Mais je vais plutôt parler de ce que l'agriculture urbaine a entraîné comme révolution dans les régions de Cuba, mais surtout dans sa capitale, La Havane. En 1990-1991, suite à la chutte de l'URSS, la majorité des pays communistes, comme Cuba, sont tombés dans une récession économique majeure. Le plus gros poids de leur axe venait de s'effondrer, et plusieurs de ces pays s'en sont à peine remis. À cause de cela, le prix des fertilisants (faits à base de gaz naturel, et qu'il fallait donc importer) avait augmenté drastiquement sur l'île, ce qui fit augmenter le prix des denrées alimentaires.

Pour compenser à ce manque, les Cubains ont du faire preuve d'ingéniosité. Tout d'abord, ils passèrent à une agriculture plus soutenable pour les sols, quitte à diminuer la production, pour employer moins d'engrais. Par la suite, on créa des départements gouvernementaux qui eurent pour mandat de favoriser l'agriculture en milieu urbain. Le principal centre fut, bien entendu, situé à la Havane.

Suite à l'implantation d'incititatifs pour favoriser l'agriculture en ville, certains marchés de producteurs prirent naissance. Cette influence des marchés locaux aida les villes. Une étude de 1999 du RUAF (Resource Centers on Urban Agriculture and Food Security) montre que dans les années qui suivirent l'implantation de l'agriculture urbaine à La Havane, les prix de la nourriture dans les grandes épiceries ont grandement diminué, pour se stabiliser environ 5 ans après à un prix qui pouvait être de 2 à 3 fois moins élevé.

Cet example en est un qui montre qu'en cas de pénuries de nourriture, il devient non seulement économique, mais aussi un enjeu social, de développer un réseau d'agriculture urbaine, car cela permet d'ajouter des revenus à bien des gens et permet de nourir plus de personnes, grâce à un coût de production plus bas. Et avec un prix du brut qui continue à augmenter, le transport de nourriture deviendra un facteur de plus en plus important dans le prix des produits. "Think globally, eat locally" passera de plus en plus d'un enjeu environnemental à un enjeu social sur l'alimentation.

Few benefited from the redistribution of farms. Now the issue for a possible MDC government is whether a small circle of powerful people (Elite) will retain ownership of seized land.

read more

What the government has done so far is a necessary fist and must step even though the results will not be bear any fruits. The next logical step is to attack the massive trade deficit in the light of soaring crude prices. There are many things that our government and citizens can do to collectively fight this inflation menace.

1) Government should not subsidise petrol at the pump. Let market forces dictate the price at the pump. This step requires tremendous courage by the existing government especially in an election year.
2) Indians should rely more on mass public transportaion system and reduce oil consumption.
3) Encourage people to move towards natural gas alternative by building required infrastructure.

All the above steps will result in closing the trade deficit gap and help the government in fighting inlation and spend the foreign exchange in helping agricultural sector to become self sufficient in food grains.

Food prices have been rising for several months now, and at first, organic prices stayed steady. But organic foods are catching up - and then some. A gallon of organic milk, for example, is now nearing $7.

College sophomore and president of FarmEcology, Maura Goldstein says she has not changed her buying habits when it comes to organic foods - which are produced without pesticides and chemical fertilizers - but eating out organically has become a concern.

“I try to cook at home more since rising food prices are magnified when you eat out,” she wrote in an e-mail.

High prices are likely to affect many, as 39 percent of the U.S. population consumes some form of organic food, according to the Organic Trade Association.

For Penn students, there hasn’t been a large rise in prices at local stores thus far.

Fresh Grocer spokesman Jeff Beaky said the grocery store has not yet seen a significant change in prices of organic foods in comparison to inorganic foods.

“Prices for everything went up, so if you compare it to some other products, customers don’t necessarily notice too much,” Beaky said.

He added that the store hasn’t seen a large shift in consumer buying habits of organic food.

