Like cattle pens, the salmon operations bring product to market cheaply. But harm to ocean life and possibly human health has experts worried.


If you bought a salmon filet in the supermarket recently or ordered one in a restaurant, chances are it was born in a plastic tray here, or in a place just like it.


Instead of streaking through the ocean or leaping up rocky streams, it spent three years like a marine couch potato, circling lazily in pens, fattening up on pellets of salmon chow.


It was vaccinated as a small fry to survive the diseases that race through these oceanic feedlots, acres of net-covered pens tethered offshore. It was likely dosed with antibiotics to ward off infection or fed pesticides to shed a beard of bloodsucking sea lice.


For that rich, pink hue, the fish was given a steady diet of synthetic pigment. Without it, the flesh of these caged salmon would be an unappetizing, pale gray.

------------------

see toon at top...

Agriculture in the Sydney basin, the food bowl of Australia's largest city, is shrinking at an alarming rate.

A study by the New South Wales Department of Industry and Investment shows just over 1,000 vegetable farms remain, covering an area of just 2,000 hectares - less than the Sydney city government area.

The report predicts half of these farms will disappear when the north-west and the south-west growth areas earmarked by the State Government are developed in the next 20 years.

Now, some Sydneysiders are attempting to fight climate change and an impending global food crisis one urban city block at a time.

They are responsible for Sydney's 13 open garden projects.

The gardens are run by the community to grow herbs, vegetables, fruit and in some cases, for conserving rare plants and seeds. Appropriately, Chippendale's community gardening came about organically.

Michael Mobbs is a local Chippendale resident well known for his self-sustainable home. Concerned about food miles he began planting fruit trees on the grass verge outside his home.

"I started about two years ago. Firstly I put some trees out in the street with some neighbours and they liked it so much I thought I'd do the whole street," he said.

Australia's largest irrigation property, Cubbie Station, is about to be placed in voluntary administration.

Cubbie Station sits on the upper reaches of the mighty Murray-Darling river system, and its water storage capacity is equal to that of Sydney Harbour.

The move into administration means the massive cotton farm in southern Queensland could be snapped up for far less than the rumoured asking price of $450 million.

Cubbie Station's huge water storage capacity is often blamed for the lack of water downstream.

But Cubbie group chairman Keith De Lacy says Australia's largest cotton farm has been beaten by the drought.

"This drought has gone on just two years longer than it should have done, by all the record keeping and analysis that we've done, and it's just pushed us over," he said.

Cubbie was put up for sale in August with a rumoured price tag of $450 million.

But it is believed the five bids made were too low to match even the $320 million in debts to the National Australia Bank and Suncorp.

---------------------------

Some people may not see cotton as food but one has to realise that cotton-seed oil is mana to the fast food industry... Furthermore, a lot of cotton grown in Australia is "GM" (genetically modified) under the pretense it is not "food"... It's your call... And please note that the drought has gone for two more years than all previous drought records, and still going...

Chefs appear to have more unhealthy habits than any other profession while those in advertising are near paragons of virtue, a survey suggests.

The poll of 3,000 workers found chefs smoked the most and consumed two snacks of crisps or chocolate most days.

Farmers also fared poorly, smoking on average over 50 cigarettes and consuming 14 snacks each week.

But the ad man smoked just nine cigarettes and drank in moderation, closely followed by the teacher.

----------------

Knowing the ad industry, the average ad "man" is clever at manipulating studies or fudging research for the benefit of man-kind... But the most imbibed profession may be the Aussie journos of the 1960-70s era who used to start on beer before day break, went on long lunches to their information sources, "the local pubs", and brought back to the office a few "flagons" or beer slabs to last the afternoon. Meanwhile they smoked a revolving circus of "ciggies", stuck to the lower lip... Once on the juice, they wrote "good copy"...

Big biotech claims that genetic engineering is a necessary step towards feeding the world's growing population.  And yet debate still rages as to whether GM crops actually increase yields at all.  Furthermore, the UN recently stated that 30,000 people a day were starving to death, but not because of underproduction of crops.  It's simply through lack of access.

Independent scientific studies raised serious alarm bells over the safety of GM foods over a decade ago.  But while this made front-page headlines in European newspapers, the North American mainstream media were conspiratorially silent.

