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Satyagraha (Non-cooperation) and Monsanto

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

Natural Solutions Foundation
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

The Foundation has established a new Yahoo!Groups forum about food and farming. Please join it at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/natural-solutions-food-and-farming/

Here’s a powerful article about how farmers in India are reclaiming their rights, in the tradition of Ghandi. Our thanks to Linn Cohen-Cole who is a tireless fighter for freedom.

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From www.opednews.com :
February 3, 2009 at 22:15:44

The multiple ways Monsanto is putting normal seeds out of reach
by Linn Cohen-Cole

People say if farmers don’t want problems from Monsanto, just don’t
buy their GMO seeds.

Not so simple. Where are farmers supposed to get normal seed these
days? How are they supposed to avoid contamination of their fields
from GM-crops? How are they supposed to stop Monsanto detectives from trespassing or Monsanto from using helicopters to fly over spying on them?

Monsanto contaminates the fields, trespasses onto the land taking
samples and if they find any GMO plants growing there (or say they
have), they then sue, saying they own the crop. It’s a way to make
money since farmers can’t fight back and court and they settle because they have no choice.

And they have done and are doing a bucket load of things to keep
farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying,
collecting, and saving of NORMAL seeds.

1. They’ve bought up the seed companies across the Midwest.

2. They’ve written Monsanto seed laws and gotten legislators to put
them through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so
onerous in terms of fees and paperwork and testing and tracking every
variety and being subject to fines, that having normal seed becomes
almost impossible (an NAIS approach to wiping out normal seeds). Does your state have such a seed law? Before they existed, farmers just collected the seeds and put them in sacks in the shed and used them the next year, sharing whatever they wished with friends and
neighbors, selling some if they wanted. That’s been killed.

In Illinois which has such a seed law, Madigan, the Speaker of the
House, his staff is Monsanto lobbyists.

3. Monsanto is pushing anti-democracy laws (Vilsack’s brainchild,
actually) that remove community’ control over their own counties so
farmers and citizens can’t block the planting of GMO crops even if
they can contaminate other crops. So if you don’t want a GM-crop that grows industrial chemicals or drugs or a rice growing with human DNA in it, in your area and mixing with your crops, tough luck.

Check the map of just where the Monsanto/Vilsack laws are and see if
your state is still a democracy or is Monsanto’s. A farmer in Illinois
told me he heard that Bush had pushed through some regulation that
made this true in every state. People need to check on that.

4. For sure there are Monsanto regulations buried in the FDA right now
that make a farmer’s seed cleaning equipment illegal (another way to
leave nothing but GM-seeds) because it’s now considered a “source of
seed contamination.” Farmer can still seed clean but the equipment now has to be certified and a farmer said it would require a million to a
million and half dollar building and equipment … for EACH line of
seed. Seed storage facilities are also listed (another million?) and
harvesting and transport equipment. And manure. Something that can
contaminate seed. Notice that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are
not mentioned.

You could eat manure and be okay (a little grossed out but okay). Try
that with pesticides and fertilizers. Indian farmers have. Their top
choice for how to commit suicide to escape the debt they have been
left in is to drink Monsanto pesticides.

5. Monsanto is picking off seed cleaners across the Midwest. In Pilot
Grove, Missouri , in Indiana (Maurice Parr ), and now in southern
Illinois (Steve Hixon). And they are using US marshals and state
troopers and county police to show up in three cars to serve the poor
farmers who had used Hixon as their seed cleaner, telling them that he
or their neighbors turned them in, so across that 6 county areas, no
one talking to neighbors and people are living in fear and those
farming communities are falling apart from the suspicion Monsanto
sowed. Hixon’s office got broken into and he thinks someone put a
GPS tracking device on his equipment and that’s how Monsanto found
between 200-400 customers in very scattered and remote areas, and
threatened them all and destroyed his business within 2 days.

So, after demanding that seed cleaners somehow be able to tell one
seed from another (or be sued to kingdom come) or corrupting
legislatures to put in laws about labeling of seeds that are so
onerous no one can cope with them, what is Monsanto’s attitude about labeling their own stuff? You guessed it – they’re out there pushing laws against ANY labeling of their own GM-food and animals and of any exports to other countries. Why?

We know and they know why.

As Norman Braksick, the president of Asgrow Seed Co. (now owned by
Monsanto) predicted in the Kansas City Star (3/7/94) seven years ago, “If you put a label on a genetically engineered food, you might as
well put a skull and crossbones on it.”

And they’ve sued dairy farmers for telling the truth about their milk
being rBGH-free, though rBGH is associated with an increased risk of
breast, colon and prostate cancers.

I just heard that some seed dealers urge farmers to buy the seed under the seed dealer’s name, telling the farmers it helps the dealer get a discount on seed to buy a lot under their own name. Then Monsanto sues the poor farmer for buying their seed without a contract and extorts huge sums from them.

Here’s a youtube video that is worth your time. Vandana Shiva is one
of the leading anti-Monsanto people in the world. In this video, she
says (and this video is old), Monsanto had sued 1500 farmers whose
fields had simply been contaminated by GM-crops. Listen to all the
ways Monsanto goes after farmers.

Do you know the story of Gandhi in India and how the British had salt
laws that taxed salt? The British claimed it as theirs. Gandhi had
what was called a Salt Satyagraha, in which people were asked to break the laws and march to the sea and collect the salt without paying the British. A kind of Boston tea party, I guess.

Thousands of people marched 240 miles to the ocean where the British
were waiting. As people moved forward to collect the salt, the British
soldiers clubbed them but the people kept coming. The non-violent
protest exposed the British behavior which was so revolting to the
world that it helped end British control in India.

Vandana Shiva has started a Seed Satyagraha – nonviolent
non-cooperation around seed laws – has gotten millions of farmers to
sign a pledge to break those laws.

