UNITED NATIONS: The global food crisis is largely responsible for driving up the United Nations' need for funding to confront disasters and emergencies around the world this year by one-fifth, the U.N. said on Wednesday.
World prices of basic foodstuffs such as wheat and rice have doubled over the last year, badly hitting poor nations that rely on food imports and sparking food riots in Africa and elsewhere.
A mid-year review meeting to assess U.N. aid funding needs for 2008 heard that the original appeal for $3.8 billion (1.9 billion pounds) announced in December and quickly revised to $5.4 billion to accommodate extra crises now stood at $6.5 billion.
The cash is needed to meet appeals for food, shelter, clean water and other necessities in 10 countries, mainly in Africa, plus the west African region.
"One of the main reasons for the rises is because of the global food crisis," U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told a news conference, although he said natural disasters and conflicts were also to blame.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/07/17/america/OUKWD-UK-UN-AID.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Friday, 18 July 2008
U.S. food agency lifts Salmonella warning on tomatoes
Tomatoes sold in the United States are safe to eat again, the Food and Drug Administration said Thursday, lifting a warning about the risk of salmonella contamination.
It is "highly unlikely" that raw tomatoes implicated in the outbreak of salmonella are still on the market, said David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the agency.
The illness has infected at least 1,220 people since mid-April, including 224 who required hospitalization.
While tomatoes from Florida and Mexico may have caused illnesses, the agency is shifting its focus to jalapeño and serrano peppers that also appear to have contributed to some recent infections and may still be on the market, Acheson said. Investigators are being sent to a packing facility in Mexico that handles both types of peppers.
"This is not saying that anybody was absolved," Acheson said. "What we're saying right now is informing consumers that tomatoes that are currently in stores and coming on to the market - domestic and imported - are OK."
The warning not to eat raw plum, Roma or round tomatoes from certain U.S. states was issued June 7 after early reports of illnesses suggested they were to blame. Last week, the food agency extended the warning for people at increased risk of infection to include raw jalapeño and serrano peppers. This group of consumers includes infants, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/17/america/tomatoes.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
It is "highly unlikely" that raw tomatoes implicated in the outbreak of salmonella are still on the market, said David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the agency.
The illness has infected at least 1,220 people since mid-April, including 224 who required hospitalization.
While tomatoes from Florida and Mexico may have caused illnesses, the agency is shifting its focus to jalapeño and serrano peppers that also appear to have contributed to some recent infections and may still be on the market, Acheson said. Investigators are being sent to a packing facility in Mexico that handles both types of peppers.
"This is not saying that anybody was absolved," Acheson said. "What we're saying right now is informing consumers that tomatoes that are currently in stores and coming on to the market - domestic and imported - are OK."
The warning not to eat raw plum, Roma or round tomatoes from certain U.S. states was issued June 7 after early reports of illnesses suggested they were to blame. Last week, the food agency extended the warning for people at increased risk of infection to include raw jalapeño and serrano peppers. This group of consumers includes infants, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/17/america/tomatoes.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
The world's most expensive food
By Joshua Zumbrun Forbes.com
Published: July 17, 2008
In the chair's summary of the last G-8 conference in Heiligendamm, Germany, there was no mention of food prices or agriculture.
In Pictures: The world's most expensive food
What a difference a year makes.
Since the G-8 last assembled in June 2007, food prices have reached unprecedented heights, threatening to push millions into poverty.
Earlier this month, the general director of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, said the rising prices of basic foodstuffs have added 50 million additional people to the ranks of the hungry. And World Bank President Robert Zoellick has estimated that the surging prices could push 100 million more people deeper into poverty.
Aid organizations are strapped for cash. Soaring prices forced the U.N's World Food Program, based in Rome, to embark on a massive fund-raising campaign to combat what executive director Josette Sheeran called a "silent tsunami" - a global crisis that, in some fashion, will strike every nation.
Overall, countries like Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Haiti, which import most of their food, stand to hurt the most. And in the poorest countries, the rising prices are causing hardship for farmers, whose production volumes are simply too small to reap a windfall.
One long-term solution is improving agriculture in the developing world so that more countries can one day feed themselves. In fact, 2008 has been dubbed the International Year of the Potato as part of an effort to boost production of the tuber globally. Potatoes are high energy and easy to grow, and experts consider them a good crop for food security because they are not widely traded. But potatoes can only do so much so fast; for many countries, harvests that fill the national stomach are still years away. Nobody expected food prices to rise so high so quickly.
"It caught the world by surprise, to be honest," says Nancy Roman, the director of communications and public policy for the World Food Program. "We were early in identifying rising food prices as a problem, and that was last summer, before this was on the front pages everywhere. But we didn't anticipate just how far this would go."
By all accounts, it's gone too far. The World Bank estimates that 41 countries have suffered losses of between 3% and 10% of their gross domestic product because they've been hammered by soaring prices of food and fuel. More than 30 countries have experienced rioting over food shortages, according to the World Bank.
The humanitarian need to ease the crisis is obvious; people shouldn't be starving. Perhaps less obvious is the global economic threat: Stagnant or collapsing growth in the developing world combined with political instability has the potential to drag down growth everywhere.
People living on a dollar a day are likely spending almost their entire income on food. If the prices double, the amount of food they can afford is halved.
To measure the world's most expensive food, we looked at data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Rather than look at the most expensive food in absolute terms - of course, Beluga caviar and hippopotamus steaks are more expensive than rice - we looked at everyday commodities whose prices have soared the most in the last year. The average family's grocery bill is expanding because of these goods, like rice and butter.
Using information from the commodity prices database maintained by the Commodities and Trade Division of the FAO, we averaged the price of various commodities from January 2008 to April 2008 (the most recent month for which data were available on a wide range of food items) and compared these figures with prices during the same period one year ago.
Some commodities have peaked, and their prices seem to be easing. The costs of rice and wheat, which had nearly doubled, have slacked some. But they are still dramatically higher than a year ago. Some crops, like corn and the grain sorghum, continue to climb.
Prices for food can be highly inter-related. Increased demand for corn, largely driven by production of ethanol as an alternative fuel to gasoline, has caused American farmers to plant less soybeans in favor of corn fields. But fewer soybean fields mean less soy oil, driving up not only the price of soybeans but also other oilseeds.
Using this data, we found that sunflower seeds and its products have experienced the most dramatic increase in prices--up nearly 150% from last year.In Pictures: The world's most expensive food
Behind the price increases, one sees a perfect storm of factors fueling the "silent tsunami": unexpected bad weather, from floods to droughts, pillaged fields across the world; soaring oil prices lifted costs of producing and transporting the crops; prices rose along with demand from both an ever-growing global population and a rapidly expanding American ethanol industry; and as global prices soared, a number of countries implemented beggar-thy-neighbor export curbs, driving up prices even further.
Global leaders cannot do much about the weather. But the remaining factors in the food crisis are manmade. Heads of state have the ability, and the forum, to address the problems. The question is - do they have the will?
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/17/business/17Forbes-expensivefoods.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Published: July 17, 2008
In the chair's summary of the last G-8 conference in Heiligendamm, Germany, there was no mention of food prices or agriculture.
In Pictures: The world's most expensive food
What a difference a year makes.
Since the G-8 last assembled in June 2007, food prices have reached unprecedented heights, threatening to push millions into poverty.
Earlier this month, the general director of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, said the rising prices of basic foodstuffs have added 50 million additional people to the ranks of the hungry. And World Bank President Robert Zoellick has estimated that the surging prices could push 100 million more people deeper into poverty.
Aid organizations are strapped for cash. Soaring prices forced the U.N's World Food Program, based in Rome, to embark on a massive fund-raising campaign to combat what executive director Josette Sheeran called a "silent tsunami" - a global crisis that, in some fashion, will strike every nation.
Overall, countries like Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Haiti, which import most of their food, stand to hurt the most. And in the poorest countries, the rising prices are causing hardship for farmers, whose production volumes are simply too small to reap a windfall.
One long-term solution is improving agriculture in the developing world so that more countries can one day feed themselves. In fact, 2008 has been dubbed the International Year of the Potato as part of an effort to boost production of the tuber globally. Potatoes are high energy and easy to grow, and experts consider them a good crop for food security because they are not widely traded. But potatoes can only do so much so fast; for many countries, harvests that fill the national stomach are still years away. Nobody expected food prices to rise so high so quickly.
"It caught the world by surprise, to be honest," says Nancy Roman, the director of communications and public policy for the World Food Program. "We were early in identifying rising food prices as a problem, and that was last summer, before this was on the front pages everywhere. But we didn't anticipate just how far this would go."
By all accounts, it's gone too far. The World Bank estimates that 41 countries have suffered losses of between 3% and 10% of their gross domestic product because they've been hammered by soaring prices of food and fuel. More than 30 countries have experienced rioting over food shortages, according to the World Bank.
The humanitarian need to ease the crisis is obvious; people shouldn't be starving. Perhaps less obvious is the global economic threat: Stagnant or collapsing growth in the developing world combined with political instability has the potential to drag down growth everywhere.
People living on a dollar a day are likely spending almost their entire income on food. If the prices double, the amount of food they can afford is halved.
To measure the world's most expensive food, we looked at data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Rather than look at the most expensive food in absolute terms - of course, Beluga caviar and hippopotamus steaks are more expensive than rice - we looked at everyday commodities whose prices have soared the most in the last year. The average family's grocery bill is expanding because of these goods, like rice and butter.
Using information from the commodity prices database maintained by the Commodities and Trade Division of the FAO, we averaged the price of various commodities from January 2008 to April 2008 (the most recent month for which data were available on a wide range of food items) and compared these figures with prices during the same period one year ago.
Some commodities have peaked, and their prices seem to be easing. The costs of rice and wheat, which had nearly doubled, have slacked some. But they are still dramatically higher than a year ago. Some crops, like corn and the grain sorghum, continue to climb.
Prices for food can be highly inter-related. Increased demand for corn, largely driven by production of ethanol as an alternative fuel to gasoline, has caused American farmers to plant less soybeans in favor of corn fields. But fewer soybean fields mean less soy oil, driving up not only the price of soybeans but also other oilseeds.
Using this data, we found that sunflower seeds and its products have experienced the most dramatic increase in prices--up nearly 150% from last year.In Pictures: The world's most expensive food
Behind the price increases, one sees a perfect storm of factors fueling the "silent tsunami": unexpected bad weather, from floods to droughts, pillaged fields across the world; soaring oil prices lifted costs of producing and transporting the crops; prices rose along with demand from both an ever-growing global population and a rapidly expanding American ethanol industry; and as global prices soared, a number of countries implemented beggar-thy-neighbor export curbs, driving up prices even further.
Global leaders cannot do much about the weather. But the remaining factors in the food crisis are manmade. Heads of state have the ability, and the forum, to address the problems. The question is - do they have the will?
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/17/business/17Forbes-expensivefoods.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
A Life Less Simple Recommends
Here's an email I received from A Life Less Simple in Gloucestershire, England.(www.alifelesssimple.wordpress.com) who was recommended to me by Colour it Green.
"A Life Less Simple is about me and my life. My family has always grown vegetables and we’ve kept goats since I was seven and chickens since before then (I think). As well as the goats and chickens we now have cows, sheep, ponies, donkeys, ducks, geese and quail, and this is just a list of the ‘useful’ animals we have.
I had a very special up bringing, I was home educated and have wonderful memories of things like sitting behind goats at milking time with my brother and sister taking it in turns to have milk squirted into our mouths and of spending days out in the woods with a couple of dogs and goats.
A Life Less Simple came out of a long time thinking about what I was trying to do. I want to live as simple a life as possible, grow my own food, make my own butter, etc. but this in itself just isn’t the easiest or simplest lifestyle to have anymore. Instead of spending my evenings after work watching TV or going out and getting drunk with friends (which is what most other 22 year-olds seem to want to spend all their time doing, but I might be being a little general there) I spend my evenings gardening, feeding and cleaning out animals, collecting eggs and processing milk and my weekends are spent in much the same way too.
As well as the animals and vegetable garden I’m also interested in rural skills and crafts and plan to learn to knit, make my own baskets and hurdles. I also try wherever possible to supprt local traders, I belong to the local freecycle and LETS groups and volunteer for the local community radio station.
Her recommendations are:
http://littleffarmdairy.wordpress.com/
http://www.farmingfriends.com/
www.smallestsmallholding.com
http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/ (not really farming or a rural blog but very interesting and about plant growing)
The email signs off with this quote from Terry Pratchett:
"Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages."
As ever, I have added the recommendations as links, and I will be writing to these new blogs asking them for their recommendations in turn.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
"A Life Less Simple is about me and my life. My family has always grown vegetables and we’ve kept goats since I was seven and chickens since before then (I think). As well as the goats and chickens we now have cows, sheep, ponies, donkeys, ducks, geese and quail, and this is just a list of the ‘useful’ animals we have.
I had a very special up bringing, I was home educated and have wonderful memories of things like sitting behind goats at milking time with my brother and sister taking it in turns to have milk squirted into our mouths and of spending days out in the woods with a couple of dogs and goats.
A Life Less Simple came out of a long time thinking about what I was trying to do. I want to live as simple a life as possible, grow my own food, make my own butter, etc. but this in itself just isn’t the easiest or simplest lifestyle to have anymore. Instead of spending my evenings after work watching TV or going out and getting drunk with friends (which is what most other 22 year-olds seem to want to spend all their time doing, but I might be being a little general there) I spend my evenings gardening, feeding and cleaning out animals, collecting eggs and processing milk and my weekends are spent in much the same way too.
