u n a r m e d f o r c e s

Get your mind and heart in gear! A world of challenges is calling...

2010-07-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

Below, I have posted an excerpt from the Democracy Now! coverage of the G-8/G-20 Summit in Toronto. This is from today's show (July 2, 2010).

"As world leaders gathered in Toronto for the G20 summit last week, leading activists from around the world joined thousands in Toronto’s Massey Hall to oppose the G20 agenda. Among those who spoke was Maude Barlow. She heads the Council of Canadians—Canada’s largest public advocacy organization. She’s also the founder of the Blue Planet Project. This is a part of what she had to say:

On the eve of this G-20 gathering, let’s look at a few facts.

Fact: the world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in our history. The richest 2% own more than half the household wealth in the world. The richest 10% hold 85% of total global assets and the bottom half of humanity owns less than 1% of the wealth in the world. The three richest men in the world have more money than the poorest 48 countries.

Fact: While those responsible for the 2008 global financial crisis were bailed out and even rewarded by the G-20 government’s gathering here, the International Labor Organization tells us that in 2009, 34 million people were added to the global unemployed, swelling those ranks to 239 million, the highest ever recorded. Another 200 million are at risk in precarious jobs and the World Bank tells us that at the end of 2010, another 64 million will have lost their jobs. By 2030, more than half the population of the megacities of the Global South will be slumdwellers with no access to education, health care, water, or sanitation.

Fact: Global climate change is rapidly advancing, claiming at least 300,000 lives and $125 billion in damages every year. Called the silent crisis, climate change is melting glaciers, eroding soil, causing freak and increasingly wild storms, displacing untold millions from rural communities to live in desperate poverty in peri-urban centers. Almost every victim lives in the Global South in communities not responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and not represented here at the summit. The atmosphere has already warmed up a full degree in the last several decades and is on course to warm up another two degrees by 2100.

Fact: Half the tropical forests in the world, the lungs of our ecosystem, are gone. By 2030, at the present rate of extraction or so-called harvest, only 10% will be left standing. 90% of the big fish in the sea are gone, victim to wanton predatory fishing practice. Says a prominent scientist studying their demise, there is no blue frontier left. Half the world’s wetlands, the kidneys of our ecosystem, have been destroyed in the 20th century. Species extinction is taking place at a rate 1,000 times greater than before humans existed. According to a Smithsonian scientist, we are headed toward of biodiversity deficit in which species and ecosystems will be destroyed at a rate faster than nature can replace them with new ones.

Fact: We are polluting our lakes, rivers and streams to death. Every day, two million tons of sewage and industrial agricultural waste are discharged into the world’s water. That’s the equivalent of the entire human population of 6.8 billion people. The amount of waste water produced annually is about six times more water than exists in all the rivers of the world. We are minding our ground water faster than we can replenish it, sucking it to grow water guzzling chemical-fed crops in deserts or to water thirsty cities who dump an astounding 700 trillion liters of land-based water into oceans every year as waste. The global mining industry sucks up another 800 trillion liters which it also leaves behind as poison and fully one-third of global water withdrawals are now used to produce biofuels, enough water to feed the world. Nearly three billion people on our planet do not have running water within a kilometer of their home and every eight seconds, somewhere in our world, a child is dying of waterborne disease. The global water crisis is getting steadily worse with reports of countries from India to Pakistan to Yemen facing depletion. The World Bank says that by 2030, demand for water will outstrip supply by 40%. This may sound just like a statistic, but the suffering behind that is absolutely unspeakable.

Fact: Knowing there will not be enough food and water for all in the near future, wealthy countries and global investment pension and hedge funds are buying up land and water, fields and forests in the Global South, creating a new wave of invasive colonialism that will have huge geopolitical ramifications. Rich countries faced by food shortages have already bought up an area in Africa alone more than twice the size of the United Kingdom. Now I don’t think I exaggerate if I say that our world has never faced a greater set of threats and issues than it does today. So what are the twenty leaders who have gathered here, some already here and the others coming in tonight, what are they going to talk about over the next two days? By the way, their summit costs $1 million a minute. We figure it’s going to [cost] $2 billion when it’s finished, and the annual budget to run the United Nations is $1.9 billion. I assure you, they are not going to tackle the above issues in any serious way.

The declarations have already been drafted, the failures already spun. Instead, this global royalty who have more in common with one another than they do with their own citizens and they are here really to advance the issues and interest of their class are also here just to advance the status quo that serves the interest of the elite in their own countries and the business community or the B-20, the new term, a community that will get private and privileged access to advance their free market solutions to these eager leaders. The agenda is more of the bad medicine that made the world sick in the first place. Environmental deregulation, unbridled financial speculation, unlimited growth, unregulated free trade, relentless resource exploitation, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to Social Security and a war on working people. In other words, savage capitalism. Now let’s look at our own country here and the assault that has been launched on the work of generations of Canadians toward a just society. Stephen Harper’s government has cut the heart out of any group that dissents, from First Nations people, to women, to international agencies and church groups like KAIROS, Alternative, and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation."

