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Posted February 26, 2014 by Shiney Varghese
The food crisis of 2008 led to a broad agreement in the agricultural development community that the lack of appropriate investment in agriculture had been a key contributing factor to unstable prices and food insecurity. The crisis coincided with an increase in land grabbing in many parts of the world, but especially in Africa. It is in response to these events that the idea of developing some criteria on agricultural investments came up in international policy and governance arenas.
The food crisis also led the United Nations in 2008-09 to reform its Rome-based Committee on Food Security (CFS) to address both the short term food crisis, and the long-term structural issues that led to it. It involved bringing new people to the table where decisions were being made, and this included a new Civil Society Mechanism (CSM).
In October 2010, the newly reformed CFS was faced with a challenge: Should it endorse the international Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment that Respect Rights, Livelihoods and Resources (PRAI) developed by the Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG), composed of FAO, UNCTAD, IFAD and the World Bank, or refuse to endorse it in response to the CSM position rejecting the PRAI?
To the credit of the CFS, the majority of the stakeholders, including most governments agreed with the CSM in October 2010 that the PRAI was inadequate to protect vulnerable communities from land grabbing. Rather, in the CSM view, PRAI would have helped facilitate the large scale investments which were already depriving people of their livelihood sources. Unfortunately, at its November 2010 Summit, the G-20 continued to endorse that flawed process, encouraging "all countries and companies to uphold the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment."
But the debate continued at the CFS, which, while 'taking note of the ongoing process of developing' the PRAI, agreed that there needed to be a more inclusive process if these principles were to protect communities from getting displaced from their lands. It initiated the development of Terms of Reference that were endorsed by the CFS Plenary in October 2012. The current Zero Draft of the Principles for responsible agricultural investment (also referred to as CFS-rai) is the outcome of an almost year-long inclusive consultative process on those principles.
Last week we joined our partners, International Development Exchange (IDEX) and Grassroots International (GRI), to submit comments on the CFS-rai.
We believe there is much scope for strengthening these principles. Over the last six months the zero draft was discussed around the world through regional consultations processes and e-consultation. Civil society groups that advocate for the rights of small-scale producers and workers are actively engaging in this process to make sure that the final draft principles presented to the CFS in October 2014 are indeed strong enough to protect the resource rights of the communities; leads to the progressive realization of the right to food, right to water, and the protection of the genetic, bio diversity as well as enhancement of ecosystem functions. Thus our comments stress that responsible agricultural investments should address the specific needs of small-scale food producers and workers: this entails investors assessing the specific needs of small-scale producers and workers and identifying how they can be supported to strengthen their food sovereignty, rather than seeking to make them part of the industrial food system, with its concentrated value chains. Those investments would support agroecological approaches to food production and the development of locally appropriate technology to reduce their drudgery and postharvest losses. Such investments will help retain wealth in their communities, contributing to ecosystem regeneration and rural economic development.
The first draft of the CFS-rai principles, based on the feedback received through the consultation process, will be developed in March-April 2014. There is a very small window of opportunity for civil society to comment on this first draft by contacting their CSM regional focal points, before it is negotiated in May 2014 by the Open Ended Working Group (OWEG) that include CSM representatives. The negotiated text will be presented for endorsement to the 41st session of the CFS in the fall of 2014.
Even when rai principles are strengthened according to the civil society inputs and endorsed by the CFS, there is still a real danger that those principles would be rendered ineffective by legally binding provisions in trade and investment agreements. We hope that the CFS-rai principles, if finalized with these inputs received from small-scale producers, workers and those advocating for their rights, come to govern national and international agricultural investments, and pave the way for ensuring that bilateral and multilateral investment agreements do not violate small-scale producers' right to livelihoods, and result in biodiversity protection and ecosystem restoration.
Read the comment IATP, IDEX and GRI submitted to the CFS.
Posted February 18, 2014 by Andrew Ranallo
IATP is excited to announce the release of a series of new reports looking in-depth at China's feed, pork, poultry and dairy sectors, the past and future trajectory of the industry, and global impacts of China's efforts to balance grain self-sufficiency and the desire to provide cheap meat.
China's transition to an industrial, resource-intensive model of livestock production could have major implications around the world, impacting farmers, public health and the environment.
Read the press release for more information, download the reports below, or find all of our industrialized meat work at iatp.org/industrial-meat.
Global Meat Complex: The China Series
Posted February 12, 2014 by Dr. Steve Suppan
Economists are still struggling to quantify the trillions of dollars of costs to the global economy of collapse and bailouts of the world largest private banks. Three Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas economists "conservatively estimate" $6-14 trillion dollars of damage to the U.S. economy alone from the 2007-2009 financial and commodity market crisis. At the upper end of their estimate, that's $120,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. The global damage caused by the global bank near defaults, publicly funded bank rescues, and fiscal crises that followed the rescues, has yet to be estimated.
International cooperation on the regulation of global banks is required because of the global trading practices and corporate structure of the largest banks, most of which are major commodity traders. For example, according to another Fed study, the seven largest U.S. headquartered bank holding companies have about 5,700 foreign subsidiaries in dozens of foreign jurisdictions. To judge by the geographic distribution of these subsidiaries, the largest banks are structurally transatlantic institutions that require intensive U.S. and EU regulatory cooperation to prevent another 2007-2009 debacle.
In the U.S., commodity market reform is outlined in the 2010 Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Three and a half years after the passage of Dodd Frank, U.S. financial regulators still are working on rules to implement that legislation. Budget cuts to financial regulators and lawsuits to impede implementation are among the tools that the publicly bailed out financial institutions and their Congressional allies have employed to shrink reforms to their liking.
Market reform is no less complex and the opposition no less persistent and well financed on the other side of the Atlantic. Much of the opposition comes from the lobbyists representing the European offices of U.S. banks, hedge funds, exchanges and corporate users of financial instruments. Indeed, so intense was the bank lobbying on bank structure reform legislation that European Commissioner Michel Barnier announced a six week ban on meetings between bank lobbyists and EC regulators, so that the Commission could finish its work before a new Commission is selected in 2014.
On January 14, after a four-year struggle, the European Parliament, Council and Commission came to an informal agreement about a large and complex piece of legislation, the revision of the Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID 2). Following translation from English into the 22 other EU Member State languages, MiFID 2 will be likely voted on in a plenary of the European Parliament in March. The EU rulemaking process, called Level 2, by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the European Commission, together with EU member state implementation, is scheduled for completion by the end of 2015.
As the Brussels based NGO Finance Watch noted, most of the European civil society organizing and lobbying on MiFID 2 concerned financial speculation on agricultural derivatives contracts. The main articles designed to curb financial speculation are the current Article 59 (position limits/'position management) and 60 (position reporting). Position limits are quantitative limits of the share of contracts that 'a person' may own during a specified time period. Each EU member state will use position data from Trade Data Repositories to calculate limits for contracts traded on markets in its jurisdiction, according to a methodology to be developed by ESMA. Adherence to the methodology should prevent member states from setting high and permissive limits to attract trades on exchanges in their jurisdictions.
One of the Level 2 debates to come is, of course, over the terms of this methodology. The Financial Times reported that most exchanges and financial institutions were "miffed by MiFID." They believe that the current "position management controls," i.e. market self-regulation, suffice to prevent market manipulation. However, MiFID does not concern simply market manipulation, but the prevention of "price distortion" by all means, whether intentional or not. Because the vast majority of commodity contracts are traded by Automated Trading Systems, demonstration of intentional manipulation is becoming less relevant for rule enforcement.
Another Level 2 debate will concern the frequency of position reporting. Reform advocates battled to require exchanges to report positions traded in "near real time" (exchanges report to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission within 15 minutes after a trade is settled). Market participants will report trades to exchanges and other trading venues in near real time. However, he Article 60 position reporting requirement of "at least on a daily basis" from exchanges to regulators will be subject to various interpretation by member state authorities. If a contract traded on several member state exchanges reports more frequently than on other exchange, traders in the less frequently reporting jurisdiction will have more information about the contract position and price than trades in jurisdictions that require more frequent reporting. Such information is a huge competitive advantage for traders.
