Police tried to recruit environmental campaigner to spy.

The photos above were taken three years ago on the south coast of Kent, England. They show surveillance of seagulls, beach huts and anyone who might wander onto beach.

This morning John OConnor (former commander of Scotland Yard) was interviewed re the police infiltration of environmantal groups. He said they(the police) "have to police everything". Judging by the photos above the police take this absolutely literally.

With regard to environmental groups, the police were caught on tape trying to recruit a Plane Stupid protestor as a spy. The Guardian newspaper says that undercover police are running a network of hundreds of informants inside protest organisations who secretly feed them intelligence in return for cash. These disclosures were revealed in almost three hours of secretly recorded discussions between covert officers claiming to be from Strathclyde police, and an activist from the protest group Plane Stupid, whom the officers attempted to recruit as a spy after she had been released on bail following a demonstration at Aberdeen Airport last month.

Below-from The Guardian

Matilda Gifford,24, said she recorded the meetings in an attempt to expose how police seek to disrupt the legitimate activities of climate change activists. She met the officers twice; they said they were a detective constable and his assistant. During the taped discussions the officers:
• Indicate that she could receive tens of thousands of pounds to pay off her student loansin return for information about individuals within Plane Stupid.
• Say they will not pay money direct into her bank account because that would leave anaudit trail that would leave her compromised. They said the money would be tax-free,and added: "UK pic can afford more than 20 quid."
• Accept that she is a legitimate protester, but warn her that her activity could mean shewill struggle to find employment in the future and result in a criminal record.
• Claim they have hundreds of informants feeding them information from protest
• Indicate that she could receive tens of thousands of pounds to pay off her student loansin return for information about individuals within Plane Stupid.
• Say they will not pay money direct into her bank account because that would leave an audit trail that would leave her compromised. They said the money would be tax-free,and added: "UK pic can afford more than 20 quid."
• Accept that she is a legitimate protester, but warn her that her activity could mean shewill struggle to find employment in the future and result in a criminal record.
• Claim they have hundreds of informants feeding them information from protest
• Warn her that she could be jailed alongside "hard, evil" people if she received acustodial sentence.
The meetings took place in a Glasgow police station last month and in a supermarketcafe on Tuesday. Gifford used a mobile phone and device sewn into her waistcoat torecord what they described as a "business proposal" that she should think of as a job.
They intimated that in return for updates on Plane Stupid's plans she could receive large sums of money in cash.

....In a statement, Plane Stupid said: Our civil liberties were invaded and our right to peaceful protest called into question simply to defend the interests of big business.

Plane Stupid has pointed out the common theme running through all governments policies regarding agriculture and the environment. The collusion with big business has been noted repeatedly by pesticide campaigners, particularly with DEFRA'S refusal to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence regarding damage to human health and also the bee die offs across Europe and America.

'Taking Charge of who's Destiny?' Agriculture.

Blimey!...Question to Mr Naylor..Where are people who live in cities and do not own land expected to get their food if they do not delegate their food needs to farmers and retailers? Personally I think urban allotments are a good idea, but I don't think this is what Mr Naylor was suggesting.

(J. -Thanks for the comment on previous post- I tried to trace a link to the article but they seem not to have archived this feature which was published on the opinion page. I've reproduced the first half of the article verbatim below, so that I don't quote out of context.)

Sorry I have removed quote because of question-mark over copyright.

At grass roots level people are taking charge of their destiny-agriculture.

It was with interest that I read an article by Farmer Mathew Naylor(a Nuffield Scholar) called “Take Charge of your own Destiny.”(I was flipping through an old edition of Farmers Weekly, 23rd Jan.) It seemed a muddled and contradictory piece of writing to me, but in summary I think the message was that those farmers who are used to ‘mastering the elements’ are those who have an ‘Internal Locus of Control’ and take charge of their own destiny. Those farmers and horticulturists who don’t exterminate all insects with crop sprays are called ‘hippies’ and believe in an ‘External Locus of Power’ and put themselves at the mercy of fate. Mr Naylor concludes his thesis with the thought that despite the increasingly turbulent commodity and currency markets he still ‘holds firm with (his) opinions as a free-trader. Fate isn’t getting its hands on me…”

Well, ummm... thanks for those thoughts Mr Naylor.

