Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition [Survival Today

The only portals of entry for the H1N1 virus are the nostrils and mouth/throat. In a global epidemic of
this nature, it’s almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with H1N1 in spite of all precautions.
Contact with H1N1 is not so much of a problem as proliferation is.<<<

Yes, I had heard that, now for a far out question, this is a virus, what are sexually transmitted diseases?? are they a virus?

If so, then this virus can be transmitted in other ways and also by cuts and blood mixing, as in a fist fight or in open cuts / sores, from someone else’s blood???

But they do not admit to sex as a transmission point, for that might make people more careful.

Maybe I am going back to 1970, and the newspaper report on a high school boy, in Denmark, as I recall.

He was working on a ‘science project’ of germs in public places and found syphilis on the gas station light switch, in the men’s restroom.

His teacher said “Not possible” so the kid did it again and then the teacher went and got a sample, which was also positive.

Until then only our mother’s warned us we could get it off the toilet seats.

Study: H1N1 Vaccine Too Late, Won’t Help Most<<<

I suspect that they do not have a clue, as to what works or will work, but are producing a product to sell and it may or may not work ....

I have always wondered how using a vaccine that is based on last years virus, was going to protect us next year.?

I thank all of you for caring that I was missing.

I love all of you too............very much.

>>>David Kaiser is a respected historian<<<

Well, as I check further, he is that - but his blog says that he is not the author of the piece... Hmmmmm...

In his blog, he does not dispute the facts, nor the conclusion, just that he says he didn’t write it, and says that it is a rant...

Oh, well, maybe I need to just stick with those things I know... Canning, engineering, livestock, gardening, flying, building, etc., etc....

>>>Study: H1N1 Vaccine Too Late, Won’t Help Most<<<

>>>are producing a product to sell and it may or may not work ....<<<

LOL, When they were talking about making it mandatory people didn’t want to take it (including me)... Now a local hospital who was giving free flu shots canceled their clinics both current and future as they cannot get more vaccine - said their suppliers said they don’t know if they will have any more before next year - people are now clamoring for it... People are STRANGE! Scientists are WEIRD! I only trust a VERY FEW of them (most are on here)...

In his blog, he does not dispute the facts, nor the conclusion, just that he says he didn’t write it, and says that it is a rant...<<<

Odd, for as a rule, they steal the article and add their own name and pretend they wrote it.

Well, it was a good rant.

Now a local hospital who was giving free flu shots canceled their clinics both current and future as they cannot get more vaccine - said their suppliers said they don’t know if they will have any more before next year - people are now clamoring for it..<<<

That is called brainwashing, “we made you want it and now you can pay for it”.

In my reading travels, I read a headline/snippet, some country is having problems, for they are using a different strain on the Congress folks, than what the local man on the street is getting and some how the home folks found out and want the same as the politicians.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=12456

David Kaiser: The Road to Dallas

[an interesting forum on his book/JFK murder.]

>>>In my reading travels, I read a headline/snippet, some country is having problems, for they are using a different strain on the Congress folks, than what the local man on the street is getting and some how the home folks found out and want the same as the politicians.<<<

That would be Germany.

Politicians, Medical Personnel, First Responders were all going to get shots which contained none of the preservative items which have caused so much trouble - mercury, etc.

Citizens are in an uproar...

How sweet Granny, thank you so much. Hope you are doing OK. Love you too.

LOL about the enema bag for washing sinus cavities. Thanks for your helpful info

RE your post 3347:

QUOTE ‘While you are still healthy and not showing any symptoms of H1N1 infection, in order to prevent proliferation, aggravation of symptoms and development of secondary infections, some very simple steps, not fully highlighted in most official communications, can be practiced’

POST 3347, BTTT.

>>>LOL about the enema bag for washing sinus cavities. Thanks for your helpful info<<<

Hehehe, for many years I thought that was what they were made for - sinus flushing... just wondered what those weird looking attachments were for...

It did however provide a safe low pressure flow with sufficient volume to do a really thorough job.

For your further reading... If you want a very complete reference for herbal medicines, the PDR listed here is excellent (wish the pictures were in color though) large but worthwhile if you want to know about herbs and uses.

Many more very good references too...

Free Survival Type E-books

Here are some free E-books that I discovered on the Kentucky Preppers Website. I have taken the liberty of downloading them and posting them on my server. It is believed that all of these e-books are in the public domain. They are informative and they contain a vast supply of invaluable information.

