Is Recession Preparing a New Breed of Survivalist? [Survival Today

Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases along to the consumer. A recent stroll through the camping section of Wal-Mart did give me pause - what kinds of things are prudent to have on hand in the event of a worldwide shortage of food and/or fuel? Survivalist in Training

I’ve been interested in survival stories since I was a kid, which is funny considering I grew up in a city. Maybe that’s why the idea of living off the land appealed to me. My grandfather and I frequently took camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and around the Smoky Mountains. Looking back, some of the best times we had were when we stayed at campgrounds without electricity hookups, because it forced us to use what we had to get by. My grandfather was well-prepared with a camp stove and lanterns (which ran off propane), and when the sun went to bed we usually did along with it. We played cards for entertainment, and in the absence of televisions, games, etc. we shared many great conversations. Survivalist in the Neighborhood

Fedco Seeds: The David to Monsanto’s Goliath

Garden Gold lists over 100 suppliers where you can still buy open-pollinated, non-hybrid seeds. Don’t miss out on this valuable resource!

March 24, 2009
Kerry
The Green Fork

Seed money for start-ups may be evaporating faster than California’s dwindling reservoirs, but this rocky economy is proving to be fertile ground for the seed industry. Cash-strapped consumers, scared by the specter of an empty fridge, are investing in the ultimate low-tech, high-yield start-up: the kitchen garden. The National Gardening Association estimates that some 43 million Americans are gearing up to grow at least some of their own food this spring.

And no wonder. As Roger Doiron, founder of Maine-based Kitchen Gardeners International, has documented, a few dozen seed packets costing $130 can yield more than two thousand dollars worth of produce over the course of the growing season. “We have a fabulous opportunity,” C.R. Lawn, the founder of another Maine mainstay, Fedco Seeds, told an audience at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture’s Farming for the Future conference last month. “The challenge is on us to come through.” Lawn, an endearingly shaggy character who looks a bit like a pale Papa Smurf, rocked gently from side to side as he spoke of the challenges that his company faced following the acquisition of Fedco’s largest seed supplier, Seminis, by monolithic Monsanto back in 2005.

Like many a diehard Fedco fan, I eagerly await their famous catalog each spring in anticipation of the wonderful, whimsical illustrations and witty seed descriptions sprinkled with fascinating tidbits of trivia and gratuitous political commentary. “We wish we were writing for the New Yorker,” Lawn confessed wistfully.

But when I opened my 2006 Fedco catalog, anticipating a breezy excursion through the season’s seed offerings, I was dismayed to find out about Fedco’s dilemma. I was vaguely aware, at the time, of Monsanto’s house of horrors: Agent Orange, DDT, rBST, Roundup, and so on. But I hadn’t realized that they were swallowing up smaller seed companies in their relentless drive to dominate the world’s food supply. In January of 2006, I wrote,:

Does it matter if most of our vegetables are brought to us courtesy of Monsanto and Dupont? I’ll admit I don’t think about this issue a whole lot myself. But when I kicked back with a stack of seed catalogs on Sunday to find out what’s new and novel in the edible landscape, I opened up the Fedco Co-op Seed Packers catalog and found a can of worms.

Fedco sells the finest hybrid and heirloom vegetable seed to farmers and home gardeners alike, offering a wide range of certified organic cultivars and regional heirloom varieties at terrific prices. A cooperative venture committed to fostering sustainable agriculture, Fedco conducts extensive trials of its seeds in order to select the best tasting, hardiest varieties with the highest germination rates.

So when Fedco’s largest seed supplier, a company called Seminis, got snapped up by Monsanto last year, Fedco was faced with a major ethical dilemma. Monsanto, king of the genetically engineered crop crowd, is anathema to the folks at Fedco, but Seminis has long provided Fedco with many of its most popular vegetable varieties, including my all-time favorite cherry tomato, a super sweet golden hybrid called Sunsugar.

Fedco, being the cooperative that it is, polled its customers: should they drop the Monsanto/Seminis seed altogether, phase it out gradually, or keep it? The majority voted to drop Monsanto like a genetically modified hot potato.

As Lawn told us at the PASA conference, Fedco has been scrambling ever since to find replacement seed varieties for the ones its customers have come to rely on. It’s been a struggle, Lawn admitted, but he has no doubt they made the right decision, and sales have doubled over the past two years.

Monsanto’s ongoing campaign to control our food chain has been well documented in a series of books, documentaries, and articles in recent years, but the vast majority of American consumers remain blissfully unaware of all the behind-the-scenes machinations Monsanto has employed in its quest to persecute–and, presumably, eliminate–the small, independent farmers who decline to buy Monsanto’s patented, genetically modified seeds, preferring instead to grow seed varieties that have been painstakingly bred for superior flavor and texture and, in many cases, passed down through generations.

These are the heirloom varieties that have been threatened with extinction since the advent of industrial agriculture, because though they may have the best flavor, they don’t ship well, or their appearance is too irregular for customers programmed to demand uniformly round tomatoes or perfect apples.

C. R. Lawn has been on the frontlines of the agri-culture wars since he founded Fedco Seeds in 1978, so the 2006 catalog was full of quotes from customers cheering his company’s decision not to do business with Monsanto:

“You don’t need to sell your soul for a Sunsugar…We’ll survive on the sweet tastiness of the moral high ground.”

But Fedco’s not only surviving; it’s thriving. Three years later, the 2009 catalog includes a brand new open-pollinated cherry tomato Fedco’s introduced by the name “WOW,” because “WOW! has been the first word out of everyone who has ever plopped one in his or her mouth.” Sadly, I missed the boat on this reportedly remarkable new variety because, well, I was too busy attending sustainable ag conferences and the like to crack open my seed catalogs.

I’m sorry I won’t be harvesting any “WOWs” this year, but thankful I had the opportunity to hear the iconic, ironic C. R. Lawn speak. With the impending publication of Robyn O’Brien’s The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food is Making Us Sick — And What We Can Do About It, and the June release of the documentary Food, Inc., mainstream America is about to get a wake-up call on just how asleep at the wheel our government’s been in allowing Monsanto to monopolize our country’s crops. Here’s to C. R. Lawn and his colleagues at Fedco for weathering the Seminis/Monsanto storm and emerging triumphant. Thanks to these savers of seeds, our nation’s rich agricultural heritage lives on.

http://blog.eatwellguide.org/2009/03/fedco-seeds-the-david-to-monsantos-goliath/

2009 Version of Victory Garden Could Sprout Success for U.S.

March 1, 2009
By Roger Doiron
Chicago Tribune

In Jerzy Kosinski’s novel and award-winning screenplay, “Being There,” the U.S. president turns to a plain-spoken gardener named Chance for wisdom at a time of economic crisis. The insight Chance offers is as simple as it is reassuring: Growth has its seasons and, as long as the roots of growth are not severed, all will be well.

President Barack Obama would be wise to add a gardener or farmer to his team of advisers. I already know what advice I’d offer if called to serve: Launch a new victory garden campaign starting with one on the White House lawn.

To some, this idea might seem too small to have an effect on anything as large as the country’s economy, environment or health-care system, but you need to dig into U.S. history a bit to grasp the idea’s full potential. The last time a victory garden was planted at the White House was by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943 when the country was at war and the economy was struggling. Roosevelt’s leadership inspired millions of Americans by giving them something tangible and meaningful they could do to make their own lives better and their country stronger.

But the victory garden movement did much more than simply lift America’s spirits. It also grew tons of healthy, affordable food (nearly 40% of the nation’s produce at its peak), encouraged millions of citizens to become more physically active, and helped conserve natural and financial resources at a time of crisis.

That season of crisis has come again, and the idea of relaunching a new homegrown movement is once again winning hearts and minds, not to mention contests. A year ago, well before anyone knew who the next “eater in chief” would be, I entered the proposal to replant a food garden at the White House in the “On Day One” contest, an online project sponsored by the United Nations Foundation to generate policy recommendations for the new administration.

