tagged w/ Crops
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"In summer 2003, more than 52,000 Europeans died from heat-related ills, 30,000 in France alone, during an unrelenting heat wave that featured temperatures 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit (3.6 degrees Celsius) higher than normal. Crops also suffered, with corn production down by 30 percent and wheat by 21 percent, among other foodstuffs. And a similar hot spell in Ukraine in 1972 led to a wheat shortage that prompted that staple's prices to more than triple by 1974. But even without record-breaking heat, recent years have seen food riots from Bangladesh to Haiti as world agriculture was pushed to the breaking point by a combination of greater demand for food, biofuels and poor weather.
Such disruptions in the world's food supply may become even more the norm by the end of this century, according to a new analysis published today in Science. Climate modeler David Battisti of the University of Washington in Seattle and food security expert Rosamond Naylor of Stanford University used the results of 23 climate models to determine that there is a more than 90 percent chance—in other words, it is very likely—that the lowest growing season temperatures in the tropics and subtropics by the end of the century will be higher than the highest temperatures at present.
That area includes the southern U.S., Central America, southern Europe, central Asia, northern Australia and all of Africa, according to Battisti. "Although it had not been calculated before," he says, "it was not surprising to find that for most of the tropics and subtropics, the future summer temperatures would be out of bounds compared to what we have ever experienced.""In summer 2003, more than 52,000 Europeans died from heat-related ills, 30,000... more
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There is a 90% chance that 3 billion people will have to choose between going hungry and moving their families to milder climes because of climate change within 100 years, says new research.
The study forecasts that temperatures at the close of this century are likely to be above those that crippled food supplies on at least three occasions since 1900.
David Battisti, a climatologist at the University of Washington, used 23 models vetted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to calculate how temperatures will vary with climate change.
Unlike previous studies, his team focused on temperatures during growing seasons around the world. This allowed them to determine the effect on food supplies.
Their results show there is a 90% chance that average temperatures in the tropics and subtropics will be higher than the hottest heat waves of the past century. With more than 3 billion people living in those areas, most of whom rely heavily on locally produced crops for both food and income, the effects could be catastrophic.There is a 90% chance that 3 billion people will have to choose between going hungry... more
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BATHINDA: A day after heavy fog disrupted life and stranded air, rail and road passengers in the region, agitating farmers held up six trains when they lay siege to railway tracks here on Tuesday. Hundreds of agitating farmer organization members blocked all the four main rail routes in the region to lodge their protest against the "anti-farmer attitude" of Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) authorities.
The farmers, owing allegiance to various farmer organisations, had earlier given a call for 72-hour CCI office siege beginning Monday. However, when the stir failed to bring in expected results, the farmers converged on the tracks late on Tuesday afternoon and blocked all traffic movement on Ambala, Suratgarh, Delhi and Sirsa routes.
"We have been forced to resort to this (agitation) since the authorities continue to remain in a deep slumber despite our over 30-hour sit-in outside the CCI office in this biting cold," Sukhdev Singh Kokari Kalan, general secretary of BKU Ekta (Ugrahan), told TOI.BATHINDA: A day after heavy fog disrupted life and stranded air, rail and road... more
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(Marquette, Michigan) - The Zaagkii Wings and Seeds Project in Marquette is protecting pollinators like butterflies because billions of honeybees and bumblebees are dying worldwide in syndrome called “Colony Collapse Disorder.”
Marquette teens and Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) youth spent this summer building the first of dozens of white cedar butterfly houses that will be created over the next three years. Lined with bark and slimmer than birdhouses, the shelters offer protection, rest and reproduction safety to Monarchs and other butterflies.
Butterflies are a close second to bees in transferring pollen from one plant to another.
Experts are unsure why bee colonies are collapsing but pesticides, climate change and other man-made reasons are among the suspects. Without pollinators the world food supply will dry up including fruits, vegetables, flowers, other plants and trees.
The Zaagkii Project was founded by the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute (CTI) in Marquette.
“The problem with disappearing pollinators is a cause for concern (because) all life is interconnected,” said Todd Warner, KBIC Natural Resource Director.
Sponsors are KBIC, CTI, Marquette County Juvenile Court and the United States Forest Service (USFS).
“We are seeing a reduction in the number of bumblebees,” said Jan Schultz, Botany and Non-native Invasive Species Program Leader at the USFS eastern region office in Milwaukee.
