Ag-gag bills face defeat while NY and Iowa push them

By Tom Laskawy
Grist

Big Ag is having trouble installing its Iron Curtain. I am referring, of course, to the various “ag-gag” laws proposed in Florida, Minnesota, and Iowa that would make it illegal to produce (and, in some cases, possess) undercover videos from within factory livestock farms. The latest state legislature to pursue this dubious goal is New York’s– but the fate of ag-gaggery in other states makes success in the Empire State seem unlikely.

Florida’s bill died a few weeks ago when legislators withdrew the bill from consideration as the legislative session ended.

June 2 protest planned for USDA $90K rabbit fine

The USDA's attack on Judy and John Dollarhite of Nixa, Mo. sparks protest against government intrusion "into every aspect of our lives."

By Rady Ananda

A Missouri group has vowed to continue protesting the USDA’s outrageous $90,000 fine on Missouri rabbit breeders engaged strictly in intrastate commerce. Their “crime” was selling without a license over $500 worth of rabbits in a single year to a reseller, which invoked federal statute, according to the April 19 USDA letter and attachment.

Wearechange Branson has set the next rally for Thursday, June 2 from 4:30–6 pm at Congress Member Billy Long’s Springfield office, 3232 E. Ridgeview Street. They rallied last Wednesday in front of a USDA Service Center in Ozark.

How to humanely butcher a chicken (Video)

By Alabama Russ

Russ gives a step by step demonstration of how to most humanely kill (Old Testament), how to pluck by hand or use a plucker and how to properly gut a chicken in Part 1. In Part 2, Julie shows how to cut up a chicken.

Dairy Farmers fight radiation with Boron

By Britton & Shekinah
Hawaii Health Guide
May 10, 2011

An open letter from organic dairy farmers in Hawaii shows how to reduce radiation in milk and veggies.

“Boron is widely recognized as extremely safe and can be used to capture radioactivity on our soils, gardens, orchards, etc. It also can be safely ingested by humans and animals. Boron will accept radiation and ionize it within our bodies, after which our bodies will safely excrement the boron and radioactivity.”

Dear Milk Share Members,

Our goal to offer high quality safe food to our community has recently been challenged in the reality of the radioactivity being released into our environment. In the past weeks radioactive levels have increased in Hawaii, with high spikes and a more current leveling off of radiation levels. Milk from the large dairies in Hamakua and Hawi has shown elevated levels of radiation, from 400 to 2400 times the recognized safe levels.

MILK vs. milk

Controversy surrounding a Minnesota farmer’s raw milk trade has brought the “real milk” debate close to home.

By Greg Breining
Photos by Steve Henke
Mpls. St.Paul Magazine

More than 10 years ago, Rae Lynn Sandvig began a “journey” to remedy fatigue, weakness, and foggy thinking—owing, by her own diagnosis, to toxins in her body. “I can tell you what my conjecturing is, but it’s not fact,” she acknowledges. But if her evidence was thin, her desperation was manifest. “There was a point where I, as a mother, was unable to maintain all the activities I needed to in order to keep my family running.”

Her search resulted in a bountiful harvest. “My journey has led me to eat whole foods. Foods that are dense, that are not processed, that still contain probiotic bacteria, enzymes, and good fats. I’m going to put it this way, because this is who I am: I want to eat foods that are as close to foods as God intended them to be made.”

High Density Vertical Growth Systems

A couple different systems are featured here – one for large commercial operations and one for the balcony.

Valcent Products makes the commercial system, noting that “80% of our farmland is in use, 15% of it is damaged due to poor agricultural practices, solution grow upwards, indoors! The High Density Vertical Growth (HDVG) system grows plants in closely spaced pockets on clear, vertical panels that are moving on an overhead conveyor system. The system is designed to provide maximum sunlight and precisely correct nutrients to each plant. Vertical growing enables communities to efficiently grow organic foods locally.”

7 Secret Ways We Are Being Poisoned

Activist Post
Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:31 CDT

The objectivism of the scientific method seems to have been hijacked by corporations who often pay for scientists to support their products, as well as politicians who move through the revolving door between the private and public sector. Even worse is that sometimes the consumer protection agencies themselves are complicit.

The trust placed by consumers in scientific studies and Federal oversight committees has been violated in service to profit so that products are allowed to enter the marketplace with reduced safety standards. The synthetic chemicals we encounter on a daily basis in our food, water, and environment are increasingly shown to be disastrous to our physical and mental well-being. Volumes can be written – indeed have been written – by experts in both mainstream and alternative medicine who have documented the sleight of hand used to hoodwink consumers and threaten our health. The categories below are worth deeper investigation as prime examples of what we might face as a species if this chemical bombardment continues.

