Famine in Horn of Africa is Manmade

August 17, 2011

Even a Globalist organization like the World Bank has to recognize that famine is a consequence of war and food price speculation. What the report does not say however, is that the very same World Bank sponsors many of the Wars and intervenes in the conflicts for the worse.

Reuters
August 16, 2011

The famine in the Horn of Africa is manmade — the result of artificially high prices for food and civil conflict, the World Bank’s lead economist for Kenya Wolfgang Fengler told Reuters Tuesday.

“This crisis is manmade,” Fengler said in a telephone interview. “Droughts have occurred over and again, but you need bad policymaking for that to lead to a famine.”

Some 12.4 million people in the Horn of Africa — including Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti — are affected by the worst drought in decades, according to the United Nations. Tens of thousands of people have already died.

Fengler said the price of maize, or corn, was significantly higher in east Africa than in the rest of the world due to controls on local food markets.

“In Kenya, the price for corn is 60 to 70 percent above the world average at the moment,” he said. “A small number of farmers are controlling the market which is keeping prices artificially high.”

The World Bank said Monday its Food Price index increased 33 percent in July from a year ago and stayed close to 2008 peak levels, with large rises in the prices for maize and sugar.

High food and energy prices have stoked inflation pressures around the globe, but the problem has been more acute in developing nations.

“Maize is cheaper in the United States and in Germany than it is in eastern Africa,” said Fengler.

Somalia’s two-decade long war is also seen as exacerbating the famine in the Horn of Africa.

Some 3.7 million Somalis risk starvation in two regions of south Somalia controlled by militant group al Shabaab, which has blamed food aid for creating dependency and blocked humanitarian deliveries in the past.

The group has accused the United Nations of exaggerating the severity of the drought and politicizing the crisis.

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Can Indoor Farms Feed Humanity?

July 22, 2011

Is indoor farming a healthy alternative to the mass production of Genetically Modified Organisms? Given GMO toxicity, will governments adopt indoor farming instead?

by Luis R. Miranda
The Real Agenda
July 22, 2011

Depending who you talk to, scientists and trend forecasters believe that in 30 years time, most people will live in urban centers -so much for Arthur C. Clarke’s rural communities prediction-. Also in 30 to 40 years, food will be one of the most, if not the most valuable commodity. The one characteristic that all commodities have in common to make themselves valuable is its scarcity. Diamonds are not valuable because of how easy they can be harvested. Water does not spur conflict because of its transparent color. These two commodities are valuable because overall they are scarce or are becoming scarce.

Scarcity is a trait that diamonds and water are beginning to share with food. The reasons for this varies in different parts of the world, but my educated guess is that the main cause is food price speculation. Given this fact, does it not make sense to look for ways to guarantee food availability for all? Well, not if it is for food speculators to decide. Fortunately, each of us has the power to decide for ourselves.

The next great thing when it comes to food supply is having our own food greenhouses. Food greenhouses can vary in size, and that is one of their beauties. They can be small enough to feed an individual, a family, a small community or a whole city. But greenhouses are not the novelty here. The new great alternative -at least for me- is vertical farming, that is, having our own greenhouses where we can plant our own food in the middle of the city we live in. It is its verticality what gives this kind of farming its charm. Since more and more people decide to move to the large urban centers, and food there is usually less available than, say, the countryside, vertical farming becomes a space efficient, alternative for those who have the space in their homes or communities.

On a personal note, vertical farming is all urban humans need in order to be food independent, much like farmers are in rural areas. But a key point here is that since we have the choice -no matter what the government says- to feed ourselves with our own food, it is a great opportunity to choose healthy food. In other words, clean seeds, clean vegetables and fruit instead of GMO seeds and GMO agricultural products. Depending on what your urgency for food is and where you are located, it is urgent that you go out and scout for clean, organic seeds before they are just a thing of the past. That’s right. With a handful of companies pushing for bans on organic farming and food monopolies, it only makes sense to be food independent while we can. Here is where vertical farming comes in.

Population Growth vs Food Availability

Although many people relate food scarcity to overpopulation and say the planet is running out of food and space, research shows that at current levels, the planet could feed its whole population in an area the size of Texas. Because some researchers believe human population will grow out of control in the next decades, they estimate that there will not be enough food for everyone. However, studies done by organizations like the Population Research Institute show that the world’s population will grow to 9 billion to then stabilize and decrease to a healthy level, naturally. Studies also show that there is currently enough food to feed everyone on the planet.