Biotech companies stand to make billions from their seed patents.  Governments and supreme courts have sanctioned the patenting of life itself.  The planet's food supply is becoming increasingly dominated by fewer and fewer players.

If the biotech industry's stated intention of feeding the world is misguided or even misdirecting, is there another political agenda behind GM food? Have we been mis-sold?  Were we even given a choice in the first place?

Jeffrey M. Smith, international bestselling author of Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, reveals the shocking truth behind GM foods and the huge effort by governments and Biotech corporations to keep it out of the mainstream media and outside of your awareness.

http://www.seedsofdeception.com/utility/showArticle/?objectID=4302

What a pity that this forum of true freedom of thought and expression - is so small!

Vis-a-vis these preceding articles of yours any rational thinking person with an ounce of logic would have to agree.  There are many problems with artificial foods which are, as you imply, really not necessary if we actually use the natural land for the originally intended purposes.

I particularly took umbrage to the Court case in Australia where the GM seeds on a Monsanto property blew onto another farmer's land and grew.  Monsanto sued the farmer for "stealing their patented seeds" - and won!  If that doesn't give an example of what could happen if some company - any company or nation - has the sole rights to the food produced from these unnatural sources.  Only mother nature should have that and if we have to adjust to the changing climate that we have caused – then so be it and lets start now.

I think it was Simon Crean who argued that we in Australia have the wherewithal to make ourselves self-sufficient in natural foods.  We have mismanaged our land since the white man first set foot on it and bending to the will of profiteering industrial Corporations has and will continue to push back any sincere effort to make our land fertile and productive.

The Howard “new order” was such a culprit in its mishandling of the Murray-Dowling.  Again, in 2005, Simon Crean presented to the Howard mob a plan which he called “Let Our Rivers Flow”.  Of course Howard was busy kissing the bum of the "bum" Bush.

Even in our small town we have noticed so many citizens are starting veggie gardens of their own – as indeed my Wife and I are doing.

With a common effort Gus, I am sure that Australia could be self-sufficient in feeding itself - plus.

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

The food industry has been criticised for being secretive about its use of nanotechnology by the UK's House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

Lord Krebs, chairman of the inquiry, said the industry "wants to keep a low profile" to avoid controversy.

While there were no clear dangers, he said, there were "gaps in knowledge".

In its report Nanotechnologies and Food, the committee suggests a public register of foods or packaging that make use of nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is the use of very small particles - measured in the billionths of a metre. At these sizes, particles have novel properties and there is active investigation into how those properties arise.

While nanotechnology is already widely employed - in applications ranging from odour-free socks to novel cancer therapeutic methods - they have long been regarded as a subject requiring further study to ensure their safety.

-------------------

see toon and story at top...

Good on you Ernest... Growing our own food is healthy on many fronts — including the hard work from weeding to composting. Although it is not less expensive than buying at the local shop, the flavours of fresh picked food in one own's garden are fantastic. In most places it can be done organically. Possums, birds and rats can be a problem but with a bit of ingenuity we can protect our crops.

Meanwhile in Yourp...

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) says one of the flavourings used to give smoke flavour to meat, cheese or fish, may be toxic to humans.

The authority looked at 11 smoke flavourings commonly used in the European Union.

It says several of the flavourings are dangerously close to levels which may cause harm to humans.

The European Commission will now establish a list of smoke-flavouring products that are safe for use in food.

The smoke flavourings are products which can be added to foods to give them a "smoked" flavour, as an alternative to traditional smoking.

EFSA says it "cannot rule out concerns" about a flavouring called Primary Product AM 01, which is obtained from beech wood.

------------------

See toon and article at top... No GM, no nano and no fake smoke. Fresh is best...

Artificially-enhanced chicken breasts, patented soya beans – a new film exposes the secrets of the modern food industry. Viewers will need a strong stomach, says Tim Walker

As the afternoon sun settles over his Virginia farm, Joel Salatin leans against a post and gestures at the cows in the green field behind him. "They don't eat corn or dead cows or chicken manure," he says animatedly, his Stetson bobbing. "They actually eat grass. They're herbivores."

He says it as if it ought to be a surprise: cows eat grass. Salatin talks to his hogs as they scuttle in front of him to the food store. He and his workers slaughter livestock in the open air. He is one of the heroes of filmmaker Robert Kenner's documentary Food, Inc., the sort of farmer whose picture you'd expect to see on a sticker, standing between a traditional red barn and a picket fence, slapped on the side of a supermarket pork chop.

read more at the Independent and see toon at top — and read articles below it...

