[GJM] Fw: [globalnetnews-summary] World must reform agriculture now or face dire crisis: report

Mon Apr 21 01:09:06 MDT 2008

Dear Mary,

  In a very short future, we not have all the fossil fuel based vessels for transporting goods..Therefore ,agriculture will have to be subsistence based and ecologically sustaianble.

  Red meat is also not good for people with blood pressure.

  Dr.Muhammad Mukhtar Alam

mary rose <maryrose333 at att.net> wrote:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "mary rose" 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 10:49 AM
Subject: Fw: [globalnetnews-summary] World must reform agriculture now or 
face dire crisis: report

> When John Robbins followed Francis Moore Lapp's lead and began to address
the manner in which we eat, which dictates how food is raised, as being 
the crux
of the world's environmental crisis, the truth of the matter began to be 
revealed.

> As food became an addiction, especially red meat,. the people of the 
> developed world soon developed the habit of "living to eat." Especially in 
> England
where the King finally had to issue an edict limiting the amount of meat 
that could be
served at one sitting, in order > to bring about some sort of sensibility 
in this matter.
(Rifkin - 1997 Beyond Beef)

> But with the migration of settlers to America, the habit spead. And, once 
> discovering that the Great Plains was the perfect place to raise both 
> beef cattle, and the grain with which to fatten these animals, wealthy 
> Englishmen directed large sums of money toward developing huge ranches 
> designed to produce the great herds of beef cattle for which the American 
> West became famous. In order to accomplish this, the Europeans had first 
> to persuade the American government to rid the Great Plains of both the 
> buffalo and the American Indian. An action necessary to allow for cattle 
> ranch development.so that shipment to Europe of red meat in order to 
> satisfy the continuing addiction there for the meat from what has come to 
> be known as the "world steer" could continue unabated.
And in the process Americans too became addicted to the blood sacrifice of 
millions of beef cattle
in order to satisfy the craving for "red meat" which signified virility. 
How many have heard the saying:
"Real men don't eat quiche".
>
> In the beginning the cattle were driven by cowboys on horseback eastward 
> for shipment to Europe, after first being fattened and then slaughtered 
> in the stockyards of the midwest. But when the means of constructing a 
> "railway" emerged, J.P. Morgan was quick to assemble funding from what 
> later became known as The Robber Barons -- a group of wealthy men -- who 
> would come to power through their wealth and both establish and control 
> business practices in the new world. These practices have continued and 
> form the basis for what we know today as "the New World Order" for these 
> cattle ranchers would soon discover oil on their lands and become not 
> only "cattle barons" but "oil barons" as well.
>
> What we are talking about here is a process of "enculturation" -- that is, 
> > how consciousness
> is formed through environmental conditioning as it -- that is the 
> environment -- pushes back
> upon us and shapes us as we encounter it. . . .
>
> So, we have different forms of consciousness:
>
> 1) biological consciousness -- the manner in which our body through 
> physiological constructs produces the awareness and ability to "think and 
> act" mainly at a sub-> conscious level.
>
> 2) cultural consciousness - the manner in which we learn to act in 
> response to the
> exterior environment and then design systems to aid in the mitigation of 
> the hardships imposed upon us by these environments.
>
> 3) social consciousness - social consciousness appears to emanate out of 
> cultural consciousness as we begin to design/create social systems that 
> bring more order into our lives to further enhance our well-being in all 
> respects.
>
> Cultural consciousness appears to be more of a response to the environment 
> around us in which we are "shaped" by it; whereas social consciousness is 
> a state in which > we move into a higher level of awareness and begin to 
> create responses that actually shape the environment in ways that 
> mitigate its effects.
>
> But what is important is for us to learn about the different "states" of 
> consciousness, that is, how they work. And then, the next step is to 
> learn how to manage these states most effectively so that they take us 
> into health and wellness rather than into extreme chaos and disease.
>
> Note: As we consider "consciousness" in all of its aspects, this part is 
> merely a draft that begins to explore these aspects, and as we move along 
> in our exploration of human > consciousness, the above may be expanded 
> upon and changed before
being incorporated into the book: "The Sacred Quest for the Who of I Am." 
So, feedback on this
> is appreciated.
>
> One of the things that I feel important for us to realize is that in a 
> "peaceful" or "coherent"
> state, we may become stagnant and not grow. And this is not good for us 
> if new information
> is emerging and we have become so embedded in our "comfort zone" as are 
> not be cognizant of it
and thus not incorporating it into the system so as to bring about stronger 
structural balance.

