tagged w/ landgrabs
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Millions of people are locked in a vicious cycle of hunger and poverty. Poverty means parents can't feed their families enough nutritious food, leaving children malnourished. Malnutrition leads to irreversibly stunted development and shorter, less productive lives. Less productive lives mean no escape from poverty. We have to break this cycle.
That's why we're urgently calling on the G8 to break the cycle of hunger and poverty, tackling their root causes. No child should have to go to bed hungry tonight. And if we achieve our goals by 2015, we could see 15 million fewer children chronically malnourished and 50 million people lifted out of extreme poverty.
Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi consistently cut effective aid to Africa since he personally promised to support the fight against poverty in 2005. Those cuts can cost real lives around the world.
In just weeks some of the world's most powerful political leaders will meet at Camp David in the United States to discuss their vision for the future. We need to make sure agriculture, world hunger, the vital fight against extreme poverty around the globe are a part of that discussion, and ensure they don't follow Berlusconi's devastating example and actually stick to the promises they make!Millions of people are locked in a vicious cycle of hunger and poverty. Poverty means... more
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Beautifully shot and interweaving interviews with scenes from soy fields in Paraguay, Raising Resistance explores Latin American farmers’ struggle against the expanding production of genetically modified soy in South America. Biotechnology, mechanisation, and herbicides have radically changed the lives of small farmers in Latin America. For farmers in Paraguay this means displacement from their land, loss of basic food supplies, and a veritable fight for survival. Geronimo Arevelos and a group of small farmers stand defiantly in a corporate-owned soy field adjacent to his own, blocking a tractor from spraying herbicides that will decimate his crops and expose nearby families to toxic chemicals. As corporate farms seize farmland and rapidly expand production of genetically modified soy, Geronimo and the campesinos find themselves in a life and death struggle. Raising Resistance illustrates the mechanisms of a global economy that relies on ‘monocrop’ agriculture and corporate ownership of land. In telling the story of Paraguay, Raising Resistance poses the larger question of whether the global community wants to go on living with a system that allows one crop to prosper at the expense of all others.
(Official Selection International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2011)Beautifully shot and interweaving interviews with scenes from soy fields in Paraguay,... more
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Human rights activists say tens of thousands of people in western Ethiopia are being driven off fertile ancestral lands so the government can lease or sell large tracts of farmland for commercial agriculture to investors, including foreign governments.
Since the 2008 global food crisis wealthy Middle Eastern states, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and others, such as India and China, have been buying up vast areas of arable land across Africa to grow food to feed their burgeoning populations.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in 2011 that over the last decade global food prices have risen an average 83 percent.
Human Rights Watch said this month in a report titled "Waiting for Death," that the Addis Ababa regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is forcibly moving tens of thousands of villagers out of the remote Gambella region of western Ethiopia.
Human Rights Watch said the people received little compensation and were moved to villages elsewhere that have inadequate food and lack health and education facilities.
By 2013, Addis Ababa plans to resettle 1.5 million people from Gambella and the regions of Afar, Somali and Benishangul-Gumuz, Human Rights Watch said.
Gambella, the size of Belgium, has a population of 607,000. Its richly fertile soil has attracted foreign and domestic investors who have leased large tracts at "favorable prices."
Between 2008 and last January, Human Rights Watch said, Ethiopia had leased out at least 9.5 million acres of land.
The report says the government has repeatedly denied the clearances are linked to large-scale land-leasing for commercial agriculture. But Human Rights Watch said many villagers it interviewed claim they were told this was the reason.
These land grabs have been widely criticized as a new form of neo-colonialism that leaves large parts of Africa in the hands of foreign states and investors while displaced local populations are left to suffer and go hungry.
In 2010 up to 123.5 million acres of African land -- double the size of Britain -- have been snapped up or is being negotiated by governments or wealthy investors, various assessments conclude.
Ethiopia alone has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural projects since 2007.
Last fall, Oxfam International reported that Asian and Middle East companies had bought up 560 million acres of farmland in developing countries, often at bargain prices, with some reportedly less than $1 a hectare.
Oxfam estimated Ethiopia now supports the export of fruit and vegetables worth $60 million annually, as well as flowers worth $160 million per year.
It noted that Ethiopia's per capita income is around $1,000 per year. That's less than Haiti, often listed as the world's poorest country at $1,200 per year.
Rich Arab states like Saudi Arabia have bought up huge tracts of land across Africa in recent years in a bid to combat global food shortages, water scarcity and desertification and to feed their swelling populations.
But now the scramble for Africa is intensifying, with investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds, corporations and business tycoons out to grab some of the world's cheapest land -- for profit.
More at the linkHuman rights activists say tens of thousands of people in western Ethiopia are being... more
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Global poverty did not just happen. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labor. Today, the problem persists because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies — in other words, wealthy countries taking advantage of poor, developing countries.
Renowned actor and activist, Martin Sheen, narrates , a feature-length documentary directed by award-winning director, Philippe Diaz, which explains how today's financial crisis is a direct consequence of these unchallenged policies that have lasted centuries. Consider that 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate. At this rate, to maintain our lifestyle means more and more people will sink below the poverty line.
Filmed in the slums of Africa and the barrios of Latin America, The End of Poverty? features expert insights from: Nobel prize winners in Economics, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz; acclaimed authors Susan George, Eric Toussaint, John Perkins, Chalmers Johnson; university professors William Easterly and Michael Watts; government ministers such as Bolivia's Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and the leaders of social movements in Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya and Tanzania. It is produced by Cinema Libre Studio in collaboration with the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Can we really end poverty within our current economic system? Think again. http://www.theendofpoverty.com/
More at the linkGlobal poverty did not just happen. It began with military conquest, slavery and... more
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A spry 80-year-old cruises through the thick vegetation of western Borneo, or western Kalimantan, as it's known to Indonesians. Dressed in faded pinstripe slacks and a polo shirt, Layan Lujum carries a large knife in his hand. The chief of the island's Sekendal village is making his morning rounds.
Layan is a member of an indigenous ethnic group called the Dayaks, who once had a reputation as fierce headhunters. As on most mornings, his first job on a recent day is to tend to his rubber trees.
He uses a blade to cut a few grooves in each tree, allowing its white latex sap to trickle into a cup. Then he plucks a handful of fern leaves and snaps off the tops of a dozen or so bamboo shoots and puts them in a bucket. In a few minutes, he has enough for lunch. He goes to the river to wash and chop the shoots.
Layan Lujum, 80, Sekendal's village chief, cuts grooves in one of his rubber trees. Indigenous people in Borneo say they can make more money selling the latex sap from rubber trees than working on the area's palm oil plantations.
Andrew Limbong/for NPR Layan Lujum, 80, Sekendal's village chief, cuts grooves in one of his rubber trees. Indigenous people in Borneo say they can make more money selling the latex sap from rubber trees than working on the area's palm oil plantations.
Environmentalists say Layan's lifestyle is a form of "indigenous knowledge" that has allowed the Dayaks to both use and protect Borneo's forests. But those same forests are now a staging ground for a complicated clash. It involves economic growth, land rights and environmental concerns, development and traditional cultures, as well as a broader fight in Indonesia against entrenched corruption.
'This Is Our Sacred Grove'
Back near Sekendal, Layan explains how the Dayaks in his community view ownership of the surrounding land.
"These stands of bamboo don't belong to anyone in particular. Anyone can take some," he says. "The rubber trees belong to me. The bamboo here is very abundant. If you go upstream, there's even more."
This is not virgin forest, Layan says. It's owned by the community, and it's been cleared and replanted with useful flora such as cocoa and rambutan trees. There is one stand of virgin forest left in the area, but it's used for something very different.
"This is our padagi, or sacred grove," Layan says in a hushed voice. "It's been here since the time of our ancestors, and we come here to pray."
Birdsongs resonate through the forest canopy towering overhead. Down below, moss grows on an altar for making sacrifices. The spirits of the Dayak ancestors inhabit this hallowed glade, Layan says, and it is forbidden to take any plants or animals out of it.
"We come here to ask for help in times of trouble, for example in times of war, and then we are victorious," he says. "We ask for bountiful rice harvests. We ask for the sick to heal. We make offerings to the spirits, even though we can't see them."
Conservation Efforts Under Way
Indonesia remains Asia's most-forested nation, but it has suffered serious deforestation in recent decades, contributing to Indonesia's status as the third-largest emitter of carbon after the U.S. and China.
