Join the Renaissance

We are in the plotting stage, to get involved anyone can invest from as little as £10.00. A growing band are taking formal and informal roles to help launch the Agrarian Renaissance - a cooperative brand directly connecting farmers and people, one member one vote.

The objective is to create an alternative to corporate supermarket consumerism. We promise only that we are giving it a go, albeit the intention is huge, by uniting people and organisations it can be done. To achieve a national launch of an initial network we are raising £500,000. Post a successful roll out we will be raising another £7 million to invest in the brand and create a mass movement of people directly connected to farms and enterprises that enhance life.

We all farm every time we eat..
What’s it like on your farm?
Join the Renaissance..
Have a say..
Take action..
www.peoplelandfood.org

Messag to Tony Blair - A lot of Confessions to make still Tone...

EXCLUSIVE…Blackwater’s Youngest Victim: Father of 9 Year-Old Killed in Nisour Square Gives Most Detailed Account of Massacre to Date

Today a Democracy Now! exclusive report from Jeremy Scahill about a nine year old boy, shot in the head and killed by Blackwater in the infamous Nisour Squre massacre. His father, who is suing the private military contractor, provides the most detailed eyewitness account of the massacre to date. Scahill has conducted an in-depth investigation of the massacre and of nine-year old Ali Kinani’s death. He files an exclusive report with Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films.

Pig Business - Available on You Tube

Tracy Worcester's exploration into the origin of 'cheap' pork, also used in most bacon ham and sausages.
Huge intensive factories mistreat and overcrowd the animals, emit toxic gasses that sicken workers and neighbours, destroy rural communities and generate swine flu and pig MRSA.

Farm Quotes

Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways: women, gambling, and farming. My family chose the slowest one.

Pope John XXIII

The more we pour the big machines, the fuel, the pesticides, the herbicides, the fertilizer and chemicals into farming, the more we knock out the mechanism that made it all work in the first place.

David Brower

From Sam

"That a society restored to possession of all the accumulated wealth within it, can largely provide everyone with a guarantee of plenty, in return for four or five hours of effective, manual toil at production each day, all who have reflected upon the matter are unanimously agreed with us. If, from birth, everyone was taught the provenance of the bread he eats, the home he inhabits, the book he reads and so on, and if everyone was used to complementing brainwork with manual labour, in some sphere of manual production, society might readily accomplish this task, without even reckoning upon the streamlining of production which the more or less near future may hold for us."

Peter Kropotkin, 1896, Anarchy: Its Philosophy, Its Ideal

Extraordinary

Haiti

US Security Company Offers to Perform "High Threat Terminations" and to Confront "Worker Unrest" in Haiti ( 0)

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By Jeremy Scahill

truthout

Wednesday, Jan 20, 2010

We saw this type of Iraq-style disaster profiteering in New Orleans, and you can expect to see a lot more of this in Haiti over the coming days, weeks and months. Private security companies are seeing big dollar signs in Haiti thanks in no small part to the media hype about "looters." After Katrina, the number of private security companies registered (and unregistered) multiplied overnight. Banks, wealthy individuals, the US government all hired private security. I even encountered Israeli mercenaries operating an armed checkpoint outside of an elite gated community in New Orleans. They worked for a company called Instinctive Shooting International. (That is not a joke).

Now, it is kicking into full gear in Haiti.

The Orwellian-named mercenary trade group International Peace Operations Association didn't waste much time in offering the "services" of its member companies to swoop down on Haiti for some old-fashioned "humanitarian assistance" in the form of disaster profiteering. Within hours of the massive earthquake in Haiti, the IPOA created a special webpage for prospective clients, saying: "In the wake of the tragic events in Haiti, a number of IPOA's member companies are available and prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake's victims."

While some of the companies specialize in rapid housing construction, emergency relief shelters and transportation, others are private security companies that operate in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as Triple Canopy, the company that took over Blackwater's massive State Department contract in Iraq. For years, Blackwater played a major role in IPOA until it left the group following the 2007 Nisour Square massacre.

In 2005, while still a leading member of IPOA, Blackwater's owner Erik Prince deployed his forces in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Far from some sort of generous gift to the suffering people of the US gulf, Blackwater raked in some $70 million in Homeland Security contracts that began with a massive no-bid contract to provide protective services for FEMA. Blackwater billed US taxpayers $950 per man per day.