As well as the animals and vegetable garden I’m also interested in rural skills and crafts and plan to learn to knit, make my own baskets and hurdles. I also try wherever possible to supprt local traders, I belong to the local freecycle and LETS groups and volunteer for the local community radio station.
Her recommendations are:
http://littleffarmdairy.wordpress.com/
http://www.farmingfriends.com/
www.smallestsmallholding.com
http://daughterofthesoil.blogspot.com/ (not really farming or a rural blog but very interesting and about plant growing)
The email signs off with this quote from Terry Pratchett:
"Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages."
As ever, I have added the recommendations as links, and I will be writing to these new blogs asking them for their recommendations in turn.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Country, the city version: Farms in the sky gain new interest
What if "eating local" in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away? And what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food?Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Despommier's pet project is the "vertical farm," a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact.The idea, which has captured the imagination of several architects in the United States and Europe in the past several years, just caught the eye of another big city dreamer: Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president in New York.When Stringer heard about the concept in June, he said he immediately pictured a "food farm" addition to the New York City skyline. "Obviously we don't have vast amounts of vacant land," he said in a phone interview. "But the sky is the limit in Manhattan." Stringer's office is "sketching out what it would take to pilot a vertical farm," and plans to pitch a feasibility study to the mayor's office within the next couple of months, he said."I think we can really do this," he added. "We could get the funding."
Despommier estimates that it would cost $20 million to $30 million to make a prototype of a vertical farm, but hundreds of millions to build one of the 30-story towers that he suggests could feed 50,000 people. "I'm viewed as kind of an outlier because it's kind of a crazy idea," Despommier, 68, said with a chuckle. "You'd think these are mythological creatures."Despommier, whose name in French means "of the apple trees," has been spreading the seeds of his radical idea in lectures and through his Web site. He says his ideas are supported by hydroponic vegetable research done by NASA and are made more feasible by the potential to use sun, wind and wastewater as energy sources. Several observers have said Despommier's sky-high dreams need to be brought down to earth."Why does it have to be 30 stories?" said Jerry Kaufman, professor emeritus of urban and regional planning at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "Why can't it be six stories? There's some exciting potential in the concept, but I think he overstates what can be done."Armando Carbonell, chairman of the department of planning and urban form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called the idea "very provocative." But it requires a rigorous economic analysis, he added. "Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an investment banker for space in a high-rise? My bet is that the investment banker will pay more."Carbonell questions if a vertical farm could deliver the energy savings its supporters promise. "There's embodied energy in the concrete and steel and in construction," he said, adding that the price of land in the city would still outweigh any savings from not having to transport food from afar. "I believe that this general relationship is going to hold, even as transportation costs go up and carbon costs get incorporated into the economic system."Some criticism is quite helpful. Stephen Colbert jokingly asserted that vertical farming was elitist when Despommier appeared in June on "The Colbert Report," a visit that led to a jump in hits to the project's Web site from an average of 400 daily to 400,000 the day after the show. Despommier agrees that more research is needed, and calls the energy calculations his students made for the farms, which would rely solely on alternative energy, "a little bit too optimistic." He added, "I'm a biologist swimming in very deep water right now.""If I were to set myself as a certifier of vertical farms, I would begin with security," he said. "How do you keep insects and bacteria from invading your crops?" He says growing food in climate-controlled skyscrapers would also protect against hail and other weather-related hazards, ensuring a higher quality food supply for a city, without pesticides or chemical fertilizers.Architects' renderings of vertical farms — hybrids of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Biosphere 2 with SimCity appeal — seem to be stirring interest. "It also has to be stunning in terms of the architecture, because it needs to work in terms of social marketing," Despommier said. "You want people to say, 'I want that in my backyard.' "Augustin Rosenstiehl, a French architect who worked with Despommier to design a template "living tower," said he thought that any vertical farm proposal needed to be adapted to a specific place. Rosenstiehl, principal architect for Atelier SOA in Paris, said: "We cannot do a project without knowing where and why and what we are going to cultivate. For example, in Paris, if you grow some wheat, it's stupid because we have big fields all around the city and lots of wheat and it's good wheat. There's no reason to build towers that are very expensive."
Despite its potential problems, the idea of bringing food closer to the city is gaining traction among pragmatists and dreamers alike. A smaller-scale design of a vertical farm for downtown Seattle won a regional green building contest in 2007 and has piqued the interest of officials in Portland, Oregon. The building, a Center for Urban Agriculture designed by architects at Mithun, would supply about a third of the food needed for the 400 people who would live there.In June at P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center in New York, a husband-wife architect team built a solar-powered outdoor farm out of stacked rows of cardboard tube planters — one that would not meet Despommier's security requirements — with chicken coops for egg collection and an array of fruits and vegetables.For Despommier, the high-rise version is on the horizon. "It's very idealistic and ivory tower and all of that," he said. "But there's a real desire to make this happen."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/15/healthscience/15farm.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Despommier estimates that it would cost $20 million to $30 million to make a prototype of a vertical farm, but hundreds of millions to build one of the 30-story towers that he suggests could feed 50,000 people. "I'm viewed as kind of an outlier because it's kind of a crazy idea," Despommier, 68, said with a chuckle. "You'd think these are mythological creatures."Despommier, whose name in French means "of the apple trees," has been spreading the seeds of his radical idea in lectures and through his Web site. He says his ideas are supported by hydroponic vegetable research done by NASA and are made more feasible by the potential to use sun, wind and wastewater as energy sources. Several observers have said Despommier's sky-high dreams need to be brought down to earth."Why does it have to be 30 stories?" said Jerry Kaufman, professor emeritus of urban and regional planning at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "Why can't it be six stories? There's some exciting potential in the concept, but I think he overstates what can be done."Armando Carbonell, chairman of the department of planning and urban form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called the idea "very provocative." But it requires a rigorous economic analysis, he added. "Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an investment banker for space in a high-rise? My bet is that the investment banker will pay more."Carbonell questions if a vertical farm could deliver the energy savings its supporters promise. "There's embodied energy in the concrete and steel and in construction," he said, adding that the price of land in the city would still outweigh any savings from not having to transport food from afar. "I believe that this general relationship is going to hold, even as transportation costs go up and carbon costs get incorporated into the economic system."Some criticism is quite helpful. Stephen Colbert jokingly asserted that vertical farming was elitist when Despommier appeared in June on "The Colbert Report," a visit that led to a jump in hits to the project's Web site from an average of 400 daily to 400,000 the day after the show. Despommier agrees that more research is needed, and calls the energy calculations his students made for the farms, which would rely solely on alternative energy, "a little bit too optimistic." He added, "I'm a biologist swimming in very deep water right now.""If I were to set myself as a certifier of vertical farms, I would begin with security," he said. "How do you keep insects and bacteria from invading your crops?" He says growing food in climate-controlled skyscrapers would also protect against hail and other weather-related hazards, ensuring a higher quality food supply for a city, without pesticides or chemical fertilizers.Architects' renderings of vertical farms — hybrids of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Biosphere 2 with SimCity appeal — seem to be stirring interest. "It also has to be stunning in terms of the architecture, because it needs to work in terms of social marketing," Despommier said. "You want people to say, 'I want that in my backyard.' "Augustin Rosenstiehl, a French architect who worked with Despommier to design a template "living tower," said he thought that any vertical farm proposal needed to be adapted to a specific place. Rosenstiehl, principal architect for Atelier SOA in Paris, said: "We cannot do a project without knowing where and why and what we are going to cultivate. For example, in Paris, if you grow some wheat, it's stupid because we have big fields all around the city and lots of wheat and it's good wheat. There's no reason to build towers that are very expensive."
Despite its potential problems, the idea of bringing food closer to the city is gaining traction among pragmatists and dreamers alike. A smaller-scale design of a vertical farm for downtown Seattle won a regional green building contest in 2007 and has piqued the interest of officials in Portland, Oregon. The building, a Center for Urban Agriculture designed by architects at Mithun, would supply about a third of the food needed for the 400 people who would live there.In June at P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center in New York, a husband-wife architect team built a solar-powered outdoor farm out of stacked rows of cardboard tube planters — one that would not meet Despommier's security requirements — with chicken coops for egg collection and an array of fruits and vegetables.For Despommier, the high-rise version is on the horizon. "It's very idealistic and ivory tower and all of that," he said. "But there's a real desire to make this happen."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/15/healthscience/15farm.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
The Common Agricultural Policy: sorting the facts from the fiction
20/06/2008 Press release
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the key European Union policies and one of the building blocks on which the EU was built. Much has been said and written about the CAP over the years, some of it true and some of it false. The CAP has been accused of many things and been made the scapegoat for many ills.
The following text responds to some of the popular misconceptions about the CAP.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the key European Union policies and one of the building blocks on which the EU was built. Much has been said and written about the CAP over the years, some of it true and some of it false. The CAP has been accused of many things and been made the scapegoat for many ills.
Love it or loathe it, the CAP has played a major role in maintaining a vibrant farming sector across the EU, preserving Europe's unique rural heritage, protecting the environment and animal welfare, providing plentiful supplies of food on Europe's plates and bolstering a multi-billion euro agri-food industry.
The popular caricature of the CAP often represents the policy as it was in the 1970s and 1980s and bears no relation at all to the CAP of today. Over the last decade and a half, the CAP has been widely reformed, firstly in 1992, then in 1999 and then in a series of reforms beginning in 2003.
This has completely transformed the CAP into a modern policy, where farmers are more competitive and are free to respond to market signals, where the incentive to overproduce has disappeared, where farm support is contingent on the respect of tough environmental, animal welfare and food quality standards and where coherence with policies for development and trade has greatly increased.
The following document responds to some of the popular misconceptions about the CAP.
The CAP is too expensive
Some people say it is wrong to spend more than 40 percent of the EU budget on a sector that accounts for just 1.6 percent of GDP and employs only 5 percent of the working population.
This is simplistic and misleading.
The CAP is the only policy funded totally from the EU budget.
European spending replaces national spending. That is why it accounts for such a large proportion of the EU budget. Other policies cost much more, but are paid for out of national treasuries.
Ten years ago, 0.61 percent of the EU’s GDP went to our farmers. That figure currently stands at 0.43 percent, and in another ten years, it will be down to around 0.33 percent.
If we take into account all public budgets, the CAP is about 1 percent of public spending in the EU.
If there were no CAP, individual Member States would still subsidise their farmers.
This could lead to subsidy competition, would require intensified management under state aid rules and could potentially result in higher overall spending.
The CAP encourages overproduction of unwanted commodities
This is a popular caricature of the CAP, which bears no relation to the reality of the CAP in 2008.
Reforms to the CAP began in 1992, and intensified with the reforms of 2003, which cut the link between subsidies and production.
Farmers can now become true entrepreneurs, produce what the market and consumers want, look for profitable new markets and exploit new niches.
They no longer have to “farm for subsidies”, producing food for which there is no market.
The days of "butter mountains" are gone. Surpluses are a thing of the past.
Farmers now receive an income support payment which is not linked to production. However, beneficiaries have to fulfil environmental, animal welfare and food quality standards.
If they don't, their payments are cut.
The new CAP is much more trade-friendly, as 90 percent of our direct payments are classed by the WTO as non-trade-distorting.
The CAP gives consumers a wide choice of high quality food.
The Health Check of the CAP, currently being debated in Council, is not about fundamental reform. It is about streamlining and improving the policy in the light of experience, freeing our farmers to respond to increasing demand and meeting new challenges like climate change.
This is a separate exercise to the mid-term review of the Financial Perspectives, which will look at spending priorities after 2013. But of course the two are linked.
We hope to point the way to the future with some of the improvements we make to the CAP.
The CAP encourages intensive farming and is bad for the environment
Absolutely not.
If we got rid of the CAP tomorrow, farmers in the most competitive areas would adapt by intensifying their production whereas in less competitive areas, farming would cease and with it the many environment and landscape-related features associated with land use.
The CAP in fact rewards extensive production systems.
Farm payments are no longer linked to production, but to the respect of so-called Cross Compliance rules, whereby the farmer has to guarantee strict environmental, animal welfare and food quality standards. If he does not, his aid is reduced.
We are not interested in industrialised farming for Europe. There is a place in our model for small, medium and large farms.
The increasing importance of Rural Development policy also highlights the way in which the CAP is positive for the environment. At least a quarter of Rural Development spending must go towards environmental projects, while other RD projects also enhance quality of life in rural regions or the economic viability of farming activities.
Most CAP money goes to people who don't even farm
Only persons carrying out an agricultural activity have access to the Single Payment Scheme. And only agricultural land may be used to activate payments. Where there is no agricultural production, the land must be maintained in good agricultural and environmental condition.
It is not possible to receive an EU farm subsidy for a golf course or a leisure club or a railway.
Under current rules, it is of course possible that golf courses, railway companies or other businesses may also own adjoining or nearby land which is used for farming. On this land, the subsidies could of course be paid as long as the conditions were met
But in the Health Check, we have proposed to give Member States the power if they so wish to withhold direct payments from recipients who are not real "farmers".
The CAP is to blame for the food crisis
No. In fact, it can be part of the solution to ease the global pressure on food prices.