And perhaps there is no starker example than Borneo — roughly three-quarters of which belongs to Indonesia, the rest to Malaysia and Brunei.
Conservationists are urging Indonesia's government to respect the Dayak's rights to their traditional lands and to affirm their stewardship of the forests based on their animist religion. But in much of Borneo, it appears too late.
Where forests once stood, towns now hum with traffic and commerce. According to Indonesian government statistics, 60 percent of Borneo's rainforests have been cut down. Only 8 percent of its virgin forests remain, mostly in national parks. Western Borneo is the most denuded.
Efforts to combat deforestation are under way. In May, the Indonesian government announced a two-year moratorium on cutting down virgin forests. As well, a U.N.-backed scheme will see developed countries paying Indonesia to protect its rainforests.
But it's too soon to say how effective these measures will be, calling into question the sustainability of Indonesia's current economic boom, which is largely dependent on the extraction of natural resources.
Lands Stripped Away
Many Dayaks see it as just a matter of time before paved roads reach their villages and palm oil companies buy their land to convert into plantations.
Farmer Lambai Sudian sold his 25 acres of land for the equivalent of about $1,000. He says the company offered locals jobs on the plantation, water, roads and 20 percent of the palm oil profits. Four years later, none of it has materialized.
"Of course I regret selling," he says. "I regret it because the company didn't do what it said it would. If it did, we would be getting a share of the profits, and we'd be fine."
More at the linkA spry 80-year-old cruises through the thick vegetation of western Borneo, or western... more
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My final video for 2010 from the Sustainable Agriculture Group on GMO news. We need to see the momentum gaining more in 2011. Here's hoping that the coming year brings us one year closer to a GMO free world to protect the biodiversity and health of our food and planet.
Thank you to all who have supported my endeavors and posts this year.
JanMy final video for 2010 from the Sustainable Agriculture Group on GMO news. We need to... more
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Damn it, no GMOs -- how do I break this to State? The Wikileaks release of U.S. State Department classified diplomatic cables may be problematic, but it has been quite a trove of information on the workings of our diplomatic corps. For the most part, the dump has confirmed things that we already knew about U.S. policy -- and that seems to be the case regarding the one mention of agricultural policy in these thousands of emails and documents (no doubt there are more) to which I was alerted.
Buried deep in a document that outlines priorities for intelligence gathering in the African "Great Lakes" countries of Burundi, the Republic of Congo, and Rwanda is a list (for the most part, very reasonable) of what the State Department would like to know about the region's agricultural policy. Things like government policies on food security and food safety top the list, for example, along with information on the impact of rising food prices in these countries. Agricultural yield statistics, infrastructure improvements, data on deforestation and desertification, water issues, and invasive species are included as priorities for "reporting" as well.
But also getting its own line item on the intel priority list is this:
Government acceptance of genetically modified food and propagation of genetically modified crops.Damn it, no GMOs -- how do I break this to State? The Wikileaks release of U.S. State... more
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BBC World Service - One Planet: The Father of Genetic Engineering....
First broadcast 10:32am, 7 Oct 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/gd/episode/p00b2rgn/One_Planet_The_father_of_GM_foods_bolivian_seeds_and_wildebeest/
GMWatch comment: This programme, part of the BBC World Service’s One Planet series on the environment, interviews genetic engineer Dr Roger Beachy. Beachy's interview appears to be part of a new evangelical push on the part of the US government hyping GM crops as the solution to world hunger.
In the BBC interview, Beachy claims GM is being demonized but then proceeds to demonize organic production, as he has done before (even suggesting organic food may be dangerous to eat!) http://www.grist.org/article/usda-research-chief-concerned-about-safety-of-organic-food
Beachy characterizes people who oppose GM crops as anti-science or just plain ignorant. He also uses straw man arguments, dismissing scientifically valid concerns about the uncontrollability of GM contamination with a story about a man who (according to Beachy) had an irrational concern about potatoes being contaminated by GM corn or cotton.
