Shaun Chaiyabhat
6:21 PM CDT, June 1, 2010
Source: WREG
Farmers
California Files Legal Brief Opposing Monsanto in US Supreme Court
– Conflict of Interest: Ex Monsanto Lawyer Clarence Thomas to Hear Major Monsanto Case:
In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case which could have an enormous effect on the future of the American food industry. This is Monsanto’s third appeal of the case, and if they win a favorable ruling from the high court, a deregulated Monsanto may find itself in position to corner the markets of numerous U.S. crops, and to litigate conventional farmers into oblivion.
Here’s where it gets a bit dicier. Two Supreme Court justices have what appear to be direct conflicts of interest.
Stephen Breyer
Charles Breyer, the judge who ruled in the original decision of 2007 which is being appealed, is Stephen Breyer’s brother, who apparently views this as a conflict of interest and has recused himself.
Clarence Thomas
From the years 1976 – 1979, Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto. Thomas apparently does not see this as a conflict of interest and has not recused himself.Fox, meet henhouse.
(Watch this video here. More important information at the end of the article.)
California is weighing in on a landmark Supreme Court case with far-reaching implications for agriculture the world over. The Attorney Generals of California, Oregon and Massachusetts have filed amicus briefs along with a coalition of scientists, organic and conventional farmers, food exporters, former government officials and legal scholars in support of the Center for Food Safety, an anti-GMO advocacy group opposing Monsanto.
In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, the American biotech giant – currently under investigation for anti-trust law violations – is seeking to end an injunction on its patented “Roundup Ready” alfalfa imposed by a federal district court in 2007. Three years and two failed appeals later, Monsanto is taking their case to the the Supreme Court in what will be the first ever High Court ruling on a genetically engineered (GE) crop.
At issue in this case is a lower court’s ban on the planting of the GE alfalfa crop. The USDA approved its use in 2007 without submitting an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to asses the ramifications transgenetic plants would have on farmers and surrounding environments. The court determined that by failing to comply with the environmental impact research requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the USDA was derelict in its administrative duties.
Read moreCalifornia Files Legal Brief Opposing Monsanto in US Supreme Court
Multiple Ways Monsanto is Putting Normal Seeds Out of Reach
Highly recommended reading!
People say if farmers don’t want problems from Monsanto, just don’t buy their GMO seeds.
Not so simple. Where are farmers supposed to get normal seed these days? How are they supposed to avoid contamination of their fields from GM-crops? How are they supposed to stop Monsanto detectives from trespassing or Monsanto from using helicopters to fly over spying on them?
Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking samples and if they find any GMO plants growing there (or say they have), they then sue, saying they own the crop. It’s a way to make money since farmers can’t fight back and court and they settle because they have no choice. .And they have done and are doing a bucket load of things to keep farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of NORMAL seeds.
1. They’ve bought up the seed companies across the midwest.
2. They’ve written Monsanto seed laws and gotten legislators to put them through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so onerous in terms of fees and paperwork and testing and tracking every variety and being subject to fines, that having normal seed becomes almost impossible (an NAIS approach to wiping out normal seeds). Does your state have such a seed law? Before they existed, farmers just collected the seeds and put them in sacks in the shed and used them the next year, sharing whatever they wished with friends and neighbors, selling some if they wanted. That’s been killed.
In Illinois which has such a seed law, Madigan, the Speaker of the House, his staff is Monsanto lobbyists.
3. Monsanto is pushing anti-democracy laws (Vilsack’s brainchild, actually) that remove community’ control over their own counties so farmers and citizens can’t block the planting of GMO crops even if they can contaminate other crops. So if you don’t want a GM-crop that grows industrial chemicals or drugs or a rice growing with human DNA in it, in your area and mixing with your crops, tough luck.
Check the map of just where the Monsanto/Vilsack laws are and see if your state is still a democracy or is Monsanto’s. A farmer in Illinois told me he heard that Bush had pushed through some regulation that made this true in every state. People need to check on that.