The Zaagkii Project will plant native plants on the once-barren and polluted Sand Point, a Lake Superior beach that the KBIC is restoring from the effects of old copper mining waste. Marquette teens planted and distributed over 26,000 native plant seeds including at the Hiawatha National Forest greenhouse in Marquette.
The KBIC will use many of the plants at Sand Point Beach that was polluted about 90 years ago with stamp sands from the Mass Mill.
The first tribal Brownfield cleanup site in the Midwest, future plans include a nature tail, restoring a historic lighthouse, swimming, camping, boating, picnic areas and fishing ponds.
The goal is “the propagation of the native species rather than having the exotics come in and destroying what we have established,” said Evelyn Ravindra, KBIC NRD Natural Resources Specialist.
KBIC Summer Youth Program members Ethan Smith,17, and Janelle Paquin,15, and other NativeAmerican teens measured, hammered and painted the butterfly houses.
"We put the bark on the inside for the butterflies to rest on," Smith said.
Marquette teens were given a tour of a bee farm with about 60,000 honeybees.
If all bees disappeared the world food supply would be devastated as “fruits, vegetables, nuts and other commercial crops” vanish, said Beekeeper Jim Hayward of Negaunee Township. “We are all dependent on bees.”
The Marquette teens “went to libraries and studied about the Monarch butterflies and their life cycle and their migration patterns,” said Danny Weymouth, 16.
Restoring indigenous plants is vital to wildlife “so our native species don't get overruled and extinct by predator species,” said Justin Fassbender, 16.
Ensuring the future of native plants is important because “there are a lot of invasive species,” said Devin Dahlstrom, 15.
The public can help protect pollinators by being careful with insecticides, Schultz said.
“Apply the pesticide really early in the morning or at dusk when the pollinators aren’t active,” Schultz said.
The Zaagkii Project contributors include the Marquette Community Foundation, the Negaunee Community Fund, the Negaunee Community Youth Fund, the M.E. Davenport Foundation, the Kaufman Foundation, the Phyllis and Max Reynolds Foundation, theUpper Peninsula Children's Museum in Marquette and the Borealis Seed Company in Big Bay.(Marquette, Michigan) - The Zaagkii Wings and Seeds Project in Marquette is protecting... more
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A new government scheme in Tanzania has implemented a loaning system that allows farmers to receive a secure profit from their crops.
The success of this project demonstrates that small farmers can become an asset and part of the solution to growing the food that we need globally.A new government scheme in Tanzania has implemented a loaning system that allows... more
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IFAD
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3 years ago
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Soil erosion is threatening the livelihood of nearly 100 million people in south-west China as they will lose the land they live on within 35 years.
Crops and water supplies are suffering serious damage as earth is washed and blown away.Soil erosion is threatening the livelihood of nearly 100 million people in south-west... more
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ClareW
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Cumaru, Brazil - In the arid, impoverished expanse of northeast Brazil, Cumaru is the town no one's ever heard of. And once you get here, Maria Joelma da Silva's house is a 20-minute ride beyond where the paved road ends.
Ms. da Silva gets few guests.
Yet in August, officials from Angola, Ghana, the African Union, and the African Development Bank – here to study Brazil's social programs – stood in da Silva's yard gleaning lessons from the small but productive garden that is flourishing where cacti once dominated.
"Everyone talks about how we can't do anything right in the northeast, but if these people came here from so far away, we have to be doing something important in the countryside," says da Silva, who has used government subsidies and help from a nonprofit to build a cistern and start a small business selling honey and other crops. Today, she is part of a transformation under way among Brazil's underclass.Cumaru, Brazil - In the arid, impoverished expanse of northeast Brazil, Cumaru is the... more
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The soybean rust fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi may meet its match, thanks to a gene-silencing technique that scientists of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plan to deploy to identify genes that enable plants to naturally resist this fungal foe.
Molecular biologist Kerry Pedley, at the ARS Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research Unit at Fort Detrick, Md., will use gene silencing to discover plant genes that play a role in orchestrating defense responses to P. pachyrhizi in resistant soybeans. The fungus causes substantial losses to soybeans worldwide, and its September 2004 detection in the continental United States has accelerated efforts to protect the $18 billion U.S. soybean crop.
