Food and Agriculture

Scheer Intelligence: Something’s Rotten In The Science Of Food

July 16, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Big Ag, Book Review, Corporatism, Food and Agriculture

Leading nutritionist Marion Nestle has spent much of her long illustrious career writing about what we eat and the science of food. The James Beard award-winner and author of the blog Food Politics has written a whopping 14 acclaimed books on subjects related to nutrition, including “Soda Politics” and “What to Eat.” And yet, “Unsavory Truths: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, ” a book journalist Robert Scheer calls one of her most important books to date, has gone largely ignored by mainstream media. On this week’s installment of “Scheer Intelligence,” Nestle joins Scheer to discuss some of the shocking revelations the author uncovered about the links between food science and the incredibly powerful food industry.

Weaponizing Science In Global Food Policy

June 26, 2021 By Maywa Montenegro, Matthew Canfield, and Alastair Iles, Inter Press Service. Educate! Corporatism, Food and Agriculture, Sustainability, United Nations

Santa Cruz, CA - In July, the United Nations will convene “Science Days”, a high-profile event in preparation for the UN Food Systems Summit later this year. Over the course of two days, the world will be treated to a parade of Zoom sessions aimed at “highlighting the centrality of science, technology and innovation for food systems transformation.” Nobody disputes the need for urgent action to transform the food system. But the UNFSS has been criticized by human rights experts for its top-down and non-transparent organization. Indigenous peoples, peasants, and civil society groups around the world know their hard-won rights are under attack. Many are protesting the summit’s legitimacy and organizing counter-mobilizations.

The Buried Documents That Linked The Infamous Cult To The CIA

June 25, 2021 Elizabeth Vos, Mintpress News. Educate! CIA, Florida, Food and Agriculture, Transparency

Washington - Concerning the Finders cult — the elusive Washington, D.C.-based outfit whose antics and ties we began examining in Part 1 of this series — one set of documents in particular held the most explosive allegations made against the group and against the CIA for allegedly covering the story up. Despite their contents, almost no corporate press ever quoted from these documents or addressed the concerns they raise. This article will attempt to remedy that deficit of coverage by fully exploring what the documents have to say. I previously described the 1987 arrest of two well-dressed men in Tallahassee, Florida, on charges of child abuse relating to six children found neglected, dirty, and hungry in their care.

Scheer Intelligence: What Has Silicon Valley Done To Our Food?

June 25, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Create! Big Tech, California, climate crisis, Food and Agriculture, health, Podcast

Companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have started to become household names, producing meat substitutes that taste as close to meat as their scientists have been able to engineer. In the midst of a climate crisis that threatens our very existence, plenty of scientists have been recommending that we all look for ways to cut down on our meat intake because cows produce large amounts of methane that has a significant negative environmental impact. Eating animal products also brings up animal rights questions. One of the main selling points of these Silicon Valley companies is essentially that we can save the planet and eat ethically without sacrificing taste. Yet, there is a key question few people seem to be asking about these new products: Are these meat substitutes good for our health?

Not Just Another Drought

June 7, 2021 Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights. Educate! Climate Change, Drought, Environment, Food and Agriculture

The American West is having a drought. So, what else is new? And, that's just the point. The American West has been in an extended drought since 2000, so far the second worst in the last 1200 years. Here is the key quote from the National Geographic article cited above: In the face of continued climate change, some scientists and others have suggested that using the word "drought" for what’s happening now might no longer be appropriate, because it implies that the water shortages may end. Instead, we might be seeing a fundamental, long-term shift in water availability all over the West. That is what climate scientists have been warning about all along. The problems we are now experiencing are not just cycles or fluctuations—although those continue to be important—but rather, permanent changes in the climate (that is, on any timeline that matters to humans).

Global Food Prices Post Biggest Jump In Decade

June 6, 2021 The Straits Times. Educate! COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Global Economy, Inflation

London - Global food prices have surged by the biggest margin in a decade, as one closely watched index jumped 40 per cent last month, heightening fears that the inflation initially stoked by pandemic disruption was accelerating. The year-on-year rise in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) monthly index was the largest jump since 2011, as commodity prices surged. The higher inflation will hit poorer countries reliant on imports for staple goods. For richer countries, the cost of raw ingredients accounts for only part of the overall price paid for products at supermarkets and restaurants. But the rise in raw material prices has been so steep that big firms like Nestle and Coca-Cola have said they would pass on any increases.

How corporations buy and sell food made with prison labor

May 19, 2021 H. Claire Brown, The Counter Educate! Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Prison Labor, Worker Rights

In 2011, Leprino Foods, the $3 billion company that supplies all the mozzarella to Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, and Domino’s pizza chains, lost its buffalo milk supplier in India. Water buffalo milk isn’t easy to find in the United States, especially not as much as a company as big as Denver-based Leprino could use. The animals are finicky, sometimes refusing to give milk at the sight of a stranger, and they produce only a fraction of the milk that cows make. But Leprino was in luck: One of its existing suppliers, which soon became one of the largest buffalo dairies in the United States, agreed to step in, and the milk began to flow. Leprino trademarked the slogan “with a kiss of buffalo milk” for Bacio, its premium mozzarella line marketed to independent pizzerias.

Soaring Prices Push US Households To The Edge

May 15, 2021 Andre Damon, WSWS. Educate! Food and Agriculture, Housing, Inflation, Workers

Surging prices for necessities like used cars, phones, and housing have caused the biggest jump in “core” consumer prices in nearly four decades, according to new figures released Wednesday by the US Department of Labor (DOL). Rising prices for food, heating oil, gas, and other necessities are eating into workers’ incomes both in the United States and internationally. Workers are finding it increasingly impossible to make ends meet, even if they are employed full-time. The minimum wage in the United States remains at $7.25 per hour, and US President Joe Biden has reneged on his campaign promise to raise it. Workers’ real average hourly earnings have plunged, falling 3.4 percent over the past year, according to the latest jobs report from the DOL, as companies used the pandemic as a pretext to slash wages over the past year.