American farmers and cattlemen might appreciate what Gandhi fought for and what Shiva is bringing back and how much it is about what we are all so angry about – loss of basic freedoms.

The Seed Satyagraha is the name for the nonviolent, noncooperative
movement that Dr. Shiva has organized to stand against seed
monopolies. According to Dr. Shiva, the name was inspired by Gandhi’s
famous walk to the Dandi Beach, where he picked up salt and said,

“You can’t monopolize this which we need for life.” But it’s not just the
noncooperation aspect of the movement that is influenced by Gandhi.
The creative side saving seeds, trading seeds, farming without
corporate dependence-–without their chemicals, without their seed.

“All this is talked about in the language that Gandhi left us as a
legacy. We work with three key concepts.”

“(One) Swadeshi…which means the capacity to do your own
thing–produce your own food, produce your own goods….”

“(Two) Swaraj–to govern yourself. And we fight on three
fronts-–water, food, and seed. JalSwaraj is water independence–water freedom and water sovereignty. Anna Swaraj is food freedom, food sovereignty. And Bija Swaraj is seed freedom and seed sovereignty. Swa means self–that which rises from the self and is very, very much a deep notion of freedom.

“I believe that these concepts, which are deep, deep, deep in Indian
civilization, Gandhi resurrected them to fight for freedom. They are
very important for today’s world because so far what we’ve had is
centralized state rule, giving way now to centralized corporate
control, and we need a third alternate. That third alternate is, in
part, citizens being able to tell their state, ‘This is what your
function is. This is what your obligations are,’ and being able to
have their states act on corporations to say, ‘This is something you
cannot do.'”

“(Three) Satyagraha, non-cooperation, basically saying, ‘We will do
our thing and any law that tries to say that (our freedom) is illegal…
we will have to not cooperate with it. We will defend our freedoms to
have access to water, access to seed, access to food, access to
medicine.'”

Copyright 2009 – Linn Cohen-Cole

Posted in Activism, Buy-Cott, Declaration of Health Independence, Food Crisis, GMOs | No Comments »

FDA Files, GMO Files: Another Reason to Divest the FDA Plant Based Vaccines

Friday, January 30th, 2009

Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org

This detailed posting gives yet another example of why the FDA must be divested of its food authority before its mismanagement causes even more harm. The Federal Govt’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding GMO (genetically modified organisms) creates conditions for a mega-disaster of unknown severity.

For more on Divesting the FDA:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=1601

Dr. Laibow

———————–

Plant Based Vaccines Under Development World Wide

Once genetic material migrates from a modified plant or animal into other plants, animals, insect, or what have you, that migration is permanent except for one thing: the DNA is not stable so it literally “jumps around” causing novel proteins to be expressed.

Novel proteins, or proteins which have never existed before during the course of all life on this planet, have novel impacts. Read that as “infertility”, “sterility”, “cancers”, “auto-immune diseases”, “Joint and connective tissue diseases”, “neurological diseases”, “fetal death”, “failure to thrive”, “infant mortality”, etc. Babies in utero are particularly susceptible to the impact of these “novel proteins”, but no one is immune.

Worse, the genes have no stable place to reside in the DNA of whatever cell they are working in this week so they move from place to place to place inside the nucleus of the cell, causing the resident genes to change their functions and produce yet more novel proteins.

Now ask yourself what happens if vaccine-producing plants (or industrial-product producing plants – the issue is identical) mingle their pollen with the plants that produce your food and the food of the animals of this planet. The USDA has reduced the already close-to-non-existent controls on industrial plant growth next to, and contaminating, food plants. For example, for 5 years Bayer’s Crop Science vaccine rice was growing next to, and contaminating, food rice in Louisiana. Bayer knew about it (perhaps the USDA did, too – we do not have that information) and said nothing.

When the contamination was discovered, Bayer was not fined or sanctioned by the US Government and the contaminated rice was simply sold to the US Military for its troops in Iraq (!!!). US Military labs detected the contamination and the rice was then sold to sub Saharan African countries like Ghana. There, in every rice market that was tested, the contaminated rice was found. Poor people, buying their daily food, were eating poisoned rice, courtesy of the Biotech Industry, Bayer Crop Science (from Beyer, the same corporation that knowingly sold HIV contaminated blood fractions in Europe when they could not sell them in the US) and the US Government. But if you are buying food, especially prepared food, in the US, you are in exactly the same position: poisoned “food”, lacking any notification or labeling of that poisonous status, is being sold to you as if it were wholesome and fit for human consumption because of the total failure of the US Government to protect your health or the integrity of the food supply from commercial – and worse – interests.

The Natural Solutions Foundation has created the International Decade of Nutrition, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org, to reclaim the production of food. The US Government is on the other side: industry interests and conflicts of interest make the US Government, according to all assessments, including the US Congress’ most recent report on the subject, totally unable to resist industry pressure and totally unwilling to clean house in order to become a health promoting system. Indeed, FDA scientists have openly appealed to President Obama for help in allowing them to do their job: being science to the regulation of safety.

Reformation after reformation, new agency after new agency, staff shuffle after staff shuffle have failed to weaken industry and strengthen either science or sense in the government regulation of food. ENOUGH! Our lives and our children’s lives are at stake. The Natural Solutions Foundation is once again leading the way by identifying the problem and providing the natural solutions: the system is broken beyond repair. No amount of patchwork will repair it. It is time for the failed US Government to relinquish its failed mission of food safety and regulation to the smaller governmental units which are closer to the will of the people: State governments.

Remembering that NO science of safety is PERMITTED for genetically modified “foods” in the US, remembering that patents on GMOs are based on outdated and invalid scientific premises, remember that the US Supreme Court was packed beforehand in order to grant patent rights to Monsanto, and remembering that well over 80% of the US population would prefer not to eat GMO “food” although more than 90% of the American food stock is contaminated with GMO “food”, the following article should arouse a strong response.

