I started this blog because I have adrenal fatigue and estrogen dominance, which I have written about in earlier posts. As I talked about, I have been on an extensive naturalistic protocol for over a year, and a few days ago I decided to have acupuncture to help assist with my recovery.
This was my first treatment, and I went to an experienced Chinese Medicine Doctor who used disposable needles, which he inserted for 20 minutes. He also preformed cupping, using suction cups on my back to draw out the toxins. This causes bruising, and the darker the color, the more treatments that are needed. Actually, the Chinese medicine holds that these are not bruises, but toxins, and lymph coming out of the tissues.
As soon as I told him about the adrenal fatigue, he immediately associated it with a hormonal imbalance, and has treated this many times. During the session he took my pulse on both wrists and looked at my tongue, which are indicators of general health. The needles are inserted in meridians, or energy channels in the body. I was told I was low on "Liver Energy," and it was recommended that I take cinnamon and ginseng supplements to help with vitality.
Based on the dark bruising, he said I would need 4 treatments, and that would heal the fatigue, although there might be a lag time for my sleeping to reduce to a normal 8-9 hours, due to the fact that my body will be coming out of exhaustion.
Of course, as I perused the Internet, Western Medicine practitioners stated that they had no evidence that acupuncture works better than a placebo. But Western medicine still is way behind on diet--my Western Medicine Doctor visited his diabetic patient in the hospital, and there was only one thing on the meal plate good for the patient.
Western Medicine doesn't even acknowledge adrenal fatigue, although there was a segment on Dr. Oz (a mainstream indicator) about estrogen dominance, and Christine Northrup has a writeup of estrogen dominance on her blog.
Where will I place my bet? On Western Medicine that could do absolutely nothing about my exhaustion? Or on this acupuncturist, who has literally cured patients of pericardia (3 treatments--this patient had been in and out of the hospital for 3 months to no avail), infertility (1 treatment), chronic and debilitating neck pain (several treatments for a condition that had lasted 10 years.)
Well, we'll see. I will report back after a few more treatments. I do feel more energy, but certainly not enough after one treatment to say I'm cured. Will acupuncture work? More to come later...
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
GM crops cause disaster in India
Once again, Dr. Mercola wrote a great article explaining how GM crops have led to the suicides of many Indian farmers--such important information now that the Gates foundation is funding GM seeds for poor farmers worldwide....here is clip from Mercola's article. Mercola has a GREAT free newsletter, which really provides wonderful information on holistic health at www.Mercola.com.
"According to a publication from the New York University School of Lawi, in 2009 alone (the most recent year for which official figures are available) 17,638 Indian farmers committed suicide—that's one farmer every 30 minutes.
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix
"According to a publication from the New York University School of Lawi, in 2009 alone (the most recent year for which official figures are available) 17,638 Indian farmers committed suicide—that's one farmer every 30 minutes.
Bt Cotton is a Debt Trap
Bt cotton requires more pesticide sprayings than indigenous cotton—MANY times more. Bt cotton has created new resistant pests, and to control these, farmers must use 13 times more pesticides than they were using prior to its introduction. Rates of infestation by aphids, thrips, jassids, and other pests have risen since Bt cotton's introduction.[Mercola then continues to explain]
Meanwhile, yields for Bt cotton are disappointingly low. Monsanto claims Bt cotton will yield 1500 kg per year, but farmers have gotten only 300 to 400 kg per year, average. High costs and unreliable output make GM cotton a debt trap. According to Voltairenet.org:
'When Monsanto first introduced Bt cotton in 2002, the farmers lost one billion rupees due to crop failure. Instead of 1,500 kilos per acre as promised by the company, the harvest was as low as 200 kilos per acre. Instead of incomes of 10,000 rupees an acre, farmers ran into losses of 6,400 rupees an acre… Poor peasants of the South cannot survive seed monopolies. The crisis of suicides shows how the survival of small farmers is incompatible with the seed monopolies of global corporations.'
- Compared to traditional seed, genetically engineered seeds are very expensive and have to be repurchased every planting season
- Genetically engineered crops require much more water to grow, have much higher requirements for fertilizer and pesticide, in spite of Monsanto's claims to the contrary and, in spite of their cost to farmers, provide NO increased yield..."
Right now there is a movement to label GM foods in the U.S. GM crops are banned in many other countries, and in prior posts I have explained their dangers to health as well an article on World Food that talks about their dangers to poor farmers around the world.
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix
Monday, March 26, 2012
The Food of Downton Abbey
Hello again,
Completely obsessed with Downton Abbey, I’ve spent a lot of time watching the episodes to figure out the layout of the first floor. The whole reason I wanted to write this blog was to post a floor plan of Downton Abbey!!! The map on the Highclere Castle website was illegible, and I was excited to be able to piece together a floor plan by watching the show!
Later, of course, I found a map confirming my results that I have posted at the end of this blog. In keeping with the theme of this blog, I have written about the food of Downton Abbey as well as farming practices during the Edwardian era. I uploaded copyrighted pictures for this post, since this forum is for educational purposes only.
Ivan Day, a preeminent British food historian interviewed by NPR explains that “The aristocracy saw food as a way of impressing people…some of it was very technically dazzling and difficult to do." The cooks of the day were definitely skilled at sophisticated cuisines.
