Monday, December 29, 2008

On Coalition building between DFH's and 'mainstream" farmers, by Bruce McF receives Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award


Recipient of Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award:


Cross-posted from Progressive Blue:

http://www.eenrblog.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3329



On Coalition building between DFH's and 'mainstream" farmers.

by: BruceMcF

Mon Dec 29, 2008 at 15:26:21 PM EST

Burning the Midnight Oil for the Next American Revolution

We do not have a progressive populist movement in this country. We do not have an effective change coalition in this country. And the first implies the second, since successful progressive populism has been a component of all of our effective change coalitions for over a century.

To fend off the possible semantic quibble ... yes, by an effective change coalition, I do mean to say change going forward. We have, obviously, had effective reactionary coalitions without a progressive populist component!

In sketching out the potential membership for an effective change coalition, I have previously identified farmers. And so I take special interest when Stranded Wind at the Daily Kos adopts a provocative and potentially quite divisive framing for discussion of organic farming "versus" sustainable production of chemical fertilizer such as ammonia (NH3) derived fertilizers produced with the harvest of sustainable, renewable electric power:

On one side of the field we have the hemp clothes and Birkenstocks set flinging organic tomatoes. The other side has Monsanto's minions, flinging GMO hand grenades with one hand and trying to lasso producers with the other. The official federal referee of the USDA would like to help but their rules are the province of misguided ideologues and sociopathic transnational corporations.

Stuck in the middle is the puzzled farmer, who just wants a fair price for the work he does and some protection for when things go badly. They'd happily plow the earthly remains of all three of the above groups into the soil if it would increase yields and get unsolicited opinions out of their business.

A reaction, after the fold ...

The substantive policy position in the piece is quite sound ... as we pursue a more sustainable and Energy Independent farming economy, we should also be aiming for decentralized production of key feedstocks, since the centralization of the current system leaves us exposed to substantial risk.

However, there is mixed in the echoes of the "US agriculture feeding the world":

First, let's stick a wrench in the complaints of the organic foods crowd. Yes, it would be better if we were more careful with our soil and if we had less chemicals in our food, but we feed six and a half billion with the current system. We're going back to the solar maximum for this planet and that is going to be ugly enough without some Great Leap Forward approach, which would starve more than are already going to face that fate given our fossil fuel depletion and the tight coupling between this and our existing fertilizer sources.

This "US agriculture feeding the world", which features heavily in Monsanto and ADM advertising on Sunday morning political talk shows, has long been used as the cover story for the dumping of subsidized cereal grains that has devastated the local farming capacity of large numbers of low-income nations ... which means, of course, in driving subsistence farmers into mega-cities, ensure a market for the heavily subsidized cereal grains. Obviously, that income stream does not stick in the hands of the "mainstream" farmer ... it just passes through on its way to Monsanto and ADM.

So a bit more care is needed regarding who "we" are when talking about US farm policy. "We" don't feed 6b people with our system ... even if you extent "our" system to mean the EU/US/Oceania agro-industry mono-cropping, then it certainly feeds well over a billion, but nowhere near 6 billion ... not unless you include feedlot animals in the count.

And "our" system has two big redundancies built in.

The first redundancy is the insistence on growing perfectly good food and then feeding it to animals, rather than using animals to convert plant production that is not edible for humans into a supplement for the crops we raise directly for humans.

The second redundancy is the productive potential of low income nations that is held off the market by the practice of dumping US/EU staple grains in low income nations in order to ensure a broader market.

We could be on track for a famine ... but famines are not about food production, they are about food distribution. Recall that Ireland was a net food exporter in each year of the Irish Potato Famine ... beef and butter and grain production was not affected, but beef and butter and grain was headed for the more lucrative markets in England.

Over and above that, it is a mistake in advocacy strategy to accept a framing of sustainable-produced chemical fertilizers versus organic farming techniques ... let alone to spread it. In high income nations, we should be making soil husbandry payments for all farming methods that restore and rehabilitate soils, and if that means subsidizing a bunch of dirty fucking hippies, so be it. But that does not require imposing organic farming techniques, its simply a competitive advantage of organic farming techniques if we introduce a difference in income between soil establishment and soil mining.

And at the same time, certification for marketing of organic produce requires compliance with something that the market for organic produce recognizes as organic production ... but certification for soil husbandry payments would be in terms of objective measures of the health and retention of the soil, and while it may well include maintaining fertilizer practices that do not lead to excessive fertilizer run-off in the watersheds, the income system would not require production that can be certified as organic production.

