Natural Solutions Foundation

The California Department of Agriculture appears to have lost its sanity. Spraying an untested pesticide (a “plasticized pheromone”) which has never been tested for safety on people every 30 days over the San Francisco Bay area against a pest which has never infested the crops of the area or caused any crop damage while acknowledging that the substance could cause serious [fatal?] harm to people seems to make sense to them.

It does not make sense to me, but then, I am not on anyone’s payroll who makes these substances and will reap $74.5 million dollars for spraying the untested pesticide “CheckMate” over cities (and wild habitats neighboring) Monterey, Santa Cruz, Alameda, San Jose and San Francisco at least once every month until 2010. Does the same financial independence exist among the people who applied for an “emergency exemption from registration” from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency? This exemption, for an emergency that does not exist, allows the agency to use the pesticide in aerial sprays over California cities. Because of that exemption, the spraying program is not subject to state approval, according to representatives of the state Department of Pesticide Regulation.

Toxicity tests on CheckMate itself were apparently never conducted, nor were such tests conducted on the combined ingredients in the product. Toxicity test were carried out with “other leptidopteron pheromones” [i.e., compounds similar to the active ingredient in Checkmate] which apparently allowed the CFDA to conclude that all pheromones of that nature are similar [a highly questionable conclusion] yet the 75% or so other ingredients in CheckMate were not tested. “Inert ingredients” like the ones in Checkmate can be highly biologically active and pose significant threats to people, animals and ecosystems.

In fact, on Jan 5, 2008 the CDFA admitted that they had “neither the jurisdiction nor expertise to conduct an epidemiological study of the complaints, and no public health agency at this point has said they will review the illness claims.” That means that the symptoms reported during spraying of CheckMate over Monterey (which included asthma, coughing, muscle aches and headaches, as well as any long term impacts to either single exposures of monthly exposures over a 5 year period as currently planned for the Bay Area may well be the harbingers of major health problems for the millions of people exposed to this untested substance.

When local activists challenged the spraying in Santa Cruz on October 10, 2007, Judge Robert O’Farrell issued a temporary restraining order that which stopped the area’s second round of spraying until Oct. 18, when a hearing was scheduled to consider additional evidence in a lawsuit filed by Peninsula activists.

O’Farrell named the active ingredient in CheckMate— polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate, or PPI, which is listed as a “hazardous agent” by the National Institutes of Health on the agencies’ Web site as the offending agent. The site noted reports of occupational asthma among spray painters exposed to it. Checkmate is made by Suterra.

The tests which were conducted mentioned ingestion and skin/eye application as problems, but not complications arising from inhalation. Claiming the plasticized capsules containing the pheromone are too large to directly enter the lung it is curious that the potential for irritation to the larynx, pharynx, and tracheo-bronchial passages are mentioned although apparently the safety profile in the respiratory tract was never tested.

Toxicity tests are done to determine whether the dosage is lethal but not what long term complications could arise after inhaling the substance.

Another concern about the CheckMate program is the ecological impact. There is little available information to suggest that the fragile and productive ecosystems of the Bay Area, both land and water based, will be left unharmed by the polymethylene polyphenyl isocyanate in Checkmate because no environmental impact statement has been filed.

Following you will find an article from the San Francisco Chronicle and a summary of the problems inherent in this mad scheme.

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Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation

www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

Now, an article from the San Francisco Chronicle:

The Light Brown Apple Moth which means that no State approval is required?
State plans Bay Area pesticide spraying

Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer

The [California] state agriculture department plans to use airplanes at night this summer to spray a farm pesticide over urban San Francisco, Marin County and the East Bay, intending to eradicate a potentially destructive moth.

The little-known proposal to wipe out the light brown apple moth, which if it became established could destroy the region’s agricultural industry, has developed increasing opposition among some residents who fear for their health.

Hundreds of people whose homes and yards were sprayed in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties from September to December have filed reports that said the pesticide seems to have caused coughing, wheezing, muscle aches and headaches, among other symptoms. One Monterey family reported that a child had a first-time asthma attack.

