While the phrase “let them eat cake” may never have been uttered in reference to the starving French peasants of the 18th century, the pressure to “let them to eat GM” in the 21st century is alive and well in the lobby shops, corporate suites, press offices and political power centers of the world.
Trade is good, but but “free trade” doesn’t work for farmers or workers or most everyone else. Free trade does, however, work spectacularly well for corporations who have over 600 advisers to the TPP negotiations— we have no access to the negotiations, corporations have plenty.
In honor of 19 landless peasant farmers massacred in Brazil in 1996 we celebrate resistance, solidarity and this year mobilize against Transnational Corporations and Free Trade Agreements.
And no, organic farmers can’t use Roundup®, but if I could why would I want to? It is, after all, a poison, its active ingredient, glyphosate, is a poison, as are some of its “inert” ingredients.
To me it makes more sense to let processors do their own promotion for their own brands, with their own money instead of jumping on the sweating backs of farmers for a mandated checkoff.
Bruce Scholten’s in-depth and thoughtful analysis of U.S. organic dairy politics begins with his own memories of growing up on a Washington State dairy farm. From what was common in his childhood, small dairy farms operated by multi-generational family labor, pasturing their cattle, building the soil and supporting local communities, Scholten shows the reader how things have changed over the past five decades.
Many supporters of local food production were glad to see these topics put in print in the New York Times and Washington Post. I agree, food is something everyone deals with everyday, many without thinking about where it came from, how it was produced, what kind of chemical residue it carries, its nutritional value. Others of course probably saw talk of national food policy as more socialism from the liberal media.
I had a list of things I needed to get for the farm (I didn’t care where I found them, Farm & Fleet, the Co-op whoever might have them) a feed scoop, a barn broom, a couple of neck straps for the cows, small things, but necessary. I stopped at a big hardware store last Saturday on the way home from the Farmers Market. They used to cater to small farmers — no more, unless you have only horses or pets.
I heard someone talking about our (the USA’s) duty to “feed the world”. I have a real problem with this, who gave us this mandate?
The term “sound science” really creeps me out, that is not a secret. Several months ago I wrote a piece called The Sound Science of Deception, resting my case, but a during recent discussion of federal research funding, there it was again, in USDA.
“In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”, or so Tennyson told us. But in the corn belt it seems, that rather than thoughts of love, the thoughts of many turn to crop protection chemicals, or in common language, herbicides and insecticides. Whether one is applying them to crops or hoping to avoid their toxic fumes and drift, pesticides will soon be in the air.
I thought this would be a pretty simple first blog post – Monsanto’s Roundup Contaminates More than Just the Food on the Store Shelves – but breast milk?