We produce plenty of food to feed everyone to obesity especially since some 50% of industrial corn -- which is pretty useless nutritionally having had that part, which isn't profitable, bred out -- goes to feeding industrial animals -- which are also pretty useless nutritionally. Producing flesh requires 8 pounds of grain to garner 1 pound so it's hardly the food of the starving.
In fact it's rather sick how industry uses hunger to further their causes and in turn causes even more hunger.
Myth 1 - Not Enough Food to Go Around
Myth 2 - Nature's to Blame for Famine
Myth 3 - Too Many People
Myth 4 - The Environment vs. More Food?
Myth 5 - The Green Revolution is the Answer
Myth 6 - We Need Large Farms
Myth 7 - The Free Market Can End Hunger
Myth 8 - Free Trade is the Answer
Myth 9 - Too Hungry to Fight for Their Rights
Myth 10 - More U.S. Aid Will Help the Hungry
Myth 11 - We Benefit From Their Poverty
Myth 12 - Curtail Freedom to End Hunger?
That corn which is greed-based is incredibly destructive to the environment that provides real food and to viable means for obtaining a living, not to mention quality of life for any involved ('cept those pocketing the money of course).
Further, organic growing systems not only are perfectly able to provide plenty, they are in fact better able to produce in stressed conditions such as those we've been engineering with our reckless disregards, including climate change, floods and drought. And far more nutritious so more bang for each calorie buck.
Human Health Benefits
A growing body of research indicates that pasture-raised meat, eggs, and dairy products are better for consumers' health than conventionally-raised, grain-fed foods. In addition to being lower in calories and total fat, pasture-raised foods have higher levels of vitamins, and a healthier balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fats than conventional meat and dairy products.
Studies have shown that milk from pasture-fed cows has as much as five times the CLA (a “good” type of fatty acid) as milk from grain-fed cows. iii And meat from pasture-fed cows has from 200 to 500 percent more CLA as a proportion of total fatty acids than meat from cows that eat a primarily grain-based diet. iv
Free-range chickens have 21% less total fat, 30% less saturated fat and 28% fewer calories than their factory-farmed counterparts. v Eggs from poultry raised on pasture have 10% less fat, 40% more vitamin A and 400% more omega-3's. vi
...
If you, like the average American, eat 67 pounds of beef per year, then switching from conventional beef to pastured beef would reduce your yearly calorie intake by 16,642 calories! ix
In fact food has lost much of it's nutrition (as I've been trying to point out all along):
Organic fruits and vegetables work harder for their nutrients
Produce has been losing vitamins and minerals over the past half-century
Deborah K. Rich, Special to The Chronicle
Saturday, March 25, 2006
The fruits and vegetables that our parents ate when they were growing up were more nutritious than the ones we'll serve our children tonight. On average, the produce we grow in the United States has lower levels of several vitamins and minerals today than it did 50 to 60 years ago. By growing or buying and eating organic produce, however, we can make up much of the difference. Organically grown fruits and vegetables are proving to have higher levels of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals than their conventionally grown counterparts.
Donald R. Davis, a research associate with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin, recently analyzed data gathered by the USDA in 1950 and 1999 on the nutrient content of 43 fruit and vegetable crops. He found that six out of 13 nutrients had declined in these crops over the 50-year period (the seven other nutrients showed no significant, reliable changes). Three minerals, phosphorous, iron and calcium, declined between 9 percent and 16 percent. Protein declined 6 percent. Riboflavin declined 38 percent and ascorbic acid (a precursor of vitamin C) declined 15 percent.
A study of the mineral content of fruits and vegetables grown in Britain between 1930 and 1980 shows similar decreases in nutrient density. The British study found significantly lower levels of calcium, magnesium, copper and sodium in vegetables, and of magnesium, iron, copper and potassium in fruit. The report concludes that the declines indicate "that a nutritional problem associated with the quality of food has developed over those 50 years."
The decline in our produce's nutritional value corresponds to the period of increasing industrialization of our farming systems. As we have substituted chemical fertilizers, pesticides and monoculture farming for the natural cycling of nutrients and on-farm biodiversity, we have lessened the nutritional value of our produce. Integrated well-established organic farming systems can counter the decline.
