Gary Null & Richard Gale - Seeds of Death: Understanding the Deception Behind GMOs

Today the vast majority of foods in supermarkets contain genetically modified substances whose effects on our health are unknown. As a medical doctor, I can assure you that no one in the medical profession would attempt to perform experiments on human subjects without their consent. Such conduct is illegal and unethical. Yet manufacturers of genetically altered foods are exposing us to one of the largest uncontrolled experiments in modern history.” Martha Herbert, MD, Harvard University School of Medicine.

During the past decade, there has been a growing awareness about the limitations and dangers of genetically modified foods and chemical industrial agriculture now threatening the health, lives and environment across the planet. The pro-GMO community, including food companies and federal and state legislators, hearken bioengineering as the solution for maintaining the world’s food supply in the future. However, to date there has been no scientific evidence to substantiate this claim. Dr. John Fagan, a former genetic engineer at the National Institutes of Health, has stated,

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Rise of the Bacterial Superbug: Systemic Misuse of Antibiotics to Blame

A new health report shows that bacterial superbugs are on the rise while health and consumer advocacy groups blame overuse among both humans and livestock as the root cause.

Research by international NGO, Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, found that "residents of Appalachian and Gulf Coast states, where antibiotic use rates are highest, take about twice as many antibiotics per capita as people living in Western states." States where usage is highest include Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Reporting on the research USA Today adds that, despite findings that overall prescription antibiotic use among patients in the US has dropped 17% since 1999, misuse of the drugs has grown:

Drugs for many bacterial infections are becoming ineffective because they are so often taken when they are not needed—allowing bugs that cause everything from pneumonia to sexually transmitted diseases to adapt and survive future attempts at treatment. Much of the overuse is for colds, flu and sore throats caused by viruses—illnesses that antibiotics can't help.

The report is one of several being released as part of the Center For Disease Control and Prevention's "Get Smart About Antibiotics Week" November 12-18, during which physicians and health organizations call attention to the abuse and growing impotence of valuable medicine.

One troubling example of this, according to research by the CDDEP, is "certain types of bacteria responsible for causing urinary tract infections (UTIs), the second-most-common infection in the United States, are becoming more difficult to treat with current antibiotics…with the overall share of resistant bacteria increasing by over 30% between 1999 and 2010."

The report found that the "burden of antibiotic resistance for urinary tract infections was highest in the Southeast states" where research has indenfitifed these regions as "the most intensive users of antibiotics." They write that this overuse "likely speeds up the development of resistant strains of the bacteria causing these and other more serious infections."

In a related action, the Consumers Union—the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports—made a statement on Monday calling for a major reduction in the use of antibiotics in food animal production blaming overuse for the promotion and spread of drug-resistant superbugs.

"It's time to stop the daily feeding of antibiotics to healthy food animals which makes these life-saving medications less effective for people," Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives for Consumers Union, announced in a press release.

The statement continues:

Some 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used on food animals, mostly to make them grow faster or prevent disease in crowded and unsanitary conditions. As a result of large scale use of antibiotics in livestock production, most of the bugs that are vulnerable to the antibiotics are eventually killed off, leaving behind superbugs that are immune to one or more of the drugs. These superbugs spread on the farm and beyond, contributing to antibiotic resistance in hospitals and our communities.

Numerous health organizations, including the American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, Infectious Disease Society of America, and the World Health Organization, agree that there is "strong evidence of a link between antibiotic use in food animals and antibiotic resistance in humans," and have called for significant reductions in the use of antibiotics for animal food production.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/13-4

Chemistry Council trying to lobby Washington to cut off funding for research on carcinogens

Every two years, the National Toxicology Program (NTP), which operates under the banner of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), releases a congressionally-mandated report entitled the "Report on Carcinogens" (RoC) that identifies various agents, substances, mixtures, or exposures that are known to cause cancer. But the American Chemical Society (ACS), which represents many of the biggest names in the cancer-causing chemical industry, is currently trying to lobby Congress to stop the publishing of this important document.

Because the latest RoC lists formaldehyde, a chemical commonly used in both consumer and industrial products, as a definitive cause of cancer, and styrene, another common household chemical, as a suspected carcinogen, the chemical industry is up in arms about its potential profit losses. So in the spirit of Big Tobacco's approach to dealing with inconvenient science, the chemical industry is now desperately trying to muddle the scientific process by paying off Congress to not only withhold the truth about these and other deadly chemicals, but also to prevent the public from accessing this information by blocking funding for future publishings of the RoC.

