Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved had harsh words for corporations, governments, the WTO and the World Bank in an interview with CBC that aired today on a program called “Diet for a Hungry Planet”. That interview can be heard by downloading the podcast from iTunes. According to Patel, who worked at both the WTO and the World Bank, it is official policy of these two organizations to drive the poor from farming areas into the cities, and to encourage chemical industrial agriculture to dominate instead.

(image credit: food_for_action on flickr)

I think there are few readers of this blog that would disagree with Patel’s assessment with that policy decision. He states that small scale organic or at least low chemical-intensive farming which relies on crop rotation and crop diversity (which he implies is the most common method of farming among the poor in developing countries) is the most sustainable form of agriculture being practiced in the world today. The decision by these two major organizations to encourage the use of agricultural methods which use toxic chemicals, erode topsoil, and reduce biodiversity is an enormous step in the wrong direction, and I can’t say I disagree. That being said, the WTO and the World Bank are not exactly organizations which have been known for choosing to help people and the planet over the profits of corporations.

I think if we are going to provide a place to live for our grandchildren, we need to be providing micro-finance loans to the impoverished farmers of developing countries. We should be promoting people to live in smaller communities rather than contributing to urban sprawl. And most of all, we should be encouraging local food economies based around organic farming methods in both developed and developing countries to reduce our dependency on petroleum and toxic chemicals.

According to the Viewspaper, British researchers are developing GE mosquitoes to deal with malaria. A few strategies they are working with, thanks to $38 million in grants from the Gates foundation, are engineering the insects to be resistant to the malaria parasite, and inserting a gene for sterility in males to control the populations. However, one has to question the way we are chosing to control this disease, and whether we are creating a larger problem then we are solving.

(image credit: Pachakutic on Flickr)

While genetically engineered food does not solve any real problem, and therefor is absolutely not worth the risk (read What is wrong with GE food?), Malaria is a devastating disease. 3 million people die every year from the illness which is transmitted by mosquitoes. One could argue that saving 3 million lives per year is worth releasing a new gene into the environment, however we have to seriously consider the long term implications.

First off, inserting a sterility gene into an animal and released into the environment is incredibly dangerous. When birds and dragonflies eat the mosquitoes, the gene could transfer into the larger animals body through horizontal gene transfer.

One also has to consider that when mosquitoes sting human beings, they inject saliva into our blood in order to block the hemostasis system (the system which naturally stops us from bleeding). Their saliva consists of at least 20 active, and many inactive proteins. Any gene manipulation is going to have unintended effects on how proteins are created and expressed, and will likely lead to the creation of novel proteins. Essentially by genetically engineering mosquitoes, we are again using human beings in an uncontrolled genetic experiment, although this time it will be sub-Saharan Africa instead of North America.

I believe that this method of reducing disease is akin to swallowing an uncontrollable genetically-engineered spider to kill the fly.

According to a press release issued by the NDP last week, the government is trying to privatize the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The CFIA is responsible for enforcing labeling laws for packaged food, as well as recalls of contaminated food. They also carry the file for genetically engineered ingredients in processed and packaged food.

I believe that our labeling laws are misguided, and that our system of ensuring the safety of the food Canadians are eating is severely inadequate. However, I think that privatizing food inspection would be an irresponsible thing to do even if we had sound laws.

The problem is with accountability. What happens if the private company makes a mistake? A profit-driven private company is likely to cut corners to ensure they are making money. An issue like the safety of our food is not something that should be left to the private sector. What’s next? Labeling and other food safety laws written by the private sector? Oh wait, I guess we already have that don’t we.

To say that Ryan Nassichuk (ryansgarden.com) has green thumbs would be like saying that Naomi Klein is not a fan of corporations. This man lives and breathes urban agriculture, and his methodology flies in the face of most gardeners.

After spending an evening with him a few weeks ago walking around his “garden”, I picked up the following advice.