...
The decline in nutrients
Our push for higher yields per acre and cheaper food is largely to blame for the decline in nutrient levels in conventional produce. With irrigation and fertilization we can get more pounds per acre, but often not without sacrificing nutrients per pound produced. This "dilution effect" on nutrient density was widely observed by agricultural scientists even 20 to 30 years ago. The use of hybrids selected for high yields has probably compounded the trade-off between yield and nutrients. Davis writes, "Modern crops that grow larger and faster are not necessarily able to acquire nutrients at the same, faster rate, whether by synthesis or by acquisition from the soil."
In addition to pushing a plant to grow big fast, heavy fertilization can interfere with a plant's ability to synthesize vitamin C. A plant will increase protein production and reduce carbohydrate production when it absorbs an abundance of nitrogen. "Because vitamin C is made from carbohydrates, the synthesis of vitamin C is reduced," writes Worthington.
Use of potassium fertilizers (potassium is the "K" in N-P-K fertilizers) can reduce the phosphorous content of some plants. For the plant to absorb phosphorous, it must have adequate amounts of magnesium. But when potassium is added to soil, plants absorb less magnesium, and, indirectly, less phosphorus as well.
...
The large populations of microorganisms that typically inhabit organically managed fields also produce substances that combine with minerals in the soil and make them more available to plants, a function that can be especially important for iron absorption. Iron is usually present in soil, but it is often in an unavailable form.
"Still No Free Lunch: Nutrient levels in U.S. food supply eroded by pursuit of high yields"
September 2007
Author: Brian Halweil
Worldwatch Institute
Steady progress in increasing crop yields and animal production levels has often been achieved at the expense of food nutrional quality, the environment, and in some cases, food safety and animal health.
This "Critical Issue Report" documents the extent of nutrient decline, reviews ways that farmers and breeders can increase nutrient density, and explains the importance of doing so in order to improve public health.
October 28, 2007
Official: organic really is better
Jon Ungoed-Thomas
THE biggest study into organic food has found that it is more nutritious than ordinary produce and may help to lengthen people's lives.
The evidence from the £12m four-year project will end years of debate and is likely to overturn government advice that eating organic food is no more than a lifestyle choice.
The study found that organic fruit and vegetables contained as much as 40% more antioxidants, which scientists believe can cut the risk of cancer and heart disease, Britain’s biggest killers. They also had higher levels of beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc.
October 28, 2007
Eat your words, all who scoff at organic food
Jon Ungoed-Thomas
The research has shown up to 40% more beneficial compounds in vegetable crops and up to 90% more in milk. It has also found high levels of minerals such as iron and zinc in organic produce.
Last Updated: Friday, 7 January, 2005, 14:12 GMT
Organic milk 'higher in vitamins'
Milk from cows reared differently was compared
Drinking organic milk has more health benefits than drinking non-organic, a study has suggested.
The research was presented to the Soil Association's annual conference in Newcastle.
It showed organic milk has higher levels of vitamin E, omega 3 essential fatty acids and antioxidants, which help beat infections.
...
The study found cows farmed organically produced milk which was, on average, 50% higher in Vitamin E than conventionally produced milk.
Organic milk was also 75% higher in beta carotene, which is converted into Vitamin A in the body.
It was also two to three times higher in the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthine.
Antioxidants are the naturally occurring substances in plants that protect the body from free radicals - 'bad' chemicals in the blood.
Free radicals alter cholesterol in a process known as oxidation, which is thought to speed up the hardening of the arteries.
Higher levels of omega 3 essential fatty acids, which are believed to help provide protection from coronary heart disease, were also found in organic milk.
The study concluded that drinking a pint of organic milk a day would provide 17.5% of the required daily intake of Vitamin E for women, and 14% of that for men.
The researchers suggest it also provides as much beta carotene as a portion of vegetables, such as brussel sprouts.