On 20th May, the European Commission unveiled its Health Check of the CAP. We intend to build further on our successive reforms, taking into account the challenges of an EU of 27 Member States. For close to two decades, CAP reforms have increased market orientation. With 'decoupling' of direct payments, the link between support and production has been broken. Farmers can respond to market signals and increase production as a reaction to higher prices. We also propose abolishing remaining constraints on production such as compulsory set-aside and milk quotas. During the process of reform, the coherence with policies for development and trade has greatly increased. The Health Check proposals pull further in this direction.
The 'neo-liberal' European Commission is dismantling the CAP
No. But the Commission is engaged in modernising, streamlining and simplifyin
g the CAP.
Through decoupled payments, we continue to give farmers a certain level of financial security. At the same time, we are liberating them to respond to market signals.
We have been adapting our market instruments (such as public intervention) to make them act like a real safety net without blocking normal market signals.
And through Rural Development policy, we have been helping farms to restructure, and have been caring for the environment and nurturing dynamic rural areas.
It is certainly not the time to abolish the CAP, as some have suggested. The market has a very important role to play, but left to itself, it will not care for our landscapes or respond to other public demands. And if we strip farming of all defences against occasional crises, we gamble with our food supply.
Instead, now is the time to push further ahead in the direction which we have already taken. We must clear away obstacles which are hindering farmers' responses to market signals. We must make our support systems more effective, efficient and simple – and more consistent with competitiveness. And we must help farms and other country businesses to meet various developing challenges, such as climate change.
We need to erect new barriers to imports to guarantee sufficient supplies and protect our farmers
Food security is of course extremely important. But we want to maintain healthy two-way trade. We are the world's biggest exporter and importer of agricultural products.
Our competitive advantage is in the provision of high-value processed foods.
We cannot compete with the likes of Brazil on bulk commodities and nor should we try.
Our overall aim is to do everything we can to strengthen the position of European farmers and food companies. But we have to look at our overall interests. We see huge opportunities to increase our exports of high quality foods to expanding markets such as China and India.
Therefore, it is not in our interests to become a fortress. If we erect new barriers, so will our trade partners. 'Community preference' can only be used in accordance with our international obligations. Protecting our farmers and ensuring community preference can also be done through income support, by giving farmers a basic safety net to allow them to take the decisions they have to take to compete on the market.
The EU is going to extend tobacco subsidies
The reform of the tobacco sector was agreed in 2004. This included full decoupling of support at the latest in 2010. This means that from 2010, specific tobacco subsidies will no longer exist. The reform is signed, sealed, set in stone. There is not and will not be a proposal to extend tobacco subsidies beyond 2010.
EU policies are causing milk farmers to tip away their milk while the developing world starves
Throwing milk away at a time when parts of the world are experiencing a food crisis is a rather paradoxical activity. However, it is a strong signal from the farmers that the margins of milk production are under pressure.
This development is however a normal development in the marketplace, like we have seen in recent months in the pig sector. Instead of battling with the processors, farmers should sit around the table with them in order to determine the appropriate level of production and the right price.
Instead many farmers are currently looking at their quota levels as production targets irrespective of the market. This is irrational from an economic point of view and milk-flooded fields are an irrational answer to that. Quota is an opportunity to produce and not an obligation.
We reacted last year to a demand by a huge majority of Member States to increase milk quotas because of the sharp increase in prices. The 2 percent increase has not yet fed through into the market.
It was already agreed in the 2003 reforms that milk quotas would expire in 2015. But we are aware of the need to give the sector a "soft landing" and that is why we are suggesting a gradual 5 percent increase in production between now and then.
We are also aware that some small producers and some producers in disadvantaged regions (like mountainous regions) are anxious about the future. That is why we have proposed in the Health Check measures to help them out. These include so-called Article 68, where member states can skim off up to 10 percent of direct aid and use some of the money to help the dairy sector. There are also possibilities within Rural Development policy.
But the future is without milk quotas. There is huge growth in demand for milk and dairy products in Europe and around the world, particularly in emerging markets. We must allow our own farmers to tap into this demand or other countries will take advantage instead.
The CAP is secretive. No-one knows who gets what money
We are fully committed to transparency of CAP recipients. This is taxpayers' money and they have the right to know where it goes. Full transparency will be compulsory from 2009. The publication will be done by the Member States. In the meantime, we have a link to the sites in the Member States which already publish these figures.
CAP export subsidies destroy farmers' livelihoods in developing countries
No they don't. It is true that, in the past, we used to overproduce commodities at high prices and then export them with the help of generous export subsidies.
But times have changed.
15 years ago, we spent €10 billion a year on export subsidies. In 2009, we are budgeting for a maximum of €350 million. The main destinations concerned by export subsidies are the Mediterranean Basin and the rest of Europe. Only a minimal proportion of subsidised goods find their way to Africa.
In any case, thanks to our reforms and recent developments in commodity markets, they are less and less needed as our prices are now aligned with world market prices.
There are no export refunds for cereals, rice, dairy products or fruit and vegetables. And we have pledged to phase out export subsidies entirely by 2013. They are yesterday's policy.
In November, we reintroduced export subsidies on exports of pig carcases, cuts and bellies.
It was a temporary solution to solve an acute market crisis in Europe. Of this, only 8,000 tonnes has gone to the whole of Africa. Contrary to recent claims, neither chicken nor tinned tomatoes are eligible for export subsidies for export to Africa.
The EU does nothing for poor countries
Under the “Everything But Arms” initiative, the 50 Least Developed Countries all have complete quota and tariff-free access to the EU market for all products except weapons. This advantage is now being extended to all ACP countries – 98 percent of goods from ACP countries enter the EU duty and quota free. The EU is the largest market for LDC agricultural exports. 176 developing countries benefit from EU preferences under the “General System of Preferences”, 15 of which benefit from GSP+. The EU provides more trade development assistance than the rest of the world put together. Every year since 2001, the EU has given about €750 million in trade development assistance. The EU takes 85 percent of Africa’s agricultural exports and 45 percent of those from Latin America. It imports more agricultural products from developing countries than the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and New Zealand put together.
The CAP is the reason the Doha Round has not succeeded so far
Far from it.
In the Doha Round, the EU has offered to phase out all export subsidies from 2013, cut trade-distorting domestic farm subsidies by 70 percent and reduce its average farm tariff by more than half. The highest tariffs would fall by at least 60 percent.
This offer allowed the agricultural chapter of the negotiations to progress well.
The problems are elsewhere, particularly in the failure thus far to find any sort of balance between what is on offer in agriculture and what is on offer on industrial tariffs.
The Commission wants to sacrifice the CAP to get a deal in the Doha Round
Of course we don't.
We have said clearly throughout the process that there will be no deal unless it is a balanced deal.
That means balanced within agriculture and balanced between agriculture and other parts of the negotiation, in particular industrial tariffs.
Even within agriculture, we need to see more engagement from our trading partners. For example, the US needs to be prepared to make significant cuts in its trade-distorting domestic subsidy system
http://europa.eu:80/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/422&type=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
Mariann Fischer Boel Speech: Climate change and water challenges for farmers
Member of the European Commission responsible of Agriculture and Rural Development
Climate change and water challenges for farmers
Expo Zaragoza 2008 on Water and Sustainable Development Zaragoza, Spain, 11 July 2008 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/388&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
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Climate change and water challenges for farmers
Expo Zaragoza 2008 on Water and Sustainable Development Zaragoza, Spain, 11 July 2008 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/388&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
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Mariann Fischer Boel Speech: We want more agriculture for our future
Member of the European Commission responsible for agriculture and rural development
We want more agriculture for our future
Conference organised by CIA (Confederazione Italiana Agricultori)Lecce, Italy, 19 June 2008
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/358&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
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Mariann Fischer Boel Speech: Who will feed the World?
Mariann Fischer Boel: Who will feed the World?
Member of the European Commission responsible for Agriculture and Rural Development
Who will feed the World?
The answers from the EUConference: "Who will feed the World?"Brussels, 3 July 2008
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/371&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
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Member of the European Commission responsible for Agriculture and Rural Development
Who will feed the World?
The answers from the EUConference: "Who will feed the World?"Brussels, 3 July 2008
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/371&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
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CAP Reform: Commission welcomes adoption of reformed cotton support scheme
CAP Reform: Commission welcomes adoption of reformed cotton support scheme
23/06/2008 Press release
Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, welcomed today's adoption by the Council of the reformed EU cotton support scheme. The reform maintains 65 % of aid "decoupled" (i.e. no longer linked to production) and 35 % linked to cotton production in the form of area payments. National restructuring programmes are created to facilitate restructuring in the cotton ginning industry and to enhance quality and marketing of the cotton produced. The new scheme will replace the current support arrangement, which was annulled by the European Court of Justice on 7 September 2006
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/993&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
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23/06/2008 Press release
Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, welcomed today's adoption by the Council of the reformed EU cotton support scheme. The reform maintains 65 % of aid "decoupled" (i.e. no longer linked to production) and 35 % linked to cotton production in the form of area payments. National restructuring programmes are created to facilitate restructuring in the cotton ginning industry and to enhance quality and marketing of the cotton produced. The new scheme will replace the current support arrangement, which was annulled by the European Court of Justice on 7 September 2006
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/993&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
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Import of fresh meat from South America
01/07/2008 Press release
The Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health today supported a Commission proposal to allow imports of fresh meat from the additional areas in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, which are in a position to comply with EC import requirements. Recently, the competent authorities of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay have made considerable efforts to improve the animal health situation in their respective countries, and in particular as regards foot and mouth disease (FMD). Their efforts were recognised internationally by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and confirmed by recent Commission inspections. In Argentina, a new region termed "Patagonia North B" and corresponding to parts of the provinces of Neuquén and Rio Negro has been allowed to export to the EU bone-in fresh meat from ovine, caprine, bovine and game animals following its recognition of free of FMD) without vaccination by the OIE, and favourable Commission inspections. Other regions of Argentina continue to be authorised for export to the EU of de-boned fresh meat from bovine animals and other farmed ruminants. In Brazil, the States of Paraná and São Paulo have been authorised for export to the EU of de-boned and matured beef, following their recognition as free of FMD with vaccination by the OIE. In 2005, those States were excluded from the list of the Brazilian territories allowed to export beef to the EU following outbreaks of FMD. The special import requirements for Brazilian beef established with Decision 2008/61/EC limiting exports to meat obtained from animals from holdings approved by the Brazilian authorities will also apply to Paraná and São Paulo. Paraguay has been authorised for export to the EU of de-boned and matured bovine meat, following its recognition as free of FMD with vaccination by the OIE and favourable Commission inspections.
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The Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health today supported a Commission proposal to allow imports of fresh meat from the additional areas in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, which are in a position to comply with EC import requirements. Recently, the competent authorities of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay have made considerable efforts to improve the animal health situation in their respective countries, and in particular as regards foot and mouth disease (FMD). Their efforts were recognised internationally by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and confirmed by recent Commission inspections. In Argentina, a new region termed "Patagonia North B" and corresponding to parts of the provinces of Neuquén and Rio Negro has been allowed to export to the EU bone-in fresh meat from ovine, caprine, bovine and game animals following its recognition of free of FMD) without vaccination by the OIE, and favourable Commission inspections. Other regions of Argentina continue to be authorised for export to the EU of de-boned fresh meat from bovine animals and other farmed ruminants. In Brazil, the States of Paraná and São Paulo have been authorised for export to the EU of de-boned and matured beef, following their recognition as free of FMD with vaccination by the OIE. In 2005, those States were excluded from the list of the Brazilian territories allowed to export beef to the EU following outbreaks of FMD. The special import requirements for Brazilian beef established with Decision 2008/61/EC limiting exports to meat obtained from animals from holdings approved by the Brazilian authorities will also apply to Paraná and São Paulo. Paraguay has been authorised for export to the EU of de-boned and matured bovine meat, following its recognition as free of FMD with vaccination by the OIE and favourable Commission inspections.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Commission proposes School Fruit Scheme worth €90 million per year
08/07/2008 Press release
At a meeting of the Special Committee for Agriculture on Monday, the outgoing Presidency of the EU Council concluded that the vast majority of Member States will agree to abolish set-aside as proposed by the Commission in its CAP Health Check proposals. The change comes in response to the increasingly tight situation on the cereals market. Under these circumstances, farmers can already benefit from the measure as from their autumn 2008 and spring 2009 sowings. The end of the set-aside scheme will allow farmers to adjust their planting decisions and respond in advance to new market circumstances.
http://europa.eu:80/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1069&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
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At a meeting of the Special Committee for Agriculture on Monday, the outgoing Presidency of the EU Council concluded that the vast majority of Member States will agree to abolish set-aside as proposed by the Commission in its CAP Health Check proposals. The change comes in response to the increasingly tight situation on the cereals market. Under these circumstances, farmers can already benefit from the measure as from their autumn 2008 and spring 2009 sowings. The end of the set-aside scheme will allow farmers to adjust their planting decisions and respond in advance to new market circumstances.
http://europa.eu:80/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1069&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Green Party announces its ticket for 2008 presidential election
CHICAGO: The Green Party, which captured less than 1 percent of the vote in the last U.S. presidential election, has chosen the former Democratic Representative Cynthia McKinney as its 2008 presidential candidate.
McKinney, 53, will be joined on the ticket for the election in November by vice presidential candidate Rosa Clemente, a hip-hop artist and activist.