The current US program under which armed security companies work for the State Department in Iraq--the Worldwide Personal Protection Program--has its roots in Haiti during the Clinton administration. In 1994, private US forces, such as DynCorp, became a staple of US operations in the country following the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide by CIA-backed death squads. When President Bush invaded Iraq, his administration radically expanded that program and turned it into the privatized paramilitary force it is today. At the time of his overthrow in 2004, Aristide was being protected by a San Francisco-based private security firm, the Steele Foundation.

Beyond the establishment mercenary industry's activities in Haiti, look for more stories like this one:

On January 15, a Florida-based company called All Pro Legal Investigations registered the URL Haiti-Security.com. It is basically a copy of the company's existing US website but is now targeted for business in Haiti, claiming the "purpose of this site is to assure construction and reconstruction companies considering a Haiti project that professional security is available."

"All Protection and Security has made a commitment to the Haitian community and will provide professional security against any threat to prosperity in Haiti," the site proclaims. "Job sites and supply convoys will be protected against looters and vandals. Workers will be protected against gang violence and intimidation. The people of Haiti will recover, with the help of the good people from the world over."

The company boasts that it has run "Thousands of successful missions in Iraq and Afghanistan." As for its personnel, "Each and every member of our team is a former Law Enforcement Officer or former Military service member," the site claims. "If Operator experience, training and qualifications matter, choose All Protection and Security for your high-threat Haiti security needs."

Among the services offered are: "High Threat terminations," dealing with "worker unrest," armed guards and "Armed Cargo Escorts." Oh, and apparently they are currently hiring.

Addition on uruknet:

What is unfolding in Haiti seems to be part of what Naomi Klein has labeled the "Shock Doctrine." Indeed, on the Heritage Foundation blog, opportunity was being found in the crisis with a post titled: "Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S." "In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region," wrote Heritage fellow Jim Roberts in a post that was subsequently altered to tone down the shock-doctrine language. The title was later changed to: "Things to Remember While Helping Haiti" and the wording changed to "In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti should address long-held concerns over the fragile political environment that exists in the region."

truthout
 
uruknet.info

iindian GM Protests - From the Guardian

* Environment
* Guardian Environment Network

Series: Guardian Environment Network
Previous | Next | Index
India holds public meetings on GM food crop

Activists and farmers' groups oppose India's meetings on the commercial release of genetically modified aubergine. From IPS, part of the Guardian Environment Network

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Comments (7)
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* From IPS, part of the Guardian Environment Network
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 January 2010 18.23 GMT
* Article history

As India's central government begins a series of public meetings across the country this month on the commercial release of genetically modified (GM) brinjal – or aubergine - in this country, activists and farmers' groups are mobilising to oppose such a plan.

The meetings are a response by Union Minister for Environment Jairam Ramesh to a storm of protests generated by the approval issued by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) in October last year for the commercial cultivation of the genetically modified 'brinjal' – also called 'aubergine' – to resist pests with a gene from the soil bacteria 'Bacillus thuringiensis' (Bt brinjal).

The environment ministry's first hearing, held Wednesday in the eastern city of Kolkata, ended up in a shouting match between Ramesh and the scientists, activists and local citizens present, who were opposed to the introduction of Bt brinjal.

While Bt brinjal is the first GM food crop to be introduced in India, the South Asian country already grows GM cotton spliced with insect-resistant genes form the same Bt bacterium, which has been blamed for serious crop failures and mass suicides by farmers in the cotton-growing belts of Vidarbha (Maharashtra state) and Andhra Pradesh.

Leading the resistance to the introduction of Bt brinjal is international food security campaigner Vandana Shiva, a biosafety expert who helped develop the Biosafety Protocol, an international treaty that became operative in September 2003 under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Shiva told IPS that the GEAC approval was based on a "scientifically unsound report at the level of food and agricultural systems" presented to it by the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (MAHYCO), a subsidiary of the United States-based agribusiness giant Monsanto, and its partners at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad, Karnataka state and the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University at Coimbatore district in the state of Tamil Nadu.

The GEAC, which is under the environment ministry, is tasked to regulate research, testing and commercial release of GM crops, foods and organisms.

"The GEAC panel did not address the real alternatve to chemical agriculture, which is biodiverse organic farming, which controls pests at the systems level by enhancing pest-predator balance and by growing crops with pest and disease resilience,'' Shiva said.

