On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:10:43 +0000, Old Codger
> wrote:

>Jim Webster wrote:
>> "Old Codger" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> Jim Webster wrote:
>>>> "Rudy Canoza" > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>>> It's a right sorry state of affairs A well meaning piece of
>>>>>> legislation and yet it apparantly has a detrimental impact on the
>>>>>> very problem it is designed to solve...
>>>>> As I wrote in another reply moments ago, these consequences may be
>>>>> unintended, but the are not unforeseeable.
>>>>>
>>>> that is probably a very fair comment. They were told, they just didn't
>>>> wish to take any notice of the warnings
>>> Par for the course with Noo Labor and not unknown amongst previous
>>> governments.
>>>
>> one of the dangers of the consultation process. If you ignore those you
>> consult and they turn out to be right all along then you end up having a bit
>> of explaining to do.
>
>Not Noo Labor. They will ponce about shouting how successful they have
>been even as it all falls to pieces around their ears.

Bit like you really!

"pearl" > wrote in message
...
> "Jim Webster" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "pearl" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > "Julie" > wrote in message
>> > ...
>> >> On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:41:20 +0000, Oz >
>> >> wrote:
>> >
>> >> >The ecofreaks are happy because they have forced stuff on those
>> >> >stupid
>> >> >farmers.
>> >
>> > 'According to spokesmen for the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
>> > as well as private industry, the same six companies that dominate
>> > the international grain trade also dominate the international trade in
>> > soybeans and by-products.
>>
>> congratulations for the most irrelevent contribution to the debate
>> these six companies are the ones who also feed most of the worlds
>> vegetarians
>
> Those congratulations rightly belong to you.. Congratulations!
>

well you are the one slagging off the companies that supply most of the food
you eat

Jim Webster

"pearl" > wrote in message
...
> "Jim Webster" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "pearl" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > "Robert Seago" > wrote in message
>> > ...
>> >
>> >> You can raise cattle on grass.
>> >
>> > http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter6.html
>> >
>>
>> whoopie, pearl, in spite of discussions with people who actually do raise
>> cattle in the UK, still keeps on with the same old figures
>> Nice to know some things never change
>
> What "figures" are you talking about?

the web link you give just comes up with cannot find server

Jim Webster
>
>

In article >,
Oz > wrote:
> Robert Seago > writes

Let's deal with this first:

> >I don't think you understand where i was coming from.

> Oh, but I do. You had an agenda to feed.

My only agenda on this newsgroup, is to try to identify ways in which some
of the plants and animals familiar to me in my childhood, should be able
to retain a niche in the modern world, and preferably not too long a drive
away. This may or not be possible, and I don't believe I have ever
suggested that farmers or other interests should have this as a priority,
they have to make a living like I do.

And do you think you haven't got an agenda?


> >In article >, Oz
> > wrote:
> >> Robert Seago > writes
> >> >> You don't have to be a genius to figure out that 4T (/ac) biomass
> >> >> is going to be much more energy than a few hundred kg of oil.
> >> >
> >> >Well it's not one of your usula equations quite Oz.
> >> >
> >> >Pity you mixed metric and imperial here.
> >
> >> Not really, a metric tonne is so close to an imperial that everyone
> >> uses T for metric tonne. Imperial tons are so passe.

> >But (kilo)joules would be best for both.

> GJ, you mean. I think that's perhaps overkill for usegroup.
Better than tons

<snip>
> >> >Not so far off.
I stick by my other comments which you attempted to ridicule, but I will
look at your new figures.
> >
> >> Because you aren't comparing like with like. A fools example.
> >
> >I am well aware of that, and don't for a minute think that the UK can
> >feed 60million or the world to feed 6.5 billion to a reasonable
> >standard with organic. However if you want to compare energy as I had
> >attempted to, it is trivially easy to see that a high proportion of the
> >energy in modern food production does not come from the sun,

> Of course it does. You are confusing efficiency with production.
No I am not. Read my comment again, particularly the last sentence.
> Its
> just that the energy cost of meat is relatively high, more than its
> energy content.
Sorry if I confused you but that is exactly what I was arguing.
> Actually so is wheat or vegetables because the TOTAL
> energy intercepted is HUGE. Take 10,000m^2, sunlight for 5hrs/day
> (summer but allowing clouds) for 200 days that's 10M sunlightm^2 or

> 10^7 x 3600 x 10^3J = 36TW of incident energy /growing Ha-yr.

> It produces say 10T wheat + 5T straw = 15x17GJ = 259GJ

Yes indeed. Stick to the year, and the hectare and tell me the energy
inputs apart from the sun and compare that with the GJ figure above.

> http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/energy_conv.html

> Looked at this way the % energy supplied by intensive agriculture is a
> MINUTE proportion of the total energy required to grow wheat.
According to the website you quoted, Petro disel 42.8 GJ/ton. You said a
few tons /hectare or was it acre. Anyway, were you claiming that the
fertiliser you use was included in those figures for ISTR HC's.

An example is the urea (or ammonium sulphate) derived fron ammonia
produced by the Haber Process. As I have no figures for the amount of
this you use, it is no use pursuing this, but it takes 92.4KJ / mole to
create it. It is also not very efficient as the tempereature is high,
(500deg c and ~ 200 atmospheres. The yield is low, and repeated passes of
the gases are made. Further energy is put in to create the urea.

Producing sulphuric acid to prepare phosphate fertilisers also puts in a
lot of energy.

You can add in transport costs, particularly when feed stocks come from
all over the world, producing the equipment, pumping water out of vast
areas of fens etc.

It would be the subject of a raft of PhD's to get any handle on the
complexities of this.
> >while in organic systems it can be very low. (In much of the world
> >indeed it is.)

> Not at all, see above. I still get an energy return on my inputs
> EXCLUDING sunlight.
In case you were confused by my posting I was saying that the two figures
were of the same order.

.............
Just in case there is any doubt, I have no answer to any of this. What
happens follows economics. I am not convinced that the fully organic
vegetarian route that Pearl would want would deliver the world's people an
acceptable standard of living.

I only look for ways in which at the end of the process there is something
left for a few wild animals and plants.

In article >,
Oz > wrote:

> >a large number of very colourful birds at least were seen.

> Try the australian outback...

> Few trees, little cover and birds easily seen.
> Much the same on arid savannah.
> Bloody near impossible in biospecies rich rainforest.
I get your point but as I said on the edge you are overwhelmed by the
life, a lot of it sounds.

> >> Of course. As I have said many times before, of you want wildlife
> >> farming, club together and buy a farm then run it how you like.

> >We do.

> Excellent.
And that had been my sad conclusion on the earlier post before you
suggested it.

But I remind you that only last year before the prices changed, you
reckoned that bird numbers would only improve when farm incomes went up.
The real world is much more complex than that.

In article >, pearl
> wrote:
> "Robert Seago" > wrote in message
> ...

> > You can raise cattle on grass.

> http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter6.html
Yes
> <..>
> > I am well aware of that, and don't for a minute think that the UK can
> > feed 60million or the world to feed 6.5 billion to a reasonable
> > standard with organic.

> 'Organic farming could feed the world 13:46 12 July 2007
> NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic
I think it could, but not to a level where people would be satisfied. If
people are to rise out of poverty around the world they will want meat.
They will also not want to be grafting all hours of the day and night
growing it.

> Numerous studies have compared the yields of organic and conventional
> methods for individual crops and animal products (see 20-year study
> backs organic farming
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/...c-farming.html


> Perfecto points out that the materials needed for organic farming are
> more accessible to farmers in poor countries.

Indeed but these people would I think choose an easier way of life if they
could achieve it.


> http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12245
I love my allotment, on which I rarely have use for pesticides. While it
would not always get a SA certificate, by and large it produces well with
no huge inorganic inputs. However few people who take these allotments on
really like the work, and I could not see the modern world producing food
like this in a big way.

What we will see I think is increasing demand for organic from a
proportion of the comfortably off.

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:07:14 +0000 (GMT), Robert Seago
> wrote:

>In article >,
> Oz > wrote:
>> Robert Seago > writes
>
>Let's deal with this first:
>
>> >I don't think you understand where i was coming from.
>
>> Oh, but I do. You had an agenda to feed.
>
>My only agenda on this newsgroup, is to try to identify ways in which some
>of the plants and animals familiar to me in my childhood, should be able
>to retain a niche in the modern world, and preferably not too long a drive
>away. This may or not be possible, and I don't believe I have ever
>suggested that farmers or other interests should have this as a priority,
>they have to make a living like I do.
>
>And do you think you haven't got an agenda?
>
>
>> >In article >, Oz
>> > wrote:
>> >> Robert Seago > writes
>> >> >> You don't have to be a genius to figure out that 4T (/ac) biomass
>> >> >> is going to be much more energy than a few hundred kg of oil.
>> >> >
>> >> >Well it's not one of your usula equations quite Oz.
>> >> >
>> >> >Pity you mixed metric and imperial here.
>> >
>> >> Not really, a metric tonne is so close to an imperial that everyone
>> >> uses T for metric tonne. Imperial tons are so passe.
>
>> >But (kilo)joules would be best for both.
>
>> GJ, you mean. I think that's perhaps overkill for usegroup.
>Better than tons
>
><snip>
>> >> >Not so far off.
>I stick by my other comments which you attempted to ridicule, but I will
>look at your new figures.
>> >
>> >> Because you aren't comparing like with like. A fools example.
>> >
>> >I am well aware of that, and don't for a minute think that the UK can
>> >feed 60million or the world to feed 6.5 billion to a reasonable
>> >standard with organic. However if you want to compare energy as I had
>> >attempted to, it is trivially easy to see that a high proportion of the
>> >energy in modern food production does not come from the sun,
>
>> Of course it does. You are confusing efficiency with production.
>No I am not. Read my comment again, particularly the last sentence.
>> Its
>> just that the energy cost of meat is relatively high, more than its
>> energy content.
>Sorry if I confused you but that is exactly what I was arguing.
>> Actually so is wheat or vegetables because the TOTAL
>> energy intercepted is HUGE. Take 10,000m^2, sunlight for 5hrs/day
>> (summer but allowing clouds) for 200 days that's 10M sunlightm^2 or
>
>> 10^7 x 3600 x 10^3J = 36TW of incident energy /growing Ha-yr.
>
>> It produces say 10T wheat + 5T straw = 15x17GJ = 259GJ
>
>Yes indeed. Stick to the year, and the hectare and tell me the energy
>inputs apart from the sun and compare that with the GJ figure above.
>
>> http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/energy_conv.html
>
>> Looked at this way the % energy supplied by intensive agriculture is a
>> MINUTE proportion of the total energy required to grow wheat.
>According to the website you quoted, Petro disel 42.8 GJ/ton. You said a
>few tons /hectare or was it acre. Anyway, were you claiming that the
>fertiliser you use was included in those figures for ISTR HC's.
>
> An example is the urea (or ammonium sulphate) derived fron ammonia
>produced by the Haber Process. As I have no figures for the amount of
>this you use, it is no use pursuing this, but it takes 92.4KJ / mole to
>create it. It is also not very efficient as the tempereature is high,
>(500deg c and ~ 200 atmospheres. The yield is low, and repeated passes of
>the gases are made. Further energy is put in to create the urea.
>
>Producing sulphuric acid to prepare phosphate fertilisers also puts in a
>lot of energy.
>
>You can add in transport costs, particularly when feed stocks come from
>all over the world, producing the equipment, pumping water out of vast
>areas of fens etc.
>
>It would be the subject of a raft of PhD's to get any handle on the
>complexities of this.
>> >while in organic systems it can be very low. (In much of the world
>> >indeed it is.)
>
>> Not at all, see above. I still get an energy return on my inputs
>> EXCLUDING sunlight.
>In case you were confused by my posting I was saying that the two figures
>were of the same order.
>
>............
>Just in case there is any doubt, I have no answer to any of this. What
>happens follows economics. I am not convinced that the fully organic
>vegetarian route that Pearl would want would deliver the world's people an
>acceptable standard of living.