Gene silencing allows scientists to identify a gene’s function by disabling that gene in plants or other organisms, challenging the organism in some way — such as with exposure to a pathogen — and observing the consequences that result from that gene having been “missing in action.” In Pedley’s studies, the gene-silenced plants will be inoculated with spores of P. pachyrhizi, and monitored for a breakdown in resistance.
Pedley’s research plan was the top-ranked in a total of 450 proposals recently submitted to the ARS Postdoctoral Research Associate Program. In honor of his top ranking among the proposals, Pedley has received the agency’s T.W. Edminster Award, named for a former ARS administrator, plus $120,000 to fund a postdoctoral associate position for two years.
The ultimate goal of Pedley’s research is to streamline the development of new soybean cultivars that can withstand P. pachyrhizi, which causes a foliar disease that severely weakens the plant and diminishes its seed yields and quality. Pedley is collaborating with Iowa State University scientists, and this award will expand upon those efforts.
ARS officials also selected 50 other research proposals for two years of funding at $100,000 per proposal under this year’s Postdoctoral Research Associate Program. Other plans approved for funding include research on development of molecular-based pesticides for control of varroa mites in honey bees, methods to produce antimicrobial cotton wipes, use of remote sensing to monitor rangelands, and replacing fish meal with grain-protein concentrates in feed for Atlantic salmon production.The soybean rust fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi may meet its match, thanks to a... more
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"In a open letter to the next president, author Michael Pollan writes about the waning health of America's food systems — and warns that "the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close."
The future president's food policies, says Pollan, will have a large impact on a wide range of issues, including national security, climate change, energy independence and health care"...
I heard this on NPR on a rather long road trip... it was quite an eye-opener. "In a open letter to the next president, author Michael Pollan writes about the... more
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A study of farmers finds that those with the highest number of lifetime exposure days to agricultural pesticides were 50% more likely to be diagnosed with clinical depression than those with the fewest application days and were 80% more likely if they had applied a class of insecticide called organophosphates. This is the first study to find a link with chronic, low-dose pesticide exposure, although previous studies show an increased risk of depression among people exposed to very high doses or poisoned. This study reinforces concerns that exposure to commonly used pesticides could cause psychiatric disorders.
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Researchers analyzed data from the Agricultural Health Study, a large study of individuals with pesticide applicator licenses in North Carolina and Iowa. Participants in the study are divided into commercial pesticide applicators and private applicators, who tend to be farmers. The researchers limited the current analysis to male private applicators.
More than 17,000 men filled out detailed questionnaires about their pesticide use, their health and their behaviors for the study. Men were asked if they had ever been diagnosed with depression requiring medication or shock therapy. They were also asked about their lifetime use of 50 different pesticides, including the number of days per year and the total number of years each pesticide was applied. Pesticides were grouped into different classes, including herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and fumigants. Insecticides were further broken down into three types: organophosphates, carbamates and organochlorines. Individuals were categorized into low (752 days) lifetime pesticide exposure. Men were also asked if they had ever been diagnosed with pesticide poisoning or experienced an incident of unusually high pesticide exposure.
The researchers then compared the likelihood of being diagnosed with depression among men with low, medium and high cumulative days of pesticide use. Using statistical methods, they took into account factors such as age, education, race and marital status that could impact the results.
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This study suggests that long-term, chronic pesticide use may have neurological effects, particularly relating to depression. Previous medical reports have shown anxiety and depression symptoms in pesticide-poisoned individuals. This is the first study to extend those findings to regular pesticide use.
The men in this study were all licensed pesticide applicators who experienced pesticide exposures at levels much higher than the general public. However, pesticide exposure is widespread in the general population because of use in homes, workplaces and food.
The study is strong because it looked at a large population of men with wide variability in their pesticide exposures, allowing the authors to compare individuals with high exposure to those with low exposure in the same population. The researchers had extensive information on participants' backgrounds and pesticide exposure history. The major weakness of the study is that men reported about diagnosis of depression and pesticide use that occurred in the past, without differentiating whether the pesticide exposure came before or after the depression. Self-reporting, large time categories and lack of information about some stress-related events (financial) were additional limitations.
The results indicate that pesticides may have neurological effects at exposure levels well below those that cause clinically identifiable poisoning symptoms. Those who apply pesticides as part of their jobs, such as farmers and pest control applicators, should remain vigilant and use safety precautions to protect their long-term mental health. The authors advise that "physicians should be alert to mood changes in those with a history of applying pesticides."