And eggs:
Most of the eggs currently sold in supermarkets are nutritionally inferior to eggs produced by hens raised on pasture. That's the conclusion we have reached following completion of the 2007 Mother Earth News egg testing project. Our testing has found that, compared to official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs, eggs from hens raised on pasture may contain:
* 1/3 less cholesterol
* 1/4 less saturated fat
* 2/3 more vitamin A
* 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
* 3 times more vitamin E
* 7 times more beta carotene
It's cheap food because it has little value.
You would have to eat five to six servings of grain-fed meat to equal the nutrient intake from one serving of grass-fed, and you would be consuming all that additional, unneeded poor-quality fat and calories as well.
And it's not about cheap calories so much now is it? Empty calories have little value being nothing more than spacer food, and the set-up for starving obesity from the constant hunger despite being over-weight, since it doesn't matter how much food one stuffs in a body; if it doesn't feed the body it continues to crave and need.
Myth one: Industrial agriculture will feed the world
Myth two: Industrial food is safe, healthy, & nutritious
Myth three: Industrial food is cheap
Myth four: Industrial agriculture is efficient
Myth five: Industrial food offers more choices
Myth six: Industrial agriculture benefits the environment and wildlife
Finishing up with:
Myth seven: Biotechnology will solve the problems of industrial agriculture
EATING ASTROTURF & FEEDING MYTHS
See, solving problems is not nearly as profitable so is shunned by the astroturf groups formed and funded by Monsanto and friends and include the Hudson Institute which has people via its "Center for Global Food Issues" with the Averys running around spreading their diarrhea who go round on sites just like this spreading memes that we can't survive if we don't embrace the corporate patented technology.
Or one of Wal-Mart's favorite go-to guys:
Ellicatt did a great series on "Dr. Evil" Richard Berman who is behind the Obesity "myth" ads.
Another Lobbyist Worth Investigating
PART 1 - "Getting to Know You"
PART 2 - "Perhaps You've Seen His Work"
PART 3 - "Legal/Financial Issues and Conclusion"
Berman's groups include:
Center for Consumer Freedom Umbrella:
activistcash.com
cspiscam.com
physicianscam.com
fishscam.com
neoprohibition.com
animalscam.com and petakillsanimals.com
obesitymyths.com
The Employment Policies Institute
American Beverage Institute
Employment Roundtable
Center for Union Facts
All of which produce ads; the ones I've seen ask for donations as non-profit advocacy groups which are really pushing the corporate agenda. Worse, Rick Berman is the one profiting from the groups because the groups all use the consulting company, Berman & Co., which is headed, SURPRISE by Rick Berman.
Repeat the lie often enough and people believe it to be truth and propagate it as well, for free, in their (sometimes chosen) ignorance.
~~~~
However, even Monsanto (who not so long ago championed the need for PCBs) doesn't believe in the technology:
Can Organic Farming "Feed the World"?
Christos Vasilikiotis, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley
ESPM-Division of Insect Biology
201 Wellman-3112
Berkeley, CA 94720-3112
The legacy of Industrial Agriculture
With the world population passing the 6 billion mark last October, the debate over our ability to sustain a fast growing population is heating up. Biotechnology advocates in particular are becoming very vocal in their claim that there is no alternative to using genetically modified crops in agriculture if "we want to feed the world". Actually, that quote might be true. It depends what they mean by "we." It's true if the "we can feed the world" refers to the agribusiness industry, which has brought the world to the brink of food disaster and is looking for a way out. Biotech just may be their desperation move. "We'll starve without biotech," is the title of an opinion piece by Martina McGloughlin, Director of the Biotechnology program at the University of California, Davis. Could be. Modern industrial agricultural — which forms the foundation for biotech — ranks as such a dismal failure that even Monsanto holds them up as the evil alternative.
"The commercial industrial technologies that are used in agriculture today to feed the world... are not inherently sustainable," Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro told the Greenpeace Business Conference recently. "They have not worked well to promote either self-sufficiency or food security in developing countries." Feeding the world sustainably "is out of the question with current agricultural practice," Shapiro told the Society of Environmental Journalists in 1995. "Loss of topsoil, of salinity of soil as a result of irrigation, and ultimate reliance on petrochemicals ... are, obviously, not renewable. That clearly isn't sustainable."
