The BMO warned in an article a few days ago:
CHINA, INDIA DEMAND
Food crisis looms, BMO analyst warns ‘It’s going to hit this year hard,’ Donald Coxe says
BY ALIA MCMULLENFinancial Post amcmullen@nationalpost.com
A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will pale in comparison to what is about to transpire, Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group, said at the Empire Club’s 14th annual investment outlook in Toronto yesterday.

“It’s not a matter of if, but when,” he warned investors. “It’s going to hit this year hard.”

With a potential food crisis looming these morons want to start screwing with food production and make it less productive.
I really do pity the 3rd world because when these leftist twits are done millions are going to die from starvation and poverty.

I wish conservatives would wrap their heads around the fact that Kyotto/AGW and a dozen other cons are most certainly the progeny of global soviet systems...the primary driving force is the UN agenda 21 and all the idioms this entails.

For globalists/transnationalists, UN agenda 21 is the holy scripture of planning global governance...and that utopian vision is NOT a democratic form of governing which empowers individuals...it empowers unelected "elite committees" and social engineering authoritarianism (Huxley-styled global technocracy). individuals under this form of governing exist to serve the state, not the other way around as we were used to in traditional constitutional democracies.

Agenda 21 entails the defacto elimination of privately owned/controlled land and resources and puts the power to regulate food/minerals/water/land/human resources in the hands if central committees...now what political doctrines also support this agenda? Technocracy? Feudalism ? corporatism? communism?...or a rationalized synthesis of all four: transnational globalism.

Does it begin to make sense why both monied elites, large corporate cartels, Banking and left wing elites can all get behind UN globalist agendas?

"...and allows us to feed the people that we need to."

I wonder who those people are?

Telling choice of priorities. Take care of their arbitrary mandates to solve a fraudulent problem first, and then with whatever food is left over, feed the people 'they' need to.

Sounds like a declaration of war against the rest of us.

I can't help but think that it won't be the capitalists that kill us but the enviromentalists.

oh give me a home where the buffalo roam
and the deer and the antelope play.

exactly what you get when take away technology from the Canajun prairies.

we can go back to sub-stainable agriculture.

In other words, people should stop eating. Or, alternatively, we either should not allow so many people to eat or (better) not have as many people on the planet.

I'm not the least bit surprised that Greenpeace is named given the close association of environmentalism with population control theories. Do we even have to mention Paul Watson?

Fertilizer will make plants grow better, plants eat CO2 via photosynthesis so the fertilizer eats co2.

So do algae blooms on lake Winnipeg that people blame on fertilizer.

DUH,

So it might make the lake unusable but as long as co2 is reduced we saved the planet right?

The dinosaurs went extinct when Homo sapiens decided to eliminate them all and go on a diet of grass with roots for desert. Thus man could now develop to the
progressive state he's now in!

Yours Greenpuke Founder
Asshat Moonbat.

Enviro tax on fertilizer?
Here's an idea, let's ban farming, kill all those nasty methane belching cows and then declare the world officially screwed.
Hey, isnt that what the wacko-enviro's really want?
They seem to have this need/hope that some catastrophe is hanging over us about to wipe us off the map. The solution is then to have governemnt make our lives horrible to save us from the "doom" so that when the "doom" does not happen we get it anyways from the "sacrifices" we made to save ourselves.

These clowns won't stop until we all look like Dachau concentration camp survivors -- which to them is just a Kiera Knightley movie in grainy black and white.

We should never forget that Communist government converted Russia and the Ukraine from net grain exporters to net grain
importers, to use words which slide over an immense human tragedy. So our Greens want to go for agriculture; and so they will, if they ever get a chance.

Greens are evil.

I understood that the methane release by cows theory as a significant issue was debunked last year?

Cal2 said:
"exactly what you get when take away technology from the Canajun prairies.

we can go back to sub-stainable agriculture."

"Sustainability" is the sanitized political buzz word for the implementation of agenda 21.

Interestingly this grew from the planning of radical environmentalists to remove agriculture/farms/rural populations from the western plains (moving these rural independent farmers to urban centers through economic mechanisms) and create a transnational nature preserve of the North American plains...dubbed "buffalo commons"..this idea later evolved into the UN biosphere planning and the actuation to secure the land was documented in agenda 21

Read it hear and weep at the insane elitism of these enviro-nazis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Commons

http://prfamerica.org/indices/BiosphereReservesIndex.html

I remember the 1970s photos of the orchards where the Cambodian left wing government tried to fertilize the fruit trees by placing corpses of executed prisoners at the roots of all the trees. The acid from the rotting corpses killed the trees. I hope the Liberals and NDP are aware of this, just in case they ever form a Canadian federal government.