A study of farmers finds that those with the highest number of lifetime exposure days... more
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For this campaign season, it's out with the "Go Bengals" theme and in with a civic-minded "Vote '08" theme for the 12-acre corn maze at Irons Fruit Farm on Stubbs Mill Road.
Fourth-generation farmer Bill Irons, 40, has been coming up with a different theme for each of the past eight years. His original inspiration: a picture of Larry Bird carved into a cornfield on an Indiana farm.
Irons' father pointed out the picture and challenged him with a "you-can-do-this" comment.
Irons creates his design the old-fashioned way. He draws it out on graph paper, then enlarges it on 16 to 20 pages of graph paper that he tapes together and mounts on a board.
The corn field gets special attention, too. It's planted in two directions - like the intersections on a grid, he said. The corn comes up extra thick that way.
When the corn starts growing, Irons gets out his tractor, and sometimes a hoe. He grooms his creation the entire growing season.
Irons chooses not to use a GPS device, a piece of technology that would guide him more easily through the cutting process. "I use my head and my hands," he said.
This year's image uses the words "Vote '08 - U Decide! DEMS or GOP," plus the clashing elephant and donkey mascots of the Republicans and Democrats.
As a teenager, Irons gave some thought to attending the Cleveland Art Institute. The artist in him reveals itself when he begins thinking about each year's design.
An idea has already germinated for 2009, but he's not giving away any hints.
Family-owned farms have increasingly turned to corn mazes and other types of "agritainment" to boost their bottom lines.
In Liberty Township, the Niederman family operates a paintball facility year-round in addition to a corn maze they open each fall.
Farmers say such ventures really help when weather problems wreak havoc with cash crops. Case in point: A spring freeze and a summer drought wiped out last year's apple crop, a staple of the Irons' family business since the orchards were planted in the 1930s.
The popular corn maze was a lifesaver, said Irons.For this campaign season, it's out with the "Go Bengals" theme and in... more
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Study of 53 cities across the world finds 'widespread' use of waste water contaminated with heavy metals and sewageStudy of 53 cities across the world finds 'widespread' use of waste water... more
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lecoke
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In July 2008, a three-year initiative began called the Zaagkii Wings and Seeds Project that involves Native American youth and Marquette teens building butterfly houses and planting over 26,000 native plants to help pollinators recover due to the shocking death of billions of honeybees across the Midwest and around the world.
Butterfly houses are slimmer than better known birdhouses and are lined with bark offering a place for butterflies to rest, be protected and in some cases lay eggs.
It's important as thousands of Monarchs pass thru the U.P. in the annual migration to Mexico of 3 million Monarchs.
Native plants indigenous to any region of the world are important for local pollinators that can be fooled by imported vegetation resulting in death or eggs not hatching.
The Zaagkii Project was founded by Rev. Jon Magnuson and his non-profit Cedar Tree Institute in Marquette, Michigan.
The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community has long supported initiatives like the Zaagkii Project that were founded by the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute (CTI) including wild rice restoration and Earth Day clean sweeps. The three-year Zaagkii Project is sponsored by the KBIC, CTI, Marquette County Juvenile Court and the United States Forest Service.
The Zaagkii Project would not be possible without contributors that include the Marquette Community Foundation, the Negaunee Community Fund, the Negaunee Community Youth Fund, the M.E. Davenport Foundation, the Kaufman Foundation, the Phyllis and Max Reynolds Foundation, with assistance from the Upper Peninsula Children's Museum in Marquette and the Borealis Seed Company in Big Bay.
In July 2008, a three-year initiative began called the Zaagkii Wings and Seeds... more
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Farmers in California have begun slathering fruit and vegetables with sunscreen after discovering that it is not just people who can suffer adverse effects from the sun's rays, the Telegraph reports.
The vegetable equivalent of a liver spot on an apple can slash its value, as can sun-induced blistering and blemishes on crops like tomatoes and grapes.
So farmers in arid or drought-hit regions of the United States are spraying a sun block onto their crops to protect their sale prices.
Spraying on sunscreen helps to protect against some of the damage fruit and veg undergo in a natrual environment, particularly costly cosmetic imperfections, according to a California company that makes such a spray.
Purfresh is marketing SPF 45 spray Purshade, which is engineered to deflect ultraviolet and infrared light while allowing photosynthesis.