Four years ago New York City's health commissioners banned artery-blocking transfats in restaurants. Now, if a legislator has his way, the chefs at every eatery in the Big Apple and across the state will have to make do without salt.

The language of Bill A. 10129, introduced by Felix Ortiz, a representative from Brooklyn, in the New York State Assembly, could not be more specific. "No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of food for consumption by customers," it says, whether on or off the premises. The penalty for every violation would be $1,000 (£665).

-------------------------

Salt is an essential ingredient to our well being. Too much can bring disaster to our arteries. Salt is essential in the electrolyte balance of our body. The problem is to know when too much is too much. In cooking, most chef would agree that "salt is essential" to lift the taste of anything, except ice-cream... Even in pastry for cake, a little salt will smartly improve the sugar flavour by making less sickening. It just a notion of how much... The next thing they want to remove from the food-stuff will be cream and butter. Next will be sugar, when sugar should be first on the list but this would hurt the soda-pop manufacturers and the sweet buns of Macca's...

Moderation is always the key of good eating, as well as variety of meals. And remember (see above). eat lettuce. That WILL BE YOUR SALVATION from clogged-up arteries. see toon at top...

When I was born there were three food groups: lipids, proteins and carbohydrates, plus vitamins (part of the natural food package)... Nowadays, two new groups have been added: Junk food and pharmaceuticals... Last night, while not sleeping, I was dreaming overtime and invented a couple of new gizmos involving the theory of relativity, as well as made an in-depth analysis of the pill-popping industry and that of obesity in the US, possibly due to eating too much and not crapping enough...
I could go on and on about these subjects, but if you understand my gist, there is no point me pushing the barrow further...

But I will say, that far too many people pill pop without rhyme nor reason... The range of chemicals to do this or that is enormous, often with little desired effect and many side effects... Many of these pills are designed to eventually "replace" proper food in the future...

But eating too much food and becoming obese might have some plusses:
------------------
Rising rates of obesity among young Americans could undermine the future of the US military, two retired generals have warned.

More than a quarter of young Americans are now too fat to fight, they said.

Writing in the Washington Post, the ex-commanders said the fat crisis ruled out more potential military service recruits than any other medical factor.

They want Congress to introduce laws to give US children better nutrition in schools, with less sugar, salt and fat.

John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, both former chairmen of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote: "Obesity rates threaten the overall health of America and the future strength of our military."

---------------------

Yes, obesity is a problem... and a "god send" if it stops people going to war... Though, this could have been the reason for the fall of Rome...

adsoftheworld.com/media/print/german_olympic_..

see toon at top...

Tomato prices across Australia could double or triple in coming months after millions of seedlings were poisoned in an act of mass sabotage in north Queensland.

About seven million plants, including about four million tomato seedlings, have been lost after they were poisoned with a herbicide at a Bowen nursery last month.Other affected crops include capsicum, melons and eggplant.

Bowen Growers Association spokeswoman Denise Kreymborg said the Bowen region was the largest producer of winter vegetables and the poisoning would affect about 30 to 40 growers in the area.

Growers will continue harvesting their established crops in the next two months, but prices are expected to spike around September when produce from the seedlings would have been on the market.

''You can expect prices to double or even triple, we don't know for sure,'' Ms Kreymborg said.

''There's still going to be tomatoes, capsicum, melons, zucchinis and eggplants grown in this area, just not as much.''

Whitsunday Mayor Mike Brunker said it was the fourth time crops had been sabotaged in the region in the past decade.

-------------------

Gus: it is a sad crime when food is sabotaged...

But sometimes there are people who wish pure malice. Though, was this an act designed to raise prices? Was this an act of "vandalism" because the crops are genetically natural... or are genetically modified? Was this sheer stupidity? Was this due to revenge for something? Was this to show what herbicides can do? Was this due because growers are encroaching on lands they should not? See toon at top...

Cemetery spells death for Sydney market garden

A second generation Chinese market gardener says his lease on Crown Land in Sydney's south shouldn't have to end to make way for a cemetery.

A plot of Crown Land at La Perouse is currently leased to three Chinese market gardeners.

Next door to the heritage-listed gardens is the Botany Cemetery, where space is at a premium.