How We Can Place The Wellbeing Economy At The Heart Of Our Cities

April 29, 2021 Nadine Maarhuis, Sustainable Urban Delta. Create! Food and Agriculture, Municipalization, New Economy, Urban Agriculture

Once upon a time, the growth of a country’s Gross Domestic Product would actually lead to social progress. In the first few decades after the Second World War, growth was invested in collective institutions like health and education systems. Tax rates were progressive and growth was directed to those who needed it most. Unfortunately, this so-called ‘Golden Age of Capitalism’ did not last very long. Within a few decades, we managed to shift to an economic system dictated by market fundamentalism. “We have been undermining our collective institutions, tax rates have been cut down for the very wealthiest and scientists are getting louder with their warnings about environmental breakdown”, author, researcher and advocate for a Wellbeing Economy Katherine Trebeck explains.

Portraits Of Houston’s Black Urban Farmers

April 18, 2021 Leonard Smith, Jr., Scalawag Magazine. Educate! Black Farmers, Food and Agriculture, Food Security, Texas

Texas is home to more Black farmers than any state. The USDA's Census of Agriculture estimated in 2017 that of the 3.4 million farmers in the United States, roughly 48,000 are Black, and nearly a quarter of them are located in the Lone Star State. The number of Black folks sinking their hands into Texas soil, however, used to be much larger. The early 1900s witnessed the terrors of Jim Crow, which ran Black families in Texas off of their own land. The societal and business practices of the 1950s didn't allow Black farmers access to the fields and credit necessary to keep their farms afloat, and by the 1980s, an estimated 170 farms a week were being forced into foreclosure, most of them Black-owned.

There Are So Many Lessons To Learn From Kerala

March 30, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Create! Food and Agriculture, Kerala, Left Politics, Women

Indian farmers and agricultural workers have crossed the hundred-day mark of their protest against the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They will not withdraw until the government repeals laws that deliver the advantages of agriculture to large corporate houses. This, the farmers and agricultural workers say, is an existential struggle. Surrender is equivalent to death: even before these laws were passed, more than 315,000 Indian farmers had committed suicide since 1995 because of the debt burden placed on them. Over the next one and a half months, assembly elections will take place in four Indian states (Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal) and in one union territory (Puducherry).

‘Poor Rich Haiti’

March 29, 2021 Lautaro Rivara, People's Dispatch. Educate! Food and Agriculture, Haiti, Land grabs, US Imperialism

Haiti’s borders are curious. The small country is bordered to the east by the Dominican Republic, dividing in two the territory of the island of Hispaniola. To the west it borders the Caribbean Sea and to the south, a forgotten maritime border with the Republic of Colombia. But what interests us here is a border that is not entirely imaginary: to the north and northeast, although the maps would like to indicate otherwise, Haiti borders the United States. It is here, in this region, that most US economic interests – and also those of its smaller partners – are concentrated. This is the case of Canada, that peculiar North American colony that in turn colonizes others. But also those of France, Germany and other European nations.

Big Banks Make A Dangerous Bet On The World’s Growing Demand For Food

March 19, 2021 Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News. Educate! Big Banks, Carbon emissions, Deforestation, Food and Agriculture

As global banking giants and investment firms vow to divest from polluting energy companies, they’re continuing to bankroll another major driver of the climate crisis: food and farming corporations that are responsible, directly or indirectly, for cutting down vast carbon-storing forests and spewing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. These agricultural investments, largely unnoticed and unchecked, represent a potentially catastrophic blind spot. “Animal protein and even dairy is likely, and already has started to become, the new oil and gas,” said Bruno Sarda, the former North America president of CDP, a framework through which companies disclose their carbon emissions. “This is the biggest source of emissions that doesn’t have a target on its back.”

Capitalist Economies Overproduce Food

March 16, 2021 Robert R. Raymond, Truthout. Educate! COVID-19, Fast Food, Food and Agriculture, Hunger

The unprecedented pandemic, and the recession it has caused, has led to a sharp increase in food insecurity in the United States. The problem isn’t that there isn’t enough food to go around, but that more and more people are unable to afford to purchase it. Last year the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) recently released a report predicting that the number of people facing extreme hunger could soar to 270 million by the end of 2020 — effectively doubling. What’s leading to these extreme statistics isn’t a lack of availability — it’s that many people simply can’t afford to purchase food. Like with many commodities, capitalist markets are fairly good at producing food, but they are not so efficient at distributing it equitably.

Add Atmospheric Drying To Climate Change Toll

March 14, 2021 Max Martin, Toronto Star. Educate! climate crisis, Farming, Food and Agriculture

Drier air brought on by climate change could put a dent in crop yields, triggering smaller and slower-growing plants, a new study says. “Globally, the atmosphere is drying as the climate warms up,” said Danielle Way, an associate professor of biology at Western University. “That’s been correlated with reduced crop yield.” Because air wants to hold as much water as possible, it starts to pull moisture from plants as its dries, with potentially devastating impacts on crops and vegetation. Way, working with researchers at the University of Minnesota, studied 50 years of data and 112 plant species, including wheat, corn and birch trees, to assess how they’re affected by drier air. The recently published findings show plants react to atmospheric drying — even if they don’t lack water in the soil — by triggering a drought-like response, growing smaller, shorter and slower.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources