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Thank you for adding your voice to our petition to investigate and regulate factory farms and uphold global health safety standards.

With 200,000 signatures, the petition will be delivered to UN Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO in Geneva with a herd of cardboard pigs.

We will add a pig with every thousand signers. To make the message more powerful tell your friends and family by sending them the following link or the Email below:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic/97.php?cl_tta_sign=18da1f48ec99593ae525e9109a6bf032

Thanks again for your help,

Alice, Pascal, Graziela, Paul, Ben, Paula, Brett, Luis, Ricken, Iain, Margaret and the Avaaz team

------

Here's the full Email from Avaaz:

Dear friends,

No-one yet knows whether swine flu will become a global pandemic, but it is becoming clear where it came from – most likely a giant pig factory farm run by an American multinational corporation in Veracruz, Mexico.(1)

These factory farms are disgusting and dangerous, and they're rapidly multiplying. Thousands of pigs are brutally crammed into dirty warehouses and sprayed with a cocktail of drugs -- posing a health risk to more than just our food -- they and their manure lagoons create the perfect conditions to breed dangerous new viruses like swine flu. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) must investigate and develop regulations for these farms to protect global health.

Big agrobusiness will try to obstruct and scuttle any attempts at reform, so we need a massive outcry that health authorities can't ignore. Sign the petition below for investigation and regulation of factory farms and tell your friends and family and we will deliver it to the UN agencies. If we reach 200,000 signatures we will deliver it to the WHO in Geneva with a herd of cardboard pigs. For every 1000 petition signatures we will add a pig to the herd:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic/97.php?cl_tta_sign=18da1f48ec99593ae525e9109a6bf032

Last week the flu was all that we talked about -- Mexico has been nearly paralysed and across the world leaders halted air travel, banned pork imports and initiated drastic controls to mitigate the spreading virus. As the threat shows signs of subsiding the question becomes where it came from and how we stop another outbreak.

Smithfield Corporation, the largest pig producer in the world whose farm is being fingered as the source of the H1N1 outbreak, denies any connection between their pigs and the flu and big agrobusiness worldwide pays huge sums of money for research to argue that biosafety is ensured in industrial hog production. But the WHO has been saying for years that 'a new pandemic is inevitable'(2) and experts from the European Commission and the FAO have cautioned that the rapid move from small holdings to industrial pig production is in fact increasing the risk of development and transmission of disease epidemics. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn that scientists still do not know the extent that infectious compounds produced in factory farms affect human health.(3)

Studies abound of the horrific conditions endured by pigs in concentrated large-scale operations, and the devastating economic impact on small farmer communities of bloated large-scale operations.(4) Smithfield itself has already been fined $12.6m and is currently under another federal investigation in the US for toxic environmental damage from pig excrement lakes.(5)

But even with all of this damaging evidence, a combination of increased global meat consumption and a powerful industry motivated by profit at the cost of human health, means that instead of being shut down - these sickening factory farm operations are propagating around the world and we are subsidising them (6). In the wake of this swine flu threat, let's hold industrial pig producers to account. Sign the petition for investigation and regulation:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic/97.php?cl_tta_sign=18da1f48ec99593ae525e9109a6bf032

If we resolve this global health crisis boldly by reassessing our food consumption and production, and urgently calling for an inquiry into the impact of factory farms on human health, we could put in place tough farm practice rules that will save the global population from future animal borne lethal pandemics.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic/97.php?cl_tta_sign=18da1f48ec99593ae525e9109a6bf032

in hope,

Alice, Pascal, Graziela, Paul, Brett, Ben, Ricken, Iain, Paula, Luis, Raj, Margaret, Taren and the whole Avaaz team

(1) Biosurveillance report tracing the disease to the Smithfields farm: http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html
Reports on the link between the Mexican factory farm and the flu:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/for-la-gloria-the-stench-of-blame-is-from-pig-factories-1675809.html
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-fg-mexico-flu28-2009apr28,0,1701782.story
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=can-swine-flu-be-blamed-on-industri-09-05-01
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227063.800-swine-flu-the-predictable-pandemic.html?full=true
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/swine-flu-outbreak----nat_b_191408.html

(2) WHO pandemic information
http://www.euro.who.int/influenza/20080618_19

(3) FAO, EC and CDC reports on the risks of industrial farming on public health
FAO and CIWF and http://www.cdc.gov/cafos/about.htm

(4) CIWF and PETA video reports of the disgusting conditions for animals in factory farms and the disease ridden manure swamps:
CIWF and PETA

(5) Reports on Smithfield's animal welfare and environmental damage
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/for-la-gloria-the-stench-of-blame-is-from-pig-factories-1675809.html

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/press/releases/new-report-highlights-the-trouble-with-smithfield-article03132008

http://avaazimages.s3.amazonaws.com/SmithfieldJan08.pdf

(6) Reports on UK tax payers subsidising factory farms http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/5225298/Taxpayers-forking-out-700-million-for-factory-farming-in-England.html


ABOUT AVAAZ
Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva. Call us at: +1 888 922 8229 or +55 21 2509 0368

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Open Letter

Dear Fellow Occupant of Earth,

We are Agrarian Renaissance. We exist to help reconnect people, land and food.

