Attempting a new format (that I will probably fiddle with for a week or so) for sharing articles of interest. Below you will find a number of links to those articles. Note that I may add a few before the day ends so check back. Hope this works for everyone…

First-Responder Trauma: A New Framework for Activists

The Future We Deserve

Climate Disaster Preparation Guide | by Climate Survivor | Jun, 2024 | Medium

The World Lost Two-Thirds Of Its Wildlife In 50 Years. We Are to Blame

How Does Anyone Still Care About This Bullshit?

Julian Assange Is Free. Washington Crafter ‘A Face Saving Deal’. Massive Violation of Habeas Corpus as a Favour to Washington. Paul C. Roberts

Health Prepping: Microbiome Maintenance is Key to…Everything

The Coming US Budget Disaster Will Impoverish Americans | Mises Institute

oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: 10 Geopolitical / Financial Risks to the Global Economy

Welsh Police Pay Home Visit To Man For Displaying Reform UK Political Sign

American Pravda: JFK, LBJ, and Our Great National Shame, by Ron Unz

The Spread of Artificial Intelligence. The Emergence of ‘Deep Fakes’, Masterful Distortions. ‘Who Controls the Past Controls the Future’

Fact-Checking Network Says Online Face Checks Aren’t Censorship

US Readies To Evacuate Americans From Lebanon If War Erupts, Marines En Route | ZeroHedge

The UN: “We must all work to eradicate (hate speech) completely.

UN food chief: Poorest areas have zero harvests left

Where is the Sense of Urgency? – by Matt Orsagh

A water war is looming between Mexico and the US. Neither side will win | CNN

Hidden Food Threat: Experts Warn of Dangers of RNAi Crops

May 28, 2024

Hidden Food Threat: Experts Warn of Dangers of RNAi Crops

Imagine a technology that could genetically rewire organisms in real-time, silencing critical genes across entire ecosystems with unknown effects.

Imagine a technology that could genetically rewire organisms in real-time, silencing critical genes across entire ecosystems with unknown effects. Sounds like science fiction? It’s not. It’s the reality of a new class of pesticides harnessing RNA interference—or RNAi—and they’re already being deployed in our fields and food supply with minimal testing or oversight. According to organic producers and non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) advocates, the risks could be catastrophic.Environmental Organization Warns of RNAi Pesticide Dangers

In 2020, a groundbreaking report from Friends of the Earth (FOE) rang the alarm on the dangers posed by gene-silencing RNAi pesticides. According to the non-governmental environmental organization report, these products can genetically modify organisms in the open environment, with risks of unintended effects on non-target species, human health, and the integrity of organic and non-GMO agriculture. Despite these threats, RNAi pesticides face little to no regulatory scrutiny in most countries, and some have already been approved for use.

In June 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency green-lit the RNAi corn developed by Monsanto and Dow, now being marketed under the trade name SmartStax Pro.

In a press release announcing the approval of SmartStax Pro, regulators praised the product for its value to the farmer and the low impact it has on the environment.

“The ribonucleic acid interference (RNAi) technology found in SmartStaxPro works through a process of gene control that occurs naturally in plants, animals, and humans alike. Scientists harnessed this control process to create the product, which works as a pesticide by silencing or turning off the activity of a gene critical to corn rootworm survival, resulting in the death of the corn rootworm. This product is so specific that it only affects the corn rootworm,” states the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) press release.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK farmers consider quitting after extreme wet weather and low profits

May 10, 2024

UK farmers consider quitting after extreme wet weather and low profits

Farmers ‘on the brink’ after record rains, phasing out of EU subsidies and price volatility

British farmers are considering walking away from their farms as the recent record run of wet weather has left the sector “on the brink”, rural bodies have warned.

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and the Soil Association raised concerns over the perilous situations facing many in their industry, with profits being squeezed and extreme weather driven by the climate crisis putting financial and mental strain on farm owners.

Helen Browning, the chief executive of the Soil Association, said: “A lot of farmers are really considering their options, and thinking about walking away from their farms, as they could make far more money doing something else.”

Browning, who runs a livestock and arable farm in Wiltshire, added: “If you were economically rational, you wouldn’t farm.”

The trade bodies’ comments came during a briefing on Thursday run by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank ahead of the second annual Farm to Fork summit being hosted by Rishi Sunak at No 10 next week.

