Globalisation of non-sustainable industrial agriculture.

There has been a flurry of pro GM/industrial farming proclamations reaching the media recently, and BLIMEY, SAVE US from that agency designed to protect our health -'The Food Standards Agency'!
The FSA has recently published a study, (based on a review of other studies,and carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)) saying that their research shows that organic food has 'no health benefits over conventional produce.' A lot of people were bemused by this announcement, because as Geoffrey Lean pointed out,( writing in the Telegraph 31st July) ,"the FSA has an obsession with criticising organic food,( which no one claims to be dangerous),whilst at the same time it has a mixed record on additives that cause hyperactivity, toxic dyes, illegal GM foods, and pesticides.." Despite reviewing other studies, the FSA failed to mention those studies that showed organic produce has significant nutritional advantages in fighting cancer. The report doesn't even touch on the problem of pesticide residues in conventional food.

Alongside its antipathy to organic agriculture the FSA has shown a vigorous support of GM foods. It has dismissed the controlled trials on mice, fed with GM maize, which provide scientific evidence of negative health effects, and cases of damage to health caused by GM's in India are blanked in this country. The website of gmwatch.org describes a study conducted by eight international researchers, which calls into question the reliability of tests of the European Food Safety(EFSA) and the US FDA to assess the health risks of GMOs and pesticides. According to the Research Committee of Independent Information on Genetic Engineering(CRIIGEN) the study brings to light "a significant underestimation of the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others." See http://actu.orange.fr/articles/sciences/Une-etude-met-en-cause-les-tests-menes-par-Bruxelles-sur-les-OGM.html

Despite the fact that in the UK people do not want GM's the government never tires of rejecting the wishes of the people they are meant to represent, to push ahead with GM crop trials.Early in 2009 there was a major organic food and agriculture conference which Hilary Benn was billed to speak at. Instead he chose to address the participants via telephone.
At the conference Gundula Azeez,(who was policy manager for the Soil Association for the past nine years) told Hilary Benn that he was concerned because he had heard that HB was not aware of any scientific evidence of the negative health effects of GM's, and asked why the government is still saying that it is ignorant of the science? (To read the transcript of the exchange between H.Benn and the other participants visit http://i-sis.org.uk/Who_is_Anti-Science.php) Hilary Benn's response was ..."that's not the view that the Food Standards Agency has taken in the past."

In September 2008, Lord Rooker,(who was then UK Farming Minister and is now chair of the Food Standards Agency) hit out at anti-GM protesters, claiming they were on a 'messianic mission' not based on science and that the public were being 'taken for a ride' by campaigners who behaved as if opposition to the technology was a religion.(from Western Morning News,Sept.23rd,2008)......I know, it's a jaw-dropping statement considering the reality of the situation. For an account of the real facts, eg. the effects and consequences of GM's being foisted onto farmers in India, read the accounts by Dr Vandana Shiva, scientist and environmentalist.

Through the programme of 'Navdanya', an initiative founded by Dr Shiva,(

www.navdanya.org) she is working to stop the deaths by suicide of farmers in Vidharbha. More than 150,000 farmers have committed suicide in India due to distortions introduced in agriculture as a result of trade liberalisation. More than 20,000 farmers have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh alone. Farmers have become locked into dependence on corporate seeds supply for growing cash crops integrated to world markets, which is leading to a collapse in farm prices due to 400 billion dollars subsidies in rich countries.Navdanya also realized that one of the crisis farmers were facing was a seed famine created by Monsanto. Navdanya's initiative was to create GMO free, patent free, debt free and suicide free villages, and seed banks to conserve biodiversity and protect indigenous seed varieties.

In 2000 Dr Vandana Shiva delivered the Reith lecture, and here are a few paragraphs taken from her speech:-