"It was very much the duty of the hostess and her staff to put very good food on the table when her husband and guests were being served," says Day, "And they were able to do it because there was a skill base that was very large, because so many people were employed as servants — and particularly servants in kitchens."
The Crawleys would have eaten four times a day—breakfast, lunch, tea time, and dinner. Food depicted on the show has been typical of the era: meat pie, crepes, raspberry meringue. I perused the internet and came up with some dishes that would have been served during the Edwardian era.
Typically each dinner would be comprised of 6-22 courses: The first course would consist of soup and seafood. Examples would be creamy watercress soup, oysters on the half shell and poached salmon with piccata sauce.
Typically each dinner would be comprised of 6-22 courses: The first course would consist of soup and seafood. Examples would be creamy watercress soup, oysters on the half shell and poached salmon with piccata sauce.
The entrée included meat and often featured poultry. Mustard tarragon chicken, lamb stew with lemon and dill, filet mignon with mushrooms and mustard-red-wine sauce are typical dishes for the entree.
The second course followed the entrée and would often include the heaviest meat and sauces—items such roast turkey with poached plums, roast mutton and roast leg of pork and or lamb were common.
The third course would usually include game bird like squib, pigeon, and quail. The last course would entail sweets like fruit jelly, meringue with roasted rhubarb and strawberry sauce, apple bread pudding, or jellied cranberry sauce.
Drinks in the Library
Their beverages include tea (of course), punch, scotch or wine. The English use "Claret" as an all inclusive term meaning a red table wine usually from Bordeaux. On the show, Anna provides instruction to Mr. Moseley on proper wine service at Downton, mentioning to him that the Crawleys don’t drink much of it, as there are about 5-6 varietals served with different courses of dinner. Cousin Isobel is seen drinking Pimm’s Cup, which is a mix of Pimm’s No.1 and lemonade, garnished with lemons, mint or fruit or cucumber—add gin.
Isobel drinking Pimm’s in the Great Hall/Saloon during the Servant’s Ball
Many of the skilled servants were lost in the trenches or moved into industrial jobs after the WW1. Lack of skilled staff and food shortages (that lasted well beyond the war) of sugar, cream and imported produce curbed the complexity of the menu. "Our food culture got incredibly simplified, incredibly slimmed down — everybody was on an austerity program," Day says.
The artisanal cheese-making culture nearly vanished as well. The aristocracy also began to lose their wealth and power due to taxes and political shifts. "The people who were talented cooks worked for the nobility, the aristocracy and the gentry," Day says. "And all the knowledge of the food was in those places. And once you knocked out that social layer ... you lost that food culture.” Due to war and economics the food rationing didn’t end until 1954 when British cooking was able to make a comeback.
I imagined that the food of Downton Abbey came from family-owned, idyllic, small organic farms, but the Edwardian era was quite modern in terms of farming as well as cooking. WWI food shortages resulted in the importation of 5,000 tractors ordered from Henry Ford. (Hence Edith was able to drive a tractor in the second season.)
The agricultural revolution had started in Great Britain during the early 1700s, so by the Edwardian era, crop rotation, fertilizers, irrigation, and early toxic pesticides—arsenic and lead, sulfur, copper, mercury—were common.
The agricultural revolution had started in Great Britain during the early 1700s, so by the Edwardian era, crop rotation, fertilizers, irrigation, and early toxic pesticides—arsenic and lead, sulfur, copper, mercury—were common.
Crop rotation (rather than fields lying fallow) and selective breeding increased livestock productivity through the winter--which increased the availability of meat and dairy products year around.
Although there wasn’t modern erosion control, or sophisticated soil conservation, or government-backed irrigation, and DDT had not been invented yet, the enclosure movement in England eliminated traditional smallholdings, combining the land into larger tracts that could be more efficiently farmed. Most farms in Europe had electrical power by the mid-1930s. All in all, both farming and dining were sophisticated during the times of Downton Abbey. The sophistication and elegance of Downton Abbey as a whole are depicted from photos at the Highclere website. (www.Highclerecastle.co.uk.)
Two Pictures of the Saloon (Great Hall)
Two Pictures of the Saloon (Great Hall)
The far doors of the Saloon open to the Entrance Hall/The Christmas tree at the South end of the Saloon
This following floor plan is slightly blurry, but I found it at JaneAustensWorld.wordpress.com. (CLICK ON THE MAP TO ENLARGE) This is the only legible map I could find on the internet. There is an illegible floor plan on the Highclere website, but, by watching the show, I was able to place the rooms used on Downton Abbey—later confirmed by the following map.
CLICK ON THE MAP TO ENLARGE
SOUTH
NORTH
The rooms depicted on the show include the Entrance Hall (with telephone), Saloon/Great Hall (with Christmas tree), Library (with secret door in bookcase) & Small Library/North library, the Music room (which shown only briefly on the show) and the Drawing room (many scenes are filmed here.)
For reference, at the beginning the Christmas special (1st season), Daisy walks a path starting in the Music room, through the Drawing Room into the Great Hall /Saloon to admire the Christmas tree, and then down the servants stairs just north of the Dining Room.
The Double-Library includes the Small/North Library beyond the pillars. (The direction is reversed on the map.)
For reference, at the beginning the Christmas special (1st season), Daisy walks a path starting in the Music room, through the Drawing Room into the Great Hall /Saloon to admire the Christmas tree, and then down the servants stairs just north of the Dining Room.