The idea (in reference to a Chatham House report from last year) is: if what seems to be an impending global food crisis is not 'just a blip', and if we want to avoid social, economic and environmental 'breakdown', then we must choose between 2 potential futures...

1/. rapid technological innovation to make industrialised, linear, input dependent agriculture somehow sustainable
2/. the ushering in of a 'new era' of ecological, complex, non-linear, cyclical agriculture.

This is actually a non-debate. Ecological farming could be feeding the world already (I can prove it, but want to remain brief).

Despite 'sustainability' innovations, the impacts and inputs of industrial agricultural systems are only going up.

So, we are trying to do all we can to take action to create that 'New Era'... it entails a new agrarianism, a reconnection (and then redoubled interconnection) of people, land and food... that means a massive cultural shift, amounting to a full renaissance... hence Agrarian Renaissance...

There are billions of pounds in subsidies, and the fortunes of the largest supra-national corporations in the world, behind the linear agro-industrial status quo... but already implementing the alternative are endless isolated pockets of practical action and clear thinking, actively demonstrating what is clearly a better way... we already have a strong group of committed individuals and organisations engaged with Agrarian Renaissance, across a dizzying range of specialisms and interests...

If you are at all interested to find out more about what we're trying to do, you'd be more than welcome to visit Church Farm - the place where the idea for Agrarian Renaissance first germinated, and the pilot farm for the project...

All the best,

A League of Gentlefolk

More Good Talk

Sustainability and/or 'green growth'

Major world economies aim for "green growth" as the way out of the crisis

25/06/2009 - The world’s main economies are looking to “green growth” as the way forward out of the current crisis, opening up new prospects for climate-change negotiations ahead of the 15th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15) in Copenhagen in December. Ministers from 40 countries, representing 80% of the world economy, discussed the crisis and where next at the OECD's annual ministerial meeting in Paris. Participants included the 30 OECD member countries plus five countries that are candidates for membership, Chile, Estonia, Israel, Russia and Slovenia, and five major economies with which the OECD has a policy of ‘enhanced engagement’ -- Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa. In a Declaration on Green Growth signed by all 30 OECD countries plus Chile, Estonia, Israel and Slovenia, ministers tasked the OECD with developing a Green Growth Strategy bringing together economic, environmental, technological, financial and development aspects into a comprehensive framework. A first report will be delivered to the OECD’s next Ministerial Council Meeting in 2010.

Watch the press conference

>> Read the ministerial conclusions http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2009doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00004882/$FILE/JT03267276.PDF

>> Read the declaration on green growth http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2009doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00004886/$FILE/JT03267277.PDF

>> Read the discussion paper Green Growth: Overcoming the Crisis and Beyond

>> Visit the meeting website

http://www.oecd.org/document/63/0,3343,en_2649_201185_43164671_1_1_1_1,00.html

__._,_.___

I Think

We all have to learn that it is foolish to try and manage nature, we should harness it.

All we need to change our world of food and farming is to connect those who want to eat and those who want to produce, customers and enterprise can change things.

Those who don't give a shit about where their food comes from and know the price of everything yet the value of nothing....

.....are ironically eating shit... literally in the case of chicken.... every day.

Has anyone else noticed that what is fat has changed, fat people used to look different, now a lot of them have fat in funny places..... is this due to what us fatties eat? In my case I think so...

Personally in last two years never felt fitter, and lost 2 stone. Only real change is a bit of mild excercise and stopping eating shit.

Burka Debate

Farming in World War 2

Agriculture During World War II

Agriculture underwent considerable changes during the war years. Because of difficulties getting food from other parts of the world Britain had to rely on home production and food rationing was introduced. The government encouraged people to "dig for victory" by using every available area of land for growing crops including gardens and parks in towns. With many men away fighting in the war, women had to become a large part of the agriculture workforce.

Key Facts and Figures

Between 1939 and 1944 in England and Wales:

* Arable land increased in area by 63%
* Wheat, barley and potato crops almost doubled
* Oats production rose by two thirds
* Total agricultural workers increased by 22%
* Cattle numbers increased by 6%
* Pig numbers decreased by 58%
* Fowl numbers decreased by 46%
* Sheep numbers decreased by 30%
* Hay production fell by one third
* Tractor numbers increased by 50% between 1942 and 1944.

