brazilian State. This indigenous people has had their human rights disrespected constantly in recent years, considering the impossibility of their having access to their traditional lands, and of providing their subsistence. The absence of demarcation of the indigenous territory in disregard of established national legislation has exposed the Guarani Kaiowá to sever malnutrition and the serious conflicts with fazendereiros in the State. In Paranhos, in MS, on the frontier with Paraguay, two Guarani teachers have been missing since 31 October. They were part of a group of 18 indigenous persons, from the village of Pirajuí, who had engaged the retaking of the tekohá of Ypo’i, but were violently surprised by private security forces. Only 16 of the indigenous persons returned to the village of Pirajuí, injured and hurt by rubber bullets. The teachers, Olindo and Jenival, had been taken ‘prisoner’ and remain missing. ...

Third World Network International November 2009

UN Climate Change Talks November 2 -6, Barcelona, Spain

Climate change will adversely affect agricultural productivity and human well-being. Overall, it is projected that crop productivity will decline, particularly at lower latitudes, especially in the seasonally dry and tropical regions. This would increase the risk of hunger. Moreover, it is the majority of the world's rural poor who live in areas that are resource-poor, highly heterogeneous and risk-prone, who will be hardest hit by climate change.

On the other hand, agriculture releases a significant amount of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, amounting to around 10-12 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions annually. If indirect contributions (e.g. land conversion, fertilizer production and distribution and farm operations) are factored in, the contribution of agriculture could be as high as 17-32 percent of global anthropogenic emissions.

The challenge is therefore to design an agriculture that adapts and responds to the changes in climate experienced, as well as reduces greenhouse gas emissions. This challenge could be met through biodiverse, agroecologically-based farming.

This was acknowledged by the International Assessment on Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which is the most comprehensive assessment of agriculture to date. Some key findings of the IAASTD were that:

• The future of agriculture lies in biodiverse, agroecologically based farming (including organic agriculture) that can meet social, economic and environmental goals
  
• Reliance on resource-extractive industrial agriculture is unsustainable, particularly in the face of worsening climate, energy and water crises
  
• Short-term technical fixes, including genetically engineered crops, cannot adequately address the complex challenges facing agriculture, and often exacerbate social and environmental harms
  
• Achieving food security and sustainable livelihoods requires ensuring access to and control of resources by smallscale farmers, especially women
  
• Indigenous knowledge and community-based innovations are an invaluable part of the solution
  

... [A]griculture has the potential to change from being one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters to a much smaller emitter and even a net carbon sink, while offering options for mitigation by reducing emissions and by sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the soil. The solutions call for a shift to more sustainable farming practices that build up carbon in the soil and use less chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

There are a variety of practices that can reduce agriculture’s contribution to climate change. These include crop rotations and improved farming system design, improved cropland management, improved nutrient and manure management, improved grazing-land and livestock management, maintaining fertile soils and restoration of degraded land, improved water and rice management, fertilizer management, land use change and agroforestry.

It has been estimated that a conversion to organic agriculture would considerably enhance the sequestration of carbon dioxide through the use of techniques that build up soil organic matter, as well as diminish nitrous oxide emissions by two-thirds due to no external mineral nitrogen input and more efficient nitrogen use. Organic systems have been found to sequester more carbon dioxide than conventional farms, while techniques that reduce soil erosion convert carbon losses into gains. Organic agriculture is also self-sufficient in nitrogen due to recycling of manures from livestock and crop residues via composting, as well as planting of leguminous crops.


Download the two-page briefing paper.

Spring Hill Farm: All natural grass finished beef

Chevon (or [young] goat meat) is rapidly gaining popularity as a low-fat, nutritionally dense meat. It does not taste strong or "gamey" but has a flavor similar to well-prepared venison. Some people have mistaken it for beef before knowing what it is.

Goat meat has many advantages. It ranks right up with chicken and fish in the low fat department and is being recommended for a heart-healthy diet. "The inspection of congealed fat drippings is a visual index as to the degree of saturated fats present. This is noticeably absent in goat meat." * Goat meat is very low in saturated fat. It supplies high quality protein along with healthy fat.* Yet, there is no worry about pesticide or heavy chemical residue as there will be with fish, nor worry about hormones or antibiotics as would be with grocery store chicken. ...

* www.clemson.edu/agronomy/goats/handbook/health/html

Jim comment: My family farm on Salt Spring Island was a mixed farm but the heart and soul of the business was dairy goats. The Canadian Ministry of Agriculture acted as one of our agents for the breeding stock that we developed in our program. The dairy animals sold far and wide. But as with any dairy operation there are animals born that are not integral to the breeding/dairy operation. (Overwhelmingly, those animals are male. Sigh!) As a consequence we developed markets for meat. Once our product became known, we couldn't keep up with the demand. The meat from young goats is delicious and among the most healthy available in the making of a complete diet. I hope more people will discover it enabling more people to raise and sell it.

With goat, a rancher breaks away from the herd
Kim Severson New York Times USA October 14, 2008


Bill Niman, who founded a meat company known for its humane treatment of animals, is on to other ventures. Above, he visits his goats at a partner’s ranch in eastern Oregon. Photo: Chad Case for The New York Times

Bill Niman is not the rancher he once was. Last year Mr. Niman walked away from the meat company he started in the 1970s with not much more than a handful of cattle and a political philosophy built on self-sufficiency. Niman Ranch, which takes in annual sales of $85 million, was founded on the notion that the better an animal is treated, the better the meat will be. His beef was so good that in the early 1980s Alice Waters made it the first proper-noun meat on the menu at her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. His pigs, raised humanely by 600 family farms in Iowa, provide pork for the Chipotle chain’s carnitas. Niman Ranch bacon, hot dogs and sausage fill grocery cases around the country.