To my own surprise and many others’, the proposal won first prize, beating out more than 4,000 other entries including ones by a Nobel Peace laureate and a Spice Girl. Whenever you can finish ahead of a peace star and pop star in a popularity contest, I think you’re on to something. What the idea needs now is some star power of its own, and I can’t think of anyone better than the Obamas for planting the seeds of the next victory garden movement.

Time will tell whether the First Family decides to plant the first vegetables, but I can already tell you that my first veggies are looking promising. Last fall, I planted a few rows of salad greens in a cold frame that poked their green noses out of the ground an inch or two before the cold, Maine winter sent them into a deep slumber. I recently shoveled out my cold frame and gently pulled back the blanket of mulch I had put over the greens. With the sun now rising higher in the sky and taking daytime temperatures with it, those greens are starting to wake up and begin a new season of growth.

Skeptics may read this and say that that my garden and other new ones won’t add up to much, but my findings suggest otherwise. Over the course of the last growing season, my wife and I weighed every item that came out of our garden and calculated that we grew $2,200 worth of organic fruits and vegetables, which we’re still happily eating our way through. And that’s not counting all the sweet peaches, snappy snap beans and drip-down-your-chin tomatoes that never made it as far as our kitchen scale. If you take into consideration that there are more than 50 million American households with modest yards like mine who could be making healthy, homegrown savings of their own, those are no small potatoes.

It is true that keeping a garden takes time and occasionally requires some hard work, but what worthwhile thing in life doesn’t?

Roger Doiron is the founding director of the non-profit group Kitchen Gardeners International. He lives and gardens with his wife and three sons in Scarborough, Maine.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-perspec0301gardenmar01,0,7242582.story

Why Urban Farming Isn’t Just for Foodies

Urban gardening is Empowerment for Self Reliance.

March 22, 2009
by Clive Thompson
Wired News

This year, Carol Nissen’s crops include mesclun, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, and assorted herbs. When she sits down to dine, she’s often eating food grown with her own two hands.

But Nissen isn’t tilling the soil on a farm. She’s a Web designer who lives in Jersey City, New Jersey—one of the most cramped, concrete-laden landscapes in the nation. Nissen’s vegetables thrive in pots and boxes crammed into her house and in wee plots in her yard. “I’m a micro-gardener,” she says. “It’s a pretty small townhouse. But it’s amazing what you can do without much space.”

The term for this is urban farming—the art of growing vegetables in cities that otherwise resemble the Baltimore of The Wire. It has become increasingly trendy in recent years, led by health-conscious foodies coveting just-picked produce, as well as hipsters who dig the roll-your-own vibe.

But I think it’s time to kick it up a notch. Our world faces many food-resource problems, and a massive increase in edible gardening could help solve them. The next president should throw down the gauntlet and demand Americans sow victory gardens once again.

Remember the victory garden? During World Wars I and II, the government urged city dwellers and suburbanites to plant food in their yards. It worked: The effort grew roughly 40% of the fresh veggies consumed in the US in 1942 and 1943.

These days, we’re fighting different battles. Developing nations are facing wrenching shortages of staples like rice. Here at home, we’re struggling with a wave of obesity, fueled by too much crappy fast food and too little fresh produce, particularly in poorer areas. Our globalized food stream poses environmental hazards, too: The blueberries I had for lunch came from halfway around the world, in the process burning tons of CO2.

Urban farming tackles all three issues. It could relieve strain on the worldwide food supply, potentially driving down prices. The influx of fresh vegetables would help combat obesity. And when you “shop” for dinner ingredients in and around your home, the carbon footprint nearly disappears. Screw the 100-mile diet—consuming only what’s grown within your immediate foodshed—this is the 100-yard diet.

Want to cool cities cheaply? Plant crops on rooftops. This isn’t just liberal hippie fantasy, either. Defense hawks ought to love urban farming, because it would enormously increase our food independence—and achieve it without the market distortions of the benighted farm bill. You don’t need tomatoes from Mexico if you can pluck them from containers on your office roof.

Better yet, urban farming is an excuse to geek out with some awesome tech. Innovations from NASA and garage tinkerers have made food-growing radically more efficient and compact than the victory gardens of yore. “Aeroponics” planters grow vegetables using mist, slashing water requirements; hackers are building home-suitable “aquaponics” rigs that use fish to create a cradle-to-grave ecosystem, generating its own fertilizer (and delicious tilapia, too). Experts have found that cultivating a mere half-acre of urban land with such techniques can yield more than $50,000 worth of crops annually.

But what I love most here is the potential for cultural transformation. Growing our own food again would reconnect us to this country’s languishing frontier spirit.

Once you realize how easy it is to make the concrete jungle bloom, it changes the way you see the world. Urban environments suddenly appear weirdly dead and wasteful. When I walk around New York City now, I see the usual empty lots and balconies and I think, Wait a minute. Why aren’t we growing food here? And here? And here?

In fact, that’s precisely what occurred to me when I came home and looked at the window of my apartment. So now it holds three pots balanced on the ledge: One with herbs, one with lettuce, one with tomatoes.

I should have my first crop in about a month. And I expect my victory salad to taste very sweet indeed.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-09/st_thompson

Drought Reignites Dust Bowl Fears

March 21, 2009
R. Scott Rappold
The Gazette, Colorado Springs, CO

ELKHART, Kan.• This empty stretch of prairie, broken only by the stony ruins of a long-demolished basement, is where Floyd Coen learned that you can eat tumbleweeds if you have to.

Photo: Joe Hartman, District Ranger with the Cimarron National Grassland in Kansas, sifts through sand on the side of Highway 56 . “It’s as fine as flour,” he said. (Bryan Oller, The Gazette)

The basement, today just a ring of rocks around a pool of sand, was where his family lived in the 1930s, on a farm his father chiseled out of the arid grassland.

It’s where the family took shelter when “dusters” swept through — “Let’s all go in the house and die together,” they would say.

It’s where seven older brothers watched helplessly as their 2-year-old sister succumbed to dust pneumonia.

This was the epicenter of one of the worst ecological disasters in American history, the Dust Bowl. Drought and unsustainable farming methods left 83 percent of Morton County, home to Elkhart, in extreme southwestern Kansas, barren, and fierce prairie winds blew much of the land away. No other county in the six Dust Bowl states had a greater portion of its land devastated.

Seventy-five years later, the land is blowing again.

The past two years have been among the driest since the Dust Bowl days. This winter, nearly 10 percent of the Cimarron National Grassland, a swath of former farmland bought by the government in the 1930s, has been stripped bare, federal officials say. Dunes cover many fences. Tumbleweeds pile up higher than houses.

The “drouth” — that’s how they say it in southwestern Kansas — is the topic of conversation in restaurants and on the street. And if you ask an old-timer such as Coen, he’ll tell you he’s seen it all before.

“Anybody that has been here very long knows it, with the wind all the time, and it sure looks a lot now like it did in the early ’30s,” Coen said.

But in a place where folks always look to the sky with optimism, waiting for the next rain, they aren’t yet battening down the hatches.

RUSSIAN THISTLE BLOOMS

Five inches of rain fell in October, the wettest month here since June 2004.

There has been 0.65 inches of moisture since.

The fall precipitation caused a bloom in Russian thistle, a plant brought to the region when German Mennonites fleeing czarist Russia settled here in the early 20th century. The soil dried, and the fierce prairie winds blew the thistle away, which is why they call it tumbleweed.

“People today, this winter, it’s been a daily chore to go out and move the tumbleweed from their homes so they’re not a fire hazard and dispose of them,” said Joe Hartman, U.S. Forest Service district ranger of the national grassland. The tumbleweeds choke fishing ponds and blocks roads. Road crews have plowed more tumbleweeds than snow this winter.