The rules over which "persons" must report and aggregate positions likewise will be hotly contested. In a major Article 60 exemption, traders of Over the Counter (non-exchange traded) "wholesale energy products," will not have to comply with position limits nor have to report until three and a half years after the anticipated implementation of MiFID in member states, i.e. in 2018. It is not at all clear how or whether this exemption from regulation will present difficulties for CFTC staff attempting to determine whether MiFID provides the "comparable comprehensive oversight" that Dodd Frank requires of foreign jurisdictions whose "persons" trade in U.S. markets.
But as Finance Watch also noted, commodity market regulation is just a small part of MiFID. Equally important are measures on consumer financial protection, cross-border implementation of MiFID, and rules to prevent price distortion as a result of High Frequency Trading (HFT) practices. HFT positions are held for just milli-seconds before being traded in response to computer trading algorithms. Because HFT positions are closed out before the end of the trading day, HFT traders and exchanges elude position limits and position reporting requirements of Dodd-Frank. However, MiFID will slow down HFT's propensity to crash through provisions for emergency trading halts, requirements for minimum price increments and measures to prevent destabilizing volumes of orders that do not result in trades, but distort prices. The Level 2 battle over HFT implementing rules will be fierce, and in our view, requires at least as much European NGO lobbying as that which will be devoted to position limits and position reporting.
In a response to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's request for comment on its HFT and ATS concept release, a preliminary step towards possible rule-making, IATP assumed that the CFTC would regulate HFT, at least to the extent of complying with MiFID's cross-border application of HFT rules. Although the vast majority of HFT trades concern interest rate contracts, the sharp increase in HFT trading in commodity contracts since 2007 has exacerbated price volatility across commodities. The costs of trying to manage that volatility, together with HFT fees, are among the costs that inflate both the wholesale cost of raw materials and the retail cost of consumer goods, including food.
Orthodox agricultural economics, as reflected in a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report, continues to explain agriculture prices within traditional terms, as if HFT and commodity index funds had not and do not affect agricultural prices. The USDA report adopted the Chicago Mercantile exchange explanation, given to the CFTC in 2010, for the failure of contract prices to converge to a reliable reference price for farmers to use when forward contracting sales. That USDA/CME explanation concerns a failure of contract design to take into full account storage fees and delivery points for physically deliverable contracts.
In view of the orthodox explanation for agricultural prices and the downward price trend, should we conclude that the agricultural market has "self-corrected" and that traders should continue to "self-regulate," as they did by and large before the 2007-2009 market collapse? The temporary exit of investors from commodity index funds in 2013 has reduced the excessive financial speculation in commodities that took place during 2004-2012. In anticipation of Dodd Frank regulation of Over the Counter trades, which pre-Dodd Frank were dark to regulators and the public, trades have migrated to what the Europeans call "lit venues", i.e. regulated exchanges. However, some trading venues remain dark, e.g. when trading large positions (bloc trading) would cause the price to move against the trader because of exchange grade pre-trade transparency requirements.
This trade migration has improved price formation transparency. Price transparency and reduction of financially induced volatility will have a direct bearing on the cost of crop insurance for U.S. farmers under the just passed Farm Bill. For example, corn insurance premiums will be calculated according to the February average price of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) corn futures contract.
Fundamental supply and demand factors also have helped to reduce price levels. For example, the globally influential CBOT price for a No. 2 Yellow Corn Futures contract, at $4.36 a bushel on February 3, is about 50 cents below the estimated cost of producing a bushel of corn in Iowa under a high-yield scenario. In the absence of regulation to prevent agribusiness monopoly input pricing, tax payer financed revenue assurance programs in the just passed U.S. Farm Bill will make up for the prices the market doesn't yield.
Notwithstanding improvements in price formation transparency that are a result of the Dodd Frank requirements on price reporting, a fully implemented position limits regime and regulation of HFT are urgently needed. Just as the European institutions have taken a big step towards creating a position limits regime to reduce excessive financial speculation, the CFTC is now challenged to write an HFT rule that can be harmonized with the HFT rules that will result from MiFID 2. A financial speculator tactical retreat from commodities as an investment asset class is no sound reason to abandon the struggle to regulate the commodity markets and traders on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.
Posted February 7, 2014 by Tara Ritter
It's a big week in the agriculture world. Just days before Obama signed the new Farm Bill into law, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the locations of seven regional hubs for climate change adaptation and mitigation. These hubs will attempt to address the risks that farmers increasingly face due to climate change—including fires, pests, droughts and floods—by disseminating research on ways landowners can adapt to and adjust management strategies to build resilience.
This is a notable step forward in climate policy and has important implications for rural communities. Many rural communities tend to view large governmental agencies negatively, especially those agencies that regulate the agricultural activities that dominate many of those communities' economies. However, farmers feel the direct impacts of extreme weather more than anyone. The climate hubs will help by linking a diverse network of partners, including universities, nongovernmental organizations, federal agencies, state departments, native nations, farm groups and more. Broadcasting climate change research and information from this wide array of sources, including sources that farmers trust and regularly interact with, could make climate change adaptation and mitigation a more accepted and commonly desired goal.
Encouraging action on climate change is paramount not only from an environmental perspective, but from an economic perspective as well. The drought of 2012 cost the American economy an estimated $50 billion between 2011 and 2013. It's too early to assess the costs of the current drought punishing California, which produces nearly half of the country's fruits and vegetables. Clearly, the risks posed by volatile weather events have implications not only for farmers, but for the economy and society as a whole.
Increasing farm resiliency to climate change will be critical to realizing the new Farm Bill's projected $23 billion in savings. Most of these savings are due to the elimination of direct payments, but this figure does not take into account the likelihood that crop insurance payments could skyrocket as the climate continues to fluctuate. Unfortunately, the Farm Bill does not acknowledge climate change, and actually cuts programs like the Conservation Stewardship Program that could help support farmers building climate resilience. Therefore, encouraging on-farm climate change adaptation could bring significant savings by decreasing reliance on crop insurance.
These climate hubs have the potential to advance a comprehensive suite of agroecological farming practices. Practices such as reduced tillage, cover crops and crop rotations serve multiple purposes by increasing soil nutrients and water-holding capacity and decreasing erosion and the prevalence of pests and disease (adaptation), as well as helping sequester more carbon in the soil by building soil organic matter (mitigation). Despite the start-up and transition costs of some of these practices, they save farmers money in the long run by boosting yields and decreasing reliance on synthetic chemicals. The hubs should focus on helping farmers implement these practices and support them in the transition years.
There is no single initiative that will provide the answer to the challenges that climate change presents, but the establishment of these regional climate hubs is a step in the right direction.
Posted February 5, 2014 by Ben Lilliston
Was it just exhaustion from two-plus years of negotiations that finally produced the Farm Bill that is expected to be signed by the President this week? Or, was it the sense that "it could have been a lot worse" when compared with a mean-spirited, destructive Farm Bill passed by the House of Representatives last year. For whatever reason, there is a sense that a deeply flawed Farm Bill—the terms of which were dictated largely by austerity fanatics from the start—is the best we'll get under the current political environment.
That's a problem for all of us. It's definitely a problem for the growing number of working age Americans who rely on food stamps. This Farm Bill cuts food stamp benefits (about 80 percent of the Farm Bill costs) by $8.6 billion.
It's a problem for the environment and the urgent need to help farmers shift toward more climate resilient production systems to deal with extreme weather events. The bill cuts about $6 billion from conservation programs, the first time conservation funding has been cut since it became part of the Farm Bill in 1985 (excellent analysis by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition). Those cuts reduce the number of acres for the Conservation Reserve Program (which takes sensitive land out of production to protect habitat and wildlife) from 32 million to 24 million acres. It also limits the new acres of enrollment into the Conservation Stewardship Program (which support conservation measures on working farms) to 10 million per year—a cut of 2.8 million acres per year over the next decade.
It's also a problem for a host of other smaller Farm Bill programs, including the outreach focused on Disadvantaged and Minority Farmers, which was slashed in half from $20 million to $10 million.
Democratic decision-making and transparency saw major setbacks, too. Breaking a promise for an open public vote, the Farm Bill conference committee instead cut a deal in secret and unveiled a final bill early last week.