"Bt crops are a continuation of a non-sustainable strategy for pest control, which, instead of controlling pests, creates new pests and super pests. With Bt cotton a proliferation of aphids, jassids, army bug and mealy bug has resulted in a 13-fold increase in the use of pesticides in the Vidarbha region,'' Shiva explained.

Studies conducted by the non-government organisation Navdanya in Maharashtra – which, among others, promotes awareness of the hazards of genetic engineering – have shown that where 92 crores (20 million U.S. dollars) worth of pesticides were used in 2004, by 2007 farmers were spending 1,326 crores (71 million dollars) annually on pesticides.

There were many inconsistencies in the MAHYCO/Monsanto's presentations, said Shiva. "When the company wants to avoid risk assessment and liability, the argument is that the GM plant is 'substantially equivalent to the non-engineered parent organism'. But when it comes to claiming novelty to gain intellectual property rights and patents, the argument turns to 'substantially inequivalent' to the parent organism,'' Shiva argued.

Other known risks posed by Bt brinjal range from genetic pollution and contamination through cross-pollination in the fields to the possibility of allergies developing among consumers.

Indian farmers are typically smallholders and there is very little chance of them being able to protect their fields from cross-pollination. "Liability systems need to be evolved first to make GM crop companies pay for economic damages caused, especially to organic farmers," Shiva said.

The next scheduled public hearing on the controversial BT brinjal will be held in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa state on Jan. 16 and a third in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on Jan. 19. Similar meetings will be held in Hyderabad on Jan. 22, in Bangalore on Jan. 23, in Nagpur on Jan. 27 and in Chandigarh on Jan. 30.

Opposition to Bt brinjal and other GM crops is already growing among farmers' groups, the Union Health Ministry and even state governments such as Kerala's.

Already, mass petitions have begun to pour into Ramesh's office. One of them, from the village of Chengua in Orissa, declares: "We reject the approval of Bt brinjal. It does not have the approval of our Jaiv Panchayat ('living democracy' movements, a community-level institution), and it will not be allowed to enter our fields and kitchens. We traditionally save our own seeds and consider the same as sacred.''

Kerala, run by an opposition Marxist government, has already banned all GM crops in the state on the grounds that it could cause erosion of biodiversity and endanger the diversity of crops, for some of which India is the centre of origin. Brinjal is among food crops considered native to India.

Cited in the Kerala ban are "irreversible and deleterious human health effects from GM crops/foods and adverse effects on other living organisms'' and "the possibility of systematic monopolisation of seed and other resources by a handful of large corporate bodies, to the extent that even future public research is jeopardized and farmers' a priori rights are completely violated.''

Opposition is also coming in from doctors' groups under a network called 'Doctors for Food and Biosafety', which, in a statement released Monday, said that "the obsolete technology used in Bt brinjal incorporating antibiotic resistant markers is likely to have disastrous implications for developing countries like India which are struggling with communicable disease burden.''

The doctors have suggested that the introduction of Bt brinjal could jeopardise national health programmes against drug-resistant tuberculosis.

An independent analysis of the Indian situation by Dr Judy Carman, director of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research in Australia, which will be submitted to the Indian Supreme Court, shows that "if GM brinjal comes into the Indian food supply, then every Indian will be eating it, resulting in 1.15 billion being Indians exposed to the GM brinjal. Because of the number of people exposed, if GM brinjal is later found to cause illness, it could cause significant economic and social problems for India.''

India is among the world's largest vegetable growers, with an annual production of 87.53 million tonnes, representing a 14.4 percent share of the world's output.

Declared Shiva: "2010 is the year of biodiversity and we are celebrating it by protecting our indigenous vegetable biodiversity and protecting our organic vegetable growers.''

Joe Strummer Pressure Drop

Oxford Real Farming Conference

Report and interview with founder of the Campaign for Real Farming, Colin Tudge, on how farming focused on feeding people and not corporate profit will solve the food crisis. Also features farmers Matt Dale of North Aston Dairy and David Blake of Worton Farm.

