Toward food sovereignty: Reclaiming autonomous food systems [pdf]

Looks alike a long worthwhile read. ...........................................

Use the above link as below was broken now fixed by me. ........................

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2010.

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 Toward food sovereignty: Reclaiming autonomous food systems [pdf]

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has gone above and beyond in crafting this multimedia book that brings together full color photo illustrations and linked video and audio files. The work was finished in 2009, and it "describes the ecological basis of food and agriculture, the social and environmental costs of modern food systems, and the policy reversals needed to democratize food systems." Visitors will note that examples are drawn from all over the world, and it's easy to download the various chapters for offline consultation.

The chapter sections include "Local adaptive management of food-producing environments" and "Strengthening civil society". Anyone with an interest in public health, community organizing, and civil society will find a great deal to learn from this publication. [KMG]

Reply to
Bill who putters
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So in less than 3 hours you have pronounced judgement on a document that you have not looked at.

I'm impressed with your physic abilities.

Reply to
Bill who putters

LOL! Lordy, another one. "Why don't we get together and call ourselves an 'Institute'" --Paul Simon. One can't help wondering how much real good such "institutes" that'd presume to tell the world what it "needs" could do in that same world if they used their resources and efforts to actually DO SOMETHING that might make some poor bastard's life a little less miserable or a little more "sustainable" instead of promulgating yet another "multimedia" propaganda broadsheet that accomplishes absolutely nothing except to make a cadre of intellectual twits, mistaking "thinking" writing and talking for actually _doing_, feel a little less guilty about its lifestyle. I do not believe for one instant that a single child will go to bed with a fuller tummy tonight, a year from now, or five years from now as even an indirect result of the "efforts" of this "Institute" or of a thousand others like it. What the hell does the unrelenting stream of obsolete 19th-Century "leveller" collectivist socio-economic propaganda in the ng have to do with actual gardening, anyway? Isn't there a forum in which the world-changers can get together to natter at each other about their refined and superior sensibilities?

Reply to
balvenieman

Looks like something that Vandana Shiva might be involved in. I look forward to reading it.

He may be right, Bill. Bal's way has the efficiency of not requiring anyone to do anything. Being insensitive and uncaring is certainly easier than crying doom to all who will listen. I mean, will all our pissing and moaning be any more effective than Bal sticking his head in the sand? God, I hope so.

In todays food news, the government is trying to figure out how bad the doo-doo on your meat has to be before it is recalled. The presence of E. coli affirms the presence of doo-doo, but not all E. coli are pathogenic. The T-Rex of E. coli is E. coli 0157:O7, but there are 6 others that are nearly as bad.

"Although the federal government, and the beef and produce industries have known about the risk posed by these other dangerous bacteria for years, regulators have taken few concrete steps to directly address it, or even measure the scope of the problem."

"³This is something that we really have to look at,² said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, who plans to introduce a bill that would pre-empt the Agriculture Department by declaring a broad range of disease-causing E. coli to be illegal in ground beef and requiring the meat industry to begin testing for the microbes. ³How many people do we have to see die or become seriously ill because of food poisoning?²"

"A physiological quirk of E. coli O157 makes it easy to test for in the lab, and many types of food are screened for it. The other E. coli strains are much harder to identify and testing can be time-consuming. The Agriculture Department has been working to develop tests that could be used in meat plants to rapidly detect the pathogens."

You wonder if anyone has ever thought about slowing down the conveyer belts in the abattoirs, and allowing for a cleaner, safer slaughter (for the workers, not the animals). Still, it is good to know that our government wants us to only eat safe doo-doo, and not sickness causing doo-doo. Their other idea is to use radiation to sterilize the doo-doo, but as Marion Nestlé said,"It's still (doo-doo)."

Kinda reminds me of a recent conversation about collecting rainwater off of a roof and how sanitary that is, but with meat you have to pay for it.

May 26, 2010

In E. Coli Fight, Some Strains Are Largely Ignored

Reply to
Billy

Personally I believe that nothing can be done unless it presents itself in front of you. My choices that are afforded response from remote others can be construed to be a local decision . (What) Otherwise I have no power and await the next impulse from without. I can yield and help it go where it wants sometimes with a small push. Yielding to get your own way even if I do not where that is. Still I think food local REAL local is primay.

I have been reviewing the way I have been addressing others and I seem to have fallen from my Ideal of always writing like I am addressing my best friend. I think I will retire for awhile as words should not hurt.

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Reply to
Bill who putters

Passion is good. Don't be hard on yourself, you're only human ;O)

Reply to
Billy

That's usenet, lacking the reminder of a face or a voice it is too easy to depersonalise whoever is typing to you. If you realise this and try to avoid it you will be forgiven the odd lapse, at least I hope so 'cause otherwise I have a whole lot of unforgiven errors circling out there in the ether.

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

We have a Senator here in Australia who is quite an interesting chap. His name is Bill Heffernan and on some issues, he's to the right of Genghis Khan and on some issues he's quite left wing. He belongs to a party on the right of our political spectrum but because he lives in rural Australia, he often says things that would never be said by anyone from the city and which I can strongly identify with.

The other day I was listening to him being interviewed and he was railing on about climate change and food. His comment was that he didn't care two hoots about how, why or indeed even 'if', we were suffering from climate change. Agriculture was in a huge mess and unless and until people started thinking more about what was in their fridge rather than what was in their garage, the situation would continue to be a massive c*ck up. I'm still thinking about that but I think that there is a fair chance that he's right.

We (as industrial western societies) don't pay enough attention to our food.

Well I can understand the tempatation to rip shit out of someone especially when they either don't read what is written or don't think before posting.

Reply to
FarmI

You said nothing wrong or hurtful. b... has the same reactive choices we all have.

You didn't address the underlying issue that he raised which amounts to saying shut up and go away. Which he has the right to say and we have the duty to refuse.

Clearly b... doesn't make the connection but that's not your fault or responsibility.

Reply to
phorbin

Working through unsent postings

...addressing your points in reverse order and Answering you *in kind* and only half humourously because you put it this way, and speaking for myself...

Why no. I won't shut up to spare your unrefined and degenerate sensibilities.---As I feel it necessary I will speak up here on this issue.

If you don't like it you have the ability to killfile. That is the only censorship available to you and that I will accept.

I don't disagree with the feeling behind this. It shows you're thinking but it also shows you're off the beam by half a parsec.

On the ground, in my conservative Canadian city there's a whole lot of talking going on that frustrates the doers endlessly.

Essentially we want to expand gardening into as much of the grassy monoculture wastelands as possible and feed as many people as possible as much as possible as inexpensively as possible; preferably as participants, not recipients. ...but we're dealing with a monolithic aesthetic of bureaucratic urbanized industrialized ignorance which seems to need tons of paper to begin to justify feeding people, teaching people to feed themselves, connecting people with the food they eat and showing in a practical way what it takes for produce to appear on the table.

The essence of your point is ok but doesn't account for the way things work in political/bureaucratic culture. Having an institution/organization behind you even if it is just a few committed people working out of their homes is a tool to leverage against political stupidity, inertia and capriciousness.

If you are alone in a campaign, you are ignored as being irrelevant. If you are a spokesperson for a group of people, you are deemed at least probably credible.

Reply to
phorbin

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