Like all Farm Bills, it is not all good or bad, and there was some good. Many advocates (including IATP) succeeded in beating back efforts by the meat industry to weaken Country of Origin Labeling and undermine enforcement of fair competition rules for poultry and hog producers. The bill relinks crop insurance programs with requirements for farmers to take conservations measures like wetlands protection and stops incentives to expand cropland into native grasslands. It also renews commitments to Beginning Farmer programs, local foods programs, requires the development of a whole farm insurance program (benefitting diversified farms) and improves options for insurance for organic producers. It expands organic research and provides mandatory funding to important energy programs like the Renewable Energy for America Program and the Biomass Crop Assistance Program.
While the champions of this Farm Bill tout an estimated $23 billion in savings over 10 years, we are skeptical. Much of the savings come from the elimination of direct payments to commodity crop farmers regardless of price, and a shift toward government-subsidized revenue insurance programs. The agricultural services (crop insurance) and crop production (i.e., Monsanto) industries spent more than 57.5 million lobbying the Farm Bill, according to Open Secrets, and they got what they wanted in these programs. But given the extreme price volatility of the agricultural marketplace (the price of corn saw the largest single year drop in 60 years last year), combined with a continued series of climate-related weather events, it's quite possible that the new farm programs will cost more than the old ones in the end.
Just as important as what's in this Farm Bill, is understanding what isn't. In fact, many of the biggest challenges in agriculture and food are not currently addressed in this Farm Bill:
We badly need strong food and farm policy if we're going to take on these challenges, and that must include a reformed Farm Bill that is more true to its critical legacy of empowering farmers over agribusiness and protecting nature coming out of the New Deal. We don't need to wait another five years for the next Farm Bill to get started; we can start now on the road to reform. More and more groups around the country are working on creative policy approaches to reform our food and farm system. New political alliances are being developed that not only focus on short-term battles but could pay dividends for the next Farm Bill. This is why we've launched Beyond the Farm Bill initiative. We're engaging with policy experts around the country and highlighting the best policy approaches at the local, state and national level to bring about a fair, sustainable and healthy food and farm system. Join the conversation and stay informed at beyondthefarmbill.org.
Posted February 3, 2014 by Karen Hansen-Kuhn
Farmers, union, environmental and women's activists gathered in Mexico City last week to take stock of the lessons from NAFTA and plan strategies to confront the next big threat: the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). One of the earliest lessons from the NAFTA experience was that people and environments in all three countries were affected. The stories from Mexico, Canada and the U.S. were remarkably similar: environmental destruction, threats to union and community organizing, and, in all sectors, a marked increase in corporate concentration as companies gained new abilities to move different aspects of production across borders in search of lower costs and higher profits.
This has been especially true in agriculture. As part of the multisectoral forum, more than 100 members of ANEC, (the National Association of Rural Commercialization Enterprises, which brings together more than 60,000 Mexican small- and medium-scale farmers), organized a farmers' forum with international allies. Alberto Arroyo, a longtime leader in the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC), explained that Mexico's dependency on food imports has increased dramatically since the agreement began, from 16 percent before NAFTA, to more than 42 percent today. That situation is even more alarming when we consider that today nearly half of Mexican families, even with two wage earners, can't afford the "canasta basica" of basic necessities. Adding on to the devastation wreaked on the countryside by the influx of cheap corn under NAFTA, TPP would compel Mexican coffee farmers to compete with cheap Vietnamese robusta coffee.
Doug Peterson from the U.S. National Farmers' Union echoed those concerns. None of us is against trade, he said, but how that happens, and what the rules are, really do matter. He highlighted intellectual property rights proposals in TPP that would grant enormous new rights over seeds and other inputs to already powerful transnational corporations. NFU is concerned that those rights would be extended to patents on animal husbandry, expanding Monsanto's dominance over seeds to breeding rights. In general, he said, what we really need are stable public policies to balance innovations in agriculture with food justice.
Victor Suarez, the leader of ANEC, emphasized the importance of rebuilding ties among farmers and consumers, unions and environmentalists. The TPP negotiations are forcing Mexicans to fight some of the same battles that came up during the NAFTA debate. The privatization of the Mexican ejido system of communal land owning, which the government liberalized as a pre-condition for NAFTA, is once again on the table. The 1991 reforms allowed existing ejidos to remain under community control, but new agricultural reforms announced in January would put those farms on a "fast track" for privatization, expelling thousands of small-scale farmers from their lands. Investment rules in NAFTA support changes in laws on land and mineral rights, often carried out in the dead of night, that devastate communities' rights to natural resources. Plans to carry out a "second green revolution" in Mexico will increase pressure to use GMO seeds, as well as chemical fertilizers that will poison the soil and water so that they will not support sustainable agriculture, Suarez told participants. People in all three countries, he said, need to work together to recover sovereignty over our food, seeds and land.
Those efforts are already underway, starting with a massive march against neoliberal reforms in Mexico that pushed back on reforms to labor, energy and education policies. We added our voices against the expansion of the NAFTA model in TPP to more than 65,000 people who rallied at Mexico's Monument to the Revolution and marched to the historic Zocalo Square to demand a new economy that puts equality, justice and human rights first. We were joined by activists in more than 50 cities across the United States and Canada in an international day of action against TPP and Corporate Globalization. The next joint actions will take place on February 19, when Presidents Obama and Peña Nieto and Prime Minister Harper meet in Toluca, Mexico.
The fight against fast track is the urgent issue right now in the United States. But our experience with other trade debates (such as the failed negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas), demonstrates the crucial importance of coordinated action among civil society groups in the countries involved. Together, this chorus of voices has real potential to stop trade talks based on expanding the NAFTA model and create new economic ties based on human rights and food sovereignty.
The final declaration from the NAFTA plus 20 conference is available in English, Spanish and French.
Visit Citizens Trade Campaign's Action Center to learn more and to get involved with the campaign on fast track and TPP.
Posted January 31, 2014 by Patrick Tsai
Food insecurity is a lucrative endeavor for U.S. agribusiness corporations. As a matter of course, hunger has taken a backseat to maintaining a dominant trade position when it comes to U.S. trade negotiations and domestic policy. As long as the U.S. holds its position as the world's largest agricultural exporter, and import-dependent countries continue to be bound by rules that exploit their vulnerability to volatile commodity markets, U.S. agribusiness will profit indefinitely at the expense of the most vulnerable.
In order to address global hunger effectively, the U.S. government will have to acknowledge the effect its current agricultural policy has on global food security and extend the same lenience to allow developing countries the reestablishment of sovereignty in their own food systems without threat of dispute settlement or retaliatory trade sanctions. As it stands, wealth, subsidy classification, export credits and food aid contribute to a system of subjugation and persisting power disparities.
Inequalities in power between nations exist before negotiations begin. Initial positions of wealth determine the degree to which countries can leverage the allowed subsidies outlined within international agricultural agreements to promote food security and rural development. Developed countries' subsidies comprise the "lion's share" of global spending supporting agriculture (though they are, in theory, bound by greater reduction commitments under trade agreements). This raises the question, "Given the inequality in initial positions, must [the situation] inevitably result in inequality in outcomes?" (Matthews 2008, 82). Developing countries' stagnant progress toward food security and rural development, compared to developed countries relative effectiveness, attests to the importance of economic wealth.
Power disparities are further exacerbated through exploitation of the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). The AoA, a byproduct of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Uruguay Round (UR) negotiations, was agreed upon in 1994. The AoA guides agricultural trade for WTO member countries, and the text acts as the basis for the WTO's agricultural subsidies categorization system. The categories signify the extent of trade distortion and what is allowable. For the most part, agricultural subsidies fall under one of three classifications:
** In addition to these three subsidy classifications, developing countries may use the classification of "special and differential treatment" (found in Article 6.2) and all member countries may use "De minnimis" rules for spending on product specific support, developed countries 5 percent and developing countries 10 percent of value of production.
It is believed that countries subject to AMS reductions and limits, such as the U.S., exploit the system through "box shifting," the practice of re-categorizing trade-distorting amber box subsidies into the blue or green box without making any substantive reform to subsidy programs (ICTSD 2007 2). Box shifting best characterizes the changes in U.S. agricultural policy stemming from the 1996 Farm Bill in order to conform to the newly implemented AoA. Domestic food security programs, seen as minimally trade distorting by the WTO, have historically comprised a large portion of U.S. agricultural subsidies and after the 2007-08 financial crisis these allocations grew even more. The degree to which the U.S. leverages and continues to grow green box subsidies is apparent in the following slides from WTO economist Diwakar Dixit (Figure 1) and ICTSD (Figure 2).