One of the few things I kind of agree on with the greenies is the problem of overpopulation

BUT

it is not westerners who are overpopulating the planet.

Westerners provide the technology, money , food and solutions to problems but not the babies who are over populating the planet.

What is the greenie's solution to third world people reproducing like rabbits?

Perhaps soylent green is the answer to all our problems. Folks like the green party would be natural first responders to volunteer to feed the masses I should think.

Here's a really good way to save the environment: bury all the environmentalist alive to create "carbon sinks."

These watermelon enviro-lunatics are something else. CO2 is carbon and oxygen. Carbon is the building block of all life and oxygen is it's fuel. The idea that F'ing plant food is dangerous is an idea that only a campus academic could come up with.

I hope the leftards try to win an election with that asinine nonsense. I can see the headline now: "The libs want you to pay more for food!" Aside from the increase in agri products from the use of food to make biodiesel and ethanol, this would make it very difficult for poor people to live.

I guess that's what the Stalinists of the left want: less poor people. I guess this is one way to do it. Capitalist's preferred way would be to make people less poor - not kill them. But it's the evil capitalists who are immoral according to the nutcases on the left.

Leftardism is a mental disorder.

A lot of this fertilizer that Mike De Souza and his Greenpeace nut-cases want to tax for "green" reasons is the same fertilizer that is used in growing so-called bio-fuels. Yup, bio-fuels. Ethanol, and the like, that in most cases are worth less energy than the fossil fuel used to produce the "green" fuel.

Where n' he** do all these nut-cases get their funding from ?

Fertilizer feeds a hungry world. It enables our farmers to avoid the mining of their land. Soil nutrients (NPKSFeMg, ect) that are used in growing crops MUST be replaced or the land will become infertile. There is no free lunch.

Speaking of lunch, it is becoming clearer every day that Maurice Strong, Paul Watson, Suzuki, Gore are serious in their quest for population control (reduction even), One World Governance and a cancelling of the industrial revolution that provides us with comforts such as room temperature. Back to the Cave-Dave. Nice.

Greenpeace epitomizes pseudo-environmentalism and is actually nothing more than a green hysteria fundraising organization of the worst corporate spin-doctored variety, occasionally dabbling in terrorism and always pimping on ignorance.

Following their logic, an agriculture without fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides would see huge drops in productivity necessitating major expansion of cultivation into forested or wild areas, hardly what comes to mind when thinking "green".

The cost of food has already gone up a lot in 2007. It's a combination of higher demand, higher energy costs, and decreasing arabel land area, particularly in Asia. And it will just get worse, if those nutty ideas of fertilizer taxes and others take hold.

But you can fight back. Grow your own food.

It is hard to overstate, in pointing out, that our beloved Media is mainly responsible for the Nut-Cases gaining traction. And funding.

But but but...what about all those beautiful green biofuels that are supposed to be saving our poor planet?

Even the greenies don't believe in ethanol. Only proper use for it is race gas.

Ethonol was the green nutcases most amusing screw-up.

Not only is it anything but green but has resulted in corporate welfare to polluting big agri-businesses run my large companies that the green leftards love to hate.

Bio-diesel is the green nutcases most damaging. Brazil and Indonesia are burning down rainforest to make way for palm oil to use in bio-diesel so foolish leftards can drive around pretending to be green. So much for Indonesia's endangered orangotans...

I'm all for ridding agriculture in Canada of pesticides and fertilizers; they should never have been used in the first place. Pesticides and fertilizers have ruined the soil, and the only way to grow nutritious food is to grow it in healthy soil. It is time to get back to what nature had to offer all along.

Joanne,

Will you volunteer to starve to death or do you want the world's poor to do that for you?

If you get rid of the chemicals which are responsible for drastically increased crop yields and drastically decreased crop failures, you kill a few hundred million people in the next 12 months.

If people like you enact this sort of lunacy, it should be you at the front of the line to starve.

There is nothing wrong with using the manure of sheep, cows, and horses....fish are good too, instead of chemicals that cause cancer and a lot of other diseases.

Warwick, maybe if people only ate their share of food that kept them at an ideal weight, instead of gorging themselves and contributing to the rampant obesity problem in children and adults in North America, then there would be food for the impoverished and those who procreate at an alarming rate.....and this doesn't even take into account the food that is wasted.