Shapiro is referring to the 30-year-old "Green Revolution" which has featured an industrial farming system that biotech would build on: the breeding of new crop varieties that could effectively use massive inputs of chemical fertilizers, and the use of toxic pesticides. As Shapiro has hinted, it has led to some severe environmental consequences, including loss of topsoil, decrease in soil fertility, surface and ground water contamination, and loss of genetic diversity.
Do we really need to embark upon another risky technological fix to solve the mistakes of a previous one? Instead, we should be looking for solutions that are based on ecological and biological principles and have significantly fewer environmental costs. There is such an alternative that has been pioneered by organic farmers. In contrast to the industrial/monoculture approach advocated by the biotech industry, organic agriculture is described by the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) as "a holistic production management system which promotes and enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity."
Despite the lack of support from government and university extension services in the US, consumer demand for organic products is driving the organic movement ahead at a 20% annual rate of market growth, primarily with the help of an increasing consumer demand for organic products. The amount of certified organic agricultural land increased from 914,800 acres in 1995 to 1.5 million in 1997, a jump of more than 60% in just two years.
Not surprisingly, agribusiness conglomerates and their supporters dismiss organic farming, claiming it produces yields too low to feed a growing world population. Dennis Avery, an economist at the Hudson Institute — funded by Monsanto, Du Pont, Dow, and Novartis among others — had this to say in a recent ABC News' 20/20 broadcast. "If overnight all our food supply were suddenly organic, to feed today's population we'd have plowed down half of the world's land area not under ice to get organic food ... because organic farmers waste so much land. They have to because they lose so much of their crop to weeds and insects." In fact, as a number of studies attest, organic farming methods can produce higher yields than conventional methods. Moreover, a worldwide conversion to organic has the potential to increase food production levels -- not to mention reversing the degradation of agricultural soils and increase soil fertility and health.
...
No, what we have are political issues driven by pure unadulturated human greed as well as the seductive ultimate power trips which are blocking people's abilities to be fed. Even to the point that to get aid from the United States we will only provide genetically tampered grain grown here in the US and transported by US means (air/ship) with US crews.
And then there is Food Dumping which further undermines local food systems.
Food Aid As Dumping
The way the food aid programs of various rich countries is structured may be of concern. In fact, food “aid” (when not for emergency relief) can actually be very destructive on the economy of the recipient nation. Dumping food on to poorer nations (i.e. free, subsidized, or cheap food, below market prices) undercuts local farmers, who cannot compete and are driven out of jobs and into poverty, further slanting the market share of the larger producers such as those from the US and Europe. Last updated Monday, October 31, 2005.
Myth: More US Aid Will Help The Hungry
With kind permission from Peter Rosset of the Institute for Food and Development Policy (or FoodFirst.org as it is also known), chapter 10 of World Hunger: 12 Myths, 2nd Edition, by Frances Moore Lappé, Joseph Collins and Peter Rosset, with Luis Esparza (fully revised and updated, Grove/Atlantic and Food First Books, Oct. 1998) has been posted here. It describes in details the issue of food aid and the United States of America’s aid policies, the problems it causes and who it really benefits. Posted Saturday, November 25, 2000.
Links To More Information
Additional links on these issues are also provided here. They include articles that discuss the relationship between populations and hunger, of poverty and hunger, agricultural issues, land rights and so on. Last updated Monday, December 10, 2007.
Not to mention all the political roadblocks to birth control.
Starvation is not technological but rather a power trip and greed induced.
Hunger and Poverty are Related Issues
A common, often altruistic, theme amongst many is to be able to solve world hunger via some method that may produce more food. However, often missed is the relationship between poverty and hunger. Hunger is an effect of poverty and poverty is largely a political issue. (While manifesting itself as an economic issue, conditions causing poverty are political and end up being economic.)
As shown in the Genetically Engineered Food and Human Population sections on this web site, people are hungry not due to lack of availability of food, but because people do not have the ability to purchase food and because distribution of food is not equitable. In addition, there is also a lot of politics influencing how food is produced, who it is produced by (and who benefits), and for what purposes the food is produced (such as exporting rather than for the hungry, feedstuff, etc.)
