All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

In My Imagination

I wanted to tell youthis thing and that thing,I wanted to divulgewhat were in my mind,to manifest all my feelingsto share all the secrets of my heart…

In My Imagination

Estudo revela como cooperativas de garimpeiros têm sido utilizadas para exploração mineral em escala industrial na Amazônia!

Estudo divulgado pelo Climate Policy Initiative/Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (CPI/PUC-Rio), na sexta-feira (29/04), apresenta …

Estudo revela como cooperativas de garimpeiros têm sido utilizadas para exploração mineral em escala industrial na Amazônia!

Brazil: The Ka’apor people need our support! – Rainforest Rescue

Indigenous Ka'apor people – children, women and men – join hands and form a circle in the rainforest

The indigenous Ka’apor people are calling for our support: Their ancestral rainforest is being plundered by loggers, miners and land grabbers. The Ka’apor are not taking the encroachment lying down, even though they face intimidation, assault and even murder. Please tell the Brazilian authorities to finally take action!

Source: Brazil: The Ka’apor people need our support! – Rainforest Rescue

What’s up with GE mosquitoes? | Pesticide Action Network

…an independent peer-reviewed study from Yale University revealed that after two years of continual releases of the GE mosquitoes at a test site in Brazil, populations of A. aegypti were not reduced. Further, the GE mosquitoes actually bred with the A. aegypti population. The resulting hybrid mosquitoes may be more aggressive, difficult to eradicate, and may actually increase the spread of mosquito-borne diseases.

In addition to these ineffective and potentially disastrous outcomes, it doesn’t make sense to conduct the experiment in California. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that California doesn’t have any cases of the diseases in question, and A. aegypti isn’t even prevalent in the state. It’s a lose-lose all around.

 

Source: What’s up with GE mosquitoes? | Pesticide Action Network

Avian flu illustrates flaws in industrial ag | Pesticide Action Network

Smaller, diversified farms limit the risk

The recent HPAI outbreak is just one of the reasons I continue to push the idea that people, like you and me, should continue to source their food from local growers who raise poultry and other foods on a smaller scale, when possible.  This is also why I believe we need to stop protecting, subsidizing, and encouraging the industrial model for food production.  There have been at least three recent opportunities to learn the lesson that large corporate models for food production handle catastrophes poorly, with the COVID-19 pandemic and two bird flu outbreaks in the last decade.  I don’t know about you, but I do not feel a need for another such lesson.

If we put more people on the land and promoted and supported small-scale, diversified operations, I believe there would be two desirable outcomes:

  1. Prices would stabilize

  2. Our food supply would respond less dramatically to catastrophic events

Farms like ours prefer to set a price that gives us a reasonable margin to cover our expenses.  There is no benefit to us or you if we bounce our prices up and down in response to perceived supply and demand.  This is food we’re talking about –  playing games with pricing is not appropriate.  And yet, that’s exactly what happens when profit is the ultimate goal in food production.

When monetary profits are the focus of the food industry rather than the production of healthy, quality food, our food system is set up for failure when difficult times happen.  When corporate interests are the driving force in food production rather than fair pricing for edibles produced by people who care for the land and their communities, it is more likely that extreme events will create even more havoc than they already have.

Source: Avian flu illustrates flaws in industrial ag | Pesticide Action Network