That's because you're a slob. You cant be that concerned about nature
if you are not prepared to stand by it.

The simple fact is we don't need to eat meat when it costs the planet
so much.

>I only look for ways in which at the end of the process there is something
>left for a few wild animals and plants.

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:27:51 +0000 (GMT), Robert Seago
> wrote:

>In article >, pearl
> wrote:
>> "Robert Seago" > wrote in message
>> ...
>
>> > You can raise cattle on grass.
>
>> http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter6.html
>Yes
>> <..>
>> > I am well aware of that, and don't for a minute think that the UK can
>> > feed 60million or the world to feed 6.5 billion to a reasonable
>> > standard with organic.
>
>> 'Organic farming could feed the world 13:46 12 July 2007
>> NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic
>I think it could, but not to a level where people would be satisfied. If
>people are to rise out of poverty around the world they will want meat.
>They will also not want to be grafting all hours of the day and night
>growing it.

That kind of life is unsustainable as you have been told, and anyone
with half a noddle can clearly see. It cant go on we are destroying
ourselves.

>> Numerous studies have compared the yields of organic and conventional
>> methods for individual crops and animal products (see 20-year study
>> backs organic farming
>> http://www.newscientist.com/article/...c-farming.html
>
>
>> Perfecto points out that the materials needed for organic farming are
>> more accessible to farmers in poor countries.
>
>Indeed but these people would I think choose an easier way of life if they
>could achieve it.
>
>
>> http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12245
>I love my allotment, on which I rarely have use for pesticides. While it
>would not always get a SA certificate, by and large it produces well with
>no huge inorganic inputs. However few people who take these allotments on
>really like the work, and I could not see the modern world producing food
>like this in a big way.
>
>What we will see I think is increasing demand for organic from a
>proportion of the comfortably off.

Robert Seago > writes

>But I remind you that only last year before the prices changed, you reckoned
>that bird numbers would only improve when farm incomes went up. The real
>world is much more complex than that.

Farmers tend to consider their farms as extensions of their house. When
survival (or bankruptcy) are not staring them in the face, and life is
reasonably prosperous and secure, then they indulge themselves. My
experience is that they typically beautify their farm and nothing more
beautiful than wildlife. Heck, if they even do more shooting with more
cover crops and bird feeding that will increase wildlife, no doubt about
it I have seen it happen here.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:39:43 +0000, Oz >
wrote:

>Robert Seago > writes
>
>>But I remind you that only last year before the prices changed, you reckoned
>>that bird numbers would only improve when farm incomes went up. The real
>>world is much more complex than that.
>
>Farmers tend to consider their farms as extensions of their house.

That's strange I always thought you looked they looked at it as an
extension of their penis. Which explained why they were so
small,wilted and insignificant.

> When
>survival (or bankruptcy) are not staring them in the face,

Time to get a proper job I guess.

> and life is
>reasonably prosperous and secure,

You refer to the good old days of maximum handouts. Well you can
forget those days old boy.

> then they indulge themselves. My
>experience is that they typically beautify their farm and nothing more
>beautiful than wildlife. Heck, if they even do more shooting with more
>cover crops and bird feeding that will increase wildlife, no doubt about
>it I have seen it happen here.

Strange how warped a mind can get when it declares how beautiful
wildlife is and then wants to destroy it for fun!

On Mar 16, 4:58*pm, Campaign for Fresh Air
> wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:14:46 -0700 (PDT), Buxqi >
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Mar 16, 7:43*am, Oz > wrote:
> >> Buxqi > writes
>
> >> >I'm not overly familiar with the legislation of which you speak. Are you
> >> >saying that by making laws against cutting down trees, the government is
> >> >putting people off planting them?
>
> >> Absolutely. Plant a tree and once its above a certain (quite small) size
> >> you need permission to fell, and even if you get such you are invariably
> >> obliged to replant. As an example we planted a small group (about 100
> >> trees) in a corner between two (dirt) tracks. One track fell into disuse
> >> and it would be nice to pull out the small trees and simplify the field
> >> but this is not possible. Equally we would like to plant about 2500 in
> >> various other places but since one cannot see even a few decades into
> >> the future, let alone centuries, we decided not to. This is now typical,
> >> fossilising what was once a dynamic countryside.
>
> >> On the upside ALL the woods on our downland were planted for shooting,
> >> but were never used because I didn't allow a commercial shoot on. Now I
> >> am semi-retired we do, and they are once again in use. Boy did those old
> >> guys know how to set up a shoot. [NB For info I don't shoot, or fish or
> >> hunt.]
>
> >> >> Much the same now applies to permanent pasture. Nobody with any sense
> >> >> who can avoid it will allow any grassland to go more than 6 years
> >> >> without being ploughed up.
>
> >> >And more of the same?
>
> >> Absolutely. Completely nutty but I guess it makes the ecofreaks feel
> >> powerful, they tend to prefer telling people what to do, right or wrong..
>
> >It's a right sorry state of affairs A well meaning piece of
> >legislation
> >and yet it apparantly has a detrimental impact on the very problem
> >it is designed to solve...
>
> Oz. A pro hunt, GM,factory farming,cyberstalking nut is hardly the one
> to be discussing ethics with. As far as he is concerned the world was
> put here so that his kind can have fun abusing it.

As far as I can recall I have never discussed ethics with Oz. It is
unlikely
that we would see eye to eye on all the above issues but that doesn't
mean I can't learn about the countryside from him. Besides discussing
ethics is often more fun when you don't agree....

- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:48:22 -0700 (PDT), Buxqi >
wrote:

>On Mar 16, 4:58*pm, Campaign for Fresh Air
> wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:14:46 -0700 (PDT), Buxqi >
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >On Mar 16, 7:43*am, Oz > wrote:
>> >> Buxqi > writes
>>
>> >> >I'm not overly familiar with the legislation of which you speak. Are you
>> >> >saying that by making laws against cutting down trees, the government is
>> >> >putting people off planting them?
>>
>> >> Absolutely. Plant a tree and once its above a certain (quite small) size
>> >> you need permission to fell, and even if you get such you are invariably
>> >> obliged to replant. As an example we planted a small group (about 100
>> >> trees) in a corner between two (dirt) tracks. One track fell into disuse
>> >> and it would be nice to pull out the small trees and simplify the field
>> >> but this is not possible. Equally we would like to plant about 2500 in
>> >> various other places but since one cannot see even a few decades into
>> >> the future, let alone centuries, we decided not to. This is now typical,
>> >> fossilising what was once a dynamic countryside.
>>
>> >> On the upside ALL the woods on our downland were planted for shooting,
>> >> but were never used because I didn't allow a commercial shoot on. Now I
>> >> am semi-retired we do, and they are once again in use. Boy did those old
>> >> guys know how to set up a shoot. [NB For info I don't shoot, or fish or
>> >> hunt.]
>>
>> >> >> Much the same now applies to permanent pasture. Nobody with any sense
>> >> >> who can avoid it will allow any grassland to go more than 6 years
>> >> >> without being ploughed up.
>>
>> >> >And more of the same?
>>
>> >> Absolutely. Completely nutty but I guess it makes the ecofreaks feel
>> >> powerful, they tend to prefer telling people what to do, right or wrong.
>>
>> >It's a right sorry state of affairs A well meaning piece of
>> >legislation
>> >and yet it apparantly has a detrimental impact on the very problem
>> >it is designed to solve...
>>
>> Oz. A pro hunt, GM,factory farming,cyberstalking nut is hardly the one
>> to be discussing ethics with. As far as he is concerned the world was
>> put here so that his kind can have fun abusing it.
>
>As far as I can recall I have never discussed ethics with Oz. It is
>unlikely
>that we would see eye to eye on all the above issues but that doesn't
>mean I can't learn about the countryside from him. Besides discussing
>ethics is often more fun when you don't agree....

Sadly Oz is not that reasoned or used to the real world to appreciate
differing opinions.

On Mar 16, 6:39*pm, Rudy Canoza > wrote:
> On Mar 16, 9:14 am, Buxqi > wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 16, 7:43 am, Oz > wrote:
>
> > > Buxqi > writes
>
> > > >I'm not overly familiar with the legislation of which you speak. Are you
> > > >saying that by making laws against cutting down trees, the government is
> > > >putting people off planting them?
>
> > > Absolutely. Plant a tree and once its above a certain (quite small) size
> > > you need permission to fell, and even if you get such you are invariably
> > > obliged to replant. As an example we planted a small group (about 100
> > > trees) in a corner between two (dirt) tracks. One track fell into disuse
> > > and it would be nice to pull out the small trees and simplify the field
> > > but this is not possible. Equally we would like to plant about 2500 in
> > > various other places but since one cannot see even a few decades into
> > > the future, let alone centuries, we decided not to. This is now typical,
> > > fossilising what was once a dynamic countryside.
>
> > > On the upside ALL the woods on our downland were planted for shooting,
> > > but were never used because I didn't allow a commercial shoot on. Now I
> > > am semi-retired we do, and they are once again in use. Boy did those old
> > > guys know how to set up a shoot. [NB For info I don't shoot, or fish or
> > > hunt.]
>
> > > >> Much the same now applies to permanent pasture. Nobody with any sense
> > > >> who can avoid it will allow any grassland to go more than 6 years
> > > >> without being ploughed up.
>
> > > >And more of the same?
>
> > > Absolutely. Completely nutty but I guess it makes the ecofreaks feel
> > > powerful, they tend to prefer telling people what to do, right or wrong.
>
> > It's a right sorry state of affairs A well meaning piece of
> > legislation and yet it apparantly has a detrimental impact on the
> > very problem it is designed to solve...
>
> As I wrote in another reply moments ago, these consequences may be
> unintended, but the are not unforeseeable.

That is a fair comment. As soon as OZ pointed out the consequence it
became
obvious to me and unlike me, our legislators and their advisors are
paid good
money to do their job and really ought to be aware of such
consequences.

That said, is it actually likely there would be more trees, hedgerows
and
permanent pastures today without the legislations mentioned?


>
>
>
>
>
> > > --
> > > Oz
> > > This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Buxqi > writes

>That is a fair comment. As soon as OZ pointed out the consequence it became
>obvious to me and unlike me, our legislators and their advisors are paid
>good money to do their job and really ought to be aware of such
>consequences.
>
>That said, is it actually likely there would be more trees, hedgerows and
>permanent pastures today without the legislations mentioned?

Regrettably that is almost certainly so. The hedgerow destruction was
pretty well over by 1980. In fact IMHO (based on rather a lot of comment
from non-farmers) most of the opening up of the countryside views
assigned to hedgerow removal was in fact due to dutch elm disease. By
1980 most of the trees had gone and suddenly you could see across
valleys etc.

I regret I also said the same thing on several occasions outside my area
returning to placed I had known well in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Only
reflection (and the fact that you can see removed hedgelines for
decades) made me realise that it was the hedgerow trees (almost all
elms) that had gone rather than the hedges.

