-▶ HIGH STEAKS: THE CASE FOR LESS AND BETTER MEAT.There’s a high price to pay for that juicy T-Bone from supermarkets. Most meat, poultry, eggs and dairy sold in restaurants and supermarkets in the U.S. comes from factory farms — where animals are often raised in cruel, cramped and unsanitary conditions. In order to prevent disease and promote faster growth, they are frequently pumped with doses of antibiotics. This practice has contributed to the rise of antibiotic-resistant diseases in human populations, which pose one of the greatest public health threats of our time. THE CASE FOR LESS AND BETTER MEAT ... READ ON https://medium.com/friends-of-the-earth-newsmagazine/high-steaks-827023cb0456
Alternet, April 01, 2015 ▶ AMERICA'S RED MEAT HORROR SHOW: WHY WE MUST GET RID OF FACTORY FARMS. FOUR MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR TRANSNATIONAL COMPANIES —Tyson JBS, Cargill and Smithfield—produce about 85 percent of the factory farm meat in the U.S., making it difficult for ranchers to sell their livestock to anyone but the Big Four. And of course these same Big Four companies, along with their front groups such as the North American Meat Institute, are lobbying the government to ditch the 2015 dietary guidelines to “eat less red and processed meat” recommendation because they understand what that recommendation will do to their bottom lines.
Stuff.co.nz , November 25, 2014 -▶ EVERYTHING IS A COMMODITY NOW: BIG JUMP IN BOBBY CALF KILL. Beef+Lamb economist Rob Davison said 2.07 million calves were culled in the year ended September, up 9.8 per cent on the comparable period last year... There seems to be no one reason for the significant rise in unwanted calves sent for "processing", as reported to Beef + Lamb NZ by the country's meat companies.http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/beef/63489037/big-jump-in-bobby-calf-kill
George Monbiot, December 17, 2014 -▶OVERGROWTH: What can you say about a society whose food production must be hidden from public view? In which the factory farms and slaughterhouses supplying much of our diet must be guarded like arsenals to prevent us from seeing what happens there? The growth rate of broiler chickens has quadrupled in 50 years: they are now killed at seven weeks(2). By then they are often crippled by their weight. Animals selected for obesity cause obesity. Bred to bulge, scarcely able to move, overfed, factory farmed chickens now contain almost three times as much fat as chickens did in 1970, and just two thirds of the protein(3). Stalled pigs and feedlot cattle have undergone a similar transformation. Meat production? No, this is fat production. http://www.monbiot.com/2014/12/16/overgrowth/
WATCH:
"A BLOODY BUSINESS" - LIVE ANIMAL EXPORTS
Investigation by Australian TV Four Corners Investigation
DW News, November 22, 2014 -▶ EU GREENS TO CONFRONT INDUSTRIALIZED FARM LOBBY.Germany's opposition Greens have set their sights on nutrition that avoids mass livestock farming. They have accused Chancellor Angela Merkel's government of giving agriculturalized industry an unrestrained free run.
Future Food, November 18, 2014 -▶ GREENER PASTURES FOR CATTLE RANCHING. Colombian farming researcher Enrique Murgueitio advocates grazing animals on wooded land to boost sustainability and production. http://futurefood2050.com/greener-pastures-for-cattle-ranching/
HuffingtonPostGreen, October 30, 2014 -▶ MEAT HAS SEASONS, JUST LIKE PRODUCE. AND HERE'S HOW FACTORY FARMING HAS MESSED WITH THAT
A journey into the soul of humanity - A powerful statement about deforestation and the global industrial economy.
-▶ "ALMA" explores the devastating impacts of the cattle industry on the Amazon and a powerful statement about the global industrial economy.
Beautifully shot, alternately joyful and horrifying, Alma captures the ecological, and even spiritual, cost of meat, dairy, and leather production in the Amazon.
A cinematic journey into the world's forests and the industries that are destroying them, this time heading to Brazil to explore the devastating impacts of the cattle industry. Here he creates a powerful statement about the global industrial economy and the speed with which virgin forests are being cleared for timber and new grazing land...http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8uVOYQPobzo
Mongabay, December 18, 2014 -▶ IMPACTS OF DEFORESTATION ON AMAZONIAN RIVER ECOSYSTEMS COULD BE FAR REACHING. Vast areas of the Amazon forest are being destroyed for agricultural uses, mainly industrial-scale soybean crops, and turned into pasture land for livestock.
This article is related to our AP Human Geography Agriculture unit due to the fact cattle ranching is a form of agriculture found in many less inhabited areas around the world. When someone goes to the store to pay high prices for meat there such as a T-bone steak the meat should be in prime eating condition when high price is paid. Therefore, the supplier of the meat or the distributor should sterilize and keep their product (cows) clean and fed proper nutrients and water.
65 BILLION ANIMALS RAISED IN CORPORATE CONCENTRATION PENS: DRUGS, GMO FEED AND AG-GAG LAWS TO IMPACT US ALL
Today, nearly 65 BILLION animals worldwide, including cows, chickens and pigs, are crammed into CAFOs (Confined Animal Feed Lots). These animals are literally imprisoned and tortured in unhealthy, unsanitary and unconscionably cruel conditions. Sickness is the norm for animals who are confined rather than pastured, and who eat GMO corn and soybeans, rather than grass and forage as nature intended. To prevent the inevitable spread of disease from stress, overcrowding and lack of vitamin D, animals are fed a steady diet of antibiotics. Those antibiotics pose a direct threat to the environment when they run off into our lakes, rivers, aquifers and drinking water.
The vast majority of consumers don’t realize that nearly 95% of the meat, dairy and eggs sold in the U.S. come from CAFOs. Nor do most people realize that CAFOs represent a corporate-controlled system characterized by large-scale, centralized, low profit-margin production, processing and distribution systems....http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/17-5
David Hogan, February 19, 2014 -▶ THE AG-GAG REFLEX: THE ANIMAL ENTERPRISE TERRORISM ACT'S IMPACT ON US ALL. On November 27, 2006, after heavy lobbying by the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) was quietly signed into law. The AETA makes it a terrorist offense to engage in certain speech and activity that causes an “animal enterprise” the loss of real or personal property. (There is a dispute as to whether the term ‘loss of property’ means ‘loss of profits.’) ....http://davidhoganwriter.com/2014/02/19/the-ag-gag-reflex-the-animal-enterprise-terrorism-
WATCH; "DEATH ON A FACTORY FARM [HBO] (2009) 1:27:25
Directors Tom Simon and Sarah Teale (HBOs Dealing Dogs) tell the story of an animal rights investigator who goes undercover at hog farm in Ohio to explore a whistle blowers allegations. The evidence he gathers leads to a rare prosecution and trial for animal cruelty, and a verdict that surprises nearly everyonehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfiolWwzD94
- ▶ ANTI-WHISTLE BLOWER AG-GAG BILLS AIMED AT KEEPING YOU IN THE DARK ABOUT FACTORY FARMS AND YOUR FOOD http://sco.lt/7aFBUv
▶ A 6,200 COW INDUSTRIAL FARM: DISPUTED EXPANSION OF WISCONSIN MEGA DAIRY WATCHED FOR STATEWIDE IMPACT: Owners vow to protect water quality; neighbors want tighter DNR oversight
The Dept of Natural Resources is defending its approval of the Kinnard Farms permit, which will allow the farm to grow by 55 percent — from 5,627 to 8,710 animal units, or about 6,200 cattle. The farm, classified as a concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO, because of its large size, is in the town of Lincoln in Kewaunee County...http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2014/02/08/disputed-expansion-of-dairy-watched-for-statewide-impact/
- ▶ WHAT EVERY PARENT SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BLIND, FOOTLESS GMO CHICKENS. FACTORY FARMS AND THE AG-GAG BILL http://sco.lt/961xVh
▶ APOCALYPSE OF THE "HAPPY MEAL" WORSHIPING THE GOLDEN CALF. What we set on our tables, and chow down on at fast-food restaurants, may be contributing more to the acceleration of climate change and human extinction than some of the usual carbon-emitting culprits. Throughout the world, native grasslands, forests and wild species have been burned, butchered and brutalized for cattle ranches. Our farming system of grain-fed livestock consumes resources far out of proportion to the useful dietary yield.http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25562-apocalypse-of-the-happy-meal-worshipping-the-golden-calf
When Animals Become Inanimate Objects On A Corporate Balance Sheethttp://sco.lt/5uDfyj
======================
Civil Eats, June 11, 2014
▶ HOW CONGRESS IS MOVING TO CRUSH PROTECTIONS FOR SMALL MEAT AND POULTRY PRODUCERS.Consolidation has meant “the meatpackers report huge profits, while farmers’ share of the retail dollar has gone down dramatically—and consumers still see food prices rising at the grocery store.” In Missouri, Gibbons adds, thousands of independent small and mid-size family hog farmers have gone out of business because they don’t have access to a fair market. “Because of massive corporate control of the market, we’ve lost 91 percent of hog producers in Missouri since 1985. That’s over 20,000 farmers and many, many jobs in our rural communities.”http://civileats.com/2014/06/11/how-congress-is-moving-to-crush-protections-for-small-meat-and-poultry-producers-and-why-you-should-care/
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT WATCH 53:41) Frontline PBS, October 14, 2014 THE TROUBLE WITH ANTIBIOTICS
REDUCING GROWTH HORMONES USE IN FOOD ANIMALS Up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used in food animals. For years, farmers and ranchers have used antibiotics to help food animals grow faster on less feed. This practice, known as “growth promotion,” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/trouble-with-antibiotics/
Grist, June 10, 2014 - ▶ A MEAT GIANT GOBBLES UP ANOTHER MEAT GIANT: GRAPHS
There are problems with this kind of consolidation...“When all the power is so centralized in these behemoths, they end up writing their own rules in Congress and fighting the reforms to protect consumers and farmers”...
When the Obama administration sought to reform the animal farming industry, many farmers, some visibly frightened, risked their livelihoods by speaking publicly about abuses. But industry squelched that attempt.
Now, the industry lobbyists are working to reduce the number of inspectors in slaughterhouses, while speeding up the kill and processing lines. "But the chickens already move down the disassembly lines “obscenely fast, in my opinion,”http://grist.org/food/a-meat-giant-gobbles-up-another-meat-giant/
Grist, January 29, 2014 -▶ POOR COWS: HARVESTING METHANE FROM PUNCTURING COW'S STOMACHS, BUT SHOULD WE?Argentinian scientists are punching holes in the sides of cattle and passing pipes through to their stomachs. The other end of the pipe goes into a bag fitted on the cow’s back. The captured gas, which is basically the same natural gas that frackers and other drillers mine out of the ground, can be burned to produce energy. That releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere instead of the methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas.
GRAIN, May 28, 214 ▶ HUNGRY FOR LAND: SMALL FARMERS FEED THE WORLD FOR LESS THAN A QUARTER OF ALL FARMLAND AS CORPORATIONS ACCELERATE LAND GRABShttp://www.grain.org/article/entries/492
WATCH
"LAND RUSH - WHY POVERTY?:
THE UGLY RISE OF MONOCULTURE FARMING AND GLOBALIZED FOOD
▶ WALL STREET, CORPORATIONS GOBBLING UP AMERICAN & FOREIGN FARMLAND THREATENING FUTURE OF U.S. AND WORLD FOOD SECURITY, AGRICULTURE & FOODhttp://sco.lt/8mcmbR
▶ THE ECONOMICS OF CURBING SPECULATION IN FOOD, WATER AND VITAL RESOURCEShttp://sco.lt/6znBab
ALL ABOUT MEGA-PROFITS, NOTHING MORE OR LESS
WATCH "THE FOODS THAT MAKE BILLIONS" (177 min Entire Series) The Foods that Make Billions is a 3-part series looking at how big business feeds us. By employing clever tactics and smart marketing, big business seduces the appetite of the consumer and entices people to spend and spend and spend. This is how global food and beverage empires are built.
▶ THESE TOP FOOD COMPANIES CONTROL ALMOST EVERYTHING WE EAT:There are more than 38,000 products in the average American supermarket. That means tons of choice, right? In fact, the vast majority of these products are owned by just 10 companies. Those friendly looking Green Giant pees? That's General Mills. And Odwalla juice? That's Coca Cola. This matters, of course, because we deserve to know where our food comes from--and how it's made.http://www.fastcocreate.com/3032899/see-who-actually-owns-the-food-you-eat-and-how-theyre-behaving
Wakeup World, September 04, 2014 ▶ SCIENTISTS OFFICIALLY LINK PROCESSED FOODS TO AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE. The modern diet of processed foods, takeaways and microwave meals could be to blame for a sharp increase in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, alopecia, asthma and eczema.
A team of scientists from Yale University in the U.S and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in Germany, say junk food diets could be partly to blame. “This study is the first to indicate that excess refined and processed salt may be one of the environmental factors driving the increased incidence of autoimmune diseases”, they said.http://wakeup-world.com/2014/09/04/scientists-officially-link-processed-foods-to-autoimmune-disease/
Appeal-Democrat, December 21, 2014 ▶ AG-TECH COULD CHANGE HOW WORLD EATS:
—Silicon Valley is pushing its way into every stage of the food-growing process, from tech tycoons buying up farmland to startups selling robots that work the fields to hackathons dedicated to building the next farming app. Investors and entrepreneurs behind some of the world's newest industries have started to put their money and tech talents into farming — the world's oldest industry http://www.appeal-democrat.com/business/ag-tech-could-change-how-world-eats/article_af7d8ab2-88b3-11e4-a88c-53786b1de7d9.html
Feb 26, 2013 - TruthOut ▶ OUR FOOD SYSTEM IS IN CRISIS DUE TO TECHNOLOGY RUN AMOK AND MONOPOLIZING CORPORATIONS
"The Foods that Make Billions" is a 3-part series looking at how big business feeds us. By employing clever tactics and smart marketing, big business seduces the appetite of the consumer and entices people to spend and spend and spend. This is how global food and beverage empires are built.
Part 1: Liquid Gold - Bottled Water: Liquid Gold looks at the competitive dynamics between two of the global leaders in the bottled water marketplace: Nestle and Danone and unpacks the brand philosophy and big business strategy behind these big hitters in the industry
Part 2: The Age of PlentyEpisode two tells the story of a modern marketing miracle: the story of the breakfast cereal. The Age of Plenty investigates the processing, marketing and advertising behind a breakfast that has singularly impacted the way we live.
Part 3: Pots of Gold: Big business has managed to increase the profit margins of simple products, like yogurt by monumental proportions, resulting in multi-billion dollar industry.
▶ CORPORATIONS QUIETLY INSERTING UNTESTED SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY INTO HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS.The processes using synthetic biology involve techniques that more extensively alter genetic code. Those include “artificial gene synthesis,” in which DNA is created on computers and inserted into organisms, and other methods for changing DNA sequences and genes within organisms to alter their function.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/business/biofuel-tools-applied-to-household-soaps.html
APOCALYPSE OF THE "HAPPY MEAL" WORSHIPING THE GOLDEN CALF
What we set on our tables, and chow down on at fast-food restaurants, may be contributing more to the acceleration of climate change and human extinction than some of the usual carbon-emitting culprits. Throughout the world, native grasslands, forests and wild species have been burned, butchered and brutalized for cattle ranches. Our farming system of grain-fed livestock consumes resources far out of proportion to the useful dietary yield.http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25562-apocalypse-of-the-happy-meal-worshipping-the-golden-calf
Scientific American, May 12, 2014 ▶ DRUGS, CHEMICALS SEEP DEEP INTO SOIL FROM SEWAGE SLUDGE FERTILIZER, ABSORBED BY OUR FOOD The widespread use of biosolids could contaminate groundwater near farms with a variety of chemicals, including anti-depressants such as Prozac and hormone-disrupting compounds in antibacterial soaps
Food Chains, a new hard-hitting documentary about the battle between Florida farmworkers and the giant supermarket and fast food conglomerates. The New York Times calls Food Chains an “emphatic and empathetic documentary” that presents farm laborers as modern-day slaveshttp://billmoyers.com/2014/11/21/food-chains/
▶ WHO OWNS NATURE? Corporate Power and the Final Frontier in the Commodification of Life
Three decades ago, humanity had a problem; science had a fascination; and industry had an opportunity. Our problem was injustice. The ranks of the hungry were expanding while the ranks of farmers were thinning. Meanwhile, science was fascinated by biotechnology – the idea that we could genetically engineer crops and livestock (and people) with traits that could overcome all our problems.
Agribusiness saw an opportunity to extract the enormous surplus value that was laced throughout the food chain. The hugely decentralized food system held pockets of profit just crying out to be centralized. All the biotechnology industry had to do is chase away the competition and coerce governments into surrendering control. ....http://www.etcgroup.org/content/who-owns-nature
Pambazuka -Voices for Freedom and Justice in Africa
▶ AFRICA: HOW COMPANIES FRAME ISSUES OF FOOD AND GLOBAL HUNGER FOR THEIR OWN SELF-INTEREST AND BOTTOMLINE PROFITS
There is a new, but deceptive, foreign drive to end hunger in Africa through large-scale agribusiness. Yet helping poor households in rural Africa feed themselves in an affordable manner means introducing low-cost, sustainable enhancements to farming.
History is riddled with examples of the poor dying of hunger when food was plentiful.
...The rise of philanthrocapitalism in the US, where former and current business leaders, through the strength of their foundations, have increasingly come to influence the shape and direction of US international development programmes.
Central to the philanthrocapitalist worldview is a belief that private enterprise is the fundamental agent of progressive change and that business acumen trumps other forms of expertise... http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/85291
National Geographic, "Future of Food" May 02, 2014 ▶ FEED THE WORLD: FAMILY FARMERS HOLD KEYS TO AGRICULTURE IN A WARMING WORLD.Faced with global warming and a population that will swell to nine billion by 2050, a growing number of experts say that the way to feed the masses as climate change makes growing our food more difficult is to focus on family farmers, who often can barely feed themselves. ...