I for one, do not want my food grown in chemicals, call me what you want.....health conscious or whatever, but putting chemicals into the soil is destructive behaviour in the long run, and we have well surpassed the long run. I'm not with GreenPeace on much, but I am certainly all for ridding our once healthy soil of life-threatening pesticides and fertilizers.

I'm sympathetic to the argument that *some* "modern" agricultural practices in *some* jurisdictions may be exhausting the soil prematurely or spoiling groundwater. I would, however, be much more willing to listen if the arguments came from an Agricultural , Soil, or Geological scientist.

I'm also suspicious that what's lying underneath when you find a farmer or group of farmers acting irrationally is a government subsidy or incentive program that's distorting their behaviour.

As a farmer, I can attest that nitrogen fertilizer is the largest single expense of growing a crop by a wide margin. It is therefore axiomatic that this expense is aggressively managed to minimize waste. We dont no stinking interferance from any government to change our practices us in this regard.

Question: How many people have died (proven) from organic food ?

Answer: Lots. (think spinach)

Question: How many have died from (proven) ag chemical use(approved) with the soil ?

Answer: None.

Question: How many have died because of Geneticaly Enhanced food ?

Answer: None -- not even so much as a stomach ache.

Question: How many in the world would die without chemical fertilizer ?

Answer: Billions.

Question: How many have been duped by fanatics ?

Answer: Millions !

Question: Why is it that the 'Fanatical' type of environmentalist gets away with criticizing food production with a full belly ?

Answer: Media

Joanne,

Outbreaks of e-coli in strawberries and other non-meat products are a result of spreading animal crap over fields.

Farmers are clearly already making use of the available "material." But that won't do it by itself.

Again, are you willing to not eat if there isn't enough food to feed the poor?

You don't need to answer, we already know. You want other people to suffer for your priorities like all selfish leftards.

Beware the 500 millioner!

(wish I could somehow transpose the flashing red light from the Drudge Report into my post)

Joanne: "call me what you want"

OK, you are a looney whacko nutcase devoid of reasoning skill.

Our food supply is the healthiest it has ever been. Except for organic.

That some think our Farmers use fertilizer in a wasteful manner is ludicrous !!

Even moderate sized farms on the prairies may annually purchase as much as a hundred grand $$ of Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potash, Sulfur and other nutrients. Yes nutrients -- as in 'wholesome'.

Also, why do you think that our life expectancy is the longest it has ever been.

Headline: LIFE EXPECTANCY HITS A RECORD ! WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

Experts, ya right. In my life time I have known some ag experts. Sorry, but almost to a person, they were failures from some former "endevour". Never a successful type who had walked the walk.

"... life-threatening pesticides and fertilizers."

Then why, Joanne, is our life expectancy constantly increasing?

John M Reynolds

Your pic sums it up. Greenpolpot is opposed to farming now.

The ethanol boondoggle is responsible in part for the rise in food prices.

Organic gardening is really only viable for small scale production. It is a much more labor intensive and expensive method that is more suited to backyard gardeners and niche markets.

For large scale farming and mass production we are stuck with modern farming practices. Its lower costs allow for affordable and plentiful feeding of the world.

Coming from a farming area and talking to farm workers, I hear both sides. Some farmers are more environmentally friendly than others. Unsafe practices are not as rare as one would hope. I am not sure how government could realistically enforce environmental regulations on farmers without being expensive and overbearing.

Water pollution would be easier to regulate for larger industries, city sewage and landfills.

Oh yeah, these types of radical environmentalist are nuts. They are not pro-environment, they are anti-human.

I agree that this proposal is just one more socialist scheme, but I have to disagree with the suggestion that reducing the use of agricultural chemicals will result in food shortages. As I drive through rural Alberta, I see precious little food production to begin with. What I do see is hectare after hectare after hectare of canola. I am fairly confident in the capacity of my household to absorb a significant increase in our annual budget for canola oil.

RM,

Canola is a product which is used to make other products. You can buy a jug of Canola oil to cook with but that is a small fraction of its use.

If I had to guess, salad dressing would be the number one use but since it is a guess, I may be wrong.

Howling Moon I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or an insult, hmmm.

I'm not extinct yet!

mmmm Soylent green (drool)

Nauseous again. Always seem to get that sick feeling when on the Elyptical Machine. Also the only time I watch TV :(

Just on CBC, Marchand(?) Had an "expert" on the US Primaries.