State officials say the amount of pesticide applied shouldn’t pose severe health risks, but they’ve also refused to rule out that the spray can affect humans, particularly sensitive people such as children and the elderly.

Spraying of the pesticide, called Checkmate, is expected to begin in the Bay Area in August and could continue for five years over San Francisco, Daly City, Colma, Oakland, Piedmont, Emeryville, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Tiburon and Belvedere. Other chemicals could also be used.

Before its use in Santa Cruz and Monterey last year, the pesticide, a hormone that throws off the scents of mating moths, had been used aerially only over farms and never over populated areas.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture obtained an “emergency exemption from registration” from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that allows the agency to use the pesticide in aerial sprays over California cities. Because of that exemption, the spraying program isn’t subject to state approval, according to representatives of the state Department of Pesticide Regulation.

There is no widespread infestation of the light brown apple moth, but U.S. Department of Agriculture officials say they are trying to head off a potential disaster. The federal agency has given the California Department of Food and Agriculture $74.5 million to conduct the spraying program, which officials say is warranted because an international survey of pests ranks the moth high as a threat, and moths have been found in the state, primarily in the Bay Area. The little moth was first trapped in Alameda County in March. The state agricultural agency followed up and found moths in 11 counties, said Larry Hawkins, a USDA spokesman.

The moth’s larvae stunts seedlings, pits leaves and can damage fruit trees, citrus and grapes.

Its potential spread to almost every plant around, including native trees, threatens crops worth up to $640 million a year, he said. The pesticide over time reduces the moth population by interfering with its ability to reproduce and doesn’t require the use of a more toxic insecticide, Hawkins said.

Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the state agricultural department, said new trapping data for 2008 could change the aerial spray program set for Marin, San Francisco and the East Bay.

“But right now, based on what we know, it will go ahead,” he said.

In response to complaints from residents from Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, several state agencies – the Department of Pesticide Regulation, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and the Public Health Department – issued a statement that acknowledged that eye, skin or respiratory irritations reported by residents could have been caused by high applications but not by low ones.

“The toxicological information on the Checkmate product indicates that exposure to high levels of the applied material would be consistent with many of the reported symptoms,” the statement read.

The pesticide levels used in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties were extremely low, the agencies said, making it unlikely that anyone was exposed to a high dose.

However, the statement cautioned that “not all health effects can be predicted and because the general population includes susceptible (people), such as children, the elderly and those with chronic diseases, we cannot provide a definitive cause for their symptoms.”

The USDA’s Hawkins said the EPA has generally not been concerned over the toxicity of Checkmate. For example, he said, the agency never set a maximum limit for the pesticide in food or required farm workers to stay out of fields that had just been sprayed.

“It’s not a material the EPA would have any concern about,” Hawkins said.

Many residents in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties are joining an umbrella group, California Alliance to Stop the Spray, or CASS, to fight the continuing spraying program, which is expected to resume June 1.

More than 600 people from the two counties have reported symptoms, including asthma attacks, bronchial irritation, lung congestion and soreness, difficulty breathing, coughing and eye and throat irritation.

Dr. Randy Baker, a family practitioner in Soquel, said he treated about a dozen patients with a range of symptoms when the area was being sprayed. Although he said there was no way to ascertain a cause-and-effect relationship, he had a number of concerns about the pesticide, including the fact that it was not tested for use over urban areas.

“There is tremendous individual variation in the ability of people to process and detoxify environmental chemicals. For example, there could be a prescription medicine that 100 people take with minimal adverse effect but another person could take it and suffer extreme side effects and even death,” Baker said.

Baker was also shocked that the agricultural department started spraying the chemical on an evening when people were out walking in Santa Cruz.

“At 8 p.m., they started spraying in the most populated areas of Santa Cruz County. I have patients who didn’t know the spray was happening who were out walking on Mission Avenue. Clearly, the greatest danger is a person being out of doors when the planes are going over. They’re going to be inhaling the chemicals,” Baker said.