And, what we know is that change takes place at the edge of chaos. So, we 
must consider a
certain amount of chaos as being beneficial for us because it is 
initiating the upheaval
that brings about beneficial change. And, it may well be when looked at 
from a historical
perspective, the present chaos created by the "shock and awe" tactics of 
the neocons
may well be beneficial to us if they indeed it serves to shock us out of 
our complacency and
forces us to reconstruct new systems that act in our behalf.

For those of us who are "advanced thinkers" it may well be that our
collective subconscious acts in ways to create chaos at appropriate 
times.
Looking back in history, our good and bad times seem to be cyclical 
indicating
that this is the case.

And, I do believe that one of the big lessons to be learned from our 
present
experience > is that our food system should not be commodified. And when 
it comes
right down to it the same may well be true of our "sheltering/housing" 
system and the
medical system.
And what appears from this is that a great portion of our "economic"
discussion should center around what can beneficially be commodified and 
what can't in
consideration of both "human justice" and "universal justice" -- universal 
justice meaning
that which applies to the universe itself. .

And, I am now on my way to the local farmer's market, and later on I will 
be
transplanting tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, etc. into our garden area here 
as well as sewing
some seeds as I practice being the change I wish to see in my life. It 
does not do for us
just to talk about these things, we must walk the path as well.

with love and in gratitude to all for all that we do together.

mary rose

> Now on to the article that inspired this rant.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "GlobalCirclenet" 
> To: 
> Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 11:53 AM
> Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] World must reform agriculture now or face 
> dire crisis: report
>
>
>
> (To change your settings or unsubscribe please go to
> http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary)
>
> http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/34761
>
> World must reform agriculture now or face dire crisis: report
> Published April 16, 2008 08:23 AM
>
> The world will face social upheaval and environmental disasters if 
> agriculture is not radically reformed to better serve the poor and hungry, 
> a landmark UN-sponsored report said Tuesday.
>
> The warning in the report by the International Assessment of Agricultural 
> Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) comes amid growing 
> discontent among the world's poorest over rising food prices.
>
> "Continuing with current trends in production and distribution would 
> exhaust our resources and put our children's future in jeopardy," said the 
> report, which was compiled by about 400 international experts.
>
> "And the increasingly globalised food market and ever-increasing food 
> imports mean that no country can assume itself to be immune to the 
> implications," it added.
>
> In a statement, the IAASTD called for a "more holistic view of 
> agriculture." The first of the United Nations' 10 Millennium Goals is to 
> reduce by half the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015.
>
> But the new report stressed that agriculture as is practised today was the 
> source of deep inequalities and that the number of malnourished people 
> worldwide was continuing to grow.
>
> "Although considered by many to be a success story, the benefits of 
> productivity increases in world agriculture are unevenly spread," it said.
>
> "Often the poorest of the poor have gained little or nothing, and 850 
> million people are still hungry or malnourished with an additional four 
> million more joining their ranks annually," the report went on.
>
> The report said the world's agricultural expertise "should be targeted 
> toward strategies that combine productivity with protecting natural 
> resources like soils, water, forests, and biodiversity."
>
> "To argue, as we do, that continuing to focus on production alone will 
> undermine our agricultural capital and leave us with an increasingly 
> degraded and divided planet is to reiterate an old message," the IAASTD 
> said.
>
> "But it is a message that has not always had resonance in some parts of 
> the world. If those with power are now willing to hear it, then we may 
> hope for more equitable policies that do take the interests of the poor 
> into account."
>
> Commissioned by the World Bank and the UN's Food and Agriculture 
> Organisation, the report was considered by 64 governments at an 
> intergovernmental plenary in Johannesburg last week.
>
> Food protests have already been the cause of deadly protests in African 
> countries such as Cameroon, Senegal and Mauritania and riots in Haiti and 
> Indonesia.
>
> The crisis has spurred world leaders into action, with the United States 
> on Tuesday pledging 200 million dollars to help governments address the 
> problems of rising food prices.
>
> Earlier, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that the food crisis could trigger 
> political upheavals and security risks.
>
> 

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