2014
Issue 301
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
The Cancer of Growth: There is an unshakeable ideological commitment to growth at all costs. We have to grow the economy, even if it kills us.
Emerging Markets: The language reflects the ideology of Progress: there is only one direction to go.
Agri-Business Polikcy: Bill C-18 will destroy Canada's independent seed breeding research and indeed our ability to grow crops suited to our particular conditions. The National Farmers Union has an excellent backgrounder on why thys is critical for all Canadians
Canola Council of Canada - One Big Happy Growing Family: Decreasing rotations of canola with other crops will backfire
Beware the drug salesman: The new president of CropLife Canada sees Roundup as "sustainable"
Investment in Agriculture: Exhibit A: "Input Capital"; Exhibit B: Cathleen is sceptical of the Responsible Agriculture Investment Principles
Local Technology: icipe "push-pull" methodology has huge benefits for Kenyan farmer
Monsanto - Just A Helping Hand: Monsanto thinks using more powerful herbicides to kill volunteer Roundup Ready corn in Brazil is just fine
Letter from a Friend: A holiday in Spain leads to a shocking discovery of the extent of greenhouses along the Mediterranean coast.
Issue 302
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
Evolution: The story of The Ram's Horn and how it is aging gracefully
Who Makes Policy?: Just how Cargill makes Canada's agricultural policy
"Saving lives", Making Profits: The legacy of Norman Borlaug in the destruction of agro-ecology and sustainable food systems
Courts Act in the Public Interest: Acting in defense of the common good, Brazil federal court reverses approval for CM corn
How to Escape Liability: The US Secretary of Agriculture sets the assumption that GE contamination is an inevtiable and acceptable cost of doing business
Cargill Refuses Syngenta's GE Corn: China is rejecting this product, and it makes business sense for Cargill to refuse to handle it
"Science-based" Decisions: In Whose Interest?: Excerpts from two articles which reinforce a healthy scepticism
"Clogged": Canada's government orders the railways to solve the problem of grain shipping that they created themselves when they destroyed the Canadian Wheat Board
Public Plant Breeding Attacked: An article from the National Farmers Union analysing the shuttering of the Cereal Research Centre, one of the last of Canada's public agriculture institutions
Crop Rotation is Best Protection: Even Dow Agrosciences admits that the old-fashioned way is still the primary tool to combat pests
Globalization and Food Sovereignty: Review of a book that asks interesting questions about the development of the food movement in Canada
Stifling Peasant Agriculture: A three-country effort to impose the Brazilian industrial production-export model on Mozambique, to the dismay of the small farmers
A New Lamb Co-Op: A Manitoba sheep farmer is working with a New Zealand company to build a vertically integrated lamb business on the Prairies
Issue 303
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
In the Absence of the Sacred: The ancient salmon migration cycle is being broken
Food Cartels & Food Policy: Consolidation reaches a new level and leads to even greater corporate influence on food and agricultural policy
New "Flexible" EU Policy on GM Crops: The EU decision to allow countries to make their own decisions to approve or reject GM crops courts widespread contamination, delighting the GM industry
Labels and "Free Speech": Grain organizations band together to promote GE wheat; the big food corporations sue Vermont for its GM ban
Assembling Farmland: For the Common Good ...: Farmland Legacies increases and refines its stewardship program for the lands it holds in trust
... For Corporate Control: Another beachhead: Cargill invests in Ukraine agribusiness
Not So Simple - How the Mighty [Investors] Have Fallen: One Earth Farms and Sprott Resource Corporation quit the Blood Reserve lands, cut back operations drastically
A Growing Problem: Palmer pigweed is the latest agrotoxin-resistant weed to cause a major nuisance, infesting 25 million ha of cropland in the USA
Transform our food system: The wheat-to-bread value chain in South Africa
Painting by BC artist Danny Dennis
issue 304
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
Wonderful New Technology: Straight-faced presentation of a press release on Round Up Ready Dandelion
In Their Own Words: "Modernization of Canada's Crop Variety registration system"; New Cornell Alliance for Science gets $5.6 million grant