Acreage of Crops

In June 1939 the agricultural area of England and Wales was 30,251,000 acres. This comprised 15,709,000 acres of permanent grass, 8,934,000 acres of arable land and 5,608,000 acres of rough grazing (of which 1,428,000 was on commons). A certain amount of old grassland had been ploughed up before the outbreak of war under the encouragement of the ploughing grant of £2 per acre. With war imminent, the conversion of grassland into arable land was increased both voluntarily and under directions served by the County War Agricultural Executive Committees.

The arable land area increased by 63% from 8,934,000 acres in 1939 to 14,566,000 acres in 1944 due to conversion from grassland. This compares to the maximum arable area during World War 1 of 12,399,000 acres in 1918.

A must visit

http://www.pigbusiness.co.uk/

From Treehugger.com

omborg Caught off Guard by Pawlyn's Robust Argument for Restorative Design (VIDEO 1 of 3)

by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK on 06. 9.09

Design & Architecture

Buzz up!

As you can imagine TreeHugger is always keen to hear of someone taking influential climate change skeptic Bjorn Lomborg down a peg or two, whether it's Stephen Colbert or Joe Romm or, as happened most recently, the British architect Michael Pawlyn of Exploration. Pawlyn, he of the incredible Sahara Forest Project, caught a visibly shaken Lomborg off guard at the British Council for Offices 2009 conference with an unequivocal dismantling of Lomborg's economic theories of cost of climate change by arguing for restorative architecture inspired by nature. Click through to check out Part 1 of Pawlyn's presentation...

Watch out for Part 2 of Pawlyn's presentation which goes on to explain how the Sahara Forest Project can create zero carbon food, renewable energy and abundant fresh water in some of the most water stressed areas on the planet.

Via: Exploration

More on Michael Pawlyn
Incredible Sahara Forest Project to Generate Fresh Water, Solar Power and Crops in African Desert
Lessons in Biomimicry - Part 1 Natural Forms
Lessons in Biomimicry - Part 2 Natural Systems
Lessons in Biomimicry - Part 3 Natural Processes

More on Bjorn Lomborg
Colbert does Bjorn Lomborg
Joe Romm on Bjorn Lomborg
Demolishing Lomborg's Cool It
Where Have All the Climate Deniers Gone?

The Great Land Grab - thanks Rob

Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 7:52 AM

Subject: Global Land Grab

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6201

Alexandra Spieldoch | June 18, 2009 Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
Close to a billion people in the world are hungry, and there is growing poverty, unemployment, and displacement in the rural sector. The world community is in widespread agreement about the urgency of more investment in agriculture. The food crisis, partly characterized by unstable markets and low reserves, has led governments to seek measures to meet their food security needs more directly than through global trade. Even though this year's harvest was good and there was some replenishment of global stocks, there's no certainty of what markets will look like next year. Governments and corporations looking to outsource food and energy more directly themselves are promoting a new wave of land acquisitions, also known as "land grabs." Persian Gulf states are working out land deals in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. India has set up agricultural projects in Brazil. South Korea recently tried to buy up nearly half of the island of Madagascar. "If food was ever a soft policy issue before," editorializes The Financial Times, "it now rivals oil as a basis of power and economic security." Control over the land that produces this power remains as critical today as it was in the past. The Real Deal Among the extraordinary number of new land deals, some have resulted in contracts while others have fallen through. Journalists have reported on the details of the deals, but so far there is little solid research from which to draw. Still, the deals are happening to such a degree that the World Bank and the UN are developing Codes of Conduct for Foreign Land Acquisition. The African Union will also publish investment guidelines in July, and Japan is pushing the G8 to get behind them. New websites tracking these land deals include the international land coalition and GRAIN. Foreign investment deals in agriculture are nothing new. In colonial times, European countries established plantation economies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to export food. Today there is large-scale investment in mining natural resources and contract farming as a means to source global supply chains. Yet these new land grabs are mammoth. The Economist reports that whereas land deals in Sudan used to be around 240,000 hectares, today's deals are three times as large. Before it fell apart, the proposed land deal between Madagascar and the South Korean company Daewoo would have included nearly half of the country's arable land. The lease would have lasted 99 years, with virtually no required taxes or other benefits flowing back to Madagascar or to the local community. Not surprisingly, the public in Madagascar rose up in protest, which contributed to the overthrow of the government. During colonial times and in the recent past, developing countries exported cash crops such as cocoa and coffee. Now they are now exporting basic food staples. In many developing countries where land acquisition is taking place, the populations are already food insecure. So why are they exporting food crops instead of feeding their populations? For example, Ethiopia is the largest recipient of food aid from the World Food Program, but is also outsourcing food to Saudia Arabia. Cambodia, Niger, Tanzania, and Burma are other examples of countries receiving aid and also serving as host countries for foreign land acquisition. Who's Behind the Grab? Contrary to past trends, countries in the Global South are initiating much of the investment. The Persian Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, are investing in many parts of Africa, as well as Asia and Eastern and Central Europe. These countries are rich in energy but lack arable land and water. For example, Saudi Arabia has acquired land in Sudan to plant wheat, which is inefficient to grow at home. China is also buying up large tracks of land throughout Africa to produce biofuels and to produce food. India's companies have formed a consortium to invest in corporate farming of oilseeds in Latin America, most notably Uruguay and Paraguay. Companies seeking more stable long-term profits are investing in agricultural land. In countries that already have shaky governments or civil war, foreign corporate investment may not end up being that stable or even profitable. Deals have already fallen through because of the risk. Others firms like UK Sunbiofuels are ignoring the risks and moving full-steam ahead with investment in crops such as sugarcane for ethanol in Tanzania. From the land deals, developing countries hope to gain more investment in infrastructure such as roads, ports and other facilities. They hope to acquire more technology, research and science. Their farmers need jobs and a place in the global market. Over the past few decades, as part of structural adjustment requirements and other domestic measures to facilitate trade, many developing countries have disinvested from their agriculture. International investment flows into these countries have also declined. The result is that today, many countries lack productive capacity to grow and provide food for their populations. For example, most Least Developed Countries are now dependent on food imports and lack capacity to be self-sufficient in food production. To countries starved of investment and with little except natural resources to offer the global market, land deals are deceptively attractive. Struggle for Land The operative word in all of this is "land." Countries are diverting high-quality land from production for local and national economies to create large-scale plantations focused on feeding other nations. What governments might deem as marginal or unused land to sell may very well be meeting an important share of rural people's household needs, especially in the poorest households. Uncultivated land has many uses such as for animal grazing, wild foods, medicinal plants, and even water. Land disputes for control of natural resources and food are inevitable. Land struggles have been and still are violent and destabilizing. Identity, culture, justice, and governments' legitimacy are closely tied to these power struggles. To superimpose foreign investment on areas that are already fraught with violent land disputes requires a great deal of sensitivity. This isn't a situation that can be captured in a simple cost-benefit analysis. Many of these deals reinforce the existing imbalances between haves and have-nots. Few of the deals acknowledge the poverty and power discrepancies that mar the context in which the deals are made. A Better Deal Foreign direct investment could provide all kinds of new opportunities for developing countries in need of resources. Such investment can help them achieve food sufficiency and food security within their borders, to restore the land with sustainable practices, and to promote long-term development. If the end goal is really to resolve the food and climate crises, all investment flows should be assessed based on their ability to achieve this. Governments should articulate a national vision based on these goals. All investment measures should be transparent, participatory and accountable to those who will be most impacted, such as smallholder producers. A mandatory review of land use and land rights would be essential to understanding potential impacts and how to promote investment that makes sense for communities and their culture and environment. All national investment plans should be assessed based on international human rights obligations. The convergence of the energy, land, and climate crises serves as a reminder of the limits to growth. The majority of these land deals could worsen the food crisis and the struggles associated with land use, human rights, and environmental degradation. To bring us back from the edge of resource depletion, governments need to increase aid for investment in small-scale producers and also regulate all investment so that it meets food security goals and promotes the realization of people's rights. This means promoting democratic consultation and transparent contracts. And it means promoting climate-friendly production methods based on smaller-scale, diversified planting systems rather than large plantations growing one commodity for export. This article is based on a longer piece written by Alexandra Spieldoch and Sophia Murphy, to be published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center in summer 2009. Alexandra Spieldoch, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is also the director of the Trade and Global Governance program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), an organization which works locally and globally to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.

WATCH PIG BUSINESS!

On 30 June More 4 will broadcast PIG BUSINESS, a shocking exposé of the secretive world of corporate pig farming. We see who pays the true cost of ‘cheap’ pig meat – the appalling conditions of factory farms endured by animals, workers and neighbours, environmental pollution and the destruction of rural economies

You’ve probably heard that Swine Flu emerged just downwind of a swine plant owned by Smithfield, a giant multinational corporation and the world’s biggest pig meat processor - no great surprise as overcrowded pig factories are incubators of disease and superbugs.

Smithfield, the world’s biggest pig meat processor, does not want the truth to get out. They have already managed to stop the film being broadcast once, by threatening a ruinously expensive legal action. Even national newspapers trying to report on the film have been bullied into silence.