4. For sure there are Monsanto regulations buried in the FDA right now that make a farmer’s seed cleaning equipment illegal (another way to leave nothing but GM-seeds) because it’s now considered a “source of seed contamination.” Farmer can still seed clean but the equipment now has to be certified and a farmer said it would require a million to a million and half dollar building and equipment … for EACH line of seed. Seed storage facilities are also listed (another million?) and harvesting and transport equipment. And manure. Something that can contaminate seed. Notice that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not mentioned.
You could eat manure and be okay (a little grossed out but okay). Try that with pesticides and fertilizers. Indian farmers have. Their top choice for how to commit suicide to escape the debt they have been left in is to drink Monsanto pesticides.
5. Monsanto is picking off seed cleaners across the Midwest. In Pilot Grove, Missouri , in Indiana (Maurice Parr ), and now in southern Illinois (Steve Hixon). And they are using US marshals and state troopers and county police to show up in three cars to serve the poor farmers who had used Hixon as their seed cleaner, telling them that he or their neighbors turned them in, so across that 6 county areas, no one talking to neighbors and people are living in fear and those farming communities are falling apart from the suspicion Monsanto sowed. Hixon’s office got broken into and he thinks someone put a GPS tracking device on his equipment and that’s how Monsanto found between 200-400 customers in very scattered and remote areas, and threatened them all and destroyed his business within 2 days.
Read moreMultiple Ways Monsanto is Putting Normal Seeds Out of Reach
The 21st-century African land grab by rich countries facing global food and water shortages
Highly recommended article.
An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens
A woman tends vegetables at a giant Saudi-financed farm in Ethiopia.
We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia’s largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 20 hectares – the size of 20 football pitches.
The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tonnes of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 3m hectares of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world’s most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.
The 1,000 hectares of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world. His Saudi Star company plans to spend up to $2bn acquiring and developing 500,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia in the next few years. So far, it has bought four farms and is already growing wheat, rice, vegetables and flowers for the Saudi market. It expects eventually to employ more than 10,000 people.
But Ethiopia is only one of 20 or more African countries where land is being bought or leased for intensive agriculture on an immense scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.
An Observer investigation estimates that up to 50m hectares of land – an area more than double the size of the UK – has been acquired in the last few years or is in the process of being negotiated by governments and wealthy investors working with state subsidies. The data used was collected by Grain, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the International Land Coalition, ActionAid and other non-governmental groups.
The land rush, which is still accelerating, has been triggered by the worldwide food shortages which followed the sharp oil price rises in 2008, growing water shortages and the European Union’s insistence that 10% of all transport fuel must come from plant-based biofuels by 2015.
Read moreThe 21st-century African land grab by rich countries facing global food and water shortages
Florida Freeze Destroys Estimated 70% of Southwest Vegetable Crop
See also: Deep freeze kills millions of fish in Florida
Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) — At least 70 percent of southwest Florida’s winter crop of vegetables, including tomatoes and peppers, were destroyed by freezing weather, said Gene McAvoy, the director of the Hendry County extension office for the University of Florida.
Losses will be more than $100 million, McAvoy said today in a telephone interview. Tomatoes, peppers, squash and cucumbers are the major crops in the estimate, he said. In the U.S. winter, Florida provides about 70 percent of the tomatoes sold in the nation, McAvoy said from LaBelle, Florida.
Read moreFlorida Freeze Destroys Estimated 70% of Southwest Vegetable Crop
US government wants farmers to use coal waste on fields
Remember?
– Obama administration refuses to disclose “high hazard” coal dump locations:
A rift has opened between the Obama administration and some of its closest allies – Democratic leaders and environmental organisations – over its refusal to publicly disclose the location of 44 coal ash dumps that have been officially designated as a “high hazard” to local populations.
The administration turned down a request from a powerful Democratic senator to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain a toxic soup of arsenic and heavy metals from coal-fired electricity plants, citing terrorism fears.