Nonetheless, the nationwide trend is clear.

Like other products, organic foods have become more expensive due to the rising price of gas, which makes shipping and transporting foods more costly.

Those who still want organic foods but are worried about prices can buy locally, Goldstein said.

Although the food sold at local farmers’ markets may not be USDA-certified as organic, most foods there are grown without chemicals, Goldstein said.

“Local is important - and sometimes better and cheaper,” she said.

Buying organic foods selectively may also be helpful to those worried about their budgets.

Focusing on certain foods that absorb chemicals easily, such as peaches, strawberries and lettuce, can maximize shoppers’ organic dollars.

source: http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2008/05/02/News/Rising.Food.Prices.Hit.Organics-3361943.shtml

But he's no poster boy for the new world agricultural order, in which peasants are supposed to leave their unproductive farms and strive for middle-class prosperity while food production is left to agribusiness in the countries that farm most cheaply and efficiently.

Sanchez works for the National Campesino Federation, a lobbying group for small farmers that has been active lately in protests against the rising price of food, notably a doubling of the price of tortillas.

Around the world, governments are trying every play in their books to stave off food riots - sending troops to hand out food in slums, ordering sweeping wage increases, banning grain exports and suspending futures trading. The United States is promising millions in emergency food aid.

But many experts call these Band-Aid solutions, saying what's needed is a radical rethink of how the world gets its food.

However, they're deeply divided about which way to go.

Some would in effect reverse the fundamentals by investing massively in small farmers, instead of letting them sink in a free-trade world. That would be very different from what the U.S. has long been evangelizing - take uncompetitive food producers off the land and put them in new jobs with paychecks that would buy them cheap food, efficiently farmed.

Others argue that the problem is not that trade is too free, but that it should be freer. U.S. and European farm subsidies are bad enough, they say, and things will only worsen if the present crisis triggers more restrictions.

Those at the sharp end of rising prices feel like victims of a bait-and-switch maneuver - when they quit the land, they were promised food would get cheaper, and now it's costlier. ... more>>

Lets take a look at what is really happening. Over the past 40 years we have ignored agriculture and past governments have all to carry this blame. The governments over the years have played lip service to food production. Farmers have not been given title to land that they have been working in some instances for many decades and as a result they have not been able to access finance and government grants. Access roads are virtually non existant. Irrigation channels and flood drains are not cleared although the government has budgeted millions of dollars under these subitems.

Then it leads to the next question " What has been done with all that money?" The ministry of agriculture like many other government ministries are staffed with individuals who are not capable of doing the jobs that they are hired to do. These technocrats are just plain idiots. A simple thing like assisting farmers so that they can produce more food seems to be more difficult than sending a rocket to the moon.

When I was a young person in the 1960s and 70s there was many agricultural programs in schools. I attended a suburban school. In almost all of the Government secondary schools agricultural science was part of the syllabus and there I obtained basic knowledge about growing food. Then there was the 4HYFC - 4 H Young Farmers Club this organisation gave us the opportunity to meet with students from rural areas in Trinidad and also it encouraged exchanges between locals and North American 4Hers. The learning curve was immense.

Now lets get back to today and the "FOOD CRISIS". What can we do? MMMMM will we give up eating pressure fried chicken and chips and buying "box food" We Trinis have an overflowing love relationship with buying cooked food. The kitchen in most people homes are only used to hot purchased food in the microwave. A lot of us cannot cook. How long will we continue to be able to afford to buy cooked food.

The price of Rice and flour is rising every day and along with that the cost of local root crops like dasheen, cassava and the likes are more expensive than flour and rice. so using local substitute will cost you more. Then what can we do.

As I am writing this piece the price of eggs have gone up to $12.00 (TT). Imagine a bake and shark in Maracas is now $25.00 (TT) thats madness imagine a family spending the day by the beach and having to spend $200.00 for bake and shark. A doubles is now $4.00(TT) and a good roti is between $18.00 - $24.00(TT).