This strategy exactly fits with what Guy Cook, Professor in Language and Education at the Open University (OU) and author of Genetically Modified Language, a book which critically analyses the war of words waged by those arguing for GM crops, found in research investigating the type of language deployed by GM crop scientists. The 'public', Cook's data revealed, tend to be portrayed as as frequently emotional, rather than rational, and as uniformly ignorant. Cook notes that this "characterization of the public is often achieved through anecdotes of some farcical encounter with a particularly 'uninformed’ member of the public: a commonly voiced one concerns people who are worried that they may be 'eating genes'." Interestingly, research suggests that technical knowledge of GM does not necessarily lead to increased acceptance of GM crops.
http://bit.ly/djBb7i
Beachy also seems to suggest, by implication, that those concerned about GM foods may be candidates for psychiatry ("They choose, not based on science. Where have those attitudes come from?"). He also deliberately attempts to link those concerned about GM with people typically characterised as anti-technology or anti- modern medicine.
It is therefore amusing that another interviewee in this BBC programme is a genetic engineer working in the field of medical biotechnology (Dr Michael Antoniou) who does not share Beachy's confidence about the safety of GM when applied to agriculture.
The BBC calls Beachy "the father of GM foods" and mentions in passing one of Beachy's links to Monsanto: "Two decades ago, his research - in collaboration with Monsanto - helped develop the world's first genetically modified crop (a tomato)".
But the BBC does not mention that Beachy was the founding president of St. Louis' Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, which was principally established by Monsanto, or that he is still a trustee and a member of its scientific advisory board (along with the Monsanto-connected British GM promoter Jonathan Jones, and Monsanto's CEO Hugh Grant).
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php?title=Roger_Beachy
Beachy is now working for the US government. In September 2009, President Obama put Beachy in charge of a USDA agency, the National Institutes of Food and Agriculture, that will fund R & D in agricultural "technological innovations". So don't expect a lot of research dollars for badly needed agro-ecological approaches.
http://www.grist.org/article/usda-research-chief-concerned-about-safety-of-organic-food
Beachy is also joined in the BBC programme by Jack Bobo, senior advisor for biotech in the US Dept of State, and Beachy's BBC appearance seems to coincide with a new GM push on the part of US government. On 7 October, the same day that the BBC broadcast Beachy's GM hype, the USDA put out a press release flagging up research claiming there were benefits from GM crops for neighbouring non-GM farmers as they have fewer corn borer pests. The release quoted US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack plugging GM. (But see why the corn borer may not be such a problem on organic farms: here and here)
On 8 October, Jose Fernandez, the US assistant secretary of state for economic, energy and business affairs published an article in the Huffington Post claiming - surprise - that "Unjustified and impractical legal obstacles are stopping genetically-enhanced crops from saving millions from starvation and malnutrition".
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jose-w-fernandez/addressing-global-food-pr_b_756111.html
So stand by for more evangelical efforts to win us all over to the U.S. GMO way.BBC World Service - One Planet: The Father of Genetic Engineering....
First broadcast... more
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The world may be on the brink of a major new food crisis caused by environmental disasters and rampant market speculators, the UN was warned today at an emergency meeting on food price inflation.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) meeting in Rome today was called last month after a heatwave and wildfires in Russia led to a draconian wheat export ban and food riots broke out in Mozambique, killing 13 people. But UN experts heard that pension and hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and large banks who speculate on commodity markets may also be responsible for inflation in food prices being seen across all continents.
July's wildfires in Russia have led to a draconian wheat ban, pushing up prices. (Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA)In a new paper released this week, Olivier De Schutter, the UN's special rapporteur on food, says that the increases in price and the volatility of food commodities can only be explained by the emergence of a "speculative bubble" which he traces back to the early noughties.
"[Beginning in ]2001, food commodities derivatives markets, and commodities indexes began to see an influx of non-traditional investors," De Schutter writes. "The reason for this was because other markets dried up one by one: the dotcoms vanished at the end of 2001, the stock market soon after, and the US housing market in August 2007. As each bubble burst, these large institutional investors moved into other markets, each traditionally considered more stable than the last. Strong similarities can be seen between the price behaviour of food commodities and other refuge values, such as gold."
He continues: "A significant contributory cause of the price spike [has been] speculation by institutional investors who did not have any expertise or interest in agricultural commodities, and who invested in commodities index funds or in order to hedge speculative bets."
A near doubling of many staple food prices in 2007 and 2008 led to riots in more than 30 countries and an estimated 150 million extra people going hungry. While some commodity prices have since reduced, the majority are well over 50% higher than pre-2007 figures – and are now rising quickly upwards again.
