Food Sovereignty NOW!

[undergroundpanther]

Pissed about the high food prices,sick of the lies and games about inflation and things driving up the price of everything from cheese to bread?
We pay what we are told to because we lost our food sovereignty.


What is Food Sovereignty ?

Food Sovereignty is the RIGHT of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies.

http://www.ukabc.org/foodsovpaper.htm#b
http://www.foodsovereignty.org/new/
http://www.foodfirst.org/progs/global/food/finaldeclaration.html

What happens to people without food sovereignty?
Gradually wars forced families to "stretch" their foods,so Americans learned to stop relying on local produce and more on the Corporations and supermarkets.
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/life_24.html
In time we changed in response to the markets and wars profit and death.
http://www.msgcpa.com/general.php?category=Industry+Library&headline=Refrigerated+Warehousing

Nobody questions these changes while they occur..or when the trend could be reversed. Carter saw the future of our oil habit..Car addiction. And Carter tried to warn America about Oil Dependence decades ago and it killed his political career because Americans didn't want to change if it inconvenienced them.. But here we claiming to be going green but I don't see much evidence of changes like the ones that NEED to occur. No evidence enough people are ready to give up cars and ride other forms of transport,we still got sprawl and in a lot of these suburbs car apartheid separates people by class and location..How out towns get planned is around cars not people.In this way oil and car companies infect the way we structure our lives. Seems most everything has been foisted on us by corporations or wars. Not for or by the people living there or eating the foods. Consumerism and this accompanying dis-empowerment shapes us by altering lifestyles, until we no longer have food sovereignty anymore.

http://www.unep.org/OurPlanet/imgversn/84/zamora.html
The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply
http://www.naturalhealthyellowpages.com/news/index.html
http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/caravan/1.htm
http://www.population-security.org/28-APP2.html
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/9/14/michael_klare_on_the_internal_war
http://dieoff.org/page185.htm


Come to think of it did corporations ASK Americans if they wanted frozen food TV dinners or pesticide coated peaches, lies to us, or did they just put it on the market and sold us on it by convenience and increasing work hours?

[truedelphi]

1. I'd like to give a virtual hug to all the farmer's markets

Across the country and all the little mom and pop country roadside produce stands.

[alfredo]

4. I've been pushing for expanding our farmer's market, making a

permanent structure that can be used for other events on days where there is not sale.

Local food uses less fuel for shipping. Why buy a tomato grown 2,000 miles away when you can buy one from your own county?

[havocmom]

2. Been saying for decades: If you hate giant corporations holding control of your gas tank

you're gonna hate it when they control your belly.

And that time is coming sooner than most realize.

[Deja Q]

5. Well, what can people do about it?

Whine, react, submit, or act.

It's all any of us can do in the end.

[havocmom]

13. Learn to grow food plants. Even if all you have is one window, grow something

Work to build community gardens in cities. TEACH KIDS to grow veggies. It is a natural, fun, healthy way to teach natural sciences in lessons tailored to each age group. And it give a sense of real satisfaction along with the important lesson that: How things ARE is not what one has to settle for. One CAN take action and make positive changes, on a small scale then build to real impact.

Go make a deal with a local school. Ask them if you can use a small plot of ground on the property. Get some help from local gardeners. Help the school kids with a school lab garden. Sit back and watch what happens. I guarantee the seeds you help kids plant will grow more than carrots and beans! Plant the seeds of an idea. The idea of food independence.

Learn to can and preserve. If you already know how, TEACH it! Contact local Ag Extension offices to see if you can teach a class. They will help get you a forum for your skills! Contact the local library. Offer to teach a class on window sill gardening, real gardening, canning, what ever works. Libraries LOVE to have programs to reach the public, pull them in and involve them in the library community.

Call local food banks & shelters and see if there are some local gardeners who help supply them with locally grown produce. Call those gardeners and OFFER HELP. You will be amazed at the friends you will make and the energy you will restore to your own soul while making your corner of the world better and better fed.

Keep an eye on your reps. If they favor legislation which empowers corporations over people, fire their asses!

[undergroundpanther]

16. here are some links

http://www.motherearthnews.com/DIY/2006-08-01/Build-a-Solar-Food-Dehydrator.aspx
http://waltonfeed.com/old/cellar4.html

I throw these all over the place.
http://www.pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/gardening/seedballs.shtml

http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://farmgal.tripod.com/
starting seeds and planting sticks
http://www.ihdi.uky.edu/kygrow/starting%20seeds.htm
Community gardens
http://www.ihdi.uky.edu/kygrow/starting%20seeds.htm
Search for what you need info on
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Ancient+Teachings,+MODERN+LESSONS-a076798896


Does this help you?

[mia]

20. Thanks for the links

and for starting the thread.

[undergroundpanther]

8. I know

They've already started.
Public feedings of the homeless by Food Not bombs,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5226490.stm
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/106/brown.html


And If too many people sick of grocery store prices raise chickens in their own backyard ...