By late 1980's, after about 10 years lamenting the loss of hedges in the
farming press, farmers were starting to replant hedges in considerable
number (for a time there was a grant for this) and even re-lay existing
old hedges. That came to an abrupt stop. Tree planting also went the
same way once people realised that once planted it was there forever
(particularly hazardous in urban/village gardens).

There was definitely a spate of ploughing up permanent pasture but in my
case the cows had to go because of NVZ regulation combined with our farm
being in a village, and the grass with them. Its probably as much to do
with the reduction (or potential reduction) of dairy herds than anything
else.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.

"Jim Webster" > wrote in message ...
>
> "pearl" > wrote in message
> ...
> > "Jim Webster" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >>
> >> "pearl" > wrote in message
> >> ...
> >> > "Julie" > wrote in message
> >> > ...
> >> >> On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:41:20 +0000, Oz >
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> >The ecofreaks are happy because they have forced stuff on those
> >> >> >stupid farmers.
> >> >
> >> > 'According to spokesmen for the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
> >> > as well as private industry, the same six companies that dominate
> >> > the international grain trade also dominate the international trade in
> >> > soybeans and by-products.
> >>
> >> congratulations for the most irrelevent contribution to the debate
> >> these six companies are the ones who also feed most of the worlds
> >> vegetarians
> >
> > Those congratulations rightly belong to you.. Congratulations!
> >
>
> well you are the one slagging off the companies that supply most of the food
> you eat

Kind of like you slagging off the "urbanites" who consume your
'produce' and support you with their hard-earned taxes, eh jim.

"congratulations for the most irrelevent contribution to the debate"
'The machine's irrelevant' whined the cog, but the ecofreaks are
happy because they have forced stuff on those stupid farmers..

'The Brazilian Bloody War Against US Monsanto and Swiss Syngenta

Written by Isabella Kenfield
Sunday, 16 March 2008

foto: Murdered MST leader Valmir Mota de Oliveira

On March 7 - International Women's Day - dozens of Brazilian women
occupied a research site of the U.S.-based agricultural biotechnology
giant Monsanto in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, destroying the
greenhouse and experimental plots of genetically-modified (GM) corn.

Participants, members of the international farmers' organization La Vía
Campesina, stated in a note that the act was to protest the Brazilian
government's decision in February to legalize Monsanto's GM Guardian
corn, just weeks after the French government prohibited the corn due to
environment and human health risks.

La Vía Campesina also held passive protests in several Brazilian cities
against the Swiss corporation Syngenta Seeds for its ongoing impunity
for the murder of Valmir Mota de Oliveira. Mota was a member of the
Movement of the Landless Rural Workers (MST) - the largest of the
seven Brazilian movements in La Vía Campesina - who was assassinated
last October in the state of Paraná during these organizations' third
occupation of the company's illegal experimental site for GM soybeans.

While Brazil already has a high number of land activist murders, Mota's
was significant because it was the first to occur during an occupation
organized by La Vía Campesina, and the first assassination in Brazil to
occur on the property of a multinational agribusiness.

The expansion of agricultural biotechnology into Brazil is leading to
increasing agrarian conflicts and exacerbating historic tensions over
land. The movements in La Vía Campesina reject seed patenting,
claiming the practice traps poor farmers in a cycle of debt to
corporations that own the seed patents, and undermines small
farmers' autonomy to save and share seeds.

They claim that GM technology threatens biodiversity and native seed
varieties, and violates the rights of consumers and small farmers by
contaminating conventional and organic crops. In the United States,
where more than half of the world's GM crop acreage is grown,
widespread contamination of conventional and organic crops by
GM varieties is threatening the organic foods industry, which is
finding it increasingly difficult to certify products.

According to Greenpeace International, there were 39 cases of
crop contamination in 23 countries in 2007, and more than 200 in
57 countries over the last 10 years. (1)

These claims threaten a multi-billion dollar industry. In the midst of
global economic downturn, Monsanto and Syngenta are realizing
unprecedented profits - thanks largely to the agrofuels boom. In
January, results showed Monsanto's stock appreciated 137% in
2007, (2) hitting a record on the New York Stock Exchange. (3)

In February, Syngenta - the world's largest producer of herbicides
and pesticides with control of one-third of the global commercial
seed market - announced its 2007 sales amounted to US$ 9.2 billion.
Latin America was Syngenta's "star performer" in 2007, where sales
of herbicides, pesticides, and seeds increased by 37% respectively,
and sales in Brazil increased for all product lines. (4)
.....'
http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/10048/1/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"While resistance takes a variety of forms, it collectively calls
into question the development paradigm's view of nature as
an unproblematic human laboratory, separating food from
ecology and culture as a commodified input for urban diets
and industrial processing, and residualising rural society as
a source of labour and natural resources for industrial society."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (2001), 60, 215-220
DOI: 10.1079/PNS200088

The impact of globalisation, free trade and technology on
food and nutrition in the new millennium

Philip McMichael (Professor)
Department of Rural Sociology, Cornell University, USA

< http://tinyurl.com/23ad7c [Adobe Reader] >

The millennium promises a dramatic politicisation of the food
question. In addition to the prominent issues of food security,
hunger and nutrition, bioengineering, food safety and quality,
there are related issues of environmental sustainability, power,
sovereignty and rights. All these issues are deeply implicated
in the current corporate form of globalisation, which is
transforming historic global arrangements by subordinating
public institutions and the question of food security to private
solutions. The present paper questions the self-evident
association between globalisation and nutritional improvement.

One apparent index of globalisation is the brisk and growing
trade in foodstuffs supplying affluent populations with exotic
high-value and all-seasonal foods via corporate global sourcing
arrangements. However, only about 20 % of the world's six
billion population participate in the cash or consumer credit
economy, and about 90 % of the world's food consumption
occurs where it is produced. While urbanites depend on the
market for almost all their food consumption, rural populations
consume 60 % of the food they produce (AF McCalla,
unpublished results). There is a big discrepancy between the
image and affluent experience of globalisation, and global reality.
It is this discrepancy that shapes the politics of globalisation.

The existence of hunger on a global scale is a source of
legitimacy for large food and biotechnology firms in promoting
private solutions to development. Monsanto Corporation's
home page on the web has proclaimed: 'Guess Who's Coming
to Dinner? 10 billion by 2030'. It warns that 'low-tech'
agriculture 'will not produce sufficient crop yield increases and
improvements to feed the world's burgeoning population',
declaring that 'biotechnology innovations will triple crop yields
without requiring any additional farmland, saving valuable
rainforests and animal habitats' and that 'biotechnology can
feed the world. let the harvest begin' (Kimbrell, 1998). These
statements presume an easy inevitability to global integration
via a market-driven paradigm, constituting the only approach
to addressing hunger.

The present paper criticises the terms in which food insecurity
is being defined. In the aftermath of the 'era of development'
in which nations were responsible for managing economic
growth, including managing food security via green revolution
technologies, development is now defined as a necessary
global project in which international institutions and firms
are increasingly responsible for managing economic growth,
including managing food security as a global problem with
global solutions via biotechnologies.

While globalisation is presented as an inevitable realisation
of Western market rationality, it is busy revealing its
limitations across the world. The finite nature of resources
(renewable and/or non-renewable) and the seemingly infinite
articulations of cultural alternatives to the market culture may
appear as 'external' limits to globalisation, but they are in fact
powerful internal contradictions. These alternatives actually
constitute globalisation as a contradictory project, because
resistance movements represent and express the material
and discursive conditions that the market regime seeks to
appropriate. While resistance takes a variety of forms, it
collectively calls into question the development paradigm's
view of nature as an unproblematic human laboratory,
separating food from ecology and culture as a commodified
input for urban diets and industrial processing, and
residualising rural society as a source of labour and natural
resources for industrial society.

The present paper examines the food question, then, as a
window on the politics of globalisation, but deeply
rooted in the relationship between modernity and dietary
reconstruction.

Social diets and the world historical dimensions of food
Food embodies world history like no other substance.
There are many threads in this story, but perhaps the most
symbolic is that of the cattle culture and its dramatic
transformation of ecologies and diets on a world scale.
The introduction of the European cattle culture to the 'New
World' was a forerunner of an agribusiness complex that
now links specialised soyabean producers, maize farmers,
and lot-fed cattle across the world. The global cattle
complex binds the world into an animal protein dependency
that imposes feed grain and livestock monocultures on local
ecologies and competes with the direct consumption of
cereals.

The trajectory of the beef industry follows the contours of
modernisation. By the mid-twentieth century, mass
consumption subdivided the beef industry into lot-fed
high-value beef cuts, and grass-fed cattle supplying the
cheaper lean meat for the global fast-food industry. In the
early post-second World War development era commercial
beef was consumed largely in developed countries, via a
specialised livestock industry increasingly sourced by
soyabean and hybrid maize inputs as feed, while in the
developing countries livestock combined with crops in
mixed farming systems. The fast food industry in the
developed countries depended on grass-fed cattle, and its
proliferation from the 1960s produced the so-called 'world
steer', as a global archetype of modernising food relationships,
distributed across developed and developing regions, most
notably in Central America, where cattle populations rose
from 4·2 × 106 to 9·6 × 106 from 1950 (Delgado et al. 1999).

The world steer is a global artefact; animal health and
growth depend on a global supply of medicines, antibiotics,
chemical fertilizers and herbicides by trans-national firms.
However, the specialisation of world steer production is the
antithesis of traditional mixed farming systems in
developing countries. Sponsored by the World Bank and
regional development banks, via governments encouraged
to develop new agri-exports, the world steer industry
hastened de-peasantisation. Development policies favouring
foreign cattle breeds over the native 'criollo' have undermined
traditional cattle raising and local self-provisioning.
Peasants forfeit their original meat and milk supplies and
side products such as tallow for cooking oil and leather for
clothing and footwear (Sanderson, 1986). In short, the world
steer caters to affluent global consumers at the same time
that it undermines local agro-ecologies.

As societies in some developing countries developed
sizeable middle classes with Westernised diets, specialised
domestic livestock industries have mushroomed alongside
traditional farming systems. Between the early 1970s and
the mid-1990s, meat consumption in the southern hemisphere
grew by 70 × 106 t, compared with a growth rate of
26 × 106 t in the northern hemisphere. 'In 1983 developing
countries consumed 36 percent of all meat and 34 percent of
all milk consumed worldwide. By 1993 those percentages
had risen to 48 percent and 41 percent, respectively'
(Delgado et al. 1999). Nevertheless, the International Food
Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) estimates that traditional
low-intensity livestock production methods remain
throughout the world on about 26 % of the land area,
supplying about 50 % of the meat, and states that the
'integration of livestock and crop operations is still the main
avenue for sustainable intensification of agriculture in many
regions of the world' (Delgado et al. 1999).

IFPRI (Delgado et al. 1999) reports that the world is in
the early phase of a demand-led 'livestock revolution'
distinguished from the supply-led green revolution. In other
words, the livestock revolution expresses globalisation,
insofar as it caters to a world market anchored in a relatively
affluent consumer segment of the world's population. A
'demand-led livestock revolution' is an implicit reference to
the shift towards the market as organising principle, which
influences much that is described in the report. Thus,
the authors observe with respect to public health:

'Unfortunately, government services are being curtailed in
this area in many poor countries as the size of the overall
public sector is being reduced'; they note that 'escalating
demand for animal products leads to animal concentrations
that are out of balance with the waste absorption and feed
supply capacity of available land', that as 'livestock
consumption increases there is considerable interest in how
the poor can retain their market share of livestock
production', and that feedcrops 'have the potential to cause
greater environmental damage than other crops'.