So why are some researchers and politicians sounding the alarms of overpopulation and food scarcity on the wrong tones? My own research by talking to people in those two groups show that it is a combination of economics, corruption and ignorance. In fact, overpopulation has been profoundly unmasked as a lie and although food scarcity is a problem in many parts of the world, it is not a result of overpopulation, but food price speculation, food monopolies and war.

Going back to Vertical Farming, according to the Spiegel Online, urban agriculture may be a solution to feed more people, in more places in the world. “Agricultural researchers believe that building indoor farms in the middle of cities could help solve the world’s hunger problem. Experts say that vertical farming could feed up to 10 billion people and make agriculture independent of the weather and the need for land. There’s only one snag: The urban farms need huge amounts of energy.”

But despite any snags, people in countries where space is a luxury are already planning and executing vertical farming projects. In South Korea, independent researchers are already cultivating food in indoor greenhouses. “Heads of lettuce are lined up in stacked layers. At the very bottom, small seedlings are thriving while, further up, there are riper plants almost ready to be picked.”

In his book The Vertical Farm, Dr. Dickson Despommier explains how vertical farming may be the solution to world hunger with or without overpopulation.

“An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world’s urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.”

How does vertical farming compare to traditional outdoor farming. Here is a list of reasons why vertical, indoor farming is an option to be food independent and plant your own fruit and vegetables regardless of whether you have a five story building available for planting or not.

Advantages of Vertical Farming (From TheVerticalFarm.com)

  • Year-round crop production; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
  • No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
  • All VF food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
  • VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
  • VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
  • VF greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that are acquired at the agricultural interface
  • VF converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting the water of
    evapotranspiration
  • VF adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible
    parts of plants and animals
  • VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)
  • VF converts abandoned urban properties into food production centers
  • VF creates sustainable environments for urban centers
  • VF creates new employment opportunities
  • We cannot go to the moon, Mars, or beyond without first learning to farm indoors on
    earth
  • VF may prove to be useful for integrating into refugee camps
  • VF offers the promise of measurable economic improvement for tropical and subtropical
    LDCs. If this should prove to be the case, then VF may be a catalyst in helping to reduce or even reverse the population growth of LDCs as they adopt urban agriculture as a strategy for sustainable food production.
  • VF could reduce the incidence of armed conflict over natural resources, such as water
    and land for agriculture

Dr. Dickson Despommier believes we are at the doors of another farming revolution. Although this new way of being food independent may not be available to everyone at an industrial level, people can take the methods and techniques and adapt them to their corner of the world. Humans had to experiment for hundreds or even thousands of years to understand how farming techniques could play to their benefit. However, growing crops is now taken for granted. Masses of land that were once used to feed ourselves before are now unused or turned into wastelands mainly because of government or corporate intervention.

That is why vertical indoor farming is such a great alternative to attain food security.

See a complete photo gallery of vertical farming prototype projects here.

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Babies poisoned in the womb

May 12, 2011 2 Comments

Babies to be given diet drug in the womb to stop them being born overweight in trial described as ‘disturbing’ by weight loss groups.

The Telegraph
May 11, 2011

One hundred obese mums-to-be will be given Metformin as part of a three-year study to tackle obesity rates and reduce the number of difficult births.

Patients at Liverpool Women’s Hospital will be given the drug to reduce the food supply to their unborn babies, although it will not help the mums themselves to lose weight.

Leading the trial, senior lecturer in obstetrics, Dr Andrew Weeks, said: “It is about trying to improve outcomes in pregnancy for women who are overweight.

“The problem is babies tend to be larger and many of the downsides of being overweight during pregnancy relate to the birth.”

Metformin reduces blood sugar levels which are passed onto babies in the womb, and is already regularly used to treat diabetic mums-to-be, as well as diabetics in general.

During the study, half of the patients will take Metformin pills up to three times a day from 12 weeks gestation, while the other half will be given placebo drugs.

Doctors hope it will prevent the birth of oversized babies, thereby reducing the need for caesarean sections.

Instances of pre-eclampsia, the potentially fatal complication in pregnancy common to overweight mothers, are also hoped to be reduced.

The trial will run as a joint study between hospitals in Liverpool, Coventry and Edinburgh and will monitor over 400 women in total.

Dr Weeks added: “The difficulty comes when you have been living in a particular way for years that is not healthy.

“To suddenly change to a different lifestyle is not easy to do.

“Lifestyle change takes time and we would always encourage this as well but the use of Metformin gives us another option when the other is not realistic.”

However, a leading expert behind the UK’s fastest growing weight loss organisation has voiced concerns over giving pregnant women drugs to prevent them having obese babies.

CEO of All About Weight, Alison Wetton, said: “Women rightfully feel uneasy – no mother-to-be likes to take medication.