"The way the free market is supposed to work is that you have information," Lynn Goldman, Dean of the School of Public Health at George Washington University (GWU), is quoted as saying by the New York Times (NYT) about the importance of the RoC report. "They're (thechemical companies) trying to squelch that information."

Similar stall tactics were used by the chemical industry back in the 1930s when the safety of asbestos was first called into question. Just like today, industry lobbyists at that time denied all the emerging science about the serious dangers of asbestos, insisting that it was all "ill-informed and exaggerated" bunk, according to the NYT. The chemical was eventually exposed and banned in the 1980s, of course, but by this point, millions of people had already been needlessly exposed to asbestos, with roughly 10,000 of them now die every year as a result of asbestos-related disease.

"The industrial chemical formaldehyde and a botanical known as aristolochic acids are listed as known human carcinogens," says a National Institutes of Health (NIH) announcement about the eight new substances added to the 2011 RoC, which the chemical industry is trying to keep under wraps. "Six other substances -- captafol, cobalt-tungsten carbide (in powder or hard metal form), certain inhalable glass wool fibers, o-nitrotoluene, riddelliine, and styrene -- are added as substances that are reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens." (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsroom/releases/2011/june10/)

You can read the full 2011 RoC here:
http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/?objectid=03C9AF75-E1BF-FF40-DBA9EC0928DF8B15

http://www.naturalnews.com/037724_Chemistry_Council_lobbying_carcinogens.html

Farmers say entire organic industry at risk in GM alfalfa debate

There’s a new genetically modified crop on the horizon that some say is jeopardizing the entire Canadian organic farming industry.

Organic farmers across the country are sounding the alarm bells on the state of alfalfa, one small plant with a massive role in organic farming.

When most people hear the word alfalfa they generally think of sprouts they buy in the grocery store.

However, full-grown, dried alfalfa is a high-protein feed for pigs, poultry, dairy cows, beef cattle and lambs and is used to increase the nutrients in soil.

In order to be certified organic, foods cannot be produced with genetically modified crops and chemical sprays.

The crop at the centre of this debate is Monsanto’s herbicide tolerant, genetically modified (GM) alfalfa. It has already been deregulated in the U.S. and north of the border seed growers and conventional farmers are meeting to discuss the possibility of commercializing GM alfalfa in Canada.

This November, the Canadian Seed Trade Association (CSTA) is meeting with members of Forage Genetics International to discuss the status of herbicide tolerant alfalfa in the U.S. and Canada and develop a coexistence plan for GM alfalfa.

Critics argue that organic crops and GM crops cannot coexist, as cross-pollination of GM alfalfa to organic crops is inevitable – making organic certification impossible.

“The consensus among the food scientists is that once it's out there, it will inevitably contaminate the entire seed supply,” said Ted Zettel, from the Canadian Organic Federation.

“I'm sure that I'll lose my certification,” said organic dairy farmer John Brunsveld.

A spokesperson for the CSTA said they were unable to respond to questions from Global News until a "value chain workshop" on an alfalfa coexistence plan is completed. That workshop is scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

An additional worry for farmers is the loss of exports they could suffer.

Canada exports $29-million worth of alfalfa each year, often to countries where genetically modified organisms are banned.

“So many other countries have banned [GMOs] in their food system. Once our alfalfa is contaminated, there are very few countries in the world that are going to want an export of ours,” said Sarah Dobec from the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network’s “Stop GM Alfalfa” campaign.

With that business lost, the cost of organic food could skyrocket. With fewer locally grown organic products available for sale, Canada would need to increase imports in order to meet demand.

These effects may force organic farmers to close up shop or change their definitions of what makes something organic.

“I don’t think we can have an organic industry without growing alfalfa,” said Zettel. “It won’t be the industry that we have now because we’re so dependent on it for livestock feed.”

Several grassroots groups are rallying to raise awareness for the issue. This Wednesday, the National Farmers Union will hold a protest in Kitchener, Ont., in order to stop plans to introduce GM alfalfa in Ontario. 

http://www.globaltoronto.com/farmers+say+entire+organic+industry+at+risk+in+gm+alfalfa+debate/6442738683/story.html

New Report: American Lives at Risk from Unsafe Foods

Despite government commitments to address the problem, food recalls are on the rise and our food safety systems are broken, according to a new report by U.S. PIRG.  Contaminated food makes 48 million Americans sick every year and costs over $77 billion in aggregated economic costs.  In the USA over the last 21 months, 1753 people were made sick from foodborne illnesses linked directly to food recalls and the cost was over $227 million.