Aside from these disclaimers the overall tenor of the
report is upbeat, observing that livestock products 'are an
appealing and convenient nutrient source' and that livestock
production 'is an especially important source of income
for the rural poor in developing countries' (Delgado et al.
1999). However, when answering the claim that affluent
consumers of livestock will bid away the foodstuffs of the
poor through the market, the report argues that cereals prices
will remain stable and that 'The Livestock Revolution's
effect on the food security of poor people, through cereal
prices, is likely to be far less important than its effect on the
income of the poor' (Delgado et al. 1999). However, the
question of the income of the poor is moot, because the
livestock revolution is not simply a quantitative expansion
of livestock production and livestock products raising
incomes of livestock owners, rather it will transform the
conditions of farming across the world. If the income of the
poor increases, it will be by leaving mixed farming to
specialise in livestock, and becoming contract farmers for
food corporations in precarious dependency on distant
markets and prices.

The IFPRI report (Delgado et al. 1999) never problematises
the 'livestock revolution' as a policy choice, rather it argues
that 'the structural shift in developing-country diets toward
animal protein is a given that must be dealt with', even
though elsewhere IFPRI reports that one trend in the
livestock revolution is 'an ongoing change in the status of
livestock production from a small-scale local activity to a
global activity' (Pinstrup-Andersen et al. 1999). The
substitution of global monocultures for local agricultural
diversity commits the fallacy of fetishising rising crop and
discounting the costs. As the International Movement for
Ecological Agriculture observed: 'if one takes into account
the hidden costs on input subsidies and nonrenewable
resources, and the costs of ecological damage (leading to
lower yields after some time) and furthermore, measure
yield against high fertilizer and water costs, then the green
revolution techniques are highly inefficient. . . .Even more
seriously, the green revolution measurement of output is
flawed because it only accounts for a single crop (e.g. rice)
and even then only a single component of that crop
(e.g. grain) whilst neglecting the uses of straw for fodder
and fertilizer. Thus, it neglects to take into account that
there were many other biological resources. . . .within the
same land in the traditional system that were reduced or
wiped out with the green revolution' (see Fox, 2000).

These shifts are presaged in the parallel transformation of
food security conditions. While noting the importance of
roots and tubers as a principal source of food for poor
farmers around the world, and noting the recent increased
production of potatoes and yams in particular, IFPRI reports
that a 'rapid expansion in the demand for roots and tubers
for livestock feed has been under way for some time,
particularly in Asia, and is likely to continue as demand for
meat products grows rapidly in coming years.' Meanwhile,
IFPRI predicts that demand for maize in the southern
hemisphere 'will overtake demand for rice and wheat' and
about '64 percent of the maize demand will go toward
feeding livestock compared with 8 percent of wheat and
3 percent of rice in 2020' (Pinstrup-Andersen et al. 1999).

During the 1990s, while food cereals production remained
the same in Brazil and China, feed cereals production
almost doubled in each case (Food and Agriculture
Organization, 2000). Rising animal protein consumption is
perhaps the key indicator of the 'nutrition transition',
involving a declining consumption of cereals and legumes,
and a rising consumption of meat and dairy fats, salt and
sugars (Lang et al. 1999).

The nutrition transition has a political history framed by
class, cultural and imperial relationships. Animal protein
consumption signals rising affluence and emulation of
Western diets, both of which are not so much inevitable as
the historical product of Western developmentalism
(see McMichael, 2000). Ironically, the southern hemisphere
is condemned to repeat the trajectory of the modernising
northern-hemisphere diet, just as healthconscious affluent
northern-hemisphere consumers are reappropriating
southern-hemisphere diets. In a report on the occasion of
the World Bank's $93·5 million loan to China for 130 feedlots
and five beef processing centres for its nascent beef industry,
in 1999, Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians' Committee
for Responsible Medicine, observed: 'While smart Americans
recognize the need to "Easternize" their own diets with rice,
soy products and more vegetarian options, World Bank
bureaucrats decided to promote a Westernization of China's
diet. Instead of supporting the use of grain as a cholesterol-
free dietary staple for people, the grain will be fed to cattle to
produce meat. Of course the World Bank's efforts to promote
cattle farming in China are concerned less with good health
than with economic investment. No doubt some cattle ranchers
will profit as they edge out vegetable and rice acreage. But why
is the World Bank, so roundly criticized for years over its self-
defeating economic development schemes, falling into the same
old trap?' (see mritchie@ mail.iatp.org, 28 December 1999).

Dietary commodification has been integral to the expanded
reproduction of the market culture and the ideology of
'development'. However, this role is doubleedged, since its
singular logic undermines non-capitalist food cultures,
adulterates distinctive capitalist food cultures via
'McDonaldization' and genetically-modified organisms, and
incubates serious epidemics of diet-related cancers, obesity
and similar diseases. It is now common to refer to a 'global
epidemic of malnutrition', in which the 1·2 billion underfed
are matched by the 1·2 billion overfed. Furthermore, these
paradoxical outcomes dramatise the perverse politics of food.

Agribusiness in the World Trade Organization regime

The redefinition of food security as a global problem
waiting to be solved is rooted in the politics of liberalisation
(McMichael, 2000). The 1984 Uruguay Round initiated the
liberalisation of agriculture, when the Cairns Group of
agriexporters and a powerful agribusiness lobby pressed for
agricultural reforms in the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (the US proposal was drafted by the former senior
vice president of Cargill, which shares 50 % of US grain
exports with Continental). Reforms included reductions in
trade protection, farm subsidies and government intervention.

Free trade was the ostensible demand, but the USA was also
interested in an informal mercantilism based in consolidating
its role as 'breadbasket of the world'. The ideological
justification was provided by the USA in its challenge to
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade agricultural
protectionism: 'The U.S. has always maintained that self-
sufficiency and food security are not one and the same.
Food security - the ability to acquire the food you need
when you need it - is best provided through a smooth
functioning world market' (see Ritchie, 1993). Liberalisation
General Agreement on Tariffs and Tradestyle resulted in the
1994 World Trade Organization Agriculture Agreement to
open agricultural markets by adopting minimum import
requirements and tariff and producer subsidy reductions.

The ultimate goal was to open markets for northern-
hemisphere products, reflecting the strengthened position
of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development countries in the international division of labour
in agriculture. In 1990 90 % of the global seed market was
controlled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development countries. From 1970 to 1996, the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
share in the volume of world cereal exports rose from 73 %
to 82 %; the USA remained the world's major exporter of
commercial crops such as maize, soyabean and wheat; the
share of Africa, Latin America and Asia in world cereal
imports increased to about 60 % (Pistorius & van Wijk,
1999). A neo-liberal regime would serve to consolidate this
international division of labour. North American Free Trade
Agreement is a case in point: quotas on duty-free US maize,
wheat and rice imports into Mexico are being lowered in
stages. In Mexico, 2·5 million households engage in grain-fed
maize production, with a productivity differential of 2-3 US
tons/ha compared with 7·5 US tons/ha in the American mid-
West. With an estimate of a 200 % rise in maize imports
under full implementation of the North American Free Trade
Agreement by 2008, it is expected that more than two-thirds
of Mexican maize production will not survive the competition
(Watkins, 1996).

Pressures to deregulate northern-hemisphere farm sectors
and to open southern-hemisphere agricultural regions to the
world market involve a universal challenge to national
economic institutions by trans-national firms, even though
the EU and the USA have found ways to subvert agricultural
liberalisation through export subsidies and deficiency
payments to farmers. Global access by transnational
corporations allows them to exploit the asymmetry between
northern and southern hemispheres (e.g. the average subsidy
to US farmers and grain traders is about 100 times the
income of a maize farmer in Mindanao, Mexico), moving
to undercut northern-hemisphere entitlement structures and
their institutional supports by optimising global sourcing
strategies (Watkins, 1996). At the same time, 80 % of farm
subsidies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development countries concentrate on the largest 20 % of
(corporate) farmers, rendering small farmers increasingly
vulnerable to the vicissitudes of a deregulated (and
increasingly privately managed) global market for agricultural
products. In 1994, 50 % of US farm products came from 2 %
of the farms, and only 9 % from 73 % of the farms (Lehman
& Krebs, 1996). In 1999 200 000 European farmers and
600 000 beef producers left the land; UK farm income has
fallen by about 75 % since 1998, driving 20 000 farmers out
of business; US farm income declined by about 50 %
between 1996 and 1999 (Gorelick, 2000). Under these
conditions, agriculture becomes less and less a foundational
institution of societies and states, and more and more a
tenuous component of corporate global sourcing strategies.

Agriculture constitutes 65 % of the global economy, and
corporate centralisation is unsurprising: 'the top ten
agrochemical companies control 81 percent of the $29 billion
global agrochemical market. Ten life science companies
control 37 percent of the $15 billion per year global seed
market. The world's ten major pharmaceutical companies
control 47 percent of the $197 billion pharmaceutical
market. Ten global firms now control 43 percent of the $15
billion veterinary pharmaceutical trade' and combined sales
of ten trans-national food and beverage companies exceeded
$211 billion in 1995 (Rifkin, 1998). Corporate control of the
food system is achieved through vertical integration; from
seeds, fertilisers, and equipment, to processing, transporting
and marketing. The five largest 'gene giants' (AstraZeneca,
DuPont, Monsanto, Novartis and Aventis) account for 60 %
of the global pesticide market, 23 % of the global seed
market and about 100 % of the transgenic seed market
(ActionAid, 2000; Gorelick, 2000).

Bioengineering is currently transforming the crop
development industry, accelerating the concentration and
centralisation of agri-chemical corporations. Part of this
integration process has been described as 'food chain
clustering', whereby the gene giants form strategic alliances
with agribusiness firms, allowing the firms with transgenic
interests access to production. One such cluster is the
Cargill/Monsanto joint venture; Cargill joins its extensive
seed capacity with Monsanto's biotechnology and new
genetic products, and Cargill recently acquired Continental
Grain, meaning that Cargill 'would control more than
40 percent of all U.S. corn exports, a third of all soybeans
exports and at least 20 percent of wheat exports' (Heffernan,
1999). Such 'crop development conglomerates' consist of
networks of enterprises geared to developing specific
genetic crops (see Pistorius & van Wijk, 1999).

The crop development industry has been exploring new
markets in the post-green revolution southern hemisphere,
where seed demand has increased by more than 30 % in
Asia, and almost tripled in Africa, between 1980 and 1994.
Expanding consumption of pasta, bread and meat in cities
drives an expanding production of wheat and soyabean
varieties, while the livestock revolution involves a rising
demand for maize and soyabean varieties (Pistorius & van
Wijk, 1999). While in 1999 most of the 34 ×106 ha of
genetically-modified crops were grown in the northern
hemisphere, by 2002 it is estimated that 550 ×106 ha of a
world total of 900 million ha will be grown in the southern
hemisphere (ActionAid, 2000).