Navdanya Co-organizes an Independent People's Tribunal

2010-04-24T02:43:00.000-07:00

Public Hearings Tackle Monopolies in US Agriculture Industry

2010-03-26T00:23:00.000-07:00

On Friday, March 12, the US Departments of Justice (DOJ) andAgriculture (USDA) convened the first of five public hearings on themonopolization and strangulation of competition in the US agricultureindustry. The hearings were announced in January soon after the opening of afederal antitrust investigation of agribusiness giant Monsanto. Attorneysgeneral from seven states have since joined the investigation.

Held in Ankeny, Iowa, a town in the heart of America’s agricultural belt,Friday’s hearing drew some 800 attendees––farmers, lawyers, agribusinessexecutives, and government officials from around the country.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack inaugurated thehearing by contextualizing the issue at hand. “Today's rural America has ahigher poverty rate than the rest of the country, a higher unemployment ratethan the rest of the country, significantly less per capita income than therest of the country… and well over 50 percent of our rural counties have lostpopulation since the last census… This is not just about farmers and ranchers.It's really about the survival of rural America."

Attorney General Eric Holder reaffirmed the ObamaAdministration’s commitment to dismantle monopolies as part of itsrehabilitation of the national economy. “We've learned the hard way,” he said,“that recessions and long periods of reckless deregulation can foster practicesthat are anti-competitive and even illegal… We all know that one of thegreatest threats to our economy is the erosion of free competition in ourmarkets.”

Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varneytook the stage as well. “Patents have in the past been used to maintain andextend monopolies—and that’s illegal,” she said to cheers of agreement fromfamily farmers and activists in the audience. She echoed both Vilsack andHolder in expressing concern for the struggles of small farmers and decryingrestrictions to competition.

A panel of farmers hand-picked by the Department ofAgriculture also weighed in on the issues. Unfortunately, however, the farmershardly represented the struggling rural Americans that Secretary Vilsackdescribed in his speech. Iowafarmer Pam Johnson, for example, expressed contentment with the current stateof the industry. “Like other farmers, we speak with our checkbooks. If it'soverpriced, we do not buy it. We have a choice in the seeds and traits that weplant. I have seen charts showing a very robust pipeline of new traits thatwill be available to farmers in 2010 and beyond. These traits are not coming from one sourcebut from multiple companies… [Yet] there is anti-corporate sentiment, anti-bigsentiment, drawing lines between corporate factory farms and family farms.Whatever those definitions mean––I don't know. Life on the farm is better for meand my children. We have access to technologies, tools, and markets our parentscould only dream about.”

Diana Moss of the American Antitrust Institute also spokeabout concentration in the seed market. Her account, however, provided asomewhat different picture of the situation. “There is in effect a monopolistin the market for traits, and that is Monsanto. It's an inescapable fact.Monsanto has broadly licensed its technology… but I think what's deceptiveabout the downstream traited seed markets is they give the illusion of choice.What alternatives are there for seeds, for traited seeds?”

It is difficult to reconcile Ms. Johnson’s portrayal of theseed market with Ms. Moss’s testimony. Even USDA statistics depict a situationof strife for US farmers. Last year 93 percent of soybeans and 80 percent ofcorn grown in the U.S.came from Monsanto seeds. The company is now estimated to own over 90 percentof the country’s seed genetics. Monsanto continues to evade scrutiny, due inlarge part to the severe lack of competition in the market. The companycontinues to raise prices at will. According to the USDA, average prices forbiotech soybean seeds rose by over 60 percent between 2004 and 2009. Similarly,average prices for biotech corn rose by about 93 percent during the sameperiod.

Farmers are facing little or no choice when it comes toprocuring seeds. Under the U.S. Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) farmers areprohibited from saving patented seeds and are forbidden to sell varieties thatthey have developed themselves without going through cumbersome and expensiveregistration processes. The combination of Monsanto’s monopoly in the seedindustry and the PVPA restrictions leave farmers with no choice about wherethey get their seeds. They are beholden to a single corporation’s financialself-interest.

The DOJ/USDA hearings provide an unprecedented opportunityfor farmers to air their grievances to the government in an era when corporateinterests often take the lead in making agricultural policy. We can only hopethat the series leads to action in support of small farmers and economicjustice. If not, it will merelyconstitute another example of that perennial American theme––the dreamdeferred.

Visit the official website of the DOJ/USDA hearings athttp://www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/ag2010/index.htm

New Law in India Would Illegalize Criticism of GMOs!

2010-02-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

The following article comes from India Today and may be found on their website here. Does this sound like a desperate move on the part of GM advocates or what?

