Egypt Bans GMOs

By Becky Striepe
Egypt has been enforcing some stringent food quality standards, and now they’re talking about banning all imports and exports of genetically modified foods (GMOs).

[Cairo. Creative Commons photo by Andrew A. Shenouda]

Over the summer, Egyptian officials rejected several import shipments of wheat, saying they were unfit for human consumption. Since then, the parliament has been pushing for stricter food standards. It looks like they got their wish.

NAIS is a Nasty Word

By Darol Dickenson
August 20, 2009

FLASH!!!   Today THE BOVINE published my testimony from the first USDA listening session.  I was honored by their comments, the use of photos of our family from the www.texaslonghorn.com ranch site and I am impressed with their continued battle for the family farms of this once great republic.  A military of volunteers are working day and night to protect the remaining independent livestock producers.  Each of us owe a great debt to the freedom fighters who refuse to bend over and let the governments abuse them.  Join the battle during this remaining time we have to over-throw the USDA in this vicious attempt to destroy the food production system world wide.  Whether it be quasi fake food safety bills or the nasty NAIS, it will destroy registered cattle production, interstate transport and multiply the cost of all US raised foods. 

During the Recess, Meet with your Senators at the District Offices to Discuss Food Safety

By Pete Kennedy, FTCLDF

Last week, the House of Representatives passed HR 2749, the Food Safety Modernization Act, and the next step in the process will be the Senate.  Although it is not certain, the Senate will probably focus its food safety discussions on S. 510, sponsored by Senator Durbin of Illinois.  S. 510 is different from HR 2749, but it contains many of the same problems (more below).

Obamanomics: Here Come the Food Shortages

Image at Rolling Stones

By Scarecrow
News with Views

While all eyes are on Wall Street, watching for even the faintest signal that the economy will recover as promised by Barack Obama, no one is paying attention to what is happening on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Here’s a clue. It doesn’t matter what happens on Wall Street. The big players and the big money have abandoned stocks in favor of commodities.

US Working Group on the Food Crisis Criticizes Clinton/Vilsack Tour of Kenyan Pro-Biotech Institute

USAID-Monsanto-KARI Spent $6 Million on Failed GM Sweet Potato Project

By Food First

On the eve of an upcoming visit to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Representatives Donald Payne and Nita Lowey, the U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis challenged the Obama Administration’s plans to fund a new “Green Revolution” in Africa in tandem with the Gates Foundation.

Famine in America?

Legume varietes (Image at www.cintdis.org)

by MADGE

Erik Scott is a seed dealer and agronomist from South Dakota in the US. In this interview, he states that a famine in the US is quite likely for two reasons:

• Very narrow seed genetics
• Dependence on imported nitrogen fertilizer

Erik explains that farmers in his area used to grow a wide variety of crops, saved and developed their own seed varieties. Now the main crops are corn and soy, both of these are genetically modified.

Chicago Ready for Action on Green Food

cc farm4.static flickr

By Katie Bezrouch
 
Chicago is poised to be the first city in the nation to pass a resolution for a healthier, more sustainable food system. Last week Chicago’s Energy, Environmental Protection and Public Utilities Committee presented a proposal to the city council called the “green food resolution.” It is a nonbinding initiative that encourages the city to help make fresh, locally grown food available to Chicagoans.  

Global: People’s Food Sovereignty Forum in Rome Nov. 2009

By FoodSovereignty.org

We are now heading toward the 2009 World Food Summit that FAO will host 16-18 November. Promises by world leaders in the summits of 1996 and 2002 to halve hunger have led to nothing. We are therefore calling on small-scale food providers (peasants and smallscale farmers, fishers, pastoralists), agrifood workers, rural youth, women, Indigenous Peoples, urban poor and non-governmental organizations to participate in a further elaboration of the food sovereignty agenda and to determine a people’s way out of the continuing multiple crises.

The war against our children

By Ken McCartthy

(7-min. VIDEO) The statistics are undeniable. Americans are the least healthy people among the world’s developed nations (Japan, Australia, Germany, Canada, France, England etc.) In fact, there are even undeveloped nations that have healthier populations.

What’s going on? How can the richest country in the world also be the sickest?

Is it the so called “health care” system?

Think Your Food’s Organic? Think Again

CAFOs require heavy doses of antibiotics to keep the animals alive

By Jim Hightower

USDA allows factory farm cattle milk to be called organic. With the phenomenal growth in consumer demand for organic products, such giants as Kraft and Dean Foods have rushed to capture this multibillion-dollar market, except they don’t want to play by the rules. Big Food found its enabler in Barbara Robinson, who was chosen to administer the organic program during the George W. Bush years.

More Women Managing US Farms

Jeanne Dietz-Band raises more than 200 goats on her Many Rocks Farm in Keedysville, Maryland

By June Soh
Voice of America

Traditionally in the United States, women played important roles on the family farm helping their father or husband. But a recent Census shows the number of farms run by women is rising. Many of these women were drawn to farming from totally different careers. They now enjoy bringing healthy and flavorful foods to local markets.

GM Crop Failure Petition 2009

By African Centre for Biosafety

Three varieties of Monsanto’s genetically modified maize failed to produce crops during the 2008-09 growing season, leaving up to 200,000 hectares (~500,000 acres) of fields barren of cobs and crop losses across several provinces in South Africa.

Good Farming Was More Advanced a Hundred Years Ago

By Gene Logsdon

Working from the premise that we will eventually run out of plentiful supplies of manufactured fertilizers, I have been reading old farming books written before artificial fertilizers became easily available. I am amazed at the sophistication with which science approached the subject of soil fertility once it become evident in the mid-1800s that farmers were rapidly depleting the native richness of their soils and had to find ways to restore it using livestock manure and green manure crops. In some ways, what science advocated then was more advanced than farming practices are today.

Spycraft, Guts and Talent Expose The Cove

By Rady Ananda
Cross posted at Global Research (Canada) and Scoop (New Zealand).

From a high-tech, deep cover investigation emerges The Cove, a stunning documentary exposing the horrors of dolphin slaughter – for human consumption, despite extreme levels of mercury contamination. Dolphin activist Ric O’Barry and his crack team of world-class divers, ex-military, professional artisans and a former NatGeo photographer risk life, limb and freedom to film the action in a private cove in Taiji, Japan.