The Double-Library includes the Small/North Library beyond the pillars. (The direction is reversed on the map.)
The Music Room leads to the Library, which has a hidden door disguised as a bookshelf.
Highclere’s smoking room, pink room/morning room, and secretary’s room are not used on the show. In real life, Maggie Smith rests in between takes in Highclere’s morning room/pink room on the map. (See these rooms at www.Highclerecastle.co.uk)
However, there is one “mystery room” on the show with mustard yellow walls and full of marble statues depicted in the first season. I call it the mystery room, because it is not pictured on the Highclere website.
In the “mystery room” scene, Cora is sitting at her desk when the Dowager Countess enters the room saying, “The Ambassador is dangerous, but then how many people really go to the Turkish Embassy…we can’t have him assassinated—I suppose?”
I think this room may be Cora’s boudoir/downstairs sitting room. Early in the second season Cora and the family are told to use the boudoir and small/north library for their private quarters when Downton Abbey is used as a WW1 convalescent home.
A boudoir can be an upstairs or downstairs sitting room. The mystery room looks like it is on the first floor, so I’m guessing that it is actually the real Highclere Study —when I’m trying to piece these rooms together, I always feel like I’m playing the board game “Clue.”
On the show the staff dining room would be located directly below the Crawley’s dining room, and the kitchen (sometimes called it the scullery) would be located in the basement north of the staff dining room, along with Carson’s office and Misses Hugh’s sitting room. Outside of which I can almost smell the Downton Abbey servants' dinner of lamb stew...hopefully Mrs. Pattmore won't put too much salt in it.
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix
Monday, February 20, 2012
Root Canals Linked To Cancer and Other Disease
This is the third in the series of my triple header on Mercola excerpts--this article is great, I have never heard this before. I like to reference Dr. Mercola's articles from time to time because he has a team of researchers who go through a thousand pages of research per day (according to Mercola on an interview with Dr. Oz.)
Loading Please WaitThe following post is an ammended version of Mercola's article about the link between root canals to cancer and other diseases:
Dr. Price was a dentist and researcher who traveled the world to study the teeth, bones, and diets of native populations living without the "benefit" of modern food. Around the year 1900, Price had been treating persistent root canal infections and became suspicious that root-canaled teeth always remained infected, in spite of treatments. Then one day, he recommended to a woman, wheelchair bound for six years, to have her root canal tooth extracted, even though it appeared to be fine...
She agreed, so he extracted her tooth and then implanted it under the skin of a rabbit. The rabbit amazingly developed the same crippling arthritis as the woman and died from the infection 10 days later. But the woman, now free of the toxic tooth, immediately recovered from her arthritis and could now walk without even the assistance of a cane....
Price discovered that it's mechanically impossible to sterilize a root-canaled (e.g. root-filled) tooth.
He then went on to show that many chronic degenerative diseases originate from root-filled teeth—the most frequent being heart and circulatory diseases. He actually found 16 different causative bacterial agents for these conditions. But there were also strong correlations between root-filled teeth and diseases of the joints, brain and nervous system...
Dr. Price went on to write two groundbreaking books in 1922 detailing his research into the link between dental pathology and chronic illness. Unfortunately, his work was deliberately buried for 70 years, until finally one endodontist named George Meinig recognized the importance of Price's work and sought to expose the truth...[Mercola article continues]
Root Canals Can Lead to Heart, Kidney, Bone, and Brain Disease
As long as your immune system remains strong, any bacteria that stray away from the infected tooth are captured and destroyed. But once your immune system is weakened by something like an accident or illness or other trauma, your immune system may be unable to keep the infection in check.If you would like to read the full article, I recommend subscribing to Mercola's newsletter at www.Mercola.com. His database contains this article and many other great ones.
These bacteria can migrate out into surrounding tissues by hitching a ride into your blood stream, where they are transported to new locations to set up camp. The new location can be any organ or gland or tissue.
Dr. Price was able to transfer diseases harbored by humans to rabbits, by implanting fragments of root-canaled teeth, as mentioned above. He found that root canal fragments from a person who had suffered a heart attack, when implanted into a rabbit, would cause a heart attack in the rabbit within a few weeks.
He discovered he could transfer heart disease to the rabbit 100 percent of the time! Other diseases were more than 80 percent transferable by this method. Nearly every chronic degenerative disease has been linked with root canals, including:
There may also be a cancer connection. Dr. Robert Jones, a researcher of the relationship between root canals and breast cancer, found an extremely high correlation between root canals and breast cancer. He claims to have found the following correlations in a five-year study of 300 breast cancer cases:
- Heart disease
- Kidney disease
- Arthritis, joint, and rheumatic diseases
- Neurological diseases (including ALS and MS)
- Autoimmune diseases (Lupus and more)
Dr. Jones claims that toxins from the bacteria in an infected tooth or jawbone are able to inhibit the proteins that suppress tumor development. A German physician reported similar findings. Dr. Josef Issels reported that, in his 40 years of treating "terminal" cancer patients, 97 percent of his cancer patients had root canals. If these physicians are correct, the cure for cancer may be as simple as having a tooth pulled, then rebuilding your immune system..."