Equally disconcerting are the patches of bare earth spreading across the landscape. Hartman estimates that at least 10,000 acres of the national grassland have lost their cover, places where the hardy sagebrush and yucca have died.

“It’s hard to kill a yucca. That tells you how severe this drouth is,” Hartman said.

In 2007, Elkhart received a little more than half its average precipitation, 11.68 inches. Last year saw 14.81 inches. In an average year, 19.33 inches of precipitation falls.

Farmers without irrigation have lost their winter wheat, and without any rain, some have decided not to plant milo this spring, Hartman said.

“Some people are saying they dig down 7 feet and can’t find any moisture,” Hartman said.

The lack of crops makes the fields blow like the barren prairie. On windy days, the air in Elkhart tastes granular and leaves a film of dust on cars and windows. Last spring, the Forest Service had to replace 27 miles of fence line buried by dust.

This has always been an arid region. Before settlers arrived, the section of the Oklahoma Panhandle just to the south of Elkhart was known as “No Man’s Land,” for its lack of water and trees. It was a hardy ecosystem of tall prairie grasses and massive buffalo herds, all adapted to survive in the arid climate. The land had supported American Indians for 12,000 years.

White settlers nearly destroyed it in fewer than 10.

PARENTS HOMESTEADED

At 84, Coen is among the dwindling number of people who can say they remember the Dust Bowl.

His parents moved to the empty southwestern Kansas prairie from Garden City in 1913, lured by cheap land where they could raise cattle, encouraged by federal policies that favored settlement of the last big empty spot on the American map. They lived in a dugout, a primitive underground bunker the settlers carved out of the prairie.

“When they homesteaded here, they couldn’t see any farms from the place. The next year, they could count six,” Coen said.

The same year, the town of Elkhart was founded, and within seven years, its population numbered 3,177. A series of wet years, combined with high prices for farm commodities, soon transformed the southern plains into an American get-rich-quick scheme, and farmers swarmed the region.

Coen’s parents began building a new house in 1929. They never finished it.

That year, the stock market crashed. Food prices plummeted, and farmers couldn’t even make up the cost of planting. So they plowed under more land.

One of Coen’s earliest memories of the coming trouble was when the family went to Elkhart to sell what eggs and cream they could and buy groceries. On the way back, his mother cried because she couldn’t afford a stamp to send her mother a letter.
At the time, the price of a stamp was 2 cents.

DUST TURNED DAY TO NIGHT

When the first “dusters” hit, nobody knew quite what to make of them.

A dark cloud appeared on the horizon. Sometimes, the sky would get so dark that the chickens laid down, thinking it was night. For those unlucky enough to get caught in a storm, dust choked the lungs, blinded the eyes and burned the skin. The storms could generate enough static electricity to kill crops and stall cars.

“You had a feeling a freight train was going to run you over,” Coen said. “Everything you could see was coming right at you.”
“You thought the end times had come. It’s an awesome sight,” said Twylah Gore Fisher, 77, who grew up in Elkhart and still lives there.

Still, the first storms in 1932 were a curiosity.

“The fine earth jots sifted through windows and doors and the colored design of the rug was dimmed into a leaden gray,” reported The Tri-State News, Elkhart’s newspaper, on Aug. 10, 1933. “The spirit of the housewife was broken.”

Just 13 inches of rain fell in Elkhart in 1933. Only 9 inches fell a year from 1934 to 1937. Farmers couldn’t grow anything, and even if they could, there was no market for it, so the land was left bare.

And it blew away.

“For more than an hour the light of the sun was completely shut out by the blanket of dust and the day ended without a slight decrease in the intensity of the dust,” reported Tri-State News after “Black Sunday,” on April 14, 1935, considered the worst dust storm.

The paper’s optimism, though, continued.

“Some time it will rain again and bumper crops will be raised. And no place can stage a quicker recovery and forge the hard times faster than the Southwest.”

In May 1937, a dust storm delayed Elkhart’s high school graduation. In January 1938, a storm left Elkhart without train service from the east or west, a first for the young town. An April 1938 “snuster” — a dust storm mixed with snow, buried Elkhart in falling mud.

“Youngsters had the time of their lives snatching handfuls of mud out of the air and making mud pies,” reported the newspaper. “Truly, a variety of paradoxical weather may be had in this country.”

POPULATION DWINDLED

Most people didn’t share the hubris.

Fisher’s class at school dwindled from 24 students to nine in the span of a few years. Her father took odd jobs such as shoveling coal from trains to get by.

“Most families that stayed had various ways of making a little bit of money. You had to have a little bit of money, and you weren’t going to make it on the farm,” Fisher said.

The population of Morton County dropped by half, from 4,092 to 2,186.

Coen’s family stayed, even when they had to stop building the house because money ran out and they lived in the basement.

Even when they had to wear gauze masks to school.

Even when Coen had to learn how to find his way by landmarks, in case he couldn’t see through the dust.

Even when there was nothing to eat but pickled tumbleweeds, which his mother tried to make palatable with mustard.

Even when little sister Rena Marie developed dust pneumonia, which killed perhaps thousands of babies and the elderly in the 1930s, their lungs clogged with grit that blew in the air and was impossible to keep out of houses.

He remembers how the doctor came to see her, how he heard, from the next room, the doctor ask his father for a board. They got the leaf from the dining table.

“When they came out of the bedroom, Rena Marie was tied to that table leaf,” he said. She was dead.”

Coen’s voice choked with pain that seven decades has not dulled.

“I’m the only one of the brothers who can even talk about that.”

Still, they stayed. His father refused to leave.

“He would say, ‘Why would I leave here? Everything I’ve got is here,’” Coen said.

“We never had much, but we had each other.”

To this day, Coen doesn’t like mustard.

DEBT LEADS TO LOSS OF LAND

Overwhelmed by debt, Coen’s father signed away the 320-acre homestead to a creditor in 1939. He cried that day.

Today, it’s part of the Cimarron National Grassland. In the 1930s and ’40s, the government bought hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland on the plains, part of a grand experiment to hold down the soil and give destitute farmers some cash to survive. In some places, that land has not fully recovered.

Coen’s family settled on another farm. His father eventually climbed out of debt. Coen never left Elkhart and kept farming. Rains eventually came. He raised a family and still lives on the farm he bought in 1950.

Morton County’s population is around 3,000 today, down 1,000 from 1920. It lost 460 people between 2000 and 2007.

In the aftermath of the Dust Bowl, experts debated whether people should even remain in the region. These days, that debate could resume if the rain doesn’t begin to fall and farms go under. “We’re expecting even more drouth situations, more people having to sell their farms,” said Hartman, the district ranger.

Last year, the national grassland prohibited cattle grazing, so dry were the conditions in a region that usually grazes 5,000 cattle. The Forest Service probably won’t allow grazing this year, either.

Beneath the talk of drought is a deeper concern, that perhaps the region is seeing a long-term trend, a symptom of global warming.

And, locals wonder, could several more years mean a return of the “Dirty Thirties”?

Not yet, local officials say.

For one thing, farming methods have changed. Farmers no longer plow up the land and leave it as dirt, exposed to the wind. They leave shoots and stalks to hold the soil in place. They leave parts of a pasture unplowed. They cooperate with other farmers in soil-conservation plans. Much of the county is not plowed, as part of the national grasslands or conservation easements.

But, Hartman pointed out, even fields with stalks are blowing this spring. And just 38,203 acres of the 92,163 in crop production in the county are irrigated.

On the national grassland, the shifting dunes and dying yucca are alarming, and it is getting worse with each rainless day this spring. But officials say it is a relatively small area, compared with what occurred here 75 years ago.

“The fact we only have 10,000 acres that are in danger is refreshing. We’re doing something right,” Hartman said.

He was standing at a place called Point of Rocks, a rare bluff in the otherwise flat landscape. The Santa Fe Trail passed by here, and it is said the Spanish explorer Coronado carved his name into a rock.