...."The rich diversity and sustainable systems of food production are being destroyed in the name of increasing food production. However, with the destruction of diversity, rich sources of nutrition disappear. When measured in terms of nutrition per acre, and from the perspective biodiversity, the so called "high yields" of industrial agriculture or industrial fisheries do not imply more production of food and nutrition.
Yields usually refers to production per unit area of a single crop. Output refers to the total production of diverse crops and products. Planting only one crop in the entire field as a monoculture will of course increase its individual yield. Planting multiple crops in a mixture will have low yields of individual crops, but will have high total output of food. Yields have been defined in such a way as to make the food production on small farms by small farmers disappear. This hides the production by millions of women farmers in the Third World - farmers like those in my native Himalaya who fought against logging in the Chipko movement, who in their terraced fields even today grow Jhangora (barnyard millet), Marsha (Amaranth), Tur (Pigeon Pea), Urad (Black gram), Gahat (horse gram), Soya Bean (Glycine Max), Bhat (Glycine Soya) - endless diversity in their fields. From the biodiversity perspective, biodiversity based productivity is higher than monoculture productivity. I call this blindness to the high productivity of diversity a "Monoculture of the Mind", which creates monocultures in our fields and in our world.
The Mayan peasants in the Chiapas are characterised as unproductive because they produce only 2 tons of corn per acre. However, the overall food output is 20 tons per acre when the diversity of their beans and squashes, their vegetables their fruit trees are taken into account.
In Java, small farmers cultivate 607 species in their home gardens. In sub-Saharan Africa, women cultivate 120 different plants. A single home garden in Thailand has 230 species, and African home gardens have more than 60 species of trees.
Rural families in the Congo eat leaves from more than 50 species of their farm trees.
A study in eastern Nigeria found that home gardens occupying only 2 per cent of a household's farmland accounted for half of the farm's total output. In Indonesia 20 per cent of household income and 40 per cent of domestic food supplies come from the home gardens managed by women.
Research done by FAO has shown that small biodiverse farms can produce thousands of times more food than large, industrial monocultures.
And diversity in addition to giving more food is the best strategy for preventing drought and desertification. What the world needs to feed a growing population sustainably is biodiversity intensification, not the chemical intensification or the intensification of genetic engineering. "

Native species of pollinators.."all sprayed-out".

In a previous post I attempted to give some reasons (as an unqualified observer) why agricultural pesticides seem to be the common denominator in the story of honeybee decline.Certain pesticides have been proven to be highly toxic to bees, and Peter Melchett of the Soil Association says that "The government prefers to blame 'very wet weather' and 'poor management by less experienced beekeepers' than to face their own responsibility to control bee-killing chemicals that have been used on up to 1.5 million acres of farmland in the UK.

In 12 different European countries 30-65% of bees are declining or threatened. This is accompanied by a tightly parallel process in plants, ( 70% decline). Since 1930 we have lost 97% of our wildflower meadows in the UK. Dr Biesmeijer, ecologist at Leeds University, speaks passionately about the importance of biodiversity and how this provides resiliency to climate change and weather extremes. He warns how all our native species of pollinators, not just honeybees, are threatened or have been anihilated by the loss of wild flowers and refuge nest sites. He refers to their habitat as "all sprayed out." The photographs above demonstrate the way many farmers, (encouraged by Defra) have obliterated hedges and flower rich field margins, to expand crop production. Dr Biesmeijer warns against agricultural practices which cause a vicious cycle of changes in pollination effecting the population of plants, and visa versa. .

Having reiterated a concern about pesticides, this post is about biodiversity and the value of all pollinating insects.There is now a popular movement among members of the public (encouraged by advice and information from the Co-op and National Bee Association) to try and compensate as much as possible for the practices of industrial agriculture, by establishing gardens which provide good habitat and nutrition for pollinating insects. Additionally many people are starting their own honeybee colonies.
(Insect pollinators include 25 species of bumblebee, 240 species of solitary bees and 250 species of hoverflies, as well as butterflies and bee flies which all maintain a diverse array of plants and flowers)

Pollinating insects are an insurance policy for our survival because they provide a diversity of responses to climate. Eg, the Red Mason Bee can remain alive in low temperatures, and this means certain crops are less vulnerable to climatic variations.
Ecologists are carrying out useful research in traditional fruit orchards. Unfortunately 60% of these orchards have disappeared since the 1950's, putting local varieties of apples, cherries, pears, plums and damsons under threat. But this is a particularly sad tale because they provide important habitats for a range of species. Trees in traditional orchards are widely spaced and the sites are often grazed by animals such as sheep, or cut for hay. They provide good habitat for wildlife because they are subject to low intensity management, with few or no chemicals used, and the trees are allowed to reach a stage where they are hollowed and gnarled. Researchers have discovered that many pollinating insects fly in the high canopy of these fruit trees.