At times I think that we are either very rich or very stupid. Why I am saying this is because as food prices rise thousands of Trinis flock to our many prestige restaurants daily so is there really a problem in Trinidad with rising food prices. Only time will tell.

We were contacted nine weeks again by Rebecca Ramsay (formerly Shaw-MacKenzie) who wanted three gilts for her farm at Newall House near Dingwall.

She was very specific about what she wanted, argued about the prices and was generally very demanding but as we've sold pigs to her before, we thought the sale would go through.

Ms Ramsay also complained about having to come to collect the weaners herself as her "staff" were planning to quit. (They collected the last batch of weaners.)

But she started developing cold feet this week, telling us on the phone that as her "staff" were leaving and she had other things on it would be difficult to take the pigs, but she would take two of the gilts as she had made a commitment to buy.

As is so often the case with the glibly polite set, in our view it seemed she was lying through her teeth.

Tonight, she emailed via Blackberry to say:

Further to my call this morning, I am afraid, after much careful consideration, I have to admit that I am really unable to take any pigs on this occasion. As I explained to your wife, the NZ couple who help me is now leaving at the end of June and, until I have a replacement, I am not in a position to take on more animals. I am very sorry about this and do hope it hasn't made things too difficult for you.

With best wishes,

Rebecca

What a load of hooey. Of course it will be bloody difficult!

The weaners were due to be collected this coming Friday, Saturday or Sunday; we're now going to have to splash out more money on advertising them; we're now short of cash for the fencing that was delivered today; and we now face the risk of having pigs on our hands for longer than planned, meaning higher feed and straw bills.

As for claiming the loss of her staff meant she couldn't take the pigs, she told me eight weeks ago that her staff were leaving so if she knew she couldn't handle the pigs in their absence, then she not have ordered them.

We already have two gilts more than planned on the croft as a buyer fell through on the last litter we sold—simply failing to show.

We're having to fatten them and have only just secured definite buyers for their pork, but of course won't get any return until the end of July while spending more cash on feed and straw.

I'm thoroughly fed up with time-wasters who say they want specific pigs, decline to pay deposits, and then go all evasive and uber-polite before vanishing.

Even more so when I've been out working until almost 10pm and come inside, thoroughly exhausted, to find an email like the one above waiting for me.

Well, Ms Ramsay, you are now on our list of people that, in our opinions, sellers of livestock are advised to avoid.

As for the weaners, we now have three gilts available for sale again. 

I am stealing enough signal to post this for you and you and you. It seems I rang the seasonal death knoll for citrus fruits too soon. These are navels from California. I picked them out at dearly Fairway specifically for their belly buttons. My favourite part of the fruit is the baby orange inside. I have no idea what it is called. But I love the tangy and sweet flavour of its little bit of flesh and delicate skin. It's almost like a kumquat, but better. If you know what it's called, please leaf a comment. Grassyass.

Buen provecho..

http://www.algerie-dz.com/article13746.html

L’Algérie renforce sa stratégie de développement agricole

samedi 10 mai 2008.

Interrogé par le quotidien "Le Jeune Indépendant", Saïd Barkat a indiqué que "La stratégie de sécurité alimentaire souhaitée par la FAO a été respecté et même plus que ça, puisque les orientations du président de la République Abdelaziz Bouteflika mises en application dans les programmes précités ont permis d’atteindre des performances appréciables et des impacts significatifs. Citons, notamment, l’extension de la superficie agricole utile en Algérie de plus de 500 000 ha par la mise en valeur des terres, le doublement du patrimoine arboricole et viticole par la plantation de 517 500 ha, le développement des systèmes d’irrigation ayant permis une économie substantielle d’eau d’irrigation avec pour impact l’augmentation des superficies irriguées qui sont passées de 350 000 ha en 2000 à 850 000 ha en 2007, et ce sans oublier l’augmentation notable des productions agricoles en Algérie, corroborée par une amélioration substantielle de l’offre sur les marchés, où les produits agricoles sont largement disponibles et à longueur d’année."