Belgian protesters destroy GM field trial

Info Collected by GMWatch

Protesters have destroyed a controversial GM field trial in Belgium.

In Wetteren, a municipality in the Belgian province of East Flanders, activists succeeded in damaging the GM potatoes being trialled for blight resistance, despite a large contingent of police officers who had been ordered to guard the GM trial. The officers were unable to stop the 300-400 or more peaceful protesters of all ages, who included local people.

During the protest organised by the Belgian Field Liberation Movement (FLM) –  an informal collective consisting of farmers, scientists, consumers, and environmental activists, protesters climbed over a high fence and pulled up GM potato plants. The trial was also allegedly sprayed with herbicide. Some 40 people were arrested.

Investigators Wanted to Document Chemtrails

By Rady Ananda

One of the producers of What in the World Are They Spraying is organizing a systematic method of documenting aerial applications of toxic materials, calling for 50-100 volunteers to collect specific info and record it on a prepared template over the next month.

“We must take the initiative and obtain new data and information that will be impossible to dispute.” ~ G. Edward Griffin

Family Farmers Worse off Despite High Prices

By The Real News Network

TRNN interviews Timothy A. Wise, Research Director of the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, and leads its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program.

Since late 2006, crop prices have risen dramatically, reversing a decades-long trend that saw persistent declines in agricultural commodities prices. But are small-to-mid-scale family farmers really benefiting from the boom? No, according to the latest of three studies by Timothy A. Wise, who has looked behind the glowing headlines on the farm sector as a whole to examine how family farmers have fared in this high-price environment.

Group to sue over EU’s herbal medicine ban; POM Wonderful battles FTC

9 June 2011 UPDATE: Within two weeks of the herbal ban, a lethal bacterium began killing people in Germany, and has spread across Europe. New info indicates the germ is bioengineered with Bubonic Plague DNA. ~Ed.

By Mike Stones
NutraIngredient

A legal challenge to new EU legislation, implemented on May 1, which could ban thousands of traditional herbal medicines is “imminent,” a spokesperson for the UK-based Alliance for Natural Health told NutraIngredients.

Short shelf life: EU legislation could ban traditional Chinese medicines such as those made from gingko biloba.

After donations of about £100,000 (~$162,000), the alliance is making final preparations to its legal case for a judicial review of the EU’s Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Au Naturale: Arthropesticides (Video)

By Surender Dalal

This three-minute video should convince anyone that unnatural chemical pesticides ruin the balance of life, when natural solutions are innumerable. ~Ed.

Radiation & Chemtrail Assault: Additional Support for Your Immune System (Part 2)

[Morgellons fibers grow in wine culture. Carnicom.com]

By Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri
Conscious Life News

“It is clear that dilution is not the solution to pollution. Dumping radioactive contaminated materials into bodies of water has a boomerang effect. It is not long before the ionizing radiation is washing back up on riverbanks and shorelines.” – Geoscientist Leuren Moret, 2008 

[Part 1 is here: http://aircrap.org/radiation-support-immune-system/33118]

We have a long-term planetary-wide epic tragedy unfolding. It is the most serious man-made catastrophe that we have faced in our human history. We are all being assaulted on several fronts with a three-pronged attack: (1) a decades-long hazardous brew of daily Chemtrails battering that is affecting our entire biosphere; (2) long-term and very dangerous ionizing radiation exposure, with Fukushima as a new and critically toxic addition; and (3) the release of nano-bioweapons into our environment (more on that below).

Family faces $4 million in USDA fines for selling bunnies

By Bob McCarty
Big Government

Almost nine months after a Missouri dairy was ordered to stop selling cheese made from raw milk, I share details of another hare-raising story from the Show-Me State: John Dollarhite and his wife Judy of tiny Nixa, Mo., have been told by the USDA that, by Monday, they must pay a fine exceeding $90,000. If they don’t pay that fine, they could face additional fines of almost $4 million. Why? Because they sold more than $500 worth of bunnies — $4,600 worth to be exact — in a single calendar year.

Genetically Modified Salmon: Everything You Need to Know

Paul Greenberg
Good Magazine, October 5 2010

Taking inspiration from the dozens of faux Q&As sent to me throughout the year by the PR departments of the corporate food world, I thought I would produce my own Q&A about corporate food’s most recent contribution – the AquaBounty AquAdvantage salmon.