When policymakers in the developed world talk about feeding billions of extra mouths in the decades to come, it's multinational agribusinesses—which operate industrial-size farms—that usually get most of the attention.
GRAIN, May 28, 214 ▶ AFRICA: HUNGRY FOR LAND: CORPORATIONS ACCELERATE AFRICA LAND GRABS - Bt Cotton in South Africa
This article summarises the results of five years of research undertaken by Biowatch South Africa on the socio-economic impact of Bt cotton on small-scale farmers in South Africa. It forms part of a comprehensive research paper on the topic that will be published later this year.
Pambazuka, July 24. 2014 WHICH WAY AFRICA? GMOs AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: African governments are under intense pressure from within but also from big agribusiness and Western governments to embrace GMOs. Governments must resist all forms of arm-twisting and food colonialism and make their biotechnology choices based on the factshttp://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92594
WALL STREET, CORPORATIONS GOBBLING UP AMERICAN & FOREIGN FARMLAND THREATENING FUTURE OF U.S. AND WORLD FOOD SECURITY, AGRICULTURE & FOODhttp://sco.lt/8mcmbR
ARE YOU EATING CLONED PORK? CHINA ENTERS USA FOOD MARKET - UNLABELED, UNREGULATED - USDA, FDAhttp://sco.lt/57VNh3
▶ DOWN ON THE FARM:The first years of the twenty-first century will be remembered for a global land rush of nearly unprecedented scale. An estimated 500 million acres, an area eight times the size of Britain, was reported bought or leased across the developing world between 2000 and 2011, often at the expense of local food security and land rights. When the price of food spiked in 2008, pushing the number of hungry people in the world to over one billion, the interest of investors spiked as well, and within a year foreign land deals in the developing world rose by a staggering 200 percent. Today, enthusiasm for agriculture borders on speculative mania. Driven by everything from rising food prices to growing demand for biofuel, the financial sector is taking an interest in farmland as never before. As the Oakland Institute reported in 2012, a new generation of institutional investors—including hedge funds, private equity, pension funds, and university endowments—is eager to capitalize on global farmland as a new and highly desirable asset class...http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/down-on-the-farm
INVESTIGATION Foreign Policy, July 11, 2014 WHEN WALL STREET WENT TO AFRICA http://sco.lt/6jxBxZ
Environmental Health News, February 12, 2014
-▶ CORPORATIONS, INVESTORS GRABBING LAND AND WATER OVERSEAS. As a growing population stresses the world's food and water supplies, corporations and investors in wealthy countries are buying up foreign farmland and the freshwater perks that come with it. From Sudan to Indonesia, most of the land lies in poverty-stricken regions, so experts warn that this widespread purchasing could expand the gap between developed and developing countries. The “water grabbing” by corporations amounts to 454 billion cubic meters per year globally, according to a new study by environmental scientists. That’s about 5 percent of the water the world uses annually. For countries reliant on farming and already suffering from poverty, the potential impacts are huge, said Paolo D’Odorico, a University of Virginia professor. “In many of these countries, the sum of the water being grabbed would be enough to eliminate malnourishment,” he said. Some of the more active buyers in the United States, which leads the pack in number of deals, include multinational investors Nile Trading and Development, BHP Billiton, Unitech and media magnate Ted Turner, according to the researchers. Most purchasers are agricultural, biofuel and timber investors.http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2013/land-grabbing
-▶ STOP FEEDING THE BEAST AND START FEEDING THE PEOPLE. We have a system of predatory agriculture in which corporations pursue private gain relentlessly regardless of the social consequences. Social consequences can be defined as anything from polluting our water, land and air to impacting the health of our families to making the business of farming economically unsustainable.http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/22/stop-feeding-beast-start-feeding-people/
Food and Environment Reporting Network, April 02, 2014 -▶ PLOWED UNDER. Across the Western Plains, native grassland is being turned into farmland at a rate not seen since the 1920s. The environmental consequences could be disastrous. - See more athttp://thefern.org/2014/04/plowed-under/
Action Aid Report, May 23, 2014 ▶ GLOBAL POLICIES ENCOURAGE LAND GRABBING AND WORSEN HUNGER AND POVERTY.“Allowing land to become vehicles for wealthy corporations and individuals to become richer while pushing vulnerable rural people into poverty and hunger is unjust, unwise and unethical,” it said in the report. http://www.trust.org/item/20140523061928-bn12w/
-▶ MASSIVE LAND GRABBING BY MULTINATIONAL FIRMS PREVALENT IN UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES AND WILL GET WORSE WITH TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP
At present, some 1.5 million hectares of land are primed for lease to foreign countries, and the Philippine government is set to open more agricultural lands to monopoly corporations of the United States, European Union, South Korea and Australia. Lawmakers in the Philippines are pushing for amendments to the 1987 Constitution to allow 100 percent foreign ownership of land. This is reportedly a condition set on the Philippine government before being accepted to the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), a trade pact being organized by the US government. - See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22386#sthash.xl4kiTPB.dpuf
▶ FOOD, SLAVE LABOR AND THE WALMARTIZATION OF AGRICULTURE AND AMERICAhttp://sco.lt/8oSVBx
=========================
-▶ OUR INDUSTRIAL, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL FOOD SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/63qRl3
Guardian Global Development, February 18, 2014 ▶ THE G8 AND THE CORPORATE TAKE OVER OF AFRICAN FARMING.As part of the New Alliance, 10 African governments have signed up to change dozens of laws, policies and regulations to make their countries more attractive to the private sector. Collectively, they have made more than 200 commitments, including the overhaul of seed and tax laws and the setting aside of hundreds of thousands of hectares of land for commercial investors. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/interactive/2014/feb/18/g8-fight-future-african-farming-interactive
-▶ AFRICA G8 - FOOD SECURITY FOR WHOM? CORPORATE PROFITS vs SMALL HOLDER FARMERS INTERESThttp://sco.lt/8JKbIn
▶ THE NEW CORPORATE COLONIALISM. DESTRUCTION OF PLANETARY LIFE IN THE NAME OF "GROWTH"http://sco.lt/696Tlx
-▶ WIKILEAKS: USA GOVERNMENT PUSHES MONSANTO, GMO CROPS GLOBALLY: STARTS 'TRADE WARS' WITH NATIONS OPPOSEDhttp://sco.lt/6PzO9x
The Guardian, March 12, 2014 -▶ THE TRUTH ABOUT LOBBYING: 10 WAYS BUSINESS CONTROLS GOVERNMENTS.Whether facing down a threat to profits from a corporate tax hike, or pushing for market opportunities – such as government privatisations – lobbying has become another way of making money. Here are the 10 key steps that lobbying businesses will follow to bend government to their will.http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/12/lobbying-10-ways-corprations-influence-government
-▶ HOW MEGA BANKS DROVE A MACK TRUCK THRU A LOOPHOLE TO DOMINATE AND CONTROL GLOBAL POLITICS, INDUSTRY AND SOCIETYhttp://sco.lt/4iZ2ED
▶ CONTEMPORARY CORPORATE AGRICULTURE IS BURNING UP OUR PLANEThttp://sco.lt/6xupV3
▶ ARE YOU EATING CLONED PIG? CHINA ENTERS USA FOOD MARKET UNLABELED, UNREGULATEDhttp://sco.lt/9IkFmr
VIDEO:
FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEMS, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHTS, CREATING DEPENDENCY ON A GLOBAL SCALEhttp://sco.lt/4l725B
-- A MUST WATCH ON GROWING CORPORATE ECOCIDE -- VIDEO REPORT September 15, 2013 The Real News -▶ PHILIPPINE ACTIVISTS FIGHT BACK AGAINST CORPORATE AND MILITARY FORCES DESTROYING THEIR LAND, FORESTS AND LIVELIHOODS:Corporate agri-businesses like U.S.-based Dole, Del Monte, Monsanto, along with international and Philippine mines, are polluting waterways and destroying the surrounding farms. Chinese, European, Canadian, and Filipino mines are stripping away the mountains to get at what some estimate to be the largest iron deposit in the world. There also some of the most significant gold, nickel, and copper reserves in Asia.http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10725
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE?
NEW SECRETIVE GLOBAL TRADE PACTS WILL IMPACT US ALL AS SOVEREIGN RIGHTS NEGOTIATED AWAYhttp://sco.lt/6P14JF
THE BIGGER PICTURE
"Monsanto Protection Act" the Trans Pacific Partnership and Corporate Governancehttp://sco.lt/8XeEyX
Behind closed doors, animals are suffering on factory farms
Shocking undercover footage taken at a JBS supplier reveals sickening animal cruelty, including pigs punched and kicked in the face; mother pigs confined to cages so small they are unable to even turn around; and piglets painfully mutilated, suffering from untreated injuries and illness, and killed by having their heads smashed against the ground.
- ▶ FARM-AGEDDON: TODAY'S MEGA FARMS DESTROYING ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN HEALTHToday, ‘mixed’ farming of animals and crops has all but disappeared, writes PHILIP LYMBERY, and has been replaced by farms specialising in one product only....
Because without fuss or fanfare, and largely unnoticed by the public, our farm animals are being disconnected from the land, disappearing from fields and moved into cramped, airless hangars and barns, with concrete beneath their feet instead of grass.
And now the pressure is growing to move to the next stage of intensive farming: mega-piggeries, mega-dairies and ‘battery’-reared beef, with the genetically engineered animals and crops already common in the United States and elsewhere.
- ▶ Thousands of pigs drown in their imprisoned confined quarters. When natural disasters like #flooding hit, animals are often victims, classified only as minor economic losses by the Meat Industry.
There are over 100 billion farmed animals alive at this moment—more than ten times the number of humans. Many years from now, our descendants will look back on the use of animals for food—particularly the intense animal suffering in factory farms—as a moral atrocity
#Fact: VIDEO The pork industry kills piglets who aren’t growing fast enough by slamming them head first onto concrete floors. pic.twitter.com/KpZJ9TQpm8
- ▶ FEED LOTS:
THIS IS HOW YOUR BEEF IS RAISED: #CAFO Lots: Are We Allowed to See How Our Food Is Raised? A Husband and Wife Goes Out to Investigate: VIDEO 15:40 https://youtu.be/sFDpsUDE27A
CivilEats, October 01, 2018
- ▶ WHY ARE SOWS IN FACTORY FARMS DYING IN SURPRISING NUMBERS?
Today's sows are being bred to produce more babies faster. They're also dying early and unexpectedly in many large-scale farming operations.
In a closed farrowing system, the average sow produces around 23.5 piglets per year—or 10 per litter at an industry target rate of 2.35 litters annually. Across the country, some 33.2 million pigs enter the system per year. If the sows die before the piglets are weaned, the loss can also impact their health and rate of survival. After 2-4 litters, however, most sows tend to get replaced by younger gilts who can produce piglets at a higher rate. When this happens, the sows being replaced are typically culled and sold to sausage companies like Jimmy Dean.
- ▶ IOWANS UNITE TO STOP HOG FARMS FROM POLLUTING THEIR COMMUNITY
Families in the Hawkeye State are joining together to stop the spread of large-scale farms that they say are polluting the environment and destroying their way of life.
Between 1982 and 2012, the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture census, total hog production in Iowa rose from 14.3 million a year to 20.5 million. During the same time period, the number of farmers producing hogs dropped from 45,768 to 6,266.
In Howard County, 427 hog farms existed in 1982 and just 54 in 2012, according to census data. Those 54 farmers are producing 197,113 hogs a year, or about 3,650 hogs a farmer
- ▶SHOCKING: Thousands of chicks tossed in the trash. Fully conscious. This is how the Egg Industry treats *millions* of male chicks every year pic.twitter.com/ZBnPvNjddD
One Green Planet
- ▶ 10 ALARMING FACTS ABOUT FACTORY FARMS
A deeper look into the lives of factory farmed animals reveals that we have created a huge prison system for animals where they are no longer considered sentient beings, capable of feelings, thoughts, and pain, but instead are treated as products on an assembly line from the moment they are born to the moment they are murdered
Grist, January 27, 2014 -▶ U.N, WARNS US TO EAT LESS MEAT AND LAY OFF BIOFUELS, OR WE'RE IN FOR IT.We’re over consuming ourselves into environmental oblivion. Farming will eliminate forests, plains, and other wild areas nearly the size of Brazil by 2050 around the world if we can’t mend our agricultural, dietary, and biofuel-burning ways. This unsustainable drive for more growing land will result in rising hunger and more frequent riots as food prices increase.http://grist.org/news/un-warns-us-to-eat-less-meat-and-lay-off-biofuels-or-were-in-for-it/
65 BILLION ANIMALS WORLDWIDE CRAMMED INTO CAFOs (Confined Animal Feed Lots including cows, chickens and pigs, These animals are literally imprisoned and tortured in unhealthy, unsanitary and unconscionably cruel conditions. Sickness is the norm for animals who are confined rather than pastured, and who eat GMO corn and soybeans, rather than grass and forage as nature intended. To prevent the inevitable spread of disease from stress, overcrowding and lack of vitamin D, animals are fed a steady diet of antibiotics. Those antibiotics pose a direct threat to the environment when they run off into our lakes, rivers, aquifers and drinking water.
The vast majority of consumers don’t realize that nearly 95% of the meat, dairy and eggs sold in the U.S. come from CAFOs. Nor do most people realize that CAFOs represent a corporate-controlled system characterized by large-scale, centralized, low profit-margin production, processing and distribution systems....http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/17-5
-▶ POOR COWS: HARVESTING METHANE BY PUNCHING HOLES IN COWS STOMACHS: Argentinian scientists are punching holes in the sides of cattle and passing pipes through to their stomachs. The other end of the pipe goes into a bag fitted on the cow’s back. The captured gas, can be burned to produce energy.http://grist.org/news/we-can-harvest-methane-from-cow-guts-should-we/
- ▶ PATENT FOR A PIG -- BIOTECH SCIENTISTS RACING TO RE-ENGINEER OUR FARM ANIMALS: ANIMALS LIKE ON AN INANIMATE AUTO PRODUCTION LINEhttp://sco.lt/7g1H3R
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT WATCH 53:41) Frontline PBS, October 14, 2014 THE TROUBLE WITH ANTIBIOTICS REDUCING GROWTH HORMONES USE IN FOOD ANIMALS Up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used in food animals. For years, farmers and ranchers have used antibiotics to help food animals grow faster on less feed. This practice, known as “growth promotion,”http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/trouble-with-antibiotics/
-▶ FOUR-FIFTHS OF BIG PHARMA ANTIBIOTICS CONSUMED BY MEAT AND POULTRY INDUSTRY (What Are You Eating?)http://sco.lt/5u5Gyn
CORPORATE MONOPOLY OF OUR FOOD SUPPLY
TakePart, July 10, 2014 -▶ THE LEGAL FIGHT OVER WRITING CORPORATE INDUSTRIAL FARMING INTO THE CONSTITUTIONState constitutional amendments and other legal measures would protect industrial agriculture. When state legislators met to hash out new laws in the spring of 2013, farm protection or ag-gag bills were voted on across the Midwest and in agricultural states in the South and Southwest. The laws were designed to criminalize the work of animal rights activists and whistle-blowers who secretly recorded abuse or other unlawful activity in confined animal feeding operations or other farms...http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/10/right-farm-laws
Grist, June 10, 2014 - ▶ MONOPOLIES: A MEAT GIANT GOBBLES UP ANOTHER MEAT GIANT: GRAPHSThere are problems with this kind of consolidation...“When all the power is so centralized in these behemoths, they end up writing their own rules in Congress and fighting the reforms to protect consumers and farmers”...
When the Obama administration sought to reform the animal farming industry, many farmers, some visibly frightened, risked their livelihoods by speaking publicly about abuses. But industry squelched that attempt.
Now, the industry lobbyists are working to reduce the number of inspectors in slaughterhouses, while speeding up the kill and processing lines. "But the chickens already move down the disassembly lines “obscenely fast, in my opinion,”http://grist.org/food/a-meat-giant-gobbles-up-another-meat-giant/
The Ecologist, June 2, 2014 -▶ THE BIG TEN FOOD COMPANIES MUST JOIN THE CLIMATE FIGHT. In the fight for zero hunger in a safer climate, the silence of the food and beverage industry is not a virtue. They must cut their huge carbon emissions, campaign to protect global climate, and rethink their entire mission to encompass health and wellbeing.http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2445685
Yale Environment 260, May 27, 2014 ▶ AS CORPORATE DAIRY FARMS GROW BIGGER, NEW CONCERN ABOUT POLLUTION. Dairy operations in the U.S. are consolidating, with ever-larger numbers of cows concentrated on single farms. In states like Wisconsin, opposition to some large operations is growing after manure spills and improper handling of waste have contaminated waterways and aquifers.http://e360.yale.edu/feature/as_dairy_farms_grow_bigger_new_concerns_about_pollution/2768/
WATCH:
"A RIVER OF WASTE"
The Massive Pollution and History of Factory Farms - CAFOs (Confined Animal Feed Lots) http://sco.lt/6PQUk5
- ▶ WHAT EVERY PARENT SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BLIND, FOOTLESS CHICKENS, EGGS, FACTORY FARMS AND THE AG-GAG BILLhttp://sco.lt/71PvtJ
-▶ ANIMALS RAISED IN CORPORATE CONCENTRATION PENS - DRUGS, GMO FEED AND 'AG-GAG' LAWS TO IMPACT BEYOND THE USA http://sco.lt/6jKf2H
WATCH "DEATH ON A FACTORY FARM [HBO] (2009) 1:27:25
Directors Tom Simon and Sarah Teale (HBOs Dealing Dogs) tell the story of an animal rights investigator who goes undercover at hog farm in Ohio to explore a whistle blowers allegations. The evidence he gathers leads to a rare prosecution and trial for animal cruelty, and a verdict that surprises nearly everyone.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfiolWwzD94
Yale Environment 360, March 13, 2014 -▶ IN THE PASTURES OF COLUMBIA, COWS, CROPS AND TIMBER COEXIST.As an ambitious program in Colombia demonstrates, combining grazing and agriculture with tree cultivation can coax more food from each acre, boost farmers’ incomes, restore degraded landscapes, and make farmland more resilient to climate change.http://e360.yale.edu/feature/in_the_pastures_of_colombia_cows_crops_and_timber_coexist/2746/
-▶ WALL STREET BANKS EYE AMERICAN FARMLAND, THREATEN FUTURE OF U.S. AND WORLD AGRICULTUREhttp://sco.lt/4nG6Ur
-▶ BIG CORPORATE AGRICULTURE CAUSES 80% OF TROPICAL DEFORESTATION - THE TERRIBLE PRICE WE PAYhttp://sco.lt/8DCl1d
- ▶ HOW BIOTECH CORPORATIONS AND GMO CROPS ARE THREATENING THE ENVIRONMENT AND HUMANKIND ALIKEhttp://sco.lt/7OmezB
-▶ CORPORATE HIJACKING OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE: GENETIC ENGINEERING AND THE GMO INDUSTRYhttp://sco.lt/73IdQ9
-▶ OUR INDUSTRIAL, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL FOOD SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/63qRl3
-▶ STOP FEEDING THE BEAST AND START FEEDING THE PEOPLE. We have a system of predatory agriculture in which corporations pursue private gain relentlessly regardless of the social consequences. Social consequences can be defined as anything from polluting our water, land and air to impacting the health of our families to making the business of farming economically unsustainable.http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/22/stop-feeding-beast-start-feeding-people/
▶ FIVE HOLISTIC ALTERNATIVE FARMING METHODS: AGROECOLOGY AT ITS BESThttp://sco.lt/4i3lqr
WATCH DOCUMENTARY (88 min) "SEEDS OF PERMACULTURE" - ECOLOGICAL FARMING People are becoming less and less self-sufficient around the world, these local communities that were previously growing everything themselves and knew how to build their own houses out of natural materials are completely dependent on big foreign powers and import from other countries. ...http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/seeds-permaculture/
Guardian Environment, February 03, 2014 -▶ INDIGENOUS DIETS CAN FIGHT MODERN ILLNESSES, SAY HEALTH EXPERTS Unprecedented levels of chronic non-communicable diseases are prompting calls to revert to the diets of our ancestors to regain lost nutrients. It is believed that such a shift would help to improve society's relationship with the Earth and restore human and environmental health. "The rise of the industrial model of agriculture has contributed greatly to people being disconnected from the food on their plates," says Sarah Somian, a France-based nutritionist.http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/feb/03/indigenous-diets-fight-modern-illnesses
WATCH
Short Video
"FARMED AND DANGEROUS"
Chipotle's online show about the terrors of industrial farming Is
▶ DECLINE IN BIODIVERSITY OF FARMED PLANTS AND ANIMALS GATHERING PACEhttp://sco.lt/7o99MH
EurActiv, January 24, 2014 ▶ MORE CONSUMPTION NOT NECESSARY FOR HUMAN WELL-BEING, SAYS UN REPORT. Greater food system efficiency and curbs to the expansion of cropland are necessary to prevent the collapse of global ecosystems, says a report presented today (24 January) by the UN at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.http://www.euractiv.com/sustainability/greater-consumption-necessary-hu-news-532991
-▶ FARM TO FORK: THE STORY OF OUR TOXIC FOOD SYSTEM - INFOGRAPHhttp://sco.lt/8xKt7J
- ▶ IS MEAT FROM CLONED ANIMALS DANGEROUS?The EU is at sixes and sevens - the European Commission (pro corporate) is in favor of allowing the consumption of meat from cloned animals, the European Parliament has voted for a ban. What exactly is clone-meat? Here are the facts.
BBC News, January 13, 2014 - ▶ CHINA CLONING PIGS ON AN 'INDUSTRIAL SCALE - CLONE UPON CLONE UPON CLONE -The scale of ambition is staggering. BGI is not only the world's largest centre for cloning pigs - it's also the world's largest centre for gene sequencing. In neighbouring buildings, there are rows of gene sequencers - machines the size of fridges operating 24 hours a day crunching through the codes for life.
To illustrate the scale of this operation, Europe's largest gene sequencing centre is the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge. It has 30 machines. BGI has 156 and has even bought an American company that makes them. BGI's chief executive, Wang Jun, tells me how they need the technology to develop ever FASTER, CHEAPER ways of reading genes.
- ▶ ARE YOU EATING CLONED MEAT? FDA APPROVES CLONED MEAT -- WITHOUT LABELING, REGULATION OR OVERSIGHTThe FDA stated in 2008 that the food from cloned cattle, swine and goats was safe and it would not require labelinghttp://techcomm.wikidot.com/are-you-eating-cloned-meat
Rather Than Find An Alternative to Extreme Factory Farming, The Biotech Industry is altering our animals to keep "more of the same" mega-profit factory farming going, with little regulation, oversight, or labeling for consumers: Repeated Cloning can create deformities and sickness from inbreeding.
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, February 18, 2014 -▶ BRACING FOR IMPACTS AS CHINA ENTERS INDUSTRIAL MEAT COMPLEX. IATP is excited to announce the release of a series of new reports looking in-depth at China’s feed, pork, poultry and dairy sectors, the past and future trajectory of the industry, and global impacts of China’s efforts to balance grain self-sufficiency and the desire to provide cheap meat.
------ UNLEASHING GENETICALLY SALMON ONTO YOUR DINNER PLATE = NO REGULATIONS, NO OVERSIGHT - "FATALLY FLAWED" FDA ASSESSMENT http://sco.lt/8ZDraz
----- GROWING PHARMACEUTICALS IN GMO PLANT REQUIRES NEW, STRICT REGULATIONS AND OVERSIGHT - PATENT MONOPOLIES http://sco.lt/7KM4qv
------ BIO RE-ENGINEERING NATURE: PEACH GENOME AND POPLARS, WILLOW TREES FOR BIOFUELS (AND PATENTING) http://sco.lt/8WvNKb
------ GMO PATENTS MAY OWN OUR FORESTS: MONSANTO GMO TREES COULD DEVASTATE FOREST ECOYSTEMS http://sco.lt/5G9P0L
▶ “FATALLY FLAWED" FDA ASSESSMENT TO UNLEASH GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SALMON ONTO YOUR DINNER PLATE, NO REGULATIONS, NO OVERSIGHT, NO LABELINGhttp://sco.lt/8ZDraz
National Business Report, April 21, 2015 ▶ POTREPRENEURS : CASHING IN ON WEED: POTBOTICS Meshing science, tech, weed and robotics. 2014 alone, marijuana brought in about $2.7 billion to states that have legalized it, whether medicinally, recreationally or both. The projection for 2015 is $3.5 billion, according to Arcview Group, a cannabis investment fund that tracks industry numbers.http://nbr.com/2015/04/21/marijuana-start-ups-industry-grows-new-entrepreneurs/
▶ MARIJUANA REAL ESTATE: Turning A High Profit ▶ CRAFT BREWERY OF CANNABIS - Who Tests and Extracts Marijuana? ▶ FROM ROBOTICS TO REAL ESTATE -The Big Bucks Behind Bud ▶ FROM KALE TO CANNABIS: The Future of Marijuana Farming http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000373113
VIDEO REPORT CNBC, April 20, 2015 AMERICA'S FIRST CANNABIS-ONLY ACCOUNTING FIRM
Who do the new moguls of marijuana turn to for financial help?
TakePart, March 12, 2015 - ▶ POT PESTICIDES ARE HARSHING YOUR BUZZ. As more jurisdictions are legalizing marijuana, a new report says regulations on chemicals used to grow it don’t protect health. http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/03/14/marijuana-pesticides
Times-Standard Online, November 30, 2013 ▶ PESTICIDE-LADEN POT: THE DANGERS OF LURKING CONTAMINANTS AND PESTICIDES WITH COMPROMISED IMMUNE SYSTEMS. Humboldt State University, Jeffrey Raber said a recent study he conducted found that up to 70 percent of the pesticides found on a marijuana bud can transfer to the smoke being inhaled.."It's much like injecting it directly into your blood stream.”...
...especially in the medical patient context,” Raber said. “These are people that are immuno compromised, they're undergoing chemotherapy, they're very sick with antibacterial loads. We can't be subjecting them to more of these types of potentially harmful contaminants when they're looking to this as a medicine source.” http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_24628828/what-are-you-smoking-study-finds-pesticides-transfer
WATCH CANNABIS INC.
ABC Australia presents
A short documentary concerning the advancements of legalized marijuana in America with a focus on corporate interests in the burgeoning mainstream pot industry http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/cannabis-inc/
Los Angeles Times, December 16. 2014 - ▶ US CONGRESS QUIETLY ENDS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S BAN ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA.Tucked deep inside the 1,603-page federal spending measure is a provision that effectively ends the federal government's prohibition on medical marijuana and signals a major shift in drug policy.http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-medical-pot-20141216-story.html
VIDEO REPORT Newshour PBS, April 09, 2014 IS POT GETTING MORE POTENT? THE TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF MARIJUANA.The average potency of pot has more than tripled in the past two decades, according to testing done for the federal government. The two main species of the Cannabis plant, Cannabis indica and Cannibas sativa, produce different kinds of highs.Indica is described as having a calming, relaxing, and narcotic effect, while sativa is said to have a more uplifting, stimulating, or “cerebral” effect.http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/pot-getting-potent/
The Olathe News, March 26, 2014 ▶ GROWERS OF THIRSTY POT ARE UNDER FIRE IN DROUGHT-STRUCK CALIFORNIA, In drought-hit California, marijuana growers are feeling the heat, accused of using too much water for their thirsty plants and of polluting streams and rivers with their pesticides and fertilizers threatening salmon and other fishhttp://www.theolathenews.com/2014/03/26/2407803/growers-of-thirsty-pot-are-under.html
▶ US GOVERNMENT FUNDING BILL STRIPS FEDERAL COURTS OF THEIR POWER TO RULE OVER BIOTECH INDUSTRY AND GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD AND ANIMALShttp://sco.lt/6kO2Xh
Wonder Why Marijuana Laws Are Passing So Quickly Across the USA and the World. It's Not For Your Health. And It's Not About the Drug Wars. It's about the repeat of ending "prohibition" and restructuring wealth. Big politics and "Legal" Money is involved here to capture, control and profit from this new market. The Cartels and Multi-National Corporations Have Control of a global agricultural Industry, already in place: from owning the land, to growing the crops, patenting new genetically engineered seeds, owning the pesticides and marketing systems
This article speaks about how Colorado, particularly Denver, believes that there will be a marijuana shortage now that marijuana has been legalized. This article goes into depth about how there will be a shortage in the short run, but eventually the supply and demand should come to an equilibrium.
It was a big year for Big Food. More fast food chains pledged to stop using gestation crates. Country of origin rules -- mandating that meat suppliers label where the animal was born, raised and slaughtered -- took effect. A major food corporation and a fast food chain announced they would stop using artificial dye in some of their products.
▶ ANIMALS RAISED IN CORPORATE CONCENTRATION PENS: DRUGS, GMO FEED AND 'AG-GAG' LAW TO IMPACT BEYOND USA http://sco.lt/6jKf2H
WATCH; "DEATH ON A FACTORY FARM [HBO] (2009) 1:27:25
Directors Tom Simon and Sarah Teale (HBOs Dealing Dogs) tell the story of an animal rights investigator who goes undercover at hog farm in Ohio to explore a whistle blowers allegations. The evidence he gathers leads to a rare prosecution and trial for animal cruelty, and a verdict that surprises nearly everyone.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfiolWwzD94
VIDEO The Humane Society of the United States, February 20, 2014 UNDERCOVER AT IRON MAIDEN: IS YOUR SAUSAGE WORTH THIS? http://video.humanesociety.org/
Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2014 - ▶ GENERAL MILLS STARTS MAKING CHEERIOS WITHOUT GMOs General Mills Inc. GIS -0.28% has started producing Cheerios free of genetically modified content, making the 73-year-old breakfast cereal one of the highest-profile brands to change in the face of growing complaints over such ingredients from activist groups and some consumers.... http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303370904579297211874270146
▶ The Washington Monthly, January/February 2014 BIG BEEF IS TAXED FOR PRIVATE LOBBYISTS
When you buy a Big Mac or a T-bone, a portion of the cost is a tax on beef, the proceeds from which the government hands over to a private trade group called the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The NCBA in turn uses this public money to buy ads encouraging you to eat more beef, while also lobbying to derail animal rights and other agricultural reform activists, defeat meat labeling requirements, and defend the ongoing consolidation of the industry... http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2014/features/big_beef048356.php
▶ UNDER SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY LIFE AND FOOD WILL NOT BE A PRODUCT OF NATURE BUT OF A LAB AND IT WILL BE PATTENTED http://sco.lt/7pchOL
allAfrica, January 07, 2014 ▶ OUR MODERN, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTH.
Today our food comes from across the world. More importantly, it is often produced in highly destructive ways, at the lowest possible cost.
Consequently our food production system is responsible for accelerating the rate of destruction of the very ecosystems we are reliant upon in order to maintain our delicate global environmental equilibrium.
We cut and clear the lungs of the world, our tropical rainforests, to feed livestock or grow dishonestly named "biofuels". We bulldoze natural filtration systems and the nurseries for life like wetlands and mangrove swamps to produce luxury foods for obese populations. http://allafrica.com/stories/201401071158.html?viewall=1
VIDEO INVESTIGATION Frontline, June 25, 2014 "RAPE IN THE FIELDS" For the women who pick and process the food we eat every day, getting sexually assaulted, and even raped, is sometimes part of the job. Frontline and Univision partner to tell the story of the hidden price many migrant women working in America's fields and packing plants pay to stay employed and provide for their families. This investigation is the result of a yearlong reporting effort by veteran correspondent Lowell Bergman, the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and the Center for Investigative Reporting....http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/rape-in-the-fields/
If we don’t watch out, agriculture could destroy our planet. Here’s how to grow all the food we need with fewer chemicals.
N. Nitrogen. Atomic number seven. Unnoticed, untasted, it nevertheless fills our stomachs. It is the engine of agriculture, the key to plenty in our crowded, hungry world.
Enter modern chemistry. Giant factories capture inert nitrogen gas from the vast stores in our atmosphere and force it into a chemical union with the hydrogen in natural gas, creating the reactive compounds that plants crave. That nitrogen fertilizer—more than a hundred million tons applied worldwide every year—fuels bountiful harvests.
Yet this modern miracle exacts a price. Runaway nitrogen is suffocating wildlife in lakes and estuaries, contaminating groundwater, and even warming the globe’s climate. As a hungry world looks ahead to billions more mouths needing nitrogen-rich protein, how much clean water and air will survive our demand for fertile fields?...http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/fertilized-world/charles-text
INDEPTH REPORT
GRAIN, September 16, 2014 AFRICA'S AG GIANTS "GREEN" REVOLUTION THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AFRICA' BURGEONING CHEMICAL FERTILISER RUSH
Earth Policy Institute, January 08, 2014 ▶ MANY COUNTRIES REACHING DIMINISHING RETURNS IN INDUSTRIAL FERTILIZER USE. Despite this U.S. advantage in fertilizer use efficiency over China, over-application poses serious pollution problems in both countries. Fertilizer runoff from the U.S. Corn Belt, for example, contributes heavily to an annual oxygen-starved “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico—an area where sea life cannot exist, which in some years grows to the size of New Jersey.http://www.earthpolicy.org/data_highlights/2014/highlights43
▶ OUR INDUSTRIAL, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL FOOD SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/63qRl3
-▶ MORE THAN HALF OF U.S. RIVERS ARE TOO POLLUTED TO SUPPORT LIFE http://sco.lt/5Gpafx
Grist, January 4, 2014 ▶ POULTRY MATTERS: WHAT DO DO WITH ALL THE CHICKEN SHIT? Report from the Pew Charitable Trusts on the chicken industry. Nitrogen and phosphorous runoff from agricultural activity is a major source of water pollution in many parts of the country. In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, half of the phosphorous and 40 percent of the excess nitrogen result from agricultural runoff, leading to algae blooms and destructive conditions for the bay’s legendary fish, oysters, and crabs...http://grist.org/food/poultry-matter-what-to-do-with-all-that-chicken-shit/
Emmy Award Winning 1 hr Film - University of Minnesota
▶ "TROUBLED WATERS: A MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORY" ▶ This excellent one hour documentary examines the "unintended consequences" of farming practices on water quality, soil loss and the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Knitting together federal energy, farm and environmental policies, the film makes a compelling case for the revamping of US agricultural policy. Through beautiful photography and inspiring narrative, the film puts deliberate emphasis on solutions and provides a hopeful blueprint for progress and positive change...http://www.rememberthispoint.com/?p=212
ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORT: GazetteNet, November 5, 2013
-▶ BIO-ETHANOL FUEL: THE SECRET DIRTY COST OF OBAMA'S GREEN POWER PUSH.Five million acres of land set aside for conservation — more than Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks combined — have vanished on Obama’s watch. Landowners filled in wetlands. They plowed into pristine prairies, releasing carbon dioxide that had been locked in the soil. Sprayers pumped out billions of pounds of fertilizer, some of which seeped into drinking water, contaminated rivers and worsened the huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where marine life can’t survive. ... 15 million more acres of corn were planted last year than before the ethanol boomhttp://www.gazettenet.com/home/9190243-95/the-secret-dirty-cost-of-obamas-green-power-push
▶ FOOD OR FUEL? RESEARCH SUGGESTS BIOFUEL WILL COST THE EARTHhttp://sco.lt/8ezJ2X
▶ HUMAN ACTIVITY IS LINKED TO MASS DOLPHIN DEATHS. "The immune systems of many marine mammals, especially coastal species like bottlenose dolphins, can be negatively affected by factors such as agricultural runoff, persistent organic pollutants (e.g., PCBs, DDT) and other contaminants,"http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/359799
The econimic contrast between Africa, the United States, and China is staggering. From using by far excessive amounts of fertilizer in China, measured in hundreds of pounds per acre, to Africa, where the amount used is measured in handfuls. Overuse of fertilizer is an issue that definitely needs to be addressed. Algal blooms flowing down rivers have the potential to cripple the economies of sea-driven towns.