And it should be obvious that fertilizer levels that maximize protein content in grains for use as animal feeds, where the majority of the protein will be dumped into the watershed, which results in collapse of riverine and coastal fish stocks, is not a net win in terms of total protein available for human consumption.

Shifting farm income support from subsidy for staple grains to fee for service in soil husbandry opens up organic farming operations to participation, but would include any farmer that adopts sound whole-system soil husbandry.

Since there is no necessary conflict between the needs of "mainstream" farmers, those sharing their watershed, consumers, and dirty fucking hippy organic farmers, the debating point on the extent to which organic farming can carry the load is a side track diversion from a reform of our farm policy.

Controversy and debates are good for getting hits and high comment counts online, but the focus needs to be on finding common ground to build a large enough change coalition large enough so that the controversy and debate is between the change coalition and the entrenched opposition to reform.

...
Older than Kosciuszko
Driven back to Alice Springs
Endless storm and struggle
Marks the spirit of the age
High up in the homelands
Celebration 'cross the land
Builds up like a cyclone
Now the fires begin to rage
...

Close Window

Friday, December 26, 2008

Write Kareem: the courageous blogger in prison in Egypt

Write Kareem: the courageous blogger in prison in Egypt

by: Karita Hummer

Cross-posted from Progressive Blue:
http://www.eenrblog.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3317&view=print

Thu Dec 25, 2008 at 14:50:30 PM EST

(another Action Item for your holiday! Stand up and make some noise! :D - promoted by poligirl)

kareem 1Fellow bloggers, listen up this Christmas Day, one of our own, a fellow blogger, Kareem Amer, is in prison in Egypt for his blogging activity. Write him today in solidarity.

Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman was charged and found guilty of the following: (1) Spreading data and malicious rumors that disrupt public security; (2) Defaming the President of Egypt; (3) Incitement to overthrow the regime upon hatred and contempt; (4) Incitement to hate "Islam" and breach of the public peace standards; (5) Highlighting inappropriate aspects that harm the reputation of Egypt and spreading them to the public. He is serving a four year sentence essentially for his free thinking/blogging.

You may already know this story of Kareem, known as Kareem Amer, the name he had used as a blogger. Ihad never known of his story. Did you? I just found this story today, as I looked for Human Rights E Cards to send to some of my Social Activist friends, which led me to the Free Kareem site: http://www.freekareem.org/

More below...

Kareem's is an amazing and very brave story. View it at: http://www.freekareem.org/kare...

But, perhaps, his own description of himself, says it best:


I am down to earth Law student; I look forward to help humanity against all form of discriminations... I am looking forward to open up my own human rights activists Law firm, which will include other lawyers who share the same views. Our main goal is to defend the rights of Muslim and Arabic women against all form of discrimination and to stop violent crimes committed on a daily basis in these countries. http://www.freekareem.org/kare...

Show your solidarity this Christmas Day. Write Kareem at:
http://www.freekareem.org/writ...

kareem 3




Karita Hummer, Advocate for Human Rights here and in the world.

Close Window

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Cabinet Choices do say a lot

Cross-posted from Progressive Blue: http://www.eenrblog.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3207

Cabinet Choices do say a lot

by: Karita Hummer

Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 20:53:44 PM EST

[edit diary]
Obama has said vision begins with him and his team will implement it. This consoles me a little, but not a lot. He can't be everywhere at all times, and I should think we would want his Secretaries to be initiating policy recommendations for him to undertake. He simply can't know everything, nor initiate everything. That would be an impossible job.

Whenever I have hired someone, I have looked for people who have shared my passion and vision.

Saying this, I hope President-Elect Obama will still consider the idea of a Poverty Czar, to deal with global and domestic poverty, and I suggest that person be John Edwards. Then, I think we would have a true Unity Cabinet, with all of them, strong, with their own ideas, implementing a broad vision under the direction of a strong president able to integrate the best ideas of all of them.

That means who Obama selects matters.

If Obama does not choose to have a Poverty Czar, or name Edwards to it, then I would hope as a bare minimum, he would select John Edwards as Secretary of Labor and Robert F. Kennedy as Secretary of Interior or Secretary of Energy. Passion should count most in the selection of a Candidate for the Cabinet. John Edwards and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have the kind of passionate commitment that would send a strong signal to the country about the place of workers and environment in the Administration's priorities.

Progressive Heroes should matter!

Karita Hummer

Karita Hummer :: Cabinet Choices do say a lot