Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Kol and Mawasi tribes of Satna MP die of hunger

Printer Friendly PageSend this Article to a FriendFrontline  Volume 25 - Issue 22 :: Oct. 25-Nov. 07, 2008

DEPRIVATION

Dying of hunger
AJOY ASHIRWAD MAHAPRASHASTA
in Satna
Malnourished tribal children die because ICDS schemes are all but non-existent, and the government is in denial.
PRAMOD PRADHAN 

At Hardua village in Ucchera block of Satna district, a child with Grade 3 malnourishment and suffering from skin infection.
THE final five kilometres to Ramnagar (Khokla), as the village is officially called, in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh has to be done on foot down a hill thick with shrubs and bushes. As we enter the village, eager eyes scan us for food or some other kind of livelihood support only to droop in disappointment once they learn that the wait has been in vain. The people of the Kol and Mawasi tribes who inhabit this village are a desperate lot: they have neither employment nor food, and their malnourished children are dying. In the past four months at least four children have died and those standing by the side of their elders had protruding stomachs, sunken eyes, wrinkled legs and slightly deformed heads, all symptoms of malnutrition.  

Saturday, October 25, 2008

N. Korea blacks out cell phone use to stop news of worsening food crisis


Sat, Oct 25  2008 02:05 PM
London, Oct 25 (ANI): North Korea is clamping down on mobile phones and long distance telephone calls to prevent the spread of news about a worsening food crisis, the United Nations investigator on human rights for the isolated communist country has said.
Thai law professor Vitit Muntarbhorn, in a report to the UN General Assembly, said that its government is using public executions as a means of intimidating the population, and using spies to infiltrate and expose religious communities, The Times reported.
His report came two days after the World Food Programme said that two thirds of North Koreans do not have enough to eat, in the country's worst crisis since as many as three million people died of famine a decade ago. more 

Monday, October 20, 2008

Earthworms in Agriculture

Opening A Can Of Worms: Serendipitous Discovery Reveals Earthworms More Diverse Than First Thought

ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2008) — Scientists have found that the UK's common or garden earthworms are far more diverse than previously thought, a discovery with important consequences for agriculture.
BBSRC-funded scientists at Cardiff University, led by Dr Bill Symondson and performed in the laboratory by postdoctoral scientist Dr Andrew King and undergraduate student Ms Amy Tibble, have found that many of the common earthworm species found in gardens and on agricultural land are actually made up of a number of distinct species that may have different roles in food chains and soil structure and ecology.
This discovery was made when efforts to develop better tools to identify earthworm DNA in the guts of slug and worm-eating beetles produced some very unexpected results.
Dr Symondson said: "When we were working to find new tools to detect earthworm DNA we started getting results that were not really what we expected to see and that indicated the presence of several new earthworm species. After investigating this further we eventually found that there are significant numbers of what we call 'cryptic species'. These different species live in the same environment and have the same outward appearance, but do not interbreed and have clearly distinct DNA sequences."
"Earthworms play a major role in the agricultural environment because they are involved in many soil processes such as soil turnover, aeration and drainage, and the breakdown and incorporation of organic matter. For this reason, they have often been the subject of research into, for example, ecology and toxicology. It is vitally important that we know exactly which species we are studying, in case they respond differently from one another – to agrochemicals or heavy metals in the soil, for example."  more 

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Towards the ideal of a hunger-free India by M.S. Swaminathan


The Hindu, October 2, 2008

Achieving the goal of nutrition security for all Indians will need a fusion of political will and action, professional skill, and peoples’ participation.


“To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare appear is work and promise of food as wages.” These were the words of Mahatma Gandhi when he was healing the wounds arising from the Hindu-Muslim divide at Naokhali in 1946. He thus stressed the symbiotic bonds among work, income and food security. Eradication of hunger and poverty is also the first among the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which in my view represent a global common minimum programme for human security and well-being.
.............


In 1981, Indira Gandhi suggested after meeting Vinoba Bhave at the Paunar Ashram in Wardha district that the district should be converted into a “Gandhi district,” since Gandhiji spent an important part of his life there. She asked me to chair a small group to prepare a blueprint to develop Wardha into “Gandhi district.”
Our first task was to develop a definition for a Gandhi district. We defined it as one where no one is below the poverty line and no one goes to bed hungry, not because of doles but because of opportunities for sustainable livelihoods. In other words, bread with human dignity was to be the hallmark of the proposed district.
At that time, over 80,000 families were below the poverty line and hence specific suggestions were given to raise all these families above the poverty level by creating opportunities for productive and remunerative work. Unfortunately, this plan to dedicate Wardha to Gandhiji is yet to be implemented. Even now, it will be worthwhile to update the report and transform Wardha into a hunger-free and poverty-free district dedicated to Gandhiji.  

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Hunger levels soar in East Africa

Hunger levels soar in East Africa

Residents carry bags of grain in the Ethiopian town of Boricha, file image
Rising food prices have hit Ethiopia hard
Nearly 17 million people in the Horn of Africa are in urgent need of food and other aid - almost twice as many as earlier this year, the UN has said.
Some $700m (£382m) in emergency aid is needed to prevent the region descending into full-scale famine, it said.
Top UN humanitarian official John Holmes said food stocks were critically low in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, northern Kenya and Uganda.
The area has suffered from drought, conflict and rocketing food prices.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Global Crop Diversity Trust collects seeds from Azerbaijan to Nigeria


Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway. (Credit: Mari Tefre/Global Crop Diversity Trust)


Scientists Behind 'Doomsday Seed Vault' Ready World's Crops For Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2008) — As climate change is credited as one of the main drivers behind soaring food prices, the Global Crop Diversity Trust is undertaking a major effort to search crop collections—from Azerbaijan to Nigeria—for the traits that could arm agriculture against the impact of future changes. Traits, such as drought resistance in wheat, or salinity tolerance in potato, will become essential as crops around the world have to adapt to new climate conditions.
Climate change is having the most negative impact in the poorest regions of the world, already causing a decrease in yields of most major food crops due to droughts, floods, increasingly salty soils and higher temperatures.
Crop diversity is the raw material needed for improving and adapting food crops to harsher climate conditions and constantly evolving pests and diseases. However, it is disappearing from many of the places where it has been placed for safekeeping—the world's genebanks. Compounding the fact that it is not well conserved is the fact that it is not well understood. A lack of readily available and accurate data on key traits can severely hinder plant breeders' efforts to identify material they can use to breed new varieties best suited for the climates most countries will experience in the coming decades. The support provided by the Global Crop Diversity Trust will not only rescue collections which are at risk, but enable breeders and others to screen collections for important characteristics.
"Our crops must produce more food, on the same amount of land, with less water, and more expensive energy," said Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. "This, on top of climate change, poses an unprecedented challenge to farming. There is no possible scenario in which we can continue to grow the food we require without crop diversity. Through our grants we seek, as a matter of urgency, to rescue threatened crop collections and better understand and conserve crop diversity."