- 93 percent of women with breast cancer had root canals
- 7 percent had other oral pathology
- Tumors, in the majority of cases, occurred on the same side of the body as the root canal(s) or other oral pathology
Wow, I never though a root canal could lead to such problems provided that a person's immune system was weakened. After reading this, I will be taking care to never be put in a position to have a root canal.
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix
Deadly Vaccines and Children
This is the first in a triple header of quoted Mercola articles. While my last two posts were longer and fleshed out articles about World Food and GMOs, I haven't quoted Mercola in a while. Nobody does expose quite like Mercola.
"The first principle of the Nuremberg Code—that doctors must obtain voluntary informed consent from the person about to be experimented on—appears to be frequently ignored, especially when it comes to clinical trials of experimental vaccines.
In recent news, the Argentinean Federation of Health Professionals accused GlaxoSmithKline of misleading participants and pressuring impoverished, disadvantaged families into enrolling their children in clinical trials of the experimental Synflorix pediatric pneumonia vaccine. Fourteen of the children participating in the experimental vaccine trial died...
This certainly is not the first time children have died during drug company trials. It's also not the first time a pharmaceutical company has been accused of being less than completely honest about experimental vaccine or drug risks, when they want to persuade poor, under-educated people into signing up for clinical trials...
For example, according to Nigerian authorities, Pfizer illegally tested an unapproved drug on children with brain infections at a field hospital in 1996. Eleven of the children died and dozens were disabled before the illegal activity was exposed...
Similarly, two years ago, the Indian government suspended Merck's Gardasil study after they discovered that four of the young clinical trial participants had died after receiving Gardasil, and more than 120 girls suffered severe adverse reactions. A civil society-led investigation into the vaccine trial highlighted serious violations of ethical guidelines for clinical research and informed consent rights of study participants or their legal guardians...
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health,) Alix
"The first principle of the Nuremberg Code—that doctors must obtain voluntary informed consent from the person about to be experimented on—appears to be frequently ignored, especially when it comes to clinical trials of experimental vaccines.
In recent news, the Argentinean Federation of Health Professionals accused GlaxoSmithKline of misleading participants and pressuring impoverished, disadvantaged families into enrolling their children in clinical trials of the experimental Synflorix pediatric pneumonia vaccine. Fourteen of the children participating in the experimental vaccine trial died...
This certainly is not the first time children have died during drug company trials. It's also not the first time a pharmaceutical company has been accused of being less than completely honest about experimental vaccine or drug risks, when they want to persuade poor, under-educated people into signing up for clinical trials...
For example, according to Nigerian authorities, Pfizer illegally tested an unapproved drug on children with brain infections at a field hospital in 1996. Eleven of the children died and dozens were disabled before the illegal activity was exposed...
Similarly, two years ago, the Indian government suspended Merck's Gardasil study after they discovered that four of the young clinical trial participants had died after receiving Gardasil, and more than 120 girls suffered severe adverse reactions. A civil society-led investigation into the vaccine trial highlighted serious violations of ethical guidelines for clinical research and informed consent rights of study participants or their legal guardians...
Pediatric Anthrax Vaccine—A Disaster in the Making?
[Mercola states that] Last year, I interviewed Dr. Meryl Nass about anthrax, and she was the one who brought this terrible situation to my attention. The idea of public health officials promoting the testing of anthrax vaccine on children is truly unfathomable considering the fact that the military's controversial mandatory anthrax vaccination program has already resulted in many reports of anthrax vaccine injuries and deaths in soldiers and civilian military personnel. Side effects occur in one to two percent of those given anthrax vaccine and 11 percent of all anthrax vaccine adverse event reports are considered serious.
Again, nobody does expose like Mercola, and I'm glad he is a nationally known leader in cautioning people about the dangers of vaccines. I have done prior posts on vaccines, and I won't be getting one any time soon.
The FDA's definition of a "serious adverse reaction" to a vaccine includes a reaction that leads to:
In Dr. Nass' words:
- Hospitalization
- Permanent disability
- Life-threatening event
- Death...
"It's completely crazy, and it's illegal. It can only be done because the Department of Health and Human Services is denying that there are serious adverse reactions...He's [the D.O.H. researcher] a very unethical researcher. He is a pharmacist with a PhD, and of course where did he go after he left the military? He went to Merck and works as a so-called scientist in their vaccine division… Merck knew that this guy was unethical; that he was cooking the books on the research, and they hired him anyway." "
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health,) Alix
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
World Food Report: Part 2
This is Part 2 of my blog on GMOs, world food policy, and land availability in developing countries. Again, this is the second half of my favorite post so far: Freelance writers know that blogs/writing for the general public should be written at the sixth grade level--I didn't do that for this content--nor is this post "short" in order to meet the attention span of the general public. That's because I'm discovering my readers tend to be in an educated demographic, so I'm "bringing it on." (Bold print and italics have been added for my own emphasis.)
In my last few blogs, I have talked about the ills of GMOs on a world level and their effect on global food production and small farming. GMO seeds cannot be saved, and farmers in developing can’t afford to buy them year after, risking continual debt. Many scientists and governmental institutions encourage their use, but GMOs also degrade the soil quality, which is already a big problem in poor countries.
