Chemtrail article in Project Censored’s Top 10 most censored stories

By Rady Ananda

For the past 35 years, Project Censored has published an annual collection of the top 25 censored news stories. In the 2012 book edition, just released this September, my article, Atmospheric Geoengineering: Weather Manipulation, Contrails and Chemtrails, ranks as the 9th most censored story in the United States.

Originally published at the Centre for Research on Globalization in July 2010, an updated version at COTO Report has seen over 15,000 page views as of this writing.  The article is widely posted across the world in several English and non-English speaking countries, giving it far broader readership than we’ll ever know, but likely over a million.

USDA gives AquaBounty half million dollars to study its own GE salmon

Feds help GMO salmon swim upstream

Photo: Isaac Wedin

By Clare Leschin-Hoar
Grist

AquaBounty Technology’s genetically modified salmon just got a hefty financial boost from the USDA: On Monday, the agency awarded the Massachusetts-based company $494,000 to study technologies that would render the genetically tweaked fish sterile. This would reduce the likelihood they could reproduce with wild salmon, should any escape into the wild — a scenario that has many environmentalists concerned.

Ontario convicts Michael Schmidt of over a dozen crimes for selling real milk

The Ontario Court of Justice rules against raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt, seen here holding up a glass of his milk prior to Wednesday’s ruling.

Oct. 10 Update: Michael Schmidt on Hunger Strike for Responsible Food Freedom

By Tracey Tyler
Toronto Star

DURHAM, ONT.—Lola and the girls ambled close to the barn Wednesday, a bit prematurely. Their keeper, Michael Schmidt, has always vowed to fight until the cows come home for the right to get raw milk into his customers’ hands.

But it looks like his battle will take longer than he expected.

At his farm in Grey County, a few kilometres outside town, Schmidt had a call late Wednesday afternoon from one of his lawyers, informing him he’d been convicted of more than a dozen provincial offences relating to the sale of unpasteurized milk and could potentially face hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

Meghalaya’s Bio-Bridges: Sustainable, resilient architecture

By Rady Ananda

Known as the wettest place on Earth, the eastern area of Meghalaya (a state in Northern India) sees 50 feet (over 15 m) of rain each year, flooding all the rivers. Steep vertical canyons mark the land, some over 3,500 feet deep.  For the past 500 years, this matriculture has dealt with monsoons by building natural bridges immune to rot and white ant infestation.

The Khasis guide roots and vines from the native rubber tree (Ficus elastica) across streams, using hollowed out betel nut trees to guide the roots. When the roots reach the opposite bank they are allowed to take root. Taking 10-15 years to complete (and sometimes much longer), these bio-bridges can last for centuries.

Bemidji food co-op adds kitchen to boost local food producers

By Jennifer Vogel
Minnesota Public Radio

Lisa Weiskopf restocks the locally grown onions that the Harmony Co-op in Bemidji, Minn. carries. (MPR Photo/Jon Heller) View full slideshow (3 total images)

Bemidji, Minn. — The kitchen at the back of the new and expanded Harmony Co-op is unfinished, with exposed wiring and the smell of fresh drywall. But soon it will sport industrial refrigerators and double convection ovens and the air will smell of chocolate tortes.

Cheryl Larson Krystosek, a baker and organic farmer, considered making pies at the new kitchen when it opens next April, but says, “It’s the chocolate hazelnut torte that everyone in town is addicted to.” She hopes to be one of the incubator facility’s first renters, once it’s fully outfitted and attains FDA approval.

How international food policies shape our food system at home and abroad

Nourish Life interviews Raj Patel

What is “food sovereignty”? How does it relate to “food security”?

What does it mean to be free from hunger? Food security is the idea that governments use to talk about citizens not being hungry, and it means that you have access to enough food to live healthily. Sounds like a good definition, except for when you realize that it’s possible to be food secure, say, in prison. You’ve got access, after all, so you’re not going hungry. But food security never talks about power in the food system—just your access to food. Food sovereignty is like food security, except that under food sovereignty, communities actually get to shape their own food policy and shape the terms under which everyone gets to eat.