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Green Revolution a failure: Prince Charles

Malayala Manorama Indian Newspaper of Malayalam Language from eight places in Kerela

Green Revolution a failure: Prince Charles

London: Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, said in remarks published Wednesday that the Green Revolution in India only worked for a “short time” and is now leading to “disasters”.

Charles, a keen environmentalist and campaigner against genetically modified agriculture, made the controversial claim about India in a newspaper interview where he described GM technology as “the biggest disaster, environmentally, of all time”.

“Look at India's Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid,” Charles told the Daily Telegraph in remarks that were set to be opposed by agricultural scientists.

“I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place as a result of the over-demand on irrigation because of the hybrid seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water.

“The water table has disappeared. They have huge problems with water level, with pesticides, and complications are now coming home to roost,” Charles said.

The Daily Telegraph said Charles is headed for “the biggest outpouring of criticism from scientists since he accused genetic engineers of taking us into 'realms that belong to God and God alone' in 1998.”

His example of India will be particularly contested as the Green Revolution is widely thought to have helped put independent India on the course to food self-sufficiency after suffering a series of famines under the British Raj.

In his remarks, Charles also said he had been to Western Australia where he had seen “huge salination problems” arising from “excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture”.

An Introduction to Biodynamic Agriculture

Gmail - An Introduction to Biodynamic Agriculture - jacobthanni@gmail.com

An Introduction to Biodynamic Agriculture

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An Introduction to Biodynamic Agriculture
Based on "An Introduction To Biodynamic Agriculture",

Originally published in Stella Natura.


What is Biodynamic agriculture? In seeking an answer let us pose the further question: Can the Earth heal itself, or has the waning of the Earths vitality gone too far for this? No matter where our land is located, if we are observant we will see sure signs of illness in trees, in our cultivated plants, in the water, even in the weather.
Organic agriculture rightly wants to halt the devastation caused by humans; however, organic agriculture has no cure for the ailing Earth. From this the following question arises: What was the original source of vitality, and is it available now?

Biodynamics is a science of life-forces, a recognition of the basic principles at work in nature, and an approach to agriculture which takes these principles into account to bring about balance and healing. In a very real way, then, Biodynamics is an ongoing path of knowledge rather than an assemblage of methods and techniques.

Biodynamics is part of the work of Rudolf Steiner, known as anthroposophy - a new approach to science which integrates precise observation of natural phenomena, clear thinking, and knowledge of the spirit. It offers an account of the spiritual history of the Earth as a living being, and describes the evolution of the constitution of humanity and the kingdoms of nature. Some of the basic principles of Biodynamics are:

Broaden Our Perspective

Just as we need to look at the magnetic field of the whole earth to comprehend the compass, to understand plant life we must expand our view to include all that affects plant growth. No narrow microscopic view will suffice. Plants are utterly open to and formed by influences from the depths of the earth to the heights of the heavens. Therefore our considerations in agriculture must range more broadly than is generally assumed to be relevant.

Reading the Book of Nature

Everything in nature reveals something of its essential character in its form and gesture. Careful observations of nature - in shade and full sun, in wet and dry areas, on different soils, will yield a more fluid grasp of the elements. So eventually one learns to read the language of nature. And then one can be creative, bringing new emphasis and balance through specific actions.

Practitioners and experimenters over the last seventy years have added tremendously to the body of knowledge of Biodynamics.

Cosmic Rhythms

The light of the sun, moon, planets and stars reaches the plants in regular rhythms. Each contributes to the life, growth and form of the plant. By understanding the gesture and effect of each rhythm, we can time our ground preparation, sowing, cultivating and harvesting to the advantage of the crops we are raising. The Stella Natura calendar offers an introduction to this study.

The Life of the Soil

Biodynamics recognizes that soil itself is alive, and this vitality supports and affects the quality and health of the plants that grow in it. Therefore, one of Biodynamics fundamental efforts is to build up stable humus in our soil through composting.

A New View of Nutrition

We gain our physical strength from the process of breaking down the food we eat. The more vital our food, the more it stimulates our own activity. Thus, Biodynamic farmers and gardeners aim for quality, and not only quantity.

Chemical agriculture has developed short-cuts to quantity by adding soluble minerals to the soil. The plants take these up via water, thus by-passing their natural ability to seek from the soil what is needed for health, vitality and growth. The result is a deadened soil and artificially stimulated growth.

Biodynamics grows food with a strong connection to a healthy, living soil.

Medicine for the Earth: Biodynamic Preparations

Rudolf Steiner pointed out that a new science of cosmic influences would have to replace old, instinctive wisdom and superstition. Out of his own insight, he introduced what are known as biodynamic preparations.

Naturally occurring plant and animal materials are combined in specific recipes in certain seasons of the year and then placed in compost piles. These preparations bear concentrated forces within them and are used to organize the chaotic elements within the compost piles. When the process is complete, the resulting preparations are medicines for the Earth which draw new life forces from the cosmos.

Two of the preparations are used directly in the field, one on the earth before planting, to stimulate soil life, and one on the leaves of growing plants to enhance their capacity to receive the light. Effects of the preparations have been verified scientifically.

The Farm as the Basic Unit of Agriculture

In his Agriculture course, Rudolf Steiner posed the ideal of the self-contained farm - that there should be just the right number of animals to provide manure for fertility, and these animals should, in turn, be fed from the farm.

We can seek the essential gesture of such a farm also under other circumstances. It has to do with the preservation and recycling of the life-forces with which we are working. Vegetable waste, manure, leaves, food scraps, all contain precious vitality which can be held and put to use for building up the soil if they are handled wisely. Thus, composting is a key activity in Biodynamic work.

The farm is also a teacher, and provides the educational opportunity to imitate natures wise self-sufficiency within a limited area. Some have also successfully created farms through the association of several parcels of non-contiguous land.

Economics Based on Knowledge of the Job

Steiner emphasized the absurdity of agricultural economics determined by people who have never actually raised crops or managed a farm.

A new approach to this situation has been developed which brings about the association of producers and consumers for their mutual benefit. The Community Supported Agriculture movement was born in the Biodynamic movement and is spreading rapidly. Gardens or farms gather around them a circle of supporters who agree in advance to meet the financial needs of the enterprise and its workers, and these supporters each receive a share of the produce as the season progresses. Thus consumers become connected with the real needs of the Earth, the farm and the Community; they rejoice in rich harvests, and remain faithful under adverse circumstances.