"What Is Agri-Food?: Well might you ask, the Canadian public does not seem to know
Consolidation in All Directions: In the middle, between the horizontal and vertical consolidation is Input Capital; Cargill is expert at consolidation up, down, and sideways
From R&D to M&A: Research and development of new products gives way to mergers and acquisitions as a way for corporations to grow; Burger King's takeover of ubiquitous Canadian coffee-shop chain Tim Hortons is a case in point
Limits to Growth: Crannog Ales demonstrates a successful business with a cap on growth
A Quiet Land-grab: Continues the story of foreign 'investment' in millions of hectares in war-torn Ukraine (see also RH #303)
Solving Hunger: Turkey's Neo-Liberal Miracle: Ryerson University's Mustafa Koc dissects the reality underneath Turkey's success story of food security
BBQ Advice: Good news, cold potatoes (as in potato salad) can help counteract the connection between red meat and colorectal cancerPlease Privatising Knowledge: Monsanto gets into data management - for the greater efficiency of the farmers, of course
Breaking News: US is an Oligarchy: New research shows that the US is dominated by its rich elite, who would have guessed?
Fertilizer Protection: One scientist suggests that fertilizers need to be 'protected' from climate events like heavy rains
Wonderful New Technology
Readers of The Ram’s Horn will know that it is our practice to publish only reports from identifiable and trustworthy sources. The following press release is something of an exception. It was passed to us by a source we cannot identify for their safety and job security, but we think you will agree that it is typical of industry hype and promises and appears to be authentic.
Announcing the release of Roundup Ready Dandelion
St. Louis, Mo, 31/7/18 – The common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) may be a weed to some (the common name in French is piss-en-lit), but it promises to become a powerhouse for innovators in the food sector. The young leaves are in much demand as a salad green among high-end chefs; the golden flowers are prized to make a delicate wine; and the roots are widely used in food and beverage processing for their exotic almost-coffee flavour, as in delicious organic dandelion ice cream.
To serve the producers and users of this crop, we are excited to announce the widespread release of RoundUp-Ready (RR) dandelions. No longer will growers be faced with dead dandelions every time a neighbour sprays a crop or enhances a lawn. As is standard in our industry we consulted widely (with 3 Italian wine makers and one ice cream producer) in the process of perfecting this technology. In addition, our stakeholder consultations have not produced a single voice of concern. Our extensive research has uncovered no scientific papers contradicting our own research findings; in fact, our rigorous trials demonstrate that the seed will not travel beyond the farm. Our trial results show that 83.45% of the RR dandelion seed comes with shorter wing feathers than conventional varieties; trials of blow balls in windy outdoor conditions are forthcoming.
Furthermore, insects which could be vectors of cross-pollination with conventional dandelions can be readily controlled through regular applications of neonicotinoids. This is what we call a sustainable, integrated solution.
Farmers and gardeners alike will enjoy the control and predictability this new technology offers for their management practices. Further developments of this technology promise higher yields for farmers and increased root size, of particular interest to commercial growers, and opening new opportunities even beyond the food sector. Our scientists are improving a variety that yields a milk similar to that of the rubber tree. This newly improved and enhanced variety promises to liberate the world from dependence on east Asian latex fields and provide a reliable source of non-rainforest latex for world markets. It also promises to cure cancer.
Illustration: Piss-en-lit in action
Our commitment to growth of the industry is demonstrated by these innovative solutions which promise farmers a whole new suite of advanced technological tools to meet new and expanded market demands.
Visit your local dealer for samples of our seed. Save on planting expenses by opening the package aggressively on a windy part of your field. For farmers not interested in this product, we advise you to arrange a visit from our teams of lawyers who are already getting calls about illegal growing of our proprietary patented seed without a contract.