▶ WHAT'S AN ORGANIC LABEL REALLY WORTH: Supermarkets in North America and Europe are overflowing with organic-labelled fruit, vegetables, eggs and meats. More than 80 countries have organic standards and products carry one or more of 200 seals, logos and certification claims. But are consumers able to make informed choices? What’s the real ethical impact of “buying organic”? The answers are murkier than you might think....http://www.ethicalcorp.com/supply-chains/organic-food-%E2%80%93-what-%E2%80%98organic%E2%80%99-label-really-worth
▶ CORPORATE CLOUT CHIPS AWAY AT USDA ORGANIC STANDARDS.Without any input from the public, the USDA changed the way the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) decides which non-organic materials are allowed in certified organic. The change all but guarantees that when the NOSB meets every six months, the list of non-organic and synthetic materials allowed in organic will get longer and longer. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_29653.cfm
Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, July 11, 2014 -▶ NUTRITIONAL QUALITY AND SAFETY OF ORGANIC AND NON-ORGANIC FOODdifferences in nutritional quality and safety between organically and non-organically grown cropshttp://csanr.wsu.edu/significant-benefits-organic-plant-based-foods/
Guardian Sustainable Business, October 20, 2014 ▶ INVESTING IN SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE BY CONVERTING FARMS TO "BEYOND ORGANIC'.How do you profitably invest in sustainable agriculture - farms producing diverse, fairly-priced healthy food without harming the environment, but which also restore soil fertility and provide farmers with a fair living?http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/oct/20/investing-sustainable-agriculture-farms-beyond-organic
Technologywater,December 14, 2013 ▶ UN REPORT SAYS SMALL-SCALE ORGANIC FARMING ONLY WAY TO FEED THE WORLD.Even as the United States government continues to push for the use of more chemically-intensive and corporate-dominated farming methods such as GMOs and monoculture-based crops, the United Nations is once against sounding the alarm about the urgent need to return to (and develop) a more sustainable, natural and organic system.
Cornucopia Institute, June 19, 2014 ▶ DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE NAME :"THE ORGANIC TRADE ASSOCIATION" (OTA) IS A BIG INDUSTRY LOBBY GROUP MISREPRESENTING ORGANIC FARMERS....the USDA will not allow any promotional or information program, project, or activity that can be viewed as disparaging to conventionally produced products...
Big Ag and their USDA cohorts have attempted to stack The National Organic Standards Board with their ilk, wresting power from true organic proponents, but four seats are now open. If you or someone you know would like to help take back organics, nominations are due May 15, 2014
An outrageous power grab to destroy organics must be stopped! Right now one of the biggest assaults on the integrity of organic foods is taking place at the USDA that has ever been conceived, with high-level political appointees working behind the scenes with giant industrial corporations that sell organic product lines to gut 20 years of precedent in the congressionally-mandated National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).
At stake here is the neutering of an independent NOSB decision making process and the deliberate destruction of organic integrity by allowing synthetic ingredients to be permanently allowed in organic foods due to pressure from giant corporate organic interests.http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/take_stand_for_organic_integrity/
Cornucopia Institute, December 11, 2014 ▶ INVESTIGATION: INDUSTRIAL FACTORY FARMS PRODUCING MASSIVE QUANTITIES OF "ORGANIC" MILK AND EGGS. In what has been called one of the largest fraud investigations in the history of the organic industry, The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group, announced filing formal legal complaints against 14 industrial livestock operations producing milk, meat and eggs being marketed, allegedly illegally, as organic. http://www.cornucopia.org/2014/12/investigation-factory-farms-producing-massive-quantities-organic-milk-eggs/
Common Dream, February 27, 2014 ▶ ORGANIC AGRICULTURE: THE WAY FORWARD IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE.Cling to a food system that contributes to climate change and jeopardizes food security, or adopt a regenerative system that strengthens food security and helps mitigate the climate crisis—"The choice is ours to make," a new report states.http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/27-6
Common Dream, February 27, 2014 - ▶ ORGANIC AGRICULTURE: THE WAY FORWARD IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE. Cling to a food system that contributes to climate change and jeopardizes food security, or adopt a regenerative system that strengthens food security and helps mitigate the climate crisis—"The choice is ours to make," a new report states.http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/27-6
▶ OUR INDUSTRIAL, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL FOOD SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTH http://sco.lt/63qRl3
▶ CORPORATE HIJACKING OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE: GENETIC ENGINEERING AND THE GLOBAL GMO INDUSTRYhttp://sco.lt/73IdQ9
Pambazuka, July 24. 2014 -▶ GMOs AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: WHICH WAY AFRICA? African governments are under intense pressure from within but also from big agribusiness and Western governments to embrace GMOs. Governments must resist all forms of arm-twisting and food colonialism and make their biotechnology choices based on the factshttp://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92594
The Ecologist, July 02, 2014 -▶ NEONICOTINOIDS ARE POISONING NOT JUST HUMANS AND BEES BUT ENTIRE FARMLAND ECOSYSTEMSThe world's most widely used insecticides have contaminated the environment across the planet so pervasively that global food production is at risk, according to a comprehensive scientific assessment of the chemicals' impacts.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2459001/neonicotoids_are_poisoning_entire_farmland_ecosystems.html
▶ THE CHILD VICTIMS OF AGRICULTURAL PESTICIDE POISONING - PESTICIDE INDUSTRY DISMISSIVEhttp://sco.lt/8KO8GH
Motley Fool, March 05, 2014 -▶ GMOs AND ECOCIDE: RENOWNED EXPERT SAYS GMOs POSE MORE RISK THAN WE THINK. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have the ability to cause "an irreversible termination of life at some scale, which could be the planet." says Nassim Taleb, distinguished professor of risk engineering at New York Universityhttp://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/05/renowned-expert-gmos-pose-more-risk-than-we-think.aspx
After reading this article and having worked at a organic farmers market, i do not believe everything labeled as "organic" can all be 100 percent accurate. Although many are certified or classified as being organic i do not believe what the organic companies are trying to sell us. Makes me as an individual believe what is going on in the world, where you cannot trust what is being put down your mouth. Obviously a person has to eat but what exactly are they eating is the proper question. Certainty an eyebrow raising situation i believe everything is a scam. People will pay for something that is labeled as "organic" which only profits the business and is all about money, rather then be as a positive interest to an individual.
- ▶ THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF CHILDHOOD - FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE"Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children’s marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.
VIDEO REPORT PBS Newshour, February 26, 2014 MARKETING UNHEALTHY FOOD IN SCHOOLS U.S. Administration Unveils New Rules That Ban Marketing of Unhealthy Food in Schools to eliminate trans fats and limit the size of sodas and other sugary drinks.http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/younger-children-reducing-obesity-rates/
New York Times, February 25, 2014 -▶ RETHINKING OUR 'RIGHTS' TO DANGEROUS BEHAVIOURS. In the last few years, it’s become increasingly clear that food companies engineer hyperprocessed foods in ways precisely geared to most appeal to our tastes. This technologically advanced engineering is done, of course, with the goal of maximizing profits, regardless of the effects of the resulting foods on consumer health, natural resources, the environment or anything else. But the issues go way beyond food, as the City University of New York professor Nicholas Freudenberg discusses in his new book, “Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health.” Freudenberg’s case is that the food industry is but one example of the threat to public health posed by what he calls “the corporate consumption complex,” an alliance of corporations, banks, marketers and others that essentially promote and benefit from unhealthy lifestyles.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/opinion/bittman-rethinking-our-rights-to-dangerous-behaviors.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
▶ BEHIND THE REPORT "BEHIND THE BRANDS? A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS HORROR STORYhttp://sco.lt/594zeT
▶ THE GLOBAL CHEMICAL BIOTECH CARTEL - AN UNPRECEDENTED POWER OVER WORLD AGRICULTURE AND HUMAN HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/9MtkYL
▶ MORE, BIGGER, FASTER : WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FACTORY FARMING YOUR ANIMAL FOOD: Anti-Whistle-blower Ag Laws Want To Keep You From Knowing How Your Food is "Produced"http://sco.lt/5n7fqD
▶ RESTAURANTS COULD BE 1st TO GET GENETICALLY MODIFIED SALMON - UNLABLED
To produce its fish, Aquabounty injected Atlantic salmon with DNA from other fish species that make them grow to full size in about 18 months, which could be about twice as fast as regular salmon.
Frankenfoods is a term developed by consumer groups questioning the health and safety of genetically modified plants or GMO. The US Food and Drug Administration has just lifted an earlier ban on commercialization of the first genetically modified food, Salmon. This is the first time ever permission to sell GMO animals for human consumption in the US has been allowed. It should raise alarm bells not only in the USA .
On March 8, the FDA, responsible for food safety, lifted an earlier ban on sale of GMO salmon by the Massachusetts biotech company, AquaBounty. Until now the company had been prevented from importing its GMO eggs to its salmon tanks in Indiana.
The reason given by the FDA for now removing the ban is not reassuring.They state that a new regulation labeling disclosure that a food is “bioengineered” gives consumers enough information to make an informed choice. For most people, even if the small print is readable, bioengineered may not be understood as a euphemism for controversial genetic manipulation.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced its long-awaited rule on the labeling of foods containing genetically engineered, or GMO, ingredients.
Just don't expect the letters GMO to appear on these products.
Under the new "National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard," such items will feature the term "bioengineered" or BE foods.
Grist, November 26, 2013 -▶ CANADA APPROVES EXPORT OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED SALMON EGGS - TO USA via PANAMA'S AQUABOUNTY Canada will allow genetically modified salmon eggs to be produced and exported — but no way in hell will the eggs be allowed to hatch on Canadian soil.Canada will allow genetically modified salmon eggs to be produced and exported — but no way in hell will the eggs be allowed to hatch on Canadian soil. The eggs will be exported to Aquabounties hatcheries in Panama and then exported to the USAhttp://grist.org/news/canada-approves-export-of-genetically-modified-salmon-eggs/
The Guardian Environment, 20 March, 2013 -▶ MAJOR US SUPERMARKETS TO BOYCOTT GM SALMON - FIRST OF 30 OTHER GENETICALLY ALTERED SPECIES UNDER DEVELOPMENT The GM salmon is the first in some 30 other species of genetically engineered fish under development, including tilapia. Researchers are also working to bring GM cows, chickens and pigs to market.... http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/20/major-us-supermarkets-boycott-gm-salmon
▶ IS GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SALMON SAFE?
There are massively disturbing ethical, environmental, and health concerns that make the introduction of Frankenfish highly controversial...
Frankenfish could be on your dinner plate by the end of the year.
On December 21, at the very end of the last business day before Christmas week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly released its environmental assessment that found “no significant impact” from the controversial AquaBounty AquaAdvantage transgenic salmon.,,
What is the rationale behind genetically engineered salmon? Why have scientists spliced genes from an eel-like creature called the ocean pout into the genome of the Atlantic salmon? These genes crank out growth hormone year-round, resulting in a fish that grows faster, cutting the time to reach market weight almost in half. This could mean cost savings for fish farmers, leading to higher profits for the salmon farming industry and (they promise) lower prices for consumers.
But there are massively disturbing ethical, environmental, and health concerns that make the introduction of Frankenfish highly controversial...
-▶ FDA WEIGHS APPROVAL OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED SALMON.Not so fast. The FDA says the fish is just as safe to eat as conventional salmon—though you can count me among those who don’t look to that troubled agency (see “The FDA is Out to Lunch,” Winter 2013) for the last word on food safety. But the potential threats to the oceans are significant, and the FDA doesn’t acknowledge them. More troublingly, the agency seems content to leapfrog over the entire process for determining whether those threats exist in the first place. Given the far-reaching impact this salmon could have on our natural ecosystems and global seafood supply, fish scientists and food advocates make a strong case for closer scrutiny....
- Aquaculture-grown fish and seafood is becoming increasingly common. Worldwide, more fish than cattle are farmed. But the booming fish industry is causing environmental problems. Medications, pesticides and parasites are escaping from open-water farms and contaminating the ecosystem... http://www.dw.de/aquaculture-in-canada-the-problem-with-farmed-salmon/av-17200460
IT'S MUCH MORE PROFITABLE, AND EASIER TO 'CONTROL'' FISH PRODUCTION CONFINED IN SMALL CAGES. WILD FISH STAY HEALTHY BY PARTICIPATING IN OPEN, HEALTHY OCEAN ECOSYSTEMS. WHEN CONFINED, MORE USE OF ANTIBIOTICS AND PESTICIDES ARE NEEDED TO CONTROL LICE AND DISEASE PUTTING 'QUANTITY' OVER 'QUALITY' AND THAT PRESENTS A HIGH LIKELY-HOOD OF DEVASTATION TO BOTH OCEAN AND HUMAN HEALTH....AS IN ALL CONFINED ANIMAL FACTORY
Guardian, February 15, 2014 ▶ FISH FARMS ARE DESTROYING WILD SCOTTISH SALMON.An editorial in the current issue of Country Life warns of the disastrous effects of intensive farming to meet an insatiable demand from China: "As the pesticides used by aquaculture to battle the sea lice grow ever stronger, wild salmon are exposed to infestations as their migratory routes take them through sea lochs bursting with farmed fish. Setting up more of these highly-intensive farms is looking increasingly unsustainable, as both wild and farmed fish will suffer."http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/16/fish-farms-wild-scottish-salmon
WATCH SALMON CONFIDENTIAL 1:09:14 2013 British Columbia Documentary INDUSTRIAL SALMON FISH FARMS DESTROYING NATURAL SALMON POPULATION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTbxOFcvC4U
WATCH
FACTORY FARMED FISH ▶ THE MASSIVE POLLUTION AND CONDITION UNDER A FISH FARM IN NORWAY : Lerøy west (English subtitle) - YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAIShIjPbIE
IT'S MUCH MORE PROFITABLE, AND EASIER TO CONTROL FISH PRODUCTION CONFINED IN SMALL CONTAINERS. FISH STAY HEALTHY BY PARTICIPATING IN OPEN, HEALTHY OCEAN ECOSYSTEMS. WHEN CONFINED, MORE USE OF ANTIBIOTICS AND PESTICIDES ARE NEEDED TO CONTROL LICE AND DISEASE PUTTING QUANTITY OVER QUALITY AND THAT PRESENTS A HIGHLY LIKELY-HOOD OF DEVASTATION TO BOTH OCEAN AND HUMAN HEALTH....AS IN ALL CONFINED ANIMAL FACTORY FARMING....
▶ WHY EVERYONE SHOULD BE ANGRY ABOUT CORPORATE FACTORY FARMINGhttp://sco.lt/7kUpVp
pdjmoo's insight:
MORE, BIGGER, FASTER IS DESTROYING OUR PLANET.
Subsidized corporate fishing fleets have almost emptied our oceans, risking a complete ecosystem collapse. Just as the monocrop big agricultural industry is doing to our land.
Aside from anything else, these large fish will be crammed into containers, where use of pesticides and antibiotics will be required due to such close quarters. Fish were meant to swim freely in the ocean as part of the great ecosystem, digesting the natural nutrients and food, not confined to concentration pens with nowhere to swim, being fed unnatural food in a stationary environment. And then there is the genetically engineered issue. We need to take steps to restore our oceans (and planet) to health and abundance vs using technological fixes to allow us to keep on destroying our planet. We must maintain healthy ecosystems for the benefit of all life on the planet.
One World News, December 9, 2013 -▶ INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE VITAL FOR BIODIVERSITY, SAY EXPERTS. With species disappearing up to 1,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate, biodiversity experts say knowledge co-production with indigenous peoples has growing importance. http://oneworld.org/2013/12/05/indigenous-knowledge-vital-for-biodiversity-say-experts/
African Agriculture: AGRA - ‘Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa' is a major assault on seed sovereignty’
Nagoya, Japan -- Under the guise of developing “climate-ready” crops, the world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations are filing hundreds of sweeping, multi-genome patents in a bid to control the world’s plant biomass, according to a report released by ETC Grouphttp://www.etcgroup.org/fr/node/5220
Biocultural Heritage, ▶ SMALLHOLDER INDIGENOUS INNOVATION FOR RESILIENCE. Much of the world's agrobiodiversity has been lost in the last century due to the spread of modern agriculture. Only about 30 crops now provide 95% of all human diet (FAO). The pockets of crop diversity that remain, which are often sustained by indigenous people and small-scale farmers, are vital for food security because they provide options for adaptation, now and in the future. These local varieties (or landraces), are adapted to the natural and cultural environment, are often more resilient than modern crops, and are continuing to co-evolve with farmers to adapt to change. But this diversity is in steady decline and innovation by small-scale farmers is weakening as a result of top down research and development in agriculture, which undermines their capacity to adapt.http://biocultural.iied.org/smallholder-innovation-resilience-sifor
Animal Ecology In Focus, January 16, 2015 ▶ BIODIVERSITY v INTENSIVE FARMING : HAS FARMING LOST ITS WAY?Modern intensive farming produces plentiful, cheap food but is reliant on heavy use of agrochemicals and is a major driver of the ongoing collapse of wildlife populations. Taxpayers pay billions each year to support this system, with the bulk of this money going to the biggest, richest farming operations.... https://journalofanimalecology.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/biodiversity-v-intensive-farming-has-farming-lost-its-way/
Guardian Environment, March 25, 2014
▶ FUTURISTIC FARMS: RETHINKING MONOCULTURE FARMING AND HOW WE GROW OUR FOOD.It’s a vicious cycle that has been the curse of destructive agriculture for thousands of years: remove native vegetation, continuously grow crops, don’t rest the land or return nutrients. Erode and exhaust soils. Move on. Repeat..http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/25/california-drought-silicon-valley-moment
To increase profitability – and productivity – industrial agriculture has mechanized production processes and reduced options to a few highly controlled varieties. In the beginning of factory farming, one size was supposed to fit all and the landscape everywhere (including water and micro-climates) was to be engineered to accommodate only the selected commercial variety of plant or animal.... Of course, such defiance of nature caused serious problems and local ecosystems were thrown out of balance. The soil dried up and blew away. Insects and weeds invaded crops and destroyed yields. And so the arch controllers of nature invented pesticides and herbicides – and a highly profitable chemical industry was born to rule over the land.