See, in our profit-driven Industrial Food Complex system it's not what you do but what you own and who you know that makes things happen.
IMPLODING GLOBALIZATION
Until recently there were over 6000 varieties of apples in England and 7,000 in the Untied States but with the modern technological wonder of the industrial corporate grocery store we are rapidly losing varieties and all the knowledge and genetic variety that goes with them lost forever as we stock only a half dozen that are financially best for Wal-Street profit, with no regard to nutrition or benefit to the earth we also co-exist on.
And it's killing us. We are going to implode from our insistence in pursuing it. What we have set up now is far more worse that Peak Oil and that's Peak Soil and Peak Water. We absolutely do have to change up the way we grow food much more than how we get the same ol' same 'ol we've been getting.
The Rise and Predictable Fall of Globalized Industrial Agriculture
November 26, 2007
by Craig Mackintosh
Our present system of food production, commodification and trade brings with it many associated climate-change-inducing inefficiencies, as well as a chain-reaction of environmentally, socially and economically destructive practices. So, in the long term at least, it’s not all bad news that this system is bringing about its own demise. Here are several of the main ways this is happening:
Climate change: The IPCC report and other studies predict that agriculture is going to become increasingly difficult in a warming world. Indeed, we don’t even need to look to the future, as it’s happening around us today. More droughts, more floods. Whereas sustainable farming practices and localised distribution are carbon neutral, the globalised monocrop model is the largest contributor to climate change.
Peak Oil: The whole model is based on perpetual supplies of fossil fuels - from production (farm machinery, pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers), through to transportation, distribution and purchasing. Even the centralised retail aspect is a major contributor. At a time where energy demand is expected to increase exponentially, energy supplies are waning. This will necessarily drive up the cost of food production.
Peak Water: Arguably the biggest concern for this century. Modern farming systems use significantly more water, due to the lack of soil structure inherent in these systems, and along with the use of seed strains unsuitable for their locale.
Peak Soil: Depletion/Compaction/Erosion. Along with water, this is our most precious of resources, and its health is last on the list of priorities for the industries that have almost complete control of it.
Desertification: Caused by loss of soil life and moisture, overgrazing, over-cultivating, lack of cover crops, etc..
Land Use Competition: Think biofuels and population growth.
Changing Diets - China and other Asian nations developing a penchant for western land/water-intensive diets
.
Not to mention our insistance on developing complete antibiotic resistance so we can have crappy, unhealthy meat raised in horrid conditions and processed in destructive ways, for a buck a pound.
We are entitled dammit!
~~~~
ABOUT THOSE APPLES
George Monbiot wrote an article about the loss of apples which has haunted me now for years. Recently another I was involved in another conversation where the other party wanted a genetically engineered apple that will essentially do everything. What about all the apples we've had? And why does she need an apple to grow where she lives. Maybe there's a reason citrus doesn't grow in Canada beyond temperature. Do we know what that is (actually multiple no doubt)?
There are many organisms that live in soils and we already know that some of them not only hold the bad ones at bay but help plants to get water and nutrients. Modern agriculture kill and strip out all those and we end up with an inferior product that isn't feeding us well.
I believe we need to look into that along with the idea that there is far more to it that we just haven't been able to concept. This includes the idea that we are as much a part of our microcosm as the specific soils and plants. For instance, why can't we drink the water in Mexico but the natives can? Back when the railroad was being built the Europeans couldn't understand why they were getting sick but the Chinese stayed healthy. Why are people lactose intolerant? Why is the incidence of allergies (especially deadly ones) increasing along with GE/GMO crops?
Michael Pollan it turns out wrote about the disappearing apple as well:
"Commercial apples represent only a fraction of the Malus gene pool," he said, "and it's been shrinking. A century ago there were several thousand different varieties of apples being grown; now, most of the apples we grow have the same five or six parents: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Jonathan, McIntosh and Cox's Orange Pippin."
