Sowing the Seeds of Self-Reliance for Forty Years 
 
 
 
 
 
Food Supply Update : September 25, 2008
Global Eyes Riveted on Looming Financial Disaster

Copyright © 2008, Geri Guidetti


       It is 6 AM here in the Pacific Northwest.  News and financial television channels are abuzz with coverage of the proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout and John McCain's decision to suspend his campaign and postpone (he hopes) the Presidential Candidates Debate this Friday so he can return to Washington to work on the financial crisis.  A senator from Pennsylvania has just assured us that Congress is very near an agreement with the Administration on details that will ensure passage of the plan, perhaps in a few days.  No word yet on McCain's next campaign move if  the deal is as good as done.  What drama!
      What does all of this have to do with global food supply?  Absolutely everything.  Festering behind the financial distraction and political noise, food and water fundamentals continue to deteriorate. There are too many people; too little clean drinking and agricultural water; disappearing farm land; historically high fuel and fertilizer prices;  outrageous prices for seed; substitution of must-be-bought, corporate GM seed for grow-your-own, self-reliant, non-hybrid and open pollinated seed around the world; crop-killing extreme weather patterns; food industry pressures from a failing financial system--TNTC--an acronym from microbiology meaning "too numerous to count." 
       The current and near future financial crises will exacerbate an already worrisome intermediate and long term outlook for food supplies here and around the world.  (Yes, here in the U.S., too.)  If this and other bailouts are successful on some level, it ensures both high inflation ($50 bread, anyone?) and deflation (e.g. continued home value collapse).  The depth and breadth of co-existing crises work against a rosier outlook for the foreseeable future.  I'm sorry, but that's the way it looks from here.
      What can we do to weather the storm-- to endure economic upheaval and inevitable food (and other) supply disruptions in a world too expensive for many to survive?   I can only tell you what makes sense to me, and what my family has done during good times and bad.  We try to buy nothing unnecessary.  Yes, $4 a cup of coffee and eating out IS unnecessary to our way of thinking.  We start with the basics: food, water, energy to stay warm/cool.  We put our grocery money into food and garden seed that grows food--tangibles that will ensure long term self-sufficiency.  We work hard to preserve both seed and food for future gardens and meals.  We are currently spending whole days canning our family garden produce. When workweek pressures are too great, we can food all weekend.  Yes, we take this very seriously.
      I  know many people do not have backyards in which to grow food, but there are other ways to become more food self-sufficient.  I will share these as time goes on.  One quick note: We also have large pots on our deck in which we grow additional tomatoes, lettuces and peppers.  If you have a patio or deck that receives sunshine most of the day, you may be able to do so, too.  To get started, look or ask for those large, discarded pots that once held young trees at your local garden store or nursery.  Invest in some good potting soil as your budget allows.  Start reading about container gardening in your area, your growing conditions.
      Check www.arkinstitute.com often for more........Geri Guidetti, Director, The Ark Institute
The Food Supply Update© may be reprinted in its entirety, with all attributes, in any media offered free of charge to its readers.  Permission to print edited versions of any of Geri Guidetti’s Food Supply Updates may be obtained by emailing:  arkinstitute@charter.net 
     
     

Food Supply Update©:  May 16, 2008
Part I: GM Seed Tsunami Is On Its Way
Copyright © 2008, Geri Guidetti
 
Brace yourself.  Though still largely masked by the media’s election, earthquake and cyclone coverage, a manmade public relations tsunami of unprecedented size is set to saturate a hungry world with a message from the corporate GMO (genetically modified organisms) and chemical giants: “Global food shortage?  Climate change? No problem!  We have seed that will save the world!  In fact, you really have no choice.  It’s GM seeds or starvation.”
 
Last week, one of the first waves of the pitch hit shore on a major financial television network.  The topic, already in progress, was the global food crisis.  A guest had just suggested that the only way we can produce enough food to feed a burgeoning global population in an era of climate change is for the whole world to switch to high yielding genetically modified seeds (GM seeds).  One of two co-hosts remarked that most Europeans and their governments simply will not accept GM seed.  “Then let them starve!” grumbled the other co-host, obviously annoyed that anyone would reject such seed.  “What?” asked the first, incredulously.  “Let them starve!” he repeated.  “If the Europeans won’t accept GMOs, then let them starve.”  Sadly, he appeared to have meant it.
 
Needless to say, many of us, especially our European friends, find such a callous, even arrogant, position disturbing.  The fact that the program simultaneously airs—live—in Europe likely resulted in more than a few emails and calls to the network expressing the same in less polite language.  Yet, more unsettling than this one person’s opinion is the possibility that it may prove to be prophetic.
 
From this chair, it appeared that an apparently intelligent man had been completely convinced (how and by whom?) that GM seeds were the solution to the global food crisis, and that all countries and states must either accept and grow them or, in his opinion, be deprived of additional food raised by others who had accepted these “savior seeds.”  Sadly, most governments will soon be similarly convinced by a tsunami of slickly spun promises and backroom, arm-twisting deals, that solutions to their food security nightmares lie in crops containing designer genes that can handle any climate change challenge: extreme heat; drought; cold; salty soils; insect hordes, etc.
 
What will the consequences be for governments and peoples that resist the wares of the designer seed merchants and their sponsor states?  Can GMOs really be “climate change ready?”  What effects will spreading GMOs have on the genetics of conventional crops?  What effects will they have, or have they already had, on organic and wild, related species?  Will my vegetable garden be affected?  Do GMOs affect human or livestock health?  How can nations remain free when their food supply is controlled by a handful of seed engineering and agrochemical corporations and/or foreign governments?  For an ongoing discussion of these and so many other important questions, stay tuned……Geri Guidetti, Director, The Ark Institute
 
The Food Supply Update© may be reprinted in its entirety, with all attributes, in any media offered free of charge to its readers.  Permission to print edited versions of any of Geri Guidetti’s Food Supply Updates may be obtained by emailing:  arkinstitute@charter.net
 
 
 
 
 


 
 

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