Govt Moots Jail for GM Food Criticsby Dinesh C Sharma
February 19, 2010

If the Ministry of Science and Technology has its way, criticising genetically-modified (GM) products could land you in jail. An Indian citizen who questions the safety of any GM food or medicine could be put behind bars for a minimum period of six months under a new law proposed by the ministry.

The clause to silence critics of GM food is contained in the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, 2009 prepared by the Department of Biotechnology, which is a wing of the ministry of science and technology headed by Prithviraj Chavan.

'Misleading public about organism and products' is one of the crimes for which punishment has been prescribed in Section 63, Chapter 13 of the Bill which deals with various "offences and penalties".
The clause specifically deals with critics of biotech products including GM food crops.

It reads, "Whoever, without any evidence or scientific record misleads the public about the safety of the organisms and products specified in Part I or Part II or Part III of the Schedule I, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to one year and with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees or with both."

GM products covered under the Schedule I include genetically engineered plants and organisms, DNA vaccines, cellular products, gene therapy products, stem cell products and other such genetically engineered or transgenic products.

The list also includes vaccines for use in humans or animals that contain living genetically engineered organisms, cellular products including products composed of human, bacterial or animal cells as well as genetically engineered micro-organisms that may have application in agriculture, fisheries, forestry or food production.

Curiously, while every little term in the proposed law such as a "company" or a "director" has been defined, no explanation or definition has been given for terms used in section 63 such as "evidence", "scientific record" and "misleading".

If the Bill becomes a law and comes into force, anyone questioning the safety of Bt brinjal or stem cell therapy "without evidence or scientific record" can be put behind bars. This is a scary scenario because many of the technologies mentioned in the Bill are still in the realm of research and have not been proven safe for humans.

Not just this, the Bill has another provision to punish anyone who "without reasonable excuse, resists, obstructs, or attempts to obstruct, impersonate, threaten, intimidate or assault an officer of the Authority or any person assigned to discharge any function under this Act, or in exercising his functions under this Act" with a jail term of three months and a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh. In short, this clause seeks to punish anyone holding a demonstration or rally near the BRAI or where any official of the authority is visiting.

"This is a gag order, absolutely draconian and violative of Article (19) (1) (a) of the Indian constitution which guarantees the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression," said Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

"It is definitely meant to scare people so that they don't say anything against GM technology. Even journalists writing critical articles can be punished." The Bill has been criticised by several civil society activists. " If this law was in force today, environment minister Jairam Ramesh, who has questioned the safety of GM crops, would have been behind bars because he would have violated it," said Devinder Sharma of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security.

"It is a dirty attempt to turn science into a ghetto, where all of us will be subjected to unhealthy GM products pushed down our throats by a willing government."

Kavitha Kuruganti of Kheti Virasat Mission said the Bill was meant to harass civil society' groups concerned about the application of hazardous technologies.

"Who will decide what is 'misleading', and on what basis? How about the ones who are making misleading claims about safety even when there is no conclusive proof of safety?" asked Kuruganti.

Aruna Rodrigues, whose public interest writ against GM crops is in the Supreme Court, said the Bill failed to recognise the basic scientific fact that all GM organisms are inherently hazardous.

She also questioned the ministry of science and technology hosting the BRAI when the subject actually was related to food safety, health and environment.

The proposal to set up an independent authority for biotechnology regulation has been in the pipeline for more than five years now, but the process of setting this up is being hastened after the recent moratorium imposed on Bt brinjal by environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) - which is currently the apex regulatory body for biotechnology - is housed in the environment ministry.

Ramesh had asserted that the approval to Bt brinjal granted by GEAC was not final. He also plans to convert it into an 'appraisal' committee. Piqued by this move, the department of biotechnology has speeded up the process of setting up BRAI, which will be housed within the department.

The proposed legislation has no clauses on public participation in the process of approval. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (under the Convention on Biological Diversity) which has been invoked in the preamble of the Bill, clearly states that signatory countries should "consult the public in decision-making process regarding living modified organisms".

The liability clauses in this legislation are also very weak, experts pointed out. It has no explicit clauses on redressal, compensation, remediation or cleaning up in case of damage due to genetically modified organisms.

A New Era of Nuclear Power Plant Construction?

2010-02-17T21:49:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a moment to write about an issue that isn't part of my work at Navdanya, but concerns me quite a bit...

When I read about Obama's proposal to use taxpayers' money to bankroll the construction of new nuclear power plants across America, my first thought was "No. We can't!" Used fuel cells from nuclear plants remain radioactive for 10,000 - 1,000,000 years. As one would imagine, they must be stored in highly controlled settings - deep underground or in huge tanks of water - that are monitored by humans at all times. Currently, the world's nuclear power plants produce about 12,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste each year. This is roughly the size of 200 city buses stacked on top of one another! What's more, used fuel cells are extremely dangerous to transport from power plants to storage facilities and lend themselves to enrichment for nuclear weapons. The only way to protect ourselves and future generations, let alone the biosphere in general, is to say "No" to nuclear power. Obama, invest taxpayers' money in renewable energy research instead!