That genetic uniformity makes the apple a sitting duck for its enemies. In the wild, a plant and its pests are continuously coevolving, in a dance of resistance and conquest that can have no ultimate victor. But coevolution freezes in an orchard of grafted trees, since they are genetically identical. The problem is that the apples no longer get to have sex, which is nature's way of testing out fresh genetic combinations. The viruses, bacteria and fungi keep at it, however, continuing to evolve until they've overcome whatever resistance the apples may have once possessed.
Suddenly, total victory is in the pest's sight, unless people come to the tree's rescue with the heavy hand of modern chemistry.
THE solution is for us to help the apple evolve artificially," Mr. Forsline explained, by bringing in fresh genes through breeding. Which is precisely why it is so important to preserve as wide a range of apple genes as possible. Since it takes decades to develop a new apple variety, it will be some time before we know for sure whether the Kazakh trees hold the key to a better apple. Already, though, plant pathologists at Cornell have determined that some of the wild trees are resistant to fire blight. The challenge now is to breed that trait into an edible apple.
"It's a question of biodiversity," Mr. Forsline said, as we walked down rows of antique trees, tasting apples as we talked. Every time an old apple variety drops out of cultivation, or a wild apple forest succumbs to development (as is happening today in Kazakhstan), a set of genes vanishes from the earth. There would be no Fuji today if apple fanciers hadn't preserved the Ralls Janet, an antique apple (grown by Thomas Jefferson) that happens to contain a gene for late blooming that Japanese breeders were looking for. (The Fuji's other parent is the Red Delicious.)
We're accustomed to thinking of biodiversity in connection with wild species, but the biodiversity of the crop species on which we depend is no less important. The greatest biodiversity of any crop is apt to be found in the place where it first evolved, where nature first experimented with what an apple, or potato or peach, could be.
The recent discovery of the apple's "center of diversity," as botanists call such a place, was actually a rediscovery: in 1929, Nikolai I. Vavilov, the great Russian botanist, had identified the wild apple's Eden in the forests near what was then Alma-Ata (now known as Almaty), in Kazakhstan. "All around the city one could see a vast expanse of wild apples covering the foothills," he wrote. "One could see with his own eyes that this beautiful site was the origin of the cultivated apple."
Oh, but then those nasty politics intervened:
Vavilov fell victim to Stalinism's wholesale repudiation of genetics (he died in prison in 1943), and his discovery was lost to science until the fall of Communism. In 1989, one of his last surviving students, Aimak Djangaliev, invited American plant scientists to Kazakhstan to see the wild apples that he had been studying during the years of Soviet rule. Mr. Djangaliev was 80 at the time, and wanted their help in saving the great stands of M. sieversii.
We are fighting nature rather than finding out how it works and enhancing that... or at least not hampering it.
VIOLATING THE LAWS OF MOTHER NATURE
What do we end up with? Unintended consequences. Kudzu, Jellyfish blooms, dead zones, pollution of many kinds... climate change, Africanized bees, colony collapse disorder (in part because with monocropping there's no longer enough food to sustain the pollinators so we are trucking the bees all over and bringing in help from other countries... and meanwhile most of the honey in the States comes from China... too), and much more.
The Impact of Invasive Species
by Alexandre Meinesz
Caulerpa taxifolia, the "killer alga," is just one dramatic example of an accelerating phenomenon—the homogenization of the biosphere by species introduced to every continent and island. Inadvertently or deliberately, humans have always carried species from one region to another and, ultimately, between continents, but the development of rapid means of transportation has greatly increased the frequency of such introductions.
Many introduced species have invaded natural habitats to the detriment of one or more native species. Aside from economic consequences of varying degree, including loss of recreation and tourism, such invasions threaten biodiversity in those habitats. To gain a better understanding of such threats, one can erect a hierarchy of impacts on biodiversity. At each hierarchical level, the gravity of the case depends on the vigor of the invader, its dominance, its rate of spread, and its persistence.
Oh, and what we do with crops is much bigger than immediate consequences. It affects immigration and hunger in countries elsewhere immensely. Not to mention the economic collapse of big swathes in this country.