Though The Mail, The Sunday Mail and The Mirror, have all tried but failed to get an article about the film past their lawyers, See below for today's Irish Independent article

best wishes Tracy

Intensive farming practices might be breeding more than pigs

Rosita Sweetman believes swine flu may be a wake-up call alerting us to the dangers of animal 'factories'

By Rosita Sweetman

Sunday June 21 2009

HERE'S the beef: unless we stop big corporations "farming" animals in factories, we're all going to die.

Actually, we may be going to die sooner than we think if the swine flu virus, incubating for years now in the huge industrial hog farms of the USA and Europe, keeps spreading at its current rate: 30,000 cases (and rising) within three months, across 74 countries, leading to 145 deaths. The latest victim -- a 30-something mum in Scotland -- dying just after giving birth to her premature baby.

I know, I know, I thought it was media hype too, and that maybe the dreadful Michael O'Leary of Ryanair was right: swine flu kills poor people in Mexican slums. No one else need worry. Fly on!

Em, no. Swine flu has been around a long time; its granddaddy is the 1918 Spanish flu which killed between 50 million and 100 million people.

Eerily, it's also behaving in similar ways; starting out as a swine-cum-human virus, spreading quickly, first in a mild form, before mutating and returning in virulent form, hitting under-30s hardest (75 per cent of cases), and killing via a "cytokine storm" -- a massive over-stimulation of the immune system.

Experts have been warning for years of the time bomb that is factory farming. Don't get me wrong, I worship rashers and sausages. But the way pork is produced these days is so horrendous (for the animals) and so dangerous (for us), the swine flu scare may be a timely wake-up call.

Some facts: huge corporations, so big they have bank balances larger than those of most countries, control much of the food business. These guys don't believe in farming. A jolly Mr and Mrs Farmer with their rosy-cheeked children and happy animals on a little holding in deepest rural bliss? What a quaint notion!

Smithfield Foods, the corporation at whose plant in Mexico this outbreak of swine flu is believed to have originated, "processes" 27 million pigs in 15 countries, producing sales of $12bn every year. Smithfield has denied any link to the outbreak.

Serendipitously, environmental activist, the Marchioness of Worcester, Tracy Louise Ward, recently took on Smithfield Foods in her film Pig Business, showing just how brutal these vast "hog farms" are. Smithfield Foods was swift to act, blocking the screening of Pig Business on Channel 4, and trying to block a screening at the Barbican Arts Centre in London (the Marchioness put up her own indemnity and got it through).

Smithfield Foods is also after Robert Kennedy Jnr, who appears in the film, for addressing the Polish Senate: (Smithfield Foods) is trying to "get away with something in Poland, that people in the United States now recognise is a catastrophe".

What scientists and doctors are truly worried about is, what happens if swine flu mixes with avian flu? Then we really are in the caca.

And for those who believe pills are the answer, they are central to the problem.

As Dr Michael Greger of the US Humane Society said in a recent File on 4 documentary: "The sheer numbers of animals, the overcrowding, the lack of fresh air, the lack of sunlight -- put all these together and you have this perfect storm environment for the emergence and spread of new, so-called super strains of influenza."

In the Netherlands -- home to more "animal factories" per square kilometre than anywhere else, the long windowless huts horribly reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps-- 30 per cent to 50 per cent of all farmers now carry the superbug MRSA, largely, it is thought, due to the half a million kilos of antibiotics shot into the unfortunate porkers every year.

Tamiflu isn't the answer either. It reduces the time you have the flu by one day. One day! And, if a mutated virus does come back to bite us, brewing up a new anti-viral in time will be tricky.

But do not despair. Natural medicine and natural farming are making a comeback. And Ireland is at the forefront of the development of one of the finest, and oldest, medical systems in the world -- medical herbalism.

Anna Maria Keaveny, architect of Ireland's first degree course in medical herbalism at Cork Institute of Technology, says a Masters will soon be possible, with "clinically trained herbalists ready to take part in research at the highest levels". She is hopeful that the swine flu virus will remain at its current low virulence level.

US President Obama says swine flu is a "cause for concern; not a cause for alarm".

Actually, it seems it is a cause for both

Wanton Destruction of Small Farmers

In the UK it happened in the 1960's, 200,000 farms of less than 20 acres were deliberately put out of business.... now the last ones in the WORLD are being attacked...

FOUND THIS

Polish farmers fear liquidiation by the European Union

All farmers under ten acres must disappear

^français

As in every other country, the Financiers have decreed the death of small farms in Poland, for they are the “pet hate” of globalism. The Polish farmers did not let the Communists seize their land in the 1950. Now they won't let the Financiers do the same thing. The following information is taken from the Jan. 10, 2002 issue of the U.S. Catholic weekly “The Wanderer”:

WARSAW – As Poland moves toward “full membership” in the European Union, its strong peasantry may be headed for the dustbin of history. A casualty of Brussels' bureaucratic efficiency, reported the Christian Science Monitor January 2.