The summit is expected to discuss the UK’s future food security against the backdrop of extreme wet weather that has affected four in five farms in the past 12 months.

The UK has been hit by 11 named storms since September, and experienced the wettest 18-month period since records began in 1836.

Tom Clarke, a board member at the AHDB, said the biggest effect on farms this year had been the poor weather, with many farms planting fewer crops, or no crops at all, due to fields being flooded. “It’s been a hell of a year, I think farmers across the UK are really on the brink, not only mentally, but financially and ecologically as well.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Politics of Food | Chris Smaje

May 3, 2024

Lab-grown food vs small farms

What’s the future of food?

Last year, two of my former podcast guests had a long and very public disagreement about the politics of food, locking horns over the utility of farming in a densely-populated world. Activist and writer George Monbiot has written extensively about lab-grown food and the need to revolutionise our food systems with technology so that we can better feed everyone. Farmer and academic Chris Smaje has argued that farming is a critical component of community autonomy, and wrote a book in response to George’s own, Regenesis, criticising the vision as “eco-modernist”. George hit back that Chris’ proposal is a “cruel fantasy”.

I watched this unfold online, worried to see two experts disagree so deeply on something fundamental to how we organise society, and invited Chris back to talk about this second book, Saying No To A Farm-Free Future. Chris explains how our food production systems are emblematic of our crisis of relationship to the earth. He argues that de-materialising our food supply plays into the colonial history of uprooting people from the land and denigrating agriculture. This leads us to discuss land, language, and culture, decentralising power, and the political binaries that could be dissolved by grounding our thinking in the land.

Correction: The previous version of this interview stated that the debate between George Monbiot and Chris Smaje was around lab grown meat instead of lab grown food.

…click on the above link to listen to the interview…

What Farmers Say About Climate Change

April 12, 2024

What Farmers Say About Climate Change

This is probably the most honest assessment of the current state of farming and our future food supply.

Photo by Rob Mulder / Unsplash

People seem to misunderstand the connection between atmospheric CO2, climate predictability and industrialized agriculture. The number of times a “climate skeptic” has told me “plants love CO2”, like that fixes everything, is dumbfounding.

True: plants love CO2.

Also true: plants love warmth and water.

Also, also true: it’s not the CO2 (aka “plant food”) itself that’s the problem. It’s the resulting changes caused by rapidly rising atmospheric CO2 levels. Too much climate unpredictability, weather variability, heat, drought or water will destroy agriculture. That means shortages and famine.

Civilization is built off the back of agriculture. And agriculture requires a foundation of predictability and good soil. Without predictability, agriculture isn’t sustained and we once again become a species of hunters, foragers and nomads. While that worked 10,000+ years ago, the human population today is far too large and we would soon starve.

Climate change may push wild plants into areas in which they don’t currently flourish, but this has nothing to do with our ability to sustain an 8 billion population with industrialized agriculture. There is a reason why farming is concentrated in certain regions of the world: good climate and good soil.

The new areas in which plants may flourish aren’t necessarily ideal for growing fields of wheat, soy or corn. Even if they were ideal, it would take a significant amount of time to a) confidently identify these areas and b) build the necessary infrastructure.

If given a century or two, perhaps we could adapt to a changing environment. Unfortunately, the current pace of change risks multi-breadbasket failure in the near future.

r/MapPorn - World's Main Breadbasket Regions, from McKinsey & Company

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Global Rice Shortage Looms, Set To Be The Biggest In Decades

May 3, 2023

Global Rice Shortage Looms, Set To Be The Biggest In Decades

Rice is the primary food source for over half of the global population, especially in emerging markets, where it plays a crucial role in feeding people. Last year, we highlighted the potential for a severe global rice shortage. A new report reveals that rice production this year could be at its lowest in decades.

A report by Fitch Solutions forecasts this year’s global rice production will log its biggest shortfall in two decades. The deficit will be a major headache for countries relying on grain imports.

“At the global level, the most evident impact of the global rice deficit has been, and still is, decade-high rice prices,” Fitch Solutions’ commodities analyst Charles Hart told CNBC.

Sliding rice production in China, the US, and Europe is already causing grain prices to increase for 3.5 billion people, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region — this region of the world accounts for 90% of the world’s rice consumption.