1. Relax. Growing food does not require one to obsess over the success of every plant, or the appearance of a given plot. Just get some seed in the ground with some good, live soil and you will get some good food.
2. Nurture the soil. Keeping the earth alive means not using chemicals, and letting nature work as it has for millenia. The only thing he adds is a little organic fertilizer he makes himself.
3. Use lots of compost. Pretty well everthing will decompose, so have a good composter for all kitchen scraps, he recommends one of the open wooden ones rather than a plastic one with a lid. It doesn’t have to be fully decomposed before it goes on the garden, chunks of food bits that are well on their way will continue to decompose in the soil. Also, be sure to layer carbon rich (fall leaves or other brown stuff) and nitrogen rich (most kitchen scraps, yard clippings and other green stuff) in the composter to keep it smelling fresh.
4. Mulch. Layers and layers of fall leaves, straw, or other mulch keeps the weeds down, and as it breaks down, adds more life to the soil. The constant layer of decaying organic matter on the surface of the soil maintains strong microbial communities by leeching nutrients.
5. Share. Share seeds, share plants, and share your harvest. Ryan gives away free seeds on his website to anyone who sends him a postage paid envelope, and he gave me two tomato plants, which are now doing very well. He also doesn’t mind sharing his crop with friends and strangers alike.

If everyone got rid of their perfect chemical soaked lawns, and instead replaced them with Ryan-style mounds of living organic earth yielding delicious seasonal food, we would have better health, a cleaner environment, and greater food security.

For all you within cycling distance of upper lonsdale, Ryan will come to you and help build you a lively garden. Check out his website at www.ryansgarden.com

I just got back from a spending some time in France, and I was amazed at the way they go about agriculture. I should say, my amazement was not due to great technologies or innovative methods, but merely farming in a sustainable way.

First of all, cattle and other livestock are grazed on grass, not chained to a feeding trough where they are forced to eat genetically engineered corn. Below is a picture of my mother, Rebecca Tunnacliffe, chatting with a herd of curious cattle.

Second of all, the fields are small, and largely organic. In the areas I visited, including Burgundy and the Rhone, villages are only a few kilometers apart, and are generally agriculturally based. Farmers will have their own plot or plots of land, on which they grow a variety of crops or graze animals. It was such an extreme contrast to the mega-agribusiness I am used to seeing here in Canada.

Finally, last fall France banned GE crops. It was such a relief to be able to enjoy a meal or go shopping without having to worry about whether there were any GE ingredients.

One might assume that without the use of modern farming technology, France would not be a productive agricultural country, however, France is the largest agricultural producer in Europe! I think it is time to learn a lesson from the French: relax, enjoy food and wine, and adopt small, village based farm economies free from GE crops.

After repeated frustrations with spammers, I have decided to temporarily give up on maintaining the forum. At first the spam load was manageable, with only 3-5 new spam registrations, and half a dozen or so spam posts per day (mostly graphic pornography and generic meds). The last time I logged on, there were over 400 new posts, all spam, and more than half of the members on the message board were spammers, so I decided to call it quits.

Sorry to all of those who have posted, or wanted to post. At some time in the future I will start it again.

Will posted today on his blog Willtaft, that higher food prices will directly and indirectly contribute to agribusiness profits, and erode public resistance to GE crops. You can find his post here.

Perhaps I am just trying to find the silver lining in a serious global problem, but I really think that the food shortage and rising food prices will support our movement.

First of all, this crisis is proof that the biotech industry has not delivered what they promised. CBC’s “As it Happens” today interviewed one of the chair people from the world conference on food security (sorry, no podcast so no reference). In their report, they singled out organic agriculture as the way to ensure food security in the future. The interviewee referred to the fact that GE soy crops actually yield lower than conventional soy crops (edit: this is supported by this new study, and this old study).

Second of all, the reason mega-agribusiness exists today is because it is so hard for a small family farm to compete using traditional methods. Their margins are so narrow, that they often end up having to sell their farm. Many independent family farmers in Canada are finding that as people focus more on eating local, they are finally able to make farming a sustainable business financially. If we look only at the economics of it, an increase in the price of grain will mean that farmers that don’t use the major inputs that are increasing in price (GE seed, fertilizer), they end up with larger margins.