Le ministre a ajouté : "Sur un autre plan, le programme de développement agricole a permis une meilleure protection des ressources naturelles, à travers la lutte contre la désertification et l’érosion avec notamment la réhabilitation de 3 250 000 ha de terres de parcours au niveau de la steppe et le renforcement de la protection des bassins versants par le reboisement de plus de 300 000 ha en Algérie, par une amélioration significative de la valeur de la production agricole qui représente plus de 9, 2 milliards de dollars, par la création de 1 158 000 emplois permanents auxquels s’ajoute l’insertion de jeunes diplômés sans activité du secteur, avec la création 3 158 micro-entreprises dans le segment de l’appui à l’exploitation agricole.

(continue)

Synthèse de Samir, www.algerie-dz.com
D’après le Jeune Indépendant

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By Syed Akbar

Hyderabad, May 7: Old rice cooks well but it may cause severe health problems including poisoning if it is not washed properly.
Old rice is infested by fungus that release aflatoxins, which are ranked
among the most carcinogenic substances known to science. A study conducted by the city-based Directorate of Rice Research revealed that most of the rice available in farmer fields, godowns and consumer markets is infested by a type of fungus
known as Aspergillus. The worst is the rice which is 36 months old or more.
As part of the study, senior DRR scientists CS Reddy and K Muralidharan
collected as many as 900 rice samples covering 250 varieties in 20 States
across the country. The collection was from areas exposed to rain/flood or stored in storage bins or from the whole sale/retail market places.
The team isolated aflatoxin-producing mycoflora, Aspergillus species.
"Aspergillus contamination was detected in most of the seed samples. A.
flavus, A. niger, A. ochraceus and A. parasiticus were identified from these
samples. In general, the Aspergillus contamination was more in the seed samples collected from the crop/seed exposed to rain followed by seed stored for long periods," they pointed out.
Around 60 to 84 per cent of the rice samples collected were found positive to Aflatoxin B1. Of the samples collected from different sources, 93 per cent of the seed which was exposed to rain was found positive followed by the samples stored for more than 3 years (77 to 79 per cent) and the samples collected from consumer markets (75 per cent). Of these, 21 seed samples recorded 32.8 to 308 ìg aflatoxin B1/ kg rice, which is above the permissible limit.
The DRR team attributed the growth of fungus on rice to the crop being
exposed to frequent and heavy rainfall and floods, particularly just before
harvest. Often harvested sheaves remain wet and grains become prone to invasion by fungi. Such grains with moisture content higher than the desired levels enter the storage system.
"As a result, invasion by both, field and storage fungi take place. In
general, fungal invasion leads to discoloration, loss in viability and quality of the grains. Aflatoxin contamination of agricultural commodities
including rice is a serious food safety issue besides being a significant
economic concern," the DRR study warned.
The team recorded infection of Aspergillus species in rice grains in surface-
sterilised seed, kernel, hull and kernel powder. The scanning electron
microscopic examination showed the presence of Aspergillus species,
particularly A. parasiticus in kernel, starch, endosperm and embryo.
The discoloured kernel revealed the presence of tubular, long, turgid and
ramified fungal hyphae both in vegetative or reproductive stage and had
disintegrated starch.
"Consumption of these discoloured rice grains is a definite risk to
health," the DRR study said adding that use of certain biological agents and plant extracts like clove, garlic, neem and turmeric will prevent the fungal growth on rice or drastically reduce its effect.

http://www.sabcnews.com/world/north_america/0,2172,169149,00.html

Africa urged to address deforestation and drought

May 09, 2008, 05:45

By Thami Dickson
Drought and deforestation are the greatest environmental challenges which pose a threat to poverty alleviation efforts in Africa and the rest of the developing world. Yet, they are neglected by many governments. This came out of a United Nations commission on sustainable development currently underway at the world body's headquarters in New York. Representatives of governments, business and civil society are gathered to examine strategies to mitigate the impact of drought, deforestation and climate change.  Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for most poor rural people. It is said that deforestation will affect them significantly because it causes land degradation and drought. This increases poverty and hunger which then forces poor people to migrate or starve.