McKinney received 313 out of 532 votes cast Saturday at the party's nominating convention in Chicago, Scott McLarty, a spokesman for the party, said.
In the 2004 presidential election, the Green Party drew 119,859 votes, or 0.1 percent of the total votes cast, finishing in sixth place behind the two major parties and three other third-party tickets.
The party's best performance came in 2000 when Ralph Nader led the ticket and won 2.8 million votes, or 2.7 percent of the total. Some political analysts say Nader, a political and consumer activist, may have drawn votes from the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, and helped tip the election in favor of George W. Bush.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/13/america/12greens.php
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McKinney, 53, will be joined on the ticket for the election in November by vice presidential candidate Rosa Clemente, a hip-hop artist and activist.
McKinney received 313 out of 532 votes cast Saturday at the party's nominating convention in Chicago, Scott McLarty, a spokesman for the party, said.
In the 2004 presidential election, the Green Party drew 119,859 votes, or 0.1 percent of the total votes cast, finishing in sixth place behind the two major parties and three other third-party tickets.
The party's best performance came in 2000 when Ralph Nader led the ticket and won 2.8 million votes, or 2.7 percent of the total. Some political analysts say Nader, a political and consumer activist, may have drawn votes from the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, and helped tip the election in favor of George W. Bush.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/13/america/12greens.php
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THE FEED: The man who dared to question ethanol
It wasn't too long ago that a loose coalition of anti-ethanol forces was bemoaning the futility of its fight.
After failing to block huge new ethanol mandates in the Senate last December, Jay Truitt, until recently the chief lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, complained about the "fervor" and "spirituality" that surrounded ethanol on Capitol Hill.
"You can't get anyone to consider that there is a consequence to these actions," he said, adding, "We think there will be a day when people ask, 'Why in the world did we do this?' "
That day has arrived sooner than Truitt, or most anyone else, anticipated.
Of course, much of the turnabout is attributable to relentless price increases at the grocery store that have caused many people to argue that the land used to grow corn for ethanol should be used for food instead.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/13/business/13feed.php
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After failing to block huge new ethanol mandates in the Senate last December, Jay Truitt, until recently the chief lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, complained about the "fervor" and "spirituality" that surrounded ethanol on Capitol Hill.
"You can't get anyone to consider that there is a consequence to these actions," he said, adding, "We think there will be a day when people ask, 'Why in the world did we do this?' "
That day has arrived sooner than Truitt, or most anyone else, anticipated.
Of course, much of the turnabout is attributable to relentless price increases at the grocery store that have caused many people to argue that the land used to grow corn for ethanol should be used for food instead.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/13/business/13feed.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Action on Doha trade deal; Stop the finger pointing
LETTER
The moment of truth in the World Trade Organization's Doha Round of trade talks is here. Failure to agree on the necessary modalities, to pave the way for the conclusion of the round at the approaching ministerial meeting in Geneva risks postponing the negotiations indefinitely.
The world economy is facing turbulence and uncertainty. Food and oil prices are soaring. Inflation is on the rise and growth prospects in many countries look unusually grim.
These conditions create an urgent need for action in favor of economic stability and development. The WTO and the Doha Round provide such an opportunity. The onus is now on key WTO members - developed as well developing countries - to show the courage and leadership when ministers meet in Geneva.
We cannot afford to miss the chance to counterbalance the present negative trends in world economic affairs. The credibility and respect of the whole multilateral trading system must be maintained.
The European Union has a particular responsibility. Not only are we the initiators of the round, but like all other WTO members we stand to gain considerably in economic terms from what is now on the table in the negotiations.
We need to maintain our push for ambitious overall results. The European Union's ability to remain a driving force in this crucial phase is dependent on our capacity to act in coherence. Now more than ever, EU unity is essential.
Our agreed objective is a comprehensive ambitious and balanced outcome. We also agree on the need to further improve the negotiating texts and the offers from key partners. We must not allow possible internal differences to get in the way.
If that were to happen, not only would our chances to get support for EU positions from others be undermined but we would also diminish the prospects of finalizing the Doha Round in 2008.
The EU and the rest of the world badly need a positive outcome of the Geneva meeting. We must go to Geneva with this responsibility in mind. If we fail, the fate of the round will be very uncertain. A great opportunity to promote world trade and prosperity would then be lost, and we must never forget that this is after all a development round.
Martin Ríman, minister of industry and trade, Czech Republic
Urmas Paet, minister of foreign affairs, Estonia
Kaspars Gerhards, minister of economics, Latvia
Andrej Vizjak, minister of the economy, Slovenia
Ewa Bjorling, minister for Trade, Sweden
Gareth Thomas, minister for trade and development, U.K.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/14/opinion/edlet.php
The moment of truth in the World Trade Organization's Doha Round of trade talks is here. Failure to agree on the necessary modalities, to pave the way for the conclusion of the round at the approaching ministerial meeting in Geneva risks postponing the negotiations indefinitely.
The world economy is facing turbulence and uncertainty. Food and oil prices are soaring. Inflation is on the rise and growth prospects in many countries look unusually grim.
These conditions create an urgent need for action in favor of economic stability and development. The WTO and the Doha Round provide such an opportunity. The onus is now on key WTO members - developed as well developing countries - to show the courage and leadership when ministers meet in Geneva.
We cannot afford to miss the chance to counterbalance the present negative trends in world economic affairs. The credibility and respect of the whole multilateral trading system must be maintained.
The European Union has a particular responsibility. Not only are we the initiators of the round, but like all other WTO members we stand to gain considerably in economic terms from what is now on the table in the negotiations.
We need to maintain our push for ambitious overall results. The European Union's ability to remain a driving force in this crucial phase is dependent on our capacity to act in coherence. Now more than ever, EU unity is essential.
Our agreed objective is a comprehensive ambitious and balanced outcome. We also agree on the need to further improve the negotiating texts and the offers from key partners. We must not allow possible internal differences to get in the way.
If that were to happen, not only would our chances to get support for EU positions from others be undermined but we would also diminish the prospects of finalizing the Doha Round in 2008.
The EU and the rest of the world badly need a positive outcome of the Geneva meeting. We must go to Geneva with this responsibility in mind. If we fail, the fate of the round will be very uncertain. A great opportunity to promote world trade and prosperity would then be lost, and we must never forget that this is after all a development round.
Martin Ríman, minister of industry and trade, Czech Republic
Urmas Paet, minister of foreign affairs, Estonia
Kaspars Gerhards, minister of economics, Latvia
Andrej Vizjak, minister of the economy, Slovenia
Ewa Bjorling, minister for Trade, Sweden
Gareth Thomas, minister for trade and development, U.K.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/14/opinion/edlet.php
Saturday, 12 July 2008
EU raids Cargill and Bunge in price-fixing investigation
BRUSSELS: Cargill, the largest U.S. agriculture company, Bunge and grain traders in two countries were raided by European Union authorities in an antitrust investigation into alleged price-fixing.European and Italian antitrust officials made surprise visits at Cargill offices in Italy, said Francis DeRosa, a spokesman for Cargill in Cobham, England.The European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator, carried out inspections in two countries, the agency said in a statement."We have provided and will continue to provide full cooperation," DeRosa said Thursday.Commodity prices have advanced for six consecutive years, with wheat, corn, rice and other foods reaching records this year. World food imports will cost a record $1.04 trillion this year, $215 billion more than last year, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization has said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/11/business/10raid.php
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/11/business/10raid.php
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Hunger brings anguish for millions of Pakistanis
THARPARKAR, Pakistan: When Pakistani labourer Mangal Ram's children cry from hunger all he has to offer them is empty promises.
"My kids complain and cry for more food but what can I do?," said Ram, 50, a father of seven who lives in the desert village of Tharparkar, in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh.
"We say 'wait, we'll cook more', what else can we do?" he asks with a shrug.
Ram's anguish is becoming increasingly common in Pakistan where inflation is running at about 20 percent, led by fuel and food prices.
Soaring food prices and shortages of staples mean about 77 million people of Pakistan's 160 million population are food insecure, a 28 percent increase over the past year, according to U.N. World Food Program (WFP) estimates.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/07/11/asia/OUKWD-UK-PAKISTAN-HUNGER.php
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"My kids complain and cry for more food but what can I do?," said Ram, 50, a father of seven who lives in the desert village of Tharparkar, in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh.
"We say 'wait, we'll cook more', what else can we do?" he asks with a shrug.
Ram's anguish is becoming increasingly common in Pakistan where inflation is running at about 20 percent, led by fuel and food prices.
Soaring food prices and shortages of staples mean about 77 million people of Pakistan's 160 million population are food insecure, a 28 percent increase over the past year, according to U.N. World Food Program (WFP) estimates.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/07/11/asia/OUKWD-UK-PAKISTAN-HUNGER.php
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Friday, 11 July 2008
Shareholders turn to sharecropping
CAMPTON TOWNSHIP, Illinois: In an environmentally conscious tweak on the typical way of getting food to the table, growing numbers of Americans are skipping out on grocery stores and even farmers' markets and instead going right to the source by buying shares of farms.On one of the farms here, about 35 miles, or about 55 kilometers, west of Chicago, Steve Trisko was weeding beets the other day and cutting back a shade tree so that baby tomatoes could get sunlight. Trisko is a retired computer consultant who owns shares in the four-acre, or 1.6-hectare, Erehwon Farm."We decided that it's in our interest to have a small farm succeed and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food," Trisko said.Part of a loose but growing network mostly mobilized on the Internet, Erehwon is participating in what is known as community-supported agriculture. About 150 people have bought shares in Erehwon - in essence, hiring personal farmers and turning the old notion of sharecropping on its head.The concept was imported from Europe and Asia in the 1980s as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming. But until recently, it was slow to take root. There were fewer than 100 such farms in the early 1990s, but in the past several years the number has grown to close to 1,500, according to academic experts who have followed the trend.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/10/business/farm.php
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/10/business/farm.php
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Biofuels called a major cause of soaring food prices
WASHINGTON: A leading World Bank economist's claims that biofuels are a major cause of soaring world food prices could further undermine support for the alternative fuel worldwide and cause tensions with the White House, which fervently supports the new industry.
The draft report by the World Bank's top agricultural economist, Don Mitchell, estimates that the growing use of food for fuel, combined with low grain stocks, market speculation and export food bans, contributed as much as 75 percent of the 140 percent rise in prices between January 2002 and February 2008.
The remainder of the increase is due to a weakening U.S. dollar, higher energy prices and related increases in fertilizer costs, he said.
"Increased biofuel production has increased the demand for food crops and been the major cause of the increase in food prices," said Mitchell, who is widely respected for his work on agricultural policies and production.
Mitchell's preliminary finding of 75 percent has sparked a heated debate because it goes beyond most other estimates.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/10/business/biofuel.php
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The draft report by the World Bank's top agricultural economist, Don Mitchell, estimates that the growing use of food for fuel, combined with low grain stocks, market speculation and export food bans, contributed as much as 75 percent of the 140 percent rise in prices between January 2002 and February 2008.
The remainder of the increase is due to a weakening U.S. dollar, higher energy prices and related increases in fertilizer costs, he said.
"Increased biofuel production has increased the demand for food crops and been the major cause of the increase in food prices," said Mitchell, who is widely respected for his work on agricultural policies and production.
Mitchell's preliminary finding of 75 percent has sparked a heated debate because it goes beyond most other estimates.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/10/business/biofuel.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
EU raids firms in investigation of agriculture industry
LONDON:
Cargill, the largest U.S. agriculture company, and grain traders in two countries were raided by European Union authorities as part of an antitrust probe into alleged price-fixing.
European and Italian antitrust officials conducted unannounced visits at Cargill offices in Italy, said Francis DeRosa, a spokesman for Cargill in Cobham, England. The European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator, carried out inspections in two countries, the agency said in a statement.
"We have provided and will continue to provide full cooperation," DeRosa said.
Commodity prices have advanced for six consecutive years, with wheat, corn, rice and other foods reaching records this year. World food imports will cost a record $1.04 trillion this year, $215 billion more than last year, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization says.
Companies can be fined as much as 10 percent of annual sales for antitrust violations. Decisions can be appealed to European courts in Luxembourg.
The inspections were made at the premises of traders and distributors of products for human consumption and animal feed, the EU said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/10/business/10raid.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Cargill, the largest U.S. agriculture company, and grain traders in two countries were raided by European Union authorities as part of an antitrust probe into alleged price-fixing.
European and Italian antitrust officials conducted unannounced visits at Cargill offices in Italy, said Francis DeRosa, a spokesman for Cargill in Cobham, England. The European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator, carried out inspections in two countries, the agency said in a statement.
"We have provided and will continue to provide full cooperation," DeRosa said.
Commodity prices have advanced for six consecutive years, with wheat, corn, rice and other foods reaching records this year. World food imports will cost a record $1.04 trillion this year, $215 billion more than last year, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization says.
Companies can be fined as much as 10 percent of annual sales for antitrust violations. Decisions can be appealed to European courts in Luxembourg.
The inspections were made at the premises of traders and distributors of products for human consumption and animal feed, the EU said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/10/business/10raid.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
South Korean Parliament to open inquiry into beef deal with U.S.
SEOUL: The new Parliament in South Korea agreed Thursday to investigate government negotiations with Washington on resumed U.S. beef imports, as it convened for the first time since an opposition boycott over the beef dispute.