1. The City People's Book Of Raising Food

2. The complete book of self sufficiency by John Seymour

3. Vegetable Gardening Encyclopedia With Special Herb Section

4. Gardening Without Irrigation - Dry Farming

5. Indoor Gardening Secrets

6. Edible And Medicinal Plants

7. Edible Rooftop Gardening

8. Saving Your Own Vegetable Seeds

9. Growing and Curing Tobacco

10. Complete Guide To Home Canning

11. Canning Meat, Wild Game, Poultry, & Fish Safely

12. Small-Scale Food Drying Technologies

13. Field Care Of Harvested Big Game

14. Solar Cookers - Natural Living

15. Earth-Friendly Cooking Technologies

16. Solar Distillation and Water Purification

17. Rain Water Harvesting

18. How To Make Liquor With Fruit And Berries

19. Solar Water Heaters

20. Wood Burning Handbook

21. Generator Power For The Homestead

22. Small-Scale Chicken Production

23. The Homesteader's Handbook To Raising Small Livestock

24. First Aid Full Manual FM21-11

25. Where There is No Dentist - Murray Dickson - REMOVED

26. Healing Pets With Alternative Medicine

27. Physicians Desk Reference: Herbal Medicines

28. Wilderness Medicine Course

29. SAS Survival Guide

30. Wilderness Survival (FM 21-76)

31. Nuclear War Survival Skills

32. Kearny Homemade Fallout Meter

33. Shortwave 101 - How To Listen To World Radio

34. Sharpening Small Tools

35. Village Technology Handbook

http://survival-training.info/articles16/FreeSurvivalTypeEbooks.htm

http://farmlandgrab.org/8375

The new farm owners: Corporate investors lead the rush for control over overseas farmland

Posted By GRAIN On 20 October 2009 @ 11:53 In *, Almarai, COFCO, MASIPAG, Olam, Savola, Synérgie Paysanne | 1 Comment

GRAIN | 20 October 2009 | PDF version (with quotes and pictures) [1]

THE NEW FARM OWNERS

Corporate investors lead the rush for control over overseas farmland

by GRAIN

This table accompanies this article [2]

With all the talk about “food security,” and distorted media statements like “South Korea leases half of Madagascar’s land,”1 [3] it may not be evident to a lot of people that the lead actors in today’s global land grab for overseas food production are not countries or governments but corporations. So much attention has been focused on the involvement of states, like Saudi Arabia, China or South Korea. But the reality is that while governments are facilitating the deals, private companies are the ones getting control of the land. And their interests are simply not the same as those of governments.

Take one example. In August 2009, the government of Mauritius, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, got a long-term lease for 20,000 ha of good farmland in Mozambique to produce rice for the Mauritian market. This is outsourced food production, no question. But it is not the government of Mauritius, on behalf of the Mauritian people, that is going to farm that land and ship the rice back home. Instead, the Mauritian Minister of Agro Industry immediately sub-leased the land to two corporations, one from Singapore (which is anxious to develop the market for its proprietary hybrid rice seeds in Africa) and one from Swaziland (which specialises in cattle production, but is also involved in biofuels in southern Africa).2 [4] This is typical. And it means that we should not be blinded by the involvement of states. Because at the end of the day, what the corporations want will be decisive. And they have a war chest of legal, financial and political tools to assist them.

Moreover, there’s a tendency to assume that private-sector involvement in the global land grab amounts to traditional agribusiness or plantation companies, like Unilever or Dole, simply expanding the contract farming model of yesterday. In fact, the high-power finance industry, with little to no experience in farming, has emerged as a crucial corporate player. So much so that the very phrase “investing in agriculture”, today’s mantra of development bureaucrats, should not be understood as automatically meaning public funds. It is more and more becoming the business of … big business.

The role of finance capital

GRAIN has tried to look more closely at who the private sector investors currently taking over farmlands around the world for offshore food production really are. From what we have gathered, the role of finance capital — investment funds and companies — is truly significant. We have therefore constructed a table [2] to share this picture. The table outlines over 120 investment structures, most of them newly created, which are busy acquiring farmland overseas in the aftermath of the financial crisis.3 [5] Their engagement, whether materialised or targeted, rises into the tens of billions of dollars. The table is not exhaustive, however. It provides only a sample of the kinds of firms or instruments involved, and the levels of investment they are aiming for.

Private investors are not turning to agriculture to solve world hunger or eliminate rural poverty. They want profit, pure and simple. And the world has changed in ways that now make it possible to make big money from farmland. From the investors’ perspective, global food needs are guaranteed to grow, keeping food prices up and providing a solid basis for returns on investment for those who control the necessary resource base. And that resource base, particularly land and water, is under stress as never before. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, so-called alternative investments, such as infrastructure or farmland, are all the rage. Farmland itself is touted as providing a hedge against inflation. And because its value doesn’t go up and down in sync with other assets like gold or currencies, it allows investors to successfully diversify their portfolios.