Bad Wrap
How Archer Daniels Midland cashes in on Mexico's tortilla woes
By Tom Philpott
22 Feb 2007
Much has been made in the U.S. press about Mexico's "tortilla crisis" -- the recent spike in the price of its definitive corn-based flatbread.
Media reports tend to focus blame on U.S. ethanol production, which has surged over the past year, causing the global price of corn to double. The situation stoked the food vs. fuel debate, showing that even marginally offsetting gasoline with corn-based ethanol can have dire consequences for eaters -- especially ones on a budget.
But while our ravenous -- and dubious -- appetite for turning corn into fuel has certainly played a role in the crisis, it's by no means our nation's only involvement in Mexico's tortilla nightmare.
Indeed, the same company responsible for rigging up the U.S. corn-based ethanol market is also profiting handsomely from soaring tortilla prices. Archer Daniels Midland, the leading U.S. ethanol maker and the world's biggest grain buyer, owns a 27 percent stake in Gruma, Mexico's dominant tortilla maker. ADM also owns a 40 percent share in a joint venture with Gruma to mill and refine wheat -- meaning that when Mexican consumers are forced by high tortilla prices to switch to white bread, Gruma and ADM still win.
...
What else is happening in the world because of the technology?
Suicide by pesticide: It's an epidemic in India, where farmers try to keep up with the latest pest-resistant seeds only to find themselves trapped in a vicious cycle of pesticides that don't work, drought and debt. Since 1997, more than 25,000 farmers have committed suicide, many drinking the chemical that was supposed to make their crops more, not less, productive.
This week on Rough Cut, you'll join FRONTLINE/World correspondent Chad Heeter in verdant Andhra Pradesh, an agricultural state in eastern India where last summer an average of seven farmers killed themselves every day. In this part of the world, machinery, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and hybrid seeds -- all of which originated in the West -- often spell disaster rather than prosperity. "This is the other side of globalization," says Heeter, a student at U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
And another more recent Wide Angle show from PBS (which can also be viewed online:
At a moment when India is enjoying record economic growth, THE DYING FIELDS turns to Vidarbha's four million cotton farmers who have been left behind, struggling to survive on less than two dollars a day. WIDE ANGLE cameras follow Kishor Tiwari, former businessman turned farmer advocate, whose tiny office in the heart of this cotton-growing region functions as the archive and watchdog for the suicide epidemic; traveling salesmen hawking genetically modified - and costly - cotton seeds that require irrigation that few Vidarbha farmers have; the last rites of a farmer who couldn't pay his debts; a tour of the poison ward at the local hospital, where beds are always filled; and a visit by then-president of India, A.J.P. Abdul Kalam, whom the farming widows beseech for help in convincing the government to forgive their debts.
Golden rice is a big scam in itself. It's not been happening and that should be obvious to everyone who pulls it out because it's main purpose is to serve as a distraction for the bio-companies to say they care about world hunger as they put the money in the bank. Ooh look! Bright and shiny! Not to mention that beta carotene may not be the answer and if people are deficient there then they are likely deficient in other essential nutrients. In fact, Vitamin D is the nutrient of this decade in part because we went overboard with sunscreen and putting our food inside to grow.
~~~~
FURTHER READING:
GM Crops, Pesticides, and the Poor
Genetic Biopiracy
75% of Food Diversity Lost in Last Century
Pay Monsanto or Starve
Chemical Based Farming Systems Robbing Us of Nutrients
The Rise and Predictable Fall of Globalized Industrial Agriculture
As well as the involvement in biofuels:
Paging Vinod Khosla ...
Billionaire Branson regrets mindless biofuel support
Posted by Tom Philpott at 1:38 PM on 19 Feb 2008
Biofuels: good for agrochemical/GMO biz
GMO giant Monsanto wows Wall Street, consolidates its grip on South America
Posted by Tom Philpott at 9:09 AM on 13 Feb 2008
Biofuels and the fertilizer problem
Can a 'renewable fuel' rely on mining a finite resource?
Posted by Tom Philpott at 1:51 PM on 13 Feb 2008
Next market bubble: farmland!