“Even though you know you are overusing your soil and that it will degrade if you do not rest it or plant less aggressively, the degradation happens at some point in the future. … And while fertilizers and other land improvements might be a good investment by conventional calculations, they are of no help if you cannot afford them or cannot even get a loan to finance them.” (Heifer International, World Ark: “Poverty traps, Why the Poor Stay Poor”) GMO crops will make this problem worse.
undermining the human and natural resources on which food production must depend. If we are to meet the three challenges set out in the previous section, then sustainable models of smallholder production must be where the lion’s share of effort goes. The powerful elites in poor countries that control land and block reform. …
In my last few blogs, I have talked about the ills of GMOs on a world level and their effect on global food production and small farming. GMO seeds cannot be saved, and farmers in developing can’t afford to buy them year after, risking continual debt. Many scientists and governmental institutions encourage their use, but GMOs also degrade the soil quality, which is already a big problem in poor countries.
“Even though you know you are overusing your soil and that it will degrade if you do not rest it or plant less aggressively, the degradation happens at some point in the future. … And while fertilizers and other land improvements might be a good investment by conventional calculations, they are of no help if you cannot afford them or cannot even get a loan to finance them.” (Heifer International, World Ark: “Poverty traps, Why the Poor Stay Poor”) GMO crops will make this problem worse.
According to Heifer International, “social exclusion is a poverty problem in its own right; in addition, the more unequal the distribution of wealth, the larger the fraction of the population that is unable to put up collateral for a loan, so fewer children can attend school and fewer businesses and microenterprises can expand…Across countries, there is a danger that rich and poor will become two worlds, separate and unequal, sowing the seeds of future international conflict, terrorist groups [my prior post talks about the inverse relationship between women farmers and terrorism], global environmental destruction, spread of disease without regard to borders, and continued human misery among the poor…"
"People in low-income countries know full well that the rich countries could do much more to help, but have chosen not to. Debt bondage traps: While credit is needed, the wrong kind of debt from unscrupulous moneylenders can also be a trap. Colluding moneylenders can calibrate loan amounts and interest payments to ensure that a family can never get out of debt.”
This debt will become even worse if Monsanto begins to sue poor farmers in developing nations for patent violations, as is its policy in North America. Monsanto regularly sues small farmers in North America (and has a $10 million budget to do so) for patent violations due to inadvertent cross-pollination caused by Monsanto’s GMO crops from neighboring farms.
If government policy encourages use of GMOs in developing countries, inevitably issues arise about big business owning and controlling the seeds themselves. GM seeds are now being implemented in Iraq, and will most likely polute most farmers crops, destroying thier heirloom seeds that have been cultivated for thousands of years. Heirloom seed rights are important to poor farmers, and they cannot afford to buy the yearly patent on GM seeds. Powerful institutions controlling land availability in general, and distribution is not necessarily fair to poor farmers.
Oxfam explains, “In the USA, 4 per cent of farm owners account for nearly half of all farm land. In Guatemala less than 8 per cent of agricultural producers hold almost 80 per cent of land – a figure that is not atypical for Central America as a whole. In Brazil, one per cent of the population owns nearly half of all land. If governments fail to provide secure access to land for their populations, then powerful local elites and investors are able to ride roughshod over local communities..."
"In recent cases of large-scale land purchases, expropriations are the rule; the principle of free, prior, and informed consent is routinely ignored; and compensation is usually too low, if paid at all. Initial promises of development and jobs often evaporate: the land may remain idle, or the investment is highly mechanized, offering a few jobs to highly skilled males only. A major World Bank study found that investors were targeting precisely the countries in which institutions were weakest…”
In fact, issues arise in food distribution due to corporate domination of markets. Oxfam explains, “Only 40 cents of every taxpayer dollar spent on US food aid actually goes to buying food. A big chunk goes straight into the pockets of US agribusiness companies…Nearly 40 per cent of total food aid costs are paid to US shipping companies, where again, restricted bidding limits competition and pushes up prices. Such aid takes longer to reach those in need. During 2004–08, US food aid to Africa required an average of 147 days for delivery, compared with 35–41 days for food from the African continent.
And in situations where shipping food aid from the USA would be an appropriate response, Oxfam estimates that procuring transport on the open market would allow the American taxpayer to provide 15 per cent more food, enough to feed an additional 3.2 million people in emergency situations. Source: Barrett and Maxwell (2008) Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting its Role”
The website www.BillMoyers.com, features interviews done by Bill Moyers explaining the impact of the widening gap between rich and the poor in the world, the domination of corporations, and what adverse effects that is having. (Full Show: Winner-Take-All-Politics)
More about economics from Oxfam: “Despite more than doubling the size of its economy between 1990 and 2005, India failed to make even a tiny dent in the number of hungry people…In Brazil, however, where economic growth has been slower, hunger has been rolled back at an incredible pace… Sadly, India failed to prioritize hunger or develop a coherent strategy...In Brazil, the opposite was true. A national crosssectoral strategy launched in 2003, consisted of 50 linked initiatives ranging from cash transfers for poor mothers to extension services for small-scale food producers…
In a region [Ethiopia] recently plagued by drought, sacks of maize stuffed to bursting and piled to the ceiling of a warehouse in Shashemene, Ethiopia, are a welcome sight...This corn was grown right here. By small farmers in the West Arsi Zone...‘We have a stock in our bank and our members are not starving like other people,’ said the bank’s storekeeper at the time. ‘Our experience in the past three years has shown us we can make progress in our lives.’...Rejection of new technologies and trade have the potential to lock farmers into poverty...[But] it is certainly not the case that big [farming] is bad. Whether a farm is ‘bad’ or not depends upon the practices of the farmer or company running it…Nor is it a case of ‘big is beautiful’..., a single large-scale farm imported from Brazil into Tanzania could displace 12,500 smallholder farms.”