But Mr. Niman is no longer a part of the company. Angry and discouraged after prolonged battles with a new management team over money and animal protocols, he left in August 2007 with a modest severance check and a small amount of stock. He can’t use his surname to sell meat, and he had to surrender the small herd of breeding cattle that lived on his ranch here, about an hour’s drive north of San Francisco. The cattle were direct descendants of the ones he tended back in the days of counterculture, not profit margin. But Mr. Niman, 63, is done licking his wounds. With a herd of goats and a young vegetarian wife he nicknamed Porkchop by his side, he is jumping back into the meat game. “I think I am returning to my original roots,” said Mr. Niman, who still lives in the little house he built on ranchland that kisses the Pacific Ocean.

He and Nicolette Hahn Niman, an environmental lawyer, were married five years ago, and now they are raising what they hope will be the best-tasting animals around. They have a handful of premier cattle that fatten only on pasture and a flock of traditional turkey breeds they personally chauffeured from Kansas to Bolinas last spring. Mr. Niman also has an organic pig project going in Iowa. But he hopes goat will be the cornerstone of his comeback. That’s in part because he has more of them around, and because he sees a wide-open market for pristine, pasture-raised goat meat. The guy is, after all, a businessman. “I don’t need to get 10 percent of the market anymore,” he said. “I just want to be the best.” Chefs on both coasts are fast discovering his goat meat, although it is still available only in limited amounts, under the name BN Ranch. ...

Do read on. The article touches on many items that are part of current controversy—not only of animal husbandry but also whether we should eat meat at all.

The potato underground
Joanne Will TheTyee.ca British Columbia Canada October 29, 2009

Why was this tuber illegal? Photo: Jenn Pentland. In 1982, while searching for Cariboo seed, Jerry LeBourdais wrote to the Ministry of Agriculture and was told, "the variety Cariboo can no longer be sold under any name and cannot be grown as seed." The letter continued: "I suggest that you select and grow varieties that can be legally grown in Canada." The Cariboo isn't the only potato to have its own underground movement. Currently, momentum is building to save the Nooksak potato. The Makah Nation of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington has been gardening the Ozette potato -- named for a Makah community -- since at least 1791, the date when it is believed the potato was brought from South America by Spanish explorers. Likewise, Haida Nation growers raise a fingerling variety, the Haida potato, which may have been acquired by trade or travel even before the Haida met their first Europeans.

When Jerry LeBourdais learned that big agribusiness couldn't handle the Cariboo potato, he knew he'd found a variety that he wanted to support. The name didn't hurt either. If there was a potato out there named "Cariboo," it had a natural home on the back-to-the-land commune near Williams Lake that LeBourdais had founded. All he needed was some seed. It sounded simple enough. "Jerry wanted to get a hold of some, and asked me where," recalls John Ryser, a prize-winning seed potato farmer who lives south of Prince George. Ryser told him it wouldn't be easy, because the potato had been decertified for seed production in 1976. By the time LeBourdais came calling in 1983, the Cariboo spud had been banned for seven years and Ryser had given up growing the variety. "I kept the Cariboo going for years," says Ryser. "The big cheeses de-listed it because it would hang on to the vines." Government officials may prohibit varieties for reasons ranging from disease susceptibility to a tendency to snarl farm equipment; industrial potato farmers want plants that harvest easily with machinery. "Once a variety is de-listed, if you grow it, they'll cancel your seed grower's licence." But chance and luck launched a new chapter in the history of the Cariboo potato. During a spring meeting at the government experimental farm in Prince George in 1984, a visiting horticulturalist showed up with samples of all kinds of varieties, including Cariboo potatoes from the former Vancouver Research Station in Pemberton. "Before it was all done, I got four or five of his six Cariboo potatoes and gave them to Jerry," says Ryser. "Then Jerry got in hot water because he was bragging about it, and they started calling it the 'Outlaw Potato.'"

The Cariboo region is known today for beef and alfalfa, but a richer farming history stretches back to the gold rush of the early 1860s. Settlers began farming to feed the miners, who otherwise had to pay a premium for whatever fresh foods could survive being mule-hauled up the Cariboo wagon road. The Cariboo gained a reputation for quality potatoes, explains Denis Kirkham, a retired seed potato specialist who worked in B.C. for the federal Ministry of Agriculture for four decades. In the "heyday" years after World War Two, he says, there were 35 seed potato growers in a belt spanning from McCleese Lake, just north of Williams Lake, to Hixon, just south of Price George. Yet the Cariboo potato itself has roots about as far from gold-rush country as you can get without leaving Canada. The variety was first bred at the federal Potato Research Centre in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which each year sent seed potatoes out to be tested at a network of experimental farms nationwide. In 1963, one such variety did unusually well in central British Columbia's tough climate. Mike Van Adrichem, then a horticulturalist with the Prince George experimental farm, gave it the Cariboo name. It became popular just as small-scale farming in the region began to face its most challenging times. ...