If you have ideas, information, and/or news from your area about this issue please feel free to comment.

Below, I've posted an article on this subject by Amy Goodman.

Obama’s Nuclear Option

President Barack Obama is going nuclear. He announced the initial $8 billion in loan guarantees for construction of the first new nuclear power plants in the United States in close to three decades. Obama is making good on a campaign pledge, like his promises to escalate the war in Afghanistan and to unilaterally attack in Pakistan. And like his “Af-Pak” war strategy, Obama’s publicly financed resuscitation of the nuclear power industry in the U.S. is bound to fail, another taxpayer bailout waiting to happen.

Opponents of the plan, which includes a tripling of existing nuclear plant construction-loan guarantees to $54.5 billion, span the ideological spectrum. On its most basic level, the economics of nuclear power generation simply doesn’t make sense. The cost to construct these behemoths is so huge, and the risks are so great, that no sensible investor, no banks, no hedge funds will invest in their construction.

No one will loan a power company the money to build a power plant, and the power companies refuse to spend their own money. Obama himself professes a passion for the free market, telling Bloomberg BusinessWeek, “We are fierce advocates for a thriving, dynamic free market.” Well, the free market long ago abandoned nuclear power. The right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation remarked, “Expansive loan guarantee programs ... are wrought with problems. At a minimum, they create taxpayer liabilities, give recipients preferential treatment, and distort capital markets.”

Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a longtime critic of the nuclear power industry, told me, “If you buy more nuclear plants, you’re going to get about two to 10 times less climate solution per dollar, and you’ll get it about 20 to 40 times slower, than if you buy instead the cheaper, faster stuff that is walloping nuclear and coal and gas.”

In his 2008 report “The Nuclear Illusion,” Lovins writes, “Nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the global marketplace because it’s grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsolete—so hopelessly uneconomic that one needn’t debate whether it’s clean and safe; it weakens electric reliability and national security; and it worsens climate change compared with devoting the same money and time to more effective options.”

The White House Office of Management and Budget, in the same statement announcing the $54.5 billion for nuclear power, also listed a “credit subsidy funding of $500 million to support $3 [billion] to $5 billion of loan guarantees for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.” Thus, just one-tenth the amount for nuclear is being dedicated to energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. At the same time, the Obama administration plans to cancel funding for the hugely unpopular Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility. Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists told The Christian Science Monitor the Obama administration “doesn’t have a plan for [storing] radioactive waste from a new generation of nuclear power plants. That is irresponsible.”

The waste from nuclear power plants is not only an ecological nightmare, but also increases the threats of nuclear proliferation. Obama said in his recent State of the Union address, “We’re also confronting perhaps the greatest danger to the American people—the threat of nuclear weapons.” Despite this, plans that accompany what Obama has proposed, his “new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants,” include increased commercial “nuclear fuel reprocessing,” which the Union of Concerned Scientists calls “dangerous, dirty and expensive,” and which it says would increase the global risks of both nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.

Both Lovins and the Union of Concerned Scientists debunk the myth that nuclear energy is essential to combat global warming. Lovins writes, “Every dollar invested in nuclear expansion will worsen climate change by buying less solution per dollar.” Obama said that this first tranche of public funding, which will benefit the energy giant Southern Co., “will create thousands of construction jobs in the next few years, and some 800 permanent jobs.” Yet investment in solar, wind and cogeneration technologies could do the same thing, quickly creating industries here in the U.S. that are thriving in Europe. What’s more, the risks of failure of a windmill or a solar panel are minute when compared with nuclear power plant disasters like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

From economics, to the environment, to the prevention of nuclear threats, Obama’s nuclear loan guarantees fail on all counts.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.

© 2010 Amy Goodman

This article may be found at http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obamas_nuclear_option_20100216/

Indian Minister of Environment Heeds Public Call for a Moratorium on Bt Brinjal

2010-02-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

After nearly a month of public hearings, protests, and nationwide debate, India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced today an indefinite moratorium on the sale of Bt Brinjal (genetically-modified eggplant). Cleared for commercialisation in October by India's Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), Bt Brinjal has been met with tremendous resistance by farmers, consumer advocacy groups, medical experts, and environmentalists. A number of state governments, which in India's federal system have the final say on agriculture, have also expressed apprehension about the product. Ten states—West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar (which together produce 60 percent of the country's eggplant), Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Uttarakhand—have already declared bans on genetically-modified crops.