In Asia three companies (Cargill, Pioneer and DeKalb)
currently control about 70 % of the seed market, supplying
hybrid seed for 25 % of the total maize area (although
DeKalb and Cargill Seeds have recently been acquired by
Monsanto), and Novartis is entering the maize seed business
and establishing alliances with local Filipino companies like
Cornworld (BIOTHAI, GRAIN, MASIPAG and PAN
Indonesia, 1999). One of the emergent areas of crop
development, Bt maize (a genetically-modified maize with a
gene for an insect-killing toxin isolated from the soil microbe
Bacillus thuringiensis) is likely to be the first transgenic
maize to enter the Southeast Asian market. Monsanto is
conducting Bt maize tests in Thailand, Indonesia
(along with Pioneer), and plans to in the Philippines. The
introduction of Bt maize may seriously prejudice a staple
crop widely used in Asia for 400 years, and continuing in
those areas untouched by the hybrid maize introduced by
the green revolution.

In Southeast Asia about 40 % of the maize area is planted
in farmers' varieties where the seed replacement rate is as
low as 4 %, such as in Indonesia. Small farmers typically
intercrop maize with other crops such as groundnut,
mungbean, cowpea, soyabean, other pulses, cassava, sweet
potatoes or vegetables (constituting 69 % of Indonesia's
maize area and about 50 % of the upland maize areas of
the Philippines). Nevertheless, the promotion of hybrids
by governments and firms since the green revolution
encroaches on farmer varieties; 60 % of Thailand's maize
area in 1997 was occupied by hybrids, expected to rise to
70-75 % by 2000, and in Vietnam hybrid maize is expected
to double soon to reach 80-90 % of the maize area.
Meanwhile, Monsanto plans to apply Bt maize in Southeast
Asia in 2001, and its current research and development
portfolio focuses on the feed and processing industries,
rather than promoting maize as a staple. Since the seed
suppliers and grain processors are the same corporate
complex, commercial farmers will have no control over
prices, and will bear the risks (BIOTHAI, GRAIN,
MASIPAG and PAN Indonesia, 1999). The combined
effect of market liberalisation, flooding the region with
cheap grains, and the integration of crop development
conglomerates, seriously threatens the biodiverse system
of intercropping of farmer varieties.

Recent research discloses a total of 132 genetic patents on
crops that evolved in the southern hemisphere but which are
now grown worldwide (sixty-eight for maize genes,
seventeen for potato, twenty-five for soyabean and twenty
two for wheat), indicating that staple foods are increasingly
targeted for corporate patenting (ActionAid, 2000).

Resistance to the biotechnology industry is gathering
momentum across the world. In 1993 the ten million strong
Karnataka Farmers Association in Bangalore demonstrated
against Cargill Seeds for its plans to patent local germplasm
and gain monopoly rights to its use. Through the 1990s,
tens of thousands of Indian farmers demonstrated in Delhi
against 'gene theft' and proposals to establish an intellectual
property rights regime, to be regulated by the World Trade
Organization (Kingsnorth, 1999).

This controversy over genetic heritage and property rights
is deeply symbolic of globalisation, understood as a set of
political relationships with historical roots in colonialism.
The movement against biopiracy challenges the notion of
gene patenting as a universal standard of scientific practice
and private rights, and its discounting of traditional
knowledges and sustainable agricultural and cultural
practices. The intellectual property rights regime draws its
legitimacy or efficacy from a synthesis of European and
US patent laws, and their claims to protect and promote
innovation. The trade-related intellectual property rights
(TRIPs) agreement requires states to establish protection of
biological resources either through patenting or an effective
sui generis system, which expresses the 1992 Convention
on Biological Diversity confirming national sovereignty over
genetic resources.

The sui generis system for plants constitutes an alternative
to patent protection, in recognising and securing collective
rights for agricultural and medicinal plant biodiversity. As
Shiva (1997) has noted: 'Indigenous knowledge systems
are by and large ecological, while the dominant model of
scientific knowledge, characterized by reductionism and
fragmentation, is not equipped to take the complexity of
interrelationships in nature fully into account'.

The significance of the TRIPs protocol is that intellectual
property rights on gene patenting privilege governments and
corporations as legal entities, and disempower communities
and farmers whose rights over traditional knowledge go
unrecognized. A case in point is the 1998 patenting of
Indian basmati rice by the Texas-based company RiceTec
Inc., which sells 'Kasmati' rice and 'Texmati' rice as
authentic basmati. In 2000, under popular pressure, the
Indian government successfully challenged four of the
twenty claims for this patent because the seeds and plants
producing the grain derive from centuries of indigenous
cultivation. Meanwhile, in Thailand hundreds of farmers
staged their own protests against RiceTec, which was
targeting jasmine rice, on which five million farm families
depend (Greenfield, 1999). The irony is that TRIPs grew
out of an attempt to stem intellectual property pirating of
Western products (watches, compact discs, etc) in the
south, and TRIPs appears now to sanction a reverse
biological form of piracy on a disproportionate scale
threatening livelihood, rather than commodity, rights.

The sui generis option in TRIPs has been successfully
interpreted to resist and potentially subvert biopiracy. In
1996, the small Indian village of Pattuvam, in the southern
state of Kerala, declared its absolute ownership over all
genetic resources within its jurisdiction. This move to
preempt corporate genetic prospecting is protected by
the 73 rd amendment to the Indian Constitution, which
mandates decentralisation of powers to village-level
institutions. The initiative stemmed from a group of young
villagers, disaffected with the Indian party system and
committed to sustainable development. They came up with
the idea of having the village youth document local plant
species and crop cultivars growing within the village's
boundaries (Alvares, 1997). By registering its biodiversity,
in local names, the village has moved to claim collective
ownership of genetic resources, deny the possibility of
corporate patents applying to these resources, and
reinterpret the sui generis option of TRIPS by removing
'property' from this intellectual rights relationship.

Conclusion

The present paper has attempted to question the self-evident
association between globalisation and technology and
nutritional foods in the new millennium, by arguing for an
interpretation of globalisation as a political project geared
to a corporate form of organisation of the world market.
When the US Agricultural Secretary declared at the start
of the Uruguay Round negotiations (1986): '(The) idea
that developing countries should feed themselves is an
anachronism from a bygone era. They could better ensure
their food security by relying on US agricultural products,
which are available, in most cases at much lower cost' (see
Bello, 2000), he underlined the globalist vision of a World
Trade Organization regime managing world hunger and US
green power together. This vision has been institutionalised
sufficiently to empower and embolden the corporate clusters
that are busy playing chess with the world's biological
resources. However, as the present paper has also argued,
the corporate bid for control in the name of global food
security is generating increasingly consequential resistance
to the imposition of a market monoculture on a world of
cultural and biological diversity. Globalisation may be
represented as inevitable and self-evident, but the reality is
profoundly ambiguous.

The recent development of golden, or vitamin A, rice with
funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and the European
Commission is as much an attempt to address global food
security as it appears to be a public relations tool for the
genetic engineering industry (GRAIN, 2000). This transgenic
rice is being promoted as a solution to micronutrient
deficiencies, a global health problem, and has been promised
free to small farmers. Arguably, micronutrient deficiency was
one consequence of the macronutrient focus of the green
revolution and the reduction of dietary diversity through its
genetic reductionism. Golden rice, like other genetically-
modified crops, is more likely to be part of the problem than
part of the solution.

References

ActionAid (2000) Crops and robbers. Biopiracy and the patenting
of staple food crops. ActionAid. http://www.actionaid.org
Alvares C (1997) An Indian village bucks GATT over control of
genetic resources. Third World Resurgence 84, 11-12.
Bello W (2000) Does world trade need World Trade Organization?
Businessworld 11 January issue.
BIOTHAI, GRAIN, MASIPAG and PAN Indonesia (1999)
Whose agenda? The corporatee takeover of corn in SE Asia.
http://www.grain.org/publications/reports/takeover.htm
Delgado C, Rosegrant M, Steinfeld H, Elui S & Courbois C (1999)
Livestock to 2020. The Next Food Revolution. Washington, DC:
IFPRI.
Food and Agriculture Organization (2000) FAO statistical
tables 2000. http://www.apps.fao.org/page/collections?subset=
agriculture
Fox MW (2000) More help or more harm? Genetically engineered
crops and world hunger.
Gorelick S (2000) Facing the farm crisis. Ecologist 30, 28-32.
GRAIN (2000) Engineering solutions to malnutrition. http://www.
grain.org/publications/reports/malnutrition.htm
Greenfield G (1999) The WTO, the world food system, and the
politics of harmonised destruction. http://www.labournet.
org/discuss/global/wto.html
Heffernan B (1999) Consolidation in the food and agriculture
system. Report to the National Farmers Union, United States.
http://www.nfu.org/whstudy.html
Kimbrell A (1998) Why biotechnology and high-tech agriculture
cannot feed the world. Ecologist 28, 294-298.
Kingsnorth P (1999) India cheers while Monsanto burns. Ecologist
29, 9-11.
Lang TM, Heasman M & Pitt J (1999) Food, globalisation and a
new public health agenda. International Forum on Globalisation,
San Francisco. http://www.mydocuments/globalisation/
whitepaper99fin.doc
Lehman K & Krebs A (1996) Control of the World's food supply.
In The Case Against the Global Economy, pp. 122-130
[J Mander and E Goldsmith, editors]. San Francisco, CA: Sierra
Club Books.
McMichael P (2000) Development and Social Change: A Global
Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Pinstrup-Andersen P, Pandya-Lorch R & Rosegrant MW (1999)
World Food Prospects: Critical Issues For the Early Twenty-
First Century. Washington, DC: IFPRI.
Pistorius R & van Wijk J (1999) The Exploitation of Plant Genetic
Information. Political Strategies in Crop Development.
Wallingford, Oxon: CABI Publishing.
Rifkin J (1998) The Biotech Century. Harnessing the Gene and
Remaking the World. New York: Putnam.
Ritchie M (1993) Breaking the Deadlock: The United States and
Agricultural Policy in the Uruguay Round. Minneapolis, MN:
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Sanderson S (1986) The emergence of the 'world steer:'
internationalization and foreign domination in Latin American
cattle production. In Food, the State and International Political
Economy, pp. 123-148 [FL Tullis and WL Hollist, editors].
Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Shiva V (1997) Biopiracy. The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge.
Boston, MA: South End Press.
Watkins K (1996) Free trade and farm fallacies. From the
Uruguay Round to the World Food Summit. Ecologist 26,
244-255.

Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (2001), 60, 215-220
DOI: 10.1079/PNS200088 © The Author 2001 *
http://journals.cambridge.org/downlo...98fcc5c0bfb3b2
or http://tinyurl.com/23ad7c [Adobe Reader]

* The material in this post is distributed without profit to those
who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this post for
purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission
from the copyright owner*.*

"pearl" > wrote in message
...
>>
>> well you are the one slagging off the companies that supply most of the
>> food
>> you eat
>
> Kind of like you slagging off the "urbanites" who consume your
> 'produce' and support you with their hard-earned taxes, eh jim.

wriggle wriggle, why did you slag of the six companies who fed you pearl, or
was it just that you don't actually understand what is going on.
As for slagging of urbanites, if they showed the same level of ignorance
that you do, they are indeed in need of a solid basic education, but
fortunately the vast majority are actually intelligent people capable of
making up their own minds and buying a decent bit of meat

Jim Webster

"Jim Webster" > wrote in message ...
>
> "pearl" > wrote in message
> ...
> >>
> >> well you are the one slagging off the companies that supply most of the
> >> food
> >> you eat
> >
> > Kind of like you slagging off the "urbanites" who consume your
> > 'produce' and support you with their hard-earned taxes, eh jim.
>
> wriggle wriggle,

As expected.

> why did you slag of the six companies who fed you pearl, or
> was it just that you don't actually understand what is going on.

Where's the rest of my post, jim? Hit the 'panic button'?