Capitalism and the accompanying industrial revolution promised to free us from the bonds of nature, limit the quality and variety of products, and greatly increase the quantity of sales necessary to consolidate power and wealth. Over the relative short time the industrial system has been in place, it has separated us entirely from our organic roots – physically and spiritually. And everything has become artificially fabricated outside of nature: our society, our religions, and certainly most of our food...http://www.goodfoodworld.com/2014/09/seed-is-life-soil-is-life-water-is-life/
Truthout, December 04, 2014 ▶ SEEDS OF THE FUTURE DIMINISHING AS MONO INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE DOMINATES THE WORLD. A third of the world's land area is dedicated to agriculture. Farmers' fields and pastures comprise (after the oceans) the second largest ecosystem on the planet. This vast tract has been largely transformed into sterile monoculture deserts in which all other organisms are suppressed with agrochemicals, and only the cash crop is allowed to thrive. Whether it is soy in the Brazilian Amazon, wheat on the Ukrainian steppes or corn in Iowa, a single high-yield variety typically dominates the landscape for as far as the eye can see. http://truth-out.org/news/item/27760-seeds-of-the-future
Common Dreams, February 23, 2015 ▶ MANIPULATE AND MISLEAD: HOW GMOs ARE INFILTRATING AFRICAThe most persistent myth about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is that they are necessary to feed a growing global population. Highly effective marketing campaigns have drilled it into our heads that GMOs will produce more food on less land in an environmentally friendly manner. The mantra has been repeated so often that it is considered to be truth. Now this mantra has come to Africa, sung by the United States government and multinational corporations like Monsanto, seeking to open new markets for a product that has been rejected by so many others around the globe. http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/23/manipulate-and-mislead-how-gmos-are-infiltrating-africa
African Centre for Biosafety, November 18, 2013 ▶ A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE ALLIANCE FOR A GREEN REVOLUTION IN AFRICA (AGRA) - 2013 REPORT GIVING WITH ONE HAND, TAKING WITH TWOhttp://www.acbio.org.za/
▶ AFRICAN AGRICULTURE: AGRA "ALLIANCE FOR A GREEN REVOLUTION IN AFRICA" IS A MAJOR ASSAULT ON SEED SOVEREIGNTY
September 6, 2013 Greenpeace International ▶ AGRA: HELPING BIG AGRIBUSINESS "CONQUER" AFRICAN AGRICULTUREFinally, we have confirmation of what we have long suspected: AGRA, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, has been created to facilitate the corporate takeover of African agriculture, not support African smallholder farmers with real solutions...http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/agra-agribusiness-africa-agriculture/blog/46511/
▶ BILL GATES, MONSANTO AND EUGENICS: HOW ONE OF THE WORLD'S WEALTHIEST MEN IS ACTIVELY PROMOTING A CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF GLOBAL HEALTH, AGRICULTURE (FOOD) AND EDUCATIONhttp://sco.lt/51EymH
Genetic engineering is about private corporate control of the food system.
▶ THE RABID TACTICS OF THE BIOTECH INDUSTRY TO GAIN CONTROL OF GHANA'S FOOD SYSTEMWhose interests does Prof. Alhassan represent? Prof. Alhassan was been quoted as dismissing anti-GMO groups because, according to him, they allegedly do not have any scientific proof or knowledge to offer when it comes GMO technology. But he is wrong.
Ghanaian farmers need to abhor and reject scientists laden with conflicts of interest. Monsanto and Syngenta are particularly greedy to get their hands on Ghana’s agriculture and control the seed market here.Professor Alhassan is attempting to control the information farmers and the public see and hear just like the industry he represents....
“Today, large numbers of scientists are in the employ of Big Pharma, Big Ag, and all kinds of corporations with anti-environmental and anti-social justice agendas.”(2)... Professor Alhassan is a key employee of Big Ag, and has been for his entire career....
REPORT Part 2 of 4 Environmental Justice and Climate Change, November 08, 2014 Environmental and Food Justice THE PANACEA OF GMOs INDIGENOUS RIGHT LIVELIHOODS
Pambazuka -Voices for Freedom and Justice in Africa
▶ HOW COMPANIES FRAME ISSUES OF FOOD AND GLOBAL HUNGER FOR THEIR OWN SELF-INTEREST AND BOTTOMLINE PROFITS
There is a new, but deceptive, foreign drive to end hunger in Africa through large-scale agribusiness. Yet helping poor households in rural Africa feed themselves in an affordable manner means introducing low-cost, sustainable enhancements to farming.
History is riddled with examples of the poor dying of hunger when food was plentiful. Classic amongst these is the famine which wracked the West African Sahel during the early 1970s. While people were dying of hunger in Senegal, Mali and Niger, peanuts — a key sauce ingredient and source of protein across the region — were being exported to Europe....
...The rise of philanthrocapitalism in the US, where former and current business leaders, through the strength of their foundations, have increasingly come to influence the shape and direction of US international development programmes. Central to the philanthrocapitalist worldview is a belief that private enterprise is the fundamental agent of progressive change and that business acumen trumps other forms of expertise...http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/85291
-▶ FROM GROWING PROFIT TO GROWING FOOD: CHALLENGING CORPORATE RULEhttp://sco.lt/7Dg37p
-▶ THE HUNGER GAMES: -▶
HOW UK AND USA GOVERNMENTS SUPPORT FOR BIG AGRIBUSINESS IS FUELING POVERTY IN AFRICA AND AROUND THE WORLD
▶ ACQUISITION OF AFRICA'S SEEDCO BY MONSANTO FURTHERS GLOBAL SEED CARTEL GRIP: NEO-COLONIAL OCCUPATION OF AFRICA'S SEED SYSTEM. The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) is deeply concerned about the recent acquisitions by multi-national seed companies of large parts of SeedCo, one of Africa’s largest home-grown seed companies. Attracting foreign investment from the world’s largest seed companies, most of who got to their current dominant positions by devouring national seed companies and their competitors through mergers and acquisitions, is an inevitable consequence of the fierce drive to commercialise agriculture in Africa.http://www.acbio.org.za/
▶ SEED PATENTS & CONTROL OF GLOBAL FOOD & AGRICULTURE: THE BIOTECH, GMO, CHEMICAL CORPORATE CARTELhttp://sco.lt/5LcjVR
GRAIN, October 23, 2014 ▶ HARVEST OF HARDSHIP: YALA SWAMP LAND GRAB DESTROYS KENYAN FARMERS' LIVELIHOOD.Dominion Farms arrived in Kenya's Yala Swamp basin in 2004 with big promises. The company claimed it would turn a defunct state demonstration farm into a modern rice plantation, provide locals with good jobs, and build hospitals and schools. The American owner of the company, Calvin Burgess, presented himself as a 'man of God', on a mission to bring US-style progress to Africa. The locals, sold on this grand vision, decided – with some hesitation and dissent – to allow Dominion to farm on 3,700 ha of their lands...http://www.grain.org/article/entries/5061-harvest-of-hardship-yala-swamp-land-grab-destroys-kenyan-farmers-livelihoods
GRAIN, May 26, 2014 2,4-D SOY: WAGING WAR ON PEASANTSGlobal attempts by Dow AgroSciences to gain approval for new genetically-modified soybean varieties resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D have become particularly aggressive in recent months. Simultaneous applications have been filed in several of the countries where genetically engineered crops (GE or transgenic crops or GMOs) were introduced in the 1990s. The push for approval of new transgenics is part of a broader strategy by agribusiness to make the world’s farms increasingly dependent on its toxic herbicides, thus increasing the profits it derives from selling these chemicals. The current situation is a rerun of the 1990s’ introduction of Roundup Ready (glyphosate-resistant) crops, only this time the herbicides in question are much more toxic. These weed-killers have been around for a longer time and the case for their hazardousness to human health and the environment has been well documented.http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4945-2-4-d-soy-waging-war-on-peasants
▶ THESE TOP FOOD COMPANIES CONTROL ALMOST EVERYTHING WE EAT:There are more than 38,000 products in the average American supermarket. That means tons of choice, right? In fact, the vast majority of these products are owned by just 10 companies. Those friendly looking Green Giant pees? That's General Mills. And Odwalla juice? That's Coca Cola. This matters, of course, because we deserve to know where our food comes from--and how it's made. http://www.fastcocreate.com/3032899/see-who-actually-owns-the-food-you-eat-and-how-theyre-behaving
Pambazuka, September 25, 2014 ▶ MAYAN PEOPLE'S MOVEMENT DEFEATS MONSANTO LAW IN GUATEMALA. There was a great risk that the Monsanto Law would have made criminals of already repressed small farmers who are just trying to make ends meet and doing what they have done for generations – cultivating corn and black beans for their own consumption. The Monsanto Law meant that they would not have been able to grow and harvest anything that originates from natural seeds. Farmers would be breaking the laws if these natural seeds had been mixed with patented seeds from other crops as a result of pollination or wind, unless they had had a license for the patented seed from a transnational corporation like Monsanto. .. The Monsanto Law would have given exclusivity on patented seeds to a handful of transnational companies....the Mayan people – or actually most people – in Guatemala do not agree with a policy of treating nature like a commodity to be sold off piece by piece, ...http://pambazuka.net/en/category/features/92994
▶ CULTIVATING SANITY : BANGLADESH FARMERS TURN BACK THE CLOCK TO COMBAT CLIMATE STRESSED CROPS - Cultivation of the old varieties is expanding in part because they need almost no chemical fertiliser or pesticides - which makes them cheaper and easier to grow - and because their yields are good in tough conditions.http://www.trust.org/item/20141126125124-0i6go
ReliefWeb, December 19, 2014 ▶ MAIZE, RICE, WHEAT FARMING MUST BECOME MORE SUSTAINABLE: FAO.The FAO meeting agreed that agriculture can no longer rely on input-intensive agriculture to increase crop production. Improved varieties of maize, rice and wheat must go hand-in-hand with what FAO calls "Save and Grow" farming systems that keep soil healthy, integrate crop, tree and animal production, use water far more efficiently, and protect crops with integrated pest management..Experts at the meeting said that that challenge could only be met with eco-friendly agriculture that achieves higher productivity while conserving natural resources, adapting to climate change, and delivering economic benefits to the world's 500 million small-scale family farms.
Appeal-Democrat, December 21, 2014 ▶ AG-TECH COULD CHANGE HOW WORLD EATS: Investors and entrepreneurs behind some of the world's newest industries have started to put their money and tech talents into farming — the world's oldest industry —Silicon Valley is pushing its way into every stage of the food-growing process, from tech tycoons buying up farmland to startups selling robots that work the fields to hackathons dedicated to building the next farming app.http://www.appeal-democrat.com/business/ag-tech-could-change-how-world-eats/article_af7d8ab2-88b3-11e4-a88c-53786b1de7d9.html
▶ WEB-OF-LIFE UNRAVELLING - HEALTHY ECOSYSTEMS VITAL FOR ALL PLANETARY LIFEhttp://sco.lt/8idD7J
▶ BIODIVERSITY IS VITAL TO MAINTAINING ECOSYSTEMS AND HUMAN HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/4u4JhR
▶ THE HIDDEN WORLD OF SOIL UNDER OUR FEET : SOIL AS A LIFELINEhttp://sco.lt/6kqJaT
▶ LAND GRABBING: HOW FOREIGN "INVESTMENTS" ARE REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH, LAND AND WATER ACROSS THE GLOBEhttp://sco.lt/7rqpG5
-▶ THE NEW CORPORATE COLONIALISM. DESTRUCTION OF PLANETARY LIFE, INDIGENOUS LAND AND LIVELIHOODS IN THE NAME OF "GROWTH"http://sco.lt/5nT3OT
VIDEO
-▶ FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEMS, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHTS, CREATING DEPENDENCY AND POVERTY ON A GLOBAL SCALEhttp://sco.lt/4l725B
USA Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, was acquired by a Chinese firm in 2013 for nearly $5 billion -- more than the company’s market value. The surprising purchase caused some lawmakers to wonder if there might be a hidden player. As part of the series Food for 9 Billion, Nathan Halverson of the Center for Investigative Reporting examines how the Chinese government is involved. Continue reading →
The Economist, December 2, 2014 - ▶ SWINE IN CHINA: EMPIRE OF THE PIGChina’s insatiable appetite for pork is a symbol of the country’s rise. It is also a danger to the world. Some industrial facilities, often owned by the state or by multinationals, produce as many as 100,000 swine a year. These are born and live for ever on slatted metal beds; most never see direct sunlight; very few ever get to breed. The pigs themselves have changed physically, too. Three foreign breeds now account for 95% of them
USA GOVERNMENT HIDING BEHIND "NATIONAL SECURITY"...AGAIN. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, US CONGRESS QUIETLY SELLING OUR MEAT, POULTRY AND MILK OUT FROM UNDER US TO CHINA.
September 6, 2013 Agri Pulse - ▶ U.S. REGULATORS, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, QUIETLY GIVES CHINA APPROVAL TO PURCHASE SMITHFIELD, AMERICA'S LARGEST FACTORY FARM HOG PRODUCER. The merger has drawn congressional scrutiny in regards to food safety, as well as concerns about drug safety.
Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., noted that because the CFIUS review includes issues of national security, it is done in secret with no public oversight or transparency.
“It remains unclear what factors the [CFIUS] took into account in making its decision,” Stabenow said. “We still do not know if the potential impact on American food security, the transfer of taxpayer funded innovation to a foreign competitor, or China's protectionist trade barriers were considered.”
- ▶ CHINESE MEAT "IMPORT" QUIETLY APPROVED BY USDA: NO LABELING, NO REGULATIONS, NO OVERSIGHT : United States Department of Agriculture has agreed to allow four Chinese chicken processing plants to export their meat into our country. “There will be no US officials present at the Chinese processing plants and consumers won’t know where their food comes from because processed meat does not require a point of origin label.”http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/09/dont-be-chicken-chinese-meat-import-now-usda-approved/
June 13, 2013 The Center for Investigative Reporting - ▶ ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS SURFACE AS CALIFORNIA AIMS TO MILK CHINA'S DAIRY DEMANDhttp://cironline.org/node/4726
Beginning with a history of the American food system, River of Waste shows its evolution to large-scale corporate farms where pollution and use of growth hormones threaten both individual health and the future of our planethttp://sco.lt/5WwPVx
And the subsequent trial results will surprise you
First aired on HBO March 16th 2009
Directors Tom Simon and Sarah Teale (HBOs Dealing Dogs) tell the story of an animal rights investigator who goes undercover at hog farm in Ohio to explore a whistle blowers allegations. The evidence he gathers leads to a rare prosecution and trial for animal cruelty, and a verdict that surprises nearly everyone...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfiolWwzD94
Grist, January 29, 2014 -▶ POOR COWS: HARVESTING METHANE BY PUNCHING HOLES IN COWS STOMACHS: Argentinian scientists are punching holes in the sides of cattle and passing pipes through to their stomachs. The other end of the pipe goes into a bag fitted on the cow’s back. The captured gas, can be burned to produce energy. http://grist.org/news/we-can-harvest-methane-from-cow-guts-should-we/
David Hogan, February 19, 2014 -▶ THE AG-GAG REFLEX: THE ANIMAL ENTERPRISE TERRORISM ACT'S IMPACT ON US ALL. On November 27, 2006, after heavy lobbying by the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) was quietly signed into law. The AETA makes it a terrorist offense to engage in certain speech and activity that causes an “animal enterprise” the loss of real or personal property. (There is a dispute as to whether the term ‘loss of property’ means ‘loss of profits.’) ....http://davidhoganwriter.com/2014/02/19/the-ag-gag-reflex-the-animal-enterprise-terrorism-
▶ A 6,200 COW INDUSTRIAL FARM: DISPUTED EXPANSION OF WISCONSIN MEGA DAIRY WATCHED FOR STATEWIDE IMPACT: Owners vow to protect water quality; neighbors want tighter DNR oversight
The Dept of Natural Resources is defending its approval of the Kinnard Farms permit, which will allow the farm to grow by 55 percent — from 5,627 to 8,710 animal units, or about 6,200 cattle. The farm, classified as a concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO, because of its large size, is in the town of Lincoln in Kewaunee County...http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2014/02/08/disputed-expansion-of-dairy-watched-for-statewide-impact/
Nation of Change, July 27, 2014 -▶ TOP AGRIBUSINESS FOOD COMPANIES DUMPING WASTE IN OUR WATERS. Companies like Tyson Foods, Cargill, Inc., and Perdue Farms Inc. dump their garbage—more than 206 million pounds of it—into our water almost every year and leave others to worry about the clean-up. Now, as the Environmental Protection Agency considers a rule to restore the Clean Water Act, these companies are pulling out all the stops to maintain their freedom to dump and pollute, regardless of the toxic outcomes.http://www.nationofchange.org/top-agribusiness-food-companies-dumping-waste-our-waters-1406476247
FARM-AGEDDON:
No birds. No bees. Our countryside laid waste. And billions of animals that never see a blade of grasshttp://sco.lt/7ztQbB
-▶ THOUSANDS OF SRI LANKANS HAVE BEEN STRUCK WITH A DEADLY FORM OF KIDNEY DISEASE. A new study points to a likely cause - pesticides and fertilisers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19628295
Summit County Citizens Voice, March 01, 2015 -▶ NEW GLOBAL MAP IDs PESTICIDE POLLUTION HOT SPOTS. The world has a long way to go to come to grips with pesticide pollution say scientists who recently created a global map showing which areas are most susceptible.Their modeling suggests that streams across about 40 percent of the planet’s surface are at risk from the application of insecticides, with the Mediterranean region, the USA, Central America and Southeast Asia among the hotspots...On average, farmers apply about 4 million tons of agricultural pesticides annually,...We know from earlier investigations for example that pesticides can reduce the biodiversity of invertebrates in freshwater ecosystems by up to 42 percent...