There are myths about smallholder farmers including that they have low productivity—but this depends on access to irrigation and fertilizer. Another myth is that small farmers in developing countries shy away from technology and innovation and that they are not very entrepreneurial. Another false assumption is that small farm holders aren’t savvy about markets.
Oxfam continues, “Moreover, today’s large farms tend to suffer from a heavy
ecological footprint – due to profligate water use, pollution of groundwater, and reliance on oil-based agro-chemicals and diesel-burning machinery – thusundermining the human and natural resources on which food production must depend. If we are to meet the three challenges set out in the previous section, then sustainable models of smallholder production must be where the lion’s share of effort goes. The powerful elites in poor countries that control land and block reform. …
Governments must renew their purpose as custodians of the public good rather than allowing elites to drag them by the nose. … The examples of Brazil and Viet Nam, among others, show that strong political leaders with a clear moral purpose can drive government success.”
A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), and to the world's small farmers, Alix
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
GMOs and Africa
Recently the Gates Foundation, Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the United Nations World Food Program teamed up with Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to fund an effort intended to help farmers in poor countries increase their yield and soil quality. This effort is focused in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Central America and will support a large number of woman farmers.
WFP is the currently largest single purchaser of food for humanitarian relief. According to GatesFoundation.org, the Gates Foundation has given 66 million for this program to help Africa, the Buffet Foundation 9.1 million, and the Belgian Government has funded the Congo with $750,000.
Gates has stated that GMO crops have the "potential to address farmer's challenges more efficiently than conventional techniques." In 2010 the Gates Foundation invested 23.1 million in 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock. (My December 2011 post reviews the film The Future of Food that interviews small farmers who have been exploited by Monsanto's regular practice of litigation for violating seed patents--for cross contamination caused by Monsanto GM seeds. For more about Monsanto and GMOs, see my October 2011 post "Monsanto, lies and cover up?")
An article from the online African Executive states about GM seeds, "Patenting, or claiming intellectual property rights means that farmers who buy GM seeds are forbidden from seed saving by law, and must buy new seed from the company each season...it is ironic that while GM purports to help to solve hunger and poverty in Africa, it may instead place an impossible burden on the poorest farmers...International NGOs working on food security issues are in agreement that patented GM crops present a serious threat to farmers and food rights..." (See my September 2011 post on GMOs to see what countries have already banned them.)
AGRA (Agra-Alliance.org) helps small farmers solely in Africa increase their yield with "the use of improved seeds and farm management techniques" and the improvement of soil quality through organic and inorganic fertilizer. The Buffet Foundation has given 83 million in the past to small-scale farmers for soil improvement, participatory farm research, and the "development of drought-tolerant and virus resistant crop varieties to increase crop yields."
AGRA states that it "supports the rights of farmers to conserve and utilize their own seeds" and does not fund the development of GMOs. However, according to Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, "in Kenya AGRA has used funds from the Gates Foundation to write grants for research in genetically modified agriculture...nearly 80% of Gates funding in Kenya involves biotech and there have been over $100million in grants to organizations connected to Monsanto. In 2008 some 30% of the [Gates] foundation's agricultural development funds went to promotion or developing genetically modified seeds." (My December 2011 post reviews the documentary Bad Seed, which explains that GM cotton seeds in India produced 5x less yield than heirloom seeds, leading to the suicide of 400 Indian farmers.)
The following is an excerpt of a petition written in 2012 by the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Friends of the Earth Ghana, Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy:
We the undersigned representing civil society groups are concerned about recent statements that emanated from the first Pan African Biotechnology Stewardship Conference held in Accra, Ghana on the 1st of December 2011, which called on Africans to use biotechnology to provide “poor farmers with healthier, more bountiful crops to reduce hunger and poverty in Africa"...
We are disappointed that an unproven and unsafe technology is being foisted on Africa simply because of the unfortunate continual characterization of Africa as a chronically hungry continent.
It is important to understand that, the agricultural fortunes of the continent have been adversely impacted mainly by externally generated neoliberal policies. Our agricultural systems are threatened by industries that seek to control our food and our livelihoods by destroying our agricultural systems. The move towards intensified, chemical based agriculture is set to undermine the predominant family based agro-ecological food production on the continent. The promotion and introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with intellectual property rights over seeds represents a serious threat to African farmers rights to reproduce, save and share seeds. It also threatens to erode seed diversity represents new forms of stealing, as all industrial seeds are taken from seeds cultivated, developed and preserved through thousands of years of selection and breeding by our people.
We express total disgust at the manner by which the burden for solutions to every crisis faced by the North is shifted unto Africa...
While the world is advancing towards stricter control of GMOs, it is a different situation in Africa where our leaders are covertly or ignorantly colluding with multinational agribusinesses to colonize our food systems as well as give out our arable lands through dubious land grabbing agreements.
We note that recently many countries have been taking steps to secure their agriculture from pollution through modern biotechnology and to secure the safety of national food systems. We give examples here.