Nearly the whole segment was on how good Hillary And Obama were -- 'neck and next contest for the hearts and minds of Americans', and all that.

In closing, oh, ya, 'the other race'. What about McCain' chances -- well, 'maybe the best of a poor lot'. Ok, gota run.

Sick. In both cases. And to think that before the Internet, I only 'suspected' that the CBC may not be above board -- now I know, am adamant, that it is dangerous.

And to think I used to virtually hang on every word, and quote, from the likes of Patrick Watson, Mansbridge, Newmann, Off, Karen Weber, Adrien Clarkson, Suzuki, Stewart, MacDonald (he had to be the worst of the worst).

Fail To Read The Newspaper And You Will Be Uninformed.

Read The Newspaper And You Will be Misinformed.

I believe that was written a long time ago -- true then, true now. Even more so, since the major medias have been crowded out to Tabloid territory.

MM; Canola IS food production! The oil is used in cooking,the meal is used in animal feed.I cant believe the number of people that think that their food comes from supermarkets.Wheat fields=bread,pasta and animal feed,grasslands=meat and milk,rye=bread,whiskey and animal feed,barley=beer,whiskey and animal feed,oats=breakfast food and animal feed,corn=oil,vodka,whiskey or ethynal and animal feed,peas=soup and animal feed,I could go on.ITS ALL FOOD!We also grow mustard for your hotdogs.

Surprise, surprise, GreenPUS, says farming contributes to EEEVIIIL manmade global warming.

Waddya expect? GreenPUS sees man as EEEVIIIL. And uninformed frightened, chemophobic, bozos like Joanne buy into their money-raising crap. GreenPUS pushes “organics” and is against EEEVIIIL chemicals. Note that even the name “organic” is fraudulent: all plant material (including food) is organic, regardless of how it is grown. Every thing we eat is organic and chemical. If it was not, it would be non-organic and inert.

However, "organic" marketing is very successful; it preys on the uninformed and easily frightened. A study in the UK showed that people who bought “organics” did so to FEEL good about themselves. They “felt” they were “taking control” of the food they ate and fed their families.

Joanne

A plant doesn't care whether or not the required ammonium nitrate (and all other required chemicals) comes from manure or prills from natural gas or other "non-organic" source. They are both the same "chemical". If all agriculture went organic and you agreed that we shouldn't add a couple of billion humans to the death pile above then all forests and wild areas on the planet would need to convert to grazing land to feed those big manure producing (and methane-farting) animals which would grossly out-number humans. So-called organic food is nothing more than a tax on stupid rich people and the source of 25% of all E-coli cases despite being only 3% of all food produced. But, as long as I don't have to buy it have at it.

I guess the saying that 'Mother Nature knows best' isn't well known on this thread.

Gee, if we didn't have pesticides and chemical fertilizers - full of fluoride by the way - we would all die of starvation, especially the poor. Such rhetoric.

I take it there aren't any religious types on this thread either.

terrence - how I feel about pesticides and chemical fertilizers has nothing to do with GreenPeace. I've always been against such poisons used in growing our food. I don't know if some of you people get out or read much on this subject, but cancer is traceable to such said products used in our soils. I know some people embrace cancer as the cause of death, but it isn't suppose to be that way. I guess some of you don't wash your fruit or vegetables either before you eat them, even though it is recommended.

RM - if you fly over Alberta you will see a great deal of 'food production'; Alberta looks like a colorful quilt. I've done my fair share of driving throughout Alberta, and what I see is a whole lot of cattle...at least from the ground.

"Again, are you willing to not eat if there isn't enough food to feed the poor?" by Warwick

First, I would be willing to not eat of any foods grown as a supply for the world's population if organic farming was undertaken throughout Canada. By the way, organic farming is the norm in the world anyhow. And maybe you didn't realize it, but the reason the poor do not eat as well as they could is because they lack money, not because of lack of food; otherwise, they wouldn't be referred to as 'poor.'

By the way, you are suppose to compost manure, not use fresh manure, especially not on plants before harvest. There are organic practices that have been used since man's existence; I'm sure it would be a learning process for some.

"Sheep have the largest global warming potential, according to the report, with each kilogram of meat producing an estimated 17.4 kg of CO2 emissions, followed by cattle at 12.98 kg of CO2, swine at 6.35 kg and poultry at 4.57 kg"

The GWP (sic) of the average human (2004 values) is between 70 and 80 kg CO2 (depending on the body weight chosen).

May I make a modest proposal?