People fight over scarce resources
These challenges also pose threats to global security as people fight over scarce resources. The UN conference seeks to persuade governments to adopt pro-active measures to avoid deforestation.

Echo-Agriculture’s Sara Scherr encourages Governments to work together to develop better land management systems, to control overgrazing and to predict the impact of rising temperatures. Programmes to restore the fertility of the land have also been suggested.

Bakary Kante of the Environmental Law Conventions, fears that climate change will make it more difficult for many developing countries to achieve the millennium development goals.

WHEN Haiti’s prime minister resigned last month after a week of food riots, it seemed to confirm a warning that Bob Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, had given ten days before. He said 100m people were being pushed into hunger and malnutrition—and 30-odd countries faced social upheaval unless food policy improved and the rich world got its act together to help. A month on, policy has not improved, and the rich world’s response has mostly been muddled—yet surprisingly, poor countries have been able to contain the unrest, albeit at heavy cost.

Simon Maxwell, head of Britain’s Overseas Development Institute, a think-tank, says one problem is that donors need a single, simple guide on how and where to help, not a clamour of competing United Nations bureaucracies with different plans. There are moves in this direction. The first priority has been to finance the World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest distributor of food aid. The WFP asked for $750m this year and has so far got about two-thirds of that.

Then later:

Rich countries are already managing to be fairly incoherent without any UN infighting. The hope, at least among economists, was that higher prices would induce rich countries to cut state aid to farmers and—says Paul Collier, a development expert at Oxford University—“lead people to question their pleasant fantasies about GM [genetically-modified] food in Europe and biofuels in America.” So far, there are few signs of that.

The current American farm bill proposes only modest cuts in ethanol subsidies. The EU has not changed its biofuels target (10% of all fuel by 2020); it continues to bully developing countries not to plant GM crops and this week refused permission to grow varieties of GM maize and GM potatoes in Europe.

As usual the EU and the USA cannot avoid listening to special pleadings and mis-information. One wonders what the US re-action will be under a President Obama or President McCain.

The article points out the issues faced by poorer countries and how the actions taken are often of a beggar thy neighbour variety, or very short term in nature and economically not sustainable. In this regard attention is drawn to Adam's post of 8th May 2008 on the issues faced by oil rich states for example.

The article concludes with this:-

These policies are inflationary and expensive. Oil exporters, or countries like Egypt that benefit from big remittances from them may be able to afford them for a while. Others are not so lucky. In Indonesia, where half the population lives on less than $2 a day, inflation is 9% and food prices are soaring (the price of subsidised rice to the poor was jacked up 60% in April). The government is planning to fuel subsidies, which would make social protection and subsidised rice more affordable. The response: more protests

There is a need for the mass of competing interests to sort themselves out.

Rich countries must face up to their responsibilities and untangle the web of protectionism and subsidy which is a major factor in this problem.

To that end the Doha Round must be completed.

The issues of food supply must be addressed in conjunction with the issues of climate change.

An integrated strategy needs to be developed and actioned rapidly, not at the glacially slow pace we see now in the Doha Round, at a time when many developed countries are rapidly adopting Climate Change policies that may well cause more food price and security problems.

Clearly this is arrant nonsense.

Oh, for politicians who will lead rather than pander to special interests and sector pleadings.

Consequently, Adam has rather low expectations for the outcome, yet as he noted on 8th May, the political implications of not resolving the food and water issues may make Climate Change a secondary issue. In one sense it should be, for we cannot in all conscience adopt policies to mitigate climate change that in themselves massive harm to our fellow human beings.