Further complicating the issue is that some residents say they simply don’t trust the government information. The pheromone is not the only chemical in the spray. Checkmate also contains at least 10 other ingredients.

The product contains a surfactant, which could have coated the more than 600 birds that turned up injured after the spraying last year as far north as Año Nuevo and south to Del Monte Beach in Monterey, they say. Government agencies attributed the substance that coated the birds to algal changes.

Elizabeth Quinn, a resident of Santa Cruz, is among those opposed.

On Nov. 9, starting at midnight, the planes flew 500-feet above Quinn’s house in Santa Cruz until 5:30 in the morning.

“They came over every 20 to 30 minutes, back and forth, back and forth,” she said. Quinn didn’t suffer any health problems after the sprays, but she is worried about the people who did.

“I have 6-year-old and 3-year-old grandsons,” she said, “and I’m very concerned about their health.”

Also Thursday, about 80 people turned up at a hearing held by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, who heads the Assembly’s Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. State health and agricultural officials and members of nonprofit groups presented details of the pending program, and most of the public that spoke were concerned about aerial spraying.

Last month, the Albany City Council voted unanimously to oppose the spraying, and the nonprofit Center for Environmental Health started holding meetings, the first in Oakland, to address questions from worried residents.

A series of meetings is scheduled this month to discuss the environmental reports of the moth-eradication program in the Bay Area.
Light brown apple moth

Problem: Larvae of the tiny moth, a native of Australia and much smaller than a penny, feeds on more than 2,000 plants and trees.

Eradication: Officials plan to spray pesticide to disturb its mating. More information: links.sfgate.com/ZCLW.

Source: California Department of Food and Agriculture

And an article listing the problems with LBAM spraying:

STOP AERIAL PESTICIDE SPRAYING IN CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN MARIN

What’s wrong with the LBAM spraying?
1.Hundreds of people in Santa Cruz and Monterey County have reported adverse health reactions. The spray has not been tested for long-term human toxicity and is being applied in microscopic plastic capsules that could pose inhalation risks.
2.The spray contains ingredients that are highly toxic to aquatic species, as well as surfactants, that might have contributed to algae bloom (red tide) and the death of hundreds of waterfowl.
3.Biologists agree that the spraying – an outdated, unsustainable, expensive pest control method – will not eradicate the moth. The CDFA should switch to a control vs. an eradication program using least-toxic methods that farmers already apply, e.g. sticky traps.
4.CDFA itself says the moth has done no crop damage in California to date. Priority must be given to public and environmental health and safety over speculative economic loss.
5.The aerial spray program disproportionately impacts vulnerable segments of the population, including those with the recognized disability of multiple chemical sensitivity, who are in many cases forced to relocate, and the homeless, who have no option to protect themselves from spraying.

The Natural Solutions Foundation needs a MINIMUM of $45,000 per month to operate efficiently. Here is what our budget looks like:

* $10,000 (for 12 months) to cover fees and expenses of making our Codex Agenda/Health Freedom full length documentary

* $5000 for Congressional Education program and Health Freedom Strategic Alliance, a 501 c 4 organization which is can lobby Congress directly

* $18,000 for airfare and travel expenses (with contingencies for expensive trips for special purposes)

* $1500 for clerical and administrative support

* $5000 for administrative support (Dr. Laibow’s personal assistant/researcher). This is urgently needed but we have not been able to afford this service.

* $2000 legal/legislative research and support

* $2500 telecommunications, web master, secure server, mailing list and Congressional communication management (including charges for internet access internationally)

* $500 production charges for publications, videos, etc. for delegates and Government Ministers, etc.

* $500 per month for materials for community organizers

That’s a total of $45,000 per month. You will also notice that there is no contingency line item to cover exceptional expenses, nor is there a full time administrator, which we really need. You will note, too, there is nothing there to compensate either General Bert or me, nothing for office rent, copier toner, paper, pens or other ordinary expenses.