Figure 1 – US Green Box and AMS spending from 1995 to 2010
Source: http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/est/meetings/wto_nov/1_Dixit_WTO.pdf
Figure 2 – US subsidy spending from 1995 to 2010
Source: http://ictsd.org/i/news/bridgesweekly/146491/
Subsidies are critical for helping producers adequately address risk and in helping achieve higher levels of food security. In 2010, the U.S. allocated $120.5 billion to green box subsidies, $94.9 billion of which went to domestic food aid (WTO 2012 G/AG/N/USA/89). Though the U.S. takes full advantage of green box subsidies to provide food security to its own people, the World Bank reports 5 percent of the U.S. population is undernourished (~15.6 million people1). At the recent Bali ministerial, the U.S. actively denied developing countries, such as India which experiences 18 percent undernourishment (~219.8 million people undernourished2), from taking measures to subsidize further development of food security programs. India allocates about one-ninth the amount of money to food security programs5 while managing a population approximately 4 times the size3 and suffering 14 times the amount of hunger4 as the U.S. The G-33, a "coalition" of developing countries facing similar trade and economic issues (including India), proposed three amendments to the AoA at the Bali WTO ministerial. The G-33 proposal allows more leeway in terms of how money can be used for food reserves and how AMS is calculated (see also, ICTSD 2013). Adoption of the G-33 proposal could result in greater food security for countries able to leverage the revised language by establishing stockholdings that reduce price volatility in domestic markets and provide a source of emergency food relief.
The U.S. argues that the G-33 proposal centers on trade-distorting supply-management structures. The argument is predicated on free market ideology, the tenets of which the U.S. circumvents through misidentified subsidies and its own trade-distorting green box subsidies. The U.S. decoupled subsidy payments under the 1996 Federal Agriculture Improvement Reform Act (FAIR) to follow Green box criteria, however ICTSD points out that the OECD (OECD 2001), World Bank (de Gorter 2003, 5) and USDA ERS (USDA 2002, 12) have found decoupled payments trade distorting. (ICTSD 2007 25,26) For many, the laissez-faire economic paradigm is seen to perpetuate hunger by reducing sovereignty in the agricultural sector of developing countries through reductions in government support, removal of protectionist policies and opening markets to increased imports of cheap and below production cost commodities (ActionAid, 7, IATP/UNCTAD, Food First).
Timothy Wise of Tufts University aptly describes the U.S. position on the G-33 proposal as hypocritical and an "attack on the right to food." Some may argue that the U.S. position on the G-33 proposal comes as no surprise due to the fact the U.S. has not accepted the right to food under the human rights framework (IFPRI 2007 1, the Nation, Righting Food) and was the only dissenting country, out of 181, to vote against a 2008 U.N. "resolution on the right to food, by which the assembly would 'consider it intolerable' […] that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world's present population. (See Annex III)" (GA/SHC/3941). Indeed the U.S. continues to adhere to a course guided by infamous precedent.
Figure 3 – Projections for reaching WFS and MGD hunger goals
Source: http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3434e/i3434e.pdf
It is true that U.S. food aid has saved lives, however the net effect is arguably detrimental. U.S. food aid and hunger relief programs have been associated with undermining local food systems resulting in vulnerability and dependence on world markets (Clapp 2004, Hansen-Kuhn 2012, OECD 2000). The failing trajectory for both international goals to halve hunger (Figure 3), the World Food Summit (WFS) and Millennium Development Goals (MDG), warrants sincere consideration of food aid critique. Two notable areas of controversy in U.S. policy, said to address hunger, are the export credit guarantee program (GSM-102) outlined in the current Farm Bill (PL 110-246 section 3101) and Public Law 480 (PL 480), the 1954 Agricultural Trade and Development Assistance Act otherwise known as Food for Peace. The latter institutionalizes the dumping of U.S. overproduction on vulnerable countries feigned as food aid (Weis 2007, 67).
While appearing charitable, the use of export credits takes advantage of poor nations' vulnerability to high prices and the need to feed their large populations on small budgets. Officially supported export credits are characterized by below market interest rates, longer repayment schedules, reduced/no fees and government guaranteed repayment of loans (OECD 2000, 8,Clapp 2004, 1441). These attributes result in lower purchasing prices for importers, effectively subsidizing exporter goods. (OECD 2000, 8) The current Farm Bill outlays 5.5 billion dollars a year for the program, though not always used in its entirety (FY 2013 $3 Billion). The OECD determined that due to the immense size of outlays and the excessive use, US export credits have a much greater trade distorting effect on world markets than any other country. The OECD also found that historically the US extends a very small proportion of overall export credits to countries most in need, least developed countries (LDC) and net food importing developing countries (NFIDC) (Clapp 2004, 1442). In addition to trade distortion, the burden of export credit debt acts to retard progress in developing countries by diverting funds for social programs to debt repayment (Eurodad, 2011).
PL 480 Title I is controversial for many of the same reasons as export credits. The title outlines policy on food aid sold under concessional terms, "grace periods of five years, repayment periods of up to 30 years, and below market interest rates" (Clapp 2004, 1442). Furthering the controversy, Title I has the explicit purpose to "improve commercial markets abroad," (Clapp 2004, 1442) and therefore is not necessarily a tool dedicated to relief, but rather a title used to promote the U.S.'s own trade interests. Titles II and III of PL 480 pertain to U.S. in-kind food aid. Most U.S. food aid is purchased from U.S. producers (at least 75 percent by law) and shipped as in-kind donations to countries in need (Hansen-Kuhn 2012, 1). In-kind food aid sales are seen to "distort international trade by displacing commercial trade," and are inefficient compared to other forms of assistance (Clapp 2004, 1442). Alternatively, food aid programs focused on local and regional procurement offer monetary donations that stimulate local economies by providing means for local purchases from farmers in the afflicted country or region. There are also less costs due to reduced distances of travel (Hansen-Kuhn 2012, 1; Murphy 2005, 12). The current U.S. food aid titles have addressed hunger to some extent, however it can be argued that their usage has, to a greater extent, amplified power asymmetries by undermining sovereignty and local food systems, making these nations more reliant on imports and subservient through debt.
Sadly, agricultural trade has become an art of identifying loopholes and re-categorizing subsidies that curtail risk to profits at home while perpetuating hunger abroad. Trade dominance amounts to how well a country can leverage subsidies exempt from World Trade Organization (WTO) limits and reduction commitments, and maintain programs that create and expand markets in vulnerable regions. Developing countries suffer under the brunt of these actions in the form of food insecurity. The issue of hunger has found a blind spot in the purview of developed country trade negotiations, which are focused more on maintaining powerful trade positions than ceding any control that might bring about food security and food sovereignty to developing countries.
Advocating rules that obstruct a country's ability to feed its hungry is an act of subjugation. By leveraging trade agreements and perverting the intentions of trade rules, the U.S. is negotiating the terms of global oppression where it could be genuinely helping others.
1 U.S. pop. 311.6 million (2011 World Bank) X 0.05 (2011 World Bank) ~ 15.6 million
2 India pop. 1.221 billion (2011 World Bank) X 0.18 (2011 World Bank) ~219.8 million
3 World Bank numbers 1.221 billion (India pop.) / 311.6 million (US pop.) ~ 4
4 219.8 million / 15.6 million ~ 14
5 India's GAIN 2009/10 stockholding numbers compared to US WTO domestic food aid notification for year 2010 G/AG/N/USA/89
Posted January 29, 2014 by Tara Ritter
The second Rural Climate Network newsletter was released last week, featuring updates on how rural America is responding to the climate challenge. Since the first newsletter, the network has welcomed five new member organizations that represent the diversity of climate work across the country and display how climate change impacts sectors ranging from fisheries to forestry to meat production. The member spotlight this month is Organic Valley, and a featured interview with Sustainability Program Manager Jonathan Reinbold outlines the organization's views on climate change. Policy that incentivizes this kind of on-the-ground work is critical in supporting the growing rural movement to adapt to and mitigate climate change.