“Given that rice is the staple food commodity across multiple markets in Asia, prices are a major determinant of food price inflation and food security, particularly for the poorest households,” Hart said.

Hart said this year’s global shortfall would be around 8.7 million tons, the largest global rice deficit since 2003/2004 of 18.6 million.

As a result of tightening global supplies, rough rice futures trading on the CBoT recently peaked at $18 per cwt, the highest level since September 2008. Cwt is a unit of measurement for certain commodities such as rice.

CNBC provides a breakdown of why rice supplies are strained.

There’s a short supply of rice as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine, as well as bad weather in rice-producing economies like China and Pakistan.

In the second half of last year, swaths of farmland in the world’s largest rice producer China were plagued by heavy summer monsoon rains and floods.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Indigenous knowledge is key to sustainable food systems

February 25, 2023

Indigenous knowledge is key to sustainable food systems

Agricultural sciences have for too long ignored traditional and local knowledge about crop plants and how best to grow them. That must change if the world is to ensure future food security.

Angelina Monday works on her plot of land, planted with beans, corn and other vegetables, in the Bidibidi Refugee Settlement. — Farmer Angelina Monday works on her plot of land in Uganda, where she grows beans and vegetables for her family. Credit: Mads Nissen/Politiken/Panos Pictures

I grew up in Campinas, a city in southeast Brazil. The apples there, cultivated from European varieties since the 1960s, tasted sweet. But, given the choice, I would always pick papayas grown in our garden. My father, who knew that growing a temperate fruit tree in a tropical country seldom worked, instead filled our garden with tropical ones, including two varieties of papaya. Meanwhile, drawing on knowledge from her Indigenous roots, my mother grew all sorts of herbs in pots around the house, which she used to treat ailments such as diarrhoea and indigestion.

Indigenous peoples and other local communities, who might have lived in a region for thousands or hundreds of years, respectively, have long acted as foragers, growers and shapers of nature¹. In many parts of the world, the food production systems developed by such communities — from irrigated crops to agroforestry systems — have been the dominant food systems supporting regional economies, and feeding rural and urban areas alike².

For the past three decades, various efforts involving academic and industrial partners have explored how biodiversity in low- and middle-income countries could be exploited commercially — bioprospected — for new pharmaceuticals and crop varieties, and how benefits could be shared equitably. Yet there are huge power imbalances between the wealthy countries and large corporations seeking the products, and the biodiversity-rich but economically and technologically deprived countries and communities providing them. In practice, the benefits rarely reach the people who are the knowledge holders and guardians of biodiversity and agrobiodiversity³.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Agriculture In A Post-Oil Economy

January 20, 2023

Agriculture In A Post-Oil Economy

The decline in the world’s oil supply offers no sudden dramatic event that would appeal to the writer of “apocalyptic” science fiction: no mushroom clouds, no flying saucers, no giant meteorites. The future will be just like today, only tougher. Oil depletion is basically just a matter of overpopulation — too many people and not enough resources. The most serious consequence will be a lack of food. The problem of oil therefore leads, in an apparently mundane fashion, to the problem of farming.

To what extent could food be produced in a world without fossil fuels? In the year 2000, humanity consumed about 30 billion barrels of oil, but the supply is starting to run out; without oil and natural gas, there will be no fuel, no asphalt, no plastics, no chemical fertilizer. Most people in modern industrial civilization live on food that was bought from a local supermarket, but such food will not always be available. Agriculture in the future will be largely a “family affair”: without motorized vehicles, food will have to be produced not far from where it was consumed. But what crops should be grown? How much land would be needed? Where could people be supported by such methods of agriculture?

WHAT TO GROW

The most practical diet would be largely vegetarian, for several reasons. In the first place, vegetable production requires far less land than animal production. Even the pasture land for a cow is about one hectare, and more land is needed to produce hay, grain, and other foods for that animal. One could supply the same amount of useable protein from vegetable sources on a fraction of a hectare, as Frances Moore Lappé pointed out in 1971 in Diet for a Small Planet [12]. Secondly, vegetable production is less complicated…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

How microplastics are infiltrating the food you eat

January 5, 2023

How microplastics are infiltrating the food you eat

(Image credit: Nailia Schwarz/Alamy)

Root vegetables such as carrots appear to absorb more microplastics than other fruit and vegetables (Credit: Nailia Schwarz/Alamy)

Plastic pollution is one of the defining legacies of our modern way of life, but it is now so widespread it is even finding its way into fruit and vegetables as they grow.