Q: AquaBounty calls the AquAdvantage an “advanced hybrid” fish and the company’s president Ronald Stotish said recently on CNN that there is not “any material difference between the AquaBounty salmon and an Atlantic salmon.” Is this fish an Atlantic salmon? And is it a hybrid or a genetically modified animal?

A: The AquAdvantage salmon is an Atlantic salmon with a Chinook salmon growth gene inserted into its DNA. In addition, a regulator protein from a fish called an ocean pout has been added to the Chinook growth gene turning the gene permanently in the “on” position.  It is a genetically modified animal.

Codex poised to adopt GM labeling guidelines

By Non GMO Project

By the close of its 39th session, the United Nations’ Codex Alimentarius Commission was poised to adopt Labeling Guidelines for GMO foods that will provide some protection from the World Trade Organization for national-scale GMO-labeling programs around the world.  The Non-GMO Project sponsored activist Phil Bereano’s participation in this session, and in so doing helped to ensure that the voices of the activist and NGO communities would be heard, in an industry-dominated debate.

(From SourceWatch: Philip Bereano, JD, is Professor of Technology and Public Policy at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. He is on the roster of experts for the Cartagena Protocol, co-founder of the Council for Responsible Genetics, and currently represents the Washington Biotechnology Action Council and the 49th Parallel Biotechnology Consortium at international meetings.)

Find below Dr. Bereano’s report on the outcome of the session, with links to the relevant Codex Alimentarius documents:

The Doomsday Food Price Scenario Turns Hedgies into Survivalists

By Foster Kamer
The New York Observer

On the rare occasion that New Yorkers talk about farming, it’s usually something along the lines of what sort of organic kale to plant in the vanity garden at the second house in the Adirondacks. But on a recent afternoon, The Observer had a conversation of a different sort about agricultural pursuits with a hedge fund manager he’d met at one of the many dark-paneled private clubs in midtown a few weeks prior. “A friend of mine is actually the largest owner of agricultural land in Uruguay,” said the hedge fund manager. “He’s a year older than I am. We’re somewhere [around] the 15th-largest farmers in America right now.”

“We,” as in, his hedge fund.

It may seem a little odd that in 2011 anyone’s thinking of putting money into assets that would have seemed attractive in 1911, but there’s something in the air-namely, fear. The hedge fund manager and others like him envision a doomsday scenario catalyzed by a weak dollar, higher-than-you-think inflation and an uncertain political climate here and abroad.

The White Wave: Food Chain Radio hosts David Gumpert

By MetroFarm

Saturday 9:00-10:00 AM PDT
Guest: David Gumpert, author of Raw Milk Revolution
Listen Live

Once again the forces of Prohibition are on the move. This time the Food and Drug Administration arrested Amish farmer Dan Allgyer for selling fresh, whole milk to consumers across the line in Washington, D.C.

Book Excerpt: Holy Shit, Managing Manure to Save Mankind

By Gene Logsdon
From Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind

I half-jokingly suggested about a year ago that animal manure—used livestock, horse, and chicken bedding—was going to be the hottest commodity on the Chicago Board of Trade one of these days. Shortly after that I got a call from a close acquaintance who manages an awesome business of growing 8,000 acres of corn and soybeans—which he knows I consider insane. He wanted to tell me something I never expected to hear from him: he was thinking of going into the feedlot beef business. I reminded him that this is rarely profitable in Ohio except as a tax shelter, but he said he didn’t care if it only broke even. It was the manure that he was after, for fertilizer. And he had not read what I had been writing in that regard. Holy shit. I almost dropped the phone. Most of the farmers in my neck of the cornfields agree with what one of them told me over a martini one day: “The only shit that is going to drop on this farm is mine and my wife’s.” He much preferred fertilizing with anhydrous ammonia (one whiff of which could kill him and his wife).

Are Food Prices Too High or Not High Enough?

By Gene Logsdon
The Contrary Farmer

“I have a hunch this [NPR] report was inspired by a news release out of the ivy halls of agrimonsantaclaus.”

These days I doubt there is a correct answer to any of our social problems. We can only choose to act on which wrong answers do the least harm. Recently I listened to a news report on the rise in global food prices that didn’t quite add up to me. The foregone conclusion was that climate change in the form of too much rain was causing food shortages and rising food prices around the world. No attempt was made to give evidence that climate change was the cause; it was simply presumed to be the case. The report focused on what farmers were doing to cope.

I can’t speak to the rice problem because I’ve never grown any, although I do know that much of the crop spends quite a bit of its growing season standing in water so maybe heavier than usual rain could be helpful. If we could get our corn and wheat to grow in standing water, we would be way ahead of the game right now.