1) Benin Republic has maintained a moratorium on GMOs over the past 10 years.
2) Peru approved the law banning GM production for 10 years.[3]
3) The Mexican States of Tlaxcala and Michoacán each passed legislation banning the planting of genetically modified corn to protect natural plants from further contamination of transgenes.[4]
4) China said GMO is not a priority, stemming from public debate and outcry over the safety of GMO food[5].
5) In the United States: California counties of Mendocino, Trinity and Marin have successfully banned GM crops.
6) In New Zealand: No GM foods are grown.
7) In Germany: There is a ban on the cultivation or sale of GMO maize.
8) In Ireland: All GM crops were banned for cultivation in 2009, and there is a labeling system for foods containing GM to ensure that such foods are identified as such.
9) In Austria, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria and Luxembourg there are bans on the cultivation and sale of GMOs.
10) In France: Monsanto's MON810 GM corn had been approved but its cultivation was forbidden in 2008. There is widespread public mistrust of GMOs that has been successful in keeping GM crops out of the country.
11) Madeira the autonomous Portuguese island requested a country-wide ban on genetically modified crops last year and was permitted to do so by the European Union (EU).
12) Switzerland banned all GM crops, animals, and plants on its fields and farms in a public referendum in 2005, but the initial ban was for only five years. The ban has since been extended through 2013.
There are several other examples.
It is clear that the Genetic engineering is a technology in search of a market. “Experts in Biotechnology from around the world” and lobbyists from the genetic engineering (GE) industry are pushing the notion that Africa’s only choice is between hunger and GE crops. This is patently false and is merely an arm-twisting effort that African farmers and peoples’must resist. Hunger can be avoided without growing and eating GE crops. Studies have shown that the claim that genetically engineered (GE) crops have a higher yield than natural varieties is virtually a myth...
For these reasons we ask our governments and peoples as a matter of urgency to support ecological-friendly farming which nurtures our soil, cultivates diversity and supplies our families with safe and nutritious food. Ecological agriculture also helps to combat climate change.
We therefore resolve as follows:
1.That there are no successes stories to tell about GMOs other than tales of woes.Africans must not be used as guinea pigs for unverified technologies and the continent must no longer be used as a dumping ground for the products of the biotech companies...
In 2008, after three years of solid work, over 400 scientists, 30 governments from developed and developing countries, as well as 30 civil society organizations, concluded work under the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). About 60 countries endorsed the report at a meeting in Johannesburg in April of that year.The report concluded that modern biotechnology would have very limited contribution to the feeding of the world in the foreseeable future. That report is an excellent blue print for action by African governments rather than getting tied to the apron-strings of speculators and neo-colonial powers whose objective is to exploit, subjugate and destroy food production systems on the African continent
Signed
Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria
Friends of the Earth Ghana
Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy
(Add your organization's name here and reply to mariann@eraction.org and annybassi@yahoo.com on or before 30 January 2012).
To read the entire petition please go to www.foodfirst.org. In my prior posts onGMOs, I describe their dangers to health, soil quality, as have talked about the myriad of countries that have banned them. While some African countries have activist movements resisting them, GMO seeds are currently mandated in Iraq--part of the agreement of the post-Iraqi war. In North America, Monsanto's crops contaminate farmers fields, and then Monsanto sues them for patent violation. Foodfirst.org is a great site, and hopefully awareness will be raised about GMOs to prevent their perpetuation.
A Votre Sante, (Here's To Your Health), Alix
WFP is the currently largest single purchaser of food for humanitarian relief. According to GatesFoundation.org, the Gates Foundation has given 66 million for this program to help Africa, the Buffet Foundation 9.1 million, and the Belgian Government has funded the Congo with $750,000.
Gates has stated that GMO crops have the "potential to address farmer's challenges more efficiently than conventional techniques." In 2010 the Gates Foundation invested 23.1 million in 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock. (My December 2011 post reviews the film The Future of Food that interviews small farmers who have been exploited by Monsanto's regular practice of litigation for violating seed patents--for cross contamination caused by Monsanto GM seeds. For more about Monsanto and GMOs, see my October 2011 post "Monsanto, lies and cover up?")
An article from the online African Executive states about GM seeds, "Patenting, or claiming intellectual property rights means that farmers who buy GM seeds are forbidden from seed saving by law, and must buy new seed from the company each season...it is ironic that while GM purports to help to solve hunger and poverty in Africa, it may instead place an impossible burden on the poorest farmers...International NGOs working on food security issues are in agreement that patented GM crops present a serious threat to farmers and food rights..." (See my September 2011 post on GMOs to see what countries have already banned them.)
AGRA (Agra-Alliance.org) helps small farmers solely in Africa increase their yield with "the use of improved seeds and farm management techniques" and the improvement of soil quality through organic and inorganic fertilizer. The Buffet Foundation has given 83 million in the past to small-scale farmers for soil improvement, participatory farm research, and the "development of drought-tolerant and virus resistant crop varieties to increase crop yields."
AGRA states that it "supports the rights of farmers to conserve and utilize their own seeds" and does not fund the development of GMOs. However, according to Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, "in Kenya AGRA has used funds from the Gates Foundation to write grants for research in genetically modified agriculture...nearly 80% of Gates funding in Kenya involves biotech and there have been over $100million in grants to organizations connected to Monsanto. In 2008 some 30% of the [Gates] foundation's agricultural development funds went to promotion or developing genetically modified seeds." (My December 2011 post reviews the documentary Bad Seed, which explains that GM cotton seeds in India produced 5x less yield than heirloom seeds, leading to the suicide of 400 Indian farmers.)