I more or less plowed through the Green(piece) GHG submission regarding agriculture. Although it had lots of pretty pictures and graphs, the message still reads: "Become a vegetarian, don't eat meat." What crap! It is a proven fact that the huge grain fields of today's agriculture remove large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere, as do ALL plants. Livestock are typically raised on land less suited to grain production. Also the waste they produce fertilize land used to grow crops. That's why we get organic vegetables laced with E-coli. (Remember the veggies from that organic farm in California, about a year ago. You know, the one next to a cattle feed lot.)It also seems that with production techniques used in today's agriculture we can grow enough food and still have lots left over to feed a bio-fuel industry.

Joanne,

I'll use simple language so you understand:

The poor (who, as you state, lack money) will not be able to afford food if that food is priced out of their ability to pay. This happens when there is a shortage of food (as in, not enough to feed everyone.) When this happens, the rich buy what food is available as they can afford to pay higher prices for it but the poor can't so they go without and thus starve. It isn't rocket science.

If the world needs 100 units of food and can produce 100 units using modern farming techniques, there will be starvation if less than 100 units are produced. [I'm asuming you understand this as it seems obvious to me.] If you switch to "organic" farming, you reduce yield and thus can produce less than the needed supply of food. Then some people can't eat. The people holding the short straw are those without the means to pay high prices in order to save their lives. We refer to these people as the "poor."

"There are organic practices that have been used since man's existence"

You mean back when life expectancy was a cool 35 years? Back when famine was common and desease rampant? When you were more likely to die from childbirth than cancer? Where drinking water was carried back from the river your sewage drained into?

People are dying of cancer more often now soley because they now live long enough to get it.

Joanne,
Organic food is really a luxury item because it is significantly more expensive mostly because the cost of production is much higher.
The impulse to turn back to the clock to some sort or idealized world that never existed is nonsense because life in the past was far more difficult than it is now.

I toured Thomas Jefferson's Monticello a few months ago and what struck me was how hard life was for everyone in particular of course the slaves.
His farm was tiny by today's standards and yet it took 600 slaves to work it. Life spans were short with most of his family dying very young including his wife.
How is this better?
What green peace does is mostly the stuff of nonsense because they are supported by naive notions on how we should live and if actually implemented would devastate our economies and kill millions of which most would come from the 3rd world.

The last this we need is ignorant "caring" policies of the left this or like the DDT ban that killed 30 million people.

Joanne; " ..cancer is traceable to such said products used in our soils."

Got links for that ? Libelous.

who can read this crap and not realize that we are going to have to fight to prevent our freedom from being completely erased.

ManMade Global Warming.

The New Political Correctness.

Be prepared for EVERYTHING to now to be passed through this newest version of an agendized filter.

Spike, yes I know all these grains have their uses (ok, I didn't know they make vodka out of corn, I thought it was potatoes). I'm just saying prairie agriculture is pretty specialized and our diets are far more varied than beer, breakfast cereal and cooking oil.

Joanne, I don't know if you get out or read much on this subject (it seems you do not), but the DOSAGE makes the poison. The pesticides and chemical fertilizers used in agriculture are NOT poisonous at the dosages used. Water, at the right dosage, is poisonous; it will cause certain death. Are you opposed to using water on blessed, sacred, organic crops?

Perhaps you should sign the petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide; it is right up there with “organic’ food. All cancer can be traced back to dihydrogen monoxide; every person who developed cancer comsuned dihydrogen monoxide prior to developing cancer. BAN dihydrogen monoxide!

Whether or not you let GreenPUS influence your choice of organics, is beside the point. You did say you agree with them on this point. The more bozos there are who agree with GreenPUS, the greater GreenPUS’s influence.

GreenPeace has an agenda - always; I have never bought into Global Warming or there being a problem with CO2 emissions. GreenPeace should direct its attention to the oceans if they are concerned about C02 emissions. I certainly do not want the ingrates in GreenPeace deciding what I eat or don't, I just believe organic food is far healthier for us, and I support organic farming fully.

ron in kelowna - I was born in Kelowna; my parents have had a farm in the Okanagan for well over half a century. Don't talk to me about libelous statements of pesticides causing cancer. Google and you shall find plenty. Pesticides have fluoride, so Google that too. Now don't forget to wash your fruit before you eat it.....especially those grapes.

Warwick - I know all about supply and demand and the effects on price - believe you me - rather sick of it actually.

"People are dying of cancer more often now soley because they now live long enough to get it." by Warwick

Gee, that would be so nice if it was completely true.

