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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Climate and changes in the food supply

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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Climate and changes in the food supply
  • Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:10:29 -0700

Laura quoted:

*Climate and changes in the food supply*
By Jess Halliday
[snip]

*"Individual agricultural
businesses need to be ready to seize opportunities for new crops and
markets, and to adapt to evolving pressures."*
No comment needed on that one.
Prof Tester believes that climate change could be the decisive factor in
great GM debate. Quite simply, he thinks consumers may not have much choice
over whether or not they eat GM foods, if they want to eat at all.
Be afraid; be very afraid (so you'll buy our product!). I don't see the Inuit or the !Kung resorting to GM foods, and their climates are harsher than the grain belt will ever be. There are enough heirloom and open-pollinated varieties to deal with virtually any climate conditions. And there are some great breeders, like Alan Kapuler, who are creating more for the public domain.

Farmers, realizing there is a burgeoning
market, divert acrage that was previously devoted to other crops like
soybeans to corn and drive up prices of those, too.
I just went to a talk by David Blume on ethanol production, and it made me rethink some of my assumptions. He's got good figures showing that farmers are not "diverting" acreage to corn. They are taking some of the vast acreage that they have been paid not to farm, since there has not been enough demand for grain, and returning it to production in corn. This acreage is more than enough to make up for the demand for corn ethanol. Corn production is up so much that the price should be dropping, but other factors are the true influence on corn prices: The oil industry, which buys 90% of all ethanol, is speculating hugely in the corn futures market, driving up prices; and energy costs are forcing farmers to charge more for all their crops. Broccoli prices are rising as much as corn, and I don't see them making ethanol out of broccoli.

Once again, we we're being fed the easy answers, and need to ask who and what are behind them.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com







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