Please take a moment now to make your recurring donation (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to help cover the costs of the global battle for health and health freedom: your health and your health freedom! All donations are tax deductible. If every supporter donated as little as $2 per week, we would not have to ask for money again! Donate a minimum of $500 and you will receive an invitation to join the Health Freedom Heroes Forum. This is your battle. Please help to support it with your generous recurring donation.

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

Good News From Codex
Day One: Attending the Codex Working Group on Labeling GM Foods, Accra, Ghana
January 28, 2007

The Revolt of the Health Conscious Nations…

General Stubblebine and I have been traveling for days, now, and we finally arrived in Accra to attend the Working Group on labeling of foods obtained through Genetic Modification (GM) or Genetic Engineering (GE).

First, a definition: what is GE? I have no idea. As far as I can tell, it is another term for Genetic Modification (inserting a gene into the DNA of something to make that something into something else so you can patent it and then, if you are in the US, getting the FDA [if it is food] and USDA [if it is food that now produces drugs or vaccines] to collude with you in order to pretend that it is the same as the thing that it used to be before you changed it so that you could patent it in the first place.

Of course, if it were really the same thing as it was before you messed with its genome, you would not be able to patent it and make vast profits from selling it to people who do not realize –YET – that it is bad for them and the environment). While you are at the GM/GE process, you will insert some bacterial genes, too, that are resistant to some antibiotic or other so that you can check whether your insertions have worked (spreading antibiotic resistant genes around, of course) and will probably use some other types of handy-dandy DNA, like viral stuff, for example, while you are at it. Don’t worry about the fact that bacteria pick up and share DNA, like the stuff you introduced into the food in the first place, or the antibiotic resistant gene you inserted for your laboratory convenience.

Those shared DNA bits can, of course, make ordinary, beneficial bacteria (“pro-biotics”) drug resistant and their anaerobic cousins, the pathogens or disease causing ones, drug resistant, too. After all, unless you get an infection and want to have it treated with antibiotics (say, for example, Multi Drug Resistant Tuberculosis or MSRA (methycillin resistant Staph Aureus) which was apparently created in a Big Pharma lab in Europe and dumped down the sink into the sewers of the world by the same careful, caring type of lab workers who have brought you GM/GE foods.

And then, not only do the new genes do what you want, maybe, they also do things that no biological thing has ever done before and create (“code for”) substances in your body that no living creature has ever created before. These Franken Molecules (from Franken Foods) are the Biotech industry’s great, and to me, illegal experiment: you have not given them your signed informed consent for the great program of “Let’s see what happens when we adulterate 80% + of the American Diet with these Franken Genes and not tell anybody that they are eating them because we have convinced the FDA to declare Franken Foods administratively identical to natural ones without examining the science behind them or conducting their own tests.

We will also convince our dear friends at the FFDDA (that’s the Franken Food and Deadly Drug Administration) that they will NOT ALLOW, that’s right, NOT ALLOW, people who make foods to label food that do contain Franken Molecules. And, showing that those health friendly folks at the FDA have a great sense of humor, they indicate on their website that the issue of liability (that is, payment if you are harmed by this Franken Food, will be determined “by the Courts”. Neat trick, of course, if there is no labeling since without it, there is NO traceability and therefore NO liability. By the way, according to the World Medical Association’s Helsinki Declaration, experimenting on people without fully informed, voluntary consent is a gross violation of basic Human Rights.

While the good people of the US have stood still for this (remember that fluoride in their water made the political prisoners of Stalin’s Russia so complaint that their keepers could do anything they wanted with them without their putting up a fuss), a good deal of the rest of the world has not bought into this “Better living through GM” routine.

The European Union, for example, although it imports huge amounts of GM corn and soy from the US to feed its animals (which get the foreign DNA stuck in their own genes and then transfer them to you when you eat them!) still insists that food containing GM components MUST be labeled so the consumer – that would be you if you are buying or eating food in Paris or Rome or Bratislava – can decide if they want to eat it or not. Norway believes that the right of the consumer to know what they are getting when they buy food is so compelling that the government requires that food be labeled if it has any GM ingredients.