But it’s not just about land, it’s about production. Investors are convinced that they can go into Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet bloc to consolidate holdings, inject a mix of technology, capital and management skills, lay down the infrastructures and transform below-potential farms into large-scale agribusiness operations. In many cases, the goal is to generate revenue streams both from the harvests and from the land itself, whose value they expect to go up. It is a totally corporate version of the Green Revolution, and their ambitions are big. “My boss wants to create the first Exxon Mobil of the farming sector,” said Joseph Carvin of Altima Partners’ One World Agriculture Fund to a gathering of global farmland investors in New York in June 2009. No wonder, then, that governments, the World Bank and the UN want to be associated with this. But it is not their show.

From rich to richer

Today’s emerging new farm owners are private equity fund managers, specialised farmland fund operators, hedge funds, pension funds, big banks and the like. The pace and extent of their appetite is remarkable – but unsurprising, given the scramble to recover from the financial crisis. Consolidated data are lacking, but we can see that billions of dollars are going into farmland acquisitions for a growing number of “get rich quick” schemes. And some of those dollars are hard-earned retirement savings of teachers, civil servants and factory workers from countries such as the US or the UK. This means that a lot of ordinary citizens have a financial stake in this trend, too, whether they are aware of it or not.

It also means that a new, powerful lobby of corporate interests is coming together, which wants favourable conditions to facilitate and protect their farmland investments. They want to tear down burdensome land laws that prevent foreign ownership, remove host-country restrictions on food exports and get around any regulations on genetically modified organisms. For this, we can be sure that they will be working with their home governments, and various development banks, to push their agendas around the globe through free trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties and donor conditionalities.

Indeed, the global land grab is happening within the larger context of governments, both in the North and the South, anxiously supporting the expansion of their own transnational food and agribusiness corporations as the primary answer to the food crisis. The deals and programmes being promoted today all point to a restructuring and expansion of the industrial food system, based on capital-intensive large-scale monocultures for export markets. While that may sound “old hat”, several things are new and different. For one, the infrastructure needs for this model will be dealt with. (The Green Revolution never did that.) New forms of financing, as our table makes plain, are also at the base of it. Thirdly, the growing protagonism of corporations and tycoons from the South is also becoming more important. US and European transnationals like Cargill, Tyson, Danone and Nestlé, which once ruled the roost, are now being flanked by emerging conglomerates such as COFCO, Olam, Savola, Almarai and JBS.4 [6] A recent report from the UN Conference on Trade and Development pointed out that a solid 40% of all mergers and acquisitions in the field of agricultural production last year were South–South.5 [7] To put it bluntly, tomorrow’s food industry in Africa will be largely driven by Brazilian, ethnic Chinese and Arab Gulf capital.

Exporting food insecurity

Given the heavy role of the private sector in today’s land grabs, it is clear that these firms are not interested in the kind of agriculture that will bring us food sovereignty. And with hunger rising faster than population growth, it will not likely do much for food security, either. One farmers’ leader from Synérgie Paysanne in Benin sees these land grabs as fundamentally “exporting food insecurity”. For they are about answering some people’s needs – for maize or money – by taking food production resources away from others. He is right, of course. In most cases, these investors are themselves not very experienced in running farms. And they are bound, as the Coordinator of MASIPAG in the Philippines sees it, to come in, deplete the soils of biological life and nutrients through intensive farming, pull out after a number of years and leave the local communities with “a desert”.

The talk about channelling this sudden surge of dollars and dirhams into an agenda for resolving the global food crisis could be seen as quirky if it were not downright dangerous. From the United Nations headquarters in New York to the corridors of European capitals, everyone is talking about making these deals “win–win”. All we need to do, the thinking goes, is agree on a few parameters to moralise and discipline these land grab deals, so that they actually serve local communities, without scaring investors off. The World Bank even wants to create a global certification scheme and audit bureau for what could become “sustainable land grabbing”, along the lines of what’s been tried with oil palm, forestry or other extractive industries.

Before jumping on the bandwagon of “win–win”, it would be wise to ask “With whom? Who are the investors? What are their interests?” It is hard to believe that, with so much money on the line, with so much accumulated social experience in dealing with mass land concessions and conversions in the past, whether from mining or plantations, and given the central role of the finance and agribusiness industries here, these investors would suddenly play fair. Just as hard to believe is that governments or international agencies would suddenly be able to hold them to account.