Finally, even if the cost of organic and conventional/GE (there is not a strong enough market for non-GE crops in Canada for there to be market price for non-GE) foods increased by the same amount, the organic food gains the competitive advantage. Bbrian017 posted a comment on Will’s post saying that the cost of a bag of pasta increased from $1 to $2. I am assuming that that was the cost of a bag of conventional pasta, so imagine organic pasta was $1.50, and now it is $2.50. Before you had to justify spending 33% more to buy organic, whereas now you only have to pay 20% more.

While I definitely disagree with using food crops to produce biofuels, and the rising cost of food is a global crisis, I believe that it will push some of those fence-sitters into the non-GE camp.

My company, GE-Free Solutions, has finally launched, and received an excellent show of support at EPIC last weekend. Not only did we have 400 people sign a petition declaring that they would eat non-GE foods if they were available, but we also had a number of companies show great interest in becoming certified.

GE-Free Solutions works with companies to help them remove genetically engineered ingredients from their products, and certifies those products at non-GE once they meet the standards. We have had great interest from companies in a range of industries from soap and aromatherapy to juice and food producers and restaurants.

Why is there a need for a non-GE certifier? First of all, our readers already know what is wrong with GE food. Second of all, it is very challenging for a consumer to know what is GE and what is not, so it is in the best interest of consumers to have products labeled. Finally, self-declaring that a product on GE-free is a process than many businesses do not have the capacity to do. The business must wade through a 23 page document to see what they can and cannot do in terms of labeling non-GE, and then set up a verification system. GE-Free Solutions provides all the services a business needs to become GE-free, and works to raise awareness of the dangers of GE foods on behalf of the certified companies, and for the benefit of Canadian consumers.

For more details about GE-Free Solutions, see our website.

By us, of course, I mean the myself and the readers of this blog: health-conscious consumers who generally eat organic and local food. Yesterday the Globe and Mail plastered “why grocery bills will soar” in larger-than-normal type face across the front page (you can also find the article online). Paul Waldie, the author, wrote that Canada will see food prices rise dramatically because oil prices are hitting record levels and will continue to rise, and because the cost of fertilizer has doubled in the last year…

You probably already get where I am going with this. Local food is not greatly impacted by the cost of oil, with the exception of farmers operating costs, and organic farming doesn’t use fertilizer. If anything, the rising cost of oil and fertilizer means that organic, local farming will be able to compete with conventionally grown, or even genetically engineered and imported crops, dollar-for-dollar. Now if only the government cared more about consumers than mega-agribusiness, they might provide financial support for farmers who want to switch to organic farming.

What is xenotransplantation?

Xenotransplantation is the use of non-human organs in humans. Most commonly this means using pig organs. The pigs are often genetically engineered with human genes, grown to adult size, and then their organs are harvested for implant into humans.
This technology is still in the experimentation stage, but many scientists are excited about the possibility of solving the organ shortage with this process. It is illegal to do clinical trials in Canada, but they are being done in other countries like Mexico (with the support and funding of Canadian doctors and organizations).

Why is wrong with xeno?
Genetically engineering pigs with human genes is inherently dangerous. Genetic engineering produces unpredictable and hard-to detect side effects. Even if the pigs are raised in total isolation, what do you do with the carcases once they are dead? What about their excrement? We simply have no idea what effect they have on the bacteria, what will happen with the DNA and novel proteins, what might happen if another animal (or human) ingests the pig meat with human genes.

By far the most serious risk from xenotransplantation is the risk of novel diseases. Retroviruses are diseases which are suppressed in the DNA, and do not affect the host, and cannot be transmitted. They are dormant. Most organisms have retroviruses in their DNA. The fear is that when a pig organ is implanted into a human, a pig retrovirus could infect the human host. This is not only a problem for the human who receives the transplant, but for the human race, since the virus could be transmitted to other humans.
HIV is a primate retrovirus that spread to humans.

For further reading:
http://www.crt-online.org/wrong.html

Not for the faint of heart:
http://www.xenodiaries.org/