Brazil, Japan, Russia and a host of other countries have mandatory labeling requirements for GM foods which the US opposes with all of its corporate-directed might. It has been opposing the right of countries to self-determine in this way through Codex for the best part of two decades. And in one of the most inspiring displays of national autonomy and decision making that I am aware of in Codex history, a consortium of nations have been opposing the US’s bitter battle to make sure that they can not, may not, must not, inform their consumer’s of the GM components in their food. Why? Because, as the US delegate told the assembled folks last year at the same meeting we are attending this year, the FDA’s own research and independent research both confirm that consumers will reject food if they know it is GM’d or GE’d. In fact, research all over the world shows the same thing. People instinctively know that turning food into “food” is not OK with them and they don’t want to eat it if they can help it.

The FDA wants to “protect” you from making a “bad” decision about what to put into your own body… no matter that its “concern” for us food consumers is just a cover for its real agenda; no matter it is acting contrary to US law. The US Supreme Court held in 2002 in the case of Thompson v Western States Medical Centers, “If the First Amendment means anything, it means that regulating speech must be a last – not first – resort. … We have previously rejected the notion that the Government has an interest in preventing the dissemination of truthful commercial information in order to prevent members of the public from making bad decisions with the information.” [535 U.S. 357]

More and more people also know that the foods that the FDA has administratively decided are safe is, in fact, more and more clearly dangerous in a big way. [Link to: Mae Wan Ho article]. Click here (link) to read the latest summary of why you really don’t want to eat this stuff written by a gifted and dedicated independent scientist. By the way, organic food is actually your only defense. Yes, it is more expensive but how much does cancer, auto immune disease or infertility cost?

So two years ago, at the 2005 Codex Committee on Food Labeling (CCFL) in Ottawa, the US tried something new. It proposed to CCFL that they drop the discussion totally and let countries do whatever they wanted. Its bid to compel the rest of the world to adopt its own weird (and potentially deadly) prohibition on consumer right to know about GM foods had failed miserably to attract adherents on a global basis. True, the usual cast of suspects, Argentina, Australia, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, supported the US in dismissing the rights of consumers to know what they are eating, but more and more countries have passed what they call “mandatory labeling regulations” which say that foods MUST list their GM ingredients. Now, at first blush that might seem like a great thing. The reality is that the mandatory labeling countries realized that without some international agreement, the US could ship them whatever they wanted and they would not be able to keep it out of their countries even if, like the EU and Norway, they have the sophisticated labs necessary to detect the contamination. If they did keep it out, the World Trade Organization (WTO) could well imposed huge trade sanctions against them for creating a “Barrier to Trade”.

Norway, figuratively, leaped to its feet and said, “NO! Let’s keep talking! Let’s hold a working group (semi formal group often used in Codex to work out problems which the full committee cannot seem to solve or accomplish a special task) to find what Codex loves to call “a Way Forward”. Ghana agreed to co chair and so did Argentina.

A year ago next week, the Working Group session was held for 2 days in Oslo. The US was there, and so was the Natural Solutions Foundation. You may recall that the US delegate famously explained why the US forbids the labeling of GM “foods” in order to prevent consumers from knowing the truth about the food since it might lead them to reject it when they should not and therefore, said Dr. Barbara Schneeman, the truth would be “false and misleading”. This year, the meeting is being held in the home country of a co-chair, Ghana. And instead of two days, it was a 3 day meeting since more time was needed. And, of course, the Natural Solutions Foundation was there representing your interests, making contacts with nations who, in turn, need to know that they have support in opposing the US and the multinational corporations in order to protect their people and their land. And, oh by the way, the world food supply is increasingly planetary. As long as “cheap” oil lasts, many of these countries are, or are about to be, food exporters so you will be eating what they produce. If it is laden with pesticides and contaminated by wandering DNA, you’ll be eating it. If it is clean and wholesome, you’ll be eating that, too.

