2011
Issue 278: Thinking Like a Movement
Thinking Like a Movement
#278, January 2011
Please Note: We make each issue of The Ram's Horn available for free download as it appears in print. Whether or not you want a paper copy mailed to you, we invite you to make a contribution to our research and production costs - the regular subscription is $25 CDN per year (10 issues) plus extra postage to addresses outside Canada, and you can add $25 or more to support us as a Patron.
Table of Contents
Thinking Like a Movement: Food Secure Canada's biennial Assembly demonstrates youthful energy as it begins with reistance to the global land grab for biomass and ends with a call to movement collaboration and solidarity
Miami Rice: Subsidized US rice undercuts attempts to help Haitian farmers
Biotech industry fails to capture Vatican: Despite lobbying, the Vatican is still not supporting GMOs
Bt Corn Breeds New Pest: A German report on the precise way in which GE crops support new pest outbreaks
Co-Esiztence?: USDA Secretary calls for an impossible "coexistence and cooperation" while recognising the scientific proof of GMO contamination of other crops; an Australian organic farm is decertified because of contamination
Non-GMO preferred: Still a minority, non-GMO crops are increasing in popularity in Ohio
Organic Cotton: Demand, No Seeds: Farmers in India face a shortage of non-Bt cotton seed
Sheep Choose Medications: A research report that sheep select plants to correct dietary imbalance illness
Pakistan Flooded with Corporate Seeds: The seed/fertilizer package delivered as aid is part of a drive to transform Pakistan's agriculture to cash crop export (likely with GMO seeds for openers)
Dirty Green: The EU attempt to cut carbon emissions with biofuels omits the emissions from growing the biomass crops
Drought and the Defiant: Indian farmers in the Deccan Plateau, Andhra Pradesh use a variety of seeds and traditional practices to flourish despite fluctuations in rains.
Issue 279: Food Crisis or Agribusiness as Usual
Food Crisis or Agribusiness as Usual
#279, February 2011
Please Note: We make each issue of The Ram's Horn available for free download as it appears in print. Whether or not you want a paper copy mailed to you, we invite you to make a contribution to our research and production costs - the regular subscription is $25 CDN per year (10 issues) plus extra postage to addresses outside Canada, and you can add $25 or more to support us as a Patron.
Table of Contents
Food Crisis or Agribusiness as Usual: Brewster looks behind the headlines to identify the real forces causing hunger, including discussion of:
* World Economic Forum - Plans unveiled at Davos to reconfigure Mozambique's agriculture as a model for corporate profit
* Plenty of Food - Is shortage really the problem?
* Speculation Inflated Food Price Bubble - Stephen Leahy reports
* A Different "Food Crisis" Explanation - GRAIN explores the creation of a food crisis in Russia
With a Grain of Salt: Canada hands over regulation of salt content in food to a new committee composed largely of food manufacturers
Contamination & Coexistence:
* Potato Is A Person, Not A Resource - Brewster discusses the destructive attitudes behind genetic engineering and the logical outcomes
* Drug Safety: Side effects and mistakes or adverse reactions and deadly errors?
Hoist with their own Petard:
* US Approves Corn Modified for Ethanol - and the industry is worried that contamination will affect their manufacturing processes
* "Unintended" effects - Centre for Food Safety documents contamination
* "Food terrorism" - US expert warns Saskatchewan farmers, forgets to mention GE
* "Struggling Food Processing Sector" - Nestle, Cargill etc. claim they need Federal financial support
New agricultural agreement: China in Argentina: GRAIN documents land grabs, in this case for industrial soy production
Issue 280: Food Sovereignty and Autonomy
Food Sovereignty and Autonomy
#280, April 2011
Please Note: We make each issue of The Ram's Horn available for free download as it appears in print. Whether or not you want a paper copy mailed to you, we invite you to make a contribution to our research and production costs - the regular subscription is $25 CDN per year (10 issues) plus extra postage to addresses outside Canada, and you can add $25 or more to support us as a Patron.