It took a rebel to go up against the tide of history. Jerry LeBourdais, who died in 2004, came from a pioneer Cariboo family and was a lifelong social activist, leading a strike at the Burnaby refinery in his early years and later running several times for political office. Yet today, he might be most widely remembered as the Cariboo potato's greatest promoter. "They grow really well for the northern region," says Jerry's daughter Lorraine LeBourdais. "They're a beautiful white potato, almost yellow, with pink eyes. They have smooth skin, and they grow tall -- you can pick them out in a patch because they're half a foot taller than other varieties. They pull out and then fall off the vine easily, which is exactly what you want for hand harvesting, but they're a nuisance for commercial harvesting -- they tangle in the harvester," says Lorraine. Cariboo potatoes are also known as excellent keepers, with a good size, shape and texture for baking. ...

Photo: Shop selling cheeses and wines in Paris, France. Emmentaler, Gruyere and Sbrinz from Switzerland; Parmigiano-Reggiano, Grana Padano, Pecorino Romano, Asiago and Montasio from Italy; and Roquefort from France are some of Europe's most renowned raw milk cheeses.

Cheese stores say Quebec's rules go whey too far
Toronto Star Canada October 24, 2009

Fromagerie Atwater owner Gilles Jourdenais says Quebec's post-listeriosis regulations are putting artisan cheesemakers out of business. Photo: Andrew Chung/Toronto Star

MONTREAL–At the pungent Fromagerie Atwater, one of the best-known cheese shops in Montreal, patrons feast their eyes on a glass display case piled with cheeses. With the help of the maroon-smocked experts behind the counter, patrons carefully choose their pleasures, with an increasing proportion from Quebec. But unbeknownst to many, there is a cheese war going on in Quebec. ... "We have the impression that the government wants raw-milk cheese producers to disappear," said Louis Arsenault, co-owner of La Fromagerie des Grondines and president of the Artisanal Cheesemaker's Association of Quebec. "In wanting to protect the citizen, (they) are destroying the sector." ... Artisans denounce the "severe" and now monthly inspections, as well as Quebec's strict microbiological standards. Some question the testing methods of MAPAQ, the provincial ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food. "MAPAQ should be the most beautiful ministry, the one that nourishes the people," Arsenault said. "But now it's more (about) repression than development." The ministry says its measures were necessary to ensure a clean industry and to reassure the public. "There are some cheesemakers or individuals who are unsatisfied with the interventions MAPAQ has made," said Jean-Pierre Mailhot, a ministry director. "But there are many more reports of positive experiences." ...

Meanwhile, although they usually share food regulations, Australia and New Zealand have parted ways over raw milk cheeses, nay and yea respectively.

Photo right: Lynne Tietzel, an Australian cheese supplier and educator. Tietzel represents the common sense position—allow raw milk cheese production but: "It is important only those cheesemakers who are in control of all aspects of their artisan production, land care, herd management and disciplines of [hazard and contamination control] practices, be allowed to produce raw milk cheese." Its so simple really. But as the Toronto Star article above suggests, once the governments get involved, simple commmon sense often is pushed out the fromagerie window and, in the shops, customers are frightened away.

Soft cheese debate rubs raw
Catharine Munro Sydney Morning Herald Australia October 27, 2009

Slow Food warrior Carlo Petrini has thrown his weight behind the campaign to allow raw milk cheese to be made in Australia. Here for the Sydney International Food Festival, he urged a relaxation of the tough rules, saying the local industry is being left behind. The man who defended Rome's Spanish Steps against the presence of McDonald's in the 1980s, and founded Slow Food, believes a consumer campaign would result in change. His followers in Australia are drawing up battle plans and promise a campaign to tear up the restrictions. "We are being left behind by the rest of the planet," local Slow Food campaign co-ordinator Michael Croft says. Petrini added the US is ahead of Australia, noting "some nice cheeses" are being made there since bans on raw milk usage in half the US states were lifted during the past decade. Many artisan cheeses sold in Europe are made from raw milk but calls to allow it here for soft cheeses have always fallen on deaf ears. Australian regulations are under review and the recommendations are highly anticipated. Petrini's supporters and some cheesemakers are likely to be disappointed. ... Lydia Buchtmann is the spokeswoman for Food Standards Australia, which draws up the regulations. Buchtmann says assessing the dangers of unpasteurised milk to Australian consumers is difficult because there is not much of it around. During the past 10 years, fewer than 10 people have fallen ill from drinking raw milk on farms, Buchtmann says. She likens the argument to that for polio prevention. Although the disease had been eradicated in Australia, that did not justify ending vaccination. ... Meanwhile, New Zealand is preparing to lift the controversial ban on the production of cheese from unpasteurised milk. While Australia and New Zealand usually share food regulations, they are parting ways on this vexed topic. Across the Tasman, the government announced last month it would lift all bans on producing unpasteurised cheese and has invited local artisans to compete with Europe. Regulations are now being drawn up. Cheesemakers, distributors and food lovers in Australia continue to call for a relaxation of the rules. ...


One of William Wallace Denslow's illustrations for "Little Miss Muffet", from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

Christine Stebbins and Roberta Rampton Reuters/OCA UK/USA October 15, 2009

[Editor's Note: Clearly Bill Gates has not read Failure to Yield, a study on GMOs put out by the Union of Concerned Scientists earlier this year. One would think he'd be a bit more concerned with where his money is going and its effectiveness.]

DES MOINES, Iowa, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The fight to end hunger is being hurt by environmentalists who insist that genetically modified crops cannot be used in Africa, Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of software giant Microsoft, said on Thursday. Gates said GMO crops, fertilizer and chemicals are important tools -- although not the only tools -- to help small farms in Africa boost production. "This global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two," Gates said in his first address on agriculture made during the annual World Food Prize forum. "Some people insist on an ideal vision of the environment," Gates said. "They have tried to restrict the spread of biotechnology into sub-Saharan Africa without regard to how much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it, or what the farmers themselves might want."