In his statement, Ramesh cited the wide array of disapproving viewpoints presented during public hearings. "When there is no clear consensus within the scientific community itself, when there is so much opposition from the state governments, when responsible civil society organizations and eminent scientists have raised many serious questions that have not been answered satisfactorily, when the public sentiment is negative... and when there is no over-riding urgency to introduce it here, it is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach and impose a moratorium on the release of Bt-brinjal..."

He continued, "[until] independent scientific studies establish, to the satisfaction of both the public and professionals, the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact on human health and environment, including the rich genetic wealth existing in brinjal in our country, [a moratorium will remain in place]. A moratorium implies rejection of this particular case of release for the time being; it does not, in any way, mean conditional acceptance. This should be clearly understood."

The decision is a milestone in the global movement for GMO-free agriculture and a blow to multinational biotech corporation Monsanto which seeks to dominate the world's food supply by popularizing crops for which it holds genetic patents.

Once a genetically-modified strain is introduced into an ecosystem it may cross-pollinate with natural varieties of the same species. This uncontainable phenomenon, called genetic pollution, puts the entire food supply at risk for contamination by GM traits—and their detrimental effects on health. There can be no recall of such a product.

But environmental protection and food security are not the only beneficiaries of the moratorium. In an era when corporate interests all too often take precedence over public opinion, Jairam Ramesh's decision is a sign that the democratic process still functions in India. World-renowned environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva has likened India's struggle for GMO-free agriculture to Mahatma Gandhi's movement for independence. "Opposing Bt Brinjal is as much a fight for our food as it is our freedom. When the British Raj imposed the salt law to establish a salt monopoly, Gandhi started the Salt Satyagraha. When corporations like Monsanto impose GMOs to establish seed monopoly and control our food we are forced to declare a Seed Satyagraha. GMO-free, biodiverse, organic agriculture is the satyagraha of our times."

To view the full report issued by the Indian Ministry of Environment see
http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/minister_REPORT.pdf

For more information on India’s Seed Satyagraha see http://www.navdanya.org

*** My article is also posted on the Navdanya website at http://www.navdanya.org/blog/

Quaking Conversation by Lenelle Moïse

2010-02-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

I just read this poem by a Haitian-American poet and fell in love with its truth and universality. I won't say more. Just read:

Quaking Conversation
by Lenelle Moïse

I want to talk about Haiti.
How the earth had to break
the island's spine to wake
the world up to her screaming.

How this post-earthquake crisis
is not natural
or supernatural.
I want to talk about disasters.

How men make them
with embargoes, exploitation,
stigma, sabotage, scalding
debt & cold shoulders.

Talk centuries
of political corruption
so commonplace
it's lukewarm, tap.

Talk January 1, 1804
& how it shed Life.
Talk 1937
& how it bled Death.

Talk 1964. 1986. 1991. 2004. 2008.
How history is the word
that makes today
uneven, possible.

Talk New Orleans,
Palestine, Sri Lanka,
the Bronx & other points
of connection.

Talk resilience & miracles.
How Haitian elders sing in time
to their grumbling bellies
& stubborn hearts.

How after weeks under the rubble
a baby is pulled out
awake, dehydrated, adorable, telling
stories with old soul eyes.

How many more are still
buried, breathing, praying & waiting?
Intact despite the veil of fear & dust
coating their bruised faces?

I want to talk about our irreversible dead.
The artists, the activists, the spiritual leaders,
the family members, the friends, the merchants,
the outcasts, the cons.

All of them, my newest ancestors.
All of them, hovering now,
watching our collective response,
keeping score, making bets.

I want to talk about money.
How one man's recession might be
another man's unachievable reality.
How unfair that is.

How I see a Haitian woman's face
every time I look down at a hot meal,
slip into my bed, take a sip of water
& show mercy to a mirror.

How if my parents had made different
decisions three decades ago,
it could have been my arm
sticking out of a mass grave.

I want to talk about gratitude.
I want to talk about compassion.
I want to talk about respect.
How even the desperate deserve it.

How Haitians sometimes greet each other
with the two words, "Honor"
& "Respect."
How we all should follow suit.

Try every time you hear the word "Victim,"
you think "Honor."
Try every time you hear the tag "John Doe,"
you shout "Respect!"

Because my people have names.
Because my people have nerve.
Because my people are
your people in disguise.

I want to talk about Haiti.
I always talk about Haiti.
My mouth quaking with her love,
complexity, honor & respect.

Come sit, come stand, come
cry with me. Talk.
There's much to say.
Walk. Much more to do.

© 2010 by Lenelle Moïse

Monsanto Under the Microscope

2010-02-05T01:16:00.000-08:00

The following is one of the short articles I'm contributing to Navdanya's news feed viewable here.