The planned inquiry is a blow to President Lee Myung Bak, whose leadership has been undermined by a wave of protests against the beef deal for the past two months. The investigation comes as protests show signs of subsiding and could rekindle heated public debate.
The investigation was a key demand from the main opposition Democratic Party to end its boycott of the National Assembly, which had not convened since lawmakers started a four-year term on May 30.
But the governing Grand National Party agreed earlier this week to accept an inquiry, and Parliament is to be formally opened Friday, when Lee will address lawmakers.
The opposition has contended that the beef deal, struck in April and amended last month, is flawed because it could expose the country to mad cow disease. The liberal party also has accused the pro-U.S. government of reaching the deal just hours before Lee's first summit with President George W. Bush in an effort to kowtow to Washington.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/10/asia/korea.php
The planned inquiry is a blow to President Lee Myung Bak, whose leadership has been undermined by a wave of protests against the beef deal for the past two months. The investigation comes as protests show signs of subsiding and could rekindle heated public debate.
The investigation was a key demand from the main opposition Democratic Party to end its boycott of the National Assembly, which had not convened since lawmakers started a four-year term on May 30.
But the governing Grand National Party agreed earlier this week to accept an inquiry, and Parliament is to be formally opened Friday, when Lee will address lawmakers.
The opposition has contended that the beef deal, struck in April and amended last month, is flawed because it could expose the country to mad cow disease. The liberal party also has accused the pro-U.S. government of reaching the deal just hours before Lee's first summit with President George W. Bush in an effort to kowtow to Washington.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/10/asia/korea.php
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
OPINION: Shortages are not the problem
OPINION
THE FOOD CRISIS
Shortages are not the problem
By Madeleine K. Albright and John D. Podesta
Published: July 9, 2008
There was a glimmer of good news in the global food price crisis when Japan announced it would release a portion of its imported rice stockpile and the high level UN Food and Agriculture Organization secured financial commitments for short-term food aid and increased research and development into new seeds and the distribution of fertilizer to small farmers.
Nonetheless, the dismal state of affairs in the global food situation underscores the need for U.S. leadership in addressing a world agricultural system that is facing new challenges and a painful transition.
The United States can lead the way in achieving lasting global food security with a renewed commitment to long-term investment in agricultural development in the world's poorest nations. Japan, as the host nation of the Group of 8 summit meeting, and with U.S. concurrence, must go further than its earlier announcements on rice and release up to 1 million tons of its current stockpile.
Key rice producers around the world, including India, Pakistan and Vietnam, should follow suit and fulfill their recent promises to tap their own surpluses to feed the global market.
In the last three years, food prices worldwide have risen 83 percent, sowing the seeds of increased malnutrition, hunger and political instability. Since 2003, the price of rice has been on a steady climb upward and has risen 141 percent in the last year alone. For much of the world, rice is a key component of the daily diet. Three billion people rely on rice for a third of their calories each day.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/09/opinion/edalbright.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
THE FOOD CRISIS
Shortages are not the problem
By Madeleine K. Albright and John D. Podesta
Published: July 9, 2008
There was a glimmer of good news in the global food price crisis when Japan announced it would release a portion of its imported rice stockpile and the high level UN Food and Agriculture Organization secured financial commitments for short-term food aid and increased research and development into new seeds and the distribution of fertilizer to small farmers.
Nonetheless, the dismal state of affairs in the global food situation underscores the need for U.S. leadership in addressing a world agricultural system that is facing new challenges and a painful transition.
The United States can lead the way in achieving lasting global food security with a renewed commitment to long-term investment in agricultural development in the world's poorest nations. Japan, as the host nation of the Group of 8 summit meeting, and with U.S. concurrence, must go further than its earlier announcements on rice and release up to 1 million tons of its current stockpile.
Key rice producers around the world, including India, Pakistan and Vietnam, should follow suit and fulfill their recent promises to tap their own surpluses to feed the global market.
In the last three years, food prices worldwide have risen 83 percent, sowing the seeds of increased malnutrition, hunger and political instability. Since 2003, the price of rice has been on a steady climb upward and has risen 141 percent in the last year alone. For much of the world, rice is a key component of the daily diet. Three billion people rely on rice for a third of their calories each day.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/09/opinion/edalbright.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Food-themed festivals thrive as growing declines
PATTERSON, California: New York has the Statue of Liberty, and Las Vegas has its inimitable Strip. What Patterson has could be found in a booth run by Boy Scout Troop 8 at the city's Apricot Fiesta, where the Scouts were serving up the last of 111 gallons of homemade apricot ice cream they had mixed at the local fire hall.From the Garlic Festival this month in Gilroy, California, which attracts more than 100,000 people, to the small Pear Fair, also this month, in Courtland, California, it is the season of the agricultural fair."Wooly Bully" and other best-forgotten oldies, played on the bandstand, set the stage for cuisine like garlic ice cream, "asparagus in a blanket" (at the Stockton Asparagus Festival), and artichoke cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (the Castroville Artichoke Festival). "It tastes just like pumpkin," insisted Michele Tottino Pecci, the Artichoke Festival's director.The tradition hangs on, even as sprawl swallows up orchards. In Patterson, "the apricot capital of the world," the acreage devoted to apricots is dwindling, and farmers blame the influx of dried apricots from Turkey.In Gilroy, once the aromatic apogee of garlic, the herb is now grown on only about 500 acres. Half of the garlic sold in America now comes from China, and most California garlic comes from the Central Valley, near Fresno.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/09/america/orchard.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/09/america/orchard.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Dairy Princess Diaries Recommends
Mandy at the Dairy Princess Diaries' has recommendation for a fellow farm blog: http://massaorganics.blogspot.com/
"Greg Massa and his family," she writes, "are 'country neighbors' of ours, growing delicious, organic brown rice on their farm while raising their brood of kids in their beautiful rice straw bale home. Even though we're just a couple of miles down the road and know we can stop by any time, I love catching up with them on their blog when we all get crazy busy. :)"
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
"Greg Massa and his family," she writes, "are 'country neighbors' of ours, growing delicious, organic brown rice on their farm while raising their brood of kids in their beautiful rice straw bale home. Even though we're just a couple of miles down the road and know we can stop by any time, I love catching up with them on their blog when we all get crazy busy. :)"
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Agricultural Law Recommends
Professor Susan Schneider at aglaw.blogspot.com recommends.....her own blog! (Only kidding Susan, I found it an interesting read; fascinating to see what agricultural lawyers end up doing.)
aglawllm.blogspot.com is the blog of the Graduate Program in Agricultural Law (llm program) in agricultural law at the University of Arkansas, which interestingly is the first and only agricultural LL.M program in the United States.
They study "the law of food and agriculture from farm to fork, from the perspective of the farmer, the retailer, and the consumer."
This blog is written by Susan Schneider, the Director of the Program "about what we do in the ag law program and what our alumni and professors are doing professionally."
I've asked Susan to blog about/contact her alumni about http://www.farmblogs.blogspot.com/ because I think it would be interesting to see what these folk are reading.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
aglawllm.blogspot.com is the blog of the Graduate Program in Agricultural Law (llm program) in agricultural law at the University of Arkansas, which interestingly is the first and only agricultural LL.M program in the United States.
They study "the law of food and agriculture from farm to fork, from the perspective of the farmer, the retailer, and the consumer."
This blog is written by Susan Schneider, the Director of the Program "about what we do in the ag law program and what our alumni and professors are doing professionally."
I've asked Susan to blog about/contact her alumni about http://www.farmblogs.blogspot.com/ because I think it would be interesting to see what these folk are reading.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Colour it Green Recommends
Colour it Green http://colouritgreen.wordpress.com/ in the UK has written with their recommendations.
Colour it Green are not farmers (as they see it), not even "proper small holders, we are part time small holders!" they write. But here at http://www.farmblogs.blogspot.com/ we have a pretty broad definition of a farm blog, so no drama there.
They have "2 acres, 4 sheep, 4 hens plus offspring, some fruit trees and lots and lots of vegetable patches, which we manage alongside repairing a falling down house, jobs and full time home education."
Colour it Green uses the blog "to witter about our veg growing, livestock rearing, egg collecting, sheep shearing, home brewing, cooking, saving energy, preserving, wool processing: (dyeing, spinning, knitting and weaving), hedging, crafts, home education, tree felling, and generally enjoying it all."
Their recommendations are a few we have
http://locksparkfarm.wordpress.com/
http://stonehead.wordpress.com/
and a few we don't.
http://alifelesssimple.wordpress.com/
http://ccgi.notaproperfarmer.co.uk/
http://www.smallholdinginsomerset.blogspot.com/
http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/
http://www.ianwalthew.com/
Colour it Green are not farmers (as they see it), not even "proper small holders, we are part time small holders!" they write. But here at http://www.farmblogs.blogspot.com/ we have a pretty broad definition of a farm blog, so no drama there.
They have "2 acres, 4 sheep, 4 hens plus offspring, some fruit trees and lots and lots of vegetable patches, which we manage alongside repairing a falling down house, jobs and full time home education."
Colour it Green uses the blog "to witter about our veg growing, livestock rearing, egg collecting, sheep shearing, home brewing, cooking, saving energy, preserving, wool processing: (dyeing, spinning, knitting and weaving), hedging, crafts, home education, tree felling, and generally enjoying it all."
Their recommendations are a few we have
http://locksparkfarm.wordpress.com/
http://stonehead.wordpress.com/
and a few we don't.
http://alifelesssimple.wordpress.com/
http://ccgi.notaproperfarmer.co.uk/
http://www.smallholdinginsomerset.blogspot.com/
http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/
http://www.ianwalthew.com/
Letter to the IHT: A hungry world
A hungry world
Your editorial "The Group of 8 and man-made hunger" (July 7) only touches the surface of what is becoming our planet's most dire and dangerous problem: world hunger.
On the top end, we see oil-rich countries, like those in the United Arab Emirates, creating the most beautiful cities and buildings that are the result of increasing oil wealth and very small populations. On the low end, we cry when we hear of mass starvation in many African countries, as well as the result of uncontrollable environmental pollution in countries like China, now one of the world's largest petroleum consumer, like the United States.
How have we reached this situation in which farmers in many countries, including poorer ones like Brazil, are growing crops like corn and sugar cane solely for the production of biofuels, which also pollute the environment and contribute to global warming?
Don't the governments in countries that produce the most biofuels realize that every liter of ethanol takes several kilograms of food crops, and water, out of the mouths of human beings?
And now, to make things worse, intense flooding in America and China (often said to be a result of global warming) is depriving everyone of food supplies as well. The message that comes out of the G-8 summit meeting in Japan should be one of trying to save our environment, which in the long run will help prevent the catastrophes that are causing so much human misery today.
If this message doesn't get out, then we are all facing an even worse time on this good earth. After all, just as you can't eat oil, you can't eat ethanol.
Maurice Picow, Netanya, Israel
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/08/opinion/edletters.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Your editorial "The Group of 8 and man-made hunger" (July 7) only touches the surface of what is becoming our planet's most dire and dangerous problem: world hunger.
On the top end, we see oil-rich countries, like those in the United Arab Emirates, creating the most beautiful cities and buildings that are the result of increasing oil wealth and very small populations. On the low end, we cry when we hear of mass starvation in many African countries, as well as the result of uncontrollable environmental pollution in countries like China, now one of the world's largest petroleum consumer, like the United States.
How have we reached this situation in which farmers in many countries, including poorer ones like Brazil, are growing crops like corn and sugar cane solely for the production of biofuels, which also pollute the environment and contribute to global warming?
Don't the governments in countries that produce the most biofuels realize that every liter of ethanol takes several kilograms of food crops, and water, out of the mouths of human beings?
And now, to make things worse, intense flooding in America and China (often said to be a result of global warming) is depriving everyone of food supplies as well. The message that comes out of the G-8 summit meeting in Japan should be one of trying to save our environment, which in the long run will help prevent the catastrophes that are causing so much human misery today.
If this message doesn't get out, then we are all facing an even worse time on this good earth. After all, just as you can't eat oil, you can't eat ethanol.
Maurice Picow, Netanya, Israel
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/08/opinion/edletters.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
High food prices may cut opposition to genetically modified food
ZURICH: Like many stores in Europe, the Coop chain of supermarkets in Switzerland does not specify whether goods are genetically modified - because none are. But a wave of food-price inflation may help wash away popular opposition to so-called Frankenstein foods.
"I think there's a lot of resistance in Switzerland," said a shopper, Beatrice Hochuli, as she picked out a salad for dinner at a bustling supermarket outside the main Zurich station. "Most people in Switzerland are quite against it."
Consumers, even those from relatively wealthy parts of the world, are rarely first in line to adopt new technologies. Although food prices are up more than 50 percent since May 2006, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Price Index, Europeans remain wary of foods derived from tinkering with the genetic makeup of plants.
But policy makers and food companies are pressing the genetic modification topic in a bid to temper aversion to biotech crops like pesticide-resistant rapeseed for oils and "Roundup-ready" soybeans, which tolerate dousing of the Roundup herbicide.
These are crops already common in the United States and other major food exporters like Argentina and Brazil.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/08/business/gmo.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
"I think there's a lot of resistance in Switzerland," said a shopper, Beatrice Hochuli, as she picked out a salad for dinner at a bustling supermarket outside the main Zurich station. "Most people in Switzerland are quite against it."