“Every year we see hundreds of food products recalled, because they have caused sickness and in some cases death. 2012 has already seen nearly twice as many illnesses due to recalls as 2011, with high-profile recalls of cantaloupes and hundreds of thousands of jars of peanut butter,” said Nasima Hossain, Public Health Advocate for U.S. PIRG.  “More needs to be done to identify the contaminants that are making us sick and to protect Americans from the risk of unsafe food.”

 The report, “Total Food Recall: Unsafe Foods Putting American Lives at Risk,” analyzed nationwide recall information issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) from January 2011 to September 2012.  During that period, there were:

• 1,753 foodborne Illnesses directly linked to recalls of food products from known pathogens such as Listeria and Salmonella;
• 37 deaths directly linked to recalls of food products; and
• $227 million in economic and health related costs linked to recalls of food products.

 The Food Safety Modernization Act was signed into law by President Obama in January 2011, with strong support from U.S.PIRG, consumer groups and public health groups.  The law was designed to give the FDA new tools and new powers to protect consumers.   However, the Act is still not being fully implemented and our foods remain unsafe.

“We need a food safety system that is fully funded and fully staffed so it can stop unsafe food from reaching our dinner tables,” said Nasima Hossain.   “We must move away from the current reactive approach, where recalls happen after dangerous products have already made it into families’ kitchens, and focus on prevention.  The Food Safety Modernization Act should be fully implemented and the Administration should not waste any more time in strengthening our food safety systems.”

The report is available at http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/total-food-recall

Will We Let Industrial Farming Interests Set Us Up for Long-Run Mass Starvation?

As we reported in April ^[2], Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issued an Invasive Species Order, or ISO, that was supposed to “help stop the spread of feral swine and the disease risk they pose,” not to mention their “potential for extensive agricultural and ecosystem damage.”

Quite intentionally, we believe, the ISO’s unnecessarily broad definition includes heritage or “old world” breeds and open-range pigs raised on small family farms. These are included because they do not have the uniform color and appearance of factory-raised pigs.

The order allows DNR to seize and destroy non-conforming animals—some farmers’ principal livelihood and what remains of porcine genetic diversity—and will not compensate farmers whose pigs are destroyed ^[3]. Even pet pigs could be in danger.

Many observers believe that the Michigan Pork Producers Association is behind the order. The MPPA is a coalition of CAFOs or factory farming operations that would view the small pig farmers as undesirable competition. The ISO eliminates this competition and ensures that consumers have no choice but to purchase white pork from the confinement facilities, which are exempt from the ISO.

In addition, the order is also described by some farmers as “a brazen power grab” by the Michigan DNR to expand its jurisdiction beyond hunting and fishing to now include farming operations.

Since our earlier report, four lawsuits ^[4] have been filed by small farmers against the DNR to overturn the ISO on the grounds that it is vague and contradictory. Two of the plaintiffs are heritage breed farmers who actually received an order for them to “depopulate.”

To say that the order is vague and contradictory is an understatement. We doubt that whoever wrote it ever saw a pig. One of the defining characteristics of a feral swine in the ISO is tail structure: “Sus scrofa exhibit straight tails. They contain the muscular structure to curl their tails if needed, but the tails are typically held straight. Hybrids of Sus scrofa exhibit either curly or straight tail structure.” So in plain English, a pig with either a straight tail or curly tail is either a feral or a non-feral swine! If it is the wrong one, eliminate it!

The lawsuits were consolidated into a single hearing to determine whether the ISO—and DNR’s Declaratory Ruling interpreting the ISO^[5]—could be voided. A ruling is expected next month.

At the same time, there is a campaign to petition the governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, to rescind the ISO. If the governor lets it stand, other states will take note, and we may get the same sort of order from other state agencies. The ISO is not only bad for Michigan local farmers. It would also leave us with only one kind of pig by destroying the genetic diversity of pig genes presently available.

If humanity goes down the road it seems to be on and discards its heritage seeds and animals so that powerful corporate interests, assisted by friends in government, can control our food supply, we shouldn’t be surprised if the eventual result is mass starvation.

