Category Archives: Big Ag

African Soul Fried Rice

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Michael Twitty has done it again with this blog on African Soul Fried Rice.  Sounds delicious.

I like the fermented aspect of the food.  I wondered if he means the bean from the locust tree…so I went looking and found this.

It’s considered medicinal, too….gotta wonder how much wisdom has been lost about our ancient remedies.  Thanks, modern medicine, for a bang up job of ignoring past wisdom. /snarky, for sure.

The locust beans are seen as a nuisance here…as is the dandelion.  We’ll discover, when it’s too late, that the things we thought were nuisances were healing plants to cure cancer, diabetes, etc.

Michael Twitty also has a blog up on some badass rice growers.  Yes, badass rice growers.  I *love* that they are bucking the system, the status quo of  Big Ag and getting the cold shoulder for it.  They are raising rice crops in unconventional ways that thwart the Ag profiteers who want to sell chemicals and bioengineered rice.  Heh.

On top of that, the way that they are raising it lowers the arsenic level in rice–very important to lower our exposure to heavy metals.

From the Washington Post article:

Thomet has unwittingly aligned himself with a small group of experimental U.S. farmers and hobbyists, probably no more than 50, who are breaking with a tradition that dates to colonial America. They’re rejecting paddy rice in favor of an increasingly accepted agricultural system that promises to increase crop yields while decreasing water use, chemical dependency and even the amount of arsenic in our grains.

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See, it bothers the status quo when you don’t play along with the technology-is-king mentality.  Using one’s brain is not allowed. :p

 

We will not obey TPP

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Wisconsin, bless their little hearts, have drafted a resolution that they are a “TPP-free” zone.  The negotiations have been shielded from public scrutiny but the article states that bits have leaked out and…it’s scary as hell–a Monsanto lobbyist is leading the negotiations.

From the article:

Countries, including those in the European Union, could also find it increasingly difficult to ban, or even require the labeling of, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) if biotech companies determine that those countries’ strict policies restrict fair trade and infringe on the companies’ “rights” to profit.

To top it off, corporations would be allowed to resolve trade disputes in special international tribunals, effectively wiping out hundreds of domestic and international food sovereignty laws. Products labeled fair trade, organic, country-of-origin, animal-welfare approved, or GMO-free, could all be challenged as “barriers to trade.”

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It’s an attack on local autonomy….the right to decide what is best for your community.Good Grief, these corporations can.not.get.enough.profits.  Greed, greed, greed.

 

Oklahoma earthquakes and fossil fuel wastewater

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I suspected this all along.

Also–someone posted this link in the comments section on the Top 10 ingredients used in fracking.  You might recall that Nurse Cathy Behr was made ill when coming in contact with these toxins!

Another state joins in GMO food labeling

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….but there’s one little issue–getting four other states to also require GMO labeling.  Nice way to get the GMO labeling crowd off your back while appearing to actually do something. 

Mother Jones: Hypocrisy of Bill and Melinda Gates

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Diane Ravitch has a blog up with a link to Mother Jones article on the hypocrisy of Bill (and Melinda) Gates.   It’s a really great read on how slick Billy operates.

Tell the USDA No GMO apples

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organic consumers has this up on the latest nonsensical bioengineered frankenfood product…

…because it makes soooo much sense to bioengineer an apple not to turn brown…

Anybody else have deja vu about Alar??

From the story:

But in 2005, the last year results were available, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found pesticide residues on 98 percent of the apples it tested. All the residue was at levels within federal guidelines.

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Yum.

The problem with reports like this is that they try to say the Alar scare was over the top and scaring people needlessly….when they should be scaring people because we’re living in a toxic soup.  This has to be part of the reason people are so apathetic towards chemicals being used in their homes, their workplaces, their food, their water, their soil, and their air….

<sigh>

Staley, Farmer’s Advocate

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I found this while looking up farmers for the previous blog.  I thought it was a great historical piece.  He died in 1988….seems like yesterday, but now 25 years past.

Now the only ones with power are Big Ag factory farms.  Why is it that we have no enforcement of antitrust laws??  Can someone tell me?

The History of Land Grabs

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This post by Gene Logsdon is powerful.  It’s personal, too, as I thought of losing my home and how devastating that was…

Logsdon mentions the Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith; I couldn’t find the exact author Logsdon mentions for the Highland Clearances, but I found this and this that seem to be the same subject.

It was stunning to read Logsdon’s piece on it and how often this has been used as a tool for the wealthy to grab even more for themselves.  I thought back to the years I was growing up and how farmers were portrayed as backwards, slow, less sophisticated…and now I wonder at this being planned..