The stunning disregard for science and safety shown by the US Government at the behest of the food-related industries is almost too large to take in at one gulp. Biotech “foods”, approved by the FDA, USDA and Codex, as they are, represent a major threat to health, indeed, to life on this planet.

None of the agencies tasked with responsiblity for food safety and food regulation in the United States are either capable or willing to provide meaningful safety or health-based regulation. After deadly decades, it has become clear that they cannot be reformed and that
1. The USDA must be dissolved
2. The FDA must have its food regulatory responsibility removed from it as environmental protection, consumer safety and narcotics and dangerous drug responsibility was removed from it to create separate government agencies
3. Another federal agency will not protect food and the health of the American people since conflict of interest and corruption run too deep.
4. Regulatory responsibility for food must be turned over to the States, consistent with their Constitutional mandates and rights so that the impact of the people, from whom regulatory authority comes, is far closer to the exercise of regulatory authority.

The Natural Solutions Foundation invites you to join us in the 2009 Health Freedom Campaign to Divest the US Government of its Food Regulatory Responsibilities in order to return assurance of food safety and health protection to the States and, hence, to the People. For more information on the Campaign to Divest the US Government of Food Regulation, click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=1601).

Please write to divestgovernment_food@gmail.com to indicate your interest in this special, life-saving campaign. We are planning a webinar on the topic and would like to keep you informed. Your email information will not be shared with anyone else and will be kept confidential by the Natural Solutions Foundation, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org. Please indicate “Divest” in the subject line and we will notify you when the webinar will take place.

Campaigns like this are costly. All donations to the Natural Solutions Foundation are tax deductible and an astonishing 100% of all donations goes directly to the work of the Natural Solutions Foundation since all overhead is donated and the Trustees take no salaries. Click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=189) to give generously to help us help you by mounting an effective campaign to divest the US Government of its food regulatory authority and returning it to the People so that we can prevent the gross disregard for our well being, and the nightmarish destruction of our food and our health which the US regulatory structure allows.

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.ValleyoftheMooncoffee.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
www.

Worldwide team set to develop plant-based livestock vaccines
Written by Lautaro Vargas
Wednesday, 28 January 2009

DEVASTATING: A ruptured oral vesicle in a cow with foot and mouth disease
DEVASTATING: A ruptured oral vesicle in a cow with foot and mouth disease
Norwich based scientists are heading up an international collaboration that aims to develop plant-based vaccines for some of the most devastating diseases to afflict the world’s livestock.

Avian flu, foot and mouth disease and blue tongue are just some of the diseases targeted under the EU-funded project, led by Prof George Lomonossoff of the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norfolk and backed by further participation from teams in Russia and South Africa.

Using a new system that lowers the time required to conduct the experiments from months to weeks, plants will be stimulated into producing specific proteins, which can subsequently be assessed for their value as vaccines.

It is the time taken for production of these proteins that has been accelerated, which means that large-scale screening for candidate vaccines is now within reach.

The partners say they have now shown that plant-based vaccines production and assessment is possible, and safe.

Professor Konstantin Skryabin, coordinator of the Russian laboratories for the PLAPROVA (Plant Produced Vaccines) project, said the development of new techniques for expression of vaccine proteins in plants is a very important topic for Russia.

He said: “Russian scientists have already obtained promising results and international collaboration in this field will contribute to the success of plant-based systems.”

PLAPROVA will utilise transient expression techniques to temporarily stimulate plants into over-producing proteins, which can subsequently be assessed for their value as vaccines.

Though plants have been used to produce pharmaceuticals in this way before, technical constraints have prevented their value from being fully realised.

The group say a few candidates with proven vaccine ability have been produced and, although these proteins are effective at preventing disease, they have limited commercial use as they are in competition with existing conventional products. They have, however, shown that plant-based vaccines production and assessment is possible and safe.

Initially, the consortium will concentrate on diseases of importance to farming in both the EU and Russia, which includes avian influenza, blue tongue, foot and mouth disease and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.

Proteins identified through this screening programme will be developed for large-scale production and ultimately low-cost production of effective vaccines.

Overall project coordinator Prof Lomonossoff, said: “The consortium brings together the leading laboratories from the EU, Russia and South Africa working to produce useful proteins from plants, and this international cooperation is central to the success of the project in battling diseases that affect us all.”
http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/2009012832902/research/worldwide-team-set-to-develop-plant-based-livestock-vaccines.html

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Posted in About Codex Alimentarius, Activism, CODEX Consequences, Disinformation, Divest Governement of Food Regulation, Food Crisis, Get Involved, GMOs, International Decade of Nutrition, Medical Hazards, Miscellaneous, Organics | No Comments »

Nuking Nature

Thursday, December 4th, 2008

The Article posted below provides a glowing endorsement of another food based horror: irradiating seeds to induce mutations which change the characteristics of plants. The mutated seeds are then integrated (that means not labeled or identified) into the general crop stock and you eat their products.

You also eat the mutant proteins that mutated seeds produce, not knowing if they cause cancer, infertility, auto immune diseases, birth defects, etc., etc., etc. How big is the “etcetera”? Who knows.

Genes code for proteins. Novel genes code for novel proteins. Change one gene and you change not only what that gene does, you change the function of every gene in its vicinity. Genes are not simple, uni-function units. Their presence of absence near another gene affects what it does, too.

To understand this phenomenon, take a thick rubber band and, using a pen, place a 1/8 inch dot on one side of it. Now, holding one end between your left fingers and thumb, start twisting the top of the rubberband and continue twisting it in one direction with the fingers and thumb of the other hand. Keep twisting.

First you get a spiral. They you get a complex twist winding back on itself. Keep twisting and you get a very tightly multiply-twisted double helix upon double helix shape. You will see that the black dot is closely associated with many other parts of the original rubber band.