If we stop this outrageous order in Michigan, we won’t just have stopped it there. We will have prevented its spread to other states.

Action Alert! If you’re a Michigan resident, please write to Gov. Snyder and ask him to rescind the ISO. Besides being terribly unfair to small farmers, heritage and “old world” breeds of pigs are important to provide genetic variety to an increasingly limited gene pool.

Jerza Thompson - All Together Now: World Food Day 2012

One in seven people around the world will feel hunger today. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) brings global awareness to this issue every year on October 16^th, and have done so since 1981. Today, there are more than 100 countries that will celebrate World Food Day. Over 450 national and private organizations in the U.S., such as Oxfam America and Ending Hunger, will host events around this year’s theme, “Agricultural cooperatives–key to feeding the world,” to bring better understanding around what cooperatives are and how they help relieve food insecurity and improve community self-sufficiency.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/16-2

Justin Gillis - A Modest Rise in Global Food Prices

Given the fears set off by the agricultural disasters of the summer, the latest report on food prices from the United Nations has to be counted as good news. The Food and Agriculture Organization reported Thursday that global prices rose 1.4 percent in September from the previous month.

Prices increased only 1 percent in the all-important cereals sector, with gains in rice and wheat prices somewhat offset by a drop in corn prices. The overall figures suggest that the price run-ups that accompanied this summer’s weather problems in several producing countries – including the United States, the world’s largest grain exporter – are now largely factored into the market.

And, barring some fresh disaster early in the Southern Hemisphere’s growing season, it probably means we will get through this year without witnessing the peaks in global food prices seen in 2008 and 2011. Those, readers will recall, set off global unrest and prompted renewed commitmentsto agricultural development in poor countries.

Read More:

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/a-modest-rise-in-global-food-prices/

US Biofuel Is Consuming Corn While The World Is Facing Food Crisis

The global food crisis is looming while the US ethanol program is pushing up corn prices by up to 21 percent as it is expanded to consume 40 percent of the harvest. The poor countries and the poor are paying the price. Biofuel is increasing hunger. Now is the time to call: “put food before fuel and people before cars.”

Africa is the most afflicted, with six of the seven states are at extreme risk. Fourteen countries are particularly vulnerable to the recent food-price increase. The food crisis reality questions the biofuel production and consumption.

Timothy A Wise, the Policy Research Director, Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, Medford writes in an essay [1]:

“This is the third food price spike in the last five years, and this time the finger is being pointed squarely at biofuels. [T]he loss of a quarter or more of the projected US corn harvest has prompted urgent calls for reform in that country's corn ethanol program.”

Excerpt from the essay:

“As I showed in my recent study, The Costs to Developing Countries of US Ethanol Expansion, the US ethanol program pushed up corn prices by up to 21 percent as it expanded to consume 40 percent of the US harvest. This price premium was passed on to corn importers, adding an estimated $11.6bn to the import bills of the world's corn-importing countries since 2005. More than half of that - $6.6bn - was paid by developing countries between 2005 and 2010. The highest cost was borne by the biggest corn importers. Mexico paid $1.1bn more for its corn, Egypt $727m.

“Besides Egypt, North African countries saw particularly high ethanol-related losses: Algeria ($329m), Morocco ($236m), Tunisia ($99m) and Libya ($68m). Impacts were also high in other strife-torn countries in the region - Syria ($242m), Iran ($492m) and Yemen ($58m). North Africa impacts totaled $1.4bn. Scaled to population size, these economic losses were at least as severe as those seen in Mexico. The link between high food prices and unrest in the region is by now well documented, and US ethanol is contributing to that instability.

“The debate over biofuels has grown urgent since food prices first spiked in 2007-2008, ushering in a food crisis characterized by repeated jumps in global food prices. Prices for most staple foods doubled, fell when the bubble burst in 2009, then jumped again to their previous high levels in 2010-2011.

“Experts have debated how much of the price increases should be blamed on global biofuels expansion. Few argue now that the contribution is small. A US National Academy of Sciences review attributed 20-40 percent of the 2007-2008 price spikes to global biofuels expansion. Subsequent studies have confirmed this range for the later price increases.

“Why is the impact so large? Because so much food and feed is now diverted to produce fuel, and so much land is now used for biofuels feedstocks - corn and sugar for ethanol, soybeans, palm oil and a variety of other plants for biodiesel. This rapidly growing market was fuelled by a wide range of government incentives and mandates and by the rising price of petroleum.