On clear days, you can see to Colorado and Oklahoma. Federal officials in the 1930s came here to survey the blighted landscape.
“We look around here and say, ‘We’ve done something right. We’ve made a difference,’” Hartman said. “I imagine they looked around and said, ‘Can we make a difference?’”

OPTIMISM NEVER DIES

Bill Barnes is one of the last cowboys.

His father grazed cattle on the national grassland, as did he for 41 years, until last year. When grazing was banned, he sold his stock, one of the hardest things he’s ever done.

But this cowboy without cows, standing with Coen and Hartman at the old Coen family homestead, expressed the hope of generations that have tried to carve a living out of this unforgiving land.

Prosperity is only a thunderstorm away.

“If it would rain, it would change,” Barnes said. “A 2-inch rain, it would make all this look a lot better than it does.”
Said Coen, “It’s a next-year country. It’s going to be better next year.”

http://www.gazette.com/articles/reignites_50389___article.html/bowl_drought.html

Safeguard Food Supply But Respect Small Farms

March 23, 2009
The Tampa Tribune

The mass production of food creates risks of sickening the masses, whether through unsanitary conditions, unhealthy additives, or even intentional tampering.

This nation needs to modernize oversight of food production and give itself the power to recall unsafe food products.

Recent contamination of pet food here and baby food in China, along with salmonella scares in peanut butter, are reminders that some producers are willing to cut corners to make a profit, if the guardians of the public health let them get away with it.

And the inability to quickly isolate a major source of a food-borne illness can hurt the innocent, as Florida tomato growers learned when bad produce from out of state spooked shoppers out of buying Florida-grown tomatoes that had never been tainted.

Finding the right level of regulation is difficult. Some proposals in Congress do too little and others go so far they could put some small farmers out of business.

Congress should take time to listen to voices beyond the lobbyists employed by the industrial farms and big importers. Carefully crafted reforms will improve food safety without sharply raising prices or sending the food police snooping around every vegetable patch and pasture.

Lawmakers should listen, for starters, to the catfish farmers throughout the South who are proud of their reputation for bringing clean, healthy fish to market.

They are in competition with increasing amounts of Chinese imports, some of which have been found to contain traces of all sorts of chemicals U.S. farmers don’t use, including melamine, fungicide, and antibiotics.

The U.S. catfish farmers can’t understand why the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t test imported seafood products for the possibly dangerous drugs and chemicals. The importers are allowed to hire labs that do the testing, which is a conflict of interest. U.S. farmers suspect a lab could keep testing until it gets a clean result, and then submit that.

With some 4.5 million fish farms in China sending fish to one million processors, it’s hard to feel confident that the system of self-regulation is good enough.

Now, about two percent of imported catfish are tested by private labs. The catfish farmers are pushing for 10 percent tested in government labs, and the request seems reasonable.

Such details are important. One proposed bill would require all imported foods to adhere to the same standards of safety and quality that are enforced by the FDA. It sounds good but allows importers to document their own safety.

Another proposal would create a new Food Safety Administration. Another would create a national tracking system for food. There is no shortage of ideas.

The challenge is to improve safety without raising the price so much that small producers are plowed under and market choices diminish. One bill would require that each food operation write its own food safety plan that lists all the likely hazards and methods to overcome them.

Some small, organic farmers sense an effort here by the industrial farms to put them out of business. The bill would regulate “growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water.”

The biggest risk to public health isn’t from small producers who tend to stress quality, freshness and short travel times from field to table. That market is too diverse to be effectively policed and is no threat to the nation’s food security.

The risks that need mitigating come from the industrial-scale operations, especially the shiploads of imports whose origins are mysterious.

That’s where the emphasis should be, and not on the local family farms that have historically done a good job of producing wholesome food.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/mar/23/na-safeguard-food-supply-but-respect-small-farms/

ALERT!!!
Action Needed

Will Congress Wipe Out Home Gardens, Growers Markets?

related: Lose Your Property for Growing Food?
Myths and Facts: HR 875 - The Food Safety Modernization Act
Response to "Myths and Facts H.R. 875 – The Food Safety Modernization Act"
Myths and Facts: .R. 875 The Food Safety Modernization Act
Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 – bill status

March 23, 2009
By Sarah Foster
News With Views

The Internet’s buzzing about a bill in Congress its sponsor and supporters say is vital for protecting consumers from food-borne illnesses, but critics claim would place all U.S. food production “from farm to fork” under control of federal bureaucrats, effectively destroying family farms and farmers markets in the process and hijacking the burgeoning organic food movement.

“This bill will not just sweep up commercial food operations,” warns Tom DeWeese, who heads the American Policy Center in Virginia, in a Sledgehammer Alert, “[It] will subject hobby gardeners, home canners, anyone with a few chickens, or anyone who ‘holds, stores, or transports food’ … to registration, extensive management, and inspection by a huge new bureaucracy, the Food Safety Administration, even if the food items will only be consumed personally.”

“The truly chilling language lays out civil and criminal penalties of up to $1 million per day, per infraction, and imprisonment of five or 10 years, or both, depending how serious the violation(s),” De Weese adds, characterizing the bill as “over-the-top in its overreach.”

Particularly attention grabbing: the bill would bring in the National Animal ID System through the back door, opponents claim.

Introduced Feb. 4 by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), in the middle of the peanut-product recall, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (HR 875) was assigned to both the House Committee on Agriculture and the Energy and Commerce Committee. It has 41 co-sponsors. Although not yet scheduled for a hearing, proponents have been forced into damage control mode because of public outrage coming from a politically diverse opposition.

Spokesperson in DeLauro’s office offer assurances: “The bill does not apply to vendors at farmers markets, and therefore will not change the way this business runs. It is meant to address food sold in supermarkets.”

The non-profit Food and Water Watch weighs in: “There is no language in the bill that would result in farmers markets being regulated, penalized by any fines or shut down. Farmers markets would be able to continue to flourish under the bill. In fact, the bill would insist that unsafe imported foods are not competing with locally grown foods.”

A “Major Threat” to Local Food

But in an extensive analysis the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund – a DC-based advocacy group that champions locally grown and organic food production – foresees HR 875 fueling “a tremendous expansion of federal power, particularly the power to regulate intrastate commerce” and warns:

“While the proposed legislation tries to address the many problems of the industrial food system, the impact on small farms if the bill becomes law would be substantial and not for the better HR 875 is a major threat to sustainable farming and the local food movement.” [Emphasis added]

If enacted, there would be a reshuffling within the Department of Health and Human Services. The Food and Drug Administration, a division of HHS, would be split into two agencies – one to deal with food, the other with drugs and medical devices. This second agency would be titled the Federal Drug and Device Administration and keep the acronym FDA.

Food-safety functions would be transferred to a new Food Safety Administration, headed by a food tsar (Administrator of Food Safety) appointed by the President for a five-year term, with Senate approval. The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) and the Center for Veterinary Medicine – both presently part of the FDA -- would move into the new Food Safety Administration, along with the National Marine Fisheries Service from the Department of Commerce.

That’s for starters.

The shakeup at Health and Human Services would be accompanied by tremendous expansion of federal regulatory power over the nation’s food producers, with mandated surveillance and monitoring of all farming, processing, transporting, and selling operations. The new agency is to “modernize and strengthen Federal food safety law,” making certain that food establishments are able to guarantee “that all stages of production, processing, and distribution of their products under their control satisfy the requirements of this law.”

The food tsar is tasked with developing and implementing a national food safety program, one that can ensure “that persons who produce, process, or distribute food meet their responsibility to prevent or minimize food safety hazards related to their products.”

This nationwide program is to be based on a “comprehensive analysis” of “hazards” – including identification of “the sources of potentially hazardous contamination or practices extending from the farm or ranch to the consumer that may increase the risk of food-borne illness.” The Administrator will also set up a national system for the registration of food establishments and foreign food establishments.