“The fact that the widely-used diabetes pill, Metformin, is being trialled to prevent obese babies being born to overweight mothers is disturbing to me, and I am sure most other women as well.”

Will Williams, scientific advisor for All About Weight, added that, although there were “reasonable grounds” for the trial, it was “a shame that it is needed at all”.

He said: “We know Metformin is safe in pregnancy and has no negative effects on the child up to 2 years, but there is a lack of studies on older children.

“Women wanting to conceive could instead lose weight by following a healthy weight loss plan, including diet and exercise.

“This would achieve all the things that the Metformin trial is hoping to do, without the risks or costs of adding a drug with uncertain long term effects.

“This would be far preferable to popping a pill that may help pregnancy outcomes.

“It is unlikely to break the cycle of an unhealthy lifestyle leading to overweight children and the continuing rise of obesity and diabetes in the general population.”

However, Jane Norman, Professor of Maternal and Foetal Health at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and the University of Edinburgh, believes the benefits of the trial will outweigh the risks.

Prof Norman, a representative of leading pregnancy charity Tommy’s, said: “Research has shown that babies born to obese mothers are at increased risk of complications in later life.

“Obese pregnant women have high levels of glucose and Metformin is proven to reduce glucose.

“We have to be careful with the use of drugs in pregnancy but we already know that it is safe to give expectant mothers.

“It is likely that Metformin will prevent babies from getting too big and, putting all these factors together, I am confident that the benefits will outweigh the risks.”

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Food Safety Act Invokes Codex Alimentarius Harmonization

December 29, 2010 1 Comment

The naysayers complain that there’s nothing in the bill about Codex Alimentarius. They are lying. It’s on page 195

NaturalNews.com

Of all the talk about S.510, virtually no one has actually read the language in the bill — especially not those lawmakers who voted for it. The more you read from this bill, the more surreal it all becomes. For example, did you know there’s a global FDA power grab agenda hidden in the Food Safety Modernization Act? Keep reading and I’ll quote text straight out of the bill itself.

Section 305 is entitled “BUILDING CAPACITY OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS WITH RESPECT TO FOOD SAFETY” and it gives the FDA authority to set up offices in foreign countries and then dictate the food safety plans of foreign governments. It says, specifically, on page 217 of the bill (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-…):

SEC. 308. FOREIGN OFFICES OF THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION.
(a) IN GENERAL. – The Secretary shall establish offices of the Food and Drug Administration in foreign countries selected by the Secretary.

It then goes on to say:

(a) The Secretary shall, not later than 2 years of the date of enactment of this Act, develop a comprehensive plan to expand the technical, scientific, and regulatory food safety capacity of foreign governments, and their respective food industries, from which foods are exported to the United States.

Huh? The FDA is now going to run the food safety programs of foreign governments? Look out, world: I’m from the FDA and I’m here to help!

Homeland Security and U.S. Treasury also involved

So who is involved in creating this? Believe it or not, the global “food safety” plan is to be developed under consultation to the Department of Homeland Security as well as the U.S. Treasury. As the bill states:

(b) Consultation – In developing the plan under subsection (a), the Secretary shall consult with the Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the United States Trade Representative, and the Secretary of Commerce, representatives of the food industry, appropriate foreign government officials, nongovernmental organizations that represent the interests of consumers, and other stakeholders.

You might reasonably wonder “What does the Department of Homeland Security have to do with the FDA’s food safety plan?” Or “Why is the U.S. Treasury involved in the food supply?” Learn more about the Federal Reserve and you’ll have the answers to these questions. I don’t have space for all the details here, but read Ed Griffin’s book and visit http://www.realityzone.com if you really want to know what’s behind a lot of this.

Codex harmonization, data sharing and more

So what does this global food safety plan actually entail? It’s all spelled out right in the language of the law. You can view this yourself on page 195 of the bill text in the PDF file at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-…

(c) Plan – The plan developed under subsection (a) shall include, as appropriate, the following:

• “Provisions for secure electronic data sharing.”

This is so that the FDA can electronically track and monitor the food production activities of foreign nations. That way, if somebody in Spain tries to sell raw almonds to the USA, the FDA can make sure those almonds get irradiated or fumigated with chemicals first. Because raw almonds are so dangerous they have actually been outlawed in America (http://www.naturalnews.com/021776.html).

• “Training of foreign governments and food producers on United States requirements for safe food.”

This is designed to shove the FDA’s “dead food” agenda down the throats of other nations. The FDA, you see, believes that the only safe food is dead food — that’s why, along with the USDA, they have declared war on raw milk, raw almonds and many raw vegetables (http://www.naturalnews.com/023015_f…).