The following is an excerpt of a petition written in 2012 by the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Friends of the Earth Ghana, Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy:
We the undersigned representing civil society groups are concerned about recent statements that emanated from the first Pan African Biotechnology Stewardship Conference held in Accra, Ghana on the 1st of December 2011, which called on Africans to use biotechnology to provide “poor farmers with healthier, more bountiful crops to reduce hunger and poverty in Africa"...
We are disappointed that an unproven and unsafe technology is being foisted on Africa simply because of the unfortunate continual characterization of Africa as a chronically hungry continent.
It is important to understand that, the agricultural fortunes of the continent have been adversely impacted mainly by externally generated neoliberal policies. Our agricultural systems are threatened by industries that seek to control our food and our livelihoods by destroying our agricultural systems. The move towards intensified, chemical based agriculture is set to undermine the predominant family based agro-ecological food production on the continent. The promotion and introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with intellectual property rights over seeds represents a serious threat to African farmers rights to reproduce, save and share seeds. It also threatens to erode seed diversity represents new forms of stealing, as all industrial seeds are taken from seeds cultivated, developed and preserved through thousands of years of selection and breeding by our people.
We express total disgust at the manner by which the burden for solutions to every crisis faced by the North is shifted unto Africa...
While the world is advancing towards stricter control of GMOs, it is a different situation in Africa where our leaders are covertly or ignorantly colluding with multinational agribusinesses to colonize our food systems as well as give out our arable lands through dubious land grabbing agreements.
We note that recently many countries have been taking steps to secure their agriculture from pollution through modern biotechnology and to secure the safety of national food systems. We give examples here.
1) Benin Republic has maintained a moratorium on GMOs over the past 10 years.
2) Peru approved the law banning GM production for 10 years.[3]
3) The Mexican States of Tlaxcala and Michoacán each passed legislation banning the planting of genetically modified corn to protect natural plants from further contamination of transgenes.[4]
4) China said GMO is not a priority, stemming from public debate and outcry over the safety of GMO food[5].
5) In the United States: California counties of Mendocino, Trinity and Marin have successfully banned GM crops.
6) In New Zealand: No GM foods are grown.
7) In Germany: There is a ban on the cultivation or sale of GMO maize.
8) In Ireland: All GM crops were banned for cultivation in 2009, and there is a labeling system for foods containing GM to ensure that such foods are identified as such.
9) In Austria, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria and Luxembourg there are bans on the cultivation and sale of GMOs.
10) In France: Monsanto's MON810 GM corn had been approved but its cultivation was forbidden in 2008. There is widespread public mistrust of GMOs that has been successful in keeping GM crops out of the country.
11) Madeira the autonomous Portuguese island requested a country-wide ban on genetically modified crops last year and was permitted to do so by the European Union (EU).
12) Switzerland banned all GM crops, animals, and plants on its fields and farms in a public referendum in 2005, but the initial ban was for only five years. The ban has since been extended through 2013.
There are several other examples.
It is clear that the Genetic engineering is a technology in search of a market. “Experts in Biotechnology from around the world” and lobbyists from the genetic engineering (GE) industry are pushing the notion that Africa’s only choice is between hunger and GE crops. This is patently false and is merely an arm-twisting effort that African farmers and peoples’must resist. Hunger can be avoided without growing and eating GE crops. Studies have shown that the claim that genetically engineered (GE) crops have a higher yield than natural varieties is virtually a myth...
For these reasons we ask our governments and peoples as a matter of urgency to support ecological-friendly farming which nurtures our soil, cultivates diversity and supplies our families with safe and nutritious food. Ecological agriculture also helps to combat climate change.
We therefore resolve as follows:
1.That there are no successes stories to tell about GMOs other than tales of woes.Africans must not be used as guinea pigs for unverified technologies and the continent must no longer be used as a dumping ground for the products of the biotech companies...
In 2008, after three years of solid work, over 400 scientists, 30 governments from developed and developing countries, as well as 30 civil society organizations, concluded work under the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). About 60 countries endorsed the report at a meeting in Johannesburg in April of that year.The report concluded that modern biotechnology would have very limited contribution to the feeding of the world in the foreseeable future. That report is an excellent blue print for action by African governments rather than getting tied to the apron-strings of speculators and neo-colonial powers whose objective is to exploit, subjugate and destroy food production systems on the African continent
Signed
Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria
Friends of the Earth Ghana
Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy
(Add your organization's name here and reply to mariann@eraction.org and annybassi@yahoo.com on or before 30 January 2012).
To read the entire petition please go to www.foodfirst.org. In my prior posts onGMOs, I describe their dangers to health, soil quality, as have talked about the myriad of countries that have banned them. While some African countries have activist movements resisting them, GMO seeds are currently mandated in Iraq--part of the agreement of the post-Iraqi war. In North America, Monsanto's crops contaminate farmers fields, and then Monsanto sues them for patent violation. Foodfirst.org is a great site, and hopefully awareness will be raised about GMOs to prevent their perpetuation.
A Votre Sante, (Here's To Your Health), Alix
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