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Gmail - Taking Control of the World's Food Production - jacobthanni@gmail.com

Gmail - Taking Control of the World's Food Production - jacobthanni@gmail.com
Taking Control of the World's Food Production
By Kristin Palitza
Inter Press Service
DURBAN, (IPS) - Baphethile Mntambo has been farming organically for years because she knows that avoiding chemicals will in the long-term benefit her yield. She decided not to plant genetically modified seeds because she has heard that they cannot be saved for the next season and will eventually deplete her soil.
Mntambo is one of 50 small-scale farmers in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province who have been taught how to farm organically by the non-governmental organisation Valley Trust. The farmers learn to plant seasonal crops that will provide their families both with food security and an opportunity to generate income by selling their produce at local markets.
"We decided to promote organic farming to create sustainability for small-scale farmers. We believe it is the only way to give them food sovereignty and stability," explains Valley Trust food security facilitator Nhlanhla Vezi.
The Valley Trust used to cooperate with the Department of Agriculture, according to Vezi, but the collaboration ceased when the department started to put pressure on small-scale farmers to form cooperatives if they wanted its support. "The Department makes very attractive offers to provide farming equipment, water piping and seeds, but then uses this as a strategy to push GMO because of agreements they have signed with multinational GM seed patent holders," says Vezi.
Rural farmers are often lured into planting GM seeds by the Department of Agriculture by promises of substantial bank loans and the prospect of huge earnings, agrees Lesley Liddell, director of Biowatch, an NGO promoting alternatives to GMO farming by encouraging farmers to inter-crop, use natural fertilisers and non-chemical crops. "But in the end, most farmers end up in huge debt, because they can't save seeds and are obliged to buy the matching GM fertilisers and pesticides."
Yet, small-scale farmers are often so desperate for financial support that they consider planting GMO crops against better knowledge if they are offered the seeds for free. "I know that GMO is not good in the long run, but if someone gave me these seeds I would still plant them," says Tholani Bhengu, another small-scale farmer who works with the Valley Trust. "For me, the most important thing is to bring food on the table every week. I can't afford to think now about what will happen next year."
Because small-scale farmers in rural Africa often have little or no formal education, they are generally unable to make informed choices around GMO farming. "We encourage them to attend portfolio committees that discuss GMO regulations, but the farmers' knowledge is very limited, so it's difficult for them to contribute. They understand the issues but not the legislation," says Liddell.
South Africa is the only country within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to grow GM cash crops -- maize, cotton and soya -- commercially. Since 1997, GMO farming is regulated by the Genetically Modified Organisms Act.
"The adoption of GM crops in SA has increased over the last ten years and this has also filtered down to small-scale farmers," confirms Priscilla Sehoole, chief communications officer of the national Department of Agriculture.
"As with any other technology, there are potential risks associated with GMO technology and these include those related to human and animal health and also the environment," she admits. "Therefore, the regulation of all activities involving GMOs is subjected to a scientific safety assessment process that evaluates the potential risks."
Seehole says the South African Department of Agriculture would like to harmonise GMO policies across SADC to "eliminate some of the technical barriers that (currently) hinder trade in the region."
But anti-GMO activists, such as the African Centre for Biosafety, are opposed to this approach. "The GM industry is pushing for harmonised legislation because it will make it easier to commercialise varieties of GM crops across countries. But those concerned with biosafety very much doubt if regional harmonisation (of biosafety legislation) would be of advantage," says African Centre of Biosafety director Mariam Mayet.
"At the moment, each SADC country has its own policies and all these laws are very different from each other. This means that each GMO application has to go through the approval system and public consultation of each country, which is good for transparency and accountability " she explains.
"When South Africa passed GMO legislation in 1997, most people weren't aware of how highly contentious the technology would become. But now there is no way back. Once you're in it, you're in it," says Mayet.
South Africa's food industry is already saturated with GM, she says: "Everything is contaminated, and to make matters worse, labelling of GM content is not mandatory. We need serious policy reform and to implement a testing system that traces which foods contain GMO and which do not."
Over the past decade, South Africa has entered trade agreements with large, multi-national agricultural biotechnology corporations, such as Monsanto, which -- in an attempt to control the world's agricultural production -- promote the subsidisation of patented GM seeds. Through an incentive system supporting monocultures, small-scale farmers are systematically integrated into commercial agriculture, mainly for export, and encouraged to put together their land.
"It all looks very nice on paper, but it is actually a clever ploy to get access to people's land. Small-scale farmers who sign up for GM deals quickly lose control over seed management, production and eventually their land. This means they lose their food sovereignty," says Mayet. "GMO marginalises poor, small-scale farmers. We are in for hard times and need to fight for people's right to land and resources. But we won't give up."

Friday, August 1, 2008

Celebrate, Don't Mourn, Collapse of WTO Talks

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Celebrate, Don't Mourn, Collapse of WTO Talks
By Robert Weissman
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Predictably, the cheerleaders for corporate globalization are bemoaning the collapse of World Trade Organization negotiations.

"This is a very painful failure and a real setback for the global economy when we really needed some good news," said Peter Mandelson, the European Union's trade commissioner.

Even worse, says the corporate globalization rah-rah crowd, the talks' failure will hurt the developing world. After all, these negotiations were named the Doha Development Round.

"The breakdown of these talks is bad news for the world's businesses, workers, farmers and most importantly the poor," laments U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue.

But don't shed any tears for the purported beneficiaries of the WTO talks. If truth-in-advertising rules applied, this might have been called the Doha Anti-Development Round.

The alleged upside of the deal for developing countries -- increased access to rich country markets -- would have been of tiny benefit, even according to the World Bank. The Research and Information System for Developing Countries points out that Bank analyses showed a successful conclusion of the Doha Round would, by 2015, increase developing country income in total by $16 billion a year -- less than a penny a day for every person in the developing world.

The World Bank study, however, includes numerous questionable assumptions, without which developing countries would emerge as net losers. One unrealistic assumption is that governments will make up for lost tariff revenues by other forms of taxes. Another is that countries easily adjust to import surges by depreciating their currencies and increasing exports.

In any case, the important point is that there was very little to gain for developing countries.

By contrast, there was a lot to lose.

The promise to developing countries was that they would benefit from reduced agricultural tariffs and subsidies in the rich countries. Among developing nations, these gains would have been narrowly concentrated among Argentina, Brazil and a few other countries with industrial agriculture.

What the spike in food prices has made clear to developing countries is that their food security depends fundamentally not on cheap imports, but on enhancing their capacity to feed themselves. The Doha rules would have further undermined this capacity.

"Opening of markets, removal of tariffs and withdrawal of state intervention in agriculture has turned developing countries from net food exporters to net food importers and burdened them with huge import bills," explains food analyst Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute. "This process, which leaves the poor dependent on uncertain and volatile global markets for their food supply, has wiped out millions of livelihoods and placed nearly half of humanity at the brink of hunger and starvation."

Farmers' movements around the world delivered this message to government negotiators, and the negotiators refused to cave to the aggressive demands made by rich countries on behalf of agricultural commodity-trading multinationals. Kamal Nath, India's Minister for Commerce and Industry, pointed out that the Doha Development Round was supposed to give benefits to developing countries -- especially in agriculture -- not extract new concessions.

The immediately proximate cause of the negotiations' collapse was a demand by developing countries that they maintain effective tools to protect themselves from agricultural import surges. Rich countries refused the overly modest demand.

And agriculture was the area where developing countries were going to benefit.