“Nowhere is the impact clearer than in the diversion of US corn into ethanol production. Ethanol now consumes roughly 40 percent of the US corn crop, up from just 5 percent a decade ago. The biggest jump came after the US Congress enacted the RFS in 2005 then expanded it dramatically in 2007.

“A blending allowance of 10 percent for domestic gasoline added to the demand, a level now potentially being raised to 15 percent. These mandates for rising corn ethanol production combined with tax incentives to gasoline blenders and tariff protection against cheaper imports to create today's massive ethanol demand for corn.

“As corn prices rose farmers increased production, but not enough to accommodate the increased ethanol demand. So prices just kept rising and corn stocks just kept getting thinner and thinner. They were at dangerously low levels - about 15 percent of global use - when the first price spikes happened in 2007-2008. They are at 14 percent now.

“Corn is probably the most problematic feedstock for biofuels. In many parts of the world it is grown as food for human consumption, serving as the staple grain for some one billion people worldwide. It is also a key feed for livestock, giving it another direct link to the human food supply through meat, dairy and egg prices.

“US corn ethanol is particularly disruptive to international markets. The United States is by far the largest producer and exporter of corn in the world. That 40 percent of the US corn crop being put into US cars represents an astonishing 15 percent of global corn production. The diversion of so much corn from food and feed markets has produced a ‘demand shock’ in international markets since 2004.

“For our study of the impacts on corn importers, we relied on estimates of how much lower corn prices would have been if ethanol production had not grown past its 2004 levels. The impacts rose with ethanol demand, reaching an estimated 21 percent in 2009. We took those annual estimates and calculated the added cost each year, 2005-10, to the world's net corn-importing countries based on their net import volumes.

“The largest importer by far is Japan and the ethanol premium cost Japan an estimated $2.2bn. But our interest was developing countries because of their vulnerability to food price increases.

“Over the last 50 years, and particularly since the 1980s, the world's least developed countries have gone from being small net exporters of agricultural goods to huge net importers. The shift came when structural reforms in the 1980s forced indebted developing country governments to open their economies to agricultural imports while reducing their support for domestic farmers. The result: a flood of cheap and often-subsidised imports from rich countries, forcing local farmers out of business and off the land.

“In the price spike of 2008, the world's least developed countries imported $26.6bn in agricultural goods and exported only $9.1bn, leaving an agricultural trade deficit for these overwhelmingly agricultural countries of $17.5bn, more than three times the deficit recorded in 2000 ($4.9bn). This squeezes government budgets, strains limited foreign exchange reserves and leaves the poor more exposed to food price increases.

“Guatemala, for example, saw its import dependence in corn grow from 9 percent in the early 1990s to around 40 percent today. This in a corn-producing country, the birthplace of domesticated corn. According to our estimates, Guatemala saw $91bn in ethanol-related impacts, $28m in 2010 alone. How big an impact is that? It represents six times the level of US agricultural aid that year and nearly as much as US food aid to Guatemala. It is equivalent to over 10 percent of the government's annual expenditure on agricultural development. It is devastating for a country in which nearly half of children under five are malnourished.

“Of course, poor consumers are the ones most hurt by ethanol-related price increases, especially those in urban areas. Even in a net corn exporting country like Uganda, domestic corn prices spiked as international prices transmitted to local markets. Ugandans spend on average 65 percent of their cash income on food, with poor urban consumers getting 20 percent of their calories from corn purchased in the marketplace. More than half of Ugandans were considered "food insecure" in 2007, and the price spikes have only made that worse.

“US ethanol expansion has accounted for 21 percent of corn prices in recent years, so it has forced thousands of Ugandans deeper into poverty and hunger.

“The US and other Northern governments can stop fuelling the food crisis with reckless biofuels expansion. The US can waive the RFS mandates to allow tight markets to adjust in a year of drought. It can join the European Union in reconsidering its mandates. It can halt the increase in blending targets to 15 percent.

“On World Food Day, October 16, the FAO will convene an emergency meeting on the food crisis in Rome. Disgracefully, the G-20 group of economically powerful nations declined to convene its own emergency meeting, with a US spokesperson saying that ‘agricultural commodity markets are functioning’.

“Global leaders should take a strong stand in Rome against biofuels expansion, endorse the use of food reserves to cushion markets in times of drought, demand rules to end financial speculation on food commodities and restrict the land grabs that are driven largely by global demand for biofuels.”