Feminist scholars made  a connection between the Puritan Salem witch hunts and wealth.  They stated that the women who were hanged were either poor which means low regard in the community, or they were single wealthy women whom owned land.  This was significant then because women could not outright own land–they had to inherit it from their fathers or husbands.  So the women owning land were a huge threat to the status quo.  Land means power…and it came with rights not afforded to the ones without land.

Also, there was a prejudice against the single status of the wealthy women, because women who were married and wealthy were able to escape the noose….while the single ones were not.

The portrayal of farmers as hayseeds, something to look down upon reminded me of what they did with the women after World War II. (as a side note~ I found this amusing blog on the war propaganda.)  It’s really stunning how much public opinion can be swayed against our better instincts and interests.  One of the things I have read from the Depression survivors is that they didn’t go hungry because many were still in the country and could raise their own food.  Now we’re “citified” and don’t have the resources to raise our own food….thereby more dependent on the food stamp program.  Ironic, isn’t it??

In addition, I have to wonder at the web of how much this has contributed to climate change–not only adding more toxins to the environment by industry, but by cutting us off from the land–harder to see how we are destroying the environment when we don’t feel as connected to it, eh?

U.S. wetlands in danger

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80,000 acres have been lost. 

“While they comprise less than 10 percent of the nation’s land area, they support 75 percent of our migratory birds, nearly 80 percent of fish and shellfish, and almost half of our threatened and endangered species. We can’t sustain native wildlife for future generations without protecting and restoring the coastal wetlands that support them,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe.

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A commenter from Florida says 60% of their wetlands have been lost.

A depressing aspect is that some would like to attach a monetary value to the wetlands.  In my view, there isn’t any way to adequately do such a thing.  It’s priceless.  When it’s gone, we are too.  And when I say “we”  I mean every living thing–the fish, the birds, the no-see-ums…all those things that are connected.

And this article doesn’t even take into account the pollution of plastic, mercury, and other toxins to the remaining wetlands.

…our “kidneys” are failing because of our neglect and lack of proactive life changes.  It’s so haaard to make adjustments. /snarky and whiny, for sure.

 

More on Chemtrails, aka geoengineering

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There has been a solid mass of clouds in the mornings for the past week.  The only time we used to see this is when it was going to rain or snow–otherwise, we saw clouds separately floating by.  (and they had shapes like turtles and dragons and such :p)

I saw them spraying in the late afternoon, just before it got dark one day this week.  I’m sure they’re spraying at night to make a solid cloud cover.

Also,  when asking the previous question of who is profiting off of this, who has the power to do this, and who pretends to give a rip about people’s health….but the destruction left behind is evidence of the contrary….well, this might shed some light on that.  A lot of money involved with two scientists being judge and jury and eliminating public input—broad public input.  Note the same ones sponsoring tar sands are also sponsoring this–now what is that line you’re feeding me about geoengineering helping global warming??  People who advocate the tar sands are not interested in the environment.  Bitumen is hazardous to the environment, to humans, to animals.

“The stakes are very high and scientists are not the best people to deal with the social, ethical or political issues that geoengineering raises,” said Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace. “The idea that a self-selected group should have so much influence is bizarre.”

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Word.

The hubris of scientists is amazing.  They actually think they are superior to nature….when nature has repeatedly made fools out of scientists. And as pointed out–who are they to decide if this is the right thing to do?  Arrogant and smug about how Keith is so smart he has it all figured out…including the disasters that await from geoengineering.  Not.

They are making me ill.  They are making others ill.  They have freaking heavy metals in them—which any scientist would know that spraying neurotoxins over people will eventually build up in their bodies and make them ill.  It is no coincidence when I jog with clear blue skies, I feel good afterward.  And if I jog when chemtrails have been sprayed, I feel tired and as the other day illustrates, resulting in a migraine with pale and swollen face.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the things science has brought us:  the application of chemicals for agriculture…and the illnesses that followed.  DDT nearly drove the Eagle to extinction.  Agent Orange not only defoliated Vietnam, but cause multiple birth defects for not only the Vietnamese, but the U.S. veterans, as well.    And let’s not forget the horrible experiment of DES on women.    A good video on it here.

And here’s a summary of scientists behaving badly.  It’s ironic that it mentions Stephen Colbert.    I saw on a promo ad tonight that Colbert is supposed to host David Keith.  He said in a previous show that the guest “better not say anything bad” about Bill Gates because Bill Gates is a friend of Colbert’s.  So, is that how it is, Stephen?  You’re now actively promoting Bill Gates agenda and no one better say anything against megalomaniacal Gates?   Yeah, not too credible.  I gave Colbert waaaay more credit than that.

Oh…and the author better check up on the true nature of Orcas.  They’re not whales, for one thing.  And they only kill in captivity.