The print at the top of this page shows a modern orchard being treated with pesticides.(next to my house) The hedge in the foreground is 12ft high. Beyond the hedge, the spray is blasted well above the tops of the fruit trees. This graphically demonstrates why nothing can survive in modern orchards, and believe it or not, just to make absolutely sure, the ground under the fruit trees is periodically sprayed with fungicides. This is why fruit farmers depend on the professional beekeepers to provide a supply of bees to pollinate between pesticide sprayings.( As a neighbour to this farmer I'm definitely getting a raw deal.I supply his orchards with a rich source of pollinators from my garden, while he supplies my air with toxic chemicals)

Likewise in Italy, apple production is very intensive. In orchards which are situated on high ground nearer to forests, wild bees do the job.In valleys they have to import honeybees.
In 2007, the British government prioritised orchards as habitat to protect in recognition of their importance to wildlife. It is soul-destroying to know that, since joining the EU, many East European countries are destroying their traditional orchards in favour of intensive fruit production.

For anyone who is interested in the subject of bee declines and related information, there is a good, detailed article called "A Sting in the Tail" on the website http://www.freshinfo.com/

Biotechs, Gordon Brown and GM's versus Natural England.

McCarthy predicts that the countryside will ‘become entirely sterile and lifeless’.

Michael McCarthy in The Independent, Thurs.19th June, predicts that the environmental and ecological impacts of introducing GM’s commercially into Britain, would mean that…'Nothing would be left'…. 'the countryside will become entirely sterile and lifeless.'

Contemplating this scenario leads to a lot more questions eg. 'what will the governmental organization ‘Natural England’ decide to do about all their crucial conservationist work?' On Natural England's website there are pages of information about the actions which they consider to be vital for wildlife and the environment, for example…

'WILDLIFE. Biodiversity is the variety of life on the planet. This includes the plant and animal species that make up our wildlife-and the places or habitats in which they live. Natural England is responsible for ensuring that England’s rich biodiversity is protected and improved.'

I reproduce below McCarthy’s article so that we can compare his information with further extracts from Natural England. Perhaps like me you will wonder if Natural England’s existence will become a sham,- will they try to backtrack on their stated intentions and declarations about the environment, will the department be disbanded by Gordon Brown in favour of his vision for a sterile and lifeless countryside full of green concrete? What will be the implications for our countryside tourist industry, when the countryside no longer exists as such? What will be the implication for survival of crops which rely on pollination of bees, when so much of the eco system will be destroyed?

Michael McCarthy: Hello green concrete, goodbye wildlife.
The argument against allowing genetically modified crops to be grown commercially in Britain can be summed up in two words: green concrete.
It means a landscape in which fields have a crop growing in them but nothing else. No wild plants or flowers of any sort, no butterflies or moths, no smaller insects on which birds and their chicks can feed, and so no birds. Green concrete means a countryside that still may be called the countryside, and may still appear green, but apart from the crop, it will be entirely sterile and lifeless.
That is what would happen if the GM crops previously proposed, including maize, beet and oilseed rape, were allowed to be grown on a commercial scale. For they were all genetically engineered to be able to survive the application of increasingly powerful weedkillers, known as "broad spectrum" herbicides, which would kill everything else in the field.
The best known of these chemicals is glyphosate, made by Monsanto under the trade name Roundup. Why is it called Roundup? Because nothing escapes.
In some countries, losing farmland wildlife might not matter so much. In the US, for example, people do not go to the grain prairies of Kansas to see flowers and birds; American agricultural areas are for agriculture. If you want to see wildlife you go to a wilderness area. The US is so big that there are plenty of these, some of them the size of Wales.
But Britain is different. It is a relatively small nation with an intimate, patchwork countryside and, if we want our wildlife to survive, much of it must survive on farms. Yet our farmland wildlife, especially birds and wild flowers, has already been given a catastrophic battering by the intensification of agriculture that has taken place in recent decades.
Who sees a cornfield dotted with red poppies now? How many people hear skylarks? Declines in farmland birds are incredible. Since the 1970s, tree sparrows have declined by 93 per cent, corn buntings by 89 per cent, grey partridges by 88 per cent, turtle doves by 83 per cent and so the list runs on.
This has happened just with conventional weedkillers and pesticides, which do allow some fauna to survive. The introduction of broad-spectrum chemicals, which GM technology would allow, would be a further and fatal ratcheting-up of the intensification process for farming. Nothing would be left. The Government demonstrated this with its farm-scale evaluations of GM crops from 1998 to 2003. They proved wildlife was damaged far more by the GM process than by conventional methods.
Of course, there are many other crop modifications possible besides herbicide tolerance. In years to come, as climate change takes hold, we may need crops engineered to be drought-tolerant or salt-tolerant. They could be real life-savers – but they are not on offer yet.