The rough trade at the heart of the deal was supposed to be that rich countries reduce market barriers to developing country agricultural exports, and developing countries further open up to rich country manufacturing and service exports and investment.

Such a deal "basically suggests that the poor countries should remain agricultural forever," says Ha-Joon Chang, an economics professor at the University of Cambridge and author of Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. "In order to receive the agricultural concession, the developing countries basically have to abolish their industrial tariffs and other means to promote industrialization." In other words, he says, developing countries are supposed to forfeit the tools that almost every industrialized country (and the successful Asian manufacturing exporters) has used to build their industrial capacity.

In sum, says Deborah James, director of international programs for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, this was a lose-lose deal for developing countries. "The tariff cuts demanded of developing countries would have caused massive job loss, and countries would have lost the ability to protect farmers from dumping, further impoverishing millions on the verge of survival," she says.

By the way, it's not as if this is a North vs. South, rich country vs. poor country issue. Although there have been multiple lines of fragmentation in the Doha negotiations, the best way to understand what's going on is that the rich country governments are driving the agenda to advance corporate interests, not those of their populations. That's why there is so little public support for the Doha trade agenda, in both rich and poor countries.

Says Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch: "Now that WTO expansion has been again rejected at this 'make or break' meeting, elected officials and those on the campaign trail in nations around the world -- including U.S. presidential candidates -- will be asked what they intend to do to replace the failed WTO model and its version of corporate globalization with something that benefits the majority of people worldwide."

Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action.

Sustainers can comment on this article here: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3571

And now the second sample commentary...



WTO Talks, A Tsunami Averted
By Devinder Sharma
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It was a close call. Till the last minute, suspense became overbearing. Glued to our seats and teetering on the brink of fear, with abated breath we awaited the outcome of the last minute efforts to save an unjust an inequitable "Doha round" deal. And as news started to trickle in signaling the collapse of the WTO mini-Ministerial, a sigh of relief emerged.

After all, a tsunami has been averted.

The talks failed to bridge differences over adequate measures to protect poor farmers in developing countries against import surges. Technical dubbed as "Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) - the provisions that protect developing countries from the disastrous consequences of a flood of food imports - had finally driven the nail in the coffin of "Doha round."

But all is not yet over. The tyrants of the food trade will surely launch a renewed assault to arm-twist, coerce and lure developing countries into submission. US President George Bush will certainly have an uphill task before he quits. Three phone calls to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a matter of three days failed to get India sign on the dotted line. He must be disillusioned. Perhaps he is angry. How can the two emerging economies - India and China - refuse to accept the US hegemony? Is the developing world waking up to a new dawn of economic and political independence?

I am not sure whether the developing countries have emerged from the shadows of the colonial past. But what is clearly evident is that at least some countries are picking up the courage and standing up to the two bullies - the United States and European Union. All along an impression had been given - and thanks to the western media for misguiding the world - as if the US and EU have made a huge 'sacrifice' offering drastic cuts in their trade-distorting farm subsides.

In reality, the US proposal of reducing its trade-distorting subsidies by 70 per cent (and the EU following with a promise of 80 per net cut) was simply an eye-wash. These were merely paper cuts, and behind this smokescreen, both the rich trading blocks had actually ensured provisions to double their trade-distorting subsidies. The US presently pays between $ 7-9 billion as trade distorting subsidies, and what it had offered as a 'sacrifice" was to enable it to increase these subsidies further to a maximum of $ 14.5 billion.

For making these paper cuts, the US and EU wanted the developing countries to pay a corresponding price by way of providing more market access in agriculture and industry. While the Shylocks of international trade were keen to extract their pound of flesh from poor countries, look what the United Nation says. In its latest "World Economic and Social Survey 2008," the UN makes it clear that the developing countries have already paid a price in advance at Marrakesh (where the WTO formation was agreed upon in 1994). There is therefore no need for the developing countries to open up their markets still further to imports.

Very cleverly and astutely, the developed countries had managed to divert focus from their burgeoning agricultural subsidies that have inherently distorted global trade. Apart from what is dubbed as trade-distorting subsidies, the richest trading block - the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) provides annually $ 374 billion as farm subsidies. On top of it, the latest US Farm Bill 2008 makes a provision for $ 307 billion support for agriculture in the next five years.

Unless these subsidies are removed, there is no protective shied strong enough to stop the import surges into the developing world. And if you think that import surges are not a real threat you need to rethink. These are no less devastating than the trail of human destruction left behind by a powerful tsunami. Between 1980 and 2003, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) recorded 12,167 import surges hitting 102 developing countries. On an average, each of these developing countries experienced 120 import surges a year wherein the flood of imports exceeded 30 per cent in term of volume of imports.

To put a cap at 40 per cent in import surge volumes therefore as a SSM provision for developing countries renders the entire mechanism redundant. And this is where the talks broke down. By the time 40 per cent import surges are recorded, millions of farmers are pushed out of agriculture. It has happened in the past in numerous instances. In Kenya, for instance, flood of sugar imports between 1984 and 2004 had resulted in 32,000 job losses in the domestic sugar industry. Employment levels were reduced by a whopping 79 per cent. The impact on farm livelihoods was still worse.

In the past 30 years, and thanks to the trade liberalization polices being perpetuated, 105 of the 149 Third World Countries have turned food importers. Some 40 years ago, developing countries were actually exporting food and had a surplus of US $ 7 billion in food trade. Now the developing countries food deficit has grown to a record US $ 11 billion a year. A successful completion of the ongoing "Doha round" in its present form would turn the entire Third World into a food dump. If that is what will emerge from the successful completion of the "Doha round", the question that arises is as to whom is it going to benefit?

Whether it is Special Products - the farm products which do not require any cuts in import duties - in the name of food security, livelihood concerns and rural development or its is the provision of SSM, nothing can save developing country agriculture unless the massive domestic subsidies of the OECD countries are removed. What is conveniently forgotten are the remarks of the WTO director general Pascal Lamy at the Hong Kong Ministerial in 2005: "SP is a carrot that I am dangling before the developing countries to bring them to the negotiating table."�

Sadly, the developing countries have failed to see through the game. SP is merely a temporary measure. For India, where a total of 697 tariff lines in agriculture are being negotiated, only 84 lines can be partially covered under the SP category. Several studies have however shown that Indian agriculture will need at least 57 per cent of the tariff lines being protected. After all, each tariff line is linked to millions of livelihoods. What is therefore urgently needed is to scrap the present deal, and start afresh. Come to think of it, there is no other way out.

At a time when the world is faced with a terrible food crisis there is no escape but to refocus energies on maintaining food self-sufficiency. Food security is essentially linked to food self-sufficiency. The challenge for developing countries therefore is to resist any and every move to open up the domestic markets to a flood of cheap and highly subsidized food imports. Food imports spell death-knell for the farming communities. There is no bigger crime than to sacrifice the livelihoods of an estimated three billion small farmers in the developing world for the sake of higher profits to a handful of agribusiness companies.