Defenders of H.R. 875 insist it wouldn’t overburden small farming operations; that the law is aimed at “Food establishments” – facilities where food is actually processed and packaged, where food-borne illnesses begin. Indeed, there’s a subsection under “Definitions” (Section 3) that at first reading appears would exclude farms from the onerous regulatory provisions of the law. Specifically:

“(13) FOOD ESTABLISHMENT (A) The term ‘food establishment’ means a slaughterhouse (except those regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act), factory, warehouse, or facility owned or operated by a person located in any State that processes food or a facility that holds, stores, or transports food or food ingredients.
“(B) EXCLUSIONS: For the purposes of registration, the term ‘food establishment’ does not include a food production facility as defined in paragraph (14), other retail food establishments, …“(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY – The term “food production facility” means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.”

The devil’s in the details, and these are in Section 206 which deals with Food Production Facilities. According to FTCLDF, the only thing farms and the other food production facilities don’t have to do is register with the FSA as food establishments must. The agency has sweeping powers to regulate farming practices, and is directed to issue regulations establishing “minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water.”

“The Feds would control to a much greater degree the inputs farmers can use as well as the products farmers can produce (raw milk). Unannounced federal inspections of small farms will be the order of the day, reducing the level of protection provided by the Fourth Amendment.”

Here’s a taste of what farmers and other food producers can expect from H.R. 875 if it becomes law:

• Each food production facility – no matter how small – would have to have a written food-safety plan describing “the likely hazards and preventive controls implemented to address those hazards.”
• Farmers selling directors to consumers would have to make their customer list available to federal inspectors.
Federal inspectors would be authorized to:
• inspect food production facilities to make sure the producer is “operating in compliance with the requirements of the food safety law;”
• conduct “monitoring and surveillance of animals, plants, products, or the environment, as appropriate;”
• access and copy all records to determine if food is “contaminated, adulterated, or otherwise not in compliance with the food safety law or to track the food in commerce.”

FTCLDF stresses that these regulations and requirements apply even if the farm is engaged in only intrastate commerce – that is, within state boundaries. Under the existing Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act, the FDA can only inspect farms that produce food destined for commerce across state lines. HR 875 changes this – all production and commerce becomes “interstate.” Section 406 provides: “In any action to enforce the requirements of the food safety law, the connection with interstate commerce required for jurisdiction shall be presumed to exist.”

“Traceability” and the National Animal ID System

Under Section 210 – “Traceback Requirements” – the Food Safety Administration is charged with setting up a national traceability system requiring farmers to keep extensive records that would enable inspectors to track “the history, use, and location of an item of food.”

This system is to be “Consistent with existing statutes and regulations that require record-keeping or labeling for identifying the origin or history of food or food animals,” including “The National Animal Identification system (NAIS) as authorized by the Animal Health Protection Act of 2002 (AHPA).”

The problem is that NAIS was not authorized by the AHPA; it’s never been authorized by congressional legislation.

Jim Babka, editor of DownsizeDC.org, a political action website, regards this as a “bureaucratic initiative,” a “de facto authorization” of NAIS.

“This false assumption gives NAIS the aura of congressional approval,” he writes. “Instead, this is another step on the road to converting NAIS from a voluntary program to a mandatory one. This is exactly what we predicted three years ago when we launched our anti-NAIS campaign.”

Could “Raw” Milk Take a Hit?

Many critics are wondering whether they'll be able to buy "raw" milk if HR 875 becomes law. According to the FTCLDF it’ll depend on the regulations, but the future doesn’t look good. Right now it’s illegal to sell unpasteurized milk across state lines, but some states allow its sale within their boundaries, albeit grudgingly and with heavy restrictions. HR 875 puts even this limited market in jeopardy.

FTCLDF explains:

“FDA has long wanted a complete ban on the sale of raw milk. The agency’s mantra is that raw milk should not be consumed by anyone at any time for any reason. The agency does not consider this subject to be debatable…Under HR 875, FSA is given statutory authority to unilaterally impose a ban.” [Emphasis added]
“Under HR 875, FSA has the power to adopt “preventative process controls to reduce adulteration of food” [Section 203], and to issue regulations that “limit the presence and growth of contaminants in food prepared in a food establishment using the best reasonably available techniques and technologies” [Section 203(b)(1)(D)]. FDA has long made it clear that in its opinion the best available technology to limit contamination in milk is pasteurization.”

Even if the FSA doesn’t issue an outright ban, raw milk producers could be harassed out of business instead. HR 875 designates dairies and farms processing milk as Category 2 Food Establishments – and these are to be “randomly inspected at least weekly.”

$1 Million-a-Day Fines for the Food Police

On March 14, during his weekly radio broadcast, President Barack Obama accused the Bush administration of having created a “hazard to public health” by not solving food contamination problems, adding he planned to set up set up a “Food Safety Working Group” to “upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century.”That’s going to cost money, and Obama said he’d ask Congress for $1 billion to pay for added inspectors and new laboratories.

If $1 billion isn’t enough, HR 875 has its own built-in money generator to make up any deficit. Fines can be assessed at up to $1 million a day per violation – and each day a violation continues is considered a separate offense. That’s for civil offenses. Criminal offenses – those causing illness or death -- mandate lengthy jail terms for those deemed responsible.

Fines collected by the agency are to be deposited in an account in the Treasury, and the agency “may use the funds in the account without further appropriation or fiscal year limitation . . . to carry out enforcement activities under the food safety law.” The agency may also use the funds “to provide assistance to States to inspect retail commercial food establishments or other food or firms under the jurisdiction of State food safety programs.

As FTCLDF see it: “This would give the States reason to support the bill despite the fact that it dilutes much of what is left of their Tenth Amendment police power to regulate food.”

“Great for Factory Farming”

“How did they get this far with such a scheme to apply insane industrial standards to every farm in the country?” asks Linn Cohen-Cole. “Through fear of diseases and of outbreaks of food borne illnesses, both of which they [the multi-national food corporations] cause themselves.” Cole-Cohen, self-described “leftist” and Democrat, isn’t alone in linking the food industry to food control bills like HR 875.

HR 875 would be “Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a few,” writes Lydia Scott at Campaign for Liberty. “I have no doubt that this legislation was heavily influenced by lobbyists from huge food producers. … It will literally put all independent farmers and food producers out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to conform to factory farming methods.”

The role of agribusiness in actually writing HR 875 is a valid question. The fact that DeLauro’s husband Stanley Greenberg, a powerful Democratic political strategist and consultant, counts pesticide and biotech giant Monsanto among his many clients has helped fuel a growing bipartisan opposition to the bill itself, as has the revelation that DeLauro received over $186,000 from agribusiness for her recent re-election campaign.

Critics like Cohen-Cole, Scott and DeWeese say HR 875 has little or nothing to do with food safety and everything to do with government and corporate control of the food supply, and ultimately over the population. As former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger famously observed: "Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world."

For More Information and to Take Action

1. HR 875 has not been set for a hearing. Opponents hope to keep it from getting out of committee and are urging phone calls and emails to committee members and congressional representatives.
2. Tom DeWeese’s Sledgehammer Alert provides excellent analysis, with contact information and phone numbers on committee members and other members of Congress.
3. The Analysis by Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.
4. A PDF version of HR 875 is here. It’s over 100 pages.
5. See also the Q&A section on HR 875.
6. Linn Cohen-Cole and Sue Diederich, of the Illinois Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, take a "Solemn walk through HR 875 at OpEd News, a site self-described as “liberal…tough…progressive.”

http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/news133.htm

>>>Can anyone tell me if the recent Fed Reserve action to “monitize the debt” was the first explicit time(not other indirect methods) that they have taken such action? Is this an historical precedent?<<<

Not historic new action... However, it is the first time they have done this since the 60’s.