The federal government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time.
The material is produced by power plant “scrubbers” that remove acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide from plant emissions. A synthetic form of the mineral gypsum, it also contains mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.
The Environmental Protection Agency says those toxic metals occur in only tiny amounts that pose no threat to crops, surface water or people. But some environmentalists say too little is known about how the material affects crops, and ultimately human health, for the government to suggest that farmers use it.
“This is a leap into the unknown,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “This stuff has materials in it that we’re trying to prevent entering the environment from coal-fired power plants, and then to turn around and smear it across ag lands raises some real questions.”
Read moreUS government wants farmers to use coal waste on fields
The Food Crisis of 2010: USDA vs Reality
Loooong article!
See also:
– The No.1 Trend Forecaster Gerald Celente: The Terror And The Crash of 2010
Soybean field
If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year, throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food next year. When this happens, the resulting triple digit food inflation will lead panicking central banks around the world to dump their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and lower the cost of food imports, causing the collapse of the dollar, the treasury market, derivative markets, and the global financial system. The US will experience economic disintegration.
The 2010 Food Crisis Means Financial Armageddon
Over the last two years, the world has faced a series of unprecedented financial crises: the collapse of the housing market, the freezing of the credit markets, the failure of Wall Street brokerage firms (Bear Stearns/Lehman Brothers), the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the failure of AIG, Iceland’s economic collapse, the bankruptcy of the major auto manufacturers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler), etc… In the face of all these challenges, the demise of the dollar, derivative markets, and the modern international system of credit has been repeatedly forecasted and feared. However, all these doomsday scenarios have so far been proved false, and, despite tremendous chaos and losses, the global financial system has held together.
The 2010 Food Crisis is different. It is THE CRISIS. The one that makes all doomsday scenarios come true. The government bailouts and central bank interventions, which have held the financial world together during the last two years, will be powerless to prevent the 2010 Food Crisis from bringing the global financial system to its knees.
Financial crisis will kick into high gear
So far the crisis has been driven by the slow and steady increase in defaults on mortgages and other loans. This is about to change. What will drive the financial crisis in 2010 will be panic about food supplies and the dollar’s plunging value. Things will start moving fast.
Dynamics Behind 2010 Food Crisis
Early in 2009, the supply and demand in agricultural markets went badly out of balance. The world experienced a catastrophic fall in food production as a result of the financial crisis (low commodity prices and lack of credit) and adverse weather on a global scale. Meanwhile, China and other Asian exporters, in an effort to preserve their economic growth, were unleashing domestic consumption long constrained by inflation fears, and demand for raw materials, especially food staples, exploded as Chinese consumers worked their way towards American-style overconsumption, prodded on by a flood of cheap credit and easy loans from the government.
Normally food prices should have already shot higher months ago, leading to lower food consumption and bringing the global food supply/demand situation back into balance. This never happened because the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), instead of adjusting production estimates down to reflect decreased production, adjusted estimates upwards to match increasing demand from china. In this way, the USDA has brought supply and demand back into balance (on paper) and temporarily delayed a rise in food prices by ensuring a catastrophe in 2010.
Branded as criminals: Family farmers selling raw milk
Commentary (Infinite Unknown):
If you heat up (pasteurize) milk you destroy the enzymes in it. That is one reason why milk is very difficult to digest for many people.
But the least function of enzymes is to help digesting food. Nature is so intelligent, it not only gives you just ‘food’, it also sends with it substances that help to digest it, promote the function of your brain, regenerate health in general and built up the immune system in your body.
A lot worse than just pasteurized milk is pasteurized and homogenized milk. Homogenized milk is extremely difficult to digest.
The fat of homogenized milk cannot be transported in the lymphatic system anymore, but has to be transported in the blood vessels, which creates high cholesterol levels and arteriosclerosis.
Those that are allergic to milk do not have any adverse reactions to it anymore if their milk is organic and produced by their own cow (and is of course not pasteurized nor homogenized).