Timothy A Wise concludes his essay with the following call:

“It's time we put food before fuel and people before cars.”

Citing global risk analysis firm Maplecroft’s food security index for 2013 Joshua Berlinger writes [2] in Business Insider on Oct. 10, 2012:

Africa is clearly the most afflicted, with six of the seven states at "extreme risk." Afghanistan was the only nation outside of Africa at extreme risk.

Food insecurity could also become yet another factor fueling the already tense relations and civil unrest in the Middle East.

At the current rate, Rabobank, a financial specialist in agro-commodities, estimates that prices of food staples could rise by as much as 15 percent by June 2013.

Another report [3] adds:

Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that depends largely on food imports, appears to be on the verge of a serious food crisis.

Food-price hikes have been witnessed across the globe. Indeed, the Food and Agricultural Organisation announced last week that food prices rose slightly in September, approaching levels reached during the global food crisis in 2008.

The World Bank has also said that its Food Price Index soared by 10 percent in July compared to a month earlier. Over the same period, prices of maize increased by almost 25 percent and wheat prices surged by around 30 percent.

The high proportion of expenditures on food, high rates of malnutrition and the recurrent crisis and insecurity -- particularly in the Sahel region -- are enough reason for increased concern and monitoring, the bank said.

Aside from the external factors, the presence of desert locusts and ongoing conflict in the Sahel region of West Africa have also been linked to the risk of a food crisis in the region.

In its April issue of Africa’s Pulse, the World Bank mentioned countries like Mali and Niger as already suffering from locust infestation and said there is potential for the swarm to move to neighboring countries such as Mauritania and Chad.

“The impact of this latest food-price increase in local markets across Africa is difficult to determine as current trends show significant variation in domestic prices across the region. In West and Central Africa, prices of cereals are still at record high levels owing to low production in 2011. However, better rains in 2012 have caused prices in the coastal countries to decline...” the bank said in the October edition of Africa’s Pulse.

A recent report by the FAO and USAID’s Famine Early Warning System Network lists 14 countries as being particularly vulnerable to the recent food-price increase. In many of these countries, maize and wheat provide 20% or more of the average household’s caloric intake. For Lesotho, the figure is as high as 69% and for Malawi it is 52%.

In Ghana, rice remains a major staple in particularly urban households which have a taste for imported rice. The country’s own self-sufficiency rate of rice is estimated at 33%. A huge chunk of the rice the country consumes is imported.

Information on the National Rice Development Strategy for Ghana reveals that the per capita rice consumption in Ghana is currently 38 kg, and this is expected to rise to 63kg in 2015 -- giving an aggregate demand of 1.68mn metric tones.

Ghana's demand for rice hovers around 700,000 metric tones, but the local Ghanaian rice farmer is able to produce only 150,000, leaving a deficit of 550,000 metric tones.

According to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, despite overall strong economic growth over the past decade, the agricultural sector in Ghana has declined from 51 percent to 36 percent of GDP.

The rural poor now account for almost three-quarters of all Ghanaians who live below the poverty line. Smallholder farmers, whose farms average just 1.2 ha, currently have limited opportunities to prosper.

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc111012A.htm

Global Food Supply System Could Collapse: 2013 Could Experience A Major Hunger Crisis

World grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the US or other food-exporting countries could trigger a major hunger crisis next year, said a report by John Vidal in The Observer [1] on October 13, 2012. John cited a UN warning. The food crisis is growing in the Middle East and Africa.

The report said:

Failing harvests in the US, Ukraine and other countries this year have eroded reserves to their lowest level since 1974. The US now holds in reserve a historically low 6.5% of the maize that it expects to consume in the next year.

"We've not been producing as much as we are consuming. That is why stocks are being run down. Supplies are now very tight across the world and reserves are at a very low level, leaving no room for unexpected events next year," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the FAO. With food consumption exceeding the amount grown for six of the past 11 years, countries have run down reserves from an average of 107 days of consumption 10 years ago to under 74 days recently.

Prices of main food crops such as wheat and maize are now close to those that sparked riots in 25 countries in 2008. FAO figures released this week suggest that 870 million people are malnourished and the food crisis is growing in the Middle East and Africa. Wheat production this year is expected to be 5.2% below 2011, with yields of most other crops, except rice, also falling.

