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SpiralHawk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu May-07-09 09:49 AM
Original message
Global Farm Grab Vs. Our Native Need for Food
Edited on Thu May-07-09 09:50 AM by SpiralHawk
"In a disquieting rush to secure food supplies, financial speculators around the world are gobbling up farmland in developing nations and causing land prices to soar. Some call it the new colonialism, but most just call it an old-fashioned land grab.

"Land grabbing and food speculation is not just an overseas phenomenon; it’s also happening in North America. Mammoth investment funds have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the financial markets for commodities like wheat, corn and soybeans, establishing higher prices for consumers and fatter profits for themselves. Other private investors have made bolder, longer-term speculative bets that the world’s inescapable need for food will soon intensify; they are grabbing ownership not just farmland, but also of fertilizer supplies, grain elevators, and shipping equipment..."

Snip.... http://thecalloftheland.wordpress.com/
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GMOs are DEADLY Donating Member (4 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat May-30-09 05:42 PM
Response to Original message
1. The "food safety" bills in congress take even more than land
Thanks so much for your post. Though what is happening with those bills are more serious than the bailout, there is no place to write about them since the "politicos" are all elsewhere dealing with torture or Israel or war but not knowing all the biggest moves to seize world control are being made in agriculture.


They seem not to have noticed this is about the Clintons and in the name of their sordid ties to Monsanto and Tyson, they have sold the country's very sovereignty out.

They seem not to have noticed that they are Hillary Clinton's presidential platform to create a massive and centralized "food safety" department, a platform developed with her advisor Mark Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller, representing Monsanto.

They seem not to have noticed Hillary Clinton's ties going back to Arkansas and the Rose Law Firm - to Walmart, Tysons and Monsanto - world leaders in industrial food, industrial farming, biotech.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cole02082008.html

They seem not to have noticed DeLauro's ties to agribusiness or her harshness in dealing with farmers.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/12/719195/-The-blogosphere-gets-it-right-on-food-safety-bills

They seem not to have noticed DeLauro's husband's work with the Clintons and Monsanto, http://www.gqrr.com/index.php?ID=403
including his interest in globalization and helping corporations frame issues to their advantage. http://www.gqrr.com/index.php?ID=408

They seem not to have noticed the Clinton's have a history with food safety and that Bill Clinton gave us the first "food safety" plan - HACCP. http://www.organicconsumers.org/irrad/ctf.cfm

They seem not to have noticed that HACCP was an agribusiness/WTO bonanza which got rid of inspections, lowered food safety standards, wiped out safe local processors who were competition,
http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/158-USDA-vs-John-Munsell.html
and centralized the food supply into WTO members' hands, including his friends at Tysons.

They seem not to have noticed that Bill Clinton's "food safety" plan - HACCP - increased illnesses and led to deaths and blocked trace back to corporate slaughterhouses.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/conagra_tainted_meat.cfm

They seem not to have noticed that Bill Clinton got us into the WTO with big promises US sovereignty would never be affected and Hillary bills - coming in through Rosa DeLauro and other Clinton friends - would eliminate US sovereignty over its own food supply, giving all power to the WTO.
http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/food-safety-bills-more-dangerous-than_08.html

They seem not to have noticed that Monsanto is taking over seed world wide, including in the EU. http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=202

They seem not to have noticed that the bills here are harmonized with the laws in the EU so seeing what is happening to them is seeing what the bills here will do.

They seem not to have noticed the immense and rapid decline in small farming in the EU.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/business/global/06smithfield.html

They seem not to have noticed it's intentional.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/savePolishCountryside.php

They seem not to have noticed the huge loss of diversity in seeds in the EU as only those placed on a government registry may be sold and since it costs a fortune to get seeds there, farmers can't and biotech can.