Sustainers can comment on this commentary here: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3570

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Gmail - Food Crisis Created by WTO and World Bank - jacobthanni@gmail.com

Gmail - Food Crisis Created by WTO and World Bank - jacobthanni@gmail.com


Food Crisis Created by WTO and World Bank

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Food Crisis Created by WTO and World Bank
Report Shows Export-Oriented Model Eroded Africa's Food Self-Sufficiency
Source: Food & Water Watch

Washington, DC – Despite assertions by global trade ministers, this week's World Trade Organization negotiations in Geneva will not solve the current global food crisis, according to a new report released today by U.S.-based consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

The report, What's Behind the Global Food Crisis? How Trade Policy Undermined Africa's Food Self-Sufficiency, found that the steady increase in food cultivation in Africa between 1980s and early 1990s slowed after the WTO went into effect in 1995. Non-food cash crop cultivation was stagnant for the dozen years before the WTO went into effect but grew swiftly since 1995.

"Trade negotiators are using the current food crisis as a Trojan Horse at the WTO negotiations to push an agribusiness agenda on farmers and rural communities around the world," stated Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. "Agriculture should be removed from WTO negotiations until international leaders fully examine the impact on developing countries' ability to feed themselves."

The study examined 25-years of Food and Agriculture Organization data on crop acreage in Africa and found that in 2006 Africa cultivated more acres of inedible cash crops (37.3 million acres of coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton, rubber, tobacco and tea combined) than most individual key African food staple crops like yams, sweet potatoes, rice, wheat and cassava.

The report explains that the WTO and World Bank have driven the emphasis on cash crops over food crops by promoting exporting tropical commodities as a development strategy. Cash crop commodity prices have been poor over most of the past dozen years and now countries in Africa are relying on weak cash crop export earnings to buy more expensive imported food that they could have grown themselves.

"The WTO and World Bank have created a vicious cycle that leaves developing countries constantly vulnerable to market volatility," stated Hauter. "A different set of trade rules should be established that allow developing countries to determine their own food and agriculture system."

Other key findings in the report include:

• Cultivation of staple food crops in Africa increased by nearly half (48.9 percent) between 1983 and 1994 but only increased by 13.3 percent between 1995 and 2006. Cultivated acreage in cash crops was constant in the dozen years before the WTO went into effect (falling 0.2 percent), but increased by 17.7 percent after the WTO went into effect in 1995.

• Since the WTO went into effect, Africa added nearly three new acres of cocoa beans and cotton for every new acre of corn. For every two new acres of millet, Africa added nearly three new acres of cocoa beans and cotton.

The Food & Water Watch report discusses the immediate causes of skyrocketing global food prices including worldwide crop shortages, sustained growth in demand, higher oil prices, and an increase demand for crops used to make biofuel. But the report goes further and identifies the long-term effects of the globalization model promoted by the WTO and World Bank as a significant hidden contributor to the global food crisis. These policies force governments to prioritize cash crop exports over food self-sufficiency and reduce investment in domestic farm programs.

"The WTO cannot fix a problem it helped create. The current food crisis shows the insanity of keeping food under the WTO which promotes speculation over food self-sufficiency," said Hauter.

The report, What's Behind the Global Food Crisis? How Trade Policy Undermined Africa's Food Self-Sufficiency, can be viewed at http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/press/publications/reports/behind-the-global-food-crisis/index.html

Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer rights organization based in Washington, D.C. that challenges the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources.

For more information from Food & Water Watch, click here.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org

http://us.oneworld.net/article/wto-cannot-solve-food-crisis-states-report
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Monday, June 30, 2008

Calory Consciousness: 9000 curry houses in the UK in danger

UK finds curry fattening

Mon, Jun 30 01:25 AM

The latest finding that an Indian takeaway comprising chicken tikka masala, pilau rice and one plain naan contains 1338 calories to burn which a person needs to cycle for over five hours may well scare away many aficionados of Indian cuisine in Britain. This in turn will have a direct impact on the 9000 curry houses in the country, already feeling the pinch of the rising price of rice and the general credit crunch.

Weight for weight, naan contained even more calories than the curry swimming in oil. There were 290 calories in a 100g naan compared with 685g in 350g of chicken tikka masala curry.

Chicken tikka masala curry, popularly called CTM here and regarded as a national dish, is the mainstay of the sales in the Indian restaurants - 23 million portions a year are sold. A more serious accusation was levelled, some time ago, at chicken tikka masala: in the depths of its pink-red sauce, it may be harbouring dangerous levels of chemicals that cause hyperactivity, asthma, and even cancer.

Trading standards officers in Surrey found that more than half of the Indian restaurants it examined were using illegal and potentially dangerous levels of food dye to give the dish its distinctive colour. Their findings prompted a nationwide alert to ensure Indian restaurants everywhere adhere to legal limits on such additives.

Package Indian food makers the claim the findings were not exactly correct because only curry house which prepare cheap versions of the dish add dye. "We know that Indian curries are a bit rich but we remove fat before cooking.

Oil used has almost no fat," said Sir G.E.K. Noon, of Noon Products. "Because of turmeric and other spices, which are used in preparing meals, Indians do not get bowel cancer which affects thousands here,"said Anshuman Saksena, general manager of the popular Sitaraay, Chor Bizarre and Tmarai.

Honey bee crisis could lead to higher food prices

Colony Collapse Disorder
Honey bee crisis could lead to higher food prices
By Stephanie S. Garlow, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday.

"No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert D. Edwards told a House Agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent.

About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.

In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30% to 90% of their hives. This phenomenon has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Scientists do not know how many bees have died; beekeepers have lost 36% of their managed colonies this year. It was 31% for 2007, said Edward B. Knipling, administrator of the Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service.

"If there are no bees, there is no way for our nation's farmers to continue to grow the high quality, nutritious foods our country relies on," said Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California, chairman of the horticulture and organic agriculture panel. "This is a crisis we cannot afford to ignore."

Edward R. Flanagan, who raises blueberries in Milbridge, Maine, said he could be forced to increase prices tenfold or go out of business without the beekeeping industry. "Every one of those berries owes its existence to the crazy, neurotic dancing of a honey bee from flower to flower," he said.

The cause behind the disorder remains unknown. Possible explanations include pesticides; a new parasite or pathogen; and the combination of immune-suppressing stresses such as poor nutrition, limited or contaminated water supplies and the need to move bees long distances for pollination.

Ice cream maker Haagen-Dazs and natural personal care products company Burt's Bees have pledged money for research and begun efforts to help save the bees.

The problem affects about 40% of Haagen-Dazs' 73 flavors, including banana split and chocolate peanut butter, because ingredients such as almonds, cherries and strawberries rely on honey bees for pollination.

Katty Pien, brand director for Haagen-Dazs, said those ingredients could become too scarce or expensive if bees keep dying. It could force the company to discontinue some of its most popular flavors, Pien said.