Reporting from Stryszow, Poland, Aric Farnam revealed that European Union agricultural policies call for the liquidation of all farms under ten acres – a death sentence that will affect 1.6 million of the country's two million farms.

“Smallholders are running up against the big-is-beautiful agricultural policies of the European Union, which Poland hopes to join by 2004,” wrote Farnam.

For years, Poland's farmers have suffered under EU agriculture policies, leading to strikes, road blockades and demonstrations, and anti-European Union sentiment resulted in a surprisingly strong showing at the polls last September, when an unexpected 10.2% of the vote was given to anti-EU parties.

One of the major fear factors leading to surprisingly strong showings by the League of Polish Families, a hard-line Catholic party, was suspicion that large chunks of Western Poland – the heart of Poland's peasantry – would fall into the hands of wealthy foreigners, looking for cheap land and well-maintained farms and estates.

Farnam reported that Brussels' bureaucrats claim the small Polish farms are “inefficient, unsanitary, and perpetuate poverty. EU agricultural policy requires that Poland modernize and restructure its farming sector over the next eight months. That means instituting regulations that would keep small farmers from selling their produce, and push more than a million farmers off their land.

“But most Polish farmers are saying no, fearful that they will end up as an even poorer class of urban unemployed.”

Farnam quoted one smallholder as saying: “The Communists tried to force us off of our land in the 1950s, and they failed. We are staying. This is the only life we know, and it suits us fine. Who are those politicians to say our farm is too poor.

“The average farmer here in Southern Poland owns just 10 acres, but most have snug homes, a car, amd even a few other luxuries,” Farnam wrote, even though their produce sells for next to nothing: Wheat is five cents a pound, and five gallons of milk goes for $4.00.

“In its annual report on candidate states issued last month, the EU ranked the great number of small inefficient farms in Poland among the country's most serious barriers to accession. Agriculture accounts for 25% of employment in Poland, as opposed to 4% in the EU.

“The European Commission,” Farnam continued, “maintains that Polish farmers will not be eligible for the same EU subsidies as old members, yet must still comply with standards designed for larger and more modern farms, leaving many Poles wondering if joining the EU is worth the trouble. Since 1996, preliminary restructuring and the implementation of EU standards have contributed to a drop in farm incomes of more than 30% in Poland, a problem compounded by a massive influx of subsidized, factory-farm products from Western Europe to Polish markets...

“Prominent British activist and sometimes adviser to the British Government Sir Julian Rose spoke to the Polish Parliament last spring, begging the Polish Government not to abide by dated EU regulations.

“According to Rose, the same policies devastated his country, putting 1.2 million British farmers out of business and cutting remaining farm incomes by 70%. The results, he says, were pollution, loss of biodiversity, stock epidemics, unhealthy food, and shattered communities.

“`I am in Poland to urge you to fight for the future of your beautiful, diverse, small-scale farms', he said. `Say no to the intensive farming ethic that has destroyed my country'.” (End of The Wanderer's article.)

Comments of “Michael”

Unfortunately, this campaign to reduce the number of farms is global, and Canada is no exception. An article of the Canadian Press released on Feb. 23, 2002, reported that “the Canadian farming industry has been hit with the largest decline in employment in almost 35 years, according to a Statistics Canada report released Feb. 22. Numbers, complied from 1998 to 2001, showed a decrease of 26% in Canadian farming employment, leaving only 313,000 in the industry at the end of 2001.

“The report also states the number of farmers approaching retirement is also high, with 15% expected to retire within the next five years. Farming profits have remained almost stagnant since 1996 and have steadily declined over the past 25 years. In 1975, net profits for farming across the country stood at $2.6-billion, significantly more attractive than last year's rate of $1.1-billion.”

The Polish farmers, who have seen the example of farmers ruined in other nations, are absolutely right to defend their small farms. Pope John XXIII wrote in his encyclical letter Mater et Magistra (n. 115): “It is necessary to modify economic and social life so that the way is made easier for widespread private possession of such things as durable goods, homes, gardens, tools requisite for artisan enterprises and family-type farms.”

Let us call for the implementation of the Social Credit principles, to free farmers and everybody from the snatches of the International Financiers!

From the Guardian

Goldman to make record bonus payout

Surviving banks accused of undermining stability

* Buzz up!
* Digg it

* Phillip Inman
* The Observer, Sunday 21 June 2009
* Article history

Goldman Sachs London office

The London office of Goldman Sachs.

Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.

A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.