So General Stubblebine and I left Thailand, where we were working on alliances with other like-minded people and NGOs and went to Panama to find the land for the Panama project. We found that land and if you would like to know more, and perhaps get involved, use the link below to read more.

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=511

Then we got on a plane, had a long enough stop over in New York to have a No Forced Vaccine lunch with a group of vigorous and committed activists and then got on the plane for Ghana.

Want to know more about why forced vaccination is on your horizon and your children’s and what you can do about it? Click the link below to join the No Forced Vaccination Forum –

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/no-forced-vaccination/join

We got to Ghana and got picked up by the GIMPA Executive Hostel folks (that’s where the meeting was being held. That was the good news. The bad news was that internet was only a figment of someone’s imagination. Over the next 3 days, despite paying a lot of money (now refunded) for connection and waiting literally hours for pages to load (which they never did) there was no way for me to reach out and touch anyone (or write to you or pay bills, etc.)

What happened? Well, Day 1 was a day like all other days in Codex. The US tried mightily to control the process to the ends of its multinational friends. Among those friends were the Biotech Industry and the International Grocery Manufacturers Association whose representatives, as near as I could make out, were once again on the US delegation. The US and Canada, along with Nigeria, presented a background paper as “a Way Forward” which contained selected Codex texts to guide countries which wanted to determine their own labeling strategy (voluntary or mandatory). Although I did not have internet access in (or out of ) the meeting room and could therefore not check the cited texts or others, it seemed pretty clear to me that these three countries had rather carefully chosen just those texts which helped them in the chess game by planning several moves ahead. What chess game? The WHO tournament where the stakes are high enough to destroy the fragile economy of a developing (read “poor”) country. You see, it looks to me as if the US were carefully choosing only those sections which could be interpreted against a mandatory labeling country seeking to keep unlabeled US products out of their country in their “Background paper” and carefully defining things in ways which seemed benign on the surface but which were booby trapped from here to Kingdom Come once adopted.

The “Background Paper” was so useful to a variety of nations that they wanted to see it become an official Codex document (score 1 for the US). Once that happens, its contents could then be the basis for forcing countries to admit unlabeled GM foods since there a pot full of essential principles (like the protective – in this case – Precautionary Principle that says that if something is not known to be safe, you cannot use it under Codex, like any mention of how to evaluate GM foods for safety, which is weak enough in Codex but completely absent from this document, etc.)

The US modestly accepted the praise of the other states and agreed that “the Way Forward” could include getting this very lop sided document (as I see it) into the process of making it an official Codex document. It was a bit weird procedurally, I thought, to try to make things that were already part of Codex a separate Codex text, but, then, I am not in the “12-moves-ahead-get-ready-for-the-WTO-dispute-resolution-process” game.

Norway continually reminded the group that the Right of Consumers to Know was paramount and the US opposed that notion in a variety of ways. People raised safety issues and the US said that the safety issue was already settled by the time a food came to market so there was no safety issue to be considered… (!)

That’s all for now.

Rima E. Laibow, MD

PS – We are on the scene for you and your health. To be able to be here, we need your support. Please make your donation to help us bring you reports such as the above –

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189

————–
Days Two and Three:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=513

Memorandum from Dr. Laibow
January 30, 2008

As many of you know, as we’ve been traveling around the US and the world for health and freedom, we’ve been looking for places where we can demonstrate the benefits of natural solutions. We’re working with people in countries such as Thailand, India and several African countries on advanced natural remedies, increased farm production and similar projects. Along the way, we visited the famed Valley of the Ancients in Ecuador, where many inhabitants live to very old age and have explored the Vulcan Baru temperate forests of the Panama – Costa Rico border area. We’re hoping to find the right place to establish our ARC – our Advanced Renewal Community. This project will demonstrate natural solutions to food (better than organic), energy (off the grid) and health (a advanced wellness center) in an intentional community setting.