Consumers, even those from relatively wealthy parts of the world, are rarely first in line to adopt new technologies. Although food prices are up more than 50 percent since May 2006, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Price Index, Europeans remain wary of foods derived from tinkering with the genetic makeup of plants.
But policy makers and food companies are pressing the genetic modification topic in a bid to temper aversion to biotech crops like pesticide-resistant rapeseed for oils and "Roundup-ready" soybeans, which tolerate dousing of the Roundup herbicide.
These are crops already common in the United States and other major food exporters like Argentina and Brazil.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/08/business/gmo.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Woodpightel Cottage Recommends
"Woodpightel Cottage - not quite a smallholding" in England is about their Ryeland sheep, hens and vegetable plot. It's called "not quite a smallholding" because they have less than two acres of grass for the sheep and hens and the veggie plot is a rented allotment about a hundred yards from their house.
"So we are doing smallholding things without actually having a smallholding, if that makes sense," writes Susi Wood of Woodpightel Cottage.
Well, if people are campaigning for the White House to have a kitchen garden, it makes perfect sense to me.
Susi's favourite rural blogs of are:
the-edge-of-nowhere.blogspot.com
stonehead.wordpress.com
accidentalsmallholder.net/diary
www.colouritgreen.wordpress.com
The first two are already on the blog roll at www.farmblogs.com and the latter two will be added shortly.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
"So we are doing smallholding things without actually having a smallholding, if that makes sense," writes Susi Wood of Woodpightel Cottage.
Well, if people are campaigning for the White House to have a kitchen garden, it makes perfect sense to me.
Susi's favourite rural blogs of are:
the-edge-of-nowhere.blogspot.com
stonehead.wordpress.com
accidentalsmallholder.net/diary
www.colouritgreen.wordpress.com
The first two are already on the blog roll at www.farmblogs.com and the latter two will be added shortly.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Americans get that one wrong all the time too.
Forgive me: I had The Morning Farm Report down as being in Montana, not Missouri. It was that MO zip code that got me.
"Don't feel bad, Americans get that one wrong all the time too," writes Pamela Betts from Route U, Lohman, Missouri.
You live and learn.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
"Don't feel bad, Americans get that one wrong all the time too," writes Pamela Betts from Route U, Lohman, Missouri.
You live and learn.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Animal rights activists and ranchers clash over proposal to euthanize wild horses
RENO, Nevada: Animal rights activists and ranchers in the U.S. are clashing over a federal proposal to euthanize wild horses as a way to deal with their surplus numbers.
Horse advocates will mount a campaign against the proposal announced late last month by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, said Chris Heyde, deputy director of government and legal affairs for the Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute.
Federal officials say they are faced with tough choices because wild horses have overpopulated public lands in the West and they no longer can afford to care for the number of animals that have been rounded up.
But Heyde maintained the agency is seeking a "magic bullet" for budget problems caused after it began rounding up the mustangs at an unprecedented rate in recent years.
He said the roundups left too many horses for the public to adopt, requiring the agency to contract for more private long-term holding facilities.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/07/america/NA-US-Wild-Horses-Euthanasia.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Horse advocates will mount a campaign against the proposal announced late last month by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, said Chris Heyde, deputy director of government and legal affairs for the Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute.
Federal officials say they are faced with tough choices because wild horses have overpopulated public lands in the West and they no longer can afford to care for the number of animals that have been rounded up.
But Heyde maintained the agency is seeking a "magic bullet" for budget problems caused after it began rounding up the mustangs at an unprecedented rate in recent years.
He said the roundups left too many horses for the public to adopt, requiring the agency to contract for more private long-term holding facilities.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/07/america/NA-US-Wild-Horses-Euthanasia.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
EU moves to cut back target on biofuel use
BRUSSELS: Signaling a major retrenchment, European Union legislators on Monday proposed ratcheting back an ambitious target to raise Europe's use of biofuels.
At the same time, a new report for the British government cast fresh doubt on using fuels from crops in the fight against climate change.
Until recently, European governments had sought to lead the rest of the world, setting a target for 10 percent of transportation fuels to be derived from biofuels by 2020. But the allure has dimmed amid growing evidence that the kind of targets proposed by the EU are contributing to deforestation and helping force up food prices.
"I think when we will look back we will say this was the beginning of a turning point for Europe on biofuels," said Juan Delgado, a research fellow specializing in energy and climate change expert at Breugel, a research organization in Brussels. "It will be very difficult now for Europe to stick by its targets."
In the United States, an energy bill passed last year required that 36 billion gallons of biofuels be produced annually by 2022. But criticism is gaining ground there, too, with calls to end tax breaks for corn ethanol and other measures to stop so much American corn - about one-fourth of the crop - being used for biofuels.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/07/business/fuel.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
At the same time, a new report for the British government cast fresh doubt on using fuels from crops in the fight against climate change.
Until recently, European governments had sought to lead the rest of the world, setting a target for 10 percent of transportation fuels to be derived from biofuels by 2020. But the allure has dimmed amid growing evidence that the kind of targets proposed by the EU are contributing to deforestation and helping force up food prices.
"I think when we will look back we will say this was the beginning of a turning point for Europe on biofuels," said Juan Delgado, a research fellow specializing in energy and climate change expert at Breugel, a research organization in Brussels. "It will be very difficult now for Europe to stick by its targets."
In the United States, an energy bill passed last year required that 36 billion gallons of biofuels be produced annually by 2022. But criticism is gaining ground there, too, with calls to end tax breaks for corn ethanol and other measures to stop so much American corn - about one-fourth of the crop - being used for biofuels.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/07/business/fuel.php
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Lettuce on the White House lawn
By Ellen Goodman
Published: July 4, 2008
SCARBOROUGH, Maine: It has been decades since that famous forager Euell Gibbons reached through the White House fence and picked four edible weeds out of the president's garden. This is not something that the Secret Service would recommend you try today.
But Roger Doiron has a better plan for eating the view of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He's started a campaign to get a kitchen garden growing on the White House lawn.
Doiron works out of his small Cape house in Maine, where I find him one summer day. A wasp-thin 41-year-old, he's part of the fastest-growing (I used the words literally) movement in the country. His organization, Kitchen Gardeners International, is one link in a loose chain of partisans who are neither conservatives nor liberals but locavores. They want to think global, eat local. Very local. As in their front and backyard.
He shows me the lawn sign that expresses his politics: "1,500 Miles, 400 Gallons, Say What?" It's a reference to the average miles food travels to your plate and the gallons of fuel used in its migration. It's not the sexiest slogan, but kitchen gardeners are probably as passionate about vegetables as Republicans are about tax cuts.
Doiron spent a decade with a grass-roots environmental group in Europe. After returning to his hometown in 2001, he became a lettuce-roots environmentalist. As head of Kitchen Gardeners International, he also walks the walk, showing me 50 varieties of vegetables he grows for his family of five on about a sixth of an acre. Memo to other amateurs: You will be pleased to know that Doiron's garden also has weeds.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/04/opinion/edgoodman.php
Published: July 4, 2008
SCARBOROUGH, Maine: It has been decades since that famous forager Euell Gibbons reached through the White House fence and picked four edible weeds out of the president's garden. This is not something that the Secret Service would recommend you try today.
But Roger Doiron has a better plan for eating the view of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He's started a campaign to get a kitchen garden growing on the White House lawn.
Doiron works out of his small Cape house in Maine, where I find him one summer day. A wasp-thin 41-year-old, he's part of the fastest-growing (I used the words literally) movement in the country. His organization, Kitchen Gardeners International, is one link in a loose chain of partisans who are neither conservatives nor liberals but locavores. They want to think global, eat local. Very local. As in their front and backyard.
He shows me the lawn sign that expresses his politics: "1,500 Miles, 400 Gallons, Say What?" It's a reference to the average miles food travels to your plate and the gallons of fuel used in its migration. It's not the sexiest slogan, but kitchen gardeners are probably as passionate about vegetables as Republicans are about tax cuts.
Doiron spent a decade with a grass-roots environmental group in Europe. After returning to his hometown in 2001, he became a lettuce-roots environmentalist. As head of Kitchen Gardeners International, he also walks the walk, showing me 50 varieties of vegetables he grows for his family of five on about a sixth of an acre. Memo to other amateurs: You will be pleased to know that Doiron's garden also has weeds.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/04/opinion/edgoodman.php
Monday, 7 July 2008
Legal Ruralism Recommends
I recently posted about http://legalruralism.blogspot.com
Lisa Pruitt, Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, who writes the blog Legal Ruralism was kind enough to send a couple of recommendations for the general resources section of this blog.
There are no farm blogs that she reads, but she is a a devotee of the Daily Yonder - "Keep it rural" at http://www.dailyyonder.com/
She also recommends Agricultural Law ( http://aglaw.blogspot.com/ )
( A Member of the Jurisdynamics Network and The official blog of the AALS section on agricultural law )
In a few days she'll be having another post going up about rural gentrification (one of my pet subjects and largely the subject of my own book), so keep an eye out.
Lisa Pruitt, Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, who writes the blog Legal Ruralism was kind enough to send a couple of recommendations for the general resources section of this blog.
There are no farm blogs that she reads, but she is a a devotee of the Daily Yonder - "Keep it rural" at http://www.dailyyonder.com/
She also recommends Agricultural Law ( http://aglaw.blogspot.com/ )
( A Member of the Jurisdynamics Network and The official blog of the AALS section on agricultural law )
In a few days she'll be having another post going up about rural gentrification (one of my pet subjects and largely the subject of my own book), so keep an eye out.
Round the Water Trough Recommends
It was good to hear from blogger and author Hannah Velten who blogs at 'Round the Water Trough' and is linked here on farmblogs.blogspot.com ( http://watertrough.blogspot.com/ )
Hannah grew up on a farm in East Sussex, England and has been involved with agriculture all her life, "apart from now!" she writes.
She lives opposite a dairy farm, and "apart from saying 'good morning' to the 'girls' when I walk the dog I have no contact with farm animals at all."
"My uncle," she continues "still overwinters a few sheep, but he and my father used to farm pigs, cattle and sheep (over 20 years ago). I do miss not having contact with animals (although I write about them all the time now), so I regularly delve into farming websites to get my 'fix' - 'cos they do say that 'farming's in the blood'. My blog is therefore not actually a 'farm blog' but I do tell a few tales about farm animals - such as the sheep that were herded over London Bridge and the pigs on trial for murder in medieval France..."
Hannah is the author of an absolutely wonderful book called "Cow", which I can highly recommend. Here's what England's equivalent to the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times wrote about her book:
"It's a book about cows. And bulls, and oxen. The entire history and the cultural, religious and economic significance of everything bovine. If you are a typical modern person, removed from the mud and guts of nature, this may strike you as odd or whimsical. Still, the book's design and illustrations are beautiful, which means, I suspect, that COW will probably be bought most often as a gift - for country lovers, perhaps. For once, thought, the text matches the packaging. Velten has a passion for her subject and it comes across. Her account is sweeping but precisely detailed, and subtly persuasive. You come to believe her theme isn't odd at all: this kind of study and awareness should be mainstream. Look hard at cows an you learn about humans. Fascinating and delightful."
Financial Times (Nov 10/11 2007)
You can buy this book at Amazon:
USA:http://www.amazon.com/Cow-Reaktion-Books-Hannah-Velten/dp/1861893264/ref=sr_1_1/105-6940117-9936427?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189627518&sr=8-1
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cow-Animal-Hannah-Velten/dp/1861893264/ref=sr_1_1/202-1632936-7183056?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189607951&sr=1-1
Hannah's own blog is a treasure trove of the unusual and delightful, and she reads all the UK blogs listed on www.farmblogs.blogspot.com
Her two further recommendations are:
Confessions of a Pioneer Woman (USA): http://thepioneerwoman.com/confessions/
The Edge Of Nowhere (UK): http://the-edge-of-nowhere.blogspot.com/
Hannah grew up on a farm in East Sussex, England and has been involved with agriculture all her life, "apart from now!" she writes.
She lives opposite a dairy farm, and "apart from saying 'good morning' to the 'girls' when I walk the dog I have no contact with farm animals at all."
"My uncle," she continues "still overwinters a few sheep, but he and my father used to farm pigs, cattle and sheep (over 20 years ago). I do miss not having contact with animals (although I write about them all the time now), so I regularly delve into farming websites to get my 'fix' - 'cos they do say that 'farming's in the blood'. My blog is therefore not actually a 'farm blog' but I do tell a few tales about farm animals - such as the sheep that were herded over London Bridge and the pigs on trial for murder in medieval France..."
Hannah is the author of an absolutely wonderful book called "Cow", which I can highly recommend. Here's what England's equivalent to the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times wrote about her book:
"It's a book about cows. And bulls, and oxen. The entire history and the cultural, religious and economic significance of everything bovine. If you are a typical modern person, removed from the mud and guts of nature, this may strike you as odd or whimsical. Still, the book's design and illustrations are beautiful, which means, I suspect, that COW will probably be bought most often as a gift - for country lovers, perhaps. For once, thought, the text matches the packaging. Velten has a passion for her subject and it comes across. Her account is sweeping but precisely detailed, and subtly persuasive. You come to believe her theme isn't odd at all: this kind of study and awareness should be mainstream. Look hard at cows an you learn about humans. Fascinating and delightful."