If the dot is a gene, the rubber band is composed of a huge number of genes and each one of them is influenced by what is present, or absent, in its neighborhood. And your life depends upon what that influence is. Literally.

Scientists often loose track of the concept of “HUBRIS”. Originally a term for a category of crime in ancient Athens, hubris is used in modern English to mean “self-confidence, superciliousness, or arrogance, often resulting in fatal retribution. Hubris also refers to the actions of those challenging the Gods or their laws resulting in their downfall.

Just because we CAN do something does not mean that we SHOULD do something and if we do that thing, we had better make sure that we understand fully what we are doing before we do it and inflict the results on humans, nature and the future.

What kind of careful, neutral, non commercial science has been carried out to make sure – very sure – that the impact of this technology are beneficial, or at least benign, over large numbers of generations? That is a critical question, wouldn’t you think? I have great fear that the answer is much the same as with GMOs – none and any independent science which questions the technology ruthlessly suppressed.

At the moment, organic, heirloom food is still worth eating. Grow your own. All it takes is a few square feet and some planning. The Natural Solutions Foundation will be inaugurating a new eNewsletter to help you do just that.

Think about food and buy from local farmers from whom you can speak with to determine what seed, what fertilizer and what soil amendments, what seeds and what pest control they use. If the name of any of their products has more than 3 syllables (ask to read the labels), go find another farmer.

Food production is perhaps the defining issue of our times. You, and I, will live and die by it.

Because of its central important to health and health freedom, the Natural Solutions Foundation, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org, www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org, has created the International Decade of Nutrition, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org, to help us all, farmer and non-farmer alike, take back the production of food from the corporations, national and transnational organizations which are determined, for one reason or another, to force feed us industrial toxins.

And, out of this concern, we are creating the Valley of the Moon Eco Demonstration Project, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org, in Panama. This comprehensive health freedom project, unlike any other health freedom initiative, will include intensive agriculture seminars and hands on practice for non farmers and a Zero Emission, BeyondOrganc, Bio Dynamic(TM) farm and farm school. Some of us will live there full time, some of us will come to participate for a period of time in the training programs as teachers and as students.
Some will come for the healing and natural medical center’s offerings, some will come for the retreats and seminars, some for the opportunity to live for a time in the glorious Panamanian Chiriqui Highlands.

The requirement to take back the production of foods and support a “culture of agriculture” is essential to our continued ability to survive on the planet.

The article below says that we need to support a culture of agriculture. That is the only thing with which I agree in the entire article. Read it and take action to reclaim YOUR food in order to protect your health now.

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv


DEVELOPMENT: New Food Must Go Nuclear
By Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Dec 2 (IPS) – Better crops on the one hand, and nuclear power on the other might be, you would think, at extreme ends of the technological, and for some, even the moral spectrum. But it could be time to make agriculture more nuclear.

A lot of it is, already. Hundreds of millions of hectares of cultivation around the world is already nuclear assisted. And this technology goes back all of 80 years. Now the world needs this as never before, nuclear and agricultural scientists say.

“Currently there are over 3,000 officially released crop varieties that have involved radiation induced mutations, and over 100 countries routinely make use of this technology, which is one of their favourite strategies for crop improvement,” Chikelu Mba, head of the plant breeding unit at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told IPS in an interview in London. The IAEA is promoting use of nuclear techniques for new crop mutations jointly with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

“These crops, grown all over the world, now form an integral part of our daily diet. They are raw materials in industries, and give countries billions of dollars in additional income for farmers.”

Essentially, the technique treats seeds with x-rays and gamma rays to produce new mutations of crops that are better resistant to difficult conditions and changing climate. Nature would of itself produce new mutations of crops to adapt to changing conditions, but only in time, and a long time at that. But this technique can speed up that change dramatically, here and now.

“Once seeds have been irradiated, the seedlings are integrated into normal crop breeding procedures of the countries,” says Mba. “Compared to any other technology you could think about, this is cheap, cost effective, robust, environmentally friendly, and based on results. It is proven, and it is applicable anywhere in the world.”

But a frightening thought, nevertheless, to think of a meal made possible by something nuclear. And the thought raises the ghost of genetically modified (GM) crops, that this could be another, and far bigger instance of misusing science to fool around with nature.

Mba says the world can rest — and eat — assured.

“There is nothing that can be produced through radiation induced mutation that is not within the spectrum of possibilities of what nature can bring out in that crop, given sufficient space and time. All radiation induced mutation is doing is to facilitate a naturally occurring phenomenon.” And there is no residual radiation left in a plant after the mutation induction, he says.

Dinner can include a newly developed strain of rice using nuclear induced mutation, but the ingredients in the rice preparation will not be nuclear.

This technology can be critical in addressing world hunger and food security, the IAEA says. It leads to plant varieties that are not just high yielding but adapt to harsh climate conditions and are resistant to certain diseases and insect pests. “The IAEA is urging a revival of nuclear crop breeding technologies to help tackle world hunger,” IAEA director general Dr Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement. He has asked for allocation of more resources around the world for use and development of this technology.

The IAEA and the FAO together say that in addition to 850 million people worldwide already going hungry, a million more are being pushed below the one-dollar-a-day poverty level. Increased use of this new technology can improve health and livelihood, they say.

In Japan, the Institute of Radiation Breeding has figured that crops developed with radiation induced mutations have yielded 62 billion dollars in returns, for an investment of 69 million dollars between 1959 and 2001. That amounts to a 900 fold return. In Pakistan, use of the technique quadrupled cotton production in ten years. China and the U.S. are the other countries where the technology is in widespread use.

But the technology has still not been used as widely as it ought to be, scientists say. “In 1928 it was found that x-rays would change the blueprint of plants in a manner in which that which is hidden can become obvious and be used to create new crop varieties,” says Mba. And it was in 1964 that the IAEA and the FAO came together and set up a joint programme for using nuclear techniques in food and agriculture to “mimic nature.” Now, he says, given the recent agricultural shocks, “we can no longer wait for chance discoveries to give us new crop varieties.”