Government OFFERING me £500 worth of snake oil - via email and calling me Timothy

THIS CAME THROUGH MY INBOX - IS IT A HOAX?
----------------------------------------------------

Dear Timothy,

I’m just dropping you (or a member of your management team) an invitation to the following three courses which can be fully funded for you by the Train to Gain Leadership & Management Programme. I’ve detailed how the funding works in the FAQ below.

The courses are designed to give you immediate organisational impact and are highly popular – over 99% of past delegates have said they would recommend them to a friend or colleague.

NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming

Modelling Success & Building High Performance Teams

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is the art & science of modelling excellence. It studies the way in which people think, communicate and interact and how successful behaviours can be modelled and adopted to achieve better results. This one day course shows managers and leaders how to get a better understanding of the metrics of their team(s) and how to apply the fundamentals of NLP to create outstanding performance.

Full details: http://www.jondean.co.uk/business-organisational-training/train-gain/neuro-linguistic-programming

Tuesday 26^th January, Cambridge

Wednesday 27^th January, Welwyn

Making a reservation is really easy so if you’d like to book your place now, or if you’d like to know more about the funding that’s available to you for this training*, please either email me right back or call me, Sabeena, on 01582 791230. Please ensure that you reserve your place as soon as possible to allow us time to secure your funding.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Sabeena

Sabeena White

Train to Gain Co-Ordinator, East of England

(*)  Our records indicate that The Motivaction Group Plc is eligible for Train to Gain funding because you’re in the East of England region with between 5 & 249 members of staff. Subject to Train to Gain terms.

FAQ

Is there a lot of paperwork to do to get the funding? No. Just a 15 minute call (some of which you can complete online first if you prefer), and then we’ll do the rest – you just need to sign it once we’ve done it.

How many free places can I book? One place at £500 is fully funded for you and two further places may be booked with half-funding. If you book three places though we’ll also give you a fourth place free giving you an amazing £2,000 worth of training for just £500.

Do I have to do an NVQ or attend college? No. The courses are one-day programmes and are about giving you specific business or organisational results.

Do I have to pay in advance? Yes. We invoice you only once your funding is securely in place, and the course must be paid for prior to attendance to qualify. Your funding comes back to you within 30 days of training.

What are the catches? There are none. The funding comes through the Learning & Skills Council and there are no joining, admin, or any other fees.

Is it easy to book a place? Yes. All you need to do is respond to this email or call me personally on 01582 791230

Jon Dean & Associates

Train to Gain Training Providers

Improved Business Performance

Training | Coaching | Analysis | Keynote Speaking

Spectrum House, Dunstable Road, Redbourn, Hertfordshire. AL3 7PR

T: +44 (0)1582 791230

W: www.JonDean.co.uk

Train to Gain (Gov't Funded Training): www.JonDean.co.uk/Business-Organisational-Training/Train-Gain

Latest Viewpoint: www.JonDean.co.uk/Jon-Deans-Viewpoint

Are our details correct? If you would like us to amend our records or remove you from our system, please drop me a line. The information received in this email may contain privileged information and is for the addressee only.

Barbara Heinzen

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail408.html#

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with geographer and social scientist Barbara Heinzen. With a background in geography and cultural dynamics, her focus is uncertainty - how do we make decisions when we can't possibly know the answers we need.

Amongst much wisdom Dr Heinzen describes eloquently what we are trying to do in re-inventing an ecological apporach, service and sustainable to food and farming.

A lovely letter from a Church Farm Intern

Subject: Farewell Time

Dear Tim and Emma,

I'm off to London tomorrow morning and will try and see you tomorrow

morning before I go but in case I don't get to see you I just want to

say thanks so much for giving me a chance to be a part of the Church

Farm family. Church Farm has been like my home away from home and in 4

months I have learnt so much here , its unbelievable. To be honest

Church Farm has given me the 4 most enjoyable months of my life in

England.

In 4 months my habits have changed dramatically. I haven't shopped for

expensive branded clothes or shoes (sadly most of them manufactured

and flown in from Vietnam or Sri Lanka and in all probability produced

by workers earning a dollar a day) since I came to Church Farm, I

haven't been tempted to go to boxing day sales and buy stuff that I

will never use anyways, I've probably been to the supermarket just

twice in 4 months, I havent eaten junk food/super processed and

packaged food in months, and my carbon footprint due to travel has

been minimal as I barely travelled out of the farm. In 4 months I

lived such a self sufficient life that i never felt the need to be in

the fuel guzzling rat race to get ahead of everyone else.