This action came about because of several reasons.

a. It assures that the auction will have buyers for the treasuries.(It seems that foreign countries are either reluctant or unable to invest in them)

b. Short term rates are almost to ‘Ø’ Only way they can impact the economy is to try to keep down the longer term rates. If buyers were scarce, the long term (10 & 20 year) rates would shoot up, killing mortgages and capital improvement.

c. Japan, England and other central banks are doing the same thing.

The problems are many though.

a. Low rates keep investors out of the market as they seek better returns. Fund managers, retirement funds, insurance companies, and others have to scramble to try to find some investment which gives a better return and does not have high risk.

b. There becomes a perceived devaluation of the US Dollar. There is also an actual devaluation too. With $1.2 Trillion being invested say in 10 year bonds, the interest payment for the 10 years comes to $345.6 Billion expense at the current 2.88% This is an actual decrease in the dollar value, and a forward obligation to the taxpayers.

c. Since these investments only inject money into the economy through government agencies, the net benefit is extremely reduced. Typically the rule of thumb of 80%-20% could be applied. 20% actually getting out to real improvement and 80% being absorbed in increased governmental self investment. More regulators, more regulations, more government capital improvement, more government salaries, more enforcement, more prisons, more dependence on government, more compliance costs, more taxes.

If you have followed the hyperinflation in south african countries a few months ago - they can’t even agree on how high the rate was - some say several trillion%... Their only method to stopping it was to peg their currency to the US Dollar. This did not roll back the inflation, but restricted it to 2-3%. Now, almost all transactions take place in US Dollars - only use of their local currency is for some required governmental fees.

I worry that with the Fed pumping all this money into the pockets of the ‘elite’, as they grab for power, we will see a broader division of our society. Richer rich and poorer everyone else.

Another worry is that with a weakening dollar, the pressure is increasing to create a ‘Universal’ currency. Already we are hearing of Russia and China proposing this for the upcoming G20 meeting. Then the different currencies would all be pegged to the ‘Universal’ valuation. If this were to happen, it would be followed by immediate demands that developing countries be placed on a par with developed countries. Doing this would destroy the value of the ‘Universal’ currency and we unravel everything into chaos.

Why would people encourage such chaos? Because in chaos there are profits to be made. People like George Sorros are counting on that. Regardless of which way the economy goes, the hedge fund operators profit (unless they get too greedy).

As far as Øbamy maxing out our credit cards... With new ‘recovery’ spending calls coming from him even before the current one is approved, and each one bigger and more outlandish than the one before, it won’t take till 2020... Maybe 3 years at most... IMO

Published: March 25, 2009 10:41 am

Grow a vegetable garden

By Joe Lamp’l

Scripps Howard News Service

Food gardening is the hottest trend in home gardening today. According to a recent survey by the National Gardening Association, 7 million more people will start a food garden this year, up 19 percent over 2008. Obviously, the economy has a lot of us looking for ways to reduce our grocery bills, and growing your own can save big money compared with store prices. In addition, we want to know that the food we’re putting in our bodies is as healthy as possible. And the best part is, homegrown food simply tastes better than anything you can buy at the store.

A home vegetable garden is easy to start and doesn’t require as much effort as one might think to keep it growing strong. Following a few simple steps will ensure you’re enjoying the fruits of your labor in no time.

Here’s what you need to know:

Location is key: Most vegetable plants do best in full sun. Find a location that gets at least six hours of it each day. To provide the most sun exposure to all your plants, place the tallest ones, such as corn, indeterminate tomatoes or pole beans on the north or west side of the garden so they do not shade the smaller plants.

It’s all about the soil: The best soil suitable for vegetables includes lots of organic matter, such as composted leaves and ground or shredded aged bark. Whatever you’re starting with, incorporate enough organic material so that the amended soil is neither sandy nor compacted. When the mix is right, it will bind together when you squeeze it but break apart easily when disturbed.

Water wisely: One inch of water per week, including any natural rainfall, is adequate. Use soaker hoses and drip lines. These deliver water slowly and on target, allowing time for the soil to saturate and for the roots to absorb the moisture. Automatic timers are a great way to take the effort and worry out of this all-important step.

Use mulch: Add a 3-inch layer of organic mulch around your plants and over the irrigation lines. Mulch will insulate the soil, help retain moisture, suppress weeds and acts as a protective barrier from diseases splashing up onto the plants from the soil.

Use patience with pest control: Although pest insects are a given at some point in any vegetable garden, by exercising patience, nature will usually take care of the problem. Surprisingly, of all the insects in your garden only about 3 percent are actually harmful pests. Practice the steps mentioned so far, and you’ve already taken adequate measures to promote the growth of healthy plants, which are better able to stand up to potential pest invasions.

If you must resort to insecticides, apply them responsibly! That means only late in the day — or in the evening — only on the affected plants and then only when necessary. Never apply pesticides in the morning when pollinators and beneficial insects are most active since you’ll likely kill them as well. Rather than using chemicals in a food garden, focus on growing healthy plants with great soil and sunny conditions and let nature take its course. Synthetic and even many organic/natural pesticides are non-selective, meaning they will kill beneficial insects, too.

Don’t overfertilize: Too much fertilizer, especially nitrogen (the first number on the fertilizer package), can promote plenty of lush green growth at the expense of less fruit and a smaller harvest. Excessive fertilizer can also be harmful to plants and soil. Instead, add plenty of organic compost, up to about 20 percent of the total soil volume. Incorporate it into the rest of the planting bed and you’ll be supplying your plants with the nutrients they need to thrive naturally. In other words, feed the soil and let the soil feed the plants.

If you put into practice what I’ve suggested, you’ll get your garden off to the right start and set it up for a more enjoyable growing season. Preparation is key, with the reward being a healthier, more productive garden and fresh food that tastes great. What could be better than that?

http://www.northwestgeorgia.com/features/local_story_084104938.html

Vegetable gardens can please eye as well as palate

March 26, 2009

‘Tis the season when everyone gets the urge to plant. And if you choose to grow vegetables, there’s no need to relegate them to a far corner of your yard, where they are sure to suffer neglect.
Advertisement

A vegetable garden need not be an eyesore. It can be an oasis of beauty, pleasing your eyes as much as your palate.

Just visit or find a picture of Villandry, the famous French potager (”kitchen garden’’) near Tours, France, with its patterns of geometric beds filled with growing vegetables. Some beds are bordered with low boxwood hedges — 19 miles of them — and the whole garden is interlaced with white, gravel paths.

In fact, call your vegetable plot a “potager’’ and right away you might find it more charming.

When locating your potager, keep it close to your house, and consider that it needs at least six hours of full sunlight each day.

As the old saw goes, “Put your vegetable garden no further from your back door than you could throw the kitchen sink.’’ Or maybe even from your front door. (And that old saw dates back to when kitchen sinks were made of cast iron!)

Whether it is near or against your house, establish connections — visually and physically — between it, the house and the rest of the landscape. For instance, mimic in or around your potager some design element from your house or yard: a decorative fence, a row of clipped hedges, a piece of statuary.

Paths create visual and functional connections. Choose paving for paths that matches that of a nearby patio or echoes the pattern on a floor in a room looking out at the garden.

Straight paths have a formal air, if that’s the tone of your yard, while curving ones lend themselves more to informal settings. To further tie everything together, run paths from your house right up to and into the vegetable garden itself.

Paths, paving, fences, hedges, statuary and other “tie-ins’’ help overcome a common limitation of vegetable gardens: their often dreary appearance in winter, when, too often, they are just dirt.

These tie-ins can help carry the overall design of the garden through the winter. Create beds in your potager, perhaps geometric in shape, perhaps flowing; in either case, beds whose shapes create year-round patterns of beauty. Define your garden with hedging, arbors, fencing and paving.

Finally, remember, a potager isn’t only for vegetables. No rule says you can’t plant some ornamentals to help keep up appearances through winter. The shapes and lines created by small, densely twigged plants, such as potentilla, shrubby dogwoods and cotoneaster, as well as boxwood, heather and other small evergreens, make their statements year-round.