-▶ STUDY LINKS KIDNEY DISEASE IN SRI LANKA'S FARM BELT TO AGROCHEMICALSA new report links the high prevalence of chronic kidney disease in Sri Lanka’s main agricultural production regions with the presence of heavy metals in the water, caused by fertiliser and pesticide use....as many as 22,000 people may have died as a result in past two decadeshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2012/08/study-links-kidney-disease-in-sri-lankas-farm-belt-to-agrochemicals/
The Ecologist, July 02, 2014 -▶ NEONICOTINOIDS ARE POISONING NOT JUST HUMANS AND BEES BUT ENTIRE FARMLAND ECOSYSTEMS The world's most widely used insecticides have contaminated the environment across the planet so pervasively that global food production is at risk, according to a comprehensive scientific assessment of the chemicals' impacts. http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2459001/neonicotoids_are_poisoning_entire_farmland_ecosystems.html
Institute of Science in Society, April 09, 2014 -▶ SRI LANKA PARTIALLY BANS PESTICIDE CONTAINING GLYPHOSATE FOR DEADLY KIDNEY DISEASE EPIDEMIC. Glyphosate’s metal-chelating activity causes bioaccumulation of toxic metals in the body, resulting in an estimated 400 000 cases in Sri Lanka and 20 000 deaths Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Sri_Lanka_partially_bans_glyphosate.php
Sustainable Pulse, May 13, 2014 -▶ UNDER PRESSURE, SRI LANKA REVERSES BAN ON SALE OF MONSANTO'S "ROUNDUP" GLYPHOSATE. GM Watch comment: As for the “European glyphosate task force” mentioned in the article, which has “concluded that there is no true link” between glyphosate herbicide and chronic kidney disease, let’s hope the Sri Lankan government recognises that THIS 'TASK FORCE' IS ENTIRELY MADE UP OF THE PESTICIDE COMPANIES that make and sell glyphosate herbicide!http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/05/13/sri-lanka-lifts-ban-sale-glyphosate/#.U3Mhgi_p5K4
MYSTERY IN THE FIELDS
The Center For Public Integrity, December 28, 2012
Pesticide Action Group, March 12, 2014 -▶ THE BIG 6: BIGGER AND BADDER. The public comment period for Dow's new genetically engineered, pesticide 2,4-D-resistant corn and soy closed. And despite comments from nearly 400,000 concerned individuals and farmers urging otherwise, USDA has signaled it will likely greenlight these new GE crops.http://www.panna.org/blog/big-6-bigger-badder
GRAIN, May 26, 2014 2,4-D SOY: WAGING WAR ON PEASANTSGlobal attempts by Dow AgroSciences to gain approval for new genetically-modified soybean varieties resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D have become particularly aggressive in recent months. Simultaneous applications have been filed in several of the countries where genetically engineered crops (GE or transgenic crops or GMOs) were introduced in the 1990s. The push for approval of new transgenics is part of a broader strategy by agribusiness to make the world’s farms increasingly dependent on its toxic herbicides, thus increasing the profits it derives from selling these chemicals. The current situation is a rerun of the 1990s’ introduction of Roundup Ready (glyphosate-resistant) crops, only this time the herbicides in question are much more toxic. These weed-killers have been around for a longer time and the case for their hazardousness to human health and the environment has been well documented.http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4945-2-4-d-soy-waging-war-on-peasants
The Ecologist, July 02, 2014 -▶ NEONICOTINOIDS ARE POISONING NOT JUST HUMANS AND BEES BUT ENTIRE FARMLAND ECOSYSTEMSThe world's most widely used insecticides have contaminated the environment across the planet so pervasively that global food production is at risk, according to a comprehensive scientific assessment of the chemicals' impacts.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2459001/neonicotoids_are_poisoning_entire_farmland_ecosystems.html
The Asian Age, June 18, 2014 -▶ INDIA'S NEW CORPORATE GOVERNMENT. Intelligence agencies are supposed to protect the safety and security of a nation and its citizens from external threats. Tragically, we now have a report from the Intelligence Bureau that promotes the very foreign interests that are threatening our seed and food sovereignty, the livelihood of our farmers and the health of our citizens. The IB report, which was commissioned by the UPA government but submitted to the newly elected NDA government, blindly promotes genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). GMOs are the source of genetically modified foods. http://www.asianage.com/columnists/generously-motivated-526
Digital Journal , July 02, 2014 -▶ GENETICALLY ENGINEERED U.S. COTTON GROWERS WANT UNLICENSED, HIGHLY TOXIC PESTICIDE USE ON 3 MILLION ACRES - FURTHER POISONING SOIL, WATER AND ALL LIFE WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT -- EXCEPT THE COTTONhttp://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2031904
Pambazuka, July 24. 2014 -▶ GMOs AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: WHICH WAY AFRICA? African governments are under intense pressure from within but also from big agribusiness and Western governments to embrace GMOs. Governments must resist all forms of arm-twisting and food colonialism and make their biotechnology choices based on the factshttp://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92594
▶ OUR CONTEMPORARY, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTH
Over the course of the past century our food supply has shifted from local to global. Most food our grandparents ate was grown regionally, often by neighbourhood farmers.
Today our food comes from across the world. More importantly, it is often produced in highly destructive ways, at the lowest possible cost.
Consequently our food production system is responsible for accelerating the rate of destruction of the very ecosystems we are reliant upon in order to maintain our delicate global environmental equilibrium.
We cut and clear the lungs of the world, our tropical rainforests, to feed livestock or grow dishonestly named "biofuels". We bulldoze natural filtration systems and the nurseries for life like wetlands and mangrove swamps to produce luxury foods for obese populations... http://allafrica.com/stories/201401071158.html?viewall=1
▶ OUR AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM HAS LOST IT'S WAY - TOWARD HEALTHY FOOD AND FARMSModern intensive farming produces plentiful, cheap food but is reliant on heavy use of agrochemicals and is a major driver of the ongoing collapse of wildlife populations. Taxpayers pay billions each year to support this system, with the bulk of this money going to the biggest, richest farming operations...
Truthout, December 04, 2014 ▶ SEEDS OF THE FUTURE DIMINISHING AS MONO INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE DOMINATES THE WORLD. A third of the world's land area is dedicated to agriculture. Farmers' fields and pastures comprise (after the oceans) the second largest ecosystem on the planet. This vast tract has been largely transformed into sterile monoculture deserts in which all other organisms are suppressed with agrochemicals, and only the cash crop is allowed to thrive. Whether it is soy in the Brazilian Amazon, wheat on the Ukrainian steppes or corn in Iowa, a single high-yield variety typically dominates the landscape for as far as the eye can see. http://truth-out.org/news/item/27760-seeds-of-the-future
Pambazuka -Voices for Freedom and Justice in Africa
▶ HOW MEGA CORPORATIONS FRAME ISSUES OF FOOD AND GLOBAL HUNGER FOR THEIR OWN SELF-INTEREST AND BOTTOM=LINE PROFITS. There is a new, but deceptive, foreign drive to end hunger in Africa through large-scale agribusiness. Yet helping poor households in rural Africa feed themselves in an affordable manner means introducing low-cost, sustainable enhancements to farming.
...The rise of philanthrocapitalism in the US, where former and current business leaders, through the strength of their foundations, have increasingly come to influence the shape and direction of US international development programmes. Central to the philanthrocapitalist worldview is a belief that private enterprise is the fundamental agent of progressive change and that business acumen trumps other forms of expertise... http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/85291
▶ THE CORPORATE 'PHILANTHROCAPITALISTS' TAKEOVER OF AFRICAN AND GLOBAL FOOD SECURITYhttp://sco.lt/6CHP3R
▶ FUTURISTIC FARMS: RETHINKING MONOCULTURE FARMING AND HOW WE GROW OUR FOOD.It’s a vicious cycle that has been the curse of destructive agriculture for thousands of years: remove native vegetation, continuously grow crops, don’t rest the land or return nutrients. Erode and exhaust soils. Move on. Repeat..http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/25/california-drought-silicon-valley-moment
Biocultural Heritage, ▶ SMALLHOLDER INDIGENOUS INNOVATION FOR RESILIENCE. Much of the world's agrobiodiversity has been lost in the last century due to the spread of modern agriculture. Only about 30 crops now provide 95% of all human diet (FAO). The pockets of crop diversity that remain, which are often sustained by indigenous people and small-scale farmers, are vital for food security because they provide options for adaptation, now and in the future. These local varieties (or landraces), are adapted to the natural and cultural environment, are often more resilient than modern crops, and are continuing to co-evolve with farmers to adapt to change. But this diversity is in steady decline and innovation by small-scale farmers is weakening as a result of top down research and development in agriculture, which undermines their capacity to adapt.http://biocultural.iied.org/smallholder-innovation-resilience-sifor
REPORT Part 2 of 4 Environmental Justice and Climate Change, November 08, 2014 Environmental and Food Justice THE PANACEA OF GMOs INDIGENOUS RIGHT LIVELIHOODS
Guardian Sustainable Business, October 20, 2014 ▶INVESTING IN SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE BY CONVERTING FARMS TO "BEYOND ORGANIC'.How do you profitably invest in sustainable agriculture - farms producing diverse, fairly-priced healthy food without harming the environment, but which also restore soil fertility and provide farmers with a fair living?http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/oct/20/investing-sustainable-agriculture-farms-beyond-organic
March 10, 2014
Oliver De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
-▶ GMOs AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: WHICH WAY AFRICA? African governments are under intense pressure from within but also from big agribusiness and Western governments to embrace GMOs. Governments must resist all forms of arm-twisting and food colonialism and make their biotechnology choices based on the factshttp://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/92594
▶ DESPITE CLIMATE CHANGE, AFRICAN CAN FEED AFRICA. There is a continuing argument as to whether the industrial agricultural revolution will solve some or all of Africa's climate change problems. However, experts maintain that industrial agriculture currently accounts for one third of all greenhouse gas emissions--the very element most responsible for climate change. Additionally, they believe that the resources and infrastructure required to operate an industrial agricultural system in Africa are impractical for smallholder farmers...http://allafrica.com/stories/201402191455.html
Nation of Change, July 27, 2014 -▶ TOP AGRIBUSINESS FOOD COMPANIES DUMPING WASTE IN OUR WATERS. Companies like Tyson Foods, Cargill, Inc., and Perdue Farms Inc. dump their garbage—more than 206 million pounds of it—into our water almost every year and leave others to worry about the clean-up. Now, as the Environmental Protection Agency considers a rule to restore the Clean Water Act, these companies are pulling out all the stops to maintain their freedom to dump and pollute, regardless of the toxic outcomes. http://www.nationofchange.org/top-agribusiness-food-companies-dumping-waste-our-waters-1406476247
WATCH
"A RIVER OF WASTE"
Industrial livestock produce hundreds of millions of tons of manure annually, polluting our groundwater and waterways http://sco.lt/6PQUk5
ETC Group, September 4, 2013 ▶ WHO WILL CONTROL THE AGRICULTURAL INPUTS: THE STATE OF CORPORATE CONCENTRATION, 2013 (PDF REPORT) PUTTING THE CARTEL BEFORE THE HORSE... AND FARM, SEEDS, SOIL AND PEASANTS http://www.etcgroup.org/putting_the_cartel_before_the_horse_2013
▶ WALL STREET, CORPORATIONS GOBBLING UP AMERICAN, FOREIGN FARMLAND, THREATENING FUTURE OF U.S. AND WORLD AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITYhttp://sco.lt/8mcmbR
EcoWatch, February 22, 2014
-▶ STOP FEEDING THE BEAST AND START FEEDING THE PEOPLE. We have a system of predatory agriculture in which corporations pursue private gain relentlessly regardless of the social consequences. Social consequences can be defined as anything from polluting our water, land and air to impacting the health of our families to making the business of farming economically unsustainable.http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/22/stop-feeding-beast-start-feeding-people/
Cornucopia Institute, June 11, 2014 ▶ SMALL FARMERS ARE FEEDING THE WORLD ON LESS LAND.A new study by GRAIN reports that small farmers are the world’s main food producers and they do it on a quarter of the land of large farms. As large monoculture farms continue to gobble up the land to grow exports, small farmers are producing more food per acre and feeding the local people. Biodiversity and companion planting on small farms further reduce crop losses to drought, pests and disease.http://www.cornucopia.org/2014/06/small-farmers-feeding-world-less-land/
GRAIN, May 28, 214 ▶ HUNGRY FOR LAND: SMALL FARMERS FEED THE WORLD FOR LESS THAN A QUARTER OF ALL FARMLAND AS CORPORATIONS ACCELERATE LAND GRABShttp://www.grain.org/article/entries/492
One World News, December 9, 2013 -▶ INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE VITAL FOR BIODIVERSITY, SAY EXPERTS. With species disappearing up to 1,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate, biodiversity experts say knowledge co-production with indigenous peoples has growing importance. http://oneworld.org/2013/12/05/indigenous-knowledge-vital-for-biodiversity-say-experts/
National Geographic, "Future of Food" May 02, 2014 ▶ FEED THE WORLD: FAMILY FARMERS HOLD KEYS TO AGRICULTURE IN A WARMING WORLD. When policymakers in the developed world talk about feeding billions of extra mouths in the decades to come, it's multinational agribusinesses—which operate industrial-size farms—that usually get most of the attention.