> As for slagging of urbanites, if they showed the same level of ignorance
> that you do, they are indeed in need of a solid basic education, but
> fortunately the vast majority are actually intelligent people capable of
> making up their own minds

Yes, your frequent slagging off of those intelligent people.

And other people, like us, who /dare/ to disagree with you.

> and buying a decent bit of meat

Wising-up and avoiding animal flesh for the crime that it is.

"pearl" > wrote in message
...
> "Jim Webster" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "pearl" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> >>
>> >> well you are the one slagging off the companies that supply most of
>> >> the
>> >> food
>> >> you eat
>> >
>> > Kind of like you slagging off the "urbanites" who consume your
>> > 'produce' and support you with their hard-earned taxes, eh jim.
>>
>> wriggle wriggle,
>
> As expected.
>

of course, but you could learn to do it better

>> why did you slag of the six companies who fed you pearl, or
>> was it just that you don't actually understand what is going on.
>
> Where's the rest of my post, jim? Hit the 'panic button'?

no, I long ago gave up reading great screeds of stuff you obviously don't
understand, I was far more interested in why you were slagging off the six
companies that transported most vegetarians foodstuffs around the world

>
>> As for slagging of urbanites, if they showed the same level of ignorance
>> that you do, they are indeed in need of a solid basic education, but
>> fortunately the vast majority are actually intelligent people capable of
>> making up their own minds
>
> Yes, your frequent slagging off of those intelligent people.
>
> And other people, like us, who /dare/ to disagree with you.

I'm glad you didn't include yourself in the category of intelligent people

perhaps you ought to read things properly before posting


>
>> and buying a decent bit of meat
>
> Wising-up and avoiding animal flesh for the crime that it is.

aww

Jim Webster

Jim Webster wrote:
> "pearl" > wrote in message
> ...
>> "Jim Webster" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> "pearl" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>> >>
>>>>> well you are the one slagging off the companies that supply most of
>>>>> the
>>>>> food
>>>>> you eat
>>>> Kind of like you slagging off the "urbanites" who consume your
>>>> 'produce' and support you with their hard-earned taxes, eh jim.

The support comes from their voluntarily made purchases.


>>> wriggle wriggle,
>> As expected.
>>
>
> of course, but you could learn to do it better
>
>>> why did you slag of the six companies who fed you pearl, or
>>> was it just that you don't actually understand what is going on.
>> Where's the rest of my post, jim? Hit the 'panic button'?
>
> no, I long ago gave up reading great screeds of stuff you obviously don't
> understand,

The key thing is that not only does she not understand
them, she hasn't even read them. For the most part,
she *can't* read them: she has no education or
training in any of the scientific fields that are
necessary to read and comprehend the material.

What she does is search for key words and phrases, read
a little bit around the words when she gets a site that
is a "hit", and if it appears to support her
preconceived notions, she does a massive copypasta (see
http://tinyurl.com/ymwrzg) which I usually call a shit
hemorrhage.



> I was far more interested in why you were slagging off the six
> companies that transported most vegetarians foodstuffs around the world

Because she's a lying, self-centered hypocrite, that's why.


>
>>> As for slagging of urbanites, if they showed the same level of ignorance
>>> that you do, they are indeed in need of a solid basic education, but
>>> fortunately the vast majority are actually intelligent people capable of
>>> making up their own minds
>> Yes, your frequent slagging off of those intelligent people.
>>
>> And other people, like us, who /dare/ to disagree with you.
>
> I'm glad you didn't include yourself in the category of intelligent people
>
> perhaps you ought to read things properly before posting
>
>
>>> and buying a decent bit of meat
>> Wising-up and avoiding animal flesh for the crime that it is.
>
> aww
>
> Jim Webster
>
>

"Jim Webster" > wrote in message ...
>
> "pearl" > wrote in message
> ...
> > "Jim Webster" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >>
> >> "pearl" > wrote in message
> >> ...
> >> >>
> >> >> well you are the one slagging off the companies that supply most of
> >> >> the
> >> >> food
> >> >> you eat
> >> >
> >> > Kind of like you slagging off the "urbanites" who consume your
> >> > 'produce' and support you with their hard-earned taxes, eh jim.
> >>
> >> wriggle wriggle,
> >
> > As expected.
> >
>
> of course, but you could learn to do it better

I'm not wriggling.

> >> why did you slag of the six companies who fed you pearl, or
> >> was it just that you don't actually understand what is going on.
> >
> > Where's the rest of my post, jim? Hit the 'panic button'?
>
> no, I long ago gave up reading great screeds of stuff you obviously don't
> understand,

Information you obviously don't want to understand.

> I was far more interested in why you were slagging off the six
> companies that transported most vegetarians foodstuffs around the world

If that was the case you would have read what I posted.

> >> As for slagging of urbanites, if they showed the same level of ignorance
> >> that you do, they are indeed in need of a solid basic education, but
> >> fortunately the vast majority are actually intelligent people capable of
> >> making up their own minds
> >
> > Yes, your frequent slagging off of those intelligent people.
> >
> > And other people, like us, who /dare/ to disagree with you.
>
> I'm glad you didn't include yourself in the category of intelligent people

"urbanites".

> perhaps you ought to read things properly before posting

You should.

> >> and buying a decent bit of meat
> >
> > Wising-up and avoiding animal flesh for the crime that it is.
>
> aww

'Daily Evergreen. 4 March 2008.

Humans inherently owe animals. Massive meat recall reminds
us of the dangers of relegating other creatures to food status.

Nickolas Conrad

During the past month, the U.S. has been undergoing the
nation's largest recall of meat. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture recalled 143 million pounds last week alone,
according to CNN.

Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. was secretly investigated for six
weeks due to a video supplied by animal rights activists
working for the Humane Society of the United States. The video
showed footage of sick, crippled cows being kicked, shoved,
jabbed in the eyes and shocked to force them into the
slaughterhouse.

While some are upset about the inhumane treatment of the
sick animals, most people are outraged by the potentially
contaminated beef.

As an animal rights activist, I feel this represents another way
human society continues to commit atrocities against other
sentient creatures. While humans demand fair treatment for
animals [humans], most people are not willing to expand their
compassion for the lives of other sentient creatures'
emotional and psychological well-being.

Since we are one animal among others who share a common
descent, nervous system, similar emotional capacities and a
biological brain, it is evident other animals are ruthlessly
exploited. If we claim to be a moral animal who is able to
differentiate between right and wrong, based on the suffering
we cause others, we are morally obligated to consider our
exploitation of creatures who also fight for their lives and
continued existence.

Because other animals are unable to communicate and
conceive of themselves collectively, they cannot tell us to
stop killing them. They are the silent victims whose voices
can never be heard. And because they cannot protest our
exploitation of them, we excuse our behavior as a process
of nature.

Yet, if we are moral animals, we are obligated to take notice
of the harm and suffering we cause other beings. As perhaps
the only animal who is truly able to expand its moral horizon
beyond itself, and who now dominates and controls the
features and state of the world, it is unethical to ignore our
obligations to other creatures who are subject to our mercy
and care.

"The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk,
but, Can they suffer?" Jeremy Bentham wrote, forming the
foundation for his ethical philosophy in the 1700s.

We are not alone on this planet, nor are we gods to these
creatures who have shared it before we came into existence.
But sadly, due to our population growth, environmental impact
and technological understanding, their lives are in our hands.

We are guilty of "speciesism," which is "a prejudice or
attitude of bias in favor of the interests of the members of
one's own species and against those of members of other
species," Peter Singer wrote in his book "Animal Liberation."

I know many people who love their pets, recognize their
emotional states and intelligence, but still support the
slaughter and consumption of nonhuman meat. Because they
are aware of their complicated biological and emotional lives,
dog and cat lovers would never consume their pets - even if
they were factory-farmed and cheaply available.

Yet, if animals are not cute, furry and domesticated, it is
acceptable to farm, kill and eat them. Our moral consideration
should not stop merely at our level of familiarity.

The massive meat recall gives us a moment to reflect on our
treatment of other animals. As a civilization we need to
expand our moral compass to include other animals that have
interests of their own, pursue their own emotional desires and
are able to suffer just as greatly as ourselves.

http://www.dailyevergreen.com/story/24964

"pearl" > wrote in message
...
> "Jim Webster" > wrote in message >>
> >> >
>> >> > Kind of like you slagging off the "urbanites" who consume your
>> >> > 'produce' and support you with their hard-earned taxes, eh jim.
>> >>
>> >> wriggle wriggle,
>> >
>> > As expected.
>> >
>>
>> of course, but you could learn to do it better
>
> I'm not wriggling.

then why did you slag off the six companies who ensure that vegetarians like
you have food on the table?

perhaps you could answer the question rather than just post endless screeds
of stuff to distract attention from it

Jim Webster

"Jim Webster" > wrote in message ...
>
> "pearl" > wrote in message
> ...
> > "Jim Webster" > wrote in message >>
> > >> >
> >> >> > Kind of like you slagging off the "urbanites" who consume your
> >> >> > 'produce' and support you with their hard-earned taxes, eh jim.
> >> >>
> >> >> wriggle wriggle,
> >> >
> >> > As expected.
> >> >
> >>
> >> of course, but you could learn to do it better
> >
> > I'm not wriggling.
>
> then why did you slag off the six companies who ensure that vegetarians like
> you have food on the table?

Read my earlier post. I'm rather wondering why you're not..

'In 1998 Clive Hibberd who farmed 200 acres at Oak farm got
out after 40 years. "I just cannot compete any more," he said.

His neighbour, Alan Lathan of Wilds farm, was blunt: "Outside
economic forces have done me in. You have no control over
prices, everything is set by outsiders. It doesn't matter how
well you farm, it just gets harder and harder." He, too, has left.

The same forces that affect Britain are sweeping through rural
areas everywhere. The twin motors have been rapid globalisation,
backed by world trade rules which are opening every market to
international competition, and a system of subsidies that
encourages intensification.

Steve Gorelick, a US farmer and co-founder of the International
Society for Ecology and Culture, said 235,000 farms and 60,000
rural companies in the US were driven out of business in the
1980s. The massive decline in farm income in Britain is matched
in the US, where incomes halved between 1996-99 and suicide,
says Mr Gorelick, is the commonest cause of death among farmers.

In Europe 200,000 farmers left agriculture in 1999. In India farmers
are unable to compete with cheap imports. Several hundred million
Chinese have left the countryside for the cities in 20 years of
agricultural modernisation.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says global agricultural
trade is worth some £300bn a year and has almost doubled since
1980. The benefits of exporting food, say its advocates, are increased
wealth and food supplies. Critics argue that countries' food "security"
is undermined by making them dependent on others.

Multinational corporations are also extending their power and control
over agricultural production, making farmers dependent on them for
seed, technological inputs, credit and outlets for their produce.

The lion's share of global agribusiness has been snapped up by a few
countries and companies. According to US author David Korten, 10
companies involved in seed, fertilisers, pesticides, processing, and
shipments control more than 60% of the international food chain.

"One company, Cargill's, controls 80% of the world's grain supplies,
four companies control 87% of US beef, five account for 65% of the
global pesticide market, another four control the world's supply of
corn, wheat, tobacco, tea, rice, pineapple, jute, timber and many
other commodities," he says.