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in recent years has turned its focus to helping poor, small-holder farmers grow and sell more crops as a way to reduce hunger and poverty. The foundation, which has committed $1.4 billion to agricultural development efforts, announced on Thursday nine new grants worth a total of $120 million aimed at raising yields and farming expertise in the developing world. Funding will go to legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil, higher-yielding varieties of sorghum and millet, new varieties of sweet potatoes that resist pests, and a project that will support African governments to develop policies to serve small farms, Gates said. ...

Right: "Thank you, Minister. Now, can we talk about my cruelly imprisoned kin?"

Intro: Turkey wars in Ontario
Salt Spring News October 11, 2009

Four links.

Item: Agriculture minister will help organic turkey producers
Margaret Webb Toronto Star Canada October 16, 2009

Left: Matthew Dick, his wife Janice, son Alex (6), and daughters Sarah (4) and Megan (3) at their Markdale organic turkey farm. (Oct. 4, 2009) Both photos: Andrew Wallace/Toronto Star

There may be Ontario-raised organic turkey for Christmas after all. In the wake of public outcry, protests from farmers and a Saturday Star article about their plight, Ontario's minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has stepped up efforts to protect organic turkey producers. The office of Leona Dombrowsky said this week she was taking action to eradicate a Catch-22 that put Ontario organic turkey in jeopardy. The Saturday Star story, part of the "Crisis on the Farm" series, pointed out that while Turkey Farmers of Ontario (TFO), the industry marketing board, tells growers they must confine turkeys indoors to reduce the transmission of avian influenza from wild birds, new national organic standards from the Canadian Food and Inspection Agency (CFIA) mandate raising organic birds outdoors. Janice and Matthew Dick, who raise 400 birds on their open-air, antibiotic-free, 80-hectare farm in Markdale, Ont., had challenged the TFO rule, introduced last year, that requires constant confinement of all "quota" turkeys (raised in a flock of more than 50 birds). The Dicks lost at an agriculture ministry appeals tribunal in December, which meant they would also lose their organic certification.

TFO acknowledged in an email that it had received a letter from Dombrowsky on Oct. 13 referring it to Chicken Farmers of Ontario regulations that allow organic poultry access to pasture. The minister also asked Geri Kamenz, chair of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission, to work with TFO to find a solution that accommodates the free-range organic production of turkeys. "I had received numerous letters from consumers and also turkey farmers, who would like to market organic turkeys in Ontario," Dombrowsky said of her decision. "The McGuinty government has been a great supporter of organics. They are a very healthy sector. "We do have other provinces in Canada that allow it (organic production of poultry)." ... The Organic Council of Ontario, which supported the Dicks and one other organic turkey operation in their appeal, maintains the TFO was concerned with protecting commercial production of confined birds against the "superior alternative" of free-range organic production. David Waltner-Toews, a professor at the University of Guelph's veterinary college, appeared as the only scientific witness at the appeal and said the hearing was about the TFO "protecting its commercial production units" rather than a "discussion about how we manage the system overall." Kamenz pointed out that the Quebec turkey sector has developed measures to safeguard against avian influenza and also accommodate outdoor production, as has Chicken Farmers of Ontario (CFO) under regulations developed by Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC). Dombrowsky suggested the TFO look to the Chicken Farmers' regulations as a possible solution to the impasse. ...

Hamburgers, one of America's best-marketed foods, pose a health risk, especially to children. And the meat processing industry shows few signs of cleaning up its act. - Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation, 2001

Food safety doesn't have to be complex, mostly it depends on common sense. - Dairy farmer Jim Goodman

Feedlots and E. coli
Jim Goodman CounterPunch USA October 9-11, 2009

The New York Times pointed out how a flawed and inadequate USDA meat inspection system has jeopardized the safety of those who eat meat and makes the simple act of eating a burger a potential game of Russian roulette. E. coli O157:H7, a virulent bacteria found in cattle manure was first identified in 1975 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and identified as a cause of human illness in 1982. E. coli was first identified in 1885, but this new, more virulent strain, produces toxins that severely damage the intestinal lining (hemorrhagic colitis). The CDC estimates 0157:H7 causes 73,000 cases of illness and 61 deaths per year in the US. According to the CDC, since 2004, the rates of illness due to 0157:H7 have actually increased. Control measures to decrease the incidence of contamination at slaughter plants initially showed positive results, but the trend has reversed. Why are food safety measures failing? Why did the O157:H7 show up seemingly out of nowhere and why is it becoming more widespread?

With the dawn of high production agriculture after World War II, cattle that had traditionally been fed a grass and forage diet (to which they were naturally adapted), were moved into huge feedlots holding thousands of cattle and finished on a diet of grain. “Corn fed beef” became the American standard, tender, juicy, artery clogging and energy intensive. University research indicates that changing the diet of cattle from forage to grain is very likely a cause of the increased incidence of O157:H7. Interesting how the rise of O157:H7 so closely parallels the rise of the feedlot industry. Is it just coincidence that O157:H7 seemed to arrive as huge feedlots and grain diets became the norm for US cattle production? Is it coincidence that the vast majority of beef recalls have been from huge meat processors, those that grind beef from multiple sources and use ammonia to kill bacteria clinging to the meat? No coincidence, it's cause and effect. I've seen feedlots where thousands of cattle wade knee deep in manure. Their hides covered with manure, they carry it into the processing plants; the source of contamination has entered the food chain. ...