Thanks to the ethanol boom, big investors are plowing cash into corn country
Posted by Tom Philpott at 8:22 AM on 07 Feb 2008
Attack of the superweeds
While global GMO acreage surges, herbicide-resistent weeds thrive
Posted by Tom Philpott at 2:31 PM on 14 Feb 2008
Bread-line time?
With wheat stocks at all-time lows, a fertilizer magnate utters the F-word
Posted by Tom Philpott at 2:59 PM on 21 Feb 2008
Finishing up here with the introduction to The Future of Food film (about 9 minutes):
~~~~
Not only is world hunger not solvable by technology but is being used by those who are pushing the technology allowing it to get worse in both ways, but perhaps it's possible that technology is not the reason we are living so much longer... and that it's even possible we'd be living much longer if not for technology.
BODY BURDEN [A film, 287, that will be released this coming fall]
The term "body burden" is now commonly used in reference to synthetic chemicals that have entered into our bodies since the beginning of the 1900s. They enter by consumption, inhalation and contact often when we are least aware. Individually, toxins wreak havoc on our health and longevity; together, their effects are exponential. You could say we are toxic soups; "mutants" is a term used by journalists to define our new countenance. We no longer experience what natural life is really like-the kind our ancestors enjoyed.
Many of these toxins are carcinogens (cancer causing), and neurotoxins (which cause brain damage). They often manifest immediately with symptoms such as nausea, migraines, respiratory difficulties, rashes to heart palpitations; sadly, we have learned to accept these as normal bodily functions. They are not.
Most homes are extremely polluted because they are populated with hundreds of toxins we touch and inhale . And our pantries and refrigerators are chock-full of equally destructive toxins. Even our drinking water is a culprit. Stores, schools, hospitals are no exceptions.
Corporations and their lobbyists will obfuscate the facts by arguing that dosages are small; but, they fail to tell the public that once these enter our bloodstream, they stockpile in our body. And when two or more toxins interact the results can be catastrophic. These toxins stress our immune system, our vitality, our energy and our longevity. As we age our immune system can no longer suppress these intruders and it succumbs to various diseases including cancer, circulatory and neural diseases. We rarely hear that someone has died of natural causes anymore. Today, we are seeing mass effects from infancy with a steep rise in childhood diseases such as autism, brain tumors, diabetes and leukemia.
It does not matter what age you are, our bodies are all responding to our toxic body burden-no one is exempt. The toxic body burden is a human emergency and it must enter our daily discourse. At the very least your awareness can empower you to improve your personal environment through better choices and action. "287" is expected to usher in this awareness. What Inconvenient Truth is to your external environment, "287" is to your internal environment.
Just because it's called 'science' does not make bad science magically good for us.
~~~~
RESOURCES:
Even a little change can make a big difference and it can, simply must in fact, start with you:
To find Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), farmers markets, co-ops, locally owned markets, pastured eggs and meats, cheeses, even seeds and materials to grow your own home gardening even in window boxes, hanging baskets, or pots, and much, much more usually by zip code or town/city check out these links (the last includes UK resources).
PickYourOwn.org
Food Routes
Community Gardens
Sustainable Table
Local Harvest
Eat Wild
Certified Humane
Organic Consumers Buying Guide
Green People
Co-ops
Oceans Alive
Eat Well Guide
Happy Cow Restaurant Locator
Canadian Organic Growers
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral -- Locating Local
MOVIES:
* The Corporation
* An Inconvenient Truth
* Independent America (great blog too)
* Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price
* The Real Dirt on Farmer John
* The Future of Food
* King Corn
~~~~
Thank you for reading.
As a last thing, I want to mention that Independent Lens will be showing the documentary film, King Corn which was released last October. About a couple guys who buy an acre to see what it takes to grow corn. This is an important film (and pretty fun) since the [Food &] Farm Bill is currently in Congress being reconciled (not too late to call).
Infact, DIARY UPDATED to include a link to my companion diary on KING CORN:
Soylent Green & Yellow: KING CORN movie on PBS for Tax Day
by CSI Bentonville
Tue Apr 15, 2008 at 01:02:51 AM EDT
Hope to see you there too. :)
Permalink | 44 comments