It makes a lot sense not to degenerate the food given to us by nature. Nature is so much more intelligent and efficient than stupid governments and scientists.
But of course no one wants to drink milk from Monsanto cows treated with rBGH, rich in pus and poison only.
The US government is bought and paid for by corporations and elite criminals.
These criminals want to run your food supply, attacking family farmers all of the time and producing food that is absolutely lethal for your health:
– Scientist: Monsanto’s herbicide could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in foetuses
– Monsanto lobbyists to be placed in charge of food safety by Obama
– ‘Frankenfoods’ Giant Monsanto Plays Bully Over Consumer Labeling
– US Association of Physicians calls for Moratorium on GMO Foods
– Monsanto sues Germany over GM corn ban
– Germany bans Monsanto’s GM maize
– Greenpeace: No need for condoms – GE corn can do the job
– BIODIVERSITY: Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile
– At stake is no less than control of the world’s food supply.
– Exposed: the great GM crops myth:
“Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.”
Highly recommended videos:
– Life running out of control – Genetically Modified Organisms
– The World According to Monsanto – A documentary that Americans won’t ever see.
Missouri government plots undercover sting operations against families selling raw milk
(NaturalNews) Imagine being watched by two undercover cops as you engage in an illicit deal in a deserted parking lot. The buyer hesitantly hands you some cash. You flash a look over your shoulder, just to make sure the coast is clear, then you hand over the contraband. Neither of you says a word. You just nod, acknowledging the deal is done, then you head back to your car and buckle up for the drive home.
But before you can even put the car into drive, a screeching formation of police cars, surrounds you, sirens wailing. Armed officers leap from their vehicles, guns drawn and sunglasses glaring. “Come out with your hands up!” they shout.
You slowly open the driver’s door of your car and inch out of your seat with both hands raised in surrender, cowering behind the open door. “What did I do, officer? What’s my crime?”
Their answer comes back loud and intimidating: “SELLING RAW MILK!”
Springfield Missouri: Where farmers are branded criminals
The above description is a dramatization of real events that happened recently in Springfield, Missouri, where the state has decided to spend considerable taxpayer resources running a sting operating against a family that was caught dealing — gulp! — raw milk in a parking lot.
Yes, both the Missouri Dept. of Health and the state Attorney General (Chris Koster) have decided that prosecuting a farm family for illegally “trafficking” raw milk should be at the top of their list of priorities. The family being targeted by state officials is the Bechard family, of Armand and Teddi Bechard, and their children Joseph, Hananiah, Kazia and Katie.
The name of the cow offering the milk is reportedly “Misty.”
Read moreBranded as criminals: Family farmers selling raw milk
Farmers plant hemp seeds on DEA’s front lawn, get arrested
Farmers Arrested Planting Hemp at DEA Headquarters
Industrial hemp can be grown with a small amount of fertilizer and without pesticides
that pollute the environment and cause serious damage to your health.
(NaturalNews) You can buy hemp products in America, including textiles, nutritional supplements, soaps and ropes. You just can’t grow hemp in America. So all the hemp used in these products purchased by Americans is grown somewhere else: China, Canada, India, Chile and many other countries. Meanwhile, Americans farmers suffer under increasing debt and decreasing revenues from stalled crop prices. What’s wrong with this picture?
What’s wrong, it turns out, is that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) makes no differentiation between industrial hemp and marijuana. To the DEA, it’s all the same crop (never mind that smoking industrial hemp will only make you vomit, not high) and anyone caught planting hemp will be arrested and prosecuted using the same laws that were really only intended to halt hard-core street drug pushers.
As anyone who isn’t smoking crack has already figured out (and even a few who are), America’s drug policy is a scandalous failure. Not only has the so-called “War on Drugs” utterly failed to stop the flow of recreational drugs in America, it has criminalized struggling farmers who seek to grow industrial hemp as a profitable, renewable crop that’s in high demand across multiple industries.