Processing over 400 animals per hour, a recipe for contaminated meat, is commonplace in plants responsible for most meat recalls. As low wage workers struggle to keep up with the machinery in one of Americas most dangerous occupations, they must also struggle to keep the meat “clean”. Rather than wait for the contamination to enter the plant, wouldn't it make sense to stop it before it starts? Feeding more antibiotics could reduce the levels of O157:H7 in cattle, but is that the answer? If high grain diets support a higher incidence of O157:H7, shouldn't we go back to feeding animals the grass and forage they were meant to eat, so we don't need to feed antibiotics. Improving processing plant inspections is a good idea, but it is only part of the solution. The real solution is minimizing the potential contaminant. Secondly, slow down the processing line so the workers can do their jobs. ...

E. coli path shows flaws in beef inspection
Michael Moss New York Times USA October 3, 2009

Stephanie Smith, 22, was paralyzed after being stricken by E. coli in 2007. Officials traced the E. coli to hamburger her family had eaten. Photo: Ben Garvin for The New York Times

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes. Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed. Ms. Smith, 22, was found to have a severe form of food-borne illness caused by E. coli, which Minnesota officials traced to the hamburger that her mother had grilled for their Sunday dinner in early fall 2007. “I ask myself every day, ‘Why me?’ and ‘Why from a hamburger?’ ”Ms. Smith said. In the simplest terms, she ran out of luck in a food-safety game of chance whose rules and risks are not widely known.

Meat companies and grocers have been barred from selling ground beef tainted by the virulent strain of E. coli known as O157:H7 since 1994, after an outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants left four children dead. Yet tens of thousands of people are still sickened annually by this pathogen, federal health officials estimate, with hamburger being the biggest culprit. Ground beef has been blamed for 16 outbreaks in the last three years alone, including the one that left Ms. Smith paralyzed from the waist down. This summer, contamination led to the recall of beef from nearly 3,000 grocers in 41 states. Ms. Smith’s reaction to the virulent strain of E. coli was extreme, but tracing the story of her burger, through interviews and government and corporate records obtained by The New York Times, shows why eating ground beef is still a gamble. Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe. ... The frozen hamburgers that the Smiths ate, which were made by the food giant Cargill, were labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.” Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria. Using a combination of sources — a practice followed by most large producers of fresh and packaged hamburger — allowed Cargill to spend about 25 percent less than it would have for cuts of whole meat. ...

Graphic: Anatomy of a burger
New York Times USA October 4, 2009

Confidential grinding logs and other records and interviews reveal the ingredients and E. coli issues in a typical hamburger sold by grocers and fast-food restaurants. This patty was made by the food giant Cargill, which recalled 844,812 pounds of ground beef on Oct. 6, 2007, after an estimated 940 people were sickened, including Stephanie Smith, 22, of Cold Spring, Minn.

The American meat processing industry
Cheri Renee Watkins Suite 101 USA June 29, 2008

Possibly the most disturbing thing about Eric Schlosser’s 2001 book Fast Food Nation is just how little has changed about the meat processing industry since Upton Sinclair released his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle, in 1905. Worker exploitation and unsanitary food are still common; and the stakes continue to increase as the industry consolidates, giving multinational companies more control over the food supply. ...

Meat processing has always been among Canada's most regulated industries. The Superior Council of New France established regulations in 1706 to control the sale of meat in different seasons and required that butchers advise a colonial official prior to the slaughter of a food animal. Inspection was required to ensure that the animal was healthy and that its meat would be fit for sale.

Canada's meat-processing industry
Canadian Encyclopedia Canada n.d. © 2009 Historica-Dominion

Canada's slaughtering and meat-processing sector comprises livestock slaughter and carcass dressing, secondary processors who manufacture and package meat products for retail sale, and purveyors that prepare portion-ready cuts for hotel, restaurant and institutional food service. Products include fresh, chilled or frozen meats; cured meats (smoked, pickled or dry salted); fresh and cooked sausage; canned meat preparations; animal oils and fats; and tank-house products such as bone and meat meal. ...

Meat processing grew rapidly during World War I and many packers earned windfall profits. But the industry was left with surplus capacity in the 1920s, which prompted the withdrawal of several large American meat packers from the Canadian market and the creation of Canada Packers through the merger of William Davies and the Harris Abattoir. By 1930, the corporate structure of the red meat industry was established. The Big Three traditional, slaughtering packers (Canada Packers, P. Burns and Company, and Swift Canadian) slaughtered all species and processed their carcasses into a full line of fresh and processed meat products. ... [T]he livestock processors have very low profit margins, usually between 1 and 2 percent of sales. From the first industrial plants of the late nineteenth century, their profitability has always depended on high throughput, large-scale production, and salvaging the full value of animal by-products to attain the sales volume required to earn an acceptable rate of return.

The Big Three full-line slaughtering packers' segment of the industry restructured in the 1980s as domestic beef consumption fell and competition from American packers intensified. The Big Three withdrew from fresh meats and, through a complex series of mergers, many of their operations came under the control of Maple Leaf Foods, the leading hog processor in Ontario and western Canada. With ten pork and hog plants in Quebec and one in Red Deer, Alberta, Olymel (majority owned by Coopérative fédérée de Québec) is now Canada's largest pork and poultry processor. Schneider Foods (wholly owned by Smithfield Foods, the largest hog producer and pork processor in the world) operates large plants in Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Beef processing is dominated by three large plants: Cargill Foods of High River, Alberta, Lakeside Packers of Brooks, Alberta (controlled by Tyson Foods, the largest meat processor in the world), and Better Beef, an independent packer in Guelph, Ontario. Fowl production remains market oriented while poultry production has become highly concentrated: 20 percent of the plants account for 80 percent of the poultry output. Flamingo Foods (Quebec), Lilydale Foods (Alberta and British Columbia) and Maple Leaf Poultry (Ontario, Alberta, Nova Scotia) are among the largest. Large-scale production has become more important than ever before and meat-processing plants are becoming increasingly specialized in just one sex, age, and species of livestock and in a narrow range of meat products. ...

