Capturing the food
The Corporate Grip on Food Tightens
They’ve Got the World by the Belly
By P. SAINATH
When you’re down to distributing fertilizer from a police station, you have a problem. It’s what they did in Hingoli, here in the Indian state of in Maharashtra. That was a week ago, but the police are still, in a sense, involved in its distribution there and elsewhere. In Hingoli itself, there are lots of policemen controlling the queues outside dealers’ outlets. The dealers won’t open up otherwise. Thanks to the police, Hingoli’s farmers got some fertilizer. Sort of gives a whole new meaning to the acronym PDS. Police Distribution System.
In Nanded, cops wielding riot sticks charged angry farmers demanding fertilizer needed urgently with the rains setting in. In Akola, there is heavy police security precautions… FULL
Bruce F:
From http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174949/mike_davis_welcome_to_the_next_epoch
“As the United Nations Development Program emphasized in its report last year, global warming is above all a threat to the poor and the unborn, the “two constituencies with little or no political voice.” Coordinated global action on their behalf thus presupposes either their revolutionary empowerment (a scenario not considered by the IPCC) or the transmutation of the self-interest of rich countries and classes into an enlightened “solidarity” without precedent in history. From a rational-actor perspective, the latter outcome only seems realistic if it can be shown that privileged groups possess no preferential “exit” option, that internationalist public opinion drives policymaking in key countries, and that greenhouse gas mitigation could be achieved without major sacrifices in upscale Northern Hemispheric standards of living — none of which seems highly likely.
[snip]
“In light of such studies, the current ruthless competition between energy and food markets, amplified by international speculation in commodities and agricultural land, is only a modest portent of the chaos that could soon grow exponentially from the convergence of resource depletion, intractable inequality, and climate change. The real danger is that human solidarity itself, like a West Antarctic ice shelf, will suddenly fracture and shatter into a thousand shards.
26 June 2008, 1:00 pmpeggy:
Sainath is great.
It seems like, with every big human disaster, big corporations make big money. More often than not, the corporations exacerbate the disaster, or even cause it.
Many speak out. But the big question is, how do we stop those corporations?
27 June 2008, 1:24 amStan:
We slip away carefully, and let them fall from their own weight?
27 June 2008, 5:42 amMichael Anderson:
I don’t know if we can skip away, without it (them) taking us down with it…
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3751/the_ambiguous_legacy_of_68/
27 June 2008, 1:39 pmpeggy:
Right now, we can say whatever we please, because we don’t pose a threat. If we even look like we might pose a threat, we will be killed one way or the other. That’s what I believe. Some time in the future, the majority of the U.S. populace may or may not see the enormity and nature of the threat posed to all of humanity. I think we have to help make that time come, and prepare for it. Who’s “we”? Actually not me, because I am older than I seem, physically disabled, and probably soon to die. Maybe this is the reason, or part of it, why I place all my faith in a certain large cohort of younger people, who are already loosely organized. Maybe they’ll tip the scale and take the personal consequences, and maybe they won’t. But I hope they will. I saw a somewhat hopeful, thoughtful article on Huff Post today: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/the-obama-problem_b_109567.html
28 June 2008, 12:59 amMiraculix:
I place my faith in our large, abundant and well-tended garden, which is currently providing us with a delicious rash of strawberries and raspberries, among other fineries.
The new tomato house is packed with tall flowering plants, approaching two meters tall and soon to be bursting with equal abundanza.
We source nearly all our meats from friends and relations within five kilometers (have bike trailer, will pedal) and our organic raw dairy source is a five minute walk away.
Caesar’s legions once camped in these hills, getting to know the Belgae and other local tribes whose presence is only just hinted at in the written record: Paemoni, Caerosi, etc.
We’ll probably be alright here, short of cometary impact or lots of guys with uniforms and guns making a third go, seeing how WWI and WWII were fought right bloody here. It’s our hope that lightning won’t strike a third time, seeing how the house took direct German 88 hits from Brandscheid during the initial BotB barrage on the morning of 16 December 1944.
Growing your own has never looked better.
28 June 2008, 3:23 amBruce F:
Hi Stan,
I’ve got piece of video you might like to see.
A local video producer/food writer made a video podcast about our Chicago rooftop vegetable project.
http://skyfullofbacon.com/blog/?p=17
Another blogger had provided a little more context about the piece, here -
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/002389.html
28 June 2008, 8:41 amHoward:
>>We slip away carefully, and let them fall from their own weight?
Where does “them” leave off and “we” begin?
I guess you are talking about the people doing our own thing to the point that corporate activities and power become irrelevant because society has simply grown new nerves and and blood vessels around them. Not a great analogy I know, but maybe sorta like what happened with the British monarchy over the last 400 years?
STAN: Main Point: the system is supra-”them” just as much as it is supra-”us”. I stand corrected… “let the system fall from its own weight.”
28 June 2008, 3:18 pmStan:
Having trouble getting the video link to work …. help!