Haagen-Dazs has developed a new limited-time flavor, vanilla honey bee, and will use some of the proceeds for research on the disorder. Burt's Bees has introduced Colony Collapse Disorder Lip Balm to "soften your lips while saving honeybees."

The House Appropriations Committee approved $780,000 on Thursday for research on the disorder and $10 million for bee research. The money awaits approval by the full House and Senate.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2008-06-26-bees-food-prices_N.htm?csp=3

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Global Food Crisis Deepens - The Tehran Times

The Global Food Crisis Deepens
The Tehran Times Daily Newspaper, Tehran-Iran

The list of countries on the brink of disaster because of the global food crisis is growing by the week. Terrorism and security experts predict widespread social and political unrest and violent conflict in the second and third worlds.

Last week the United Nations' World Food Program announced it is to provide U.S. $1.2 billion (£600 million) in additional food aid in the 62 countries hit hardest by the food and fuel crisis.

Save the Children Sunday launched an emergency appeal to help children in Ethiopia who are suffering from increasing levels of hunger. The charity said a combination of drought and escalating food prices has left 4.6 million people urgently in need of food. In scenes reminiscent of the famines of the 1980s, about 736,000 of these are children under the age of five, a group which is particularly vulnerable to the effects of malnutrition.

More so than terrorism or global warming, food security will become so critical it will change global governance and result in civil unrest and food wars.

"It is clear which countries are going to be at risk," Graham Hutchings of Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, which provides country-specific daily risk analysis to political leaders, academics, businesses and NGOs, told the Sunday Herald.

"Those who are net importers of food and those with weak governments will fall, in all likelihood. The overthrow of the leader in Haiti in April over food prices is the shape of things to come.

"Those which have come across our radar are Cambodia, parts of India, the Philippines, central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and African countries such as Senegal, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. There have been food riots in Egypt, Yemen and Malaysia."

Hutchings warned there is a very real risk of an angry popular and political backlash against the globalization and international capitalism from the world's growing hungry. It is understood that one of the major drivers of the food crisis is financial speculation by the West. Capital flight from the subprime market into secure commodities such as wheat futures has pushed the price of food beyond the reach of the developing world.

"Food riots and political backlash against their own governments and those of the West will increase as the food crisis continues to bite," he said.

As the world runs out of food, it is those countries with weak governments and growing urban poor which will fall first. Inter-country tensions will also increase as policies of economic protectionism and stockpiling cause tensions.

"Politicians across the world will live or die by their ability to address subsistence and food inflation, which they won't be able to solve."

Professor Paul Wilkinson, an expert on terrorism and security at St. Andrews University, believes more autocratic regimes may be able to ride the wave of anger.

He said: "The food crisis will create more insecurity in the world. States with poor security are the most vulnerable and if there is anger and protest over food then more governments could fall."

Forecasting agencies, such as the world-class Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, have researched that, unless something is done, the food crisis will continue to grow year after year and predict it will accelerate well beyond 2016.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=17099

Monday, June 23, 2008

Making the Poor Fools: To solve the food crisis World Bank gives subsidy to the chemical industry

thenazareneway to communions@yahoogroups.com
Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 10:22 AM

The Answer to Global Hunger

MODENA, Italy (Reuters) - Small-scale, not industrial farming, is the answer to food shortages and climate change, organic farmers argued this week.

Meeting at the Organic World Congress this week, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements IFOAM -- www.ifoam.org -- criticized a recent U.N. food summit for touting chemical fertilizers and genetically modified (GM) crops rather than organic solutions to tackle world hunger.

The World Bank says an extra 100 million people worldwide could go hungry as a result of the sharp rise in the price of food staples in the last year.

At the U.N. food summit in Rome this month, the World Bank pledged $1.2 billion in grants to help with the food crisis.

"The $1.2 billion the World Bank says will solve the food crisis in Africa is a $1.2 billion subsidy to the chemical industry," said Vandana Shiva, an Indian physics professor and environmental activist speaking at the forum in Modena.

"Countries are made dependent on chemical fertilizers when their prices have tripled in the last year due to rising oil prices," she said. "I say to governments: spend a quarter of that on organic farming and you've solved your problems."

She said industrial farming was based on planting a single crop on vast surfaces and heavy use of chemical fertilizers, a process that used 10 times more energy than it produced.

"The rest turns into waste as greenhouse gases, chemical runoffs and pesticide residues in our food," she said.

In contrast, organic farms could increase output by 10 times by growing many different species of plants at the same time, which helped retain soil and water, she said. "In a one-acre farm in India they can grow 250 species of plants," she said.

FEEDING 9 BILLION PEOPLE

The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization Director General Jacques Diouf said last December there was no reason to believe that organic agriculture can substitute conventional farming systems in ensuring the world's food security.

"You cannot feed six billion people today and nine billion in 2050 without judicious use of chemical fertilizers."

Shiva has began a civil disobedience campaign in India against the patenting of natural seeds, particularly of crops that resist flooding and drought and can better withstand climate change.

"We need this worldwide. Seeds are for everyone," she said.

According to IFOAM, a quarter of greenhouse gases are emitted by industrially farmed crops and livestock. The proportion rises to 40 percent when including the emissions caused by transporting commodities around the world.

IFOAM members also criticized the production of fuel from grains, citing a U.S. university study that it took 1.3 gallons of fossil fuel to make 1 gallon of ethanol from corn.

The United States and Brazil defended their use of corn and sugar cane to make ethanol to fuel cars at the UN food summit saying it was a minor factor in food price inflation.

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/37461

Saturday, June 21, 2008

The Fallacy of GM Crops

The Fallacy of GM Crops
by Geoffrey Lean
20.06.08
thenazareneway to Communions

The saying goes, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good - and the increasing hunger spreading around the globe as the world food crisis takes hold is sending the genetically modified food lobby smiling all the way to the seed bank.

Food prices may be at a record high, food reserves at an unprecedented low, and millions of the world's poorest may be struggling to scrape together a single meal a day - but the much-battered biotech industry is enjoying its biggest ever public relations bonanza.

Yesterday, Environment Minister Phil Woolas said Britain needs to look at whether GM technology could help tackle the current crisis, signaling an end to more than a decade of government scepticism over GM plants.

Suddenly, after years of being shunned by the British public, the industry and its cheerleaders are scrambling for the unfamiliar territory of the moral high ground.

Only GM can reduce world hunger, they say. Anyone churlish enough to mention the indisputable damage it does to the environment - or the worrying, if inconclusive, evidence it may endanger health - is guilty of betraying the most wretched people on earth.

It's been hard, over recent weeks, to switch on the TV or radio without hearing some variation of this theme. And it is passing from punditry into policy.

The World Bank is calling for an agricultural revolution based on biotechnology, while Neil Parish, chairman of the European Parliament's agriculture committee, avers that rising food prices will make consumers 'more realistic' about GM.

George W. Bush - declaring that modified crops ' hold the promise of producing more food for more people' - has made promoting them part of a proposed £335 million aid package to ease the food crisis.