Table of Contents
Food Sovereignty and Autonomy:
Contrast between the call for agro-ecology as the key to realization of the right to food from Olivier de Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, and the agenda unveiled in the Davos New Vision for Agriculture, with special focus on the plans for Tanzania
Market and Subsistence: Actually, the price of rice is relatively stable -- because most rice is eaten where it is grown
Autonomy in Practice: Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture is building soil health and feeding the people in Andhra Pradesh state, India
And now, the bad news: TechnoServe is partnering with an impressive list of transnational food corporations to 'help' Haiti by developing a 'sustainable' mango export industry
Leaves a bad taste: A NAFTA ruling gives Cargill a large chunk of cash ($77 million plus court costs) and permission to continue selling subsidized US-produced HFCS tax-free in Mexico
An Energy Drink: Coke introduces a 'green' plastic bottle in Canada
More Sweetness: Toronto (and Paris France) are better places to keep bees than Guelph, possibly because of their pesticide bans
Naked Oats: Campbell's develops a super-nutritional product (designed for food banks) with a new version of oats developed in Canada's public labs
Biotech Puffery and Propaganda: The Internaional Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications, usually referred to as ISAAA, and its writer Clive James, once more prove that their propaganda has no factual foundation
More Reliable Data on Biotech Crops: Actual facts (with references) are available from Friends of the Earth International
Editors' Note: We resent being forced to vote for a party we do not support in order to try to unseat a vicious right-wing MP.
Issue 281
Please Note: We make each issue of The Ram's Horn available for free download as it appears in print. Whether or not you want a paper copy mailed to you, we invite you to make a contribution to our research and production costs - the regular subscription is $25 CDN per year (10 issues) plus extra postage to addresses outside Canada, and you can add $25 or more to support us as a Patron.
Table of Contents
Thinking Like a [Political] Movement
Brewster reflects on the political movements since the 1950s and the need to focus on the Big Picture.
What's Wrong with this Picture?: The G&M Report on Business asks "How do we feed 7 billion people?"; we say that WE aren't the ones to do that.
Organic Forced Labour: Whole Foods Market is accused of selling produce from China grown by prisoners on polluted land.
Issues concerning the Future of the Canadian Wheat Board: Laura Rance in the Winnipeg Free Press outlines what will happen once the CWB has been destroyed and the effects on not just markets but also research and seed breeding.
... And Waiting in the Wings: Cargill, along with the other grain trading majors, are ready for the demise of the CWB
Who Commands the Economy?: The National Research Council puts market priorities first
How to read the newspaper: Two articles in the Globe & Mail point out the 'rising demand for potash fertilizer' and the increased ownership of Bill Gates in the Canadian National Railway (which moves potash among other things)
African Opposition to AGRA: Gates' big project in Africa, to impose a food system dependent on inputs including fertilizer and GMO seeds, is opposed in Tanzania.
Genome Not the Solution: Despite the hype, there is little evident for a genetic basis to disease
Agrotoxins Kill Farmers: An interview with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law School, discussing the tide of farmer suicides in India resulting from the Green Revolution.
Centralized Seed: Monsanto increases its penetration in the seeds business.
Ignoring refuge requirement: only 70=80% of Illinois corn farmers say they will abide by the rule to grow 20% non-GMO along with their Bt seed.
Monsanto Melon 'Invention': No Patents on Seeds! denounces Monsanto's patent on openly bred melon variety;
Issue 282
Please Note: We make each issue of The Ram's Horn available for free download as it appears in print. Whether or not you want a paper copy mailed to you, we invite you to make a contribution to our research and production costs - the regular subscription is $25 CDN per year (10 issues) plus extra postage to addresses outside Canada, and you can add $25 or more to support us as a Patron.
Table of Contents
It's the Economy, Stupid: Stephen Harper says The Economy is all-important and so as An Economist he is fit to rule the country. We point out the flaws in his arguments.
The Invisible Giant becomes visible: Cargill is committed to growth. We chronicle some of what that means - for the company and for the rest of us.
'Responsible' Soy': Corporate strategy is denounced as "consumer deceit".
Peddling Poison: Canada stands alone in the world as it vetoes a ban on chrysotile asbestos (mined in Quebec).
Forget Food, We Need Biomass: A Canadian biotech promoter joins US Secretary of Agriculture in promoting farming for anything other than food.
Poisons not needed: Brazil's farm workers state they can produce just as much without agro-toxins.
'Push-Pull' Pest Control: An innovative strategy to deal with plant pests spreads.
Issue 283
Please Note: We make each issue of The Ram's Horn available for free download as it appears in print. Whether or not you want a paper copy mailed to you, we invite you to make a contribution to our research and production costs - the regular subscription is $25 CDN per year (10 issues) plus extra postage to addresses outside Canada, and you can add $25 or more to support us as a Patron.
Table of Contents
Markets, Standards & Poorer
"Volatility" in the Market is not happenstance and gains huge profits for some players.