Staff in London were briefed last week on the banking and securities company's prospects and told they could look forward to bumper bonuses if, as predicted, it completed its most profitable year ever. Figures next month detailing the firm's second-quarter earnings are expected to show a further jump in profits. Warren Buffett, who bought $5bn of the company's shares in January, has already made a $1bn gain on his investment.

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From CIWF

Higher welfare alternatives

Higher welfare alternatives to intensive pig farming already exist and are commercially successful.

Free-range system in the UK

Free-range sow and piglets

In the UK, pregnant sows are kept in groups and are often provided with straw for bedding, rooting and chewing.

Around 40% of UK sows are kept free-range outdoors and farrow in huts on their range.

Higher welfare indoor systems

Pigs are kept in groups on solid floors with straw or other material for bedding and rooting.

Although there is no access to the outdoors, there is greater opportunity for natural behaviour, free movement within the pen orshed, less crowding, conflict, boredom and tail-biting. Deep bedded systems allow foraging and comfort.

Sows may still give birth in farrowing crates, but in the better systems they give birth in huts or pens.

Outdoor bred

Sows are kept free-range outdoors with huts for shelter and for having piglets. There are no sow stalls or farrowing crates. The huts are provided with straw. At weaning, the piglets are taken indoors and reared in extensive or intensive conditions.

In these systems, sows have a higher quality of life and are able to act naturally by building nests, rooting, wallowing and foraging. The piglets benefit from the free-range conditions until they are weaned.

Outdoor reared

Piglets spend part but not necessarily all of their lives outside. Outdoor reared pigs are usually, but not always, born outside, without crates or stalls.

Free-range

Whilst there is no legal definition of ‘free-range pork’ we believe this should mean pigs who are outdoor bred and reared: born outside (withoutstalls or crates) and then reared on outside for most of their lives.

Organic pig farming to high welfare standards

Free-ranging pigs

In the best free-range and organic pig farms, the sows and the growing pigs are kept outside for most of their lives.

The piglets stay with their mothers for longer (up to 6 to 8 weeks), mixing of unfamiliar pigs is reduced and tail-docking is not used.

Pigs spend their lives more like they would naturally.

Find out how you can help to end the suffering of intensively farmed pigs.

From the FT

Concerns mount over fresh rise in food costs

By Javier Blas in London

Published: June 10 2009 03:00 | Last updated: June 10 2009 03:00

After a year worrying about the piggy bank, the world economy is turning its attention to the cupboard.

Almost unnoticed, agricultural commodities prices have returned to levels last seen at the start of the 2007-2008 food crisis, prompting concerns about a fresh rise in food costs.

The increase in soyabean, corn and wheat prices - to their highest level in eight to nine months and up more than 50 per cent from their December lows - comes on the back of strong Chinese demand, a forecast of lower supply due to reduced planting, and the impact of a drought in Latin America.

Argentina's crops have been devastated.

"Agricultural markets are fairly nervous," says Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, an agricultural commodities analyst at Barclays Capital in London.

"We are not in the comfortable food surplus environment of the 1980s and 1990s."

The price of soyameal - critical for fattening livestock such as chickens and hogs - has moved above $405 a tonne, a level only seen for a brief period in 1973 and during four weeks at the peak of last year's crisis.

The rise has pushed the price of ready-to-cook chicken in the US to the highest in a decade.

Traders say hedge funds and other big institutional investors, including sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East, have poured money into the agricultural market, helping to drive commodities prices higher as the US dollar weakens.

A repetition of last year's food crisis, when sharply rising prices sparked rioting in some countries, seems unlikely, however.

Even after their surge, soya, wheat and corn prices are well below last year's peaks.

Rice is trading about $550 a tonne, well below its peak last year of more than $1,000 a tonne.

Beef, pork and milk prices remain depressed, further capping the potential for a rise in overall food costs,.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation is relatively optimistic, saying that "barring major crop setbacks . . . the food economy looks less vulnerable" to a price spike.

"In spite of strong gains in recent weeks, international prices of most agricultural commodities have fallen in 2009 from their 2008 heights, an indication that many markets are slowly returning into balance," it says.

But private sector analysts and industry executives are less relaxed.

In rare public comments, Christopher Mahoney, a director at Glencore Grain, the secretive trading house based in Rotterdam, warned last week that supplies of some agricultural commodities such as corn and soya were "pretty tight".

Lewis Hagedorn, an agricultural commodities analysts at JPMorgan in New York, describes the situation as one of anxiety but not yet alarm.

"We are approaching a level of concern with respect to inventories in some areas, although we are not presently in a crisis mode. We are not well prepared from a supply and demand balance sheet perspective to absorb any weather-related surprise."

Food companies are taking precautionary measures, building positions in the commodities futures market to hedge against further price rises, says Luke Chandler, director of agricultural commodity markets research at Rabobank in London.