Mmm, delicious. Would you eat a fruit or vegetable that had been sprayed with these kinds of chemicals? Could you even tell, in the supermarket or green grocers? Would you buy a fruit or vegetable that had some sun damage, or does your food have to be *just perfect*?
Farmers in California have begun slathering fruit and vegetables with sunscreen after... more
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February 1938 - Popular Mechanics Magazine:
“NEW BILLION-DOLLAR CROP”
February 1938 - Mechanical Engineering Magazine:
“THE MOST PROFITABLE & DESIRABLE CROP THAT CAN BE GROWN”
Modern technology was about to be applied to hemp production, making it the number-one agricultural resource in America. Two of the most respected and influential journals in the nation, Popular Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering, forecast a bright future for American hemp. Thousands of new products creating millions of new jobs would herald the end of the Great Depression. Instead hemp was persecuted, outlawed and forgotten at the bidding of W. R. Hearst, who branded hemp the “Mexican killer weed, marihuana.”
As early as 1901 and continuing to 1937, the U.S. Department of Agriculture repeatedly predicted that, once machinery capable of harvesting, As you will see in these articles, the newly mechanized stripping and separating the fiber from the pulp was cannabis hemp industry was in its infancy, but well on invented or engineered, hemp would again be America’s number-one farm crop. The introduction of G. W. decorticator in 1917 nearly fulfilled this prophesy. (See pages 13-15 and Appendix.)
The prediction was reaffirmed in the popular press when Popular Mechanics published its February 1938 article “Billion-Dollar Crop.” The first reproduction of this article in over 50 years was in the original edition of this book. The article is reproduced here exactly as it was printed in 1938.
Because of the printing schedule and deadline, Popular Mechanics prepared this article in spring of 1937 when cannabis hemp for fiber, paper, dynamite and oil, was still legal to grow and was, in fact, an incredibly fast-growing industry.
Also reprinted in this chapter is an excerpt from the Mechanical Engineering article about hemp, published the same month. It originated as a paper presented a year earlier at the Feb. 26, 1937 Agricultural Processing Meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Reports from the USDA during the 1930s, and Congressional testimony in 1937, showed that cultivated hemp acreage had been doubling in size in America almost every year from the time it hit its bottom acreage, 1930-when 1,000 acres were planted in the U.S. - to 1937 - when 14,000 acres were cultivated with plans to continue to double that acreage annually in the foreseeable future.
As you will see in these articles, the newly mechanized cannabis hemp industry was in its infancy, but well on its way to making cannabis America's largest agricultural crop. And in light of subsequent developments (e.g. biomass energy technology, building materials, etc.), we now know that hemp is the world's most important ecological resource and therefore, potentially our planet's single largest industry.
The Popular Mechanics article was the very first time in American history that the term "billion-dollar"* was ever applied to any U.S. agricultural crop!
Equivalent to $40-$80 billion now.
Experts today conservatively estimate that, once fully restored in America, hemp industries will generate $500 billion to a trillion dollars per year, and will save the planet and civilization from fossil fuels and their derivatives - and from deforestation!
If Harry Anslinger, DuPont, Hearst and their paid-for (know it or not, then as now) politicians had not outlawed hemp - under the pretext of marijuana (see Chapter 4, "Last Days of Legal Cannabis") - and suppressed hemp knowledge from our schools, researchers and even scientists, the glowing predictions in these articles would already have come true by now - and more benefits than anyone could then envision - as new technologies and uses continue to develop.
As one colleague so aptly put it, "These articles were the last honest word spoken on hemp's behalf for over 40 years..."February 1938 - Popular Mechanics Magazine:
“NEW BILLION-DOLLAR CROP”... more
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Neighborhood residents view and photograph some of at least 2,000 marijuana plants seized by the Orange County Sheriff's Department after they were found growing in Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness ParkNeighborhood residents view and photograph some of at least 2,000 marijuana plants... more
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Australia hopes to develop water treatment programs as a result of new legislation allowing the commercial cultivation of industrial hemp.
Dr Keith Bolton, who works for the company, has grown trial crops for research. He claims hemp can be used in wetlands and sewage treatment as a method of mopping up effluent.
He says the properties of the plant make them ideal for soaking up waste materials in waterways.
The many potential applications of hemp have many primary producers keen to add it to their summer cropping schedules. It can also be used as a building material, as a fibre and as a food product.