The IAEA, he said, is calling the attention of the world to the looming threat of global climate change and variation. “This year, prices of all basic foodstuff went to their highest level in the past 50 years, and this situation is only going to get worse,” Mba says.

“The countries most at risk are their developing countries, with their fragile ecosystems, with their agriculture that is rudimentary, no effective irrigation, where farmers do not have enough resources to buy fertilisers. So when the environment changes so much, there will not be enough resilience in the crops to withstand these new conditions.”

The IAEA, he said, is “calling for a revival of culture, if you may, of supporting agriculture.” (END/2008)
COMMENT:

An expert I know [not further identified by the author – Dr. Rima] commented as follows when asked; ” What proportion of crops are already in circulation influenced by this
technology?”
An EXTREMELY tiny proportion were generated via “nuclear breeding.” Maybe or
two veggie varieties. “Nuclear breeding” was a fad in the 60’s but it failed
to yield anything very relevant or useful. Almost all breeding is not
dependent on generating additional genetic diversity by use of mutagenesis,
but by making use of the existing genetic diversity within the genepool of a
given species. There is sufficient diversity to address virtually any need,
because the genepool of any given species contains the capacity of the
species to adapt to and deal with essentially every condition, stress,
challenge with which the species and its predecessors have been confronted
since the beginning of time (yes some diversity and capabilities are lost
over time, but there is still a HUGE range of capabilities there). Breeders
develop selection schemes for identifying these pre-existing traits and
thereby make use of nature’s existing capabilities (virtually ALL
POSSIBILITIES!).
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44952

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Posted in Activism, Food Crisis, Get Involved, GMOs, Medical Hazards, Miscellaneous, Organics, Valley of the Moon | No Comments »

The Famine of 2009?

Monday, December 1st, 2008

The article that follows is profoundly disturbing because it is well reasoned and very hard to refute. I cannot say with certainty that a famine will hit the US in 2009 but, after reading this article, I am hard put to come up with reason why it will not.

The solution is simple: a revisit to the World War II Victory Garden idea. Whether you live in an urban apartment without a terrace or a suburban community with a back yard, or anything in between, you have the ability to use tubs of earth with a grow light, plant a 4 foot square piece of land, create a community garden or otherwise Gerry rig a small vegetable farm which, properly managed, will allow you to to grow enough vegetables for your family, indoors or out, for a family of four.

Larger family, more buckets of soil or square feet of land. Smaller family? Give some food to the disabled, the elderly or the disadvantaged in your town.

This is a potent heads-up and the time is now.

The Natural Solutions Foundation will be publishing a subscription-based Intensive Gardening and Food Production newsletter. If you would like to write a column for this newsletter please contact the Natural Solutions Foundation by sending an email to dr.laibow@gmail.com with “Food” in the subject line.

In the next couple of issues of the Health Freedom eAlerts we will be announcing the new Newsletter and letting you know how you can subscribe to it.

Can this impending food shortage in the breadbasket nation of the United States be an accident, an act of God, a combination of unfortunate events or is this an intentional manipulation of the food system to make sure that the remaining farmers are driven off the land to make room for the total domination of the industrialized food supply and the mega-corporations who profit from it? I do not know the answer. I have my deep suspicions, but no conclusive data right now.

However, the answer does not matter right now. If there is a famine headed our way, we must prepare for it now. Not next week, not when the famine hits, but now. Every one of us needs to think about how s/he can lay in stores of needed supplies which cannot be home produced and how to start the process of home food production while there is lead time left.

Now would be a good time to begin thinking seriously about how to get started growing your own clean, unadulterated, non-GMO food in your own apartment, yard or community. There really is not a lot of time left to get ready if this article is correct.

Reclaiming food production is a central theme of the Natural Solutions Foundation International Decade of Nutrition (IDN), www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org. The IDN project to teach farmers how to grow healthful food for their communities and themselves (that’s you) is taking shape in the Chir

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv

The Famine of 2009

HOLLY NOTE
Weather, as we have warned for the past year has taken a terrible
toll on crops. Floods, hail and tornadoes hammered America’s breadbasket.
Drought is killing California’s huge agriculture belt and hitting crops in the
Southeast this year. Decimated bee populations added to crop decline. Grain
reserves are non-existent. Compounding matters, fuel, seed and equipment have
all risen sharply in recent years.Daily news address rampant concerns over
rice, wheat, corn and soybean shortages. And now food rationing and hoarding
is creeping into reality…Riots and food protests have already hit many
nations: South Africa, Pakistan, Lebanon, Gaza, Kenya, Nicaragua, Mexico,
Bahrain, the Emirates, Italy, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt in addition to Haiti,
Cameroon, Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Bolivia, Peru, Thailand,
Somali, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Uzbekistan, Yemen, India, and the Philippines.
After the Mexican tortillas riots last year, corn tortillas prices rose
another 18%.Despite lower fuel prices at the pump, food prices are expected to
rise in 2009.With food shortages threatening to become the biggest crisis of
the 21st century, you can bet food riots are coming to America. In fact, top
trend forecaster, Gerald Celente, warns on coming US food riots.Stock up now –
buy in bulk – and pack for long-term storage grain products, flour, rice,
beans, powdered milk and any other foods you regularly consume. The longer you
delay, prices are only going to escalate, your options will dwindle, along
with selection. Please do this before your options close.When reading news
articles, it is our hope you’ll read beyond the headlines and hear the
unspoken message – a quiet urging to prepare.