This edition of the newsletter also features a brief interview with Renata Brillinger of the California Climate and Agriculture Network (CalCAN) to better understand how California farmers and ranchers are handling the drought that is currently underway in California. According to Brillinger, "mandated cutbacks in water distributions, along with depletions in available surface water and groundwater, are forcing farmers to dig deeper into their pockets while making tough decisions about crop planting and livestock management." Some farmers have resorted to pumping groundwater to compensate for the lack of water elsewhere, but that is not a sustainable strategy in the long term should the drought persist and other ideas are needed.
Certain agricultural practices work to increase soil resiliency and keep the raindrop where it falls more effectively than others. For instance, crop rotation and crop diversification encourage increased water-holding capacity in soils and reduce the amount of runoff that occurs from monocropped soils. Particular crops are also less water-intensive than others, and farmers would benefit from increasing the amount of hardy crops grown on their land.
However, Brillinger is right on point when she says, "while there are actions individual growers can take to cope with drought and other climate change impacts, this is not just a farmer's problem." In order to encourage an agricultural system that remains resilient in the face of extreme weather events, farmers need technical and financial assistance to build soil health and water efficiency. With today's stalled farm policy, it is more important than ever to advocate for policies that will incentivize sustainable, robust farm operations.
Sign up for future editions of the Rural Climate Network newsletter and learn more about what member organizations are doing regarding climate change in their communities at www.ruralclimatenetwork.org. If you are involved with an organization that would be a good fit for the network or would like to add your voice to this growing movement in another way, please email firstname.lastname@example.com.
Posted January 28, 2014 by Karen Hansen-Kuhn Ben Lilliston
Congress is quietly considering legislation that would speed the passage of two mega trade agreements, and seeks to specifically eliminate government programs that favor "localization." The bill would give the Obama Administration what is known as "fast track" authority—meaning Congress would surrender its constitutional authority to shape trade agreements negotiated by the president and instead can only vote up or down on the deal.
Why should those working for a fair, sustainable food system care? Perhaps no area of policy has undermined local food systems around the world more than the slew of trade agreements passed over the last several decades. These trade rules cover everything from tariffs, food safety and intellectual property to enshrining corporate rights. They place restrictions on what is allowed in national policies, like the Farm Bill, as well as the state and local level. These deals have heavily tilted the playing field from farmers and consumers toward global agribusiness and food giants like Cargill, Monsanto and Wal-Mart.
Because these trade deals, like NAFTA and CAFTA, have been so blatantly negotiated on behalf of multinational corporations and have contributed to growing income inequality, they've been extremely unpopular. This is why the Obama Administration has decided to negotiate these two new trade agreements in secret. That's right, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (including more than a dozen countries) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (with our biggest trading partner, the EU) is being negotiated entirely behind closed doors. The negotiating text has not been made public, and, amazingly, even many members of Congress are in the dark about what's happening.
Aside from putting these secret trade deals on a fast track, the bill introduced by Senators Max Baucus and Orrin Hatch and Representative Dave Camp includes a new negotiating priority objective to eliminate what it calls "localization barriers." Local content requirements have been a stated target of the U.S. Trade Representative in other countries like India. But of course, any agreement to undermine local content rules in another country would also apply to U.S. programs that give preference to locally sourced food or energy.
Here are 5 issues on the negotiating table in these trade agreements that local food activists should be worried about:
There is too much at stake for Congress to pass fast track and open the door for the speedy passage of mega trade deals that threaten to undermine much of the important work being done to build more sustainable, healthy and fair food systems. The good news is that we can prevent this from happening. There is growing opposition to Fast Track in Congress. More than 150 House members have expressed their opposition to the bill. Now is the time for the local and sustainable food community needs to tell their member of Congress to oppose fast track. IATP is a member of the Citizens Trade Campaign, go to their action center and let your member of Congress know your concerns.
Posted January 28, 2014 by Shefali Sharma
Over 13 years ago, IATP documented the transformation of U.S. hog production in The Price We Pay for Corporate Hogs. In a period of 30 years (1950–1980), the number of U.S. hog farms declined by nearly 80 percent, while the average farm size increased six-fold. Whereas in 1950, 2.1 million independent farmers raised pigs outdoors or indoors with bedded straw or hay (raising 31 pigs a year); at the end of the 90s, a total of 105 farms accounted for 40 percent of U.S. production (50,000 pigs each). By 1999, 50 percent or more of the farmers were under some sort of contractual arrangement and four companies (including Smithfield) controlled 20 percent of the production. In the last decade, this process has only intensified. By 2007, four companies controlled 66 percent of the production, all at great cost to U.S. farmers, consumers, the environment and public health.
What do the United States and China have in common when it comes to pigs today? The answer is not just Smithfield, now part of the world's largest pork producing corporation owned by Shuanghui—China's largest pork processor. The process that neared its end in the 80s in the United States began in China during that same period. Literally, millions of small-scale farmers raising a small number of pigs, chickens and cows have disappeared in the last 30 years. Those who continue to survive and further scale-up have become "specialized farmers"—part of a brutal cost-cutting supply chain dictated by intense competition between meat companies who increasingly double up as feed companies and vice versa. In the midst of these changes, China is grappling with environmental pollution, public health risks, and recurrent and rampant food safety concerns—again, very similar to the concerns that have arisen in the United States.
In February, IATP will launch four reports on China's feed, pork, dairy and poultry supply chains. It is an endeavor to understand and share how China's transformation toward a U.S. model is both a common story of industrial meat production anywhere (be it the United States or Germany) and also specific to China. It is also an attempt to show how China's story, like the U.S.'s, is a global one, with global links and global impacts. Understanding how Chinese companies are "going out" to develop their supply chains, and how major U.S. and other international livestock and dairy companies are "going in" to China, better prepares us to address the global nature of this industrial complex and its impacts both domestically and globally. It can help us to get beyond big headlines in the paper about China's growing meat consumption and dig deeper into how and why it is taking place and imagine a different pathway toward fairness, nutrition, public health, and environmental protection in food production—lessons that are readily available from the U.S. experience.
The global trend points to ever greater consolidation of fewer and more powerful corporations controlling ever scarcer water and land resources to feed millions of animals in confined spaces to produce more cheap meat. How citizens and governments deal with the externalities of this sector and its endemic global ramifications merit careful thought. China—as the largest producer of pork, the second largest producer of poultry, the largest feed importer in the world and the fourth largest dairy producer—is a critical piece of this global puzzle.
Financiers such as Morgan Stanley, Rabobank, Goldman Sachs have a great stake in China's increased and unquestioned meat consumption growth. Meanwhile, Chinese consumers are increasingly concerned about growing food safety problems in their meat and food supply. Food safety concerns have the potential to be game changers in China's consumption trends. Currently, these threats are used to further industrialize the meat and dairy sectors, but if lessons are learned from the U.S. experience, this needn't be a fait accompli.
IATP's forthcoming reports help understand these production and consumption trends and map some of these critical issues in order to gain more insight into China's role in the Global Industrial Meat Complex and the global industry's role in China.
Sign up now to be the first to recieve IATP's forthcoming reports on industrialized meat in China. Learn more at www.iatp.org/industrial-meat.