We should cut back on meat consumption, so we won't have as many cattle belching methane gas into the atmosphere.

Now we should cut back on agricultural production so there's less nitrous oxide going into the atmosphere.

Now that the "truth" is finally out, we can all "BREATHE" a sigh of relief......(pun intended)

Greenpeace: Eat bark

terrence - "Perhaps you should sign the petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide; it is right up there with “organic’ food." by terrence

I do not see the comparison - it is like comparing a nuclear bomb to a dandelion.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

"The pesticides and chemical fertilizers used in agriculture are NOT poisonous at the dosages used." by terrence

This statement is not true and repeated spraying and/or fertilizing affects the crops, soil, and water runoff and has an accumulating effect. We should really be worried about the bees dying off in alarming numbers; this will certainly cause global starvation in a very short timeframe.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1087

"While many pesticides are downright lethal to bees, some new studies have pointed to other strange effects found at low doses. For example, low doses of new compounds called neonicotinoids might be interfering with bee minds. Potentially, this prevents them from remembering their colony's location and causes them to get lost and never return." by Benjamin Lester, a graduate of evolution and ecology from the University of California at Santa Cruz, USA.

Just a theory....there are plenty more.

These posts probably constitute chatting, so I'll leave it to others.

Yup, when the fanatics try to make their point with scientific fact, it usually ends up being Occultific instead.

``Bees and pesticides --- just a theory.` You said it !

Link to cosmos magazine;
[About us: COSMOS is a print magazine that treats science as natural part of culture, covering it from many angles: art, design, travel, interviews, humour, history and opinion.]

OMG

Of course, you do NOT want to engage anyone here, Joanne. You will just drop your crap and leave. BTW, you clearly demonstrate that you do NOT recognise truth or falsehood when you see it. So, it is probably best that you leave.

Anyways, go waste your money on blessed sacred, politically correct “organics; I will continue to eat real food, not some sleazy, overpriced, marketing concoction called “organic”.

Interesting thread. Seems there are two camps.

[Camp 1] Fertilzers are poison let*s go ALL organic.

[Camp 2] Ferilizers are not poison, let*s go all *chemical*.

Woodporter is a farmer. We should ask him if a middle of the road 50% composted and 50% commercial bagged nutrients is the correct way to go.

Must ask Woodporter about the dying bees across North America too. Seems they have 20 or so immune ailments so a cure for the bees seems impossible.

Most fruits and veggies simply do not bear fruit without pollination. I suspect industrial poisons are getting to the bees, not necessarily fertilizers.

Wonder what a farmer would say about that? = TG

Everybody - Please go back and read what WL McKenzie Redux wrote at the beginning of this article - this is the crux of the matter.

The Kyota Protocol was written by Gorby che vev and Unka Mo Strong. This is a "plan" to make everyone on earth equally poor and consequently totally dependant on an elitist government comprised of a few 'entitled' souls. The plan is to follow the lead of the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine when they deported all the Kulaks (landowners) and let the soil rot in blood and weeds. AFTER all landowners are disposed of then the bigshots can force underfed, overbled(shoot the dissenters), docile populations (peons) to work on Communal farms.

There is no 'we' in the farming equation when it comes to paying land taxes -let the people who own the property decide what they will do with the land that they pay taxes on...this will solve the problem since the viability of their enterprise will depend on their produce and practises for producing produce. Just as choice via OWNERSHIP solves the 'smoking problem'. It is not 'we' when it is tax time, so let us get the 'we' out of the "Directive" picture.

We, however, must demand that Property Rights be enshrined in our Constitution if we wish to escape the route planned for all of us by Mo and his boyz and females.

The government, at all levels, must stop working for special interest groups and be forced to work for the people who pay them - taxpayers - and they must be forced to be accountable to individual citizens, backed up by people who support INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.

There are many good books written about the consequences of 'group (Communist) ownership' (the 'we' thingie) but one of the best is Armageddon by Taylor Caldwell. 'Anthem' and "We, The Living" by Anne Rand are also blueprints describing the misery that 'collective living' offers to the 'collective'.

TG says: "Woodporter is a farmer. We should ask him if a middle of the road 50% composted and 50% commercial bagged nutrients is the correct way to go."

Composted organic matter and manure is fine and used readily when available, but realistically can only supply a small minority of our needs. We MUST use natural gas based artificial nitrogen fertilizers if we expect to feed the world as we now do.

"Must ask Woodporter about the dying bees across North America too"

I don't know much about the bee disappearance issue, but I believe it is much