For a number of reasons, usually related to copyright owners not responding, or denying permission to quote, a few of my favourite snippets haven’t made it into the final version of the book. One of these quotes is far too interesting to toss on the scrapheap – it’s James Baldwin in his brilliant essay, The Fire Next Time, talking about the importance of enjoying food. Here’s the man himself:
The good people at Grain have just published one of the most comprehensive and thoughtful exposés of the biofuels scam. And they start by pointing out how the term ‘biofuels’ itself is, from the outset, a misdirection. As Eric Holt Gimenez has argued, the term ‘bio’ has connotations of life and nature – the very opposite of what agrofuels actually encourage. They’re more energy intensive, more disruptive to the environment, and spawn hunger.
From the Financial Times comes this bit of advice from Nicholas Sterns, author of one of the more respected (and moderate) reports on climate change. The short of it: biofuels are barmy. But pyromania is, precisely, a mania. The notion that burning things is the only route to fuel is one that leaves intact, much to the pleasure of the automobile and allied industries, the technologies of internal combustion. Serious thinking about climate change will have to move away from this, and quickly…
At the G8 protests in Germany, my friend Ingeborg Tangeraas has just given a powerful speech in support of farmers rights, and food sovereignty. You can find it at the Via Campesina website, with pictures. Text only below.
Although the front page here is usually reserved as a place where I fulminate on a particular agriculture-related theme, I wanted to draw attention today to other peoples attempts to speak out against corporate agriculture. On Sunday at the G8 summit in Rostock, Germany, over 5,000 protesters participated in an International Day of Action on Agriculture.
Here’s an interesting report on suicides in China. I’m struck most by how the solution to plainly economic problems is deemed to be psychiatry. But I’m also concerned that in this story, one never really gets a sense of where anything is, as if ‘rural China’ were one, large and undifferentiated lump. It’s a feature of reporting on China in general that very few place names make it into the bulk of the text…
Syngenta Threatens to Violently Expel the Family Farmers of the Via Campesina from the Free Land encampment: Act Now!
The multinational Syngenta Seeds is pressuring the Governor of the State of Paraná to expel the family farmers of the Via Campesina currently residing on the Free Land encampment with police force.
ZNet Commentary
Biofuels: a danger for Latin America May 26, 2007
By Marie Trigona
Renewable fuels, in particular Biofuels, energy sources derived from agricultural crops have suddenly won the support from the United States. This is partly due to George Bush’s recent 5-nation tour of Latin America to wedge out unity and push through ethanol accords. Development funds and corporations hope that Latin America, especially refining sugarcane into fuel in Brazil and soybeans in Argentina, can spur the US’s booming biofuel industry demands. Corporate experts and financiers held the First Biofuels Congress of the Americas in Buenos Aires this month to promote biofuel production in the region. Former US Vice President Al Gore addressed investors, NGO’s and soy producers at the congress to spearhead renewable fuel production in Argentina.
For anyone interested in genetic engineering in Africa, the must-be-on list is GM Free Africa. From their bourn comes a reader about biofuels, and the harm they’re already causing. Props to Teresa Anderson for compiling all this. Here’s her introductory note, followed by links.
Here’s something from the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, covering the intimidation and violence suffered by farmworkers (and their union organisers) in Mexico and the US.
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