A mysterious call to Ft.Dietrich ensures a vial of bird flu gets"lost" or "misplaced" and let it loose. Soon we see breathless reports of how horrible the bird flu threat is, than a few die of bird flu and you could be next.Soon your neighbors chickens,and wild birds are all suspect carriers ...And through media hysterics that will be just the ticket to get people too scared to raise chickens themselves or the government confiscates and kills your birds because of a 'public health threat' never mind big corporate farms are IDEAL bird flu incubators...and the public will be conditioned to feel 'safer' buying it from tyson IF they can afford it,working longer and longer hours for less and less food ...that makes sure the people are kept powerless and subservient ..and they work until exhausted they'll shut up and consume scraps and remain dependant on corporations as if anyone needs a corporation to tell them how to exist..

[Occam Bandage]

3. "Come to think of it did corporations ASK Americans if they wanted frozen food TV dinners"

Yeah. They put them on the market, and people decided they liked them, and so they bought them. There are many things corporations tried to give Americans that Americans did not purchase. That's the way things go. If you don't like them, don't buy them. Buy from local companies if you prefer their products. Seems simple enough.

(We tried all-local-production, no-transport-no-trade, no-city, all-walking once. It was the Dark Ages. It kinda sucked.)

[Deja Q]

6. I am inclined to agree with you.

The longer working hours thing does not equate to more readily prepared food in a tin. It seems the tin can be turned into a hat too.

I don't mind having some limitations (e.g. anything to do to prevent large quantities of food on store shelves, of which half of it probably just rots on the shelves) but there are better ways of doing things.

Indeed, we're a progressive board. For all the tinfoilhat fluff that goes on, there might be a greater good to some of the things that are happening. :shrug:

[undergroundpanther]

18. you think I am paranoid because I refuse

to see corporations as benign caretakers of our well being?
You my dear have a bad case of just world..

If the belief in a just world simply resulted in humans feeling more comfortable with the universe and its capriciousness, it would not be a matter of great concern for ethicists or social scientists. But Lerner's Just World Hypothesis, if correct, has significant social implications. The belief in a just world may undermine a commitment to justice.
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n2/justworld.html


I guess for you,Out of sight , out of mind.

The idea that particular groups of people meet together secretly or in private to plan various courses of action, and that some of these plans actually exert a significant influence on particular historical developments, is typically rejected out of hand and assumed to be the figment of a paranoid imagination. The mere mention of the word 'conspiracy' seems to set off an internal alarm bell which causes scholars to close their minds in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and possible unpleasantness, since the popular image of conspiracy both fundamentally challenges the conception most educated, sophisticated people have about how the world operates and reminds them of the horrible persecutions that absurd and unfounded conspiracy theories have precipitated or sustained in the past. So strong is this prejudice among academics that even when clear evidence of a plot is inadvertently discovered in the course of their own research, they frequently feel compelled, either out of a sense of embarrassment or a desire to defuse anticipated criticism, to preface their account of it by ostentatiously disclaiming a belief in conspiracies.

They then often attempt to downplay the significance of the plotting they have uncovered. To do otherwise, that is, to make a serious effort to incorporate the documented activities of conspiratorial groups into their general political or historical analysis, would force them to stretch their mental horizons beyond customary bounds and, not infrequently, delve even further into certain sordid and politically sensitive topics. Most academic researchers clearly prefer to ignore the implications of conspiratorial politics altogether rather than deal directly with such controversial matters.

A number of complex cultural and historical factors contribute to this reflexive and unwarranted reaction, but it is perhaps most often the direct result of a simple failure to distinguish between 'conspiracy theories' in the strict sense of the term, which are essentially elaborate fables even though they may well be based upon a kernel of truth, and the activities of actual clandestine and covert political groups, which are a common feature of modern politics.
http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/l29consp.htm

Political plots
http://gess.wordpress.com/they-had-to-die-assassination-against-liberation/

Plots to kill Castro Oh that's NOT a conspiracy?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/03/INGQSMLFD51.DTL

More about Taboo and how it limits free thought.,
http://web.lemoyne.edu/~szebenyi/0312.htm

[undergroundpanther]

19. really lack of time and tiredness does not impact sales of convenience food..

Lack of time and tight budgets,tired overworked people do not impact convenience food sales?
LOL..Do you really believe that?
http://www.westendword.com/moxie/news/convenience-food.shtml
http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/1602700a.html
http://malaysia.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071204175510AAUy6Z1

[undergroundpanther]

9. Wrong

The war made cooking dinner difficult
Hog Jowls Cow Tongues,and other lousy cuts were what suzy homemaker had to work with, everything else went for WAR.

So corporations make EZ frozen shit and it was bought by women because how much cow tongue and hog jowls could one get kids to eat ,and also remember women began to work back than in bigger numbers,(rosie the riveter>/) they did not have time to make homemade meals anymore.So by manipulating people's lifestyles with WW2 and the drives to feed and sacrifice for the WARRR!,the people left behind needed convenience because of the WARRR. And so they lost a bit more of their local food sovereignty.And corporations ate it up.