     In 2010 the U.S. Department of Justice will once again put Monsanto under the microscope. In the wake of an antitrust suit brought against the agribusiness giant by its largest competitor, DuPont, the Justice Department has opened an investigation into the company’s aggressive practices in the biotech arena. The Justice and Agriculture Departments have also announced that they will jointly hold five hearings to address monopoly and competition in the agriculture industry later this year. Will investigators and justice officials finally hold Monsanto accountable for decades of illegal activity?

     Monsanto’s well-documented offenses include: bribing Indonesian agriculture officials to approve their products; selling recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), a product with health side effects the company has repeatedly tried to cover up; and, most abhorrently, attempting to dominate global food production through mergers and acquisitions, myopic implementation of biotechnology, genetic patenting, and blatant hostility towards small and subsistence farmers. Monsanto calls itself “fair, pro-competitive and in compliance with the law,” when at the same time it forces open markets in developing nations under the guise of charity, suppresses critical research on the environmental impacts of its products, and works to eradicate crop varieties for which it holds no patents. Such behavior not only defies federal law, but also poses major threats to global food security and agricultural biodiversity.

      The Obama administration has promised to be tougher than its predecessor in tackling monopolies. Christine Varney, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, even said last year that “vigorous antitrust enforcement must play a significant role in the government’s response to economic downturns to assure markets remain competitive.” The Justice Department’s investigation of Monsanto may signal that this is one promise the Obama administration will keep. America’s ailing economy, not to mention farmers and consumers in every corner of the world would surely benefit from this long overdue enforcement of justice.

The Joyous Work

2009-12-31T14:53:00.000-08:00

It's difficult to encapsulate the last few weeks of my life or, better said, my research into life. Every day, every hour is an experiment in which there is no distinction between subject and scientist, data and interpreter. I'm studying the heterodox culture of Bodhgaya, its political economy, its environmental mismanagement, the hearts of friends, even the nature of mind (this is Buddha land after all). The deeper I look, the deeper I find I am enmeshed in all of this. Some people here call that a "karmic connection." But I feel this way whenever I look deeply wherever I am. That sense of mutuality, of interdependence is the soil in which we sew our efforts to improve the world. These weeks in Bodhgaya are teaching me to prepare the fields for planting.

Part of this romantic state of mind comes from the realization of what I was calling a "fantasy" only a few weeks ago. Since I last wrote, I met an ambitious environmental engineer who has been working on ecological issues in Bodhgaya for three or four years. The week we crossed paths she was founding Sacred Earth Trust, a comprehensive environmental protection and community organizing platform. I've worked with her (and some bright friends I recruited) almost non-stop since that day. We've mapped all the garbage dumping areas and overflowing sewers in Bodhgaya on satellite maps and are working with community members and the local government to create a trash collection program. We've organized community clean up events that drew perhaps 400 volunteers over two days. We've collected several thousand signatures (in a town of 30,000) to ban plastic bags and polystyrene (which fill the streets until weekly burns release them into our lungs).

Again, I'm out of time. But that's a tidbit of the joyous work I've been doing... and I haven't even begun my internship!

Catching Up

2009-12-05T04:54:00.000-08:00

In the five weeks since I last posted, I said goodbye to my partner in Arizona, spent a layover evening with my dear cousin and her husband in Los Angeles, attended a 10-day conference of socially engaged Buddhists in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and have settled back into life in Bodhgaya, India, the chaotic, magical Bihari town where I studied abroad last year. If you were wondering why I haven't been writing I imagine my itinerary speaks for itself. From this post forward, however, I vow to write once a week as I did when I was in Arizona.

      In this post, I'll cover the INEB Conference. The International Network of Engaged Buddhists is a non-sectarian organization of Buddhist activists, educators, and community development workers from all over the world. Sulak Sivaraksa, long one of Thailand's few outspoken social critics, founded the organization 20 years ago under the patronage of HH Dalai Lama, Ven Thich Nhat Han, and Maha Ghosananda. Since then, INEB has functioned as both a loose network for socially engaged Buddhists to exchange ideas and build solidarity across borders as well as an incubator for progressive grassroots projects in Southeast Asia. INEB holds an international conference biannually but organizes smaller consciousness-raising events and training programs throughout the year.

      Until this conference, I had only ever imagined such a multi-vocal, spiritually informed, action oriented forum for changemakers. The 200 or so attendees hailed from 16 countries and numerous schools of Buddhism. I met Soto Zen monks and nuns who run a suicide counseling program in Tokyo, a Theravada monk who runs Cambodia's only AIDS hospice, young activists from Burma's oppressed Shan ethnic group, former untouchables from India who converted to Buddhism to escape the caste system and now run free schools and grassroots development courses for untouchables, Bhutanese monks and nuns who do environmental conservation, an American Fulbright recipient who is working with the National University of Laos to create the country's first service learning program... I could go on and on. Despite tremendous cultural and religious diversity, we interacted as old friends, staying up late to chat, paying for it the next morning side by side in meditation. Beyond just solidarity building, the conference program included a number of presentations on projects and mediated group discussions on various themes (ecological concerns, gender issues, education, human rights, inter-religious conflict resolution, etc.) As a result I've got lots of ideas and have remarked to several people that I could spend the next decade volunteering all over Asia.

