clips - earth democracy, non-interventionist farming, and agriturismo

Vindana Shiva interviewed in Cowbell Magazine - her radical vision of a green future, Earth Democracy...

'This inconsistency of the globalization project with democracy is something that needs to be addressed, that [globalization] is a project that can only be kept in place through lying about what’s really happening. And when people wake up, because people’s lives tell them this is not really true—when they say ,“Oh, we’re having growth” and people are running into unemployment—you can’t keep lying to people that we’re doing well. If India is told that we are shining, and half the people are starving, a starving person knows we are not shining.'

http://www.cowbellmagazine.com/home/2010/7/30/duty-now-for-the-future.html

Harry Eyres writes on Masanobu Fukuoka and his theory and practice of the non-interventionist farming that was his life’s work and philosophy,

and on agriturismo in Chianti...

http://www.ft.com/arts/columnists/harryeyres

Things begin to come to light

I was surprised the other morning on my way to Berkeley to hear our local CBS radio affiliate feature a story, with good background info, on the recent findings of Pepsico about the environmental cost of their Tropicana Orange Juice.

Apparently Pepsico's British affiliate assessed the footprint of one of their products, and when the manager who spearheaded this moved to the U.S. he led a plan to have an outside agency do the math on several key Pepsico products.

One half-gallon of Tropicana o.j. is responsible for 3.75 lbs of CO2.

But then there's the interesting part. 60% of that is a result of growing the oranges and making the juice. 58% of that 60% - more than one third of the total CO2- is due to what Pepsico in their press release calls "grove management" - a lovely euphemism for making and spreading the huge amounts of synthetic high nitrogen (from natural gas) fertilizer required for high yield orange mono-cropping.

Whatever Pepsico calls it, the cost of industrial agriculture is beginning to be revealed.

I wonder if the results of this will encourage or discourage other food manufacturers from risking a little transparency?

Back to the KCBS story - they had a UC Davis ag chemistry prof comment on the story. She talked about organic; but she also talked about the wonderful things we can grow in California without big synthetic fertilizer N inputs. Let's hear it for TOMATOES!

Finally a report on the farm bill

and why haven't I found this site before?

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis offers this three page summary of what was and was not done.

http://www.iatp.org/iatp/commentaries.cfm?refID=102665

Finally a three pager that isn't just from the perspective of grapes or cows or a chemical company, but gives a comprehensive look at what finally happened, albeit with a left leaning slant.

Many media outlets overlooked the modest but progressive provisions in the farm bill which will reward conservation efforts, encourage organic farming, and prefer local sourcing of food in some government subsidized feeding programs - all good steps.

Also ethanol incentives begin to move away from corn and toward other native cellulosic plants.

But here's the sobering fact offered as context for this report: Cargill's earnings in April 2008 were up 86% over the same period a year ago - a trend that has been going on for a decade.

If we complain when oil companies make big profits while gasoline prices rise, where's the outrage over this statistic when food prices are skyrocketing?