Microplastics have infiltrated every part of the planet. They have been found buried in Antarctic sea ice, within the guts of marine animals inhabiting the deepest ocean trenches, and in drinking water around the world. Plastic pollution has been found on beaches of remote, uninhabited islands and it shows up in sea water samples across the planet. One study estimated that there are around 24.4 trillion fragments of microplastics in the upper regions of the world’s oceans.

But they aren’t just ubiquitous in water – they are spread widely in soils on land too and can even end up in the food we eat. Unwittingly, we may be consuming tiny fragments of plastic with almost every bite we take.

In 2022, analysis by the Environmental Working Group, an environmental non-profit, found that sewage sludge has contaminated almost 20 million acres (80,937sq km) of US cropland with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called “forever chemicals”, which are commonly found in plastic products and do not break down under normal environmental conditions.

Sewage sludge is the byproduct left behind after municipal wastewater is cleaned. As it is expensive to dispose of and rich in nutrients, sludge is commonly used as organic fertiliser in the US and Europe. In the latter, this is in part due to EU directives promoting a circular waste economy. An estimated 8-10 million tonnes of sewage sludge is produced in Europe each year, and roughly 40% of this is spread on farmland.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

US Bird Flu Outbreak Officially Becomes Worst On Record

November 26, 2022

US Bird Flu Outbreak Officially Becomes Worst On Record

The US outbreak of avian influenza or bird flu is now the worst on record, with 50.54 million birds culled, US Department of Agriculture data showed on Thursday.

Earlier this week, the outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in South Dakota resulted in tens of thousands of birds being culled to avoid spreading. This was enough to top the previous record of 50.5 million birds that died in the 2015 avian-flu outbreak.

Readers have been well-informed this year about the devastating bird flu outbreak ravaging commercial poultry farms nationwide. Here’s the latest map of the epidemic spreading across the US.

We cautioned at the start of this month of the “possibility of additional outbreaks” and noted ahead of Thanksgiving that supermarket egg prices were hyperinflating because a large swath of the nation’s egg-laying hens was wiped out.

“The virus has mostly impacted turkey and egg operations, sending prices to all-time highs and contributing to soaring food inflation. While the spread slowed during the warmer months, it continued to fester and now risks further spread as cooling temperatures prompt more birds to migrate,” Bloomberg said.

The outbreak began in February and has so far infected flocks of poultry and non-poultry birds across 46 states.

“Wild birds continue to spread HPAI throughout the country as they migrate, so preventing contact between domestic flocks and wild birds is critical to protecting US poultry,” Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer, said.

Some experts have warned the highly pathogenic bird flu could easily continue spreading into 2023 and devastate even more commercial farms. This may only suggest egg prices are heading higher.

The Story of Seeds: Our Collective Legacy, Our Stolen Birthright

November 17, 2022

The Story of Seeds: Our Collective Legacy, Our Stolen Birthright

What Is a Seed?

Seeds are potential: These tiny, living organisms contain an entire root, stem, and leaf curled dormant in a shell. Seeds are richly various, and sometimes delicious: Pine nuts, almonds, nutmeg, mustard, coffee, cocoa beans, peanuts, beans, and peas — all of these are seeds.

Seeds are our past: Our relationship with them began more than 10,000 years ago, when our ancestors traded in their nomadic, hunter-gatherer ways for a life rooted in place, centered around the cultivation of plants. Early farmers selected seeds from plants based on taste and adaptability, and in exchange, these seeds grew the plants that nurtured and shaped our civilizations. If seeds have been the foundation of human civilization, then farmers have been its engineers.

Seeds are our collective legacy: For most of human history, seeds have been collectively shared and celebrated, a deep knowledge base whose enrichment and accessibility benefits all of humankind. Over time, human efforts to develop plants have resulted in great diversity of varieties adapted to region, soil type, climate, plant disease, and more. Seeds are hard-earned, a gift bestowed onto each successive generation in a cooperative, collaborative celebration of life. Generations of Indigenous people co-created corn through the selective breeding of wild grasses, and kidnapped Africans braided seeds into their hair before crossing the Middle Passage.