Now, to return to the title of Mr Naylor’s article, (the reason it captured my attention in the first place),-"Take Charge of Your Own Destiny”. I had coincidently listened to Helen Kongai on the radio last week, when she had used a similar phrase…that at grass roots level people were…”taking their own destiny in their hands”. She too was referring to farming, and food production. This is where the parallel ends.
Helen Kongai is development officer for sustainable agriculture in Africa. This project was founded in 1988 by a group of UK farmers who sent cows to families in post-conflict Uganda. It now runs sustainable agricultural programmes in nine countries in Africa to help small-scale farmers overcome poverty and malnutrition. It is called the Send a Cow Charity. All those who use the Charity project undertake to pass on the benefits they gain such as livestock and skills to another family, so that the work goes on multiplying throughout communities.
So we see that Helen Kongai’s ideas for agriculture are ethically and in practical terms totally different from those of Mathew Naylor. Her strategy is to grow staple crops which are indigenous to the regions. Her farming methods work with nature and do not try to bludgeon the soil into submission with pesticides and synthetic nitrates.

The International Seeds Day which I mentioned in my previous post demonstrates the like-minded movement across the world for communities to ‘take charge of their destiny’ by producing their own food. This means resisting the attempts by corporates to colonize their land, or pressurize them into purchase of gm seeds.

International Seeds Day

I've just visited Jamblichus's Weblog, and have copied this information(below) from one of his links.... Please visit http://Jamblichus.wordpress.com

Below from http://www.ineas.org/events.htm Institute of Near Eastern and African Studies.

International Seeds Day
Organizations, activists and people from various professional and linguistic backgrounds will observe April 26 as International Seeds Day (ISD) advocating for patent-free seeds, organic food and farmers' rights. ISD will be an educational day for the public to learn about genetically modified food and its health hazardous effects and the agribusiness of major US and European companies and their monopoly over the agriculture in Africa and Asia with emphasis on India, Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be a day of solidarity with farmers in countries devastated by war (Afghanistan, Iraq & others) and of resistance.
Join us to endorse and publicize April 26 as International Seeds Day
and/or organize an event on April 26
Final deadline to endorse and/or organize an event is: April 12

Why April 26?

Order 81 was signed on April 26, 2004 by Paul Bremer, the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq to control Iraq's agriculture. The Order was a declaration of war against farmers. Article 14 of this law states "Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties," Order 81 mends Iraq's original law No. 65 on patents, created in 1970. The most significant part of Order 81 is the subject of 'Plant Variety Protection' (PVP), which ensures not the protection of biodiversity, but rather the protection of the commercial interests of USA and European major seed corporations. In order to qualify for PVP, seeds have to be 'new, distinct, uniform and stable'. Therefore, the sort of seeds being encouraged to grow by corporations such as World Wide Wheat Company (WWWC), Monsanto and others will be those registered under PVP.
Interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva dedicated to Iraqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-B1yU278zk
Full text of Order 81 http://www.trade.gov/static/iraq_memo81.pdf
Detailed information on the status of agriculture in Afghanistan and Iraq: http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=217

Partial List of Events:
More details about the events listed will be updated and other events will be added daily.
1. USA: Phone Campaign to Iraqi farmers, farm owners, agriculture experts and women in Iraq to educate about terminator seeds, Order 81 and seed keeping and resistance by the volunteers at INEAS.
Institute of Near Eastern & African Studies (INEAS), Cambridge, MASS
http://www.INEAS.org
INEAS@aol.com and INEAS_1994@yahoo.com

2. Iceland: "Awareness for April 26th International Seeds Day"
University of Iceland Reykjavik - Iceland April 26 3-6 pm
Organized by activists Anouk Petzoldt, Charlotte Ferrier and Oscar-Mauricio Uscategui
Presenting "The world according to Monsanto" film,
Participants, speakers and exact address will be announced shortly
Contact: Anouk at Anoukpetzoldt@gmail.com and, Oscar-Mauricio at seeds@seedsiceland.org 354 845-6178