November 27, 2008By Neal RauhauserDaily KosLast week I received a very
concerned call from South Dakota farmer and agronomist Bryan Lutter. “Neal,
we’re out of propane!” I figured this was personal distress – he and his
family farm over three square miles of land and I know this has been a tough
year for many people. He promptly corrected my misconception when I tried to
console him. “No, everybody is out, all three grain elevators, we can’t get
fuel for the bins, and we’re coming in real wet this year.”There are equally
dramatic issues due to the bankruptcy of Verasun and the apparent insolvency
of the nation’s largest private crop insurance program. Payments that would
have come in June or July of a normal year are still not dispersed at the end
of November and this has grim implications for next year’s crop.I started
digging into the details and unless I’m badly mistaken people are going to be
starving in 2009 over causes and conditions being set down right now. It’s a
complex, interlocking issue, and I hope I’ve done a good job explaining it
below the fold …(I just submitted my personal story and a vision for the
nation at change.gov – I sure hope someone is listening over there.)The
Dakotas have faced fuel restrictions for at least the last two years. They’re
at the far end of the pipeline network and after complete outages in 2007
everyone orders their diesel well in advance. Vehicle tanks are kept fuller
and the on farm tanks are not allowed to run low. Gasoline supply dynamics
have changed as well; British Petroleum shuttered three hundred stations in
the area, citing the high cost of trucking fuel to the locations from the
pipeline terminals. This year propane is in short supply. Rural homes in that
part of the world are heated with propane and the grain elevator and on farm
drying require it to bring corn moisture down for storage. There is no sense
that homes will go cold this year, at least not due to supply issues; the
grain drying season is a short period of intense usage that will draw to an
end within the next week. Pray to whatever higher power you recognize that the
unheard of figure of 18% of the crop still in the field is brought in before
the snow flies.The Dakotas were very wet this year and the corn is coming in
at 22% moisture. A more usual number would be 18% and for long term storage it
must be dried to 14% to avoid spoilage. That doubling in the moisture
reduction needed, an 8% drop instead of 4%, pretty much doubles the amount of
propane used. Right now the harvest is at a dead stop. What can be dried has
been and what is left can’t even be combined without the fuel to make it ready
for storage; it would all just spoil in the bin if put up wet.I wondered if
this was a spot problem in that particular part of South Dakota, but Bryan
said it was widespread – he’d talked to farmers as far away as St. Louis and
they were reporting similar issues.I made a few calls to try to figure out how
broad the problem was. I ended up talking to Rollin Tiefenthaler at fuel
dealer Al’s Corner in Carroll, Iowa about the issue.The Iowa crop comes
matures earlier and is brought in earlier, so that is done, but he confirms
that propane is being trucked long distances because local terminals have
outages. They did have one farmer’s cooperative run out of propane and they
scrambled to get them enough, but in general it wasn’t a problem. These are
plains cooperatives, operations with thirty employees, dozens of vehicles, and
tens of millions of dollars in inventory and commodities under management, so
one running out of fuel is a problem that would affect a whole county.Diesel
has been a bigger concern for them – instead of the thirty mile drive to the
Magellan pipeline terminal in Milford they’re running as far as Des Moines or
Omaha, each about two hours away, and the added time and cost for running more
trucks is eating them alive.The die has already been cast in the Dakotas,
they’ll either get the crop in or they won’t. If they don’t and it winters in
the field they not only lose 40% of the yield on that ground they lose 20% of
next year’s yield in soy beans. The corn makes an excellent snow fence,
trapping drifts six feet high, and they’re slow to clear in the spring. The
farmers have to wait until it’s dry enough to plant before they can finish
bringing in the corn crop, then they plant their soy, and that delay cuts into
the growing degree days available for the soy beans and thusly we see the
yield drop.A few of you might not be from farm state and thusly won’t know the
normal work flow. The corn crop is still partially in the field, but the soy
beans are already done. Soy matures and dries earlier, so it gets tended
first. There would never been an instance of soy being left to overwinter just
based on crop timing and I don’t think the small, thin stocks with relatively
fragile pods would prove to be terribly durable under snow banks.I wrote
earlier about the famine potential we face due to the underfertilization of
the wheat crop. Wheat that gets enough ammonia is 14% protein, if it is
unfertilized closer to 8%, and that 43% reduction in total plant protein is
going to cause unimaginable suffering in places like Egypt, where half of the
population gets subsidized bread. Global end of season per capita wheat stocks
have been about seventy pounds my entire life, except the last three years
where they’ve dropped to only forty pounds. One mistake in this area and one
of the four horsemen gets loose, certainly dragging his brothers along behind.
That mistake may already have been made in the lack of wheat fertilization
this fall.The fall nitrogen fertilizer application has been 10% of the norm. A
typical year would see 50% put on in the fall and 50% in the spring. During
fertilizer application season the 3,100 mile national ammonia pipeline network
runs flat out and the far points on the network experience low flow both fall
and spring. If they try to jam 90% of the fertilization into a period of time
when the system can only flow a little more than half of the need much of our
cropland will go without in the spring of 2009.Finances as much as weather are
the issue with regards to fertilization this fall. Crop prices have fallen to
half of what they were, ammonia prices have dropped but ammonia suppliers
here, receiving 75% of their supply from overseas, still have product in their
storage tanks purchase at the historical highs last spring and summer.When
farmers plant they record the acreage and they purchase crop insurance – $20
to $40 an acre depending on the crop. If they have a failure they file a
claim, an adjustor contacts them, and they get a check to cover the deficit.
Some of this runs through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and some of it is
through private insurers.My conversations with farmers earlier this week lead
me to believe that the largest private insurer, Des Moines Iowa’s Rain and
Hail Agricultural Insurance may be insolvent. Flooding claims from this spring
were filed and payments would have typically been received by the end of June
or beginning of July. It’s now the end of November and payments are not being
dispersed. Individual farmers are told there was something wrong with their
paperwork, but this is nonsense – some of these guys have been farming
thirty years and they all didn’t forget how to fill out a simple form all at
the same time. Iowa did have its second five hundred year flood in a decade
and a half this spring which certainly has something to do with the situation,
but I suspect Wall Street’s sticky fingers got hold of Rain & Hail’s assets,
just as they’ve done to every pension fund and state run municipal investment
pool.So, we’re already facing what Bryan Lutter calls “the mother of all
fertilizer shortages” next spring and on top of that local banks won’t lend to
farmers.The local bank was quite willing to lend to a farmer on a crop despite
the weather related risks just like they’d lend on a car despite the driving
risks. So long as the asset was insured the risk was deemed manageable. There
were sure to be losses here and there, but they’d be administrative hassles
associated with well known risks. If the auto insurance companies were viewed
as untrustworthy no one would be getting a car without 100% down at the
dealership and the same rule is now in effect for farmers.Farmers without
financing can’t afford nitrogen fertilizer at $1,000 a ton, which translates
to $100 an acre at current application rates. They won’t be paying $300 for a
bag of 80,000 hybrid corn kernels, again a $100 per acre expense. The average
farm size in Iowa is four hundred acres and planting to harvesting would run
about $120,000.This looks incredibly bad. Bryan and I are both puzzled as to
why the mainstream media isn’t covering this. Perhaps the need to sell
Christmas season advertising trumps the need for the public to know about the
troubles that are brewing.This is already 1,600 words and I haven’t even
touched Verasun. Executive summary? The nation’s second largest ethanol maker
took corn from farmers, went bankrupt without paying many of them, and a whole
lot of family farms are going to be foreclosed upon in short order if
something isn’t done.