The figures come as one of the world's leading environmentalists issued a warning that the global food supply system could collapse at any point, leaving hundreds of millions more people hungry, sparking widespread riots and bringing down governments. In a shocking new assessment of the prospects of meeting food needs, Lester Brown, president of the Earth policy research centre in Washington, says that the climate is no longer reliable and the demands for food are growing so fast that a breakdown is inevitable, unless urgent action is taken.

"Food shortages undermined earlier civilizations. We are on the same path. Each country is now fending for itself. The world is living one year to the next," he writes in a new book.

According to Brown, we are seeing the start of a food supply breakdown with a dash by speculators to "grab" millions of square miles of cheap farmland, the doubling of international food prices in a decade, and the dramatic rundown of countries' food reserves.

This year, for the sixth time in 11 years, the world will consume more food than it produces, largely because of extreme weather in the US and other major food-exporting countries.

Oxfam last week said that the price of key staples, including wheat and rice, may double in the next 20 years, threatening disastrous consequences for poor people who spend a large proportion of their income on food.

In 2012, according to the FAO, food prices are already at close to record levels, having risen 1.4% in September following an increase of 6% in July.

"We are entering a new era of rising food prices and spreading hunger. Food supplies are tightening everywhere and land is becoming the most sought-after commodity as the world shifts from an age of food abundance to one of scarcity," says Brown. "The geopolitics of food is fast overshadowing the geopolitics of oil."

His warnings come as the UN and world governments reported that extreme heat and drought in the US and other major food-exporting countries had hit harvests badly and sent prices spiraling.

"The situation we are in is not temporary. These things will happen all the time. Climate is in a state of flux and there is no normal any more.

"We are beginning a new chapter. We will see food unrest in many more places.

"Armed aggression is no longer the principal threat to our future. The overriding threats to this century are climate change, population growth, spreading water shortages and rising food prices," Brown says.

Another report [2] on global wheat and corn stocks said:

World wheat stocks will drop by 13% next year and corn stocks will also be lower than expected until well into 2013, the US government predicted on October 11, 2012, prior to farm ministers from across the globe meeting to discuss high food prices.

It was the second time in two weeks that the US agriculture department (USDA) delivered low estimates of crop stocks to the markets. This time, the USDA said unrelenting demand would drag down US corn and soybean stocks to the lowest levels in years – 17 years for corn and eight for soybeans.

Agriculture ministers are due to meet next week in Rome amid renewed fears of a crisis in food supplies exacerbated by the worst US drought in more than 50 years, and drought in Australia, the world's leading wheat exporter.

On the US markets, corn futures soared 5% on the USDA's forecasts, hitting a three-week high. Wheat futures were up 2% near the close of the trading day in Chicago and soybeans were up 1.6%. While at high levels, corn is about 10% lower and soybeans 15% lower than the records set during the summer.

The USDA's estimates of the US corn and soybean crops were slightly larger than traders had expected, although the smallest in recent years. Corn and soybeans are raw ingredients in processed foods, fed to livestock and converted to motor fuel. Livestock feeders say they are being ruined by high corn prices and so the US government should relax a requirement to mix corn ethanol into gasoline.

With US corn production down for the third year in a row, usage will be tightened tremendously. Exports are forecast at 1.15bn bushels in 2012-13, the smallest in 37 years. Five years ago, the figure stood at 2.4bn bushels. Meanwhile, corn imports are forecasted to be 75m bushels, three times larger than average. The USDA also cut its estimate of the EU corn crop by 2.6%.

Drought will reduce Australia's wheat crop to 23m tonnes, down 12% from a month ago, the USDA said. Harsh weather, including summer droughts and early frosts, cut an additional 3% from Russia's wheat crop, it said.

The USDA added that while global wheat stocks would be down 13% next year, world soybean inventories would be up, boosted by huge crops in Brazil and Argentina, which would offset the crash is US.

Rebecca Smithers and Fiona Harvey reported [3] the UK food price scenario that shows hardship of common persons in a developed country:

According to a survey by charity IGD ShopperVista which showed that price is crucial in determining product choice, with 41% of shoppers naming it as the most important factor and 90% listing it within their top five influences.

Affordability is now the key factor in determining what food and drink we buy. Food prices have risen 12% in real terms over the last five years, taking us back to 1997 in terms of the cost of food relative to other goods. This week cash-strapped consumers – already stung by extra financial pressures such as rising petrol costs, inflation-busting rail fares and further hikes in their energy bills – were warned to expect further food price rises as a result of the drought in the US and the washed out UK summer that have affected the supply and quality of crops.