3. USA: "GMO Teach-In"
Local Food Coop - Albuquerque, New Mexico April 26 10:30 am
Sponsored by La Montanita Coop (www.lamontanita.coop). Cuatro Puertas, Arid Crop Seed Cache and GMO Free NM
Celebrating the 20th Annual Earth Festival
Location: At the Tent on the West End of the Festival Site - on Silver Street behind the Coop.
Contact: Isaura Andaluz at c4puertas@yahoo.com 505-620-5692

ISD Endorsers:

Institute of Near Eastern & African Studies (INEAS), http://www.INEAS.org, (MA, USA)

Navdanya, http://www.navdanya.org, (New Delhi, India)

Institute of Science in Society, http://www.i-sis.org.uk, (London, UK)

Brussells Tribunal, BRussells Tribunal, (Brussells, Belgium)

Grain International, http://www.grain.org, (Bercelona, Spain)

The Green Party of the United States, http://www.gp.org, (DC, USA)

GMO Free New Mexico, www.gmofreenm.com, (New Mexico, USA)

Slow Food Rio Grande, www.slowfoodriogrande.org, (New Mexico, USA)

Dr. Vandana Shiva, http://www.navdanya.org, (New Delhi, India)

Wafaa' Al-Natheema, http://www.INEAS.org, (MA, USA)

Brian John, Ph.D., http://www.gmfreecymru.org, (Wales, UK)

Andrew Bosworth, Ph.D., www.biotechempire.com, (Okinawa, Japan)

Dirk Adriaensens, SOS Iraq, (Brussells, Belgium)

Dr. Maha Alsakban, http://www.nwciraq.org, (Diwaniya, Iraq)

Dr. Souad Naji, BRussells Tribunal, (Baghdad, Iraq)

Yasir Allawi, http://www.dental-tribune.com, (Dubai,UAE)

Garda Ghista, www.worldproutassembly.org, (Kentucky, USA)

Amy Mall, http://www.twinenfp.org, (Chicago, USA)
Anouk Petzoldt & Charlotte Ferrier, http://umhverfi.hi.is, (Reykjavík, Iceland)
Oscar-Mauricio Uscategui, http://seedsiceland.org, (Reykjavík, Iceland)
Paola Pisi, http://www.uruknet.info, (Rome, Italy

Energy Dependence of Modern Agriculture.

Above - fourteen 600kg bags of nitrate.

Way back in 1980 Fritjof Capra (physicist) wrote a critique of Western societies overreliance on the ‘scientific method’. He predicted how a reductionist approach, and obsession with economic growth and production was depleting the planet’s natural resources. He even accurately predicted catastrophic climate change through ozone depletion. Not many people took any notice back then, but we’re paying for it now.

The world’s governments have emerged from the G20 summit claiming to have taken ‘unprecedented steps’ to rectify the global recession. Infact they are stubbornly avoiding dealing with the real issues. Rather than grasping the opportunity to invest in new technologies to counter the effects of climate change and depleted natural resources, our world leaders have instead chosen the same old paradigms that led us to the current crisis.

In his book ‘The Turning Point’ Capra made reference to the work of the geologist M.King Hubbert who as early as the 1950’s predicted the rate of depletion of the planet’s natural resources. There have been decades of negligence by Western governments.

A report by Caroline Lucas(Green MEP)in 2006 cuts through the establishment prevarication. It’s called ‘Fuelling The Food Crisis-The Impact of Peak Oil on Food Security.’

Whilst there is no concencus on how soon global oil will peak(the point at which half of the total oil known to exist has been consumed, and beyond which extraction goes into irreversible decline) many expect it to occur well before 2020.