Come spring and summer, add vegetables themselves to your designer’s
palette: frilly red or green lettuces in all shapes, blue-green leaves of kale, a backdrop of feathery asparagus leaves. And some flowers — for distraction from those temporary bare spots where you’ve picked delicious vegetables for eating.

http://www.app.com/article/20090326/LIFE/90324049/1006

March 15, 2009

Interest grows in preservation
April class focuses on canning, other methods

By Tom Kaser
For The Chronicle

Even before the economy began contracting, there were indications that increasing numbers of Americans were rejecting processed foods in favor of preserving foods they grew or bought themselves, usually from local farmers.

That’s why OSU’s Wasco County Extension Service at Columbia Gorge Community College has increased its efforts to “train trainers” to show homemakers how to safely and efficiently do that.

“It’s easy for those who know what they’re doing,” says extension educator Fern Wilcox, the extension service’s primary trainer. “It can be dangerous — because of food poisoning — for those who don’t.”

Interest in home food preservation has surged, not just because it can save a lot of money, but also because more and more people want to eat wholesome, locally grown foods year-round, Wilcox says.

OSU’s Wasco County Extension Service periodically holds eight-week classes, usually meeting at 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoons, at which it trains Family Food Educators to show homemakers how to preserve food. The next class, which costs $50, begins April 1 in The Dalles. Application deadline is March 20. For information, call 296-5494.

The trained food educators appear at county fairs, farmers markets, and before service clubs, organizations, granges, church groups, mothers’ groups, 4-H clubs, and other organizations to demonstrate the do’s and don’ts of food preservation during the June-September food preservation season.

OSU makes sure they know their stuff. They must complete 30 hours of training and pass a competency exam.

“The whole idea,” notes Wilcox, “is for me to train these people to spread the word about food preservation, since I can’t do it by myself. It’s a good way to extend our service.”

Last year, Wilcox trained eight food educators, and they will be helping her train new volunteers this year.

One of the trainers’ most important services, especially at farmers markets, is to test the gauges on pressure-cooker lids.

“Pressure cookers are a valuable tool in preserving food, but sometimes their gauges go bad and the cooker doesn’t heat the food to a high enough temperature to kill bacteria,” Wilcox says. “You may end up with tainted canned food and not know it.” There are five cornerstones of the extension service’s Family Food Educators program: canning, freezing, drying, pickling, and jam- and jelly-making.

Canning is especially important because it can easily go awry, with fatal results, Wilcox notes.

“We show how to prepare the fruit or vegetable before putting it in the canning jar, how — and how much — to put in the jar, how to put the jars in a bath of boiling water, and how to apply the lid and ring so they will seal the jar.

“Safety should always be the No. 1 concern; you have to know what you’re doing. It’s not safe, for example, to put low-acid foods like beans in a boiling-water bath. For these foods, you should use a pressure canner to prevent anaerobic microorganisms from growing in the food.”

Freezing usually requires blanching the fresh produce first — dipping it quickly into hot water to prevent deterioration from enzymes. “Then you put it in a container that will prevent ice crystals from forming and freezer burn from happening,” Wilcox says.

“As for freezing vs. canning, your preference will probably depend on how much storage space you have. Some people prefer frozen foods because they have plenty of freezer space but not much pantry space. Other people have the opposite situation. And some people just prefer the taste of one over the other. I, for example, prefer frozen peas to canned peas.”

Drying, as the name implies, means removing moisture from the food so it can be consumed later without having to freeze or can it, Wilcox says, citing jerky as an example. Dried pears are particularly popular in this area, she added.

Pickling, using vinegar as the primary preserving agent, is another canning process, and it adds flavor to the vegetable.

Making jams and jellies involves chopping or mashing fruit so it assumes a spreadable state, then adding sugar and pectin, a natural thickener found in smaller amounts in ripe fruits. Jam and jelly containers, too, are processed in a boiling water bath.

Food preservation need not be difficult or expensive, Wilcox emphasizes, “especially if you shop garage sales and can find food-preservation equipment at a good price. The jars can be re-used each year, so once you’ve made the initial investment, canning becomes inexpensive.”

Statewide, OSU’s Extension Service has been disseminating information on safe food handling for 25 years. The overall aim of the program is to avoid food-borne illnesses, food waste, and medical bills from food poisoning.

When OSU’s Wasco County food preservation program began in 1980, it was called the Master Food Preserver volunteer program. It was later renamed the Family Food Educator program and enhanced to include nutrition education. The program is patterned after OSU’s Master Gardener program, which aims to sharpen home-gardening skills.

The OSU Extension Service brings a variety of university services and programs to local adults and youth.

http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/2009/03/news03-15-09-03.shtml

Controlling the World’s Seed Supply
More on control of our seed supplies...

Monsanto execs describe a world with 100% of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented.

March 25, 2009
by Devinder Sharma
Op Ed News

Let there be no doubt. There is a global effort — some call it a master plan — (involving not only seed corporations, but also governments, CGIAR and the FAO) to control the entire seed heritage. Privatisation and commercialisation of seed, which means through it controlling the entire food chain, began several decades ago. With governments, CGIAR/World Bank/FAO facilitating the process, the private seed companies are slowly and steadily ensuring that farmers all over the world fall in line. They are left with no choice but to buy seed every cropping season from the agribusiness companies.

The new seeds are not only being genetically modified but are also being genetically programmed. We will talk about the genetic programming of these seeds sometimes later, but first let us look at the ways of the seed mafia.

The WTO provides the legal instruments to make it possible. Strengthening of intellectual proprietary control over seed comes through UPOV and WIPO, both being the public face of the seed industry. These IPRs are being further tightened through the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), bilateral and regional agreements. All these agreements seek IPR-Plus treatments, and developing country governmets are being made to swallow the bitter pill.

The governments are more than willing to facilitate the process. India is a classic example, where the Agriculture Ministry appears to be on a fast track mode to increase the seed relacement ratio. In the next 15-20 years, it wants to replace 50 per cent of the farmers seed with so called ‘improved seeds’ being produced and marketed by the private companies. No wonder, more than 500 seed companies are operating India now. All looking forward to the farmers pocket, keen to take out the last penny from his soiled kurta.

As the article below (excerpted from the book Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey Smith) tells us briefly, an alert civil society and some farming groups worldwide have slowed down the process of takeover of the seed supply — as per the master plan.

On May 23, 2003, President Bush proposed an Initiative to End Hunger in Africa [1] using genetically modified (GM) foods. He also blamed Europe’s “unfounded, unscientific fears” of these foods for thwarting recovery efforts. Bush was convinced that GM foods held the key to greater yields, expanded U.S. exports, and a better world. His rhetoric was not new. It had been passed down from president to president, and delivered to the American people through regular news reports and industry advertisements.

The message was part of a master plan that had been crafted by corporations determined to control the world’s food supply. This was made clear at a biotech industry conference in January 1999, where a representative from Arthur Anderson Consulting Group explained how his company had helped Monsanto create that plan.

First, they asked Monsanto what their ideal future looked like in fifteen to twenty years. Monsanto executives described a world with 100% of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented. Anderson Consulting then worked backwards from that goal, and developed the strategy and tactics to achieve it. They presented Monsanto with the steps and procedures needed to obtain a place of industry dominance in a world in which natural seeds were virtually extinct.

Integral to the plan was Monsanto’s influence in government, whose role was to promote the technology worldwide and to help get the foods into the marketplace quickly, before resistance could get in the way. A biotech consultant later said, “The hope of the industry is that over time, the market is so flooded that there’s nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender.” [2]

The anticipated pace of conquest was revealed by a conference speaker from another biotech company. He showed graphs projecting the year-by-year decrease of natural seeds, estimating that in five years, about 95% of all seeds would be genetically modified.