Vandana Shiva wins Calgary Peace Prize

Interview by Raz Rydstrom-Paulsen

Physicist, human rights activist, ardent opponent of patents on life, and author Vandana Shiva was in Calgary on September 24 to receive the 2011 Calgary Peace Prize.

Raz Rydstrom-Paulsen sat down with Shiva at the River Café for a one-on-one interview to discuss global food production, food sovereignty, economics and democracy.

Beeks thrive after NYC decriminalizes beehives

The bee’s knees: DIY honey craze sweeps New York

By Emily Anne Vaughn
Grist

This fall marks the first full year of legal honey harvesting in New York City — and oh how sweet it is. [Image]

In March of last year, the New York City Board of Health and Mental Hygiene took Apis mellifera, the common honeybee, off their list of insects and animals considered too dangerous for city life. As a result, beekeepers registered a record number of hives with the board in 2011. So many, in fact, that local suppliers were unable to meet the unprecedented demand for starter colonies.

Site C Dam: The Folly of Choosing Energy Over Food Security

Peterson Farm wheat harvest – 1990s (courtesy of Lynda & Larry Peterson)

By Damien Gillis
Common Sense Canadian

I recently returned from a trip up to Peace River Country in Northeast BC, filming for a forthcoming short documentary on the Campbell/Clark Government’s proposed Site C Dam.

While I wasn’t raised in the region, I have a personal connection to the land and its history. I spent many summers and winter holidays there as a child visiting relatives. My family were early settlers in the Valley, circa 1910, and most of them still reside in the area. Some fifty years ago we lost our farm – Goldbar Ranch, West of Hudson’s Hope – to the province’s first big hydroelectric project, WAC Bennett Dam.

The Idiocy of the October AIDS and Cancer Walks

By Andrew Davis

It’s October and the time for unbelievably naive “Walks” for … cures?  Who are we kidding?

There has been an almost complete cure for AIDS for years.  It requires only IV vitamin C.  This past Christmas as a gift to pharma, FDA issued a Warning Letter to McGuff Pharmaceuticals claiming that certain injectable Vitamin C products were unapproved new drugs.

Walks for cancer cures?  Again, who are we kidding?

The pharmaceutical industry in concert with the NIH and FDA has done everything short of execution to stop doctors and scientists who are coming up with actual cures.  Perhaps people need to be reminded what became apparent to Burzynski: Cancer is a serious business. Perhaps they need to be told that the government only recognizes three treatments for cancer – Cut, Poison, Burn.

Security Culture for Activists in a Panoptic Police State

Special Report

Governments have targeted groups that have advocated sabotage and groups that have not, movements that have been militant and movements that have been markedly pacifist. They have targeted peace groups, native resistance, environmental and animal rights movements, anti-poverty, anti-globalization, anti-police brutality, anti-racist, anarchist, patriot and communist groups, to name a few.

By adopting a security culture, activists can defeat various counterintelligence operations that would otherwise disrupt both mainstream organizing and underground resistance. It is important that as a movement, we learn to practice security at all points in the movement’s development. Remember that the State is interested in knowing about activists’ beliefs, not just in “hard evidence”. Learn and practice security to protect yourself and your people.

Below is a filmed discussion of Security Culture by Aric McBay, co-author of Deep Green Resistance (review here).  Following that is a reproduction of Security Culture: A Handbook for Activists (3d ed. 2001).

How the West Has Won: Derrick Jensen on Peak Moment TV

By Janaia Donaldson
Peak Moment TV

“Is the world a better place because you were born?” asks author Derrick Jensen. He contrasts sustainable indigenous cultures who enrich their habitat with the current “dominant culture destroying everything.” He explores how industrial civilization is inherently violent, turning people into objects and the earth into stuff.