Caroline Lucas states…..
..."Petroleum has become the lifeblood of both industrialised and developing economies. It would be difficult to find a single product available to us in the UK that has not consumed crude oil derivatives (as well as natural gas or coal) during its production, distribution and retail. Yet there is increasing evidence that days of easy access to cheap oil are fast running out.
The implications of this are vast. Since the first oil crisis of 1973, some of the inevitable consequences of addiction to fossil fuels have been well documented, particularly in terms of its impact on our transport systems. What has been much less analysed, however, is the impact of higher oil prices on our increasingly industrialised food system. This report aims to help address that question, by highlighting the extraordinary dependence of existing food and agriculture policy on cheap oil, and by demonstrating why this will have to change....
In my work as an MEP, I have long argued that the European Union's policies of ever greater free trade and more open markets must change, since they destroy the livelihoods of small and medium sized farmers, jeopardising food security, and increasing our dependence on imports. They also adversely affect the environment, as agricultural commodities are transported ever longer distances,and are processed and packaged to survive the journey. To these social and environmental problems must be added a new imperative - weaning the industrialised food production system itself off its high-energy use....
The priorities are clear. The Common Agricultural Policy must be replaced by a policy framework that minimises fossil-fuel use through the prioritisation of self-reliance, so that Europe can meet this new challenge head on, delivering food security into the future. The current emphasis on ever increasing international trade needs to be replaced by policies to relocalise our food systems.Finally, the EU must urgently refocus its development policies, so that poorer countries can put food security before exports, and replace their dependence on Western markets by much greater national and regional self-reliance. These are ambitious goals. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate why they are so urgently needed.
Higher energy and fuel prices will be a triple blow for the synthetic fertiliser industry, and for those farmers that have become dependent on this quick fix and are unwilling to consider the alternatives.Firstly, because of the large amount of energy required to extract ores and consumed during the manufacturing process; secondly, the use of natural gas as a feedstock, and thirdly, the costs of the fuel required to transport these bulk commodities. The export of fertilisers and their raw materials are a significant constituent of sea-borne bulk trade: the fourth most traded bulk commodity in world shipping trade after iron ore, coal and cereals.
Initially, the energy required to produce nitrogen fertilizer was provided by cheap electricity and derivatives of coal, inputs that were mostly available only in industrialised countries. Trade in fertilisers has increased because the fertiliser industry has gradually relocated plants to countries that have low electricity prices as well as the required natural gas feedstock. These include the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Venezuela. The need to access raw materials forother fertilizers has seen the industry also move into areas that have extensive natural reserves, including Africa, China, the US, and Morocco. Worldwide demand for fertiliser has necessitated significant levels of international trade. Shipping costs are relatively high for these low-value bulk commodities: the lower the value of the shipped material, the greater the incidence of transport in the landed cost.
The fertiliser industry does not see peak oil and natural gas as being a problem for fertiliser producers. According to the International Fertiliser Industry Association"...processes for ammonia production can use a wide range of energy sources. Thus, even when oil and gas supplies eventually dwindle, very large reserves of coal are likely to remain. Coal reserves are sufficient for well over 200 years at current production levels, and their location is geographically diverse. 60% of China's nitrogen fertiliser production is currently based on coal." The consequences in terms of climate change, however, would be catastrophic. Additionally, production of ammonia from coal is 70% more energy intensive than production from natural gas.
Given the high energy input required to produce nitrogen fertiliser, it is inevitable that manufacturing costs have risen as oil and gas prices worldwide have increased. Since 2003, ammonium nitrate costs, for example, have risen from £90 per tonne to over £170 per tonne in early 2006.”….

Even without the Peak Oil situation, Capra describes the damaging effects of fertilizer use in agriculture. Remember he wrote this in 1982.
"...The long-term effects of excessive 'chemotherapy' in agriculture have proven disastrous for the health of the soil and the people, for our social relations, and for the entire eco-system of the planet. As the same crops are planted and fertilized synthetically year after year, the balance in the soil is disrupted. The amount of organic matter diminishes, and with it the soil's ability to retain moisture. The humus content is depleted and the soil's porosity reduced. The changes in soil texture entail a multitude of interrelated consequences. The depletion of organic matter makes thesoil dead and dry; water runs through it but does not wet it.
The ground becomes hard-packed, which forces farmers to use more powerful machines. On the other hand, dead soil is more susceptible to wind and water erosion, which are taking an increasing toll. For example, half of the topsoil in Iowa has been washed away in the last twenty-five years, and in1976 two-thirds of America's agricultural counties were designated drought disaster areas. What is often called 'drought,' 'wind breaking down the land,' or 'winterkill are all consequences of sterile soil.
The massive use of chemical fertilizers has seriously damaged the natural process of nitrogen fixation by damaging soil bacteria involved in this process. As a consequence crops are losing their ability to take up nutrients from the soil and becoming more and more addicted to synthetic chemicals.Because their efficiency in absorbing nutrients this way is much lower, not all the chemicals are taken up by the crop but leach into the ground water or drain from the fields into rivers and lakes".....