If in a few words I had to sum up my learning experience at Church

Farm it would be:

''Civilisation, in the real sense of the term, consists not in the

multiplication, but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of

wants." M.K. Gandhi

I wish I never had to leave here but I guess the only thing every

constant in life is change and its time for me to pack up and move on

and look for another challenge in life.

Once again I want to thank you both for being so supportive and so

helpful. Thanks for giving me a chance to work extra hours in the

store, for giving me a chance to be independent and work hard without

having to depend on my family to send me money

I'm a really shy person by nature and I have never expressed my self

as freely as most interns here but i really hope both of you know how

I really feel about this place. I hope I have delivered as expected on

this internship and have contributed my tiny little bit to help Church

Farm grow. If I can ever be of any help to you in any tiny way please

dont hesitate to ask me to come down here again. (this is my e mail

address that i use regularly)  I'll be more than happy to do my bit.

Will miss you both and the entire Church Farm family.

Thanks a ton,

S

Opinion

I do agree with you and have come across the horrifying effect on all farming of GM Seeds and specifically Monsanto's power and abuse, am continuing to read and post information up on my blog as I come across it. My opinion is that all GMO's outside the lab should be outlawed on the precautionary principle and the amazing talents of our scientists educated at public expense, then purchased and enslaved by corporations, put towards more productive use. (incidentally there were more scientific papers published on "Arabidopsis" or minor weed plant,with simple a genome, and its genetics than all other crop plants put together last year - Professor Martin Wolfe told me this) .GMO is really the final insanity in the linear thinking monoculture and industrial paradigm and I agree that it could literally destroy us, the future must be in a more complex, real, biological, ecological, diverse and natural systems approach.

now Then : Now then - For Chris

There may not be humans that turn into reptiles.

There is something wrong when all of our media are turned over to scaring the shit out of people because someone who did not blow up a plane got arrested.

Well it may not be this man was a stooge, and neither the 7/7 lot.

BUT IT IS UNDENIABLe

that the media time is given to this when people we all know are scared of going to hospital and thousands die from MRSA, thousands on the roads,

And the agenda is one man who failed to kill a couple of hundred..


WHY

Bill Hicks on Marketing

Colin Tudge Talksthe Truth on Farming Today

 
 Farming Today Link - CLICK HERE

Charlotte Smith hears that farming methods must change if we want to feed the world. There are warnings that unless rural wages rise, the countryside will become merely a theme park and a retirement home.

Broadcast on:

BBC Radio 4, 5:45am Monday 4th January 2010

Duration:

12 minutes

Available until:

5:59am Monday 11th January 2010

Local Food?

Local food is often neither lower in greenhouse gas emissions, nor more resilient, than non-local food. To give an obvious example, pigs grown 5 miles up the road on grain that has been hauled 100 miles and soya grown in Brazil (possibly increasing pressures for deforestation in the Amazon) is neither a low-carbon nor a resilient food; but many farmers' markets and other "local food" initiatives would be proud to feature such a product. A more in-depth discussion of these issues can be found in another recent EAFL report, Limitations of a Provenance Approach to Local Food. The also argues that a very simplistic approach to local food, focussing overly on "food miles", plays into the hands of supermarkets etc who can appropriate the local food message without really taking significant steps towards a more resilient or low-carbon food system.
http://www.eafl.org.uk/LocalFood.asp

Red Poll Cattle

Democracy Now Review of 2009

Hope, War and Resistance: 2009 in Review

Democracy Now! looks back at 2009, including the Israeli assault on Gaza, Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration, the economic crisis, Goldman Sachs and the AIG bonus scandal, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, drone attacks on Pakistan, the coup in Honduras, healthcare reform, the release of the Bush administration torture memos, the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, the protests in Iran, the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Blackwater and other private military contractors, the firing of White House environmental adviser Van Jones, the gay rights movement, the global food crisis, the ongoing occupation of Iraq, the Copenhagen climate summit and the growth of the climate justice movement, plus our exclusive interviews with former jailed activist Jeff “Free” Luers, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Barstow, Bolivian President Evo Morales, death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and many more. [includes rush transcript]

Happy New Year

OXFORD REAL FARMING CONFERENCE - 5th Jan 2010




http://www.peoplelandfood.com/realfarmingconference/