28 June 2008, 4:00 pmpeggy:
Following upon Sainath’s essay, here is a good article by a fine anthropologist who’s been doing research since I was a baby: http://www.counterpunch.org/mencher06282008.html
28 June 2008, 10:36 pmBruce F:
I couldn’t get it to work either. So I emailed Mike Gebert, the guy who put it together, this is what he said -
“Vimeo seems to have screwed something up. I uploaded a slightly revised
version (just technical tweaks) and got the email back from them around 6
pm saying it uploaded fine. But I get the same thing you get. I have
emailed them, hopefully it will be fixed tomorrow. Grrr.
In the meantime you can now see it at iTunes, though you’re downloading
the whole thing that way, it’s a lot slower:
http://skyfullofbacon.com/blog/?p=19
Mike
29 June 2008, 8:00 amLisa:
Agribusiness and Agrarian Elites Foment Coup in Bolivia
Fighting Food Fascism
By ROGER BURBACH
The ability of the agrarian interests of Bolivia to take the country to the brink of civil war is reflective of the powerful agrarian bourgeoisies that have arisen in many countries of the third world in tandem with global agribusiness. When national governments attempt to control the steep increase in food prices, or popular movements agitate for agrarian reform and food sovereignty, they encounter powerful internal agro-industrial interests, in effect a fifth column nurtured and developed by the multinational corporations in conjunction with the World Bank and the IMF.
Full article at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/burbach07012008.html
1 July 2008, 11:40 amBruce F:
Stan,
Posterus.com has come up with a free limited basic blogging system. If you compose and send them an email, with attachments of jpeg pics or vid, they’ll code it and post it to your blog. I don’t know how much of an improvement this is over blogspot, typepad and the rest, but it’s very easy to use.
Anyway, we put our new rooftop garden project pics/video on it. Here’s the link:
http://greenroofgrowers.posterous.com/
3 July 2008, 8:47 pmCharles:
… and the Masculinisation of Agriculture
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2008w27/msg00018.htm
A new seed has been genetically engineered so that it will not germinate
at harvest. This will ensure that farmers must buy new seed each year.
The patriarchal minds behind these innovations would stunt nature so
that they themselves profit economically while biodiversity, long-term
sustainability and, indeed, small farmers’ lives are destroyed.
by Dr Vandana Shiva
10 July 2008, 11:34 amCharles:
peggy:
Right now, we can say whatever we please, because we don’t pose a threat. If we even look like we might pose a threat, we will be killed one way or the other. That’s what I believe. Some time in the future, the majority of the U.S. populace may or may not see the enormity and nature of the threat posed to all of humanity. I think we have to help make that time come, and prepare for it. Who’s “we”? Actually not me, because I am older than I seem, physically disabled, and probably soon to die. Maybe this is the reason, or part of it, why I place all my faith in a certain large cohort of younger people, who are already loosely organized. Maybe they’ll tip the scale and take the personal consequences, and maybe they won’t. But I hope they will. I saw a somewhat hopeful, thoughtful article on Huff Post today: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/the-obama-problem_b_109567.html
^^^
Live long and prosper , Peggy !
From the article you post:
“Next came his disagreement with the Supreme Court ruling that the death penalty shouldn’t be imposed for rape.”
^^^
10 July 2008, 11:41 amAlthough it’s just words, because the Supreme Court rule against the death penalty here is now the law, Obama flashes some radical feminist rhetoric here. He also has a lot of legislative work against rape and domestic violence, such as can be had in a real state legislature in the US
Lisa:
World Bank Secret Report confirms Biofuel Cause of World Food Crisis
By F. William Engdahl
Global Research, July 10, 2008
A secret study by the World Bank, which reportedly has not been made public on pressure from the Bush Administration, concludes that bio-fuel cultivation in especially the USA and EU are directly responsible for the current explosion in grain and food prices worldwide. The US Government at the recent Rome UN Food Summit claimed that “only 3% of food prices” were due to bio-fuels. The World Bank secret report says that at least 75% of the recent price rises are due to land being removed from agriculture—mainly maize in North America and rapeseed and corn in the EU—in order to grow crops to be burned for vehicle fuel. The World Bank study confirms what we wrote more than a year ago about the madness of bio-fuels. It fits the agenda described in the 1970’s by Henry Kissinger, namely, ‘If you control the food you control the people.’
According to the London Guardian newspaper which has been given a copy of the suppressed report, the World Bank study was completed in April, well before the June Rome Food Summit, but was deliberately suppressed as “embarrassing to the position of the Bush Administration.”
Full article at:
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9547
10 July 2008, 1:00 pmLisa:
The Ethanol Scam
By NICOLE COLSON
At first glance, it seems like common sense.
Unless you’re delusional or in the pay of the energy industry, you know that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming and destructive climate change that is already wreaking havoc around the globe. Not to mention that fossil fuels are a limited resource, costly to extract and refine, and increasingly sought-after by competing nations.
So if a more environmentally friendly fuel could be derived from renewable plant-based sources, wouldn’t it be logical to make the switch?