Homepage: Canadian Meat Council

The Canadian Meat Council is Canada's national trade association for the federally inspected meat packers and processors. As a key component of Canada's agriculture sector, the meat industry is the largest sector of Canada's food processing industry, representing 10% of Canada's agri-food exports and employing more than 63,000 Canadians. It is also one of Canada's leading manufacturing sectors with annual sales of over $20.3 billion.

Organic turkeys will not out and about in Canada if the Turkey Board has anything to say about it. Photo: Sheepdrove.com

The Bovine asks in response to this story: "The powers that be seem to be working together to make it impossible to legally raise certified organic turkeys in Ontario. In other words raw milk could have some company on the black market for illegal foods. You might be wondering what healthy food is going to be “outlawed” next.

Turkey wars
Margaret Webb Toronto Star Canada October 10, 2009

If you're eating organic turkey this weekend, savour it, because by next Thanksgiving it may be easier to buy crack cocaine in Ontario than a drug-free bird. Here's why: While the turkey industry marketing board tells growers to confine their turkeys indoors to reduce the chance of transmission of viruses from wild birds, new organics standards administered by the Canadian Food and Inspection Agency mandate raising organic birds outdoors. Caught in this Catch-22 are turkey farmers Matthew and Janice Dick – organic farmers who wanted their birds to roam free outside. They recently took on the Turkey Farmers of Ontario at an appeals tribunal in what amounted to a battle between antibiotic-free, open-air, small-scale farming and drug-intensive, confinement, factory farming. The organic farmers lost. ...

The Turkey Farmers of Ontario – an industry marketing board of 192 Ontario producers who control nearly half of Canada's annual quota production – introduced a rule last year that forces all quota holders to confine turkeys indoors, under a solid roof. Turkey marketing boards, issuing quota to individual producers, were created to protect domestic farmers from imports. With this system, producers can also negotiate a fair price with processors. Members of Turkey Farmers of Ontario produce more than 60 million kilograms of turkeys a year. The smallest of these confinement barns produce about 35,000 turkeys a year. The sector links an entire supply chain from Maple Leaf Foods, which processes 49 per cent of turkeys in Ontario, to Ontario-based Hybrid Turkeys, the only primary breeder in Canada and one of two major breeding companies worldwide. The marketing board says raising turkeys indoors is one biosecure measure that prevents the transmission of avian influenza between turkeys and wild birds. Ingrid DeVisser, chair of the board, said: "I don't think there is any foolproof method" of preventing transmission of avian flu. "But we're doing what we can to protect the industry." She pointed out that the Canadian Food and Inspection Agency is in conflict with itself: It advises, as a cautionary measure, raising birds indoors, but the agency-administered national organics standards, introduced in June, mandate raising organic birds outdoors. The marketing board rule places organic turkey farmers in an impossible situation: To raise more than a backyard flock of 50 birds, farmers must hold board-regulated quota; but farmers cannot adhere to the regulations and keep organic certification. ...

The Organic Council of Ontario supported the Dicks' appeal at a tribunal of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, concerned that the turkey board ruling would set a precedent for provincial marketing boards across Canada to introduce regulations for milk, egg and poultry production that would curtail organic production. Already, the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council has requested that all quota poultry be confined. ... David Waltner-Toews, a professor at the University of Guelph's veterinary college, appeared as the only scientific witness at the hearing. The author of Food, Sex and Salmonella: Why Our Food is Making Us Sick is an international expert on food-borne diseases as well as diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans, such as avian influenza and swine flu. He said the hearing was about the turkey board "protecting its commercial production units" rather than a "discussion about how we manage the system overall." ...

Turkeys
Seasonal Ontario Food Canada October 11, 2009

Dear Turkey Farmers of Ontario:

You know, I really like turkey. I used to have one every Thanksgiving, and was very happy to have another at Christmas. In addition, I used to like to buy a thigh or two at various times throughout the year. (We're a dark-meat family.) Ground turkey was very useful for meatloaf, burgers and other such dishes. Note the past tense. Apparently the remains of my last turkey are presently residing in my fridge. It was a lovely turkey; lean but juicy, flavourful and moist but with a robust texture. It was an organic, pastured turkey. And there's the problem. Thanks to your short-sighted protectionism of the status-quo, I understand the organic, pastured turkey may be a thing of the past, at least in Ontario. Please do not suppose I will be going back to mushy, bland industrially farmed turkey if I can't get a pastured turkey because I won't. I will eat something else altogether.

It is also of no use to suppose that organic standards can be changed to allow organic turkeys to be raised in confined circumstances. I don't buy - nobody buys - organic turkeys because they are labelled organic. We buy them because the fact that they are organic is supposed to mean something. One of the things it's supposed to mean is that these turkeys were raised on pasture, and have seen the light of day during their reasonably turkey-like lives. Changing the standards will simply mean that the word organic becomes meaningless. It won't change what more and more consumers are looking for in their poultry, today and in the future. We're looking for decency and safety in farming practices, and flavour and quality in our food - and I don't believe for a second that packing birds into a warehouse to stand shoulder to shoulder in their own shit, and dosing them with antibiotics is the way to achieve either of those. I've tasted the difference in flavour and quality in pastured poultry. It's too late. You've lost me as a customer. There is only one way to get me back. And that's to allow - nay, encourage - Ontario farmers to raise pastured, preferably organic, turkeys. ...