The Cemetery Trust wants 60 per cent of the Crown Land resumed to create more burial sites because it is running out of space.

But market gardener, Terry Ha says he'll lose his livelihood if the plans go ahead.

"We've been working there so long, I don't know what we'll do in the future," he said.

But Andrew McAnespie from the New South Wales Government's Land and Property Management Authority says he is committed to finding other land for the gardeners to use if the plans are approved.

"I've committed to work with the current P-O holders, PO being permissive occupancy, to look for other pieces of land in the vicinity," he said.

It's been two years since rumors of mad cows in Texas sank cattle futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange when a woman with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), human mad cow disease, was admitted to an Amarillo hospital.

"The rumor was started, and it's totally unfounded, that there were cattle with BSE in Texas," Ted McCollum, beef cattle specialist with the Amarillo office of Texas AgriLife Extension, told the press.

Of course it's easy to see how the rumor got started that there were cattle with BSE in Texas since there were cattle with BSE in Texas.

In 2005, the first "home grown" mad cow was found on a Texas ranch whose identity authorities protected. A 12-year-old beef cow used for breeding, she was sent to Champion Pet Food in Waco when she became a downer. The ranch was quarantined while authorities searched for the animal's offspring and older animals.

Now there are two "mysterious" cases of CJD in McLennan county, Texas says the Waco Tribune-Herald -"a statistical anomaly considering that only one in 1 million people worldwide is affected by the condition in any given year."

The statistical abnormality is also visible on the Texas Department of State Health Services map on its web site. There have been 144 cases of CJD in Texas since 2000 and 42 of them appear in clusters. If CJD is caused for unknown reasons (sporadic) or is familial, it would not come in clusters.

It has been years since the San Francisco Chronicle reported that 11 restaurants in nine California counties served meat from the first US mad cow, imported from Canada in 2003. A subsequent audit of US slaughterhouses to win back Asian exports which were lost over the cow, found 29 more downers slipped into the food supply because some inspectors "did not believe that they had the authority" to go into their pens. But then Secretary Johanns assured the press the cattle were healthy when they arrived at the slaughterhouse but became suddenly unable to walk for one reason or another.

Authorities also gave up tracing origins of the second homegrown US mad cow, born on an Alabama ranch, whose identity authorities also protected. The trail went cold after seven weeks of investigation of more than three dozen farms, said news reports.

In addition to food risks, unacknowledged mad cow in US beef could also be a risk in dental implants, made from bovine and cadaver sources.

And now there is also a cloud over deer and elk which get a mad cow like disease called chronic wasting disease (CWD). Like mad cow, CWD is caused by a practically indestructible protein called a prion which is not killed by cooking, alcohol, bleach, formaldehyde or radiation.

State Departments of Natural Resources thought the disease was under control after directing hunters to kill "anterless" deer instead of bucks, thinning the herd. Food pantries were beginning to accept venison "donations" again after refusing them. ("It's perfectly good meat - for someone else to eat," the hunters seemed to be saying.)

But now the disease is back with a vengeance, causing hunters to fear the other guy's deer at the processor if not their own, until CWD tests come back, and wives to fear husbands' bloody laundry.

Prions are transmitted in carrier animals' urine and in antler velvet says a January article on PLoS One. Worse, they are likely transmitted from mother to offspring says the article, making US authorities' failure to find the mad cow progeny - and their progeny -  more disquieting.

CWD is also taking a toll on deer breeding and hunting lodges, a $4 billion a year industry despite state complaints of deer "overpopulation." Wisconsin alone has hundreds of state sanctioned deer breeding farms.

Earlier this year, a deer with CWD was found at Heartland Wildlife Ranches in Ethel, Mo., 200 miles northwest of St. Louis. Heartland is an 800-acre lodge surrounded by 8-foot fences where hunters "come from across the country to take aim at trophy animals such as whitetail deer, elk and zebra," says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Think Dick Cheney. A three-day hunt for water buffalo costs $4,000.

In addition to threatening Rob Brasher of Salt Lake City, whose family has owned Heartland for two decades, CWD threatens David Wood, who runs the Linn County deer farm 17 miles from Heartland and can no longer sell his "baby deer" for $4,000 to $8,000.

Luckily, federal and state governments are on the mad cow and CWD case - protecting industry from consumers' rights to know.

Is Beef At Risk of Mad Cow Disease Again?