      I'm feeling a bit fatigued now, but I'll write again soon. Bodhgaya has gifted me so many wonderful stories to tell. Check back for more. In the next few days, I'll post a description of my futureproject ideas and ask for input, brainstorming,co-aspiring, what have you. There are a few of you (you know who youare) who I'm trying to coax into coming here and collaborating. Perhapswe can plant seeds on this blog.

Incongruent Ideologies

2009-10-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

First, here is a link to a New York Times piece sent to me while I was writing the last entry. It's incredibly apropos. Also, check out the report and video under the "Featured Site" heading to the right. The IAASTD study does an incredible job of sorting through the (sometimes contradictory) research on how to end hunger.

A little bit more on ideology, particularly as it relates to my work with food in India:

My education has been decidedly Left of Center, filled with the voices of self-reflexive anthropologists, acerbic post-colonial theorists, and sometimes whimsical Marxists. My study of food and agriculture, though largely extracurricular, has been no less ideologically biased. Though prominent figures like Norman Bourlag, Bill Gates, and Stewart Brand have all advocated biotechnology as a means of solving world hunger, I remain skeptical. Recently, I’ve begun asking myself why.

I’ve looked at data from numerous studies conducted all over the world on the yields of genetically modified crops and industrialized agricultural practices. Some studies conclude that transgenic (GM) crops, synthetic pesticides and herbicides, and/or petroleum-based fertilizers are the way to end hunger. The only way. Others show that GM crops necessitate higher inputs while producing smaller yields; that reliance upon chemical amendments destroys the soil after a few years and poisons the water supply. They warn of the untold consequences of these practices on human health and the environment.

Do these contradictory findings reflect the vulnerability of scientific research to confirmation bias? What course of action should we take if we can't find consistent evidence in support of one method or another? In general, I trust (and relate to) those who aren't motivated by profit. Corporately-funded research, like that put forth by Monsanto, is out of the question. Even the FDA is not financially disinterested and many of its officials have sat on the boards of the companies whose products are being considered for approval. Given just one criteria, almost all of the research is invalidated.

Of course business is one ideology of many. Economist Paul Collier sees environmentalists as no less ideologically motivated than I see development economists. He calls anti-GM scientists and activists "romantics." For Collier, business-driven development and political reform are the solutions to poverty. Indeed he doesn't even mention agriculture or the environment in his recent book The Bottom Billion: Why The Poorest Countries Are Failing And What Can Be Done About It. I find that astonishing. He finds me a romantic. Ideology.

Another Project Altogether

2009-10-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been devouring books and articles on Third World development and recent Indian politics. What began as an attempt to contextualize my work in India has become another project altogether. Each author I read provides not only his or her own strategy for development but also a fundamentally different view of the country to be developed. At times, I stare incredulously at the page. Are these writers really talking about the same Asia, the same world system?

On the issue of rural flight and the explosion of urban slums, for example, I've encountered an array of contradictory arguments. Understanding the political economic underpinnings—as well as the ethos—of urban India is particularly important to my work with Navdanya. I will be helping to launch their urban agriculture program aimed at providing poor city dwellers healthy, affordable food and opportunities for income generation. This year, the Human Development Report compiled by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and the UNDP, showed that 54% of Mumbai's population and nearly 20% of Delhi's population live in slums (1). The gross municipal domestic product of both cities is well above 10% each year. Beyond these numbers, though, it's difficult to get a clear picture of why rural people are flocking to town. Here are some of the views I'm trying to reconcile:

In his book, The New Asian Hemisphere, Singapore-based policy analyst Kishore Mahbubani describes Asian migration to cities as the natural direction of the "March to Modernity." He glorifies urban existence, downplaying the hardships of slum dwellers in Mumbai and migrant workers in Beijing. Urban Chinese factory workers, he says, including the sixteen to twenty-two year old women employed (and underpaid) by Nike, find "working in air-conditioned rooms... far more comfortable than tilling the soil in the harsh sun." What's more, they enjoy "important social freedoms that came from moving out of their tiny peasant homes to urban quarters." Mahbubani doesn't elaborate on these freedoms or the quality of typical low-income "urban quarters." He does, however, assert that "the greater number of people who enter the modern world, the safer and more secure the world will be" (2).

Paul Collier, Oxford professor and former director of World Bank Development Research, portrays Third World urban growth somewhat more pragmatically. He argues that China and India have been so economically successful in part because they created conditions that were favorable for economic agglomeration. This is the process by which competing firms move production to the same overseas location in order to lower costs and take advantage of a labor force already trained in a particular field. The call center boom in Bangalore is an example of this phenomenon. "The jobs [created] are far from wonderful," he says, "but they are an improvement on the drudgery and boredom of a small farm, or of hanging around on a street corner trying to sell cigarettes" (3).