The War to Save Frozens

Frozen foods might have died off altogether if not for the onset of World War II. When Japan overran southeast Asia, it captured a large portion of the world’s tin resources and the U.S. government placed stringent controls on canners in an effort to conserve this vital wartime metal. This opened the door for frozens, which used less crucial materials such as paperboard, waxed paper and cellophane. Furthermore, retail shelves emptied as canned goods went to war, so major grocery chains eagerly pressed frozens into service to fill the gaps. Additionally, since frozens did not use metal, their purchase by consumers required fewer ration points than canned products.

http://www.nffa.org/media/edit1.html

[Occam Bandage]

11. WW2 ends 1945.

First frozen dinner introduced by Swanson 1953.

People bought them because they were tasty and convenient, not because the war made them.

[undergroundpanther]

14. Birdseye and others were selling frozen in response to the war

Are you gonna just look at swanson you miss my point ,I was talking mass produced frozen foods. Quit nit picking.I am talking about changes in people's lives that were in response to what leaders demanded,that created more food insecurity. This is not about one particular company or type of frozen food ok?
Did you read my reply to you at all?
If you are not gonna bother to read my replies why should I waste my time with you?

[Occam Bandage]

15. We were talking about TV dinners. If you want to talk about all frozen foods, fine.

Frozen foods were popular as soon as refrigerated train cars were invented. With frozen foods, people were able to enjoy foods that were not in season, or could not be locally produced. Additionally, they were able to buy many foods more cheaply, as certain regions can produce certain foods more cheaply than other regions. To claim that they would have died out without WW2 is unsubstantiated nonsense. They were popular before WW2 (and mass-produced frozen food was steadily rising in popularity for over a decade before America's involvement with the war), and remained popular after WW2.

By allowing a wider range and variety of foods to reach more people for less money, frozen foods increased nutrition and health. By preventing people from being entirely dependent on the fortunes of local growers, they decreased food insecurity. Changes were driven by people's desires, not by some shadowy authority's demands.

[undergroundpanther]

17. We agree to disagree

Demands are sometimes created by MARKETING.Sometimes by social pressures a war and the call for sacrifice like in WW2 was a social pressure of huge magnitude.

this site examines how business/corporations along with pro corporate "leaders", politics,wars and social pressures together along with certain greed and control agendas, shows how over time a person is manipulated and a consumer created. Examine this site well and think.
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption/Rise.asp

I don't think profit driven companies would blow so much money (over 120 BILLION) on advertising if it NEVER worked.

Advertising was another “revolutionary development” to influence the creation of the consumer.

The goal of the advertisers was to aggressively shape consumer desires and create value in commodities by imbuing them with the power to transform the consumer into a more desirable person.

(look at any people in a booze or coca-cola ad they look sexy,desired,beautiful/thin,happy and popular...)


In 1880, only $30 million was invested in advertising in the United States; by 1910, new businesses, such as oil, food, electricity and rubber, were spending $600 million, or 4 percent of the national income, on advertising. Today that figure has climbed to well over $120 billion in the United States and to over $250 billion worldwide.

[Thothmes]

21. Horse meat was not rationed during WWII

[Sugar Smack]

7. I always love your posts, U.P. Remember the euphemism

attributable to hunger that was called "food insecurity"? I think you make a lot of solid points in this post. This isn't the freaking Bird Flu. :hug:

[undergroundpanther]

12. I know

But it didn't take a stretch to connect home chicken raising to bird flu scares. I just watch how hysterical the media gets,over every little thing and I let my imagination connect a few dots. If you could not imagine doing such a horrid thing as"misplacing" a vial of bird flu ,do not doubt there is a psychopath that will do it for money or to hold onto 'market' dominance. Because if home farms get so popular as to bankrupt big agriculture or really threaten the "food insecurity" we already have and is getting worse.. You bet your ass there would be covert ops to stop home gardens and farms. And make the public scared enough in enough numbers to abandon the idea of raising their own food.

Right now if there was a huge disaster and deliveries stopped..we'd have enough food in super markets across this nation to last about 3 days. That's how insecure our food supply really is.

[flashl]

10. K&R n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

22. Great links

Great info

K&R

It is estimated that the average American meal travels about 1500 miles to get from farm to plate. Why is this cause for concern? There are many reasons:

This long-distance, large-scale transportation of food consumes large quantities of fossil fuels. It is estimated that we currently put almost 10 kcal of fossil fuel energy into our food system for every 1 kcal of energy we get as food.

Transporting food over long distances also generates great quantities of carbon dioxide emissions. Some forms of transport are more polluting than others. Airfreight generates 50 times more CO2 than sea shipping. But sea shipping is slow, and in our increasing demand for fresh food, food is increasingly being shipped by faster - and more polluting -- means.

In order to transport food long distances, much of it is picked while still unripe and then gassed to "ripen" it after transport, or it is highly processed in factories using preservatives, irradiation, and other means to keep it stable for transport and sale. Scientists are experimenting with genetic modification to produce longer-lasting, less perishable produce.

....

http://www.cuesa.org/sustainable_ag/issues/foodtravel.php