Top beef exporter the United States has revealed that a case of mad cow disease had been discovered in California as it scrambled to reassure consumers around the world.

No meat has entered the food chain and the cow "at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health", the Department of Agriculture said, pointing out that the disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), cannot be transmitted through milk.

Despite the reassurances, the case set alarm bells ringing as previous mad cow discoveries in the United States, Canada, Israel, Europe and Japan have caused disruptions to the global food trade worth billions of dollars.

A stream of sanctions and restrictions had to be introduced in some cases and entire herds of cattle had to be slaughtered, destroying the livelihoods of many farmers.

The US government went to great pains to stress that everything was under control.

"Evidence shows that our systems and safeguards to prevent BSE are working, as are similar actions taken by countries around the world."

According to the US Meat Export Federation, beef brings more than $US353 million into the United States, with Mexico, Canada, South Korea and Japan among the main export markets.

The United States has an estimated 90.8 million head of cattle, forming a large chunk of the economy in states like Texas, Nebraska, Kansas and California.

Around 40,000 US cattle are tested by the Department of Agriculture each year.

Samples from infected animal were sent to a laboratory in Ames, Iowa, where they proved positive for a rare form of the disease. The results are now being shared with labs in Britain and Canada.

"The US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has confirmed the nation's fourth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in a dairy cow from central California," the government statement said.

"USDA remains confident in the health of the national herd and the safety of beef and dairy products. As the epidemiological investigation progresses, USDA will continue to communicate findings in a timely and transparent manner."

On the Chicago Mercantile Exchange the price of cattle futures fell on rumours of the news.

The biggest fear for US farmers will now be for sanctions on US beef, a possibility the Department of Agriculture tacitly addressed, and refuted.

"This detection should not affect US trade," they said.

More than 190,000 cases of mad cow disease have been detected in the EU since it was first diagnosed in Britain in 1986, forcing the destruction of millions of cows.

More than 200 people around the world are suspected to have died, most of them in Britain, from the human variant of the disease, which was first described in 1996.

Scientists believe the disease was caused by using infected parts of cattle to make feed for other cattle.

Authorities believe eating meat from infected animals can trigger the human variant of the fatal brain-wasting disease.

Mad Cow Disease Found In California

NEW DELHI, Oct 3, 2012 (AFP) - The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, famed for seeking "happiness" for its citizens, is aiming to become the first nation in the world to turn its home-grown food and farmers 100 percent organic.

The tiny Buddhist-majority nation wedged between China and India has an unusual and some say enviable approach to economic development, centred on protecting the environment and focusing on mental well-being.

Its development model measuring "Gross National Happiness" instead of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been discussed at the United Nations and has been publicly backed by leaders from Britain and France, among others.

It banned television until 1999, keeps out mass tourism to shield its culture from foreign influence, and most recently set up a weekly "pedestrians' day" on Tuesdays that sees cars banned from town centres.

Its determination to chart a different path can be seen in its new policy to phase out artificial chemicals in farming in the next 10 years, making its staple foods of wheat and potatoes, as well as its fruits, 100 percent organic.

"Bhutan has decided to go for a green economy in light of the tremendous pressure we are exerting on the planet," Agriculture Minister Pema Gyamtsho told AFP in an interview by telephone from the capital Thimphu.

"If you go for very intensive agriculture it would imply the use of so many chemicals, which is not in keeping with our belief in Buddhism, which calls for us to live in harmony with nature."

So why is growing vegetables so subversive? As Fukuoka demonstrated, it undermines our entire consumerist economy and the power of those who run it and benefit from it.

Currently we are largely reduced to purchasing what others have created and are denied, or distracted from, creating ourselves. So, rather than working as self-reliant people in beautiful gardens of our own, we purchase commercial food grown far away, which is then trucked in to large, ugly super-stores.

To pay for this, we are locked into a cycle of time consuming and frustrating travel to work; work that is undertaken for large uncaring organisations in often powerless ‒ and perhaps depressing ‒ circumstances. Not all of us of course, but certainly many. 

Thus we play our part as one cog in a system that is rapidly destroying the planet. As compensation for this loss, we are fed a barrage of consumer items supplemented by movies and TV shows which, with few exceptions, repeat the same plot lines and formulae over and over and over again.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/the-humble-gardeners-revolution,5941

Read all stories from top toon down...