The War on Drugs has accomplished one thing, though: It has filled the nation’s prisons with small-time “offenders” who got caught with an ounce or two of weed in their pockets. America’s drug policy, it seems, is a boon for the prison industry, but a curse upon our nation’s farmers.
Read moreFarmers plant hemp seeds on DEA’s front lawn, get arrested
NEW DEADLY FARM MRSA BUG FOUND IN HOSPITALS
BAD BACON: The MRSA found in Dutch pigs has infected farmers and others
A DEADLY new form of MRSA is believed to be spreading from farm animals to humans – already the bacteria has been found in hospitals abroad.
It is the first time the bug has spread in this way and experts believe excessive use of antibiotics in factory-farmed animals may be behind its development.
“Farm animal” MRSA, as it is known, can cause a raft of illnesses including skin infections, pneumonia, bone infections and endocarditis.
The revelation raises fears about viruses and bugs moving from animals to humans in the way that Avian flu infected humans from poultry.
The new MRSA bug, known as ST398, could reach hospitals in the UK, causing serious illness and death among vulnerable patients.
The bug is not only in the animals but also in slaughtered meat. Scientists believe one way it could get into the UK is through contact with raw meat during food preparation.
Germany’s Mystery Cow Disease Causing Calves to Bleed to Death
Farmer Robert Meyboom: “Within two or three days, they were all dead.”
A mysterious illness is causing calves to bleed to death on German farms. Veterinarians are stumped over what is causing the deaths: vaccines, genetically modified feed or perhaps even the first mother’s milk?
What can a cattle farmer do when he sees blood running from his calves like water, when they become lethargic and febrile and, by the next morning, are lying dead on the floor, their coats covered in blood?
“Our calves from last summer looked like they had been beaten,” says farmer Robert Meyboom, who is still shocked and perplexed today. “The animals’ bodies were covered with drops of blood, and their eyes were bloodshot.”
The veterinarian tried everything, he says, including administering vitamins and blood-clotting agents. But nothing worked, and “within two or three days, they were all dead.”
Read moreGermany’s Mystery Cow Disease Causing Calves to Bleed to Death
The Obama Deception
See also: Ron Paul: Obama Foreign Policy Identical To Bush
1:51:21 – 12.03.2009
Source: Google Video
HR 875 The food police, criminalizing organic farming and the backyard gardener, and violation of the 10th amendment
This is about taking away ‘real’ food from your table, so that you are left with ‘food’ or better GM trash that is loaded with poisons. More change coming!
5. März 2009
Source: YouTube
Campaign For Liberty
HR 875 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c1112RD9bb:e11439:
This bill is sitting in committee and I am not sure when it is going to hit the floor. One thing I do know is that very few of the Representatives have read it. As usual they will vote on this based on what someone else is saying. Urge your members to read the legislation and ask for opposition to this devastating legislation. Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a few.
I have no doubt that this legislation was heavily influenced by lobbyists from huge food producers. This legislation is so broad based that technically someone with a little backyard garden could get fined and have their property seized. It will effect anyone who produces food even if they do not sell but only consume it. It will literally put all independent farmers and food producers out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to conform to factory farming methods. If people choose to farm without industry standards such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers they will be subject to a vareity of harassment from this completely new agency that has never before existed. That’s right, a whole new government agency is being created just to police food, for our own protection of course.
DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, READ THIS LEGISLATION FOR YOURSELF. The more people who read this legislation the more insight we are going to get and be able to share. Post your observations and insights below. Urge your members to read this legislation and to oppose the passage of this legislation.
Pay special attention to
- Section 3 which is the definitions portion of the bill-read in it’s entirety.
- section 103, 206 and 207- read in it’s entirety.
Red flags I found and I am sure there are more………..
- Legally binds state agriculture depts to enforcing federal guidelines effectively taking away the states power to do anything other than being food police for the federal dept.
- Effectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn’t actually use the word organic.
- Effects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.
- Effects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.
- Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal. There are no specifics which is bizarre considering how long the legislation is.
- Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation. Who do you think they are going to side with?
- Section 206 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced up all food production facilities. The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more.
- Section 207 requires that the state’s agriculture dept act as the food police and enforce the federal requirements. This takes away the states power and is in violation of the 10th amendment.
- There are many more but by the time I got this far in the legislation I was so alarmed that I wanted to bring someone’s attention to it. (to the one person who reads my blog)
Didn’t Stalin nationalize farming methods that enabled his administration to gain control over the food supply? Didn’t Stalin use the food to control the people?
Last word…… Legislate religion and enforce gag orders on ministers on what can and can’t be said in the pulpit, instituting regulations forcing people to rely solely on the government, control the money and the food. What is that called? It is on the tip of my tongue……….
U.S. Food System Nearly Broke
“Our food system is nearly broke, which is almost as serious as our country’s financial meltdown.”
In the coming economic collapse, the ‘Greatest Depression’, things will turn out to be far worse than in the Great Depression. Food prices will skyrocket, but first the elite bankrupts everyone.
Related article: Catastrophic Fall in 2009 Global Food Production
By John Kinsman:
As our government enacts a stimulus package and President Barack Obama announces bold initiatives to stem home mortgage foreclosures, disaster threatens family farmers and their communities.
The government’s response to plummeting commodity prices and tightening credit markets leads to the basic question: Who will produce our food? This is a worldwide crisis. U.S. policy and the demand for deregulation at all levels — from food production to financial markets — contribute greatly to the global collapse. The solution must be grounded in food sovereignty so that all farmers and their communities can regain control over their food supply. This response makes sense here in Wisconsin and was the global message from the 500+ farmer leaders at the Via Campesina conference in Mozambique in October.
Schwarzenegger declares California drought state of emergency
Federal water managers plan to temporarily cut off water this March to thousands of California farms. The state has said it probably would deliver just 15 percent of the water contractors have requested this year.
The state delivers water to more than 25 million Californians and more than 750,000 acres of farmland.
“It’s too late,” he said. “It’s going to sound horrible coming from a farmer because you never turn down help, but come on, this thing is over with.”
Layers of sun-baked earth are exposed in an area of the San Luis Reservoir near Gustine that was previously underwater but was dried out in January because of drought conditions. (Patrick Tehan / Mercury News)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday because of three years of below-average rain and snowfall in California, a step that urges urban water agencies to reduce water use by 20 percent.
“This drought is having a devastating impact on our people, our communities, our economy and our environment, making today’s action absolutely necessary,” the Republican governor said in his statement.
Mandatory rationing is an option if the declaration and other measures are insufficient.
The drought has forced farmers to fallow their fields, put thousands of agricultural workers out of work and led to conservation measures in cities throughout the state, which is the nation’s top agricultural producer.
Agriculture losses could reach $2.8 billion this year and cost 95,000 jobs, said Lester Snow, the state water director.
Read moreSchwarzenegger declares California drought state of emergency
Drought to cut off federal water to California farms
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Federal water managers said Friday that they plan to cut off water, at least temporarily, to thousands of California farms as a result of the deepening drought gripping the state.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said parched reservoirs and patchy rainfall this year were forcing them to completely stop surface water deliveries for at least a three-week period beginning March 1. Authorities said they haven’t had to take such a drastic move for more than 15 years.
Read moreDrought to cut off federal water to California farms
California faces grimmest water situation ever
Drought causes the state’s agriculture industry to disappear while residents continue to consume water at high levels
Sprinklers water wheat crops in Bakersfield, California. The state is facing a severe water crisis. Photograph: David McNew/Getty Images
Bill Diedrich, a fourth-generation almond grower in California’s Central Valley, expects that many of his trees won’t make it through the year. “It’s one of the grimmest water situations we’ve ever faced,” he said. “It’s an absolute emergency and anything to get water flowing quickly is needed.”