"There is a lot more attention among food companies, particularly after the pain experienced last season," Mr Chandler says.

The immediate concern is soya, both because of its use as food but even more as livestock feed.

Strong Chinese consumption, as the country's diet moves from vegetables to meat, and the crop failure in Argentina, the world's third largest exporter, have created extraordinary pressure on US supplies, sending inventories down to the lowest level in 40 years.

Soyabean prices yesterday hit $12.45½ a bushel, a fresh nine-month high. Soya is trading at the level of April 2008, after rising almost 60 per cent from its December's low.

Soya is, nonetheless, still below last year's record of $16.5 a bushel.

Looking at the 2009-10 season, analysts fear a drop in cereals production, in corn and, to a lesser extent, in wheat, as farmers cut their planted acreage in response to low prices last autumn, higher cost for inputs such as fertiliser and pesticides, and difficulties securing finance in some countries.

Production in countries such as Ukraine and Brazil is down because farmers did not have access to credit.

The International Grain Council, an inter-governmental organisation, forecast that global grains supplies would fall in the 2009-10 season, which starts at the end of the month, to 1,721m tonnes, down 3.4 per cent from 1,782m tonnes in 2008-09.

"World grains production is expected to fall short of use in 2009-10, eroding some of the gains in stocks achieved after the bumper 2008 harvests," the IGC said in its latest monthly report, forecasting a drop in stocks to 328m tonnes, down 4.3 per cent from 2008-09's level of 343m tonnes.

Global grains demand will rise to 1,736m tonnes in 2009-10, up 0.8 per cent from 2008-09 season, the IGC says.

With the US the world's largest corn exporter and wet weather disrupting planting in areas such as Illinois, Mr Mahoney of Glencore, says: "It is essential that we have a good US growing season this year."

The combination of worries is propelling cereal prices.

Corn is trading at the level of January 2008 at the start of the food crisis - about $4.5 a bushel, but still well below last year's record of $7.5 a bushel.

Wheat is lagging behind, trading at the level of October 2007 - at about $6.25 a bushel, still far below the 2008 peak of $13 a bushel.

Even if supply is set to drop this year, a large carry-over from last season will cap any price rally.

"The wheat supplydemand picture is considerably less tight," Mr Mahoney says.

The surge in prices is a reminder of how the world's food security has deteriorated, after years of comfortable surpluses, analysts and executives say.

Mike Mack, chief executive of Syngenta, one of the largest manufacturers of chemicals for agriculture, echoes a widely held view when he says that although the "headlines from the past year on the food crisis have been replaced by those on the economic crisis", the "long-term challenge to produce enough food" has not disappeared.

www.ft.com/foodprices

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Farming - the new cool?

Farming is Cool, Even Sexy

Signaled by Natalie Villalobos on 16 April 2009.
Affiliation: Media
Country: United States

From IFTF Ten Year Forecast: Trend: Are farmers are poised to become the next class of stars in American celebrity? Why not — a sexy farmer is the logical successor to the sexy chefs who currently dominate the cable channels. Farmers are being elevated to objects of lust – this means that American consciousness is undergoing a sea change. Less than a decade ago, farmers were relics from an agricultural past that seemed forgotten by everyone but real estate developers. But as urbanites began to seek out organic produce and decided to forge a closer connection to their food, they began to see its producers in a less — well, redneck — light.

Abstract:

Impact: According to the 2002 census, the average age of farmers was 55, the oldest average to date; just 6 percent of farmers were under 35, reports the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Unsurprisingly, the number of farms total continues to plummet too, as farmers retire and — unable to interest their kids in stepping into their hardworking boots, sell their land to developers. As young farmers are held up as celebrities - and farmings ‘cool’ factor grows in the general population, more young people will see it as a lifestyle/career choice. This will impact the aging demographic, and infuse the industry with values & mission driven entrepreneurs.

Source:

See Sexy farmers http://www.ethicurean.com/2006/08/10/hotfarmers/ http://www.ethicurean.com/2007/04/19/young-farmers/?cat=23

From the Guardian - police state?

Video shows surveillance protesters bundled to ground by police

• Women arrested for challenging officer with no badge number
• Footage shows arresting officers binding Fit Watch pair's feet
• IPCC to receive video as concerns grow over police tactics

• Buzz up!
• Digg it

• Paul Lewis
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 June 2009 16.50 BST
• Article history

Watch the video of the protesters' arrest Link to this video

Two female protesters who challenged police officers for not displaying their badge numbers were bundled to the ground, arrested and held in prison for four days, according to an official complaint lodged today.

The incident was caught on camera, and footage shows officers standing on the women's feet and applying pressure to their necks immediately after the women attempted to photograph a fellow officer who had refused to give his badge number.