In Britain, 80% of agricultural subsidies are taken by the largest 20%
of farmers. In the US, says Peter Rosset of California-based
agricultural think tank Food First, taxpayers subsidise the biggest
10% of farmers by more than $13bn a year - 60% of the total
$22bn paid to US farmers directly. "It's a transfer of money to large
multinational corporate farmers who dominate the world trade," says
Dr Rosset. "They buy the grain, or whatever, at giveaway prices and
use the subsidies to capture markets around the world and drive
farmers out of business in Mexico, Africa, Asia and South America."

Just as the small farmers cannot equally compete with the large
players in Britain, so there is a similar disparity between the richest
16 countries and the rest of the world. OECD agricultural subsidies
total almost $362bn a year, compared to less than one 20th of that
for the rest of the world's countries.

Increased transport distances between producers and consumers
bring social and environmental costs, says Tim Lobstein of the
Food Commission, an independent agricultural think tank.

"Take apples. We now consume more French than British ones.

"We have grubbed up half of our orchards since the 1950s and
now bring in apples from Europe, New Zealand, South Africa,
Chile and the US. We could produce many more in the UK,
benefiting rural communities, but we don't because the big
supermarket buyers can get a better deal from the French.

"For a few pence, the rural economy in Britain is depleted - and
the subsequent social and environmental costs of this depletion
will then have to be paid for."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/fe....globalisation

Quoting from message >
posted on 17 Mar 2008 by Robert Seago
I would like to add:

> What we will see I think is increasing demand for organic from a
> proportion of the comfortably off.

Wouldn't the production have to be from those who are also
"comfortably off", unless they are totally commited to "Organic"?

--
..ElaineJ. Visit Jones' Pages at http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/ejones
..Virtual. Corwen, North Wales; Steam Traction, with feature on
Fodens; StrongArm Textures/Backdrops; Spring Graphics
..RISC PC. CMMGB with pics of pre- WW 1 Dawson & Yukon Volunteers.

"pearl" > wrote in message
...
> "Jim Webster" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "pearl" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > "Jim Webster" > wrote in message
>> > >>
>> > >> >
>> >> >> > Kind of like you slagging off the "urbanites" who consume your
>> >> >> > 'produce' and support you with their hard-earned taxes, eh jim.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> wriggle wriggle,
>> >> >
>> >> > As expected.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> of course, but you could learn to do it better
>> >
>> > I'm not wriggling.
>>
>> then why did you slag off the six companies who ensure that vegetarians
>> like
>> you have food on the table?
>
> Read my earlier post. I'm rather wondering why you're not..
>
> 'In 1998 Clive Hibberd who farmed 200 acres at Oak farm got
> out after 40 years. "I just cannot compete any more," he said.
>

well it is simple, people are not willing to pay the correct price for food,
they want it cheap so they can afford computers, broadband, strange imported
foodstuffs, and to that has to be added over expensive mortgages

However matters are changing, in the UK food prices are going up because the
power of the major retailers to control prices has been damaged by the fact
that the rest of the world is growing wealthier and they can now afford food
they could previously only aspire to. The people who are going to be hit
worst are the urban poor, especially in the third world. In many producing
countries this is going to be a force encouraging people to get out of the
cities once more. No longer do they have to prostitute their agriculture
growing sugar snap peas to be flown to Europe, they can actually grow
ordinary agricultural commodity crops such as soya and maize which will
leave them with a big enough profit to educate their children without
leaving the villages, to have a decent quality of life in the countryside.
Not only that but the Chinese and others can then get the diet they want,
and the sanctimonious westerners can preach at them as long as they like,
they are going to eat more meat

Jim Webster

In article >,
Elaine Jones > wrote:
> Quoting from message >
> posted on 17 Mar 2008 by Robert Seago
> I would like to add:

> > What we will see I think is increasing demand for organic from a
> > proportion of the comfortably off.

> Wouldn't the production have to be from those who are also
> "comfortably off", unless they are totally commited to "Organic"?

This year you can say that.

Last year supposing the governnment had done what previous governments did
to manufacturing and mining decades ago, in the name of the market, then I
think that organic might have been an option for British farming.

In article >, Jim Webster
> wrote:


> > Read my earlier post. I'm rather wondering why you're not..
> >
> > 'In 1998 Clive Hibberd who farmed 200 acres at Oak farm got out after
> > 40 years. "I just cannot compete any more," he said.
> >

> well it is simple, people are not willing to pay the correct price for
> food, they want it cheap so they can afford computers, broadband,
> strange imported foodstuffs, and to that has to be added over expensive
> mortgages
Yes, that is my feeling.
> However matters are changing, in the UK food prices are going up because
> the power of the major retailers to control prices has been damaged by
> the fact that the rest of the world is growing wealthier and they can
> now afford food they could previously only aspire to. The people who
> are going to be hit worst are the urban poor, especially in the third
> world.

> In many producing countries this is going to be a force
> encouraging people to get out of the cities once more. No longer do
> they have to prostitute their agriculture growing sugar snap peas to be
> flown to Europe, they can actually grow ordinary agricultural commodity
> crops such as soya and maize which will leave them with a big enough
> profit to educate their children without leaving the villages, to have
> a decent quality of life in the countryside. Not only that but the
> Chinese and others can then get the diet they want, and the
> sanctimonious westerners can preach at them as long as they like, they
> are going to eat more meat

You guys on here are more tuned to this than me, but this is only one year
on from a very different dynamic. If USA has a recession, and that
bounces around hitting Chinese manufacturing, I can't see the Chinese
handing out a lot of social welfare. Chinesen people could be drifting
back to the countryside raising the odd pig again, and taking it to market
on their bike.

"Robert Seago" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> Elaine Jones > wrote:
>> Quoting from message >
>> posted on 17 Mar 2008 by Robert Seago
>> I would like to add:
>
>> > What we will see I think is increasing demand for organic from a
>> > proportion of the comfortably off.
>
>> Wouldn't the production have to be from those who are also
>> "comfortably off", unless they are totally commited to "Organic"?
>
> This year you can say that.
>
> Last year supposing the governnment had done what previous governments did
> to manufacturing and mining decades ago, in the name of the market, then I
> think that organic might have been an option for British farming.
>
Ironically , if the current generation were willing to spend the same
proportion of their income as their parents did on food, they could live
entirely on organic

Jim Webster

"Robert Seago" > wrote in message
...
> In article >, Jim Webster

> You guys on here are more tuned to this than me, but this is only one year
> on from a very different dynamic. If USA has a recession, and that
> bounces around hitting Chinese manufacturing, I can't see the Chinese
> handing out a lot of social welfare. Chinesen people could be drifting
> back to the countryside raising the odd pig again, and taking it to market
> on their bike.
>
it is one of the big imponderables, will the 'credit crunch' bring down the
Chinese,Indians etc, I don't think anyone knows.
However we also don't know how far our economy will crash and at what level
our personal spending will fall to.
For example it might be we cut down on more expensive local produced goods
and China actually sees no real drop

Jim Webster

"Jim Webster" > wrote in message ...
>
> "pearl" > wrote in message
> ...

> > 'In 1998 Clive Hibberd who farmed 200 acres at Oak farm got
> > out after 40 years. "I just cannot compete any more," he said.
> >
>
> well it is simple, people are not willing to pay the correct price for food,
> they want it cheap so they can afford computers, broadband, strange imported
> foodstuffs, and to that has to be added over expensive mortgages

'Consumers?

The lower prices being paid to farmers for their produce have not
translated into lower prices for consumers. Instead the gains have mostly
been absorbed by the food corporations involved in processing and
marketing food, partly to cover their overheads - processing, packaging,
transport and advertising - but also helping to increase corporate profits
(see 'Are these low prices being passed on to consumers?' on page 9).
Sophia Murphy of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy says,
'it's not that consumers cannot benefit from trade liberalisation, but in
practice they have not.'[111]
....'
http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2627

> However matters are changing, in the UK food prices are going up because the
> power of the major retailers to control prices has been damaged by the fact
> that the rest of the world is growing wealthier and they can now afford food
> they could previously only aspire to.

'The nutrition transition has a political history framed by class, cultural
and imperial relationships. Animal protein consumption signals rising
affluence and emulation of Western diets, both of which are not so
much inevitable as the historical product of Western developmentalism
(see McMichael, 2000). Ironically, the southern hemisphere is
condemned to repeat the trajectory of the modernising northern-
hemisphere diet, just as health conscious affluent northern-hemisphere
consumers are reappropriating southern-hemisphere diets. In a report
on the occasion of the World Bank's $93·5 million loan to China for
130 feedlots and five beef processing centres for its nascent beef
industry, in 1999, Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians' Committee
for Responsible Medicine, observed: 'While smart Americans recognize
the need to "Easternize" their own diets with rice, soy products and
more vegetarian options, World Bank bureaucrats decided to promote a
Westernization of China's diet. Instead of supporting the use of grain as
a cholesterol-free dietary staple for people, the grain will be fed to cattle
to produce meat. Of course the World Bank's efforts to promote cattle
farming in China are concerned less with good health than with
economic investment. No doubt some cattle ranchers will profit as they
edge out vegetable and rice acreage. But why is the World Bank, so
roundly criticized for years over its self-defeating economic development
schemes, falling into the same old trap?'
....'
http://tinyurl.com/23ad7c [Adobe Reader]

> The people who are going to be hit
> worst are the urban poor, especially in the third world. In many producing
> countries this is going to be a force encouraging people to get out of the
> cities once more. No longer do they have to prostitute their agriculture
> growing sugar snap peas to be flown to Europe, they can actually grow
> ordinary agricultural commodity crops such as soya and maize which will
> leave them with a big enough profit to educate their children without
> leaving the villages, to have a decent quality of life in the countryside.

'The same forces that affect Britain are sweeping through rural areas
everywhere. The twin motors have been rapid globalisation, backed
by world trade rules which are opening every market to international
competition, and a system of subsidies that encourages intensification.

Steve Gorelick, a US farmer and co-founder of the International
Society for Ecology and Culture, said 235,000 farms and 60,000 rural
companies in the US were driven out of business in the 1980s. The
massive decline in farm income in Britain is matched in the US, where
incomes halved between 1996-99 and suicide, says Mr Gorelick, is the
commonest cause of death among farmers.

In Europe 200,000 farmers left agriculture in 1999. In India farmers are
unable to compete with cheap imports. Several hundred million Chinese
have left the countryside for the cities in 20 years of agricultural
modernisation.
...'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/fe....globalisation

> Not only that but the Chinese and others can then get the diet they want,
> and the sanctimonious westerners can preach at them as long as they like,
> they are going to eat more meat

08/06/2006 -
...
China's Meat Association will jointly organize a seminar in Beijing
next month with the World Meat Organization to discuss China's
meat development strategy and promotion of meat consumption.
...'
http://www.meatprocess.com/news/ng.a...288-china-meat

"Robert Seago" > wrote in message ...
> In article >,
> Elaine Jones > wrote:
> > Quoting from message >
> > posted on 17 Mar 2008 by Robert Seago
> > I would like to add:
>
> > > What we will see I think is increasing demand for organic from a
> > > proportion of the comfortably off.
>
> > Wouldn't the production have to be from those who are also
> > "comfortably off", unless they are totally commited to "Organic"?
>
> This year you can say that.
>
> Last year supposing the governnment had done what previous governments did
> to manufacturing and mining decades ago, in the name of the market, then I
> think that organic might have been an option for British farming.

From the U.S..

'Op-Ed Contributor
My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)

By JACK HEDIN
Published: March 1, 2008
Rushford, Minn.

IF you've stood in line at a farmers' market recently, you know that
the local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are
having a tough time keeping up with the demand.