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FRUITS and VEGETABLES
SUNCHOKE hazelnut, lacinato kale, sherry vinegar | 15
BURRATA cured venison, hazelnut, violet vinegar |
BEETS burrata, celery, lemon | 14
HEN OF THE WOODS MUSHROOM tosaka seaweed, pickled ramps, squid ink | 14
MUSTARD GREEN SOUP clams, radish, brioche | 12
PASTA and GRAINS
SPELT RADIATORE guanciale, fiore di sardo, soft poached egg | 13
CHITARRA grayson, radicchio, marcona almonds | 13
HEN EGG RAVIOLO butternut squash, white chocolate, foie gras | 15
FISH and SHELLFISH
SCALLOP celery root, grapefruit, fennel | 16
SKATE WING chorizo, kohlrabi, romaine | 21
BLACK BASS sunchoke, apple, fennel | 22
SHRIMP tamarind, calamari, crab, shiitake | 23
MEAT and GAME
FOIE GRAS black truffle, salsify, arugula | 19
VEAL SWEETBREADS masa, mole, pickled butternut | 14
CHICKEN savoy cabbage, turnips, pearl onions | 25
VENISON rutabaga, turnip, brussels sprouts | 30
PORK black eyed peas, bacon, kale | 28
CHEESE and DESSERT
FRESH SAFFRON CHEESE golden raisin, cauliflower, sourdough | 9
CHOCOLATE hazelnut, nitro milk stout, nanaimo bar | 9
MANGO pistachio, smoked celery root mascarpone | 9
COCONUT asian pear, lime | 9
CITRUS FROZEN YOGURT carmelized pear, sage, anise, kumquat | 9
TASTING of MENU
NANTUCKET BAY SCALLOPS are served raw and dressed in a vinaigrette made from meyer lemon, cara cara orange, and grapefruit. celery root puree, crispy shallots, and raw fennel to garnish.
BLACK BASS is cured with salt and citrus zest, then confit in olive oil. sunchoke, fennel, apple, and celery are juiced to make a boullion. shaved fennel and winter radish. crispy skin.
PARSNIP SOUP veloute is made with onion, garlic, and aromatics. puffed winter wheat berries are dressed with sage oil and banyuls vinegar. pink peppercorns, braised pearl onions, and chiffonade of sage.
BUTTERNUT RAVIOLO filled with a puree of butternut squash, white chocolate, and egg yolk. foie gras has been cured and shaved. butternut squash juice and foie gras are emulisified for sauce.
LAMB steel cut oatmeal is cooked in lamb stock and black trumpet mushrooms are sauteed. the sauce is made from the braising liquid and finished with capers, anchovies, and red peppers. |
CHOCOLATE hazelnut and caramel stracciatella. ice cream of left hand nitro milk stout. nanaimo bar made from dark chocolate, toasted walnuts, and toasted hazelnuts
TASTING of FRUITS and VEGETABLES
CHERRY dried cherries are steeped with chamomile tea and spices, then pureed and mixed with, a citrus pasty cream. it is then aerated and frozen with liquid nitrogen. st germain and elderflower vinegar are set into a gelee. sweetened buttermilk
MUSTARD GREEN SOUP stock is made from stems and aromatics then thickened with puree of mustard green leaves. white wine and tarragon steamed clams, winter radish, mustard seed.
CHITARRA egg pasta is handcut on a traditional chitarra. radicchio is charred and seasoned with mulberry vinegar. grayson cheese is melted into a fondue to sauce the noodles. a gremolata is made from marcona almond, parsley, lemon, and the cheese rind.
CAULIFLOWER custard enriched with eggs and baked. green apples compressed in apple cider vinegar. locally foraged watercress. sauce of sea urchin, ginger, lemongrass, and white wine.
DUMPLINGS MADE FROM JOHN COPES CORN roasted in oil made from dried chili peppers. ragout of hen of the woods mushrooms and hericot verts. fresh cheese made from local milk.
BEETS roasted with aromatics, celery and lemon pith puree. lemon zest is powered. celery stalks are thinly shaved. burrata , parsley and lavender oil.
six course tasting menu 95 | beverage pairing 65


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Tag Archives: movies
Movie Links for my Media Literacy Students
We've been talking about the movies this week in my media literacy class, and I've shown a range of video clips, but there are even more clips that I haven't had time to show. So here are links to a … Continue reading
Posted in Chapter 8 Tagged cat videos, movies Leave a comment
When Words Matter
The words we use matter intensely. Sometimes they tell others a lot about who we are. Sometimes when we use the wrong words we hurt people we hadn't intended to. And sometimes we don't have any idea what the actual … Continue reading
Posted in Chapter 2, Chapter 4, Chapter 8 Tagged books, Christopher Nolan, Lemony Snicket, movies, vocabulary Leave a comment
Box Office Mojo mysteriously disappears/reappears
Box Office Mojo, the source of endless movie box office financial statistics, disappeared for a couple of days in mid-October 2014, prompting speculation that the site had been absorbed into IMDb.com, which owns BOM. But then it just as mysteriously … Continue reading
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Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)
What are the six types of Twitter communities? And which are the most toxic? Would you be surprised if it were the political ones? Nah, me neither. This is from The Fix blog at the WaPo, but you can read … Continue reading
Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)
Why did James Bond switch from a 25 Barretta to a Walther PPK? Because the man who would inspire Ian Flemming to create Q said that Bond wouldn't live very long with a girly gun like the Barretta. Why is … Continue reading
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Oscar Nominations 2014: Brühl snubbed, Hustle gets acting nominations in all four categories
Oscar nominations were announced bright and early this morning, with several surprises in what is widely considered to be one of the tightest fields in years. Gravity and American Hustle led the nominations with 10 nods each, followed by 12 … Continue reading
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Women and the Movies 2013 Part 2 – Where are the women directors?
While women talking to each other about something other than a man in movies was a good indicator of success last year, 2013 was not a stellar year for women directors. According to a story from Variety, only two of … Continue reading
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Women and the Movies 2013 Part 1 – Bechdel Test Movies
There's long been the argument made that the reason that movies primarily feature male characters is that these types of movies make more money than those that have prominent female characters. For 2013, that statement is demonstrably false. A study … Continue reading
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Remembering Peter O'Toole
Actor Peter O'Toole died today at the age of 81. He has been my favorite actor since I was in high school. Here are a few of the reasons why: "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!" – My … Continue reading
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May 10, 2012 at 12:00AM EDT
I'll see what I can do. Try looking up ponycraft, I hear it's good.
I know. it's kind of sad, really.
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Since the Flanders thread started more than a week before D-Day, I think we can start a thread on Paris-Roubaix now (for, of course, Flanders is only a prep race for the big one ).
Paris-Roubaix has three nicknames:
Hell of the North (I don't like it)
The Easter Race (I don't like it)
& The Queen of the Classics: I like it because I think it has the main features of what a monarch can be, prestige and uniqueness. You can say that Tour of Flanders resembles Harelbeke, Het Volk, etc., that Liège-Bastogne looks like all the Italian semis of Autumn but Paris-Roubaix is the one and only one !
In the early days, Paris-Roubaix was already known for its cobbles that were already in worse condition than everywhere else but it wasn't that unique since you could find cobbles everywhere. The race was rather known for its short distance compared to Bordeaux-Paris and Paris-Brest-Paris. In that respect the race shaped the future.
The course was totally different than the present-day one and by the 50's, that course gradually had less and less cobbled sections. Hence by 1966, the organizers decided to look for some old deserted cobbled paths in the Valenciennois and the Pévèle, no longer used by ordinary civilized traffic but for the driving of cattles.
That's how it became the Queen of the Classics. The only race that has been made more "archaic" than it used to be. And of course way harder.
Long flat cobbled sections, with almost no descent in between, that's its hardness.
I like quoting Charly Mottet who once said "If you wanna be a cycling rider, you've gotta finish Paris-Roubaix". I'll always pay my respect for all those who finish it, even the dead last ! even those who finish outside the time limits (who do not even deserve that). I always remember little Pablo Urtasun, in 2009, soloing for 60km to finish outside time limit while all of his group mates dismounted !!!
"Paris-Roubaix is do or die" said Madiot. If you're good, you hold through. If you aren't, you crash. What is a better symbol of fight.
Waiting for D-Day, I'll just share again the famous doco A Sunday in Hell (compulsory, lol)
And this film from last year (this can't be done at any other race!):


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If you're wondering where the iPhone could go next, Apple's newest products offer some interesting ideas.
Tips, news, how-tos, and troubleshooting help for the iPhone.
With Google's mix-and-match Project Ara handsets, the time is ripe for wacky add-ons to truly customize your phone.
Comedian Paul Laudiero and team might have gotten one step closer to solving the murder at the center of the wildly popular podcast -- by opening up the yellow pages.
At its CES press conference, the company showed off smartphones and PC hybrids.
The move is part of the company's evolution into a software business, which includes working with every major operating system.
Hopper shows you when is the best time to book airfare and can alert you when a flight's price has dropped and may go up.
Looking for tips on safely using your Android phone with your car's stereo? CNET has you covered.