This is the justification for the recent boom in biofuel production in the U.S. and around the globe. Since biofuels (which can be made from corn, sugar cane, soybeans or other organic sources) are produced from “renewable resources,” goes the argument, they can go a long way to helping break America from its 21-million-barrels-a-day oil habit and provide a more environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels.
Biofuels–especially, in the U.S., corn-derived ethanol–are being promoted as the savior of both the planet and humankind.
Think that’s an exaggeration? Check out the National Corn Growers Association’s online comic book adventures of “Captain Cornelius,” who uses his corn superpowers to “protect the environment.” Or the association’s online promotional video, a Star Wars parody in which “ethanol” is depicted as a wise Yoda-like figure, and “gasoline” is Darth Vader.
Rolling Stone quoted Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa–”the king of ethanol hype,” the magazine pointed out–as saying “Everything about ethanol is good, good, good.” But if you scratch a bit beneath the surface, ethanol stops looking quite so “good, good, good.”
Full article:
http://counterpunch.com/colson07122008.html
12 July 2008, 1:44 pmLisa:
Going to the Roots
Fixing a Broken Agriculture
By STAN COX
The ecological destruction in progress all around us grows out of the human economy’s unvarying tendency to overproduce what is profitable while at the same time underproducing what is needed. There is no better example of that than American agriculture [1]. Efforts to bring agriculture into line with ecological reality fall into two classes. Some efforts can be started today and will help get humanity through mid-century. Others (which also must be accelerated, and soon) will take longer to complete but will be necessary to sustain agriculture to the end of the century and beyond.
In the short run: go to the roots of the economy
The energy content of food produced for residents of the United States has risen from 3200 calories per person per day in the 1970s to almost 4000 today [2], approaching double the average daily requirement. Much of that is wasted. For many such reasons, shrinking the economic “throughput” of agriculture and associated industries can be a much more straightforward process than in other areas of human society, and it need not mean that anyone need go undernourished.
Full article:
http://counterpunch.com/cox07122008.html
12 July 2008, 1:46 pmCharles:
Hope District:
Mike Wimberly / ERIC CAMPBELL PHOTO
True community development spreads one block at a time
https://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=6206&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1070&hn=michigancitizen&he=.com
By Eric T. Campbell
The Michigan Citizen
DETROIT — The philosophy driving development of the Hope District comes from a teaching that Mike Wimberly took to heart during a lecture on urban redevelopment —start on one corner, or one block, and don’t move until you’ve touched everything.
A chain of revitalized property on East Forest going east of Van Dyke has benefited from Wimberly’s adherence to this credo. He and the community around him have taken a grassroots initiative and created a point of reference for the area.
Centered in a building dubbed the Club Technology resource center, the Hope District spread as a way to make the community self-reliant and stem the tide of economic depression.
Projects devoted to food security, collective entrepreneurship, and spiritual healing are in various states of development along a corridor marked with colorful murals and maturing fruit trees.
“Our whole job is to create a place where people can become who they are in the community,” Wimberly told the Michigan Citizen during a recent tour.
18 July 2008, 11:42 amLisa:
Genetic Roulette
The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods
by Jeffrey M. Smith
Eating genetically modified food is gambling with every bite.
The biotech industry’s claim that genetically modified (GM) foods are safe is shattered in this groundbreaking book. Sixty-five health risks of the foods that Americans eat every day are presented in easy-to-read two-page spreads. The left page is designed for the quick scanning reader; it includes bullets, illustrations, and quotes. The right side offers fully referenced text, describing both research studies and theoretical risks. The second half of Genetic Roulette shows how safety assessments on GM crops are not competent to identify the health problems presented in the first half.
More at:
http://www.geneticroulette.com/
23 July 2008, 12:13 amCharles:
“Major Discovery” From MIT Primed to Unleash Solar Revolution (?)
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2008-August/032551.html
—
1 August 2008, 1:44 pmLisa:
Argentina, big soy, and agricultural tariffs
August 1, 2008 · No Comments
There are many dimensions to the agricultural protests which took place in Argentina this spring and summer, not least the role of transgenic soy in the destruction of agriculture and how a “withholding” tariff would affect that battle. This piece, written by a fellow Tlaxcalan, the Argentinean Jorge Eduardo Aldao, presents a different perspective on the strike from that presented in the translation of the Petras interview some weeks ago.
It’s not Love that United us, but Fright
Notes on the Argentine Agricultural Strike
by Jorge Eduardo Aldao
Translation: Machetera
“It’s not love that united us, but fright
would that be why I loved her so?”
Jorge Luis Borges
Without doubting the good faith of many people who’ve written about the agricultural strike that paralyzed Argentina for more than three months, a few clarifications are needed about this prolonged crisis which originated in the “Mobile Withholdings” imposed by the Argentine Economic Ministry.
Full article:
http://machetera.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/argentina-big-soy-and-agricultural-tariffs/
11 August 2008, 12:26 am