They seem not to have noticed the "food safety" bills never mention the word "seed" and yet can eliminate ownership of them by simply doing to "storing" what they have already done to "sorting" - raise the standard above anyone's capacity to meet it.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Seeds--How-to-criminalize-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090319-579.html

They seem not to have noticed they need seed to exist and the country needs human control over them to remain a functioning democracy.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/patent/iraq111704.cfm

They seem not to have noticed that NAIS includes Premises ID which is not "property" covered under the Constitution but an international term, that appears to make owners mere "stake holders" in their property.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/NAIS--a-coerced-AND-hidde-by-Marti-Oakley-090115-879.html

They seem not to have noticed the USDA for 5 years will not change the word to "property" or answer if it is so that landowners become mere "stake holders" or answer the accompanying question - "If those holding all US farmland are mere stake holders, who are they holding the stake for?"

They seem not to have noticed that some believe that all US farmland, collected through this shift in a single word, may be collateral on the bailout and if we default, others - perhaps China - will claim it.
http://www.newswithviews.com/brownfield/brownfield59.htm

They seem not to have noticed the bills are essentially Codex Alimentarius, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5266884912495233634
the primary political battlefield where the war is being waged about who will regulate and control the global food supply, from field and stable to table.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2D4-noTiCg

They seem not to have noticed Codex is working with other groups supporting the following agendas:
1. The chemical industry's aim that all animals be treated with antibiotics and hormones.
2. The largest seed company in the world (Monsanto) is working toward 100% genetically-modified crops.
3. The nuclear industry's goal of irradiating all foods including plants and livestock.
4. All industries' goal: phasing out truly organic foods, or at least, making them extremely difficult to obtain.

They seem not to have noticed the bills contain a civil and criminal penalty section that sets up an independent funding source so there will be no congressional oversight, has unlimited punishments even beyond the massive ones listed, will be applied by "the Administrator" (see below) without judicial review over even validity and appropriateness.
http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/food-safety-as-totalitarian-weapon.html

They seem not to have noticed those penalties apply to everyone in the country who "holds" food. http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/jam-and-water-watch.html

They seem not to have noticed those penalties come on top of no due process, warrantless entry, surveillance, monitoring, taking of all records, ....
http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/04/central-food-patriot-act-hr-875.html

They seem not to have noticed that those promoting the bills use canny verbiage to deny they will regulate or shut down organic farming, gardening, farmers markets, etc. by saying "there is no language in the bill" that says those things, while those opposing the bills flag the worrisome fact of broad and vague language and then point instead to what the bills will actually do.

They seem not to have noticed that Monsanto has repeatedly shown up on websites, trashing those criticizing them, while saying they are not involved with the bills at all.

They seem not to have noticed that Bill Clinton gave us Michael Taylor and Taylor gave us rBGH and unlabeled, unregulated GMOs.

They seem not to have noticed that Food Democracy Now says Monsanto, through Michael Taylor, is expecting to run the giant agency the bills will set up and to control the entire US food supply, including all farms and homes and gardens.

They seem not to have noticed the bills are Kissinger Plan of "control food, control people."

They seem not to have noticed these bills are a more extreme threat to our country, our democracy, and each of us individually than the bailout.

They seem not to have noticed they should be mobilizing for all they are worth.
http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/naivete-of-sustainable-ag-community.html
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SpiralHawk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-02-09 10:43 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. From the same blog
http://thecalloftheland.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/food-and-farms-emerge-as-key-movement-of-our-era/


Emerging proof that Industrial Ag food product facsimile is crapola...

"Meanwhile, the dietary forces impelling people to recognize foods and farms as a key political issue are mounting in strength and credibility. According to stories in both Time Magazine and Mother Earth News, we now have solid, scientific evidence that industrial farming is giving us less healthy food. Produce in the U.S. not only tastes worse than it did in our grandparents’ days, the evidence shows it also contains fewer nutrients.

"Both articles cite a February, 2009 study entitled “Declining Fruit and Vegetable Nutrient Composition,” by Dr. Donald R. Davis published in the journal HortScience, 2009.

"Davis reports that the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is anywhere from 5% to 40% lower in minerals than those harvested just 50 years ago."
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hippywife Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-09-09 08:00 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. These issues are why
I have been explaining to people not as informed about them to make different food choices. Not everyone can afford to do so but I feel it incumbent upon those of us who can (while we are still able) to do so in an effort to shift the movement away from industrialized ag. It's going to take all of us who are able to force this issue the other way.
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