-▶ INDIGENOUS DIETS CAN FIGHT MODERN ILLNESSES, SAY HEALTH EXPERTS Unprecedented levels of chronic non-communicable diseases are prompting calls to revert to the diets of our ancestors to regain lost nutrients. It is believed that such a shift would help to improve society's relationship with the Earth and restore human and environmental health. "The rise of the industrial model of agriculture has contributed greatly to people being disconnected from the food on their plates," says Sarah Somian, a France-based nutritionist.http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/feb/03/indigenous-diets-fight-modern-illnesses
WATCH (10:46)
The Satoyama Initiative SATOYAMA: TOWARD A RURAL SOCIETY IN HARMONY WITH NATUREJapan gave the name of the SATOYAMA Initiative to establishment of universal philosophy for sustainable maintenance and use of natural resourceshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAcS6px3WEg
THIS GRAND EXPERIMENT ON HUMANITY MUST STOP:
GMO BILL GATES FUNDS RISKY, UNTESTED UNREGULATED VITAMIN FORTIFIED GMO FOOD FOR AFRICA AND INDIAhttp://sco.lt/6CZccT
Common Dream, February 27, 2014 - ▶ ORGANIC AGRICULTURE: THE WAY FORWARD IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE.Cling to a food system that contributes to climate change and jeopardizes food security, or adopt a regenerative system that strengthens food security and helps mitigate the climate crisis—"The choice is ours to make," a new report states.http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/27-6
- ▶ PERMACULTURE IS THE SILVER-GREEN BULLET FOR THE MIDDLE EASThttp://sco.lt/5Tql9d
April 18, 2014, The Two-Way
▶ CHINA ADMITS THAT ONE-FIFTH OF IT'S FARMLAND IS CONTAMINATED - Unbridled industrialization with almost no environmental regulation has resulted in the toxic contamination of one-fifth of China's farmland, the Communist Party has acknowledged for the first time. http://listen.sdpb.org/post/china-admits-one-fifth-its-farmland-contaminated
BBC News, June 24, 2014 ▶ GROWING PAINS OF CHINA'S AGRICULTURAL WATER NEEDS.Farming accounts for about 65% of water use in China and the limited resource is coming under pressure from rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. The study focused on four major food crops - soya, wheat, rice and corn (maize) - and three livestock groups: ruminant, pork and poultry. Together, these products accounted for 93% of China's domestic food supply in 2005, according to figures from the United Nations. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27978124
HOW FOREIGN "INVESTMENTS" ARE REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH, LAND AND WATER ACROSS THE GLOBEhttp://sco.lt/5YJpKb
VIDEO
-▶ FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEMS, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHTS, CREATING DEPENDENCY AND POVERTY ON A GLOBAL SCALEhttp://sco.lt/4l725B
BillMoyers.com, November 21, 2014 ▶'FOOD CHAINS,' A NEW DOCUMENTARY BY 'FOOD, INC."Food Chains, a new hard-hitting documentary about the battle between Florida farmworkers and the giant supermarket and fast food conglomerates. Farmworkers are among the lowest paid workers in America, averaging about $12,000 per year in wages, and many of them, especially women, have been subjected to human rights abuses in the fields. In its review of the film, The New York Times calls Food Chains an “emphatic and empathetic documentary” that presents farm laborers as modern-day slaveshttp://billmoyers.com/2014/11/21/food-chains/
WATCH
▶ FILM: ***"HOME"
An Exquisite Dedication To the Stewards of Our Planet
Modern Farmer, March 31, 2015 -▶ AMAZING NEW LAW TO STOP GIVING FARM PAYMENTS TO CORPORATE NON-FARMERS. The USDA has a variety of different programs in place to help farmers survive tough times; collectively, they’re known as the Farm Safety Net.The Farm Safety Net includes : subsidized insurance, minimum prices for commodity products like corn, wheat, and soybeans, and disaster assurance (so farmers might receive payments in the case of drought or frost, that kind of thing). This last element, and a bunch of others that are expressed via direct payments to farmers, are the focus of the loophole closing announced by the USDA. http://modernfarmer.com/2015/03/amazing-new-law-to-stop-giving-farm-payments-to-corporate-non-farmers/
RedState, November 22, 2014 ▶ AGRIBUSINESS HITS THE $10 BILLION JACKPOT SUBSIDIES, AT EXPENSE OF TAXPAYER -- AGAIN - RUNNING UP FOOD STAMPS COST. U.S. corporate farmers are about to reap a bumper harvest not just in corn and soybeans but also in new subsidies that could soar to $10 billion, blowing a hole in the government’s promise that its new five-year farm bill would save taxpayers money.http://www.redstate.com/2014/11/22/agribusiness-hits-jackpot-taxpayers-much/
Reuters, November 19, 2014 ▶ U.S. FARMERS SET TO GET HUGE GOVERNMENT PAYOUTS DESPITE BUMPER HARVEST. U.S. farmers are about to reap a bumper harvest not just in corn and soybeans but also in new subsidies that could soar to $10 billion, blowing a hole in the government's promise that its new five-year farm bill would save taxpayers money. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-usa-grains-insurance-idUSKCN0J32FB20141119
New York Times, January 24, 2014 ▶ RUNNING BELOW THE RADAR: A HIDDEN THREAT IN THE 2014 FARM BILL COMING RIGHT AT YOU.The mammoth farm bill is reportedly near a conference compromise in Congress, bristling with more tragic cuts in the food stamp program for the needy and a revision of lucrative commodity subsidies for mostly big farmers. Running below the radar is a dangerous, broadly written amendment that would threaten states’ current powers to enact their own agricultural standards — standards that can extend far beyond farmyards to consumer, worker and environmental safety.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/opinion/a-hidden-threat-in-the-farm-bill.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140125&tntemail0=y&_r=0
Civil Eats, June 11, 2014 ▶ HOW CONGRESS IS MOVING TO CRUSH PROTECTIONS FOR SMALL MEAT AND POULTRY PRODUCERS.Consolidation has meant “the meatpackers report huge profits, while farmers’ share of the retail dollar has gone down dramatically—and consumers still see food prices rising at the grocery store.” In Missouri, Gibbons adds, thousands of independent small and mid-size family hog farmers have gone out of business because they don’t have access to a fair market. “Because of massive corporate control of the market, we’ve lost 91 percent of hog producers in Missouri since 1985. That’s over 20,000 farmers and many, many jobs in our rural communities.”http://civileats.com/2014/06/11/how-congress-is-moving-to-crush-protections-for-small-meat-and-poultry-producers-and-why-you-should-care/
Beginning with a history of the American food system, River of Waste shows its evolution to large-scale corporate farms where pollution and use of growth hormones threaten both individual health and the future of our planethttp://sco.lt/5WwPVx
▶ THE GLOBAL CHEMICAL BIOTECH CARTEL - AN UNPRECEDENTED POWER OVER WORLD AGRICULTURE AND HUMAN HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/9MtkYL
March 21, 2013
-▶ US GOVERNMENT FUNDING BILL STRIPS FEDERAL COURTS OF THEIR POWER TO RULE OVER BIOTECH INDUSTRY AND GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD AND ANIMALShttp://sco.lt/6kO2Xh
Food Crisis and The Global Land Grab, November 2, 2013
-▶ TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY LAND GRABS: ACCUMULATION BY AGRICULTURAL DISPOSSESSION - For the world’s people to have secure access to the quantity and quality of food needed for a decent life, the land grabs and the development of large, highly mechanized factory farms must stop...http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22761
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, March 1, 2013
-▶ GOVERNMENTS MUST PROTECT LAND, FOOD SYSTEMS AS TRADE LIBERALIZATION ACCELERATES LAND GRABBINGhttp://iatp.org/blog-agriculture
farmlandgrab.org, August 04, 2014 ▶ CORPORATE INFLUENCE THROUGH THE G8 AND OBAMA'S NEW ALLIANCE FOR FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITION IN AFRICA. In recent times, new partnerships models between governments, business and civil society are increasingly gaining attention. One prominent example is the "New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition" (G8NA), inaugurated at the G8 summit 2012 in the United States.
This working paper concludes that the approach and objectives of the G8NA are highly problematic. The initiative serves as an enforcing mechanism for corporate driven blueprints for agriculture and sidelines national plans and international standards. It is dominated and tailored towards the interests of big corporate actors and is based on a reductionist approach of agricultural “development”. And lastly, the G8NA is poorly institutionalized and disregards fundamental principles of transparency participation and accountability.http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/23793
▶ THE OVERWHELMING RESPONSIBILITY OF THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPEAN UNION IN THE EXPLOSION OF WORLD PRICES OF CEREAL:http://www.foodreserves.org/?p=582
Pambazuka -Voices for Freedom and Justice in Africa
▶ HOW COMPANIES FRAME ISSUES OF FOOD AND GLOBAL HUNGER FOR THEIR OWN SELF-INTEREST AND BOTTOMLINE PROFITS
There is a new, but deceptive, foreign drive to end hunger in Africa through large-scale agribusiness. Yet helping poor households in rural Africa feed themselves in an affordable manner means introducing low-cost, sustainable enhancements to farming.
History is riddled with examples of the poor dying of hunger when food was plentiful. Classic amongst these is the famine which wracked the West African Sahel during the early 1970s. While people were dying of hunger in Senegal, Mali and Niger, peanuts — a key sauce ingredient and source of protein across the region — were being exported to Europe....
...The rise of philanthrocapitalism in the US, where former and current business leaders, through the strength of their foundations, have increasingly come to influence the shape and direction of US international development programmes. Central to the philanthrocapitalist worldview is a belief that private enterprise is the fundamental agent of progressive change and that business acumen trumps other forms of expertise... http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/85291
allAfrica.com: February 18, 2014
▶ DESPITE CLIMATE CHANGE, AFRICAN CAN FEED AFRICA.There is a continuing argument as to whether the industrial agricultural revolution will solve some or all of Africa's climate change problems. However, experts maintain that industrial agriculture currently accounts for one third of all greenhouse gas emissions--the very element most responsible for climate change. Additionally, they believe that the resources and infrastructure required to operate an industrial agricultural system in Africa are impractical for smallholder farmers... http://allafrica.com/stories/201402191455.html
GRAIN — January 21, 2015 ▶ AFRICA: LAND AND SEED LAWS UNDER ATTACK: WHO IS PUSHING CHANGES IN AFRICA?
World Bank, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Group of 8 wealthiest countries (G8), Bill Gates-funded Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Fertiliser Development Centre (IFDC) and others.
▶ OBAMA FOOD AID RAVAGES THIRD WORLD FARMERS. The US taxpayers who finance foreign food aid surely believe they are feeding starving people, writes James Bovard. But the truth is the reverse - it is undermining indigenous agriculture in recipient countries - creating famine and chronic malnutrition, while sabotaging self-sufficiency.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2494069/obama_food_aid_ravages_third_world_farmers.html
WATCH CARVING UP AFRICA A group of executives from big companies like Monsanto and Unilever went to the Department of International Development to thank the UK government for their help in taking control of Africa's food. Thanks to UK aid money, these companies are set to make vast profits in Africa - See more at:http://www.wdm.org.uk/food-sovereignty/carving-africa#sthash.V0GSMRH4.dpuf
EurActive, May 14, 2014 ▶ NEW EU PRIVATE SECTOR AID CRITERIA UNDER THE MICROSCOPEThe European Commission has published the first set of guidelines for involving private sector players in delivering overseas aid, a long-standing practice that has generated controversy with some NGOs for its claimed lack of transparency, accountability and potential for corporate profit-taking. ... ‘Dangerous emphasis’ on health privatisation...Using public resources to ‘leverage’ private finance is of great concern due to the high risk of profit-making motives outweighing poverty reduction objectives,” she said.
How Do You Feed The World? LAND RUSH: WHY POVERTY How do you feed the world? 75% of Mali's population are farmers, but rich, land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are leasing Mali's land in order to turn large areas into industrial export agribusiness farms. Many Malian peasants do not welcome these efforts, seeing them as yet another manifestation of imperialism. As Mali experiences a military coup, the developers are scared off but can Mali's farmers combat food shortages and escape poverty on their own terms?http://www.whypoverty.net/en/all-about/land-rush/
▶ GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS NOT THE SOLUTION FOR "FEEDING THE WORLD" http://sco.lt/77BuML
===================
THE HUNGER GAMES
HOW UK AND USA GOVERNMENTS SUPPORT FOR BIG AGRIBUSINESS IS FUELING POVERTY IN AFRICA AND AROUND THE WORLD
▶ THESE TOP FOOD COMPANIES CONTROL ALMOST EVERYTHING WE EAT:There are more than 38,000 products in the average American supermarket. That means tons of choice, right? In fact, the vast majority of these products are owned by just 10 companies. Those friendly looking Green Giant pees? That's General Mills. And Odwalla juice? That's Coca Cola. This matters, of course, because we deserve to know where our food comes from--and how it's made. http://www.fastcocreate.com/3032899/see-who-actually-owns-the-food-you-eat-and-how-theyre-behaving
April 3, 2013 - Politico
▶ FOOD AID FOR THE 21st CENTURY
When it comes to providing hunger relief to needy people around the world, the United States has been a leader since World War II. And if early reports about the Obama administration’s 2014 budget are true, then the U.S. will have a golden opportunity to provide even more food to the hungry while spending less taxpayer dollars in the years ahead. GOING LOCAL AND REGIONAL
▶ THE NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA : INTERACTIVE INFOGRAPHIC
Around the early 1900s the European colonial powers built railways to connect the interior of Africa to the ports. They used this infrastructure to export food and minerals out of Africa to feed the industrial revolution in Europe. Over a hundred years later it’s happening all over again. Take a look at our latest infographic to see how.
THE 21st CENTURY CORPORATE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA World Development Movement -▶ STOP THE CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF AFRICA'S FOOD.Under the guise of tackling hunger, initiatives like the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, will help corporations take control over Africa’s land, seeds and markets - at the expense of small farmers. Join our campaign to oppose this twenty-first century corporate scramble for Africa. - See more at:http://www.wdm.org.uk/food#sthash.dgDwkdF0.dpufhttp://www.wdm.org.uk/food
OBAMA PUTS G8, BIG 6 BIOTECH CHEMICAL GMO GIANTS IN CHARGE OF "ENDING HUNGER" IN AFRICAhttp://sco.lt/7ENN8D
-▶ TURNING AFRICA INTO A GMO BONANZA FOR GIANT CORPORATIONS: FOREIGN TAKEOVER OF THE FUTURE OF FARMING IN AFRICA http://sco.lt/6qmM1R
EcoWatch, February 22, 2014
-▶ STOP FEEDING THE BEAST AND START FEEDING THE PEOPLE.We have a system of predatory agriculture in which corporations pursue private gain relentlessly regardless of the social consequences. Social consequences can be defined as anything from polluting our water, land and air to impacting the health of our families to making the business of farming economically unsustainable.http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/22/stop-feeding-beast-start-feeding-people/
▶ MALNUTRITION AND THE MICROBIOME.One of the tragedies of malnutrition in children is that the problems don't end when the hunger stops. A new study has shown that the microbial communities in the gut of children who experience malnutrition seem to be compromised over the long term, and don't recover even after therapy and a return to a normal diet.http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/2014/06/07/2014-06-07-6/
▶ AFRICA: OUR CONTEMPORARY, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTH
Over the course of the past century our food supply has shifted from local to global. Most food our grandparents ate was grown regionally, often by neighbourhood farmers.
Today our food comes from across the world. More importantly, it is often produced in highly destructive ways, at the lowest possible cost.
Consequently our food production system is responsible for accelerating the rate of destruction of the very ecosystems we are reliant upon in order to maintain our delicate global environmental equilibrium.
We cut and clear the lungs of the world, our tropical rainforests, to feed livestock or grow dishonestly named "biofuels". We bulldoze natural filtration systems and the nurseries for life like wetlands and mangrove swamps to produce luxury foods for obese populations... http://allafrica.com/stories/201401071158.html?viewall=1
▶ THE OVERWHELMING RESPONSIBILITY OF THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPEAN UNION IN THE EXPLOSION OF WORLD PRICES OF CEREAL:http://www.foodreserves.org/?p=582
-▶ CORPORATE HIJACKING OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE: GENETIC ENGINEERING AND THE GMO INDUSTRYhttp://sco.lt/73IdQ9
▶ THIS GRAND EXPERIMENT ON HUMAN BEINGS HAS TO STOP: Bill Gates Funds Risky, Untested, Unregulated Vitamin Fortified GMO Crops.. http://sco.lt/5uWAW9
-▶ FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEMS, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHTS, CREATING DEPENDENCE AND POVERTY ON A GLOBAL SCALE http://sco.lt/9KW9wn
-▶ FOOD FORESTS CAN MITIGATE RISKS OF "FEAST OR FAMINE": BIG CORPORATE AGRICULTURE IS NOT THE ANSWERhttp://sco.lt/5U402L
WATCH DOCUMENTARY (88 min) "SEEDS OF PERMACULTURE" - ECOLOGICAL FARMING People are becoming less and less self-sufficient around the world, these local communities that were previously growing everything themselves and knew how to build their own houses out of natural materials are completely dependent on big foreign powers and import from other countries. ...http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/seeds-permaculture/
▶ FIVE HOLISTIC ALTERNATIVE FARMING METHODS: AGROECOLOGY AT ITS BESThttp://sco.lt/4i3lqr
Common Dreams, May 23, 2014 ▶ PERMACULTURE POISED TO CONQUER THE CARIBBEAN. No fertilisers, herbicides, or pesticides but a bold vision to save a region from climate change and resource scarcityhttp://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/23
-▶ THE NEW CORPORATE COLONIALISM. DESTRUCTION OF LIFE, ECOCIDE AND GENOCIDE -- ALL IN THE NAME OF 'GROWTH' http://sco.lt/8pbb7p
The Economist, March 03, 2014
▶ GIVING GENEROUSLY, WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME
Last year, the WFP helped to feed over 90m people in 80 different countries. But the way it distributes food relief has been changing. In the 1960s, the organisation’s aid programmes for the developing world focussed on the distribution of food staples, often bought in developed countries, directly to the poor. Later, it was discovered that sourcing food more locally tended to be less disruptive to the local economy. Free distribution of food imported from elsewhere can undercut local food markets and cause more fundamental economic problems to occur. Buying more of it locally, it was found, tended to help farmers in the region more in the medium term.http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/03/world-food-programme
▶ THE ECONOMY OF ENOUGH: A BETTER PLAN THAN 'ENDLESS GROWTH'http://sco.lt/7f68zR
I live on residential campus at University and I will be honest; many times I have been too busy soundly sleeping in my comfy bed with my fans which has allowed me to sleep in causing me to miss the large buffet styled breakfast set out for me. I wake up starting my day annoyed and disgruntled all because I missed one meal for the day. How selfish is that?
Sometimes, we all forget how lucky we have it here in Australia, I know I do.
I hope that if not in 5 years time at least 10 years time I have gone and travelled to multiple third world countries and helped out to my hearts content. There is only so little I can do to help here in Australia such as sponsoring a child which I already do. I hope to bring happiness and hope in the world to as many beautiful starving and homeless eyes as I possibly can.
RT News, April 17, 2015 -▶ EU POISED TO LET IN NEW GM PRODUCTS, INTRODUCE NON-HEALTH - OPT-OUTS. The EU is expected to permit over a dozen new genetically modified agricultural products into its market. Individual countries would reportedly be able to ban GM products, as long as they don’t challenge the science behind authorizations.