Check out the May 2008 issue here: Local Food Connection, May 2008

So while you're at it, check out the blogs Robert links to:

Mulch

Blog for Rural America

and Eating Liberally

Enter Athens Locally Grown. Well... I did. Fresh and online, it's the largest farmer's market in Georgia. Watch below.

She'll take this much flour.

It requires only two scoops from a burlap-lined bushel for the merchant to fill his customer's bag, weighing the precious commodity on battered scales. A fistful of Afghan dollars changes hands.

This purchase will be barely sufficient for a family's bread-baking needs for one day.

Afghanistan, among the poorest nations in the world, is a country that lives by bread, the flat oblongs that emerge steaming from clay ovens. For many, bread rolled round a ragout of vegetables can be the entirety of a meal.

It is literally the staff of life.

But in some acutely impoverished regions, famished Afghans have been reduced to buying bread crust by the gram, softening the hardened bits in water, unable to afford flour at all.

The global food crisis has slammed Afghanistan hard, despite a good grain harvest last year. Wheat prices have risen by an average of 60 per cent over 2007, 300 per cent during a spike period in the early months of 2008: 46 Afghanis per kilo. That's less than $1, but this is a country where half the population lives below the poverty line.

"I have eight children to feed," complains Gulam Farouk, a 45-year-old civil servant who earns 3,000 Afghanis (about $63) a month, when he's paid. "How can I keep them from going hungry?"

He was humping a five-kilo sack of flour at the Mandawi Bazaar, Kabul's vast and higgledy-piggledy street market, where goods are sold from narrow open-front shops, rusty wheelbarrows and sagging dray carts.

Flour, beans, rice, pulses – they have become like saffron, relative to the ordinary Afghan's income. ... more>>

• Front lawns need a lot of water and light to look pretty, but what about a moss lawn? It doesn't need nearly as much water and grows well in shade so no need to cut down a lot of trees.
• New York State will start purchasing green office products, namely 100% recycled paper for both office use and for publications.
• In an odd turn of events, endangered seals in the Seattle area are eating endangered salmon, which may be even more endangered than the seals. Who do you protect?
• Keeping a portion of ones farmland fallow each year is important to restoring nutrients to the soil and help protect wildlife habitats. With economic pressures, though, farmers are keeping less and less land fallow. What effect is this having?
• Really want to do your part to save the planet? Stop eating red meat and dairy.  A new study shows that cutting red meat and dairy out of your diet has a much larger effect on the environment than eating local produce.
• Do you have something to say about Art and the Environment? Orlo has a call for proposals, submissions and recommendations for their Fall 2008 Contemporary Art Issue for visual artists, curators, gallery directors and writers.
• San Francisco diverts the highest percentage of waste away from landfills, 70%, of any city in the country, but Mayor Newsom thinks they can do even more. And he's looking to reach 75% by requiring all residents to compost, instead of doing it voluntarily.  Apparently Newsom has some other ideas in mind for the city as well, including stations where you can exchange your dead battery for your electric car with a charged one, negating the need to wait around to charge it, and changing from a payroll tax to a carbon tax.
• Quebec is planning on building 2,004 MW worth of wind farms by 2015, which can be used in tandem with they're already large hydropower program to generate hydropower more optimally. And if there's energy left over, export power to the Northeast US.
• LEED's standards are a good first step, but there is a lot of criticism for the standards, such as why the same standards apply to Las Vegas as New York City, or that the points aren't necesarily awarded based on difficulty to implement or green impact.
• New York City and the EPA are building up to have the third New York City Green Building Competition.  This year's theme is Integration.  The due date is May 30th for submissions, so get integrated! (via New York EcoSpaces)

Image from Washington State Department of Ecology

Salud..