The producer’s profit margins could be anywhere between $600 and $1700 per hectare of crops.Australia hopes to develop water treatment programs as a result of new legislation... more
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Doug Cameron reported in today's Wall Street Journal that, "A group of U.S. agribusiness companies including Archer Daniels Midland Co. are uniting in the intensifying food-versus-fuel debate, forming an alliance to promote the idea that technology can ease global supply shortages.
"The Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy - which includes seed makers Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co., as well as farm-gear maker Deere & Co. - wants to spread its belief that renewable fuels won't cut into food supplies if new technologies, such as genetically modified crops, are used to their fullest. The group is also working hard to protect government subsidies for ethanol production.
"ADM, Monsanto and others have seen their own profits soar in recent years, as booming demand for agricultural products in emerging markets has pushed up commodity prices and spurred additional production."
And Reuters writer Lisa Shumaker reported yesterday that, "A new group is adding its voice to the debate on using crops to produce alternative fuels such as ethanol amid rising food prices and shortages in some countries.
"The Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy in Washington D.C. was created by Archer Daniels Midland Co, DuPont Co, Deere & Co, Monsanto Co and the Renewable Fuels Association (www.foodandenergy.org ).
"'There are critics who are trying to create an either-or decision between food and fuel,' said Mark Kornblau, the alliance's executive director. 'We believe this is a false choice. Today, more than 90 percent of crops in the United States and around the world are used exclusively for food.'"
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Keith Good
President FarmPolicy.com, Inc.
Champaign, IL
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There you have it. Unequivocal proof that these biotech agribusiness corporations don't care one whit about you.The battle lines have been drawn. It is them against us and this planet. Profit trumping sustainability and fair access to food and water. I don't think it is then too dramatic to state that this is a battle for our lives. These companies with the full backing of our own government, including those who voted for their subsidies (and yes, that also includes Obama) are set on total control of our food and water supply in order to control us.
In the last post I placed here on this topic today regarding Monsanto raising the price of corn seed during a food crisis it was stated that it is time this be given serious attention... well, I go one further here... this requires serious ACTION.
Please go to the article link and there you will find a petition calling for the boycott of Monsanto. The people this will affect, mainly the poor, farmers, and people living in developing countries must join together to fight this insidious takeover of our lives. And yes, it's that serious. Click on the tag, 'Monsanto' to see much more on exactly what is transpiring on a global scale and why the majority of this world is AGAINST GMOs and allowing Monsanto to patent life itself.Doug Cameron reported in today's Wall Street Journal that, "A group of U.S.... more
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"Yesterday Louisiana state governor Bobby Jindal signed into law revolutionary ethanol legislation that embarks in a totally new direction that could save the US economy while actually making us less dependant on foreign oil ...""Yesterday Louisiana state governor Bobby Jindal signed into law revolutionary... more
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One of the worst droughts in the past decade settled heavily over the Fertile Crescent region of Iraq and Syria in the winter of 2007-2008. Under normal conditions, winter rain and rivers flowing from the mountains of Turkey sustain the rich agricultural land that has fed humanity from the dawn of civilization. But little to no rain fell between October and December during the crucial planting period, and sparse rain fell in the months that followed, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).
Crop analysts at the Foreign Agricultural Service use satellite imagery such as this vegetation image along with field reports to track crop conditions around the world. Made from data collected by France’s SPOT Vegetation satellite in April 2008, this image shows how plants were growing compared to a long-term average. The arc of deep brown that stretches over the Fertile Crescent region indicates that plants were more sparse or less healthy than average in April 2008. Irrigated farmland stands out as bright green spots surrounded by the brown or white that represents rain-fed vegetation. For a closer view of the contrast between irrigated and rain-fed crops, see the MODIS image of northern Syria and Iraq.
The regions most severely affected by the drought are eastern Syrian and northern Iraq, the major grain-growing regions of both countries. Seventy-five percent of Syria’s wheat crop comes from drought-affected regions in the northeast, and a significant portion of Iraq’s farmland suffered, said the FAS. In these regions, more than half of the crops rely on rain for water and so are deeply impacted by drought. Since the seeds require moist soil to germinate, dryness during the planting period caused crops to fail in many cases, and those that did survive will likely have a very low yield when harvested in June and July, said FAS. Many farmers did not plant at all.
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Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, North America. Not one inhabited continent has currently escaped drought. How much more of a sign do we need?
One of the worst droughts in the past decade settled heavily over the Fertile Crescent... more
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