The Right to Choose What We Eat

By Sylvia Fagin
The Bridge
Montpelier, VT

Does an individual really have the right to eat whatever he or she wants to eat? This is the fundamental question behind Rural Vermont’s food sovereignty campaign.

Rural Vermont, the statewide group dedicated to advancing economic justice for Vermont farmers through advocacy and education, is ramping up a campaign to encourage towns and villages to consider the issue of food sovereignty at their 2012 town meetings, according to Robb Kidd, an organizer with the group.

Sovereignty means supreme authority. Considering the issue of food sovereignty, Rural Vermont takes this position:

“We declare the right of communities to produce, process, sell and purchase local foods. In recognition of Vermont’s traditional agricultural systems, we assert these vital principles as the foundation of local Food Sovereignty.”

How Are Genetically Engineered Crops Affecting Foods?

By Rose Aguilar
Your Call (Audio Interview)

If you shop in major grocery stores, chances are you’re eating genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. An estimated 70 percent of processed foods, including soup and corn chips, contain genetically engineered ingredients, and over 90 percent of the world’s GMOs are owned by the biotech goliath Monsanto.

Guests: Eric Holt-Gimenez, executive director of Food First and author of Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice; Ignacio Chapela, associate professor of microbial ecology at UC Berkeley; Mike Ludwig, Truthout reporter who covers the biotech industry; Jim Gerritsen, organic seed farmer in northern Maine and one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Monsanto.

GMO cultivation drops in EU, except in Spain and Portugal

By Christophe Noisette
Inf’OGM

In the European Union, only eight countries (out of 27) commercially grow GMOs.  Cultivations, however, decreased steadily since 2009, except in Spain and Portugal this year, where there is a slight increase. A brief overview of the different official data is collected below.

Remote Control Round Up (video)

Uploaded by HUMMER09876

USDA Pushes Animal ID Again

By WORC

The Dept of Agriculture has proposed costly regulations to force ranchers, related business, and livestock agencies to tag and track animals that cross state lines.

USDA’s animal traceability rule is a solution in search of a problem. USDA says the rule is to protect animal health. But, the rules don’t identify any specific problems or diseases of concern.

These regulations will harm rural businesses, waste taxpayer dollars, and do little to deal with animal disease, food security, and food safety.

Send your comments before the Nov. 9 deadline to make sure USDA’s final rule works for farmers and ranchers, and is paid for by the meatpackers that will benefit most.

Santa Cruz adopts food freedom resolution supporting private herd shares

Mali McGee, at her ranch in Bonny Doon (KEVIN JOHNSON/SENTINEL)

[Image]

By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom

On Sept. 13, California’s Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a “Resolution Recognizing the Rights of Individuals to Grow and Consume Their Own Food and to Enter into Private Contracts with Other Individuals to Board Animals for Food.”  [pdf]

Though only symbolic, the Resolution memorializes public assertion of the right to grow and eat food of their own choosing, and to collectively share in private herds, free from government interference.

This was done in response to armed raids on private food clubs and herd shares, as well as “cease and desist” letters sent by the state’s Dept. of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to small farmers and herd share owners.

Food Chain Radio: Is variety no longer the spice of life?

By Metrofarm

Where once we had hundreds of apple varieties from which to select and taste, we now have Red and Golden Delicious. This leads one to ask…

Is variety no longer the spice of life?

This Saturday at 9am Pacific, the Food Chain Radio show with Michael Olson hosts apple farmer Geri Prevedelli for a conversation about heritage apples and the tastes that were left behind. (Food Chain Radio #744)

Crippling Waters (video)

By Dr. David Kennedy and Betty Drury
Intro by Fluoride Alert

Warning: The images in this video are quite graphic, and may be disturbing to some viewers. Presented in its entirety, in this hard hitting documentary, producer and professional dentist, Dr. David Kennedy, travels to China with his wife Betty at the invitation of the Shenyang Medical School, and visits villages where skeletal and dental fluorosis have ravaged whole village populations.