The archive:
Water on Tap—Uptown edition
Water on Tap—Upper West Side edition

«Je n'aime pas particulièrement le mot travail. Les êtres humains sont les seuls animaux qui ont à travailler, je pense que c'est la chose la plus ridicule du monde. Les autres animaux gagnent leur vie en la vivant, mais les gens travaillent comme des fous, pensant qu'ils doivent le faire pour rester en vie. [...] Il serait bon d'abandonner cette manière de penser et de mener une vie facile et confortable avec beaucoup de temps libre. [...] Une vie d'une telle simplicité serait possible aux humains si l'on travaillait pour produire directement le nécessaire quotidien. Dans une telle vie, travailler n'est pas travailler au sens habituel du mot, mais simplement faire ce qui doit être fait»

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--- Masanobu Fukuoka, La révolution d'un seul brin de paille.

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.
R. Buckminster Fuller

It is possible to build in such a way that the sun comes in a lot during the winter and not during the summer. It is called Passive Solar Building and what you need is to face your building toward the south. The way Soleri does it is he builds an apse which is a quarter sphere. The lower winter sun shines right in and the high summer sun stays out, the shade a cool place to be.

There are many techniques:
Green Building

Makes a great home or office:
Earthships
Earthships is an amazing place to visit and do an apprenticeship, internship or get a job. There is a small community of people building. They do some prefab, so construction at the site is faster.
These places use and reuse all of their water. It is categorized into gray water and black water. They grow a garden inside and outside the house, and make cisterns re-using bottles.

A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic,
objective economist and evolutionary strategist.
R. Buckminster Fuller

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
R. Buckminster Fuller

Let architects sing of aesthetics that bring Rich clients in hordes to their knees; Just give me a home, in a great circle dome Where stresses and strains are at ease.
R. Buckminster Fuller

I know I'm late on this, but it's too intriguing to pass up.

As reported by many, President Bush, at an April 29 White House press conference, talked about a variety of issues, but said some particularly intriguing things about the current high food prices and the Farm Bill. One statement that caught the attention of a lot of sustainable ag folk's was this...

"One thing I think that would be — I know would be very creative policy is if we — is if we would buy food from local farmers as a way to help deal with scarcity, but also as a way to put in place an infrastructure so that nations can be self-sustaining and self-supporting. It’s a proposal I put forth that Congress hasn’t responded to yet, and I sincerely hope they do”

There was the usual Hate-Bush tripe flying around the blogosphere in response, but no one really seemed to know what the President was referring to -- this "proposal" he put forth to Congress. Turns out it doesn't have anything to do with the US food system. From a follow up White House press release...

The President has repeatedly asked Congress to support an innovative proposal to provide food assistance by purchasing crops directly from farmers in the developing world. This flexibility would not only get food to people in emergency situations faster, it would also build up local agriculture and help break the cycle of famine.

It would also help with global warming, NOT shipping all that food across the globe. That's just one reason why local food is a positive anywhere! So how about our own local food system? It would be "creative policy" for US as well! But that's a whole new level of awareness yet to dawn on our federal leadership's consciousness.

Still, what was the response from Congress on the food aid proposal? Yesterday Reuters released this...

Advocates of buying food in and around the countries that need aid, instead of shipping U.S. crops, argue it will save money and deliver assistance more quickly.

"Congress failed to meaningfully address the crisis of rising food prices overseas and the need to increase the efficiencies of our food aid programs," Oxfam America said in a statement.

But crop producers, shipping companies, and their allies on Capitol Hill have resisted the change for years, fearing it will undermine the bedrock of support for aid programs and even making things worse in countries with fragile food markets.

Wonder what the rationale for that is? Sounds like an invented concern thrown out by the people with vested financial interest in the current system. Is that always the way it is?

Check this out:

"[Israel was] benefiting in an economic way with trade that divorced them from agriculture, that got them into prosperity and got them into trouble.  They are divorced from an agricultural dependence on God; they come into a trade system that blesses them financially.  They divorce themselves from God.  They become fully apostate.  And they become almost fully indistinguishable from the other nations." 

 In other words, farming is godly.  I knew it.