All of this has led to a sharp increase in wheat prices in the UK – from £150 a tonne to more than £205 a tonne. This will almost inevitably mean higher bread prices. It is also bad news for meat prices, as farmers struggle to pay for feed for their livestock.

The combination of a severe drought early in the year, followed by the wettest early summer on record, has produced some of the worst possible conditions for Britain's farmers, decimating yields and leaving crops prone to disease. Wheat was the crop worst hit by the heavy rainfall, with a 14% fall in yields, according to the National Farmers' Union.

Other crops have also suffered severe damage.

The British Growers Association (BGA), representing vegetable farmers, said the pea harvest was down about 45% - a reduction that will mean huge imports to make up the shortfall of one of the UK's most popular vegetables.

The much-anticipated Christmas dinner is likely to be dearer too. Poultry producers have seen their overheads increase dramatically, owing to the poor grain harvest, which has pushed up the price of chicken and turkey feed. Early projections show there will be one-fifth fewer Brussels sprouts this year thanks to the weather. Parsnips have had a poor season and the effects of discolouration on potatoes are still to be fully felt.

Retailers are also helping by agreeing to relax some of their high standards on the size and shape of vegetables and fruit. Mis-shapen or small fruit has traditionally been rejected by supermarkets, for aesthetic reasons, but the poor weather has meant an increase in the proportion of slightly odd-looking produce. Throwing that away at a time of high prices would be deeply unpopular, so the shops have promised to take more of them.

All this has put national food policy under the spotlight. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) reported last week in a barely noticed 50-page statistical document - the Food Statistics Pocketbook 2012 - that UK food prices have increased by 32% between 2007 and 2012. As a result, lower income families have cut their consumption of fruit and vegetables by nearly one-third to just over half of the five-a-day portions recommended for a healthy diet. No surprise, then, that internet companies selling food past its "best before" date (but still safe to eat) at knock-down prices – known in the industry as "the grey market" – are enjoying a boom.

The consumer group Which? has been interviewing consumers in video "booths" across the UK for its Future of Food project – due to report next month - which is an in-depth investigation into shopping and spending patterns. Early findings show that the average cost of shopping bill is £76.83 per week, an increase of £5.66 compared to a year ago. Most people (86%) said the reason for an increase in their weekly shopping bill was due to an increase in food prices, with only 2% saying it was because they had more money to spend. And 92% said they'd noticed an increase in the price of food in the past year.

In addition, more people (91% compared to 81% a year ago) are shopping around to get the best price; more (91% compared to 74% a year ago) are buying cheaper groceries and more (77% compared to 59% a year ago) are shopping at discount supermarkets.

Mary Creagh MP, Labour's shadow environment secretary, described the current situation as "a national scandal". She said: "Even though we are the seventh richest nation in the world, we face an epidemic of hidden hunger, particularly in children … Being able to feed yourself properly is fundamental to people yet government figures show that people on lower incomes are buying and consuming less than five years ago as fruit, milk, cheese and egg prices are up by 30%."

Food statistics digested from Food Statistics Pocketbook 2012, published by Defra October:

• Food prices rose by 32% in the UK between 2007 and 2012 compared to 13% in France and Germany.

• Fruit and vegetable consumption is falling. The lowest 10% of households by income reduced purchases of fruit and vegetables by 20% between 2007 and 2010.

• There are 63 million consumers in the UK, who last year (2011) spent a total of £179bn on food, drink and catering services, including £101bn on household expenditure on food and drink.

• Consumer expenditure on food, drink and catering has continued to rise despite the economic downturn: a rise of 3.5% in 2011 to £179 billion.

• Fruit prices are the second highest: by 34% since June 2007, rising steadily each year.

Source:

[1] “UN warns of looming worldwide food crisis in 2013”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/oct/14/un-global-food-crisis-warning?newsfeed=true

[2] Reuters/ guardian.co.uk, “Global wheat and corn stocks to fall in 2013, says US government”, Oct. 12, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/12/wheat-corn-stocks-fall-2013-drought

[3] guardian.co.uk, “Food prices: 'Bread, coffee and fresh fruit have become a bit of a luxury'”, Oct. 12, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/12/food-prices-affordability-ethical?intcmp=239

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc141012.htm