"Once again we find ourselves in a situation where basic food commodities are undergoing supply shocks. World wheat futures and spot prices climbed steadily until the beginning of August 2010, when Russia – faced with massive wildfires that destroyed its wheat harvest – imposed an export ban on that commodity. In addition, other markets such as sugar and oilseeds are witnessing significant price increases," said De Schutter, who spoke today at The UK Food Group's conference in London.
Gregory Barrow of the UN World Food Program said: "What we have seen over the past few weeks is a period of volatility driven partly by the announcement from Russia of an export ban on grain food until next year, and this has driven prices up. They have fallen back again, but this has had an impact."
Sergei Sukhov, from Russia's agriculture ministry, told the Associated Press during a break in the meeting in Rome that the market for grains "should be stable and predictable for all participants." He said no efforts should be spared "to the effect that the production of food be sufficient."
"The emergency UN meeting in Rome is a clear warning sign that we could be on the brink of another food price crisis unless swift action is taken. Already, nearly a billion people go to bed hungry every night – another food crisis would be catastrophic for millions of poor people," said Alex Wijeratna, ActionAid's hunger campaigner.
An ActionAid report released last week revealed that hunger could be costing poor nations $450bn a year – more than 10 times the amount needed to halve hunger by 2015 and meet Millennium Development Goal One.
Food prices are rising around 15% a year in India and Nepal, and similarly in Latin America and China. US maize prices this week broke through the $5-a-bushel level for the first time since September 2008, fuelled by reports from US farmers of disappointing yields in the early stages of their harvests. The surge in the corn price also pushed up European wheat prices to a two-year high of €238 a tonne.
Elsewhere, the threat of civil unrest led Egypt this week to announce measures to increase food self-sufficiency to 70%. Partly as a result of food price rises, many middle eastern and other water-scarce countries have begun to invest heavily in farmland in Africa and elsewhere to guarantee supplies.
Although the FAO has rejected the notion of a food crisis on the scale of 2007-2008, it this week warned of greater volatility in food commodities markets in the years ahead.
At the meeting in London today, De Schutter said the only long term way to resolve the crisis would be to shift to "agro-ecological" ways of growing food. This farming, which does not depend on fossil fuels, pesticides or heavy machinery has been shown to protect soils and use less water.The world may be on the brink of a major new food crisis caused by environmental... more
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This is the tenth edition of the Sustainable Agriculture Group's Monsanto Roundup where we keep you up to date on GMO, biotech, and Monsanto news. In this edition the news concentrates on biodiversity threats from proliferation of GMOS, landgrabs, and climate change effects:
* First Strong Evidence Of GM Plants Growing In The Wild In The U.S.
* Federal Court Rescinds USDA Approval of Genetically Engineered Sugarbeets
* Gates Foundation and Cargill Paper To Force Soy Monoculture Into Africa
Other sidenotes:
Crops pulled up in Italy
Gm grapevines pulled up in France
BT eggplant protested in the Philippines
DNA from transgenic plants found in milk and animal tissue
Jeffrey Smith spills the beans about GMOS
And various tidbits about this most important topic which the media is seriously remiss about in dessiminating this information to the public at large... plus a few other messages. ;-)
Thanks for supporting this monthly feature of the Sustainable Agriculture Group on Current.
NOTE:
Firstly, thank you to the majority of posters who posted in the last entry who gave me permission to upload this again. Please feel free to comment again. If you posted an on topic comment and would like it put back, please let me know. I also apologize to those who voted this up the last time. Your votes were very much appreciated.
However, the proliferation of meanspirited off topic content overshadowed the main purpose of this entry and was simply unacceptable and I believe deterred others from contributing to the conversation. So thanks to Current as well for that lovely delete button and the choice to do so.
I spend my time reading, researching, and putting this information together because it is important to me and others who post here, and to the real world we all live in. To deliberately seek to undermine and belittle such efforts is simply meanspirited. So this time hopefully the conversation will be on topic, civil, and addressing the important issue of genetic modification in tandem with corporate landgrabs, deforestation and climate change's effects on our food system and health.
Any attempt to once again derail this important conversation will result in it being uploaded again.
Thank you.This is the tenth edition of the Sustainable Agriculture Group's Monsanto Roundup... more
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