Financial Times (Nov 10/11 2007)
You can buy this book at Amazon:
USA:http://www.amazon.com/Cow-Reaktion-Books-Hannah-Velten/dp/1861893264/ref=sr_1_1/105-6940117-9936427?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189627518&sr=8-1
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cow-Animal-Hannah-Velten/dp/1861893264/ref=sr_1_1/202-1632936-7183056?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189607951&sr=1-1
Hannah's own blog is a treasure trove of the unusual and delightful, and she reads all the UK blogs listed on www.farmblogs.blogspot.com
Her two further recommendations are:
Confessions of a Pioneer Woman (USA): http://thepioneerwoman.com/confessions/
The Edge Of Nowhere (UK): http://the-edge-of-nowhere.blogspot.com/
A Farm blog for a newspaper
Teri Conroy farms out at Altamont, NY.
Interestingly she keeps her farmblog for her local newspaper website in Albany, NY - http://blogs.timesunion.com/farmlife/
But you can also check out the farm website www.wunsapanafarm.com
Interestingly she keeps her farmblog for her local newspaper website in Albany, NY - http://blogs.timesunion.com/farmlife/
But you can also check out the farm website www.wunsapanafarm.com
Export tax that angers farmers advances in Argentina
RIO DE JANEIRO: After a marathon session over the weekend, the lower house of Congress in Argentina narrowly approved agricultural export tax increases that the government imposed four months ago.
Legislators debated the politically charged measure for more than 15 hours, starting Friday evening, before approving, 129-122, the export tax system created by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The 129 votes were just one more than the minimum the government needed for approval.
The debate over the taxes, which caused farmers to rebel against the government by setting up blockades on major highways and cutting off exports of grains, now moves to the Senate for consideration, which could begin as soon as this week.
Farm leaders indicated after the vote that more protests were imminent. The vote "did not touch any of the problems that the countryside has," said Ricardo Buryaile, vice president of the Argentine Rural Confederations. After 120 days of conflict, "the essence of our complaints were not dealt with," he said.
The lengthy debate was filled with passionate speeches, with some lawmakers defending the government's program and others citing the economic harm the new export tax system had produced for farmers. The political instability has affected Argentina's international reputation as a major supplier of food to the world.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/06/america/argentina.1-298366.php
Legislators debated the politically charged measure for more than 15 hours, starting Friday evening, before approving, 129-122, the export tax system created by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The 129 votes were just one more than the minimum the government needed for approval.
The debate over the taxes, which caused farmers to rebel against the government by setting up blockades on major highways and cutting off exports of grains, now moves to the Senate for consideration, which could begin as soon as this week.
Farm leaders indicated after the vote that more protests were imminent. The vote "did not touch any of the problems that the countryside has," said Ricardo Buryaile, vice president of the Argentine Rural Confederations. After 120 days of conflict, "the essence of our complaints were not dealt with," he said.
The lengthy debate was filled with passionate speeches, with some lawmakers defending the government's program and others citing the economic harm the new export tax system had produced for farmers. The political instability has affected Argentina's international reputation as a major supplier of food to the world.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/06/america/argentina.1-298366.php
The Wild Places - Book recommendation
The Wild Places By Robert Macfarlane.
340 pages. $15, Penguin Books; £8.99, Granta.
Robert Macfarlane is looking for his wild in England, Ireland and Wales, territory that for most of us evokes words like "manicured," "turf" or, at the very least, "domesticated." His book about a series of pilgrimages to the moors, islands, lochs, capes and holloways that season the British Isles might seem quaint or even confusing (a holloway?) to those whose notion of wildness demands "rock, altitude and ice," as he puts it.
Yet "The Wild Places" is anything but twee. It is a formidable consideration by a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence - poetry, really - with the breathless ease of a master angler, a writer whose ideas and reach far transcend the physical region he explores.
The same quiet optimism that inhabited his previous book, "Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination," makes Macfarlane unwilling to accept the "obituaries for the wild" put out by today's eco-punditry. Only occasionally does he cite examples of current environmental peril, like the minke whale that washed up on the Normandy coast in 2002 with nearly a ton of plastic packaging and shopping bags in its stomach. He leapfrogs certain aspects of the moment in pursuit of deeper, older truths.
Macfarlane sets out to create an unconventional map - a cartography not subject to the imperialisms of roadways or humanity or grid, but rather, a prose map that would "seek to make some of the remaining wild places of the archipelago visible again, or that would record them before they vanished for good." It would link headlands, cliffs, beaches, mountaintops, tors, forests, river mouths and waterfalls." Tree climbing is a preferred methodology. The 10- or 20-foot elevation (as well as all that he learns on the way up) gives Macfarlane precious perspective. At the outset, from his roost in a beech tree near his home in Cambridge, he experiences "the relief of relief" and explains tree climbing as "a way of defraying the city's claim" on him, though it was not an experience of "wild" as he originally defines it. Wild requires isolation, the elements, a stepping "outside human history," he tells us.
The more than a dozen accounts of starry sleep-outs, freezing tramps and phosphorescent swims - at places like the valley of Coruisk on the Isle of Skye and the summit of Ben Hope in Scotland - are ripe with scholarship and pleasantly egoless. The natural world swells with meaning through Macfarlane's devoted observations, which can be both minutely detailed and vast in scope. Few can finesse, as he does, the lickety-split life cycle of a midge and the grandiosity of lumbering geologic eras into the space of a couple of sentences.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/04/arts/idbriefs5B.php
340 pages. $15, Penguin Books; £8.99, Granta.
Robert Macfarlane is looking for his wild in England, Ireland and Wales, territory that for most of us evokes words like "manicured," "turf" or, at the very least, "domesticated." His book about a series of pilgrimages to the moors, islands, lochs, capes and holloways that season the British Isles might seem quaint or even confusing (a holloway?) to those whose notion of wildness demands "rock, altitude and ice," as he puts it.
Yet "The Wild Places" is anything but twee. It is a formidable consideration by a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence - poetry, really - with the breathless ease of a master angler, a writer whose ideas and reach far transcend the physical region he explores.
The same quiet optimism that inhabited his previous book, "Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination," makes Macfarlane unwilling to accept the "obituaries for the wild" put out by today's eco-punditry. Only occasionally does he cite examples of current environmental peril, like the minke whale that washed up on the Normandy coast in 2002 with nearly a ton of plastic packaging and shopping bags in its stomach. He leapfrogs certain aspects of the moment in pursuit of deeper, older truths.
Macfarlane sets out to create an unconventional map - a cartography not subject to the imperialisms of roadways or humanity or grid, but rather, a prose map that would "seek to make some of the remaining wild places of the archipelago visible again, or that would record them before they vanished for good." It would link headlands, cliffs, beaches, mountaintops, tors, forests, river mouths and waterfalls." Tree climbing is a preferred methodology. The 10- or 20-foot elevation (as well as all that he learns on the way up) gives Macfarlane precious perspective. At the outset, from his roost in a beech tree near his home in Cambridge, he experiences "the relief of relief" and explains tree climbing as "a way of defraying the city's claim" on him, though it was not an experience of "wild" as he originally defines it. Wild requires isolation, the elements, a stepping "outside human history," he tells us.
The more than a dozen accounts of starry sleep-outs, freezing tramps and phosphorescent swims - at places like the valley of Coruisk on the Isle of Skye and the summit of Ben Hope in Scotland - are ripe with scholarship and pleasantly egoless. The natural world swells with meaning through Macfarlane's devoted observations, which can be both minutely detailed and vast in scope. Few can finesse, as he does, the lickety-split life cycle of a midge and the grandiosity of lumbering geologic eras into the space of a couple of sentences.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/04/arts/idbriefs5B.php
Saturday, 5 July 2008
PATH TO FREEDOM / Little Homestead in the City
Little Homestead in the City: The Journal of a Self-Sufficient Life can be found at http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/ and is already linked on this site.
They describe themselves as 'eco-pioneers living a homegrown revolution on a sustainable, real-life original urban homestead in Pasadena, California', a 'Sustainable Living Resource Center & Urban Homestead'.
They also have the following the site: http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ 'on the path since 1973, online since 1999' (TM).
They are 'Pioneering a Journey Towards Self-Sufficiency....One Step at a Time' (TM)
Jules Dervaes (founder/director) has written this:
"In our society, growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can--and will--overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world--we change ourselves."
I'm hoping to post some of their blog recommendations in the near future.
They describe themselves as 'eco-pioneers living a homegrown revolution on a sustainable, real-life original urban homestead in Pasadena, California', a 'Sustainable Living Resource Center & Urban Homestead'.
They also have the following the site: http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ 'on the path since 1973, online since 1999' (TM).
They are 'Pioneering a Journey Towards Self-Sufficiency....One Step at a Time' (TM)
Jules Dervaes (founder/director) has written this:
"In our society, growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can--and will--overturn the corporate powers that be. By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world--we change ourselves."
I'm hoping to post some of their blog recommendations in the near future.
Friday, 4 July 2008
4.6 million Ethiopians urgently need food aid, Unicef says
Published: June 26, 2008, IHT
GENEVA: Some 4.6 million people in Ethiopia are facing severe malnutrition as a result of drought and lack of food, the United Nations warned Thursday in an appeal for nearly $50 million in emergency aid.
"Children are already dying, adults as yet are not," Hilde Johnson, deputy director of Unicef, said in an interview in Geneva after a visit to Ethiopia, adding that the situation threatens to deteriorate in the two to three months before the next harvest is due.
Officials have emphasized that Ethiopia does not face the kind of famine that killed around a million people in the 1980s but Johnson, who met Prime Minister Meles Zanawi, said he "100 percent shares our concerns."
The government estimates that 4.6 million people need food aid, up from 2.2 million in April, and that 75,000 children are suffering severe or acute malnutrition, Johnson said.
Even in areas where food is available, recent dramatic price hikes have pushed the cost beyond the reach of many people, Johnson said. "People are saying we have no food at home," she reported.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/26/africa/26ethiopia.php
GENEVA: Some 4.6 million people in Ethiopia are facing severe malnutrition as a result of drought and lack of food, the United Nations warned Thursday in an appeal for nearly $50 million in emergency aid.
"Children are already dying, adults as yet are not," Hilde Johnson, deputy director of Unicef, said in an interview in Geneva after a visit to Ethiopia, adding that the situation threatens to deteriorate in the two to three months before the next harvest is due.
Officials have emphasized that Ethiopia does not face the kind of famine that killed around a million people in the 1980s but Johnson, who met Prime Minister Meles Zanawi, said he "100 percent shares our concerns."
The government estimates that 4.6 million people need food aid, up from 2.2 million in April, and that 75,000 children are suffering severe or acute malnutrition, Johnson said.
Even in areas where food is available, recent dramatic price hikes have pushed the cost beyond the reach of many people, Johnson said. "People are saying we have no food at home," she reported.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/26/africa/26ethiopia.php
The Morning Farm Report - Lohman, Missouri.
The Morning Farm Report is tagged as 'A City Girl’s Adventure in the Country'.
Pamela Betts is a city girl transplanted to the hinterlands (Lohman, Missouri) and she has been writing a blog about those experiences.
I think it's well written, full of family was well as farm news but light, interestingly, on photos. But well worth checking out.
You can find her at at http://www.viridianfarm.com/.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Pamela Betts is a city girl transplanted to the hinterlands (Lohman, Missouri) and she has been writing a blog about those experiences.
I think it's well written, full of family was well as farm news but light, interestingly, on photos. But well worth checking out.
You can find her at at http://www.viridianfarm.com/.
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
Notes from Desert Weyr Farm
Desert Weyr Farm is a small farm, 40 acres, less than 20 usable, focusing on rare breed conservation.
A small sustainable family farm in Western Colorado they raise Black Welsh Mountain sheep and Pilgrim Geese.
For more info contact:
Eugenie (Oogie) McGuire - oogiem AT desertweyr.com
Desert Weyr Farm
Paonia, CO
USA
CMK Arabian Horses, Black Welsh Mountain Sheep and Pilgrim Geese
http://www.desertweyr.com/
A small sustainable family farm in Western Colorado they raise Black Welsh Mountain sheep and Pilgrim Geese.
For more info contact:
Eugenie (Oogie) McGuire - oogiem AT desertweyr.com
Desert Weyr Farm
Paonia, CO
USA
CMK Arabian Horses, Black Welsh Mountain Sheep and Pilgrim Geese
http://www.desertweyr.com/
More rains hit flooded U.S. Midwest
By Ryan Schlader Reuters
Published: June 26, 2008
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa: More storms dumped crop-drowning rains on parts of the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, threatening strained levees and slowing recovery from a multibillion-dollar flood disaster in the heart of the world's biggest grain and food exporter.
In Cedar Rapids, where 4,000 homes were flooded two weeks ago after water spilled over 1,300 city blocks, officials ordered 300 houses demolished. Efforts were under way to determine if some structures in the most flood-prone areas could ever be rebuilt.
The city asked federal disaster officials to send in 500 temporary housing units, most likely mobile homes of the type used following the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.
Some estimates have indicated the recovery costs for Iowa alone could exceed the $5.7 billion ()2.9 billion pounds) spent after the last major Midwestern floods 15 years ago in 1993.
Flooding from heavy rains that began in late May already have caused more than $6 billion in crop damage in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest U.S. farm group, said.
