It showed up in the UK first since the breeding stock is so in limited in such a small area as the UK. The disease does not develop until after 22 months in the animal. So that is why importers only want younger animals form the US.

AS for the use of GMO’s in the EU and China. the use of GMO’s is limited due to consumer rejection. However the WTO has ruled that the prohibition is illegal, pushed by the US, whoever the us of GMO corn is growing in eastern Europe. China is a different situation. The Chinese are using GMO’s that they have developed not by Western companies.

Worldwide grain prices are going up primarily due to the biofuels including ethanol. In fact the US ethanol processors are importing grain to meet the congressional mandates. Without ethanol the US grain crop would be much smaller due to the lack of demand for GMO grains. After the 08 election the congressional mandates will be dropped or dramatically lowered due to budget constraints which is why the commodity supports were not dropped in the farm bill.

Alberta Canada has great fields of GMO Canola plants. Canola oil was formerly called Rape Seed Oil. They changed the name. Wonder why.

Canola is the product. Rape Seed is the plant

On a trip to Germany in May, I found out that their grain fields were being converted to Rape Seed to grow their version of biofuels. The Germans were complaining that the price and availability of grains for beer and bread were becoming scarce and expensive. This is happening all over Europe.

If there are folks out there that plan on contacting their Senators about the farm bill, there are some farming sites that may help with information you may find useful about what is in the bill and what needs fixing. One such is the Center For Rural Affairs at http://www.cfra.org . Other information can be found at The Ethucurean http://www.ethicurean.com/2007…..implified/

There are a number of other sites out there that can help with information.

I challenge you to show where most of the organic money goes to “subsidize corporate organic producers”

We added funds to help small organic farmers pay for conversion and organic certification cost. We added a “means” test by limiting the dollars any one individual or company can receive. While this number may seem large to market gardeners, it’s a pittance to grain and oil seed farmers.

We added money so that the USDA National Organic Program would have sufficient funding to ENFORCE to organic laws and service the needs of the organic community.

We added funds so that there would be funding for organic research on newer and better methods of farming and processing.

But what does all this money amount to? Today organics is 3% of total food sales in the US, projected to grow to 10% in the next 7 years. The piece of the pie for organics does not rise to 0.0001% and we had to fight like hell to get that.

What does not help is having you repeat talking points from Organic Consumers Association which was NOT involved in the Farm Bill process by their choice. OCA chose instead to wait, not unlike the FLD, until the bill was out of committee (House and Senate) to bitch about the unfairness of the bill. Which everyone is aware of. By waiting you can show yourselves as fighting the good fight but not having to get your hands dirty with the hard work of crafting a bill.

The farm bill comes up every 5 to 7 years. If you want to be agents of change now is the time to elect people to congress that will stop the harmful and shameless taxpayer giveaways.

And if you ever want to write something about organics contact me. I’ve been involved in organics for over 20 years and have been a Firepup for 16 months.

thanks :)

Technolgy can be as useful for decentralizing as it can be for centralizing.

It is a simple fact that in this Century we will ahve to live with less. Simple arithmatic. As the rest of the world demands a greater standard of living the resources for that standard will ahve to come form somewhere. We consume a far greater share of the worlds resources than our population dictates. So their standard of Living will come from ours.

I am all for that. We have so much stuff we have a thriving storage industry. People pay for things and then store them. We do not need multiple TVs in a single house. Families need to wathc TV together and learn sharing and cooperation. Everyone does not need a cell phone. We do not need individual sound systems. We also do not need the majority of our food grown and processed several states away.

We need to learn to be self reliant. If we had to make it on our own tomorrow we would not know how. I am less concerned about the fact that most people do not know where food comes from or how to grow and raise it themselves. As long as we pay others to do what we can do ouraselves we will be slaves to those who provide our every need – including what we decide we need. We need I-pods because we are told we do. Do we? If you think we do need I-pods you need to learn how to eat them.

Yes call your Senator about the farm bill , but start to think about how you would be able to survive if you found yourself in a posittion to have to do so. The odds are in the next 30 years you will. Start preparing now.

The EU will not eat anything contaminated with GMOs. China will follow soon. Why?

Google ‘Mad Cow Disease’ and see why.

And since EU law requires that all food be labeled and that the consumer must be informed of the presence of GMOs in said food the producers cannot just fail to tell folks.

Like they can here.

Further that most people are totally unaware of the linkage you and I are discussing. 90% of the discussion of environmental problems appearing from ‘Free Trade’ are dumped at China’s door. The word needs to get out that China ain’t the biggest problem with GMOs, industrial chemicals, high-tech toxic waste and a host of other issues…..

The U.S. is.

At the end of 2008 China will join the EU in implementing the ‘precautionary principle’ in it’s legal system.

Leaving the U.S. and the remnants of the Third World on the outside looking in.

The idea that there is no problem as you seem to imply because corn prices haven’t fallen due to the EU ban is delusional as they are being propped up by selling more to feed lots and speculation on the ethanol bubble. These are not permanent solutions.

The American corn industry is dead.

It just doesn’t know it yet.

I need to see if anyone’s asked Edwards about this. I am sure folks in Iowa know about this. For more on this read: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power

And you might, just might, try reading my post including all the links.