Related: Turkey board demands all turkeys be kept in the slammer — puts kibosh on free range organic turkey market
The Bovine Canada June 24, 2009

FEMA camps for turkeys? -- a pretty picture of an ugly reality. Photo from "Free Range or Cage Free".

Tyrannical tendencies are apparently not limited to the “milk” marketing boards, as this issue demonstrates. There are also echoes here [in Ontario] of the intervention in farming practices threatened by the “food safety” bills currently before the U.S. legislature. So here’s “Talking Certified Organic Turkey”, a commentary on behalf the National Farmers Union, by Grant Robertson. Thanks to Gaille for sending it our way.

“Many farmers and farm organizations claim that they want a science-based approach to rules when it comes to food safety and other issues. However the brain trust of the Turkey Farmers of Ontario has thrown caution to the wind and embraced junk science while at the same time restricting consumer choice on certified organically raised Turkey in this province. In May of 2008 the Turkey Farmers of Ontario, with little or no consultation with organic organizations or growers, released rules banning all outside access for turkeys raised under the supply managed system. Supply management was established by farmers to improve farmer incomes and to provide a consistent supply of products to processors. It was not intended to restrict consumer choice or to constrain farmers in type of productions techniques they might use beyond ensuring food safety. Certainly supply management was not intended to have junk science be used to eliminate a growing niche market available to farmers. Let’s be clear. There is no credible evidence that links organic production of poultry with increased risk to diseases like avian influenza or its transmission to humans. Ironically there is some evidence that links intensive production to increased risk of disease spread. However, the Turkey Farmers of Ontario has banned all outside access for all birds under the supply managed system in Ontario. It is not hard to see this as the thin edge of the wedge in terms of organic poultry production in Ontario. ...

Ted Zettel, OCO Director, discusses the TFO reaction in an article entitled “Battle over Letting Turkeys Outside Calls into Question Power of Supply Management Boards” available on the NFU page in the upcoming issue of the Rural Voice. Zettel states, “I was very surprised at the adamant, negative response (of the TFO). The directors were incredulous, firstly that any producer in their right mind would let turkeys outside, and secondly that any consumer would be dissatisfied with the excellent products supplied from their total confinement operations.” It is clear from Zettel’s comments that the TFO is out of touch with the marketplace and the concerns of consumers. It is not for farmers to dictate what consumers should want, but to find ways to address the concerns of the eaters of their products. What is also clear from Zettel’s article is that the TFO has become a cloistered and frankly arrogant organization. Their belief that the Canadian organic standards, which dictates outside access in all livestock production, should be changed simply to accommodate the TFO is mind boggling. That’s a bit like asking Coke to change its recipe to Pepsi. ...

GM flax contamination from Canada soars to 28 countries: But Canadian farmers still have no answers
News release National Farmers Union Canada October 5, 2009 [Two-page PDF]

Ottawa, Monday, October 5, 2009 – 28 countries, including more European countries as well as Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Thailand, have now been affected by contamination from genetically modified (GM) flax in Canadian exports since contamination was first reported on September 8. Mere weeks are left before farmers in Canada finish harvesting their flax and yet farmers still don’t know the source or full extent of the GM contamination -- and it could be weeks before authorities in Canada confirm any details. Flax prices remain depressed.

GM flax is not approved for human consumption in the following 28 countries where contamination has now reached: Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Czech Republic, Spain, Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Finland, France, Greece, Romania, Portugal, Iceland, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Mauritius. Companies are removing products from the market as the GM flax has been found in cereals, bakery products, bakery mixtures and nut/seed products. 9 GM flax contamination notices have been filed so far through the European Commission’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed. ...

Related: Can we afford GM agriculture?
Salt Spring News October 2, 2009

Two links. From one of them:

Science is not rigidly and invariably objective, but is value-based, just like everything else. This leaves the door open for decisions based on personal beliefs and political expediency. It has always been such. What is different now is government insistence that it is not.

Obama caves in to agribusiness
Kathy Ozer and Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, Co-op America Miniutemanmedia.org USA October 7, 2009

“Lobbyists won’t find a job in my White House.” President Obama assured us with this claim upon inauguration. And yet he just nominated to two key posts “Big Ag” industry power brokers, who come straight from the chemical pesticide and biotechnology sectors. While they may not be registered as lobbyists, both men come from organizations representing powerful agribusiness interests, which every year spend millions of dollars in lobbying to advance their companies’ chemical and transgenic products.

Obama has tapped Roger Beachy, long-time president of the Danforth Plant Science Center (Monsanto’s nonprofit arm) as chief of the USDA’s newly created National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Created by the 2008 Farm Bill, NIFA is the new means of awarding the USDA’s external research dollars. As the director of NIFA (a nomination that doesn’t require congressional approval), Beachy will oversee the distribution of nearly $500 million in grants and other research funding. Sustainable agriculture initiatives are likely to suffer, as research dollars are awarded to projects that promote Beachy’s vested interests in biotechnology.