But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and
vegetables not just at farmers' markets, but also in the produce aisle of
their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government
works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement
from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of
Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that
House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.

As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know
this because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand
have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department's
commodity farm program. As I've looked into the politics behind
those restrictions, I've come to understand that this is precisely the
outcome that the program's backers in California and Florida have in
mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets
started.

Last year, knowing that my own 100 acres wouldn't be enough to meet
demand, I rented 25 acres on two nearby corn farms. I plowed under
the alfalfa hay that was established there, and planted watermelons,
tomatoes and vegetables for natural-food stores and a community-
supported agriculture program.

All went well until early July. That's when the two landowners
discovered that there was a problem with the local office of the Farm
Service Administration, the Agriculture Department branch that runs
the commodity farm program, and it was going to be expensive to fix.

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually
grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops
(soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables.
Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on "corn base"
acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with
the commodity program.

I've discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits
and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for
the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit
crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible
for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and
vegetables - if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop,
or even nothing at all, there's no problem.)

In my case, that meant I paid my landlords $8,771 - for one season
alone! And this was in a year when the high price of grain meant that only
one of the government's three crop-support programs was in effect;
the total bill might be much worse in the future.

In addition, the bureaucratic entanglements that these two farmers faced
at the Farm Service office were substantial. The federal farm program is
making it next to impossible for farmers to rent land to me to grow fresh
organic vegetables.

Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California,
Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself.
Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states,
they have been able to virtually monopolize the country's fresh produce
markets.

That's unfortunate, because small producers will have to expand on a
significant scale across the nation if local foods are to continue to enter
the mainstream as the public demands. My problems are just the tip of
the iceberg.

Last year, Midwestern lawmakers proposed an amendment to the farm
bill that would provide some farmers, though only those who supply
processors, with some relief from the penalties that I've faced - for
example, a soybean farmer who wanted to grow tomatoes would give
up his usual subsidy on those acres but suffer none of the other
penalties. However, the Congressional delegations from the big produce
states made the death of what is known as Farm Flex their highest farm
bill priority, and so it appears to be going nowhere, except perhaps as
a tiny pilot program.

Who pays the price for this senselessness? Certainly I do, as a
Midwestern vegetable farmer. But anyone trying to do what I do on,
say, wheat acreage in the Dakotas, or rice acreage in Arkansas would
face the same penalties. Local and regional fruit and vegetable
production will languish anywhere that the commodity program has
influence.

Ultimately of course, it is the consumer who will pay the greatest price
for this - whether it is in the form of higher prices I will have to charge
to absorb the government's fines, or in the form of less access to the
kind of fresh, local produce that the country is crying out for.

Farmers need the choice of what to plant on their farms, and consumers
need more farms like mine producing high-quality fresh fruits and
vegetables to meet increasing demand from local markets - without the
federal government actively discouraging them.

Jack Hedin is a farmer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/op...in&oref=slogin

On 18 Mar, 17:14, Oz > wrote:
> Buxqi > writes
>
> >That is a fair comment. As soon as OZ pointed out the consequence it became
> >obvious to me and unlike me, our legislators and their advisors are paid
> >good money to do their job and really ought to be aware of such
> >consequences.
>
> >That said, is it actually likely there would *be more trees, hedgerows and
> >permanent pastures today without the legislations mentioned?
>
> Regrettably that is almost certainly so. The hedgerow destruction was
> pretty well over by 1980. In fact IMHO (based on rather a lot of comment
> from non-farmers) most of the opening up of the countryside views
> assigned to hedgerow removal was in fact due to dutch elm disease. By
> 1980 most of the trees had gone and suddenly you could see across
> valleys etc.
>
> I regret I also said the same thing on several occasions outside my area
> returning to placed I had known well in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Only
> reflection (and the fact that you can see removed hedgelines for
> decades) made me realise that it was the hedgerow trees (almost all
> elms) that had gone rather than the hedges.
>
> By late 1980's, after about 10 years lamenting the loss of hedges in the
> farming press, farmers were starting to replant hedges in considerable
> number (for a time there was a grant for this) and even re-lay existing
> old hedges. That came to an abrupt stop. Tree planting also went the
> same way once people realised that once planted it was there forever
> (particularly hazardous in urban/village gardens).
>
> There was definitely a spate of ploughing up permanent pasture but in my
> case the cows had to go because of NVZ regulation combined with our farm
> being in a village, and the grass with them. Its probably as much to do
> with the reduction (or potential reduction) of dairy herds than anything
> else.

If you were in responsible for government policy and you wanted to
increase the number of trees, hedgerows and areas of permanent
pasture how would you go about it?
>
> --
> Oz
> This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.

"pearl" > wrote in message
...
> "Robert Seago" > wrote in message
> ...
>> In article >,
>> Elaine Jones > wrote:
>> > Quoting from message >
>> > posted on 17 Mar 2008 by Robert Seago
>> > I would like to add:
>>
>> > > What we will see I think is increasing demand for organic from a
>> > > proportion of the comfortably off.
>>
>> > Wouldn't the production have to be from those who are also
>> > "comfortably off", unless they are totally commited to "Organic"?
>>
>> This year you can say that.
>>
>> Last year supposing the governnment had done what previous governments
>> did
>> to manufacturing and mining decades ago, in the name of the market, then
>> I
>> think that organic might have been an option for British farming.
>
> From the U.S..

so not actually relevent to my comments on British farming then

Jim Webster

"pearl" > wrote in message
...
> "Jim Webster" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "pearl" > wrote in message
>> ...
>
>> > 'In 1998 Clive Hibberd who farmed 200 acres at Oak farm got
>> > out after 40 years. "I just cannot compete any more," he said.
>> >
>>
>> well it is simple, people are not willing to pay the correct price for
>> food,
>> they want it cheap so they can afford computers, broadband, strange
>> imported
>> foodstuffs, and to that has to be added over expensive mortgages
>
> 'Consumers?
>
> The lower prices being paid to farmers for their produce have not
> translated into lower prices for consumers.

except that the proportion of their income spent on food is less than it has
been, certainly a family can live on organic now and spend a smaller
proportion of their income on food than their parents would with purchasing
conventional

Jim Webster

Buxqi > writes

>If you were in responsible for government policy and you wanted to increase
>the number of trees, hedgerows and areas of permanent pasture how would you
>go about it?

Carefully. I really wouldn't want the whole of the UK to look the same.
I think the wide horizons of east anglia are a pretty as the tiny
private fields of cornwall, and I love the bare moors, and the deep
forest of the new forest.

Unfortunately the creeping enforcement habit has made everyone very
suspicious, so many (including me) would tend to err on the side of
caution. Once you have been shafted once, you tend to be wary.

I can tell you how it used to be done. The government would hand out
grants for various works. They were pretty frugal, to be honest, but
pointed people in the required direction by effectively saying "we value
these things".

So, what to do with that awkward field corner? Ans: get a modest grant
and whang in a few trees.

What to do with that steep bank/wet field/stony field/whatever difficult
field? Ans: whang it into low input grassland with a reseeding grant and
run a few sheep/horses/shooting/whatever on it.

Of course this is harder to do today. Firstly the EC has quite a say and
secondly regulations abound, particularly as regards animals. If youy
want a few sheep to graze a small patch (sat 20-150ac) then you are
likely to find someone who will charge or at best graze for free.

So, not very many answers, but for sure persuasion does work after a
while. Hence the urge to replant hedges and plant trees. Heck I'd LIKE
to plant a few trees if I could be sure I wasn't condemning the next
several generations, and much the same for hedges.

For your entertainment the following was posted a few years ago by

================

Edward >

I think I have mentioned this befo The paper recycling plant in
Wrexham Maelor is putting in a combined heat and power system burning
baled forestry brash. The reason that they are taking this
comparatively high cost route is that it enables them to dispose of the
stripped out ink in the most economical way possible by burning it with
the brash.

I believe the power station in Northampton that burns slaughterhouse
blood is also biomass fired.

If you have the opportunity to read the article in the latest Quarterly
Journal of Forestry about forest waste, you would wonder how anyone can
get themselves in such a Gordian knot over something so simple as
burning wood. Environmental Protection Act 1990, Waste Management
Licensing Regulations 1994, European Waste Catalogue Code, Waste
Carriers License, Waste Transfer Note, Clean Air Act 1993, Pollution
Prevention and Control Regulations 2000, Waste Incineration Directive.
Can someone remind me, how long have humans been burning wood?
--
Edward..
==========================

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.

In message
>,
Buxqi > writes
>On 18 Mar, 17:14, Oz > wrote:
>> Buxqi > writes
>>
>> There was definitely a spate of ploughing up permanent pasture but in my
>> case the cows had to go because of NVZ regulation combined with our farm
>> being in a village, and the grass with them. Its probably as much to do
>> with the reduction (or potential reduction) of dairy herds than anything
>> else.
>
>If you were in responsible for government policy and you wanted to
>increase the number of trees, hedgerows and areas of permanent
>pasture how would you go about it?

Stop listening to the RSPB over annual flail hedge trimming. Stop the
Forestry Commission interfering with tree felling outside woodland
areas.

Include isolated berried bushes in Entry Level Scheme points. Agree a
cross party policy on Badger control. Be patient: with the average age
of farmers approaching 60 and few new entrants, grassland may be all we
can manage:-)

regards

--
Tim Lamb

In article >,
Tim Lamb > wrote:


> Stop the
> Forestry Commission interfering with tree felling outside woodland
> areas.

I'm sure the answer will be yes, but have any of you actually had
problems? In all honesty I have never experienced any unreasonable
interference from the forestry comission concerning felling.

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:38:56 +0000 (GMT), Robert Seago
> wrote:

>In article >,
> Tim Lamb > wrote:
>
>
>> Stop the
>> Forestry Commission interfering with tree felling outside woodland
>> areas.
>
>I'm sure the answer will be yes, but have any of you actually had
>problems? In all honesty I have never experienced any unreasonable
>interference from the forestry comission concerning felling.

But then in your self imposed isolation I doubt you would have!

Old Codger wrote:

No I didn't. Pete the troll is playing with headers again.

> But then in your self imposed isolation I doubt you would have!

As Pete never reads what he posts and desires only to provoke
argument it is safest to assume that anything he espouses is
at least unsafe and probably malicious.


--
Old Codger
e-mail use reply to field

What matters in politics is not what happens, but what you can make
people believe has happened. [Janet Daley 27/8/2003]

In message >, Robert Seago
> writes
>In article >,
> Tim Lamb > wrote:
>
>
>> Stop the
>> Forestry Commission interfering with tree felling outside woodland
>> areas.
>
>I'm sure the answer will be yes, but have any of you actually had
>problems? In all honesty I have never experienced any unreasonable
>interference from the forestry comission concerning felling.

5 cubic metres is less than one mature Oak here. I do not need the
hassle of asking permission to fell and being required to replant under
compulsion.

I have planted trees because I enjoy doing so. They will not be
harvested in my lifetime. There is a perception that a sapling belongs
to the person who caused the planting. However, at 100mm that sapling
undergoes a transition and falls under the control of others who had no
interest or input for the previous 20 or so years.

regards
>

--
Tim Lamb

In article >,
Tim Lamb > wrote:


> 5 cubic metres is less than one mature Oak here. I do not need the
> hassle of asking permission to fell and being required to replant under
> compulsion.
I have not experienced hassle, nor have had to replant anything.

I have enjoyed planting one or two tres as well.