Germany bans chemicals linked to honeybee devastation

(KUDOs to Germany for HALTING THIS NOW!)

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. "It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."

Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/23/wildlife.endangeredspecies
Bayer = I.G. Farben http://profitoverlife.org
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Pollinators such as bees, birds and bats affect 35 percent of the world's crop production, increasing the output of 87 of the leading food crops worldwide.













Out of the 115 crops studied, 87 depend to some degree upon animal pollination, accounting for one-third of crop production globally. Of those crops, 13 are entirely reliant upon animal pollinators, 30 are greatly dependent and 27 are moderately dependent. The crops that did not rely upon animal pollination were mainly staple crops such as wheat, corn and rice.

Strawberries, Fragaria x annanasa Duch.,

after open insect-pollination (left), passive self-pollination (middle)
and passive self-pollination and wind-pollination (right)

Fidencio Alvarez abandoned his bean and corn farm

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=home&sid=aGxiawAqP0.w

World Bank `Destroyed Basic Grains' in Honduras

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Fidencio Alvarez abandoned his bean and corn farm in southern Honduras because of the rising cost of seeds, fuel and food. After months of one meal a day, he hiked with his wife and six children to find work in the city.

"We would wake up with empty stomachs and go to bed with empty stomachs,'' said Alvarez, 37, who sought help from the Mission Lazarus aid group in Choluteca in January. ``We couldn't afford the seeds to plant food or the bus fare to buy the food.''

Honduran farmers like Alvarez can't compete in a global marketplace where the costs of fuel and fertilizer soared and rice prices doubled in the past year. The former breadbasket of Central America now imports 83 percent of the rice it consumes -- a dependency triggered almost two decades ago when it adopted free-market policies pushed by the World Bank and other lenders.
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There now are 1,300 rice farmers in Honduras, compared with more than 20,000 in 1989, according to human rights group FIAN.

"The international lending agencies have destroyed the basic grains industry in Honduras,'' said Gilberto Rios, executive secretary of FIAN Honduras. "The best land now produces things like African palms, which are not for consumption.''
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Philippine President Gloria Arroyo now says the country has to change course toward being able to feed itself.

"We must move toward more self-sufficiency, not necessarily 100 percent, but more self-sufficiency, less import dependence on rice,'' she said last month
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(these same Federal and International scams, "laws," policies and rules (like NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, CODEX, UN & other NGO programs, ETC.) are what causes food to cost more, while it's nutritional value is less, even toxic.).
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...AND THIS IS (and has been since the beginning of "man" kind) THE ANSWER and the SOLUTION. Self-sufficiency in the home, in the neighborhood, in your town, county and State. This should be the #1 Goal.

LOCALLY GROWN FOOD is the ANSWER
and the SOLUTION.

3 million acres of corn under water and probably 2 million didn't get planted

"Estimates show 3 million acres of corn under water and probably 2 million didn't get planted. So that gets you up to 5 million or over 700 million bushels, and that takes out the entire carry-out," he said, referring to estimates for grain stocks carried over to the next crop year.
http://www.rawstory.com

http://www.wikinvest.com/image/Corn_by_county.png

How A Midwest Flood Can Drag Down A Nation —> Dailykos.com

http://problemcat.blogspot.com/search/label/Food

Family seed business takes on Goliath of genetic modification

Control of world's food supply at stake, Montreal growers argue

For Meek and partner Frederic Sauriol, propagating local varieties is part of a David and Goliath struggle by small farmers against big seed companies. At stake, they believe, is no less than control of the world's food supply.

Since the dawn of civilization, farmers have saved seeds from the harvest and replanted them the following year.

But makers of genetically modified (GM) seeds -- introduced in 1996 and now grown by some 70,000 Canadian farmers, according to Monsanto, the world's largest seed company -- have been putting a stop to that practice.

The 12 million farmers worldwide who will plant GM seeds this year sign contracts agreeing not to save or replant seeds. That means they must buy new seeds every year. Critics charge such contracts confer almost unlimited power over farmers' lives to multinational companies whose priority is profit. They say GM seeds are sowing a humanitarian and ecological disaster.

Worldwide, GM crops have grown 67-fold in 12 years, now covering 690.9 million hectares in 23 countries, according to the industry's Council for Biotechnology Information.

Muller's words resonate with farmers Meek and Sauriol, whose four daughters help with the painstaking work of cleaning seeds over the winter. "Growing seed is a big job," says Meek.
"But if you don't grow your seed, you lose your power."
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/
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Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.