I have wonderful news for all of us! We found THE land, not just land, but THE land. Yesterday, I wrote a list of the things that we need the land to be:

High altitude
Cool micro climate
Decent access road
Water on the land which does not dry up
Never had pesticides or other chemicals on the land
Virgin soil with outstanding fertility
Astonishing, heart-lifting vistas
Neighbors who do not use pesticides to eliminate the possibility of drift
Borders on a National Forest to prevent development
Reasonable price
Secluded location

We have seen a number of places but none that met most, let alone all, of our requirements. Until today, that is! The land is verdant and full of wonderful, rich greens… a high altitude (4,000 to over 5,000 feet above rising sea level…) temperate forest with a very pleasant climate.

Here’s what happened last week: Our contractor/local guru Kenneth is back in town and has been helping us a great deal. He found a person with land who said that his cousin had land and showed us what the land would look like by taking us to the other side of the mountain range where his cousin’s land is located and asking if we liked what we saw. We loved it. It was high (at least 4000 feet), verdant and beautiful, so we said that we wanted to go see the actual finca (farm) the next day.

The next day was everything we could have imagined. Julio, the man with the cousin with the finca, met us in at the base of the access road to the finca and we got into a 4 wheel drive vehicle to make the climb. And climb we did! By the time we got to the base of the finca, we were at 4007 feet according to Steven’s altimeter. We changed 4 wheel drive trucks and went on up the first hill of the finca. It is spread over all or part of 5 mountains which are either pastures which have been used to graze cattle but never treated with herbicides (unlike the first piece we saw) or wooded areas of magnificent trees or, on a small protion, an organic coffee plantation. Backing it, at its rear boundary, is a Panamanian National Forest: no worries about development here. On the first flat area, there is a docile herd of bulls which really did not want to give us the right of way but the horn on the truck
convinced them to saunter off.

Moving along, we saw magnificent slopes and heard the gurgle of a river/stream. In the rainy season, it is a river. In the dry season, just beginning it is a considerable stream. It arises just above the land in a waterfall and falls down in more water falls to a steep gorge which it has created when it is in spate during the rainy season. The sound is lovely. It is crystal clear and, after we test it, I will be willing to kneel by its side and drink from if. After we test it. The potential for hydro-power is very real.

So we walked with the mountains and pastures at our left side and the river valley on our right. Across the river valley is another set of hills rising up with either trees or pastures on them. In one of the photos, when you look closely, you can see a horizontal line that might be a road. It is. It is about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the hill in front of you. That is the upper limit of the property on that hill but it goes to the top of the hill on the left and the one on the right. Again, the land is brilliant greens and not at all dry!

So we climbed up a short way again and found ourselves in the most magnificent grove of old growth trees on the side of the river. There are some coffee plants there which are organic. We learned today that coffee grown lower than a certain elevation gets fungi and pests and that is why it is fumigated and pesticide. Coffee at this elevation, however, is immune to these hazards and does not need to be sprayed with chemicals. Oh, a correction: there is a small amount of coffee plantation lower down which has been fumigated. We will tear it out. The flat area where the bulls were hanging out (about 7 hectares or 17.5 acres) is a great place for us to begin the organic + farm and farm school. The Panama Organic Growers are wonderful people and we expect to have a great cooperative relationship with them.

The grove could be almost anything and the sites for community and individual houses are varied and beautiful, allowing many different construction possibilities. There is ample sun, wind and, with the cooperation of the neighbors from whom we will buy the land (a very high possibility: more about that later), there is a huge hydraulic head which can power hydroelectric when the dry season reduces the flow of water in the river. There are also two springs that rise on the land and do not go dry, but they are rather scanty right now.

One of the mountains includes property on the other side of the ridge and, in fact, has a wide, flat area on the top. We were promised that the views would be astonishing.

We got back into the 4 wheel drive truck and headed off for a 10 minute ride. (There are two dimensions to time and space in Panama: everything is either 10 minutes or 2 kilometers. This was both. So off we went. However, the presence of a very big tree across the road meant that we had to get out and walk. The road would have been fine for a 4 wheel drive car. For us, it was easy walking but went up and up and up and up and up…. By the time we had been walking for at least 30 minutes, I had no more stamina to continue because I have not been at the top of my form physically with all the traveling we’ve had to do (I am fine, just tired) so I said that I would go back down while the others continued. You see, I knew what was up there. I had seen it in a dream that morning and had total certainty of what was up there. So the others went up and I went down and started to meditate. The result of that was very positive for me in the context of what we were considering: buying this land.