If you're looking to video chat, these apps can help stay connected with HD video and extra features too.
Kind of like a Chromebook, but with Windows 8.1, this is perhaps the best laptop deal I've seen all year.
Mobile World Congress has officially begun in Barcelona, Spain. Here's all the stuff you missed at the first day of the show.


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I really enjoyed this book and the adventured contained with in. While it took a few chapters for this to get off the ground once it got started it shot for the stars. The over all story arc was very enjoyable and the characters are very easy to connect with especially Elyana, the story lead.
It was great to see Paizo have a tale in the line that returned to the standard adventuring party. And to be able to see the dynamics between the members in the party develop and not be assumed was really enjoyable. There were also plenty of twists to make this sometimes overdone story line interesting and it will keep you at the end of your seats at times.
While the writing style of the book, in particular the use of Interludes to bring in back story, took some getting used to they were always tied into the book very well and they didn't seem like a distraction which was my first fear when I saw they were there. The authors use of story specific humor was also very enjoyable and I often found my self laughing out loud at the slight turns of phrase used.
Overall I would highly recommend people pick up this book and I also hope to see Paizo extend this series because there are many ways I could see this developing down the road.
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|Blog Posts
New research suggests that a daily dose of vitamin D may help to reduce the risk of acquiring respiratory infections over winter. Carlos Camargo, MD, a professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues studied 247 Mongolian schoolchildren who were deficient in vitamin D. The children were randomly assigned to drink milk fortified with 300 IU of vitamin D3 or unfortified regular milk (control) between January and March. By the end of the study, average vitamin D levels had risen significantly in children receiving the fortified milk, from 7ng/mL at baseline to 19 ng/mL, but had remained at 7 ng/mL in the control group. Results showed that the children receiving vitamin D experienced approximately half the number of respiratory infections than children in the control group. "Our randomized controlled trial shows that vitamin D has important effects on infection risk," said Professor Carmargo. "In almost 250 children with low blood levels of vitamin D during winter, we found that taking a daily vitamin D supplement cut in half the risk of a respiratory infection." The authors note that low baseline vitamin D levels similar to those in the study participants are relatively common in some groups of Americans, particularly African-American children living in northern states.
Camargo CA Jr, Ganmaa D, Frazier AL, Kirchberg FF, Stuart JJ, Kleinman K, Sumberzul N, Rich-Edwards JW. Randomized Trial of Vitamin D Supplementation and Risk of Acute Respiratory Tract Infection in Mongolia. Pediatrics. 2012 Aug 20.
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Has anyone got their packaged bank account fees back?(6 Posts)
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Topiary with Arborvitae Question
ltjerne(Zone 7 WA)June 26, 2007
I am interested in making an arch out of my 2 12+ foot arborvitae - there is approx. 5 feet of space between them. Does anyone know how I would go about doing this? Or where there might be instructions? I have thought about pulling the tops together and then pruning to form the arch but don't know if this will work or not. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
vetivert8(NI-NZ zone 9a)
I'm recalling seeing where someone installed a temporary framework and then tied branches to it to persuade them to grow horizontally. They were lightly pruned, I think, to get a more dense foliage cover.
You might want to ask on the UK forum. I'm pretty sure I saw this in a British topiary publication.


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30 Aug 2014 19:37 GMT | Politics, Asia, Pakistan, Protests
Police in Pakistan's capital Islamabad have fired tear gas and rubber bullets on anti-government protesters attempting to storm Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's official residence, injuring six people, officials said..
Some 25,000 people began to march on the prime minister's house late on Saturday after talks with the government mediated by the army failed to end the impasse. Protesters have been camped outside parliament since August 15, demanding Sharif to resign and claiming that the election which swept him to power last year was rigged.
"The police are continuing to fire tear gas to disperse them," an AFP news agency journalist at the scene reported.The reporter said the shelling began when the protesters tried to remove some barricades located in front of the residences of the prime minister and president using cranes.
Wasim Raja, a spokesman for the government-run Pakistan Institute for Medical Sciences, Islamabad's main government hospital, said: "We have received six people, they have rubber bullet injuries."
Television pictures showed police in riot gear and some bloodied protesters being carried to ambulances.
The government issued a defiant statement saying Sharif would not be stepping down.
"There is no question of resignation or proceeding on leave by Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, nor any member from the government side has made such suggestion," the statement said.
Sharif had earlier dismissed the two-week old impasse as a "tiny storm" that would end soon.
The crisis deepended on Thursday after the government asked the army to mediate, raising fears the military would use the situation to enact a "soft coup" and increase its dominance over civilian authorities.
Source: AFP
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Libertarians and their abortion problemSubmitted by Unknownuser on Sat, 12/14/2013 - 11:35
How selfish are we to draw a line as to when life begins or when it is appropriate to abort a life? Most abortions are done because of burden. It is a burden when the mom or dad are not ready for various reasons. It is a burden when it is not planned. It is a burden when other methods of birth control fail. And yes, it is even a burden when it is a forced insemination.
You call yourselves freedom fighters. You come here to spout all your knowledge about Liberty. Tell me something...is it not Liberty for all? Why is a life in the womb...the most defenseless of all...not entitled to Liberty?
A wise man once said "how can we protect liberty if we can't protect life?"
If libertarians won't defend all life than I want no part of it.
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Conscriptionists and their liberty problem
Every fetus is a symbiont only if "every sperm is sacred". And if no one is ever raped, frail, or otherwise unwilling to put her life on the line for an unwelcome internal parasitic invader.
dynamite anthrax supreme court white house tea party jihad
to be continued
Why is it that Hollywood
Why is it that Hollywood liberals are so he'll bent on abortion rights? Do you not think there is an agenda? I urge you all to look into this. Just do it.
I asked my 15 year old son what his views were on abortion. He said he thought it was the woman's right to choose. How does a 15 year old boy pick up such a coined phrase. You cannot ignore that there is an agenda here.
Yes but....
Unknown, my 23 year old daughter agrees with me that it's a woman's personal issue to choose or not to choose. There are many agendas. One such agenda is to limit freedom to make choices. Personally I'd prefer to focus on limiting the government, not the people.
The government is meant to
The government is meant to protect rights not grant them. And why would an unborn child not be granted the same right to life as one who takes their first breath outside the whom?
Not sure Unknown. I personally have other concerns as it doesn't apply directly to me.
But advocating against the
But advocating against the droning of others pertains to you? Sounds like cherry picking to me.
Don't assume.....
Correction Unknown. I'm a combat vet. Walk in my shoes before you judge. Drones and other devices have pertained to me. I'm not married to a vet. , I am one.
For those who fought for it. Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.
Point is that you advocate
Point is that you advocate against one killing but not the other.
Government should be kept out of the matter of abortion.
Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.
Morality is not "legislatable."
But laws should be made to
But laws should be made to protect life. That is why it is illegal to murder someone. So why is abortion legal? Is it not murder?
Have laws against murder stopped murderers from killing?
Have laws against drunk driving stopped people from driving drunk?
Have vaults stopped bank robbers?
I am pleading with you to get back to reality. Let's get back to the Constitution. If you want to force people to protect the unborn, then amend the Constitution. A better way to bring about change is to have people do so voluntarily through education about the sanctity of life. Many of us here (me included) don't want any part of abortion and are pro-life. We aren't going to force others to do the same thing. We would rather see them come to this conclusion by themselves and in their own time.
So because the law has not
So because the law has not stopped murder or drunk driving...should we then make it legal? What logic is this?
Do you want to build even more prisons? Really?
You are sounding like a government apologist. We cannot enforce the laws that are on the books now, so you want to create even more laws, this one being to force a woman to have a baby. Take a step back and examine what you are advocating,....even more laws instead of individual responsibility. The next law will be to force her to raise it to be a fine upstanding citizen, or else! Yup, more jail time, more prison building. I'm begging you to get back to reality. This issue is a no-winner.
Well, we could release some
Well, we could release some of those victimless crimes and make room for the baby killers. But really...we enforce the law by shutting it down.
You didn't answer my question.
Where will you put all of these "murderers?"