Fears that as much as 5 million acres (2 mln hectares) of corn and soybeans have been lost due to the flooding pushed corn and livestock prices to record highs last week.
On Thursday, Chicago Board of Trade corn for July 2009 delivery set another record high at $8.15 a bushel, more than double the 40-year average for corn prices. Corn is the main feed for meat animals, main source for ethanol fuels, and used in hundreds of other food and industrial products.
Iowa officials said this week that at least 2.5 million acres (1.01 million hectares) of corn and soybeans in Iowa, well above 10 percent of planted acreage in the top U.S. producing state for those crops, needs to be replanted.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/06/26/america/OUKWD-UK-USA-FLOODING.php
Published: June 26, 2008
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa: More storms dumped crop-drowning rains on parts of the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, threatening strained levees and slowing recovery from a multibillion-dollar flood disaster in the heart of the world's biggest grain and food exporter.
In Cedar Rapids, where 4,000 homes were flooded two weeks ago after water spilled over 1,300 city blocks, officials ordered 300 houses demolished. Efforts were under way to determine if some structures in the most flood-prone areas could ever be rebuilt.
The city asked federal disaster officials to send in 500 temporary housing units, most likely mobile homes of the type used following the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.
Some estimates have indicated the recovery costs for Iowa alone could exceed the $5.7 billion ()2.9 billion pounds) spent after the last major Midwestern floods 15 years ago in 1993.
Flooding from heavy rains that began in late May already have caused more than $6 billion in crop damage in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest U.S. farm group, said.
Fears that as much as 5 million acres (2 mln hectares) of corn and soybeans have been lost due to the flooding pushed corn and livestock prices to record highs last week.
On Thursday, Chicago Board of Trade corn for July 2009 delivery set another record high at $8.15 a bushel, more than double the 40-year average for corn prices. Corn is the main feed for meat animals, main source for ethanol fuels, and used in hundreds of other food and industrial products.
Iowa officials said this week that at least 2.5 million acres (1.01 million hectares) of corn and soybeans in Iowa, well above 10 percent of planted acreage in the top U.S. producing state for those crops, needs to be replanted.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/06/26/america/OUKWD-UK-USA-FLOODING.php
Rural Argentina, once a government supporter, is now a fierce opponent
Published: July 2, 2008 IHT
ARMSTRONG, Argentina: Mayor Fernando Fischer was beaming in early March when this small town in Santa Fe Province hosted 200,000 visitors for a giant international farm show. Vendors fanned out over 1,200 acres of farmland, displaying everything from harvesting combines to the latest crop seeds. Sales for local companies were brisk.
It was a proud moment for Fischer and for Argentina's booming agricultural industry. But less than a week later the government raised export taxes for farmers to levels they could no longer stomach, setting off a political crisis that now threatens the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina's Peronist president, after a little more than six months in office.
Today Fischer is one of dozens of politicians who have transformed rural provinces that were once Peronist bastions critical to getting Kirchner elected in October into centers of fervent political opposition.
Their revolt shows how deeply the president's decision has divided even the Peronists, leaving politicians from the interior torn between their party loyalties and their furious constituents.
It also reveals the source of much of their anger: the fact that the growing economic clout of Argentina's rural provinces has not translated into greater political say, not least over how their taxes are spent.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/america/02argentina.php
ARMSTRONG, Argentina: Mayor Fernando Fischer was beaming in early March when this small town in Santa Fe Province hosted 200,000 visitors for a giant international farm show. Vendors fanned out over 1,200 acres of farmland, displaying everything from harvesting combines to the latest crop seeds. Sales for local companies were brisk.
It was a proud moment for Fischer and for Argentina's booming agricultural industry. But less than a week later the government raised export taxes for farmers to levels they could no longer stomach, setting off a political crisis that now threatens the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina's Peronist president, after a little more than six months in office.
Today Fischer is one of dozens of politicians who have transformed rural provinces that were once Peronist bastions critical to getting Kirchner elected in October into centers of fervent political opposition.
Their revolt shows how deeply the president's decision has divided even the Peronists, leaving politicians from the interior torn between their party loyalties and their furious constituents.
It also reveals the source of much of their anger: the fact that the growing economic clout of Argentina's rural provinces has not translated into greater political say, not least over how their taxes are spent.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/america/02argentina.php
Late snow brings relief and hardship to Northern Rockies
Published: July 2, 2008, IHT
"Snow in the mountains is money in the bank," Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana said. "The snow will melt and run into the streams through September. It's good for the fisheries and good for irrigation."
Schweitzer cited more good news from the state climatologist, who, he said, has forecast a cooler and wetter July than normal. Still, the governor said, though things are better, "no matter what the weather is, we're never more than two weeks from a drought."
For now, residents feel they have some breathing room.
"We got so much moisture in June, it released a pressure valve," said Lisa Bay, a rancher near Wolf Creek. "It was a grand sense of relief."
The situation is similar in Wyoming. Snowpack in the Bighorn Mountains, in the north-central part of the state, is 79 percent higher than the 30-year average, and 112 percent above the average in the area drained by the Powder and Tongue Rivers.
"Everything is up from average," said Leanne Stevenson, manager of natural resources and policy for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture. "A lot of what makes a difference is not how much but how long it stays cool, and we actually had spring this year."
Farmers and ranchers, though, are happy. "We were way behind in moisture and we caught up and got an extra five or six inches" of rain in June, said Schweitzer, a farmer and a soil scientist. "Every extra inch of rain above average means seven more bushels per acre, and we got six inches. We'll get 40 more bushels per acre this year. That makes it a billion-dollar storm."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/america/snow.php
"Snow in the mountains is money in the bank," Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana said. "The snow will melt and run into the streams through September. It's good for the fisheries and good for irrigation."
Schweitzer cited more good news from the state climatologist, who, he said, has forecast a cooler and wetter July than normal. Still, the governor said, though things are better, "no matter what the weather is, we're never more than two weeks from a drought."
For now, residents feel they have some breathing room.
"We got so much moisture in June, it released a pressure valve," said Lisa Bay, a rancher near Wolf Creek. "It was a grand sense of relief."
The situation is similar in Wyoming. Snowpack in the Bighorn Mountains, in the north-central part of the state, is 79 percent higher than the 30-year average, and 112 percent above the average in the area drained by the Powder and Tongue Rivers.
"Everything is up from average," said Leanne Stevenson, manager of natural resources and policy for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture. "A lot of what makes a difference is not how much but how long it stays cool, and we actually had spring this year."
Farmers and ranchers, though, are happy. "We were way behind in moisture and we caught up and got an extra five or six inches" of rain in June, said Schweitzer, a farmer and a soil scientist. "Every extra inch of rain above average means seven more bushels per acre, and we got six inches. We'll get 40 more bushels per acre this year. That makes it a billion-dollar storm."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/america/snow.php
South Korean auto workers back beef protests
Published: July 2, 2008, IHT
SEOUL: Tens of thousands of auto workers went on strike Wednesday to oppose the resumption of U.S. beef imports to South Korea and the pro-business policies of President Lee Myung Bak, joining anti-government protests that have raged for weeks.
The walkout came a day after American beef returned to store shelves for the first time under a much-criticized agreement with Washington, though the sale was limited to one store run by a U.S. beef importer.
"U.S. beef is selling like hotcakes," said Park Chang Gyu, owner of the A-Meat store in Seoul, adding that about 400 kilograms, or 880 pounds, of meat was sold Tuesday. He said anti-U.S beef protesters held a demonstration in front of the store Wednesday, halting sales for about three hours.
Prime Minister Han Seung Soo was one of the first customers, buying about 12 kilograms. "I had American beef together with my grandson and other family members yesterday," Han's office quoted him as saying during a meeting with a local religious leader. "It was nice and tasted good."
The walkout by auto workers was part of a one-day strike by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions to protest the beef imports and various economic proposals by Lee, who took office in February.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/asia/korea.php
SEOUL: Tens of thousands of auto workers went on strike Wednesday to oppose the resumption of U.S. beef imports to South Korea and the pro-business policies of President Lee Myung Bak, joining anti-government protests that have raged for weeks.
The walkout came a day after American beef returned to store shelves for the first time under a much-criticized agreement with Washington, though the sale was limited to one store run by a U.S. beef importer.
"U.S. beef is selling like hotcakes," said Park Chang Gyu, owner of the A-Meat store in Seoul, adding that about 400 kilograms, or 880 pounds, of meat was sold Tuesday. He said anti-U.S beef protesters held a demonstration in front of the store Wednesday, halting sales for about three hours.
Prime Minister Han Seung Soo was one of the first customers, buying about 12 kilograms. "I had American beef together with my grandson and other family members yesterday," Han's office quoted him as saying during a meeting with a local religious leader. "It was nice and tasted good."
The walkout by auto workers was part of a one-day strike by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions to protest the beef imports and various economic proposals by Lee, who took office in February.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/asia/korea.php
World Bank pressures G-8 on oil and food
Published: July 2, 2008, IHT
WASHINGTON: Warning that rising food and oil prices pose a crisis for the world's poor, Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, is calling on President George W. Bush and other leaders convening in Japan next week in an economic summit meeting to make new aid commitments to avert starvation and instability in dozens of countries.
"What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster — a silent tsunami or a perfect storm," Zoellick said in a letter sent Tuesday evening to the major leaders of the West. "It is a man-made catastrophe, and as such must be fixed by people."
Zoellick's letter, obtained by The New York Times, came with a lengthy study of the impact of rising prices for food, fuel and commodities on the world's poor. He sent the letter as Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda prepares to host Bush and six other world leaders in the Group of 8 economic summit meeting on the northern island of Hokkaido.
In recent weeks, the United States and some other countries have stepped up their pledges to get food to the poor in the 50 hardest-hit countries. But Zoellick said in his letter that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Food Program had short-term needs of $10 billion.
Bank officials said that the world faced a shortfall in aid, but that pledges of financing had not been channeled into a central place and the size of the shortfall was not clear. "This is a test of the global system to help the most vulnerable, and it cannot afford to fail," Zoellick said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/02zoellick.php
WASHINGTON: Warning that rising food and oil prices pose a crisis for the world's poor, Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, is calling on President George W. Bush and other leaders convening in Japan next week in an economic summit meeting to make new aid commitments to avert starvation and instability in dozens of countries.
"What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster — a silent tsunami or a perfect storm," Zoellick said in a letter sent Tuesday evening to the major leaders of the West. "It is a man-made catastrophe, and as such must be fixed by people."
Zoellick's letter, obtained by The New York Times, came with a lengthy study of the impact of rising prices for food, fuel and commodities on the world's poor. He sent the letter as Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda prepares to host Bush and six other world leaders in the Group of 8 economic summit meeting on the northern island of Hokkaido.
In recent weeks, the United States and some other countries have stepped up their pledges to get food to the poor in the 50 hardest-hit countries. But Zoellick said in his letter that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Food Program had short-term needs of $10 billion.
Bank officials said that the world faced a shortfall in aid, but that pledges of financing had not been channeled into a central place and the size of the shortfall was not clear. "This is a test of the global system to help the most vulnerable, and it cannot afford to fail," Zoellick said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/02zoellick.php
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
Something farmers never knew and now the NYT does!
Weather plays larger role in global fuel prices
The record storms and floods that swept through the U.S. Midwest last month struck at the heart of the corn-growing region, drowning fields and dashing hopes of a bumper crop.
They also brought into sharp relief a new economic hazard. As the world grows more reliant on crops like corn and palm oil for its fuel supply, it is becoming vulnerable to the many hazards that can damage agriculture, ranging from droughts to plagues to storms.
The U.S. floods have helped send the price of ethanol there up 21 percent since the beginning of June. They appear to have had little effect on the price of gasoline at the pump, as ethanol represents only about 6 percent of U.S. transport fuel today.
But that share is expected to rise to at least 20 percent in coming decades, similar to a broad global trend toward increased use of biofuels. Experts fear that a future crop failure could take so much fuel out of the market it would send prices way up. Eventually, the cost of filling a fuel tank could depend as much on hail in Nigeria or a plant fungus in Malaysia as on oil-pipeline bombings in Nigeria.
"We are holding ourselves hostage to the weather," said John Reilly, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an ethanol expert. "Agricultural markets are subject to wide variability and big price spikes, just like oil markets."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/30/business/weather.php
The record storms and floods that swept through the U.S. Midwest last month struck at the heart of the corn-growing region, drowning fields and dashing hopes of a bumper crop.
They also brought into sharp relief a new economic hazard. As the world grows more reliant on crops like corn and palm oil for its fuel supply, it is becoming vulnerable to the many hazards that can damage agriculture, ranging from droughts to plagues to storms.
The U.S. floods have helped send the price of ethanol there up 21 percent since the beginning of June. They appear to have had little effect on the price of gasoline at the pump, as ethanol represents only about 6 percent of U.S. transport fuel today.
But that share is expected to rise to at least 20 percent in coming decades, similar to a broad global trend toward increased use of biofuels. Experts fear that a future crop failure could take so much fuel out of the market it would send prices way up. Eventually, the cost of filling a fuel tank could depend as much on hail in Nigeria or a plant fungus in Malaysia as on oil-pipeline bombings in Nigeria.
"We are holding ourselves hostage to the weather," said John Reilly, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an ethanol expert. "Agricultural markets are subject to wide variability and big price spikes, just like oil markets."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/30/business/weather.php
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