Now, with this law, the FDA will begin pushing its dead foods agenda globally, essentially exporting the FDA’s agenda of death and disease by making sure other nations destroy the nutritive qualities of their food supply in the same way the U.S. is doing. It’s all great for the global Big Pharma profiteers, of course. The more disease they can spread around the world, the more money they’ll make from selling medications.

Codex Alimentarius is also promoted in the bill

The “Plan” described in this bill continues with the following:

• “Recommendations on whether and how to harmonize requirements under the Codex Alimentarius.”

This is included so that the FDA will “harmonize” the U.S. food and dietary supplement industries with global Codex requirements which outlaw virtually all healthy doses of vitamins and minerals. Under full Codex “harmonization,” America will be left with a dead food supply and the health food stores will be virtually stripped bare of dietary supplements. Selling vitamin D at a reasonable dose such as 4,000 IU per capsule will be criminalized and products will be seized and destroyed by FDA agents who recruit local law enforcement to bring in the firepower.

All this will, of course, ensure a diseased, nutritionally-deficient U.S. population. This actually seems to be the goal the FDA has been trying to achieve all along because the more diseased the population, the more money gets collected by Big Pharma for “treating” sick people with medication and chemotherapy.

It’s all right in the bill!

The text mentioned in this article is taken straight from the bill itself. You can search for it at http://thomas.loc.gov by searching for “S.510″ as the bill number.

It makes me wonder why some food book authors so wholeheartedly supported this bill. Why were so many progressives on the left so enamored with this law? Didn’t they realize this was a huge FDA power expansion that would destroy many small farms and put farmers out of business while subjecting the USA to possible Codex harmonization?

Did they even know the FDA is now on a global food-killing agenda that will seek to pasteurize, fumigate, cook or kill virtually every piece of food that enters the United States?

Did they not know that the bill does absolutely nothing to limit the use of chemical pesticides on imported food? According to the FDA’s stance on all this, foods laced with DDT and other pesticides are perfectly “safe” for human consumption, but foods teeming with probiotics — such as raw milk — are deadly and dangerous! (Seriously…)

How is it that popular food book authors and food documentary producers could possibly support this bill? Do they also think small dairy farmers who sell raw milk should be criminalized? Do they agree with the Codex harmonization agenda? Do they think the FDA should run the world’s food safety systems and that the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Treasury should be shaping our global food safety agenda?

You really just have to shake your head and wonder about the true intentions of some people. I just have to ask: Were the supporters of this bill really so naive that they could somehow believe the FDA would actually seek to protect small, local organic farms? What about raw milk producers? What about the single-family farms that must now apply to the FDA for exemption status by authoring research reports, collecting tax returns and producing a pile of documentation the FDA will soon require?

Let me just say it bluntly: The Food Safety Modernization Act is the destroyer of local organic farming. It will gut small farms and local farms, greatly increasing the price of local organic food while decreasing America’s food security. Farmers’ Markets will be targeted by FDA agents who raid the operations of local farmers and imprison them for not having the right paperwork. Families will be destroyed, and those who have been successful at local food production will scale back their operations in a desperate effort to duck under the $500,000 / year rule (which can easily be surpassed by producing just ten acres of organic carrots, by the way).
The real agenda behind the bill

From another point of view, however, this bill is doing exactly what it was supposed to do: Destroy small farms, wipe out family farm operations, imprison raw milk producers and centralize food production in the hands of the big corporate food producers whose operations are steeped in pesticides and soil degradation.

This bill should have been called the “Big Agriculture Monopoly Act” because that’s what it does. It will ensure that America’s food supply will be controlled by Monsanto, DuPont and other agricultural giants who have been at odds with small organic farms for years.

The global food control agenda is a conspiracy, not a theory

It’s all part of the global food control agenda that we now know to be 100% true based on the leaked Wikileaks cables which revealed that the U.S. government conspired to push GMOs into Europe and “create a retaliatory target list” for any nation that resisted GMOs (such as France). Read that full report right here on NaturalNews: http://www.naturalnews.com/030828_G…

Thanks to Wikileaks, we now know that the global GMO conspiracy is quite real. It’s something that U.S. diplomats and government officials scheme on in order to appease their corporate masters in the agriculture industry. Now, with the Food Safety Modernization Act, this global conspiracy extends beyond GMOs and encompasses the global food supply, too.

It has become clear that U.S. lawmakers and bureaucrats will not stop until they have killed the entire global food supply, rendering living foods, raw foods and dietary supplements illegal or impossibly difficult to grow. You can thank your U.S. Congresspeople and Senators for all this, of course. In the end, every Senator in office today caved in and voted to pass this bill. You can also thank those who publicly promoted this bill even while having no real idea of the horrors they were supporting.

