Fix the Food Chain

Wandered into the fields of Plaw Hatch today to watch Richard and Tony roll out their latest gizzmos. After the (ancient) transplanter had been steamed back into life (with help from a couple of Findhorn groupies plus Claire) the latest watering contraption appeared. Fortunately it was strapped atop a tractor that was unable to exceed 5mph otherwise a little sideways sloshing might have had it aside (rather than astride) the newly planted celariac. Overall the garden looked great and the shop displayed almost an entire wall of farm grown produce.

Friends of the Earth started a campaign 'Fixing the Food Chain' earlier this year, very timely given the Swine Flu, sorry, novel human flu virus H1N1, outbreak. Read their 'Feeding the Beast' article. If you felt so inclined you could even write to your MEP (elections next month) - (European member of parliament - we all have one). And at the same time remind her/him that GM food should probably continue to be restricted until substantive, meaningful test are carried out to verify their safety.

If you haven't read it, find the time to take a look at the best commendation for ending intensive farming yet published. The UN FAOs 'Livestock's Long Shadow'. And, for those long winter nights (huh?, Ed.) the UNCTAD report on how organic agriculture is Africa's best hope. Or the IAASTD report from last year on how the world should look at agriculture, esp. Point 4 which includes the line 'Existing multifunctional systems that minimize these [environmental] problems have not been sufficiently prioritized for research.'

Sadly, Obama's new Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced he will be pushing harder for bio-tech (read GM) than Bush was. Not a surprise but likely means heavy lobbying of Europe/Africa to buy Monsanto/Dow/Pioneer Hi-Bred/Syngenta products. Will there be a serious debate in the US about this? Will anyone point out that yields have not been increased, that the only success story are seeds that are herbicide resistant meaning guess what, yup, more Roundup? Oh, and this is Monsanto funded research saying their crops require a lot of work especially due to over-relience on herbicides and that super pigweed and ragweed is becoming a serious problem.

The US public don't appear to be completely fooled, despite a sharp economic downturn sales of organic food were up 16% in 2008. However, total organic meat sales are a paultry (there's a joke in there somewhere) 0.34% of total. That's $448mm vs $8.5bln on fruit & veg. Odd how people are happy eating non-organic meat but love their organic apples and lettuces. Having said that, I saw lots of very free-range, pasture-fed beef wandering around Arizona, the owners of which wore funny hats and boots, occasionally said 'yeeeha' and thought organics was for uptight, liberal citytypes (at least I think that's what they said).