Below from Natural England website. Natural England was formed by bringing together English Nature,Countryside Agency and the Rural Development Service.

From Natural England:

Wildlife
Biodiversity is the variety of life on the planet. This includes the plant and animal species that make up our wildlife - and the places or habitats in which they live. Natural England is responsible for ensuring that England's rich biodiversity is protected and improved.
The UK is one of 188 Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity which was adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. This Convention has three main objectives: the conservation of biodiversity; the sustainable use of biodiversity; and the sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources. In the UK this commitment led to the launch of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan(BAP) in 1994.
The Plan’s overall goal is to conserve and enhance biodiversity within the UK and to contribute to efforts to conserve global biodiversity. The UK BAP targets the recovery of some of our most threatened species and habitats in the terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments. For each priority species and habitat, an action plan describes the current status and threats, and sets out an action programme for achieving 10-15 year objectives and targets.
These action plans, and the UK BAP process as a whole, represent a consensus of Government, the statutory and voluntary conservation sectors, land owners and managers. They give us the best opportunity to date of reversing the major declines in the populations, range and quality of the UK’s biodiversity resource.
Each of the four countries of the UK has subsequently produced country strategies for biodiversity. The England Biodiversity Strategy was published in 2003; it identified new approaches and partnerships across sectors as being essential for achieving the conservation of biodiversity.
At theGothenburg Summit in 2001 the EU committed itself to the objective of halting the rate of biodiversity loss, with the aim of achieving this by 2010. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, Heads of Government committed themselves to achieving a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. These, and other, multilateral environmental agreements cover the UK’s action to conserve biodiversity both globally and within the UK.
Species Recovery Programme
Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme seeks to reverse the declines in England’s animals, plants and fungi. The programme recognises that current habitat-based management approaches are often not enough to prevent extinctions and restore species populations to a point where they are secure. Instead, targeted action is often required. This may include a dedicated research programme to understand why a species is declining and what its habitat needs are; a period of trial management to assess how best to reverse the decline (possibly requiring reintroductions); and a period of recovery management to increase population sizes. Natural England is involved in all stages of this recovery process.
Most of the species selected for our Species Recovery Programme are UK Biodiversity Action Plan priority species. We work in partnership with government, voluntary conservation organisations, land owners and business to deliver the targets for these species. Whenever possible, we also try to involve the public so that the enriched natural environments achieved by the Programme are enjoyed by all.
Biodiversity duty guidance
The aim of the biodiversity duty is to raise the profile of biodiversity in England and Wales, eventually to a point where biodiversity issues become second nature to everyone making decisions in the public sector.
All public authorities are affected, including over 900 public bodies local authorities, fire, police and health bodies, museums and transport authorities.
In recognition of the key role local authorities play with regard to conserving and enhancing biodiversity, Defra has produced two sets of guidance.

Pesticides versus Set-asides.

Setasides are being scrapped next year to make way for the crazy rush to grow biofuel crops. Biofuel crops are also displacing food crops. Truly crazy in a country as small as Britain.

Setasides are not an escape into bygone times-just the opposite. They have been recognized as vital green arteries for wildlife and biodiversity, which are buffers against the burgeoning pressures of intensive farming and pesticide use. They support a critical eco system for the maintainance of food crops and nature.

Georgina Downs, anti pesticide campaigner, points out that 'despite the increasing costs involved in this process and the decreasing number of active substances on the market, actual consumption and use of pesticides in the EU has not decreased within the last ten years. At the same time, the percentage of food and feed samples where residues of pesticides exceed maximum regulatory limits is not declining, but remains around 5%. In addition,certain pesticides are commonly found in the aquatic environment at concentrations well above the regulatory limit, and there is no sign of any decrease'.

So, I enclose some pictures of fields and wild plants/flowers which are due to disappear forever from Britain.