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POPSStockholm Syndrome: Swedes Held Hostage to CO2 Terrorism Next year, KRAV, Scandinavia’s main organic certification program, will start requiring farmers to convert to low-emissions techniques if they want to display its coveted seal on products, meaning that most greenhouse tomatoes can no longer be called organic. Those standards have stirred some protests. “There are farmers who are happy and farmers who say they are being ruined,” said Johan Cejie, manager of climate issues for KRAV. For example, he said, farmers with high concentrations of peat soil on their property may no longer be able to grow carrots, since plowing peat releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide; to get the organic label, they may have to switch to feed crops that require no plowing.
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POPSShelf life testing is an incredible benefit for small scale food producers Shelf life testing is so important for small business food producers. With a shelf life test, you encourage trust in your product and help increase sales and repeat sales. Also, a professional test ensures safety and nutritional quality. It's a smart idea if you produce canned foods or sell prepared food at a farmers market.
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POPSFarmers Arrested Planting Hemp on DEA Headquarters Lawn Hemp is not a drug and has no capacity to get someone stoned. Currently eight states -- Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia -- allow industrial hemp production or research, but federal law, which requires nearly-impossible-to-obtain-permits to grow hemp, trumps those state laws. A bill introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) would allow states to craft their own policies. Some facts from North American Industrial Hemp Council: Hemp has been grown for at least the last 12,000 years for fiber (textiles and paper) and food. Hemp oil once greased machines. Most paints, resins, shellacs, and varnishes used to be made out of linseed (from flax) and hemp oils. Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on hemp oil The products that can be made from hemp number over 25,000.
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POPSWhere they grow our junk food It has provided an abundance of cheap calories for a food system that operates by Doritos economics. A bushel of corn produces some 440 two-ounce bags of 99-cent chips. Farmer grosses $3.70 for the bushel of corn, Doritos more than $440.
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POPSWH Science Czar John Holdren: Ice Age Will Kill 1 Billion
Holdren and Ehrlich had previously articulated the theory in their 1973 textbook "Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions" in which they argued on page 198 that the main effect of carbon-dioxide-induced global warming "might be to speed up circulation patterns and to bring arctic cold farther south and Antarctic cold farther north." On page 377, the authors returned to their constant theme: The only way to control a foreseen increasing global food crisis was to control population. Noting that a 1967 presidential science advisory commission had concluded that the solution to the "world food problem" likely after 1985 "demands that programs of population control be initiated now." (Emphasis in original text.) Commenting on the conclusions of the 1967 presidential advisory report, the authors wrote, "We emphatically agreed then, and the situation is even more urgent today." A controversial report released earlier this month by the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO,
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POPSMilking the Consumer Hettinga, who ran a big business and was no political innocent, fought back with his own lobbyists and alliances with lawmakers. But he found he was no match for the dairy lobby. "I had an awakening," the 64-year-old Dutch-born dairyman said. "It's not totally free enterprise in the United States." Most U.S. dairy farmers work within a government system set up in the 1930s to give thousands of small dairies a guaranteed market for their milk and to even out prices for consumers. Farmers who participate in regional pools operated by the federal government or the states deliver raw milk to cooperatives or food processors. They get a guaranteed price, whether the milk ends up in a gallon jug, cheese, butter or ice cream. In Arizona and other federally regulated regions, the Agriculture Department uses a formula to set the price processors pay for raw milk, issuing "milk marketing orders."
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POPSBiosolids testing used to check fertilizers that grow your food Fertilizer is often made from ingredients including the by-product waste from utility sewage systems, lagoons, and other sources, often called "sludge." Biosolids testing ensures quality which is is highly regulated by government at all levels. This testing checks for contamination of the fertilizers that often grow your food.