Making these investments work is simply not the right starting point. Supporting small farmers efforts for real food sovereignty is. Those are two highly polarised agendas and it would be mistaken to pass off one for the other. It is crucial to look more closely at who the investors are and what they really want. But it is even more important to put the search for solutions to the food crisis on its proper footing.

References

1 [8] – It was not South Korea, but Daewoo Logistics.

2 [9] – See GRAIN, “Mauritius leads land grabs for rice in Mozambique”, Oryza hibrida, 1 September 2009. http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=221 [10] (Available in English, French and Portuguese.)

3 [11] – The table covers three types of entities: specialised funds, most of them farmland funds; asset and investment managers; and participating investors. We are aware that this is a broad mixture, but it was important for us to keep the table simple: http://www.grain.org/m/?id=266 [2]

4 [12] – COFCO is based in China, Olam is based in Singapore, Savola is based in Saudi Arabia, Almarai is based in Saudi Arabia, and JBS is based in Brazil.

5 [13] – World Investment Report 2009, UNCTAD, Geneva, September 2009, p. xxvii. Most foreign direct investment takes place through mergers and acquisitions.

Article printed from Food crisis and the global land grab: http://farmlandgrab.org

URL to article: http://farmlandgrab.org/8375

URLs in this post:

[1] GRAIN | 20 October 2009 | PDF version (with quotes and pictures): http://farmlandgrab.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/New-farm-owners-FACES.png

[2] This table accompanies this article : http://www.grain.org/m/?id=266

[3] 1: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote1sym

[4] 2: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote2sym

[5] 3: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote3sym

[6] 4: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote4sym

[7] 5: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote5sym

[8] 1: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote1anc

[9] 2: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote2anc

[10] http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=221: http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=221

[11] 3: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote3anc

[12] 4: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote4anc

[13] 5: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote5anc

http://farmlandgrab.org/

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DSI to probe four firms over land grab claims The Department of Special Investigation will launch an inquiry into four Thai companies in Ayutthaya which own rice-farm plots of almost 10,000 rai. Transnational business consortiums are said to be buying the land through Thai nominees, which is against the law.
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Mauritius eyes prime Mozambican farmland Mauritius plans to buy 20,000 hectares (49,420 acres) of prime farmland in Mozambique to alleviate mounting worries about food security on the import-dependent island.
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*
Mauritius sets up body to facilitate land acquisition in Mozambique019 October 2009
Mauritius sets up body to facilitate land acquisition in Mozambique
The Mauritius government is setting up a regional development agency to promote land cultivation in Mozambique.
*
Is there investment gold in the second scramble for Africa?019 October 2009
Is there investment gold in the second scramble for Africa?
Head of global investment strategy at HSBC Private Bank says: ‘I wouldn’t use the expression land grab. But I would say this is very much something you would invest in on a minimum 10-year horizon.’
*
Razzia sur les terres agricoles119 October 2009
Razzia sur les terres agricoles
« On présente ces contrats comme “ gagnant-gagnant ”, mais c’est de la foutaise ! », s’agace Michel Merlet, directeur de l’ONG Agter.

* 20 Oct 2009 The new farm owners: Corporate investors lead the rush for control over overseas farmland GRAIN
* 20 Oct 2009 Amid threat to food security, Gov’t opens more farm land for foreign agribusiness firms IBON
* 19 Oct 2009 Sudan to part-privatise agricultural schemes Reuters
* 19 Oct 2009 Mauritius sets up body to facilitate land acquisition in Mozambique APA
* 19 Oct 2009 Is there investment gold in the second scramble for Africa? Citywire
* 19 Oct 2009 Razzia sur les terres agricoles Les Echos
* 19 Oct 2009 ECSSR praises UAE diplomacy in Latin America WAM
* 19 Oct 2009 Land bank scheme now comes under scrutiny Business Daily
* 19 Oct 2009 ‘Foreign loans will bring prosperity’ The News
* 18 Oct 2009 Jang Economic Session: Policy to transfer land to foreigners opposed The News
* 18 Oct 2009 Corporate farming will exacerbate food crisis: NGO The News
* 18 Oct 2009 UAE seeks East Asia food security links Gulf News
* 17 Oct 2009 Philippines seeks to boost ‘Halal’ exports to the Middle East to USD 30 million in 2009 Zawya
* 17 Oct 2009 Al Mansouri meets Cambodian PM WAM
* 16 Oct 2009 Un code de conduite pour les investisseurs Le Temps
* 16 Oct 2009 Egyptian companies seek African land deals: Abaza Reuters
* 16 Oct 2009 Kenya: Proposed law to rid country of rampant public land-grabbing Daily Nation
* 15 Oct 2009 Congo Brazzaville ofrece un tercio de su territorio a inversores extranjeros El País
* 14 Oct 2009 As US and other wealthy nations slash aid, UN warns of “silent tsunami of hunger” in global food crisis Democracy Now!
* 14 Oct 2009 Petition against land lease disposed of