Islam Siddiqui, currently the VP of Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife USA, was nominated to the post of Chief Agricultural Negotiator for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. Why the president would nominate someone from the group that infamously chided the First Lady for refusing to use pesticides on the White House garden is a bit of a mystery, but perhaps it has something to do with all the money and work as a fundraiser that Siddiqui put into Obama’s campaign. This critical position is designed to use free trade agreements to open up foreign markets for U.S. agriculture goods—mostly to promote chemical-intensive, genetically modified products that undermine local food cultures in developing countries. ...

Kathy Ozer is the executive director of the National Family Farm Coalition, and Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, is the senior scientist at the Pesticide Action Network North America and a lead author on the UN-sponsored International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD). The National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) is a national link for grassroots organizations working on family farm issues. www.nffc.net Pesticide Action Network North America works to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives. www.panna.org

The unsustainability of agriculture did not originate with Cargill, Tyson, or factory farming. Whether the American Dust Bowl, the vanished Anasazi, or the lost empire of Mesopotamia, humans have a long history of farming themselves to oblivion. It follows then, that to sustain agricultural capacity into the future we need to aim much higher than just ending factory farming. - E. Ann Clark

In defense of livestock-based agriculture
E. Ann Clark, Plant Agriculture University of Guelph Canada n.d.

...

SUMMARY

If we are going to avoid joining the ranks of the obliterated, livestock need to be seen in a very different light. The ‘place’ of livestock must not be a life of misery in factory farms, nor as the source of unthinkable concentrations of waste, pathogens, and risk. It is equally blinding if we view livestock as the primary raison d’etat for the equally tragic fate of untold millions of acres, sentenced to growing nothing but corn and beans in perpetuity.

Instead, let us remove the blinkers and see livestock for what they really are - the lock that seals the connection between sustainable resource management and human food production. Perennial grass swards channel to human service many of the processes that sustain Nature. Livestock, in turn, convert this pivotal but inedible grass into human-usable food. Effectively re-integrating crops and livestock to achieve the synergies that sustain Nature - a goal of increasing necessity in the post-oil era - means learning, or re-learning to think in whole farm systems rather than in individual enterprises.

This is a challenge, but it is not an insurmountable challenge. The transformative process is already underway, as shown with real world examples from innovative farmers. It has been said that the toughest change is what goes on between the ears, and not just of farmers but of academics, policymakers, and elected leaders. It is not too late.

Science is not rigidly and invariably objective, but is value-based, just like everything else. This leaves the door open for decisions based on personal beliefs and political expediency. It has always been such. What is different now is government insistence that it is not. E. Ann Clark, "Regulation of GM crops in Canada: Science-based or...... ?"

Can you afford GM agriculture?
E. Ann Clark, Plant Agriculture University of Guelph Canada 2001

Presented to the Eco-Farm Conference at Asilomar, California 25 January 2001

A major restructuring is occurring within the Life Science industry, owing to the relative unprofitability of agricultural biotechnology. In this talk, we'll consider what this means to some segments of the agri-business industry, including consumers. The take home message is that:

• ag-biotech is history; the smart money is migrating to pharmaceuticals - which in the near-to-medium term is the only realistic future application for GM
  
• the big losers, apart from the agbiotech shareholders, will be farmers (and agribusiness and food retailers) and consumers, for reasons that are very much "real-world" - not hypothetical
  
• the science underpinning GM risk assessment is almost unbelievably weak, according to several, recent, authoritative analyses; "science-based decisions" and "sound science" claims are hollow
  
• you have been warned - buyer beware
  

...

“Canada has gone blindly into broad scale experimentation with the Canadian land base. It is an experiment which cannot be retracted, and was entered into without sincere reflection as to possible ramifications. In our experience crops (and weeds) are spread in so many ways (wind, the waterways, on the roadside, on farm machinery and trucks) that it is impossible to prevent accidental releases into unwanted areas. We now have some degree of GE crop contamination across our entire Canadian Prairie land base.” ... Gary Goldberg of the American Corn Growers Association also spoke to the Royal Commission in NZ (5 Dec 2000). He documented the decline in US corn sales to Europe from 2 million mt in 1997/98 to 34,000 mt in 1999/2000 - owing entirely to the rejection of GM grain by Europe and the inability of American producers and grain trade to meaningfully segregate GM from non-GM grain. That is a loss of $200 million to American farmers. In effect, although GM corn is grown on a fraction of the total hectarage, it has destroyed the market for all American corn. Losses to Canadian canola producers are reportedly in the same ballpark, for the same reason. ...

So - where do you go from here? Given what is now known, can you afford to participate in GM agriculture - whether as a producer or a consumer or a retailer? Ag biotech is floundering because government, industry, and even university leaders underestimated the sex drive of plants and overestimated the gullibility of the public. If "floundering" sounds too much like "fearmongering" or "ill-informed hysteria", just look back to the views of the investment/devestment, consolidation/spin-off community. Money talks, and the smart money is no longer on ag biotech - at least for the near-to-medium term. So what does the future hold? ...

Regulation of GM crops in Canada: Science-based or...... ?
E. Ann Clark, Plant Agriculture University of Guelph Canada ©2004 E. Ann Clark

Presented at Safe Food, Salt Spring Island, B.C. August 2003 12-page PDF.

How many times have you heard a government, academic, or an industry spokesperson making an empassioned plea for science-based decisionmaking on GM crops? What a curious arguing point. That is sort of like insisting that the sky must be blue. Of course, decision-making must be science-based, just as the sky most assuredly must be blue. So, if we are all in agreement, then what is the reason for adamantly insisting on such a claim? The intended perception, and the actual reality for some possible explanations are shown below: .... The rest of this paper will consider these points in series. ...