Organic food, taken over by big business, has become an assembly-line product marketed as yuppie chow for the privileged, a Canadian researcher says.
Multinational food-processing giants such as ConAgra Foods, Cargill, Kraft Foods, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo now own most organic brands, Irena Knezevic of Toronto’s York University said in advance of a presentation she will make to social science scholars.
We expect any day now that our consumers will ask for organic Twinkies — individually wrapped, of course, she added.
AEVIA Reveals the Source

In developed nations, factory farms have expanded rapidly since their origins in the early 20th Century. So much so that in the U.S. only 3% of farms now generate an astonishing 62% of that nation’s agricultural output! In fact, they have so consolidated the agricultural sector that only five food retailers (Kroger, Albertson’s, Wal-Mart, Safeway and Ahold USA) account for a whopping 42% of all retail food sales in the U.S. And because they are able to produce food cheaper, factory farms are forcing several smaller farms out of business (according to Natural Agricultural Statistics Service, 330 farmers leave their land every week). Typically, they control all aspects of production, including animal rearing, feeding, slaughtering, packaging and distribution—a process known as “vertical integration.”
AEVIA Reveals the Source

The imposed compulsion to spend the attractive food aid packages on American produce is ensuring handsome rewards for farmers in Iowa and Wyoming with an additional boon for American shipping: it has begun to spell doom for indigenous African farmers. In addition there is evidence that some of the ‘in kind’ donation being sent to many African countries, is being delivered for sale at market prices to US based NGOs like Save the Children and World Vision, to generate cash to support the work of the organizations themselves.
AEVIA Reveals the Source

The people of Ain Siro are among the 1 million who are “out of reach” of aid agencies — people who we automatically assume must be facing starvation because we are not feeding them. But in North Darfur, at least, there is no starvation. Much is needed — medicines, schoolbooks, decent wells — but people are cultivating millet, rebuilding their herds after the devastation of 2003-04 and, when rains permit, gathering wild grasses and fruits to supplement their diet.
AEVIA Reveals the Source

The vertical farm’s power would come from solar panels and wind spires on the roof. Its circular (cylindrical) design uses the space most efficiently, allowing maximum light into the center. The city’s wastewater would be filtered and sterilized, then used for irrigation, and rainwater would also be collected and used to clean pollutants off the building’s outside surface. An electronic crop picker would monitor fruits and vegetables, using color detection to check for ripeness, and an electronic feeder would direct programmed amounts of water and light to crops according to a set schedule. Crops could grow both up (like corn) and down (like hanging tomatoes), maximizing space.

Tooling Up for Hydroponics

In a unique collaboration between Nigerian and Israeli companies as well as governments of both countries, the desert region of the north would be transformed into habitable and cultivable farm lands through afforestation. The idea is to reclaim the desert for productive use and assist to create abundant food production through gradual planned technological advancement.
AEVIA Reveals the Source

The cricket ball-sized flowers have sprouted along entire lengths of bamboo stalks to produce a huge volume of seeds that attract thousands of rats, which feed on them as they are very nutritious, say agriculture and forest experts.
And the flowers are threatening to create a famine, a phenomenon the district has witnessed every 50 years due to the cyclical flowering. Previous recorded famines were in 1862, 1911 and 1958-62.
Agricultural experts said the marauding army of rats, which multiply quickly, eventually turn to paddy, potato plants and grain in granaries, leading to famine or ‘mautam’, the name given to the phenomenon in Mizoram which literally means “death of bamboo”.AEVIA Reveals the Source

“We’ve got a static land base. We’re trying to feed more people every year. We’re adding the equivalent of a North American population every six years.”
AEVIA Reveals the Source

Dr. Amir Sharon of Tel Aviv University has discovered a transgenic fungus strong enough to convert even the most resilient plant parts into bioethanol, a chemical used for biofuel. Strengthened with an anti-death gene, this fungus is resistant to harsh conditions such as heat and toxic substances – both of which are released while converting plant biomass into ethanol. As a result, the production of ethanol using this transgenic fungus could be much more efficient than with conventional fungi.
Most bioethanol produced in the US is derived from the edible parts of corn crops. The stalks and leaves, comprised of cellulose and known to scientists as cellulosic biomass, are much harder to convert into ethanol. The cellulose is bound with a chemical called lignin, which causes the plant material to be rigid and difficult to break down.
As a result, some grain crops that could be used for food production are being used for fuel production instead. The prevailing criticism is that there is not enough farmland to produce crops for biofuel and still maintain an adequate supply of food. Sharon’s new fungus, with its capability to convert inedible plant cellulose into ethanol, could have a significant impact on ethanol production.
The unusual hardiness of the fungus may also be important for the food and drug industries, which rely on the process of fermentation. More than 20 drugs, including penicillin, require fungi in the manufacturing process. Sharon says, “Our fungus can grow for much longer in the fermenter – twice as long or more. This can allow for the production of many more fermentation units.” Doubling the efficiency of food and drug manufacture could mean significant cost savings for these industries.
AEVIA Reveals the Source

Africans feeding Americans – it sounds like one whopper of a fish tale. Africa remains a continent of episodic starvation and chronic food shortages; tens of millions of sub-Saharan Africans are unable to reliably and consistently feed themselves. But these imbalances coexist with pockets of increasingly vibrant commercial farming throughout much of the continent.
Uganda is ground zero for a startling transformation of African agribusiness that’s spawning scores of entrepreneurial opportunities. The country boasts two growing seasons, ample rain, rich volcanic soils, and millions of small farmers eager to expand production of cash crops. Output of everything from fish to rice, vanilla to sunflower seeds, roses to potatoes is soaring. Overall, Ugandan farm output increased nearly 50 percent during the past decade.
Investors and agriculture experts from the world over are flocking to Uganda, seeking ways to ride the emerging boom in African agribusiness. Israelis are building greenhouses and setting up the latest in hydroponic irrigation systems. Indians are growing rice and sunflower seeds. South Africans and Americans have invested in cotton gins. Europeans have opened fish-processing plants. Chinese traders are buying up specialty woods, leather hides, and fish innards – a delicacy not relished by most Westerners but big in Asia.
Scouring Uganda for other food sources, Chinese officials are talking about buying a million tons of soybeans a year from Uganda and an equally gargantuan amount of cassava, a tuber the Chinese fry up and gobble the way Westerners devour french fries.
The boom is also fueled by Europe’s emerging taste for year-round and exotic fresh foods and by increases in the wholesale prices of specialty items that make it economical to fly certain goods halfway around the world on commercial airlines so American consumers can enjoy Africa’s bounty just days after harvest.
AEVIA Reveals the Source