May 2009..

http://stephenleahy.net/2009/05/11/china-korea-saudi-arabia-lead-global-land-rush-to-buy-farmland-in-other-countries/

Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist

Discovering Global Environmental Interconnections
China, Korea, Saudi Arabia Lead Global Land Rush To Buy Farmland In Other Countries

with one comment

By Stephen Leahy*

conversion of US grasslandANCHORAGE, Alaska, USA, May 5 (Tierramérica)

More than 20 million hectares of farmland in Africa and Latin America are now in the hands of foreign governments and companies, a sign of a global “land grab” that got a boost from last year’s food crisis.

Rich countries that are short on land or water at home are looking to secure food-producing lands elsewhere as a way to ensure food security for their populations, said Joachim von Braun, director of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

“There is a major lack of transparency in these land deals,” von Braun said in a telephone press conference from Washington.

The IFPRI study, “‘Land Grabbing’ by Foreign Investors in Developing Countries,” by von Braun and Ruth Meinzen-Dick, which was presented last week, estimates that 15 to 20 million hectares have been acquired or are in the process of being sold.

Von Braun pointed out that this is equivalent to about 25 percent of all the farmland in Europe.

Because hard data is difficult to come by – the study was based primarily on information from press reports – IFPRI conservatively estimates that the deals represent 20 to 30 billion dollars being invested by China, South Korea, India and the Gulf States, mainly in Africa.

“About one-quarter of these investments are for biofuel plantations,” von Braun said.

China’s badlandsChina started leasing land for food production in Cuba and Mexico 10 years ago and has extensive holdings in Africa, including pending or attempted deals for millions of hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Tanzania, with many thousands of Chinese workers brought in to work on these lands, according to the report.

The largest foreign ownership or control of African farmland is in Sudan – in this case a group of Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia. Last year, the United Arab Emirates negotiated several farmland deals with Pakistan. Qatar has agricultural land in Indonesia, the Philippines, Bahrain, Kuwait and Burma.

The huge Korean company Daewoo Logistics Corporation signed a deal to lease 1.3 million hectares in Madagascar to grow maize and oil palm, which reportedly played a role in the political conflicts that led to the overthrow of the government in 2009, the report noted.

“The number of land deals is much higher than the IFPRI numbers. No one is monitoring all the private land deals,” says Devlin Kuyek, a researcher at GRAIN, a Barcelona-based non-governmental organisation dedicated to global agricultural issues.

GRAIN published its own “Land Grab” report six months ago, concluding that rich countries are buying poor countries’ soil fertility, water and sun to ship food and fuel back home, in a kind of neo-colonial dynamic.

Kuyek told Tierramérica that this 21st-century land rush is driven in part by countries that no longer want to be held hostage by the big, multinational food trading companies.

But increasingly the private capital is coming from pension funds, which are staking their bets on farmland as the next profitable commodity to invest in after the collapse of the global stocks and financial sector and continuing weak prices for oil and metals.

“A huge chunk of the Australian cattle industry is now owned by a private equity firm. The two biggest pork producers in China are owned by Goldman Sachs (a private investment firm),” Kuyek said.

As a result, he noted, ranchers and farmers have turned into employees.

For full article see: AGRICULTURE: Foreigners Lead Global Land Rush.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

* You can’t have it all
* China says ‘no’ to African farmland

Written by Stephen

May 11, 2009 at 10:30 am

Posted in Africa, Agriculture/Food, Food, Indigenous People

Tagged with biofuel, farmland, land grab
« Ethanol and Biofuels – Everything (Almost) You Need to Know
Heading for +2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) Carbon Use Must Peak by 2015 Scientists Warn »

Politicians, Medical Personnel, First Responders were all going to get shots which contained none of the preservative items which have caused so much trouble - mercury, etc.

Citizens are in an uproar...<<<

Yes, thank you, that is the one I read part of.

Since I had just left a real conspiracy site, you can imagine what my thoughts on this one were.

Could it be a test run for the nazi eugenics program?

self ping

For your further reading... If you want a very complete reference for herbal medicines, the PDR listed here is excellent (wish the pictures were in color though) large but worthwhile if you want to know about herbs and uses.

Many more very good references too...

Free Survival Type E-books<<<

Thank you that is a wonderful collection of ebooks.

A couple of them I know of, the others will need checked out.

Welcome to the thread, glad you found us.