The 400-mile Central Valley is many things: the world’s largest agricultural area; the “salad bowl”, where half of the country’s vegetables are grown. But this year, with water shortages of a severity not seen for decades, many farmers and others are echoing the recent words of energy secretary Steven Chu: if current weather patterns continue, Californian agriculture could disappear.
John “Dusty” Giacone, another fourth-generation Central Valley farmer, was forced to abandon his vegetable crop and divert his scarce water to save his 4,000 hectares of almond trees.
Related article: Obama’s energy secretary outlines dire climate change scenario (Guardian)
“Taking water from a farmer is like taking a pipe from a plumber,” Giacone told the Associated Press. “How do you conduct business?”
But many farmers are choosing the opposite course, abandoning their almond trees for a season in the hope that the good times, and a wetter than normal spring, might return. In the meantime, the trees are being left to die, or maintained just enough to survive.
The decline in the number of almond trees has led to an unintended consequence: a glut of bee colonies. Bees are used to pollinate almond trees, and beekeepers now face the prospect of an economic collapse as the almond market withers away.
Britain ‘must revive farms’ to avoid grave food crisis
GMOs are not the solution:
– Austrian Government Study Confirms Genetically Modified (GM) Crops Threaten Human Fertility and Health Safety (Institute For Responsible Technology)
– Exposed: the great GM crops myth (The Independent):
“Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.”
– Life running out of control – Genetically Modified Organisms (Documentary)
– The World According to Monsanto (Documentary)
– Greenpeace: No need for condoms – GE corn can do the job (Greenpeace)
– Europe’s secret plan to boost GM crop production (The Independent)
– FDA Considers Engineered Animals For Food (CBS NEWS)
– Genetically ‘improved’ oysters behind France’s shellfish plague (Telegraph)
– Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster (Telegraph)
– At stake is no less than control of the world’s food supply (Edmonton Journal)
– BIODIVERSITY: Privatisation Making Seeds Themselves Infertile (IPS)
Yes, there will be a engineered global food crisis – like the engineered financial crisis – in the near future and the elite is preparing for it:
‘Doomsday’ seed vault opens in Arctic (msnbc):
They are storing “real” seeds. Take a close look who is behind this:
Investors Behind Doomsday Seed Vault May Provide Clues to Its Purpose (Natural News):
“The group of investors includes The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation, and the Government of Norway.”
If there would be no crisis coming and/or GMOs would not be a problem for the environment then why would they do this ‘now’?
Source: The Observer
Top thinktank issues stark warning of unrest over prices and says GM crops could offer a solution
Britain faces a major food crisis unless urgent steps are taken to revive its flagging agricultural sector, warns one of the world’s most influential thinktanks.
Following a week in which world leaders and the United Nations expressed deep concern about the prospect of global food shortages, Chatham House suggests there needs to be a major shake-up in the UK’s supply chain if the country is to continue feeding itself.
Controversially, the report’s authors claim the debate about the use of GM crops in the UK will have to be reopened if productivity is to be increased, a suggestion likely to spark anger from the green lobby.
Read moreBritain ‘must revive farms’ to avoid grave food crisis
France recalls contaminated soymeal delivered to some 127 organic farms
France discovers 300 tonnes of contaminated Chinese soymeal
Deliveries from China have been subjected to rigorous tests since the EU issued an alert last October recommending countries tighten controls on produce from China. (AFP)
RENNES – ALMOST 300 tonnes of soymeal from China, used to feed organic poultry in western France, were taken off the market on Friday after testing positive for a toxic chemical, an import company said.
The soymeal contained melanine – the chemical at the heart of a scandal in China over contaminated milk – 50 times over the recommended limit.
‘One of the three imported batches, was carrying 116mg/kg of melamine, while the average should be 2,5 grammes. All foodstuffs made from the same materials were taken off the market at the beginning of November,’ Mr Christophe Carousse from the French farm cooperative told AFP.
Other untested batches where delivered to some 127 organic farms in the Loire region in western France.