Dissent is denounced as heresy. Britain's National Beef Association is calling for 'all resistance to GM crops to be abandoned immediately'.

And when the world's biggest ever agricultural study - the work of 400 scientists and 60 governments - concluded GM was 'not the simple answer to hunger and poverty', it was denounced by one newspaper columnist as 'a truly shocking betrayal of the world's least well fed'.

Ministers and members of the biotech industry are jumping on the band wagon of the world food crisis and using it to support the argument for GM crops

But it's all hype. The truth is GM crops do nothing to ease world hunger. Quite the reverse. They actually threaten to make it worse.

Let's start with the fallacy that GM crops are more productive. Intuitively it seems to make sense and you hear it everywhere: BBC news readers refer unquestioningly to 'high yielding GM crops'. George Bush's food aid expert, Dan Price, says: 'It is established fact that a number of bioengineered crops have shown themselves to increase yield.'

Not so. The real facts show that genetic modification not only fails to boost productivity, but often slashes it.

Dr Charles Benbrook, an agricultural scientist, reported 'voluminous and clear evidence' that modified soya crops 'produce five to ten fewer bushels per acre in contrast to otherwise identical varieties grown under comparable field conditions'.

In 1998, a study based on 8,200 trials of GM soya varieties in U.S. universities found they produced 6.7 per cent less than their nearest non-GM relatives. They yielded 10 per cent less than the best conventional soya available at the time.

Two years later, a study at the University of Nebraska came up with strikingly similar results, finding that five different Monsanto GM soyas - though more expensive - produced 6 per cent less food than their closest cousins, and 11 per cent less than the highest-yielding traditional varieties.

Other studies have shown that the productivity of soya doubled in the 70 years before the introduction of modified varieties in the mid Nineties.

At least half of this was down to the traditional way of improving crops by interbreeding them; the rest came from improved farming practices. But once GM soya became widespread, this growth abruptly stopped: yields have remained much the same since.

Cotton yields, which had multiplied five-fold since 1930, also stagnated in the U.S. as GM varieties took over 80 per cent of the crop in the late Nineties.

Modified corn did better: yields continued growing at the same rate while it was introduced, but still did not accelerate as proponents would have us believe. And studies have shown that some GM varieties suffer drops of up to 12 per cent.

Confronted by this evidence, the industry beats a hasty retreat. The question of yields is a 'sideshow', you are told, modified crops were never intended to increase them. True enough, if a long way from the hype about GM feeding the world.

All varieties now being grown were developed for two purposes, tolerating weed killers so they can be sprayed more abundantly, and resisting pests.

Yet drenching the crops with chemicals has caused the development of resistant superweeds which have been found in more than 3,250 places in the U.S. alone.

Similarly, GM cotton developed to resist bollworm has been attacked by other pests, causing an increase of spraying with insecticide.

All that is in the past, retorts the industry. What we do in the future will tackle world hunger. Earlier this month, Hugh Grant, Monsanto's chief executive, announced a 'commitment' to double yields of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030 and, at the same time, to develop crops that will need 30 per cent less water, land and energy to grow.

Experts doubt any of this will happen, saying it is a much more difficult undertaking than developing the present modified varieties. Lester Brown, president of Washington's Earth Policy Institute, says the physiology of plants is approaching its practical limit.

For comparison, he points out how runners have only slightly improved on Roger Bannister's first four-minute mile of more than 50 years ago. As for drought-resistant crops, they have been researched for at least ten years without success.

Experts say that, at best, they are decades away from being grown. And even then the developing world would have to wait: Monsanto has previously made it clear that the miracle varieties would be used in the U.S. 'well before they become available in other countries'.

Indeed, the biotech companies are already hard at work to ensure they, not the hungry, would benefit. An investigation has found they have filed for no fewer than 532 patents around the world on genes that might confer drought resistance.

If successful, these will enable them to monopolize the seeds needed to grow crops in a warmer, drier world, charge what they like and, by ensuring the seeds are 'infertile', make farmers buy new ones every year by stopping their age-old practice of saving seeds from one harvest to sow for the next one.

These so-called 'terminator' crops would mean the poorest farmers would be driven to the wall, increasing destitution.

Studies of modified soya in Latin America and cotton in India show poor farmers and labourers are already suffering, as bigger ones take over the land and reduce their workforces.

Professor Ossama El-Tayeb, of Cairo University, condemns 'big business' for claiming that 'GM crops will alleviate poverty soon, while currently available ones mostly contribute negatively to poverty alleviation and food security, and positively to the stock market'.

This is all the more scandalous because the small farmers of the Third World really are the key to reducing hunger. They produce up to 20 times more food per acre than the biggest ones, partly because they work the land more intensively.

Big, technologically advanced farms produce more per person employed, but that is not what is needed where land is scarce and labour is plentiful. Indeed, in developing countries it is organic agriculture that offers the real promise of increasing yields.

Even some biotech chiefs seem to be admitting the truth. Hans Kast, managing director of the plant science branch of the chemical giant BASF, said: 'Genetically modified agriculture will not solve the world's hunger problem.'

How long will it be before the increasingly noisy British GM lobby display similar honesty? If I were you, I wouldn't hold your breath.

Geoffrey Lean is Environment Editor of the Independent
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk

Friday, June 13, 2008

GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) CROPS FAIL TO ALLEVIATE POVERTY

thenazareneway to Communions









Study Reveals the Benefits of GM Crops
GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) CROPS INCREASE PESTICIDE USE AND FAIL TO ALLEVIATE POVERTY, REVEALS NEW REPORT

Contact: Bill Freese, Center for Food Safety, 202-547-9359
John Bianchi, Goodman Media, 212-576-2700; Helen Holder, Friends of the Earth Europe, +32 474 857 638 or +32 2 542 01 82

GM Crops Have Not Reduced World Hunger, Study Concludes

Washington D.C. - Genetically modified (GM) crops have led to a large increase in pesticide use and have failed to increase yield or tackle world hunger and poverty, a new report by the Center for Food Safety revealed today. The report coincides with the annual release of biotech industry figures on GM crop cultivation around the world.

"The biotech industry tells Africans that we need GM crops to tackle the food needs of our population. But the majority of GM crops are used to feed animals in rich countries, to produce damaging agrofuels, and don't even yield more than conventional crops," said Nnimmo Bassey, Friends of the Earth International's GMO coordinator in Nigeria.

"For years, the biotech industry has been trumpeting the benefits of GM crops, but this report shows the true emerging picture," added Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. "These crops really promote greater use of pesticides, and cause direct harm to the environment and small farmers. More and more, foundations and international aid and development organizations are recognizing the dead end that GM crops represent."

The report, "Who Benefits from GM Crops?: The Rise in Pesticide Use," finds that: GM crops do not tackle hunger or poverty.

* The vast majority of GM crops are used to feed animals in rich countries rather than people in poorer nations. South America's expanding GM soybean plantations produce soy meal for Europe's livestock industry, and have reduced food security by displacing poor farmers and reducing land area planted to food crops like corn and beans for local consumption.