While some audience members were appalled at what they judged to be an arrogant and dangerous disrespect for nature, to the industry this was good business. Their attitude was illustrated in an excerpt from one of Monsanto’s advertisements: “So you see, there really isn’t much difference between foods made by Mother Nature and those made by man. What’s artificial is the line drawn between them.” [3]

To implement their strategy, the biotech companies needed to control the seeds-so they went on a buying spree, taking possession of about 23% of the world’s seed companies. Monsanto did achieve the dominant position, capturing 91% of the GM food market. [4] But the industry has not met their projections of converting the natural seed supply. Citizens around the world, who do not share the industry’s conviction that these foods are safe or better, have not “just sort of surrendered.”

Widespread resistance to GM food has resulted in a global showdown. U.S. exports of genetically modified corn and soy are down, and hungry African nations won’t even accept the crops as food aid. Monsanto is faltering financially and is desperate to open new markets. The U.S. government is convinced that EU resistance is the primary obstacle and is determined to change that. On May 13, 2003, the U.S. filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO), charging that the European Union’s restrictive policy on GM food violates international agreements.

On the day the WTO suit was filed, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick declared, “Overwhelming scientific research shows that biotech foods are safe and healthy.” [5] This has been industry’s chant from the start. It is the key assumption at the basis of their master plan, the WTO challenge, and the president’s campaign to end hunger. It is also, however, untrue.

The following chapters reveal that it was industry influence, not sound science, which allowed these foods onto the market. Moreover, if overwhelming scientific research suggests anything, it is that the foods should never have been approved.

References:

[1] See the White House press release on this available here. The comments mentioned are about two-thirds of the way down the web page.
[2] Stuart Laidlaw, “StarLink Fallout Could Cost Billions,” The Toronto Star, Jan. 9, 2001. Article can be purchased in the Toronto Star archives available here, or find a free copy by clicking here.
[3] Robert Cohen, Milk, The Deadly Poison, Argus Publishing, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1998, p. 133
[4] See www.foodfirst.org/media/news/2003/butterfliesvsusda.html
[5] See www.ustrade-wto.gov/03052102.html

Take action — Contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Withdraw HR 875 and companion bills which will allow Monsanto and other corporations to take control of all US seed

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Controlling-the-world-s-se-by-Devinder-Sharma-090323-773.html

They watch Obamanation grow in unbridled power
Americans Largely Silent as Their Nation is Systematically Destroyed

By JB Williams Tuesday, March 24, 2009

After trillions in taxpayer debt has been foolishly poured into the bottomless black hole of leftist wealth redistribution programs, under the guise of economic “stimulus” or “stabilization” legislation, the new “ONE World” government running Washington DC announces; Geithner, Bernanke Call for New Wind-Down Powers After AIG… and the people still sit silent as they watch Obamanation grow in unbridled power.

Geithner Asks Congress for even Broader Power to Seize private Firms as the average American stumbles through their daily routine as if nothing is happening. Canada Free Press managing editor Judi McLeod writes No cheerleader for propping up greenback at G20 summit asking, “Is the table being set for One World Government rather than speeding the recovery of the worldwide recession at next week’s G20 London summit?”

Obamanation has taken the nation from a trillion in debt to over $4 trillion in debt in the first sixty days, with even more federal spending promised, which could put the nation $10 trillion in debt before the 2010 mid-term election cycle. Amnesty for illegals and ACORN led redistricting will make 2010 and beyond a moot point.

Still, beyond the movement to mail tea bags to members of congress or file another legal demand for proof of Obama’s constitutional eligibility for the office he holds, both of which are like whistling in the breeze, the people remain largely silent.

Threatened with a Soup Line Existence

The American people would never trade personal freedom for the false promise of federally redistributed free-stuff under some ill-fated socialist experiment, unless they were first threatened with a soup line existence.

And so it shall be…

50% of their life savings and 30% of their home values have already evaporated into thin air. National unemployment is driving towards double digits as home foreclosures continue to mound.

With their backs against the wall, confused by a daily diet of media manipulated headlines aimed at scaring the public into submission, convinced that our nation’s complex woes demand a solution far too complicated for the average peasant to comprehend, the people find themselves in a state of terminal paralysis.

Incompetent Evil in Charge

The same people responsible for the many disasters now surrounding every American household, were elected in 2006 and 2008 to fix what they broke. Instead of reversing course and placing their faith in the principles of freedom, they are installing more of the same failed entitlement policies that created the problem and they are doing so at a fever pace.

The folks currently in charge of the nation don’t like anything at all about the nation that once was. They have a very different vision for America, one based on redistribution of free-stuff, not equal access to freedom.

At the foundation of personal freedom is the right to make your own decisions, invest and risk your own capital, own your own property and keep that which you are willing to work and sacrifice to earn. It’s called economic freedom, aka capitalism.

But capitalism is public enemy #1 in America today, thanks to decades of class warfare and the art of division via social envy, all for purpose of political gain.

Life, Liberty and the right to individually define and pursue Happiness has been replaced with the right of some to take from others against their will, in the name of a greater common good, better defined as the entitlement mentality.

The Change Agents New World Dictionary

Old concepts have been redefined. Capitalism is now referred to as Fascism. Personal ambition is now called greed. Those who seek access to other people’s rightful earnings are called charitable, and those who demand a right to only that, which they earn, are called greedy.

It isn’t just the words that have new definitions. The concepts have new meaning as a result.

Words like socialism and communism no longer have a negative connotation attached to them. Most Americans have no idea what they are anymore, or why they don’t want to find out the hard way.

The concept of liberal interpretations limits the meaning of words only to one’s individual imagination. The Constitution means only what someone imagines it to mean. If the shoe doesn’t quite fit, a new definition will solve the problem.

What are Americans Waiting For?

I don’t know what it will take to wake up the average American, but whatever it is, it hasn’t happened yet…

The people currently stocking up on food, water, guns and ammo in record numbers, causing shortages in all the above at the retail level, are clearly awake and anticipating something, but what? Meet the “extremists...”

The people still trying to get a court somewhere in America to hear the arguments concerning the most secretive corrupt president in US history, have been awake for a long time. Meet the “birthers...” But they continue to have trouble waking anyone else up, including in the so-called halls of justice.

Is it a bankrupt dollar and a new international currency that will get their attention? - A North American Union? - An ACORN Army on their doorstep? What will be the final straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back?

I don’t have the answer… Frankly, I expected the people to revolt long before now. Clearly, I had underestimated the depth of apathy and tolerance for anti-American nonsense in the average modern American. But then, so did our nation’s founders, whom I’m certain are rolling over in their graves in disgust by now.

The Silent Consent Continues

Nobody knows for how long or at what expense, but so far, the people remain silent and Washington continues to profitably interpret that silence as broad-based consent.

At this late date, I have no idea what will wake up the average American or how they might react once finally awake and ready to engage in self-governance. However, I am sure about two things…

When they finally do awake, they are going to be really angry…

And, the anti-American left won’t let up until then…

The clock isn’t just ticking. Time has already run out as of the 2008 election. Washington DC is currently dismantling America, individual right by individual right, in an unprecedented massive multi-faceted assault on all things American.

If you are not familiar with the Democratic Socialists of America or their legislative branch, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, I strongly suggest that you take time to learn them well. They are in charge of your nation. This is who the average American is up against and they are a very well funded and organized enemy of the state.

You will not be able to take your country back without putting these two organizations out of business. The longer you wait, the tougher the battle, the higher the price.

Clearly, the organizational skills of the average American are equal only to that of the stumbling bumbling Republican Party. Fragmented, distracted and disorganized, the people are no match for the leftist juggernaut running roughshod in DC.

The people are lost, so they are losing… The most complex problems require the simplest of solutions. But the average American is so baffled by a daily diet of elitist B.S., that they cannot even see daylight… – When all else fails, return to the basics!

Here’s to the average American waking up in time! - Good luck!

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/9607

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