‘Tests on meat, pork and egg-laying chickens show there is no danger to public health. Unlike dioxin, melamine does not build up in the body. There is no way of catching it through the food chain,’ veterinary expert Frederic Andre told AFP. (Hmmh.)
Read moreFrance recalls contaminated soymeal delivered to some 127 organic farms
Commodity Fundamentals Are ‘Unimpaired,’ Rogers Says
Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) — The fundamentals of commodities are “unimpaired” and prices will rebound when a lack of new supply leads to shortages, said Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings.
“Commodities will be the place to be if and when we come out of” the downturn, Rogers said yesterday in an interview from Miami. “The only thing where fundamentals are unimpaired are commodities. Farmers cannot get loans for fertilizer now. Nobody can get a loan to open a zinc mine. So we are going to have some serious, serious supply problems before too much longer.”
The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 commodities has plunged 53 percent from a record in July on concern that a global recession will sap demand for raw materials. The index almost doubled between its low in 2001 and the end of last year.
Rogers said crude oil and agricultural commodities were the most likely to have shortages and the outlook for zinc and cotton had “improved.” “I haven’t sold any commodities since the bull market began,” he said.
“I own some gold and if gold goes down I’ll buy some more and if gold goes up I’ll buy some more,” Rogers said. “Gold during the course of the bull market, which has several more years to go, will go much higher.”
Read moreCommodity Fundamentals Are ‘Unimpaired,’ Rogers Says
Want one more palpable sign of a desperate economy? Down on the farm, a frenzy over free food
In a sign of bad economic times, more than 40,000 show up when a Weld family invites people to gather surplus produce.
An estimated 40,000 people came to a Weld County farm Saturday to collect free potatoes, carrots and leeks.
Cars snaked around cornfields and parallel parked along Colorado 66 and 119 early in the morning to get free food from the Miller family, who farm 600 acres outside of Platteville, about 37 miles north of Denver.
As this prolonged Indian summer continued, the Millers had decided to give away produce because so much was left over at the end of their annual fall festival. Any day now, a few deep freezes would kill it off.
They expected between 5,000 and 10,000 people spread out over a couple of days. Instead, they found themselves on Saturday morning inundated with cars and people with sacks and wagons and barrels ready to harvest whatever was available.
Bush Administration: Dismiss RFID ‘Mark of the Beast’ Lawsuit
The Bush administration on Thursday urged a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a group of Amish farmers in Michigan claiming RFID chips required on cattle “are a mark of the beast.”
The Amish farmers claim (.pdf) Michigan regulations requiring them to use radio frequency identification devices on their cattle “constitutes some form of a ‘mark of the beast‘ and/or represents an infringement of their ‘dominion over cattle and all living things’ in violation of their fundamental religious beliefs,” according to the farmers’ lawsuit filed in September in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Read moreBush Administration: Dismiss RFID ‘Mark of the Beast’ Lawsuit
Farmers See ‘Mark of the Beast’ in RFID Livestock Tags
A group of community farmers, some of them Amish, are challenging rules requiring the tagging of livestock with RFID chips, saying the devices are a “mark of the beast.”
Michigan and federal authorities say the radio frequency identification devices (RFID) will help monitor the travels of bovine and other livestock diseases.
Related articles:
– Mandatory Microchipping In Adopted Pets
– CASPIAN RELEASES MICROCHIP CANCER REPORT
Read moreFarmers See ‘Mark of the Beast’ in RFID Livestock Tags
Britain is facing its worst harvest for at least 40 years
Britain is facing its worst harvest for at least 40 years as 30 per cent of the country’s grain lies in waterlogged or sodden ground. Hilary Benn, the Rural Affairs Secretary, is expected to give the go-ahead today for farmers to salvage what is left of their crops by using heavy machinery on wet fields.
European Union rules ban farmers from using combine harvesters on wet land to protect soil quality. Those who flout the ban can be prosecuted. The exemption is expected to last for about three weeks.
Read moreBritain is facing its worst harvest for at least 40 years