What's really driving up foor prices: Unlike the WTO, the FAO recognizes that crops for biofuel are playing a very large role
GM corn for fuel, not food: A new corn variety designed specifically for biofuel has farmers and food manufacturers worried
Beware simple history: Samuel Bowles raises questions about why the shift from hunting/ gathering to agriculture when it seems the first farmers were less healthy
New GRAIN website: Excellent resources for researchers and activists, including a new site with the best information on the global land grab
Biotech: As CBAN provides more information we can focus (a bit) on other aspects of the food system
Labelling GM: The USA has finally allowed acceptance of CODEX guidelines
Butterflies, not Lawns: Monarch butterflies are suffering because of GE crops which are sprayed with agrotoxins that kill milkweed, their major food
Side effects: A GM canola spill from a road train in Australia threatens the GE-Free status of local farmers
Commitment to Profit: From Starbucks to Potash Corp. the focus is the same
Killing the Wheat Board: As the Harper regime continues its ideologically-based agenda, the major grain corporations gleefully prepare for new opportunities
S&P on the Warpath
Bunge: CEO says government intervention causes problems in grain markets
Cargill: Plans to construct a new grain terminal in Alberta
* Transportation efficiency: reduce pollution and costs -- Cargill announces a new kite-powered cargo vessel
* Expanding, integrating, and recalling -- Cargill acquires Provimi, recalls 36 million pounds of ground turkey
* Reducing [specified] risk -- Cargill is building a facility to burn SRMs and use the heat to product power for its packing factory
Issue 284
Please Note: We make each issue of The Ram's Horn available for free download as it appears in print. Whether or not you want a paper copy mailed to you, we invite you to make a contribution to our research and production costs - the regular subscription is $25 CDN per year (10 issues) plus extra postage to addresses outside Canada, and you can add $25 or more to support us as a Patron.
Table of Contents
Citizen, Subject, and Food Sovereignty: Brewster argues that to achieve food sovereignty we need to get a better grip on colonialism and the way in which citizens are being reduced to the status of subjects.
No government: no state?: Belgium has now been without a government for15 months.
All about grain (and GRAIN): Announcing a new issue of "Against the Grain" connecting a different food system with effective action against climate change; also, announcing GRAIN has received the Right Livelihood Award for their work on land grabs.
Cargill Notes: A propos the recall of Cargill's turkey, some thoughts about the root causes of such contamination.
Canadian Wheat Board: Government regards farmers with contempt: Not really news, but more evidence of the refusal of the Harper government to pay attention to evidence
Fair Trade or Not: TIm Horton's and Glencore
PepsiCoolie: PepsiCo is promoting industrial agriculture in China.
A plus for ethanol, a minus for food: Food manufacturers are worried about contamination from Syngenta's new GE corn.
India's miracle cotton unravels: Bt cotton has swept the country, but yields are stagnant and new pests are emerging.
GMO "Success": India: New varieties cannot cope with unusual weather, leaving farmers with no crop and huge debts
GMO "Success": USA: New pests plague Monsanto's Bt corn
DuPont: Deadly Landscaping: DuPont's weedkiller also kills trees
Feeding the Future: A different way of burial
US State Dept /biotech sales rep: In Gambia, US State Dept uses outright lies to bring farmers into the GE fold
Kenya law allows biotech crops: New legal framework announced
Local, Colourful (and non-GMO): promotion of Orange Sweet Potatoes in the Solomon Islands to counter an increasingly Western diet..
Issue 285
Please Note: We make each issue of The Ram's Horn available for free download as it appears in print. Whether or not you want a paper copy mailed to you, we invite you to make a contribution to our research and production costs - the regular subscription is $25 CDN per year (10 issues) plus extra postage to addresses outside Canada, and you can add $25 or more to support us as a Patron.
Table of Contents
Trade and Sovereignty: Examining the early trading companies' activities reveals that the rights of corporations were recognized prior to the recognition of nation states
Toronto Food Policy Council: The ground-breaking TFPC celebrates its 20th birthday
Speaking the Truth: Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food discusses "the structural violence of a cannibalistic order" of multinational corporations and calls for the realization of a different model
Land Grab in Tanzania: A bad deal for Tanzania and a worse deal for the environment with the plans for transforming 1,250 square miles of land into large-scale, GMO-based production
R.I.P. Democracy: CWB: Is Harper indulging an idee fixe or setting up a distraction from his energy and climate change policies?
Raw Rights: The campaign for raw milk is soured by libertarian claims for the 'right' to consume whatever you please
Recycled Arguments: Attacks on marketing boards use the same old (and wrong) arguments for more than 20 years
Turkeys and Marketing Boards: An farm reports on the difficulty of making a small farm work under the Ontario turkey marketing board rules.
GMO Canola Everywhere: New research shows GMO canola thriving across the US prairies; the CFIA says there is no risk
'Fumigating' Crops and Villages: The Network of Physicians of Fumigated Towns in Argentina denounced the serious effects of pesticide spraying and highlights it as an attack on population health.