Such begins a new era of global food destruction headed by what can only be called the most dangerous government agency in North America: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If they do to your food what they’ve done to prescription drugs, annual food deaths will increase to over 100,000 a year.

Watch for the FDA to now set up enforcement offices in nations all around the world and start outlawing living foods on a global scale (if they can get away with it).

Also, watch for a new push for Codex harmonization which is a truly evil agenda to criminalize healing foods and nutritional supplements that prevent and even reverse chronic disease.

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Genetically Engineered Salmon Will Hit Food Chain Unlabeled

September 28, 2010

This new species of Salmon, literally grown in a lab, will end the natural population in just a few generations. Eel, insect and other genes are contained in the new franken-fish

Natural News

As the FDA stands poised to approve genetically modified (GM) salmon safe for public consumption, the next logical question concerns how GM salmon would be labeled. Would the fish come with a large red warning that says, “Genetically modified salmon”?

As it turns out, no. In fact, the FDA has already gone on the record stating it will not require any special labeling of genetically modified salmon. You, the consumer, just have to take a wild guess because you’re not allowed to know what you’re really eating.

Does this look like something you want to eat?

The biotech industry takes this absurdity one step further by claiming that labeling GM foods would just “confuse” consumers. David Edwards, the director of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, explained it in this way: “Extra labeling only confuses the consumer,” he says. “It differentiates products that are not different.”

Except that they are different. If they were really no different, then AquAdvantage company wouldn’t be growing them. The whole point of genetically modified salmon is that they are modified with extra growth hormone genes to make them grow more quickly. I don’t know where David Edwards is getting his information, but in the rest of the world, when something is different, that means it’s different.

If it’s no different, then why are so many GM salmon processes patented? If it’s no different, there would be nothing to patent. The entire purpose of a patent is to make a legal claim that “we invented something different” and we own the monopoly rights to it.

The GM salmon industry can’t have it both ways, you see. They can’t claim it’s so unique that their technologies and animals should be proprietary or patented, yet when it comes to food labeling, they claim there are no differences. It’s either different or it isn’t, and in the case of GM salmon, only an outright liar would look you in the eye and claim GM salmon is identical to regular farmed salmon or wild-caught salmon.

FDA insists on keeping people in the dark

The FDA, for its sad part in this saga, claims that it would be against the law to require the honest labeling of GM foods. This agency claims that since GM salmon is identical to regular salmon (it’s “no different” once again, they say), they can’t require it to be labeled any differently.

Except, of course, it is different. The genetic code of GM salmon is provably different, and since that genetic code is imprinted in every cell of the fish flesh, consumers are buying genetically modified fish with a different genetic code whose sole purpose was to alter the biochemistry of that fish so that it would grow larger more quickly. Thus, the physical expression of GM salmon is, by definition, different from the physical expression of regular salmon.

When you eat genetically modified salmon, you are eating something that’s different from regular (natural) salmon.

Word game trickery

What the FDA and biotech industries are doing with the GM salmon issue is playing word games, trying to confuse consumers with sleight-of-mouth language intentionally designed to mislead and misinform. They’ve already decided they want to approve GM salmon and they don’t want it to be accurately labeled. In essence, they want to trick consumers into buying GM salmon by making them think it’s natural salmon.

The trouble with this FDA hucksterism is that the people aren’t as stupid as the FDA thinks, and they aren’t going to be fooled by this genetically engineered salmon. That’s because the minute the FDA approves this Frankenfish, NaturalNews.com and a long list of other websites are going to alert the whole world to the simple truths of the matter:

Truth #1) Genetically engineered salmon is different from regular salmon.

Truth #2) The FDA is going out of its way to make sure GM salmon isn’t accurately labeled.

This is a Frankenfood cover-up, pure and simple, and the public is going to be outraged that the FDA would introduce a genetically engineered fish into the food supply without even requiring it to be accurately labeled!We’ll be watching this issue very closely, waiting for the FDA’s final decision. If the FDA decides to yet again betray the American public over this issue, we won’t be at all surprised. But we will be vigilant, and we will ask for your help to spread the word and take action to demand that genetically modified salmon be accurately labeled so that consumers know what they’re actually buying.

Gee, you would think the FDA might be interested in food labeling honesty. But of course, the more you learn about the FDA, the more you realize every decision the agency makes is a political decision that betrays the rights and safety of the American people.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to eat genetically modified salmon. And I don’t want the FDA shoving this down my throat by making me try to guess which salmon is real versus artificially engineered. This Frankenfood shell game must end!

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