▶ AUSTRALIA, STATE OF TASMANIA TO CONTINUE MORATORIUM ON GM CROPS AND ANIMALSThe Tasmanian government will indefinitely extend a ban on genetically modified crops and animals in the state's products...http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/09/tasmania-gm
DR JUDY CARMAN, Associate Professor in Biochemistry at Flinders University; Director of the Institute of Health and Enviornmental Research, on the genetically modified organisms (GMO) moratorium in Tasmania and what that means for Tasmania. (00-8:40)
▶ GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS NOT THE SOLUTION FOR "FEEDING THE WORLD"http://sco.lt/77BuML
Sustainable Pulse, November 12, 2013 ▶ SPREAD OF GM CROPS ILLEGALLY OUT OF CONTROL IN MANY COUNTRIES. Testbiotech published the first global overview showing how genetically engineered plants (GM crops) such as maize, rice, cotton, oilseed rape, bentgrass and poplar trees are spreading uncontrollably. This is happening in regions and countries such as the USA and Canada, Middle America, Japan, China, Australia and Europe. In many cases, the plants have escaped far beyond the fields into the environment. In some regions, the transgenes have already moved into populations of wild relatives.... http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/11/12/spread-of-gm-crops-out-of-control-in-many-countries-breaking-news/#.UoLV-o3piRQ
▶ HOW GMO FOODS AFFECT HEALTH - GENE ALTERED FOODS NOW LARGE PART OF AMERICAN DIEThttp://sco.lt/7oVxQH
THE COUNTER RETALIATION
U.S. GOVERNMENT AGGRESSIVELY BACKS & PROMOTES MONSANTO, BIOTECH THRUST FOR CONTROL OF GLOBAL GMO FOOD - WITH TRADE DEAL ARM-TWISTINGhttp://sco.lt/5AJ1Pt
▶ WHY IS THERE SO LITTLE INDEPENDENT PEER REVIEW GMO RESEARCH?http://sco.lt/8mGIO9
▶ A RACE TO SAVE THE APPLE AND ORANGE BY ALTERING ITS DNA: EUROPE BANS AMERICAN APPLES: Pesticides, Antibiotics on Your Fruit and Veggies http://sco.lt/6ljP1t
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT:
SOARING PESTICIDE USE AND POISONING LINKED TO GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROP PRODUCTIONhttp://sco.lt/8iunRp
▶ “FATALLY FLAWED" FDA ASSESSMENT TO UNLEASH GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SALMON ONTO YOUR DINNER PLATE, NO REGULATIONS, NO OVERSIGHT, NO LABELINGhttp://sco.lt/8ZDraz
▶ HUMAN GENES ENGINEERED INTO EXPERIMENTAL GMO RICE BEING GROWN IN KANSASThe only known GMO with inbred human traits in cultivation today, a GM rice product made by biotechnology company Ventria Bioscience is currently being grown on 3,200 acres in Junction City, Kansas — and possibly elsewhere — and most people have no idea about it. Since about 2006, Ventria has been quietly cultivating rice that has been genetically modified (GM) with genes from the human liver for the purpose of taking the artificial proteins produced by this “Frankenrice” and using them in pharmaceuticals. http://aworldchaos.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/human-genes-engineered-into-experimental-gmo-rice-being-grown-in-kansas/
▶ MONSANTO GMO TREES COULD DEVASTATE FOREST ECOSYSTEMS - LEAVING A BIOLOGICAL DESERThttp://sco.lt/51ekyH
▶ THE NEXT GMO BIOTECH WAVE: EXTREME SYNTHETIC GENETICS: THE IMPLICATIONS. THE ETHICShttp://sco.lt/6TyUmv
▶ 21st CENTURY PATENTING OF LIFE: BIOTECH IS RE-ENGINEERING, RE-PROGRAMMING AND PATENTING LIFE ITSELF. THE ETHICS AND LEGALITIEShttp://sco.lt/9Hu7Tl
▶ MANIPULATING THE SEEDS OF LIFE: SEED PATENTS AND CONTROL OF YOUR FOOD - THE GLOBAL CORPORATE MONOPOLY The Global Corporate Monopoly http://sco.lt/7yB3XF
▶ THE NEXT GMO BIOTECH WAVE: EXTREME SYNTHETIC GENETICS. THE IMPLICATIONS, THE ETHICShttp://sco.lt/6JaFLF
- ▶ FARM-AGEDDON: TODAY'S MEGA FARMS DESTROYING ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN HEALTHToday, ‘mixed’ farming of animals and crops has all but disappeared, writes PHILIP LYMBERY, and has been replaced by farms specialising in one product only....
WATCH; "DEATH ON A FACTORY FARM [HBO] (2009) 1:27:25
Directors Tom Simon and Sarah Teale (HBOs Dealing Dogs) tell the story of an animal rights investigator who goes undercover at hog farm in Ohio to explore a whistle blowers allegations. The evidence he gathers leads to a rare prosecution and trial for animal cruelty, and a verdict that surprises nearly everyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfiolWwzD94
- ▶ ANTI-WHISTLE BLOWER AG-GAG BILLS AIMED AT KEEPING YOU IN THE DARK ABOUT FACTORY FARMS AND YOUR FOODhttp://sco.lt/7aFBUv
TakePart, July 10, 2014 FORGET AG-GAG LAWS: THIS SUMMER'S LEGAL FIGHT IS OVER THE RIGHT TO FARM. State constitutional amendments and other legal measures would protect industrial agriculture. When state legislators met to hash out new laws in the spring of 2013, farm protection or ag-gag bills were voted on across the Midwest and in agricultural states in the South and Southwest. The laws were designed to criminalize the work of animal rights activists and whistle-blowers who secretly recorded abuse or other unlawful activity in confined animal feeding operations or other farms.
Star Tribune, June 08, 2014 -▶ CONSUMER PRESSURE LEADS AGRIBIZ COLOSSUS CARGILL TO GIVE PIGS MORE ROOM. Pork producers across the United States have long kept their sows in small, barred stalls or crates, with so little space they can’t turn around. Agribusiness colossus Cargill and its big corporate competitors have deep pockets.http://www.startribune.com/business/262257761.html
Economic Times, June 09, 2014 INDIA OFFICIALS SEEK TO CURB ANTIBIOTICS AND HORMONES IN ANIMAL FEED. Fearing spread of antibiotic resistance through the food chain, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) and the agriculture ministry have directed state governments to stop the use of antibiotics and hormones in animal feed. They have also called for strict implementation of a 2012 law, which mandates a gap between the time an animal is given a drug for medical purposes and sale of food products from that animal.http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-06-09/news/50448268_1_food-producing-animals-antibiotics-animal-feed
Agribusiness has introduced anti-whistle-blower or “ag-gag” bills in numerous states aimed at making whistle-blowing on factory farms essentially impossible. Whistle-blowing employees have played a vital role in exposing animal abuse, unsafe working conditions, and environmental problems on industrial factory farms. The agribusiness industry's response to these exposés has not been to prevent the abuses, but rather to try to prevent the American people from finding out about the abuses in the first place...http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/campaigns/factory_farming/fact-sheets/ag_gag.html#id=album-185&num=content-3312
▶ ANTI-WHISTLE BLOWER AG-GAG LAWS AIMED AT KEEPING YOU IN THE DARK ABOUT YOUR FACTORY FARMED FOOD - PIGS, CHICKENS, VEAL, BEEF, DAIRY, TURKEY, DUCKShttp://sco.lt/7aFBUv
▶ FROM THE BACKYARD GRILL TO THE PICNIC BASKET , Americans seem to have a love affair with meat and poultry. From the backyard grill to the picnic basket, To supply that demand, livestock production has turned to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) as the new business model, growing high volumes of cows, pigs, and poultry within short time spans and in the smallest spaces possible....http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/opinions/animal-waste-waterways-and-drinking-water-85899409190
March 19, 2013 - Huffington Post
▶ WHY EVERYONE SHOULD BE ANGRY ABOUT CORPORATE FACTORY FARMINGhttp://sco.lt/7kUpVp
Beginning with a history of the American food system, River of Waste shows its evolution to large-scale corporate farms where pollution and use of growth hormones threaten both individual health and the future of our planethttp://sco.lt/5WwPVx
Global Research, September 17, 2014 BILL GATES DONATES $5.6 MILLION TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY WHICH HELPED MONSANTO PROMOTE GMO BOVINE GROWTH HORMONE. Want to know just how far Gates’ money reaches to promote GMOs and other unhealthy ‘scientific’ discoveries touted as boons to society? Look no further than Cornell University, the institution that tells us Monsanto’s rBST (also known as rBGH) - a genetically engineered growth hormone used to make cows produce more milk – is safe. http://www.globalresearch.ca/bill-gates-donates-5-6-million-to-cornell-university-that-helped-monsanto-promote-gmo-bovine-growth-hormone-rbst/5402471
-▶ OBESITY PLUS: HUGE INCREASE IN DIABETES, STROKES, HEART ATTACKS ON A GLOBAL SCALE -- THE AMERICAN DIET AND CONTEMPORARY FOOD PRODUCTION http://sco.lt/80rmld
BIG FOOD:
MICHAEL POLLAN THINKS WALL STREET HAS WAY TOO MUCH INFLUENCE OVER WHAT WE EAT
▶ SEE WHO ACTUALLY OWNS THE FOOD YOU EAT: There are more than 38,000 products in the average American supermarket. That means tons of choice, right? In fact, the vast majority of these products are owned by just 10 companies. Those friendly looking Green Giant pees? That's General Mills. And Odwalla juice? That's Coca Cola. This matters, of course, because we deserve to know where our food comes from--and how it's made.http://www.fastcocreate.com/3032899/see-who-actually-owns-the-food-you-eat-and-how-theyre-behaving
▶ WORLD'S LARGEST FOOD COMPANIES CREATING LEGACY OF DESTRUCTION http://sco.lt/7lyDg1
"FOODOPOLY"
EXPOSING THE HANDFUL OF CORPORATIONS THAT CONTROL OUR FOOD SYSTEM FROM SEED TO DINNER PLATEhttp://sco.lt/7YSrYX
This is an interesting article connecting eating to drug use. The connection is quite obvious, as food also causes a dopamine release. It is an interesting comparison, because it implies that the majority of the Western world is suffering drug addiction to food.
Few consumers are aware of the economic forces behind the production of meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. Yet omnivore and herbivore alike, the forces of meatonomics affect us in many ways.
When you buy a Big Mac or a T-bone, a portion of the cost is a tax on beef, the proceeds from which the government hands over to a private trade group called the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The NCBA in turn uses this public money to buy ads encouraging you to eat more beef, while also lobbying to derail animal rights and other agricultural reform activists, defeat meat labeling requirements, and defend the ongoing consolidation of the industry...http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2014/features/big_beef048356.php
- ▶ WHY CHEAP MEAT COSTS THE EARTH - THE MORAL COSTS In the rich world, each of us consumes or uses 30 or more animals a year (the bulk – 52 of the 59 billion – are chickens). We don't, in the nutritional sense, need these animals to feed us – certainly not in those numbers. Yet, in order to eat them at an acceptable price we have to imprison them, alter them genetically and chemically, and kill them. We have moved inexorably into ever greyer ethical territory. Any planning for a food future that still envisages using animal products and meat must debate the "moral cost"http://allanimalrights.org/News-834-Why-cheap-meat-costs-the-Earth
The Humane Society of the United States, February 22, 2014 - ▶ VEAL CRATES, UNNECESSARY AND CRUEL.Hundreds of thousands of calves raised for veal are intensively confined in individual crates too narrow for them even to turn around.http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/confinement_farm/facts/veal.html
Grist, June 10, 2014 - ▶ A MEAT GIANT GOBBLES UP ANOTHER MEAT GIANT: GRAPHS
There are problems with this kind of consolidation...“When all the power is so centralized in these behemoths, they end up writing their own rules in Congress and fighting the reforms to protect consumers and farmers”...
When the Obama administration sought to reform the animal farming industry, many farmers, some visibly frightened, risked their livelihoods by speaking publicly about abuses. But industry squelched that attempt.
Now, the industry lobbyists are working to reduce the number of inspectors in slaughterhouses, while speeding up the kill and processing lines. "But the chickens already move down the disassembly lines “obscenely fast, in my opinion,”http://grist.org/food/a-meat-giant-gobbles-up-another-meat-giant/
WATCH; "DEATH ON A FACTORY FARM [HBO] (2009) 1:27:25
Directors Tom Simon and Sarah Teale (HBOs Dealing Dogs) tell the story of an animal rights investigator who goes undercover at hog farm in Ohio to explore a whistle blowers allegations. The evidence he gathers leads to a rare prosecution and trial for animal cruelty, and a verdict that surprises nearly everyone.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfiolWwzD94
-▶ ANIMALS RAISED IN CORPORATE CONCENTRATION PENS - DRUGS, GMO FEED AND 'AG-GAG' LAWS TO IMPACT BEYOND THE USA http://sco.lt/6jKf2H
VIDEO The Humane Society of the United States, February 20, 2014 UNDERCOVER AT IRON MAIDEN: http://video.humanesociety.org/
According to the report, which looked at ground turkey, chicken portions, pork chops and ground beef collected from supermarkets, more than half of the meat samples contained antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Specifically, bacteria was found in 81% of ground turkey, 69% of pork chops, 55% of ground beef and 39% of chicken breasts, wings and thighs. - See more at: http://www.emagazine.com/daily-news/superbugs-in-the-meat-supply/#sthash.pyMxpUas.dpuf
- ▶ ANTI-WHISTLE BLOWER AG-GAG LAWS AIMED AT KEEPING YOU IN THE DARK ABOUT YOUR FACTORY FARMED FOOD - PIGS, CHICKENS, VEAL, DAIRY, TURKEY, DUCKShttp://sco.lt/7aFBUv
Grist, January 29, 2014 -▶ POOR COWS: HARVESTING METHANE FROM PUNCTURING COW'S STOMACHS, BUT SHOULD WE? Argentinian scientists are punching holes in the sides of cattle and passing pipes through to their stomachs. The other end of the pipe goes into a bag fitted on the cow’s back. The captured gas, which is basically the same natural gas that frackers and other drillers mine out of the ground, can be burned to produce energy. That releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere instead of the methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas.
Exposes a huge health and environmental scandal in our modern industrial system of meat and poultry production. This documentary looks at the potential hazards caused by factory farms in the United States, particularly by waste disposal. Beginning with a history of the American food system, River of Waste shows its evolution to large-scale corporate farms where pollution and use of growth hormones threaten both individual health and the future of our planet....http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/river-waste/
Yale Environment 260, May 27, 2014 ▶ AS CORPORATE DAIRY FARMS GROW BIGGER, NEW CONCERN ABOUT POLLUTION. Dairy operations in the U.S. are consolidating, with ever-larger numbers of cows concentrated on single farms. In states like Wisconsin, opposition to some large operations is growing after manure spills and improper handling of waste have contaminated waterways and aquifers.http://e360.yale.edu/feature/as_dairy_farms_grow_bigger_new_concerns_about_pollution/2768/
▶ CORPORATE POWER: NEW YORK ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS SLAM STATE'S DECISION TO EXEMPT CAFOs (Confined Animal Feed Operations) FROM CLEAN WATER STANDARDShttp://ecowatch.org
Reuters, January 16, 2015 ▶ FARMS CAN BE HELD LIABLE FOR POLLUTION FROM MANURE - U.S. COURTS. Industrial livestock operations produce hundreds of millions of tons of manure annually, poisoning our ground water and water ways.A U.S. federal court has ruled for the first time that manure from livestock facilities can be regulated as solid waste, a decision hailed by environmentalists as opening the door to potential legal challenges against facilities across the country.http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/17/usa-pollution-manure-idUSL1N0UW02520150117
Pulse, April 11, 2014 - ▶ SCIENTIST FRUSTRATED BY MASSIVE FACTORY FARM WASTE, THREATENING BOTH HUMAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH: Despite a growing body of evidence that shows the environmental and health consequences of intensive livestock operations, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) continue to pop up on the landscape. In Kewaunee County, where cows outnumber humans by more than three to one, and where the porous karst topography cannot possibly support the massive amounts of animal waste that the industrial farms produce, citizens have been fighting an uphill battle to have their concerns heard.
We are at a critical point in human history. Our choices no longer have just a local impact. Their effects are felt globally — on animals, people, and the environment.... http://vimeo.com/51888108
▶ ANTI-WHISTLE BLOWER AG-GAG LAWS AIMED AT KEEPING YOU IN THE DARK ABOUT YOUR FACTORY FARMED FOOD - PIGS, CHICKENS, VEAL, DAIRY, TURKEY, DUCKShttp://sco.lt/7aFBUv
WATCH; "DEATH ON A FACTORY FARM [HBO] (2009) 1:27:25
Directors Tom Simon and Sarah Teale (HBOs Dealing Dogs) tell the story of an animal rights investigator who goes undercover at hog farm in Ohio to explore a whistle blowers allegations. The evidence he gathers leads to a rare prosecution and trial for animal cruelty, and a verdict that surprises nearly everyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfiolWwzD94
- ▶ CHINA'S DEAD HOG SCANDAL IS GROSS - BUT SO ARE THE HOG FECES IN THE US WATERWAYShttp://sco.lt/5J0QEr
▶ ARE YOU EATING CLONED PORK? CHINA ENTERS USA FOOD MARKET UNLABELED, UNREGULATED http://sco.lt/57VNh3
========================
VIDEO The Vancouver Sun, June 09, 2014 ▶ THREAT TO CRITICAL WATERWAYS REVEALS A U.S.-CANADA DIVIDE. They are the invisible waterways. Laced with farm manure, choked with invasive grasses and often seasonally dry, their subtle meanderings go unnoticed and unappreciated. There are hundreds of them in the Fraser Valley, providing critical habitat for endangered fish and frogs against a tide of government neglect, poor farming practices and public ignorance. http://www.vancouversun.com/Threat+critical+waterways+reveals+Canada+divide/9919381/story.html
▶ FOOD OR FUEL? RESEARCH SUGGESTS BIOFUEL WILL COST THE EARTHhttp://sco.lt/8ezJ2X
-▶ THE CURSE OF PETROLEUM, CHEMICAL-BASED INDUSTRIAL FARM FERTILIZERShttp://sco.lt/7uzkCf
WATCH
Emmy Award Winning 1 hr Film - University of Minnesota
▶ "TROUBLED WATERS: A MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORY" ▶ This excellent one hour documentary examines the "unintended consequences" of farming practices on water quality, soil loss and the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Knitting together federal energy, farm and environmental policies, the film makes a compelling case for the revamping of US agricultural policy. Through beautiful photography and inspiring narrative, the film puts deliberate emphasis on solutions and provides a hopeful blueprint for progress and positive change...http://www.rememberthispoint.com/?p=212
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.
Your new post is loading...
This article is related to our AP Human Geography Agriculture unit due to the fact cattle ranching is a form of agriculture found in many less inhabited areas around the world. When someone goes to the store to pay high prices for meat there such as a T-bone steak the meat should be in prime eating condition when high price is paid. Therefore, the supplier of the meat or the distributor should sterilize and keep their product (cows) clean and fed proper nutrients and water.