Mahbubani and Collier see urbanization as more than just an economically motivated population shift. It is also a movement from one reality to another; from the bondage of backward agrarian existence to the comfort and upward mobility of modern life.

Independent journalist Arundhati Roy, by contrast, insists that we look deeper into the living conditions of rural Indians before assuming that their pursuit of economic prosperity alone is driving them to cities. She describes the instability and violence that characterize life in both rural and urban India. "Farmers steeped in debt are committing suicide in the hundreds. Reports of starvation and malnutrition come from across the country. Yet the government allowed sixty-three million tons of grain to rot in its granaries [in 2003]... With the possible exception of China, India today has the largest population of internally displaced people in the world. Dams alone have displaced more than thirty million people..." Migration to slums may therefore be motivated as much by the government's harsh mistreatment and neglect of rural people as the inherent challenges (and joylessness according to Collier) of rural life. Nevertheless, moving to cities doesn't insulate the poor from economic hardship or structural violence. Slumdwellers are frequently victims of police brutality and religiously-motivated abuse as well as the government-backed demolition of their "illegitimate" neighborhoods. In 2006, for example, in order to make room for several shopping mall developments "the Supreme Court ordered the demolition of Nangla Maachi and other jhuggi [squatter] colonies [in Delhi], which left hundreds of thousands homeless..." (4).

The content above may be unfamiliar, but the conundrum—that of having to sort through vastly divergent portrayals of the same situation—is well-known. Ideology, I'm beginning to realize, must be at the bottom of these divergences. My project for these weeks, and likely much longer, has thus become to determine how ideology shapes my apprehension of development, food policy, agricultural practices, etc. Through research, fieldwork, and introspection, I am determined to minimize my reliance on ideological conceptions of the world and approach my service with clarity.

References
(1) "Every second person in Mumbai resides in slum: UNDP." Times of India, September 4, 2009. Available online here.
(2) Mahbubani, Kishore. The New Asian Hemisphere. Public Affairs, New York. 2008.
(3) Collier, Paul. The Bottom Billion. Oxford University Press, New York. 2007.
(4) Roy, Arundhati. Field Notes on Democracy. Haymarket Books, Chicago. 2009.

Aspirations for World Food Day 2009

2009-10-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

How appropriate to open this site on World Food Day, a UN initiative to raise awareness about malnutrition and food security around the world. Global politics, ecology, and human rights—my favorite subjects—all intersect at food. On the table, at the market, in the fields, food puts us in direct relationship to the environment (and climate change), to policy, supply chains, production methods, and to farmers themselves. No attempt to eliminate world hunger will succeed without addressing these areas integrally—but perhaps we should began with farmers and work our way out.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of hungry people worldwide has increased by 105 million in 2009, bringing the total number of malnourished people to just over a billion. Of these, an estimated 80% live rurally and derive their livelihoods from agriculture. Why do food producers make up the majority of malnourished people? They are on the front lines of our species' confrontation with climate change and, in many cases, are saddled with debt. Just last night, The Independent reported that 1,500 farmers have committed suicide this year in one Indian state alone. Of this all-too-common occurrence, Bharatendu Prakash, from the Organic Farming Association of India, told the Press Association, "suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death." Prakash continued by saying that the Indian government should consider poor farmers as they work for a strong economy. "Development," he said, "should be for all."

Development for all, a concept Gandhi called sarvodaya (see link below blog title), will be a major focus of my writing on this site.

Development is always a kind of intervention. Various entities have and continue to intervene into production, trade, consumption, ecology, and human rights across the world. These processes have often entailed violence and exploitation, improving the lives of a few while creating suffering for many. Development for all, by contrast, calls for consideration of the implications of intervention on the whole spectrum of life on our planet. Only when development is democratic or—because that word means less and less these days—egalitarian, will we end poverty and hunger.

Is this an impossible task?

Several months ago, I attended an interfaith dialogue on social activism. A middle aged rabbi on the panel described her idealism at age 20. World peace, she thought, would be achieved by the time she was in her 50s. Today, that goal far from realized, she has come to see herself as part of a chain of efforts that extends deep into the past. We cannot be discouraged by the seeming impossibility of our aspirations for peace or the eradication of hunger. We must instead be the strongest link we can be in the chain.

Over the next 14 months, I'll be working in India with the Navdanya Foundation on malnutrition prevention, sustainable agriculture, and food security. Whether linking communities around the world (for example, American consumers to the Indian farmers who grow the cotton they wear) or activists young and old, I hope this site helps to strengthen the chain of efforts of which that rabbi spoke.

Jai Jagat!

- Matt