http://standeyo.com/NEWS/08_Food_Water/081128.famine.2009.html

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Posted in Activism, Food Crisis, Get Involved, Miscellaneous, Organics | No Comments »

Natural Solutions International Peace Research Institute

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

The Trustees of the Foundation take great pleasure in announcing the establishment of a private association, NGO, the International Peace Research Institute. The purpose of the institute is to further the intention expressed through our International Decade of Nutrition, “to discover, develop, demonstrate and disseminate Natural Solutions for achieving and maintaining World Peace…”

The text of the establishing Resolution is reproduced below.

The initial President of the Institute is Maj. Gen. Bert Stubblebine (USA ret). Dr. Rima E. Laibow is the Director of the Institute and Ralph Fucetola JD is its Secretary.

The first public act of the Institute was to deliver a statement on Health, Peace and Honest Money to the “End the Fed” Rally at the Federal Reserve Building, New York City, on November 22, 2008.

“War is bad for your health. Unstable money systems are the tool of those who generate wars for their own financial health. Health freedom implies the freedom to live free from the threat of engineered wars to enrich the few and kill and subjugate the many. It also implies the right to earn enough real money to support the health and well being of your body, your family, your community and your world.”

You can see the entire message at:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=1462

And a video of the Rally at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9PSETSdTgw

————————————————
Resolution Establishing
The Private Association of the
Natural Solutions
International Peace Research Institute

This Resolution is adopted under authority of the Natural Solutions Foundation, duly filed as a non-profit private interest entity in the Republic of Panama on December 11, 2007 (Escritura No. 16996) in cooperation with the Natural Solutions Foundation, a not for profit Nevada corporation recognized as exempt in the United States.

1. Establishment. The Trustees of the Foundation do hereby establish a private, international non-governmental Association known as the Natural Solutions Foundation International Peace Research Institute, herein, the Institute. The juridical location of the Institute shall be in Chiriqui Province of the Republic of Panama or wherever the Trustees shall from time to time determine by written Resolution. It is a Foundation integrated auxiliary.

2. Mission. A. The Institute is established exclusively for charitable, educational, literary and scientific research purposes. The Primary Goal of the Institute, as a private international association, is to discover, develop, demonstrate and disseminate Natural Solutions for achieving and maintaining World Peace in conjunction with the overall Mission of the Foundation. In accordance with Escritura No. 16996, the “Foundation is constituted with the purpose to promote, develop and execute projects with charitable purposes in Panama and in other countries around the world.”

3. Participants. Appropriate persons or other entities may be invited by the Trustees to participate in the Institute as Benefactors, Participants, Advisers or Associates under this Resolution (in general, the Associates of the Institute). Voting rights in the Institute are restricted as provided herein.

4. Governance. A. The Governing Structures of the Institute are: (1) the Foundation Trustees to exercise overall oversight over the general programs and policies of the Institute and to appoint and remove the Associates of the Institute, Members of the Council and the Officers thereof, (2) the Officers of the Institute and (3) the Institute Council to advise the Trustees and Officers on Institute matters. The Council shall act by signed, dated, written Resolutions or Rules consistent with this Resolution, by absolute majority, with the consent of the Trustees who retain a veto over Officer and Council actions, and in the event of deadlock, the Trustees are empowered to act on behalf of the Institute.

B. The Foundation, in accordance with the provisions of the Escritura, does not affiliate with any political or religious organization. The Institute shall not restrict non-violent and individually respectful political and religious expression and permits religious organizations whose beliefs are compatible with the Mission of the Institute to associate and participate with the Institute, upon approval of the Trustees.

5. Officers. The Director of the Institute is the Chief Executive Officer and supervisor of the Institute and shall preside over its Officers, Council and activities, under Resolutions or Rules adopted by the Council that are not inconsistent with this Resolution. The Director and such Assistant Directors and Associate Directors as the Council may determine shall be appointed, and are removable by the Trustees.