Would the 30+ million abortions that have already been performed now be made a crime retroactively, or would the people involved be given a waiver, i.e. grandfathered-in? We could build huge special prisons for these people with very large audio systems. They would be made to listen to crying babies 24/7 and eat only Enfamil.
Listen, I don't have all the
Listen, I don't have all the answers but I don't believe we should be providing options to perform these murders. What makes you think that if it were readily available that we would have 30 million abortions still. Perhaps if it weren't so easy than they will think twice.
You are taking about logic?
If abortion is murder, then give everyone who has had one or performed one a life sentence, or do you want to even more, like executions. Let's set up guillotines around the country and put these executions on the tele and bill them as 'the ultimate reality show.' This would be the number one rated program that would beat out dancing with the stars. Logic? You are talking about illogic.
Sister...do you feed kids in impoverished neighborhoods? Do you support the homeless? Do you contribute to orphans?
Why are you so focused on what other people do in their bedrooms and physician office???
Yes actually. Because I
Yes actually.
Because I advocate liberty for all. And I felt something in my heart today that compelled me to write about it. That is all.
I think there should be more
I think there should be more pictures posted on what an abortion looks like.
Here's one at 8 weeks. Which is 6 weeks after conception.
No worse than....
This picture is no worse than these:
No worse than malignant tumors from smoking.
No worse than a cirrhotic liver of an alcoholic.
No worse than the massive accumulation of intestinal stool of people who are sedentary, obese and want an easy fix.
I have seen them all, in person. People should have the right to CHOOSE. Regardless...
You are clearly missing the
You are clearly missing the point. Are you doing it on purpose because your arguments are absurd.
The whole point of any debate
The whole point of any debate is that we respectfully disagree. Only I am capable of living comfortably with my actions and leave yours alone. A person seeking a legal abortion only has to answer to themselves and God. Not you or me.
As someone who wants to end
As someone who wants to end the unjust killings over seas I also wish to end the unjust killings in the whom.
But it's not true.
Your many postings say otherwise. You advocate the draft. You support the Air Force and consider those who have killed a million people in Iraq, heroes.
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty" TJ
Your twisting my words David.
Your twisting my words David. You are talking about a post where I asked people who are currently serving or have served what I can tell my son about enlisting in the military. You have not served so you are not qualified to give your opinion in that matter. And I am proud of my husband. What kind of wife would I be if shamed my husband for vowing to die for me?
Just stop. You are actually becoming borderline stalker.
It seems to me that so much
It seems to me that so much of the moral scaffolding in the abortion debate has been erected by men. I don't mean just men, but by an entire male perspective and one that women just kinda grabbed hold of when the issue was up for grabs.
I don't see that there's a female conceived moral structure for the debate.
I know this goes on and on. I know it's unfocused. I've had an inkling that the ideas about disparity of force I studied for a permit-to-carry course I took applied. I kept meaning to try to synthesize them into something cohesive. Alas I haven't, after more than a year.
So this is just a spew of ideas.
I'll preface it by saying, I've not found a scaffolding of ideology about abortion on either side that fits with my notions of justice/right/wrong. I find myself, as a woman and mother, viscerally against abortion, but a philosophic base always gets squishy. This is my first blush of something that feels solid.
When the issue became a public discourse with Roe vs. Wade, women were in the midst of sea change in how they viewed their ability to exert power. From my observations, we women were in that initial phase power acquisition; the zeros-sum, my-power-only-comes-at-the-expense-of-yours phase.
We were all, "Men impregnate us. How dare men (sperm) effect such sweeping changes in our bodies and leave us with a baby/kid/teen dependent. We won't have it. They can't do that do us. We need recourse. We need justice. We need government."
We women let it be about the injustice of men getting to have sex as sport when we didn't get that same frivolity.
I'm not sure I blame them, those women who came before me, to were pissed at the injustice of it.
But rather than focus on our own power, we took the easy route -- blame the oppressor. I don't know how it played out in living rooms and kitchens, how a whole lot of women decided their power to procreate wasn't all that powerful.
But we did. We women decided to opt out of intrinsic power and go for the extrinsic power -- men's power.
There's this notion of disparity of force. Men (and some women) who have physical and/or skilled-built power, know the score. Right? If she's slapping you and screaming, you can't haul off and deliver a full round house punch. There's a legal and moral idea of least harm. If you have a lot of power, you only use what is necessary to prevent harm. Right? Men know that they can't go ape shit on a woman who is screaming and flailing at them. Women know they can't body slam a tantrum toddler against the minivan.
Disparity of force, least harmful response. That's just common sense and it's something we all kind of know innately. If you've got power, you don't use it to harm the powerless. If you do, most of your fellow human beings will condemn you for it.
So there's a huge disparity of force/power between a woman and her fetus. As a woman all my life and as a mother half of it, I know that my radar for situations that involve a disparity of force has intensified. I've got a little baby and the world at large has a disparity of force against him. I'd never know how capable I was of hurting others as when I became a mother and understood the need to defend. Maybe boys grow up into men with that somehow ingrained. For me, as for most of the women I know, that internalization of dis party of force became real when the baby was in our arms.
I think a lot of women are brought up to think that their power comes from capturing something back from men. So that even the baby in their uterus/arms is just another form of male domination.
But what if we'd never consider ourselves inferior? What if it wasn't some zero-sum game in which women had to take some power from me to enjoy their own power?
What if women considered their own power as powerful?
What if women saw the power they had over the lives in their womb as real power? What if we had to behave like we demand men behave?
Least harm. Disparity of force.
We women have an ultimate disparity of force over our fetuses.
What if we weren't so concerned with who we perceive had power over us, BUT WHAT WE have power over. What if we decided our moral culpability is ours. Because we have an overwhelming disparity of force. We whine and complain and serve up retraining orders asking the state to intervene in our bad choice. I get that. Our naive/needy/pick-your-adjective behaviors shouldn't consign us to being subject to the disparity of force between men and women.
But the woman's movement must move on. At some point, we've got to quite escaping moral culpability. If men have a disparity of force over us, and we expect the state to back us, we've got to take responsiblity for those over whom we have a disparity of force.
Not one living thing falls under this umbrella more than the fetus we bear. We can kill them. We don't to make accomplices of other moral agents. We've been doing it for hundreds of years. Even when the herbs didn't work, women quietly bashed newborns head in.
Disparity of force. Women have it over their unborn children. I, for one, think that women are fully able and necessary moral agents. I think that we need to quit assuming that someone else is responsible. We have such a disparity of force against the fetus growing in us.
When you have the power, it's your responsibility to do least harm. Abortion is most harm. It's an abdication of power. Shame on us. Instead of griping about male power, we should deal well with the power we have.
I'm disappointed that women who demand state-sponsored retraining orders against the violent men, whom they've chosen to associate with, on the grounds those men have a disparity of force over them, at the same time insist they've got the right to exercise and even more draconian disparity of force over their fetuses/babies.
It's a messed up notion of power. It's smacks of Stockholm syndrome. Women have been so eager to give up on being moral agents so much that even in the sacrosanct place where female morality rules without male interference, we just say, "Hey, I'm bigger and I'm in charge."
This is a shame.
When you know you're powerful, you don't wield that power indiscriminately. Men don't hit women. Women don't abort babies.
The folks who feel powerless do that.
I'm ashamed that the women's movement has largely been bucking up the idea that women are morally incapacitated by their wombs.
If anyone has insights along these lines, I welcome feedback, as I keep thinking about turning these fledgling ideas into something more.
google this
Medical Science Monitor 10(10): SR5-16, 2004
its a pdf file and not sure how to link it here.
according to the study 64% of women who have an abortion do so because they are coerced. over 50% of them feel that it is morally wrong to do so. And over 30% of women have medical problems afterward.
if the majority of women who are having abortions are doing so because someone else is forcing them to then abortion is about population control and not "choice". In other words america is a lot more like communist china than we want to admit and "liberty" minded people are arguing for the communism, albeit a more subtle for of communism for now.
Furthermore you can not have liberty with out responsibility one of the responsibilities in life is pregnancy and child birth in denying that responsibility we are denying liberty.
If you are pro life....
If you are pro life, then you'd better be against:
1. The death penalty no matter what
2. War of any kind
3. Spaying any dogs with heat
4. Killing even the hungry roaches after your veggie burger