When Bert, leading the others, came down, he showed me the pictures he had taken of the vistas (I will mount them on forum when I can) and I was not surprised to see exactly what I had seen in my dream. That gets your notice. It sure got mine and, I dare say, Bert’s.

In a nut shell, the vistas are breathtaking. You can see Volcan Baru and its mountain range. You can see the Pacific Ocean. They are in different directions. Imagine what it is like. You can see the ranges of mountains as they march to the horizon. You can see the clouds and the blue sky. You can see to the end of the known world. And the air and light are truly magnificent.

The finca is owned by a young man named Carlos. When Kenneth said that Bert was a General and I was a doctor practicing Natural Medicine and that we were “concerned with developments in the US”, Carlos said, “They should be! The US is poisoning the air to poison the people to give the pharmaceutical companies more profit!” So he gets it I didn’t have to rant even a little bit!

He also, along with his mother, who owns the rest of the 300 Hectares from which our 100 hectares will be sold, is a land preservationist, conservationist and organic farmer. Nice neighbors. When he heard what we were doing, he got very interested and said that he would like to help in any way possible.

Incredible find. By the way, the elevation goes from 4007 to 5707 feet. The climate is eternal spring. The name of the area, Santa Clara, can be translated as Sacred Light…

Now for the nitty gritty: They offered the land to another group for $30,000 per hectare because they did not want to sell it to them! The price they are asking of us is $15,000 per Hectare but they may come down a bit more, maybe $12,000 per hectare or perhaps a little lower. The land will thus cost about $1.2 Million (or perhaps a bit less) and the infrastructure (roads, electric cables, internet cables, water pipes, etc.) is estimated very
roughly to cost about 3 to 4 Million (but could be somewhat less) The money we have to raise works this way: Stage 1: 10% of purchase price (approximately $120,000) Stage 2: Remaining 90% to purchase land Infrastructure can either be paid for by funds we raise or by loans from the bank once we own the land. We will be able to raise approximately 40% of the purchase price of the land as a loan. Clearly, it is better to self fund.

The way purchase is done here is as follows: we put up 10% of the agreed upon price (let us say we agree to $1.2 Million US). That means we put up $120,000 as earnest money. We tell them that we need, say 120 days to make our arrangements. During that time, according to the contract, we have the soil tested, the water tested, any borings for footings, etc., that we need, we make sure that the boundaries are as represented, we test the aquafer, we make sure that the title is clear, etc., etc. If everything checks out, then we are responsible to give them the rest of the money and the land is ours. If things do not check out, then we get our money back. If we fail to come up with the rest of the money, we either loose all of our deposit or half of it, depending on the contract. Obviously, we need to be serious about doing his if we put down the earnest money.

I need to hear from anyone who is interested in moving forward with this project. We are looking for an Angel or two and know that our Angel is out there, in cyberspace. There has been some excellent discussion during the week here in Panama of questions that we have not yet covered. Later I will try to post a summary of these discussions on the forum. If we are, in fact, interested in this project in a real way, we need to hammer out any questions we have and find the answers. We also need to commit to either financial capital in multiples of $50K Beneficial Interest Shares or social capital or a combination of both to allow us to buy this land, build its infrastructure and create the community we have talked about.

There is real time pressure on this. Americans and other people are crawling over this area to buy land before the value shoots up like Boquete, 30 minutes south of here (a town that has about 20% of its inhabitants from the US.

This really is, according to my best judgment, and Bert’s, a phenomenal opportunity. I hope you choose to make this your reality, too! If you want to be invited to join our NSF-Panama Yahoo!Group forum, please email me at dr.laibow@gmail.com and put “PANAMA” in the subject line.

Rima Laibow, MD