6. Authority. The Governing Structure, or their duly appointed successors and agents, shall have full and absolute power, control and authority over the activities and property of the Institute, subject only to the limitations expressly stated in this Resolution and the Escritura, including those expressed herein, and to do following:

(1) To purchase, lease or otherwise acquire real or other property, and to conserve or improve, or to sell, exchange, lease, mortgage, grant easements, pledge, or in any manner dispose of, encumber, improve or deal with the property of the Institute or any part thereof or any interest therein, upon such terms and for such consideration as they deem proper (by Resolutions or Rules of the Council, with the consent of the Director and Trustees;

(2) to incur indebtedness, borrow, or lend money with or without security; enter into contracts of all kinds; execute, accept, discount, negotiate and deal in commercial paper, evidence of indebtedness and securities or options of all types whatsoever; to purchase or otherwise acquire gold, silver, precious materials and objects of all types; and execute conveyances, mortgages, security agreements, leases, and any other instruments, all on behalf of the Institute only (by Resolutions or Rules of the Council, with the consent of the Director and Trustees;

(3) to compromise or settle any suits, claims or demands, or waive any rights relating to the property of the Institute (by Resolutions or Rules of the Council with the consent of the Director and Trustees;;

(4) to appoint officers, agents, attorneys, brokers, accountants, ministers, and servants, providing the same (where appropriate) reasonable allowances, fees, commissions, salaries and expenses, as well as paying professional and other proper expenses (and to suspend any appointee, or terminate any appointee for cause) (by the Director under Resolutions or Rules of the Council);

(5) to sue, prosecute and defend any and all actions in Courts of Law or Equity and before Arbitration Tribunals, or elsewhere, affecting the Institute or its property (by the Director with the consent of the Trustees;);

(6) to incorporate the Institute in such jurisdiction(s) as may be convenient and necessary for the proper functioning of the Institute (by Resolutions or Rules of the Council with the consent of the Director and Trustees);

(7) to carry-on the International Peace Research activities of the Institute internationally and to present, as an NGO, its concerns to individuals, groups and organizations throughout the world (by Resolutions or Rules of the Foundation Council with the consent of the Director and Trustees;);

7. Limitations. Insofar as any of the activities of the Foundation is subject to United States jurisdiction, the following limitations, numbered 1 through 5 shall apply to those activities of the Foundation. Insofar as the Foundation or Institute is subject to Panama jurisdiction, the following limitations, numbered 6 through 7 shall apply. Insofar as the laws of other jurisdictions, including international law, provide for similar restrictions to qualify as a non-governmental organization (NGO) under United Nations or other auspices, such similar restrictions, or other requirements, as may be required, may be adopted by Resolution of the Council, approved by the Trustees.

(1) The Foundation shall carry on no activities not permitted to be carried on [1] by a body exempt from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (or the corresponding provision of any future United States internal revenue law) or [2] by a body, contributions to which are deductible under section 170(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code (or the corresponding provision of any future United States internal revenue law).

(2) No substantial part of the activities of the Institute shall be carrying on propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, or participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf or any candidate for political office or public office.

(3) In the event of dissolution, all of the remaining assets and property of the Institute shall, after necessary expenses, thereof, be distributed to such organizations as shall qualify under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (or the corresponding provision of any future United States internal revenue law), and the purposes of which are compatible with the purposes of the Institute.

(4) No part of the income of the Institute shall inure to the private benefit of any member, advisor, or official, or any private individual (except reasonable compensation for services to or for the Institute) and no adviser or official of the Institute, or any private individual, shall be entitled to share in the distribution of the assets on dissolution.

(5) In determining compensation, if any, for officers and trustees, the Institute shall approve compensation arrangements, follow a conflict of interest policy, approve compensation arrangements in advance of paying compensation and document in writing the date and terms of approved compensation arrangements, record in writing the decision made by each individual who decided or voted on compensation arrangements, approve compensation arrangements based on information about compensation paid by similarly situated taxable or tax-exempt organizations for similar services, current compensation surveys compiled by independent firms, or actual written offers from similarly situated organizations, and record in writing both the information on which you relied to base your decision and its source. Furthermore, the Board shall adopt a standard Conflict of Interest Policy.

(6) “The Foundation is a nonprofit private interest entity, without any affiliation [“adscripcion” = “ascription”] to any political or religious organization. Nevertheless, it may carry out mercantile activities in a non-customary manner, or exercise the rights coming from the titles representing the capital of mercantile corporations that are from the foundation’s patrimony as far of the results of such economic activities are exclusively done for the purposes of the foundation.”

(7) This Resolution is subject to all other limitations and provisions of Escriura No. 16996.

8. Amendment. This Resolution may be amended only upon a written Resolution proposed by any Officer, adopted by the Council, with the consent of all the Trustees.

9. Arbitration and Mediation; Law. All disputes arising under, or involving the meaning of this Resolution and Resolutions or Rules of the Council, or among the Associates of the Institute, including the trustees, benefactors, participants, associates, directors, council members, officers, advisors, homestead heirs, the Institute and its agencies, shall be settled by mediation and binding arbitration. Any such dispute may be referred by any party for binding arbitration pursuant to the Rules then in effect, and under the auspices of the International Chambers of Commerce (as near the location of the occurrence as possible), or such other arbitrator to which the parties may agree.

C. Any arbitration decision may be enforced in any tribunal of competent jurisdiction.

D. In general, the Directors, Officers, Council and agents of the Institute shall seek advice and consult with the Trustees and Participants, Advisors or Associates about matters affecting them, seeking to reach consensus wherever possible.

E. General principles of right and justice, with this Resolution, are the primary source of the law of this private contract among the persons mentioned herein. The law of the Republic of Panama or other competent jurisdiction, where not inconsistent, shall also govern.

F. All Associates of the Institute pledge to act honestly, honorably and in good faith toward the Institute and the other Associates of the Institute, without unreasonably withholding required consents and without unreasonable delay. The autonomy, human rights and property (including Intellectual Property) of each participant is inviolate.

Unanimously adopted by the Trustees as of the 22nd day of November, 2008.

Posted in Activism, Declaration of Health Independence, Food Crisis, Get Involved, International Cooperation, International Decade of Nutrition, Legislation to Support | No Comments »

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