* Industry claims that genetically-modified cotton (Bt cotton) has boosted cotton yields and increased small farmers' income. However, close examination reveals that cotton yield gains are attributable more to favorable weather conditions (India, the U.S) and a shift to irrigation (South Africa) than to the biotech trait.

* In South Africa's Makhatini Flats, portrayed internationally as the "success story" demonstrating the benefits of GM cotton, the number of small cotton growers has plummeted from 3229 in 2001/02 to just 853 in 2006/07.

* Not a single GM crop on the market is engineered for enhanced nutrition, increased yield potential, drought-tolerance, or other attractive traits touted by the biotech industry.

GM crops increase pesticide use and foster spread of resistant "superweeds"

* Four of every five acres of GM crops worldwide are Monsanto's Roundup Ready varieties, designed specifically for use with glyphosate, the weed-killing chemical that Monsanto sells under the name of Roundup. Weed-killers, or herbicides, are the largest class of pesticides.

* U.S. government data reveal a huge 15-fold increase in the use of glyphosate on soybeans, corn and cotton in the U.S. from 1994 to 2005, driven by adoption of Roundup Ready versions of these crops.

* Rising glyphosate use has spawned a growing epidemic of weeds resistant to the chemical in the U.S., Argentina and Brazil. Weed scientists have reported glyphosate-resistant weeds infesting 2.4 million acres in the U.S. alone.

* Increasing weed resistance to glyphosate has led to rising use of other toxic chemicals. In the U.S., the amount of 2,4-D applied to soybeans more than doubled from 2002 to 2006. 2,4-D was a component of the Vietnam War defoliant, Agent Orange. In Argentina, it is projected that 25 million liters of herbicides other than glyphosate will be needed to tackle glyphosate-resistant Johnsongrass.

Overall, GM crops do not yield more and often yield less than other crops

* Roundup Ready soybeans, the world's most widely planted GM crop, have 6% lower yield than conventional soy, according to University of Nebraska researchers

* Even the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture admits that no GM crop on the market has been modified to increase yield. The main factors influencing crop yield are weather, irrigation, soil fertility, and conventional (non-biotech) breeding for increased yield.

GM crops benefit the biotech industry and some large growers, not small farmers

* Biotech companies benefit by selling more herbicides, charging more for GM seeds, and by seed patents, which make seed-saving illegal and thereby increase seed sales.

* Some large-scale growers in North and South America benefit from a "convenience effect" - reduced labor needs and increased flexibility in the timing of herbicide applications, though resistant weeds are beginning to erode these benefits.

* Thousands of U.S. farmers have been forced to pay Monsanto tens of millions of dollars for the "crime" of saving and replanting the company's patented seed.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Malnutrition Kills Toddlers in Indonesia

Malnutrition Kills 21 Indonesia Toddlers
Malnutrition kills 21 toddlers in eastern Indonesia, thousands more at risk
JAKARTA, Indonesia June 12, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press


U.N. warns that failed harvests and drought mean risk of another famine.



At least 21 toddlers have died of malnutrition in eastern Indonesia in recent months due to a food shortage that threatens the lives of thousands more children, a local health official said Thursday.

An additional 116 youngsters have been admitted to clinics and hospitals in critical condition, said Stephanus Bria Seran, who heads the health department in East Nusa Tenggara province.

"We urgently need medicine and nutritional foods to save the children," he said. "We are racing against time because they need nutritious food within 30 days if we want to save their lives."
Related
G-8 Finance Chiefs to Tackle Oil, Food
Hunger in Ethiopia Now Spreading to Adults
PHOTOS: Ethiopia on Verge of Major Famine

The food shortages have been caused by flooding and drought. Farmers fear the next harvest may also fail due to excessive rainfall and landslides.

Children's diets began lacking sufficient nutrients, causing diseases, hospitalizations and deaths over the past six months, he said.

In the same period, nearly 85,000 children have been registered as malnourished in the province, one of the country's least developed.

The figures show a sharp jump from the whole of 2007, when 10 toddlers died out of 68,000 registered as malnourished in the province.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

The Patenting of the Worlds Food Supply

thenazareneway to Communions



The Patenting of the Worlds Food Supply
Biotech Giants Demand a High Price for Saving the Planet
From: , Organic Consumers Association,
Published June 10, 2008 10:24 AM

Biotech Companies 'profiteering' as they attempt to patent crop genes

Giant biotech companies are privatising the world's protection against climate change by filing hundreds of monopoly patents on genes that help crops resist it, a new investigation has concluded.

The study - by the authoritative Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group), based in Ottawa, Canada - has found that nine firms have filed at least 532 patents around the world on about 55 different genes offering protection against heat, drought and floods. If granted, the companies would be given control of crucial natural raw material needed to maintain food supplies in an increasingly hungry world.

Last week, as world leaders met in Rome to discuss the food crisis, GM companies promoted their technologies as the answer to hunger. On Thursday, Monsanto - the biggest and most controversial firm - announced a "commitment" to increase food production, partly by developing crops that need less water.

"Together we must meet the needs for increased food, fibre and energy, while preserving the environment," said the company's head, Hugh Grant. "These commitments represent the beginning of a journey that we will expand on and deepen in the years ahead."

The ETC Group calls this "an opportunistic public relations strategy", adding: "Monsanto's business is selling patented seeds for industrial agriculture - not addressing a humanitarian food crisis."

The report of its investigation shows that Monsanto and BASF - which last year announced a $1.5bn "collaboration" to develop new GM crops, including "ones more tolerant to adverse environmental conditions such as drought" - have between them filed patents for 27 of the 55 genes. Others had been filed by companies such as Bayer, Syngenta and Dow.

The reports says some of the applications are sweeping. One would cover more than 30 crops from oats to oil palms, triticale to tea, and potatoes to perennial grass - "in other words, virtually all food crops".

It says the "corporate grab on climate-tolerant genes" means that "a handful of transnational companies are now positioned to determine who gets access to key genetic traits and what price they must pay".

Small farmers in developing countries will be particularly hard hit by such "climate-change profiteering". Patenting will make the crops expensive and ensure that poor farmers have to buy them every year, by prohibiting them from saving seeds from one harvest to grow for the next.

According to the report, conventional, non-GM breeding techniques are making remarkable progress in developing crops that can tolerate heat, floods and drought. A new Asian rice, due to go on the market next year, can stand being submerged for two weeks without affecting yields, while a new African one flowers early in the morning, escaping the heat of the day.

But, it says, "the patent grab is sucking up money and resources that could be spent on affordable, farmer-based strategies for survival".

It concludes: "These patented technologies will ultimately concentrate corporate power, drive up costs, inhibit independent research and further undermine the rights of farmers to save and exchange seeds".

But Croplife, which represents the world's plant-science industry, retorts; "Patenting is very important. That is how we protect intellectual property and ensure we continue to bring new innovations to the marketplace." It denies that biotechnology companies are seeking to monopolise the worlds food supplies.