Seeds are a promise to the future: a promise of food security, of economic stability. Yet, as descendents of those first farmers, our birthright is being stolen out from under our noses.

Seeds in the U.S.: The Steady March of Privatization

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Latest Supply Chain Crisis Could Threaten Global Stash Of Food, Energy

October 19, 2022

Latest Supply Chain Crisis Could Threaten Global Stash Of Food, Energy

You probably do not spend much time thinking about barges. This is something that you ought to change.

The barge industry is quite important. It’s crucial for moving aluminum, petroleum, fertilizer and coal, particularly on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. About 60% of the grain and 54% of the soybeans for U.S. export are moved via the noble barge. Barges touch more than a third of our exported coal as well.

Right now the barge industry — and all of us who depend on its wares — is mired in a crisis. Water levels on the Mississippi River Basin are at its lowest point in more than a decade.

The timing for such a drought is pretty bad. Right now is harvest season, so farmers are looking to move their wares. Ongoing labor strife on the nation’s railways also renders that backup network uncertain.

Halted or slowed barge traffic is worrisome for the world at large too. American exports of coal are key right now as Europe faces a massive energy crisis heading into winter. “Any snags threaten to disrupt trade at a time when coal demand is soaring as Europe weathers an energy crisis exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine,” as Bloomberg reported on Oct. 6.

Exports of grain and soybeans are also important right now, because we’re facing a shortage of those commodities amid the war in Ukraine.

“We’re taking a huge capacity hit,” said Sandor Toth, president of barge market intelligence firm Criton Corp.

The drought caused a 100-boat clog last week

Low water levels and dredging shuttered barge traffic heading north and south on the Mississippi last week. At one point, more than 100 towboats and 2,000 barges were stuck waiting…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Year in Which I Grow Our Food Pt. 4

October 12, 2022

The Year in Which I Grow Our Food Pt. 4

How Much Food Can You Fit?

It’s a long article. I’m trying to distract you with cute Corgi pictures.

A Word on Self-Sufficiency

Let’s talk about the big question of the year: “How much do I grow to feed my family for the year?” It gets asked, and then for some reason that question leads to the talk and belief in self-sufficiency, and then “self-sufficiency” becomes a buzz word and gets batted around all over the place, so let me clear the air on that.

Here’s the thing — and sorry — we normal, everyday people with everyday yards CAN’T grow enough to not need food from another source, and you can’t grow everything you need, either. I’m not even sure that people with large acreages can do it. I doubt it. It would take a huge investment and a ginormous skill set.

For us mere mortals, either we don’t have the land for it, we don’t have the skills for it, we’re not in the right area to grow something, or we don’t have the money for it (or all of the above). And some of these things apply to people with large acreages as well.

Let’s just think about it for a minute. Can you grow:

Sugar? Cocoa? Coffee? Tea? Enough of anything to press it for cooking oil? Or enough animals to provide you with lard or butter to use in lieu of cooking oils? Can you grow enough wheat or barley or oats (or all three) to feed your family on TOP of all the other things? Can you grow enough wheat or barley or oats or corn to feed your livestock, if you have it?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Water. Food. Energy.

September 20, 2022

Water. Food. Energy.

Unless you have spent the past summer under a rock on a remote island, you have probably heard about the severe droughts besetting Asia, Europe, and the United States. Rivers turning into mere trickles. Crops failing or delivering less than half of their usual yields. Power plants shutting down due to a lack of cooling or fuel. The less advertised side of the story is that we have mostly done this to ourselves.

Drought is a sure killer for civilizations. A few years, let alone decades of persistent drought, have forced many civilization to their knees. The Akkadian Empire. The Mayans. The Tang Dynasty… The lack of water have forced people in the past to leave their settlements or die in trying to make a living where crops grew no longer.

Our current version of agricultural civilization is no different in this regard either. We rely heavily on agriculture to grow food, which in turn relies heavily on predictable rainfall patterns and a nutrient rich soil to grow crops. The only reason there are this many of us on the planet at the moment is that we’ve managed to break — or at least weaken — this link between land food and water, and the bond between locations where food is grown and where it’s consumed. At least, for a while.

The magic ingredient — of course — was energy, and in our current civilization’s case this meant: fossil fuels. As I wrote many times, energy is the economy, but not only that: energy is agriculture. There is an intricate and inseparable connection between food, water and energy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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