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POPSAsylum for those who push GM food and us from them GM food sounds so attractive until you think about this: Is Monsanto, Bayer, or whomever big corp thinking first about 1. their profit; 2. people's health; 3. dangers to the environment; 4. making crops and farmers more susceptible to crop collapse due to unforeseen or unintended consequences. Who did not vote for #1 as their first priority? What works best for profit is to plant all the same crop - right. What works best for a new insect, fungus, or bacteria - humans plant all the same crop.
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POPSNorman Borlaug: 'The Man Who Saved The World' more ( at source): Yet his work had a far-reaching impact on the lives of millions of people in developing countries. His breeding of high-yielding crop varieties helped to avert mass famines that were widely predicted in the 1960s, altering the course of history. Largely because of his work, countries that had been food deficient, like Mexico and India, became self-sufficient in producing cereal grains. “More than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world,” the Nobel committee said in presenting him with the Peace Prize. “We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace.”
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POPSThe Green Revolution wasn’t green enough What really drives the Green Revolution is profits for oil and chemical companies which is why it is so hard to stop. If cattle are fed on pasture, no money is need for buying, producing and transporting corn, it stays with the farmer.
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POPSFood Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us
I don’t think anyone disagrees that a single corporation can be more efficient than several smaller companies. However, when it comes to food production, bigger is not better. I am not a big fan of mega-corporations, I think they lose touch with consumers and this leads to them doing whatever they think is most financially beneficial to themselves without regard to their customers desires. It’s the old ‘too big to fail’ mentality. This loss of connection, along with us losing (giving up) our knowledge of how to grow our own food, is contributing to our poor diets and as a result our poor health. ‘Big Food’ produces more convenience foods, typically cheap and fatty, because it is cheaper for them to produce and because we buy it. In order for us to loosen the grip that ‘Big Food’ has on us and to regain our sense of self-sustainability, we are going to need a major shift in our commitment to our health and re-learning how to grow our own food is how this is going to happen.
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POPSHealthy eaters putting wild fish stocks at risk In order for fish to properly produce the desired omega-3 fatty acids they need to eat other wild fish. Raising fish in farms, essentially hand feeding them, does not allow fish to produce the desired healthy properties for which fish are valued. Herbaceous fish, such as tilapia, carp and trout are fed fishmeal and oil solely to increase their yields. These fish are beneficial to humans without the further depletion of wild fish. So what you say? This practice places an unnecessary strain on already over fished wildlife and unfavorably affects the price of fish. Farm fish do not taste as good as wild fish, they are not as healthy for us as wild fish and they are endangering wild fish habits wherever farm fisheries are built. This article on Salmon fisheries should get your attention: http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/news/148
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POPSFarm Factory Food: Chicks being ground up alive. Hy-Line said the video "appears to show an inappropriate action and violation of our animal welfare policies," referring to chicks on the factory floor. But the company also noted that "instantaneous euthanasia" – a reference to killing of male chicks by the grinder – is a standard practice supported by the animal veterinary and scientific community. Story continues below According to Mercy for Animals, male chicks are of no use to the industry because they can't lay eggs and don't grow large or quickly enough to be raised profitably for meat. That results in the killing of 200 million male chicks a year. Hy-Line says on its Web site that its Iowa facility produces 33.4 million chicks. Based on that figure, Mercy for Animals estimates a similar number of male chicks are killed at the facility each year.
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POPSKali-Fornia Garage Sale Today! It's about time they sale everything out! Makes you wonder what is left hiding in some dark warehouse, bags of cash, dope, or another politicians "dirty little secrets", aka John Edwards.
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POPSMillions in Nepal facing hunger as climate changes Oxfam recommended in its report that the government and international organizations intervene to ease food shortages in hill and mountain districts and provide assistance during the upcoming planting season. The government should encourage farmers to try new crop varieties and improve water management, and it should integrate climate change strategies into government planning. Ang Dawa, a member of a parliamentary committee tackling climate change, said its effects were already prevalent in Nepal, especially in the mountainous north. She said her village in the foothills of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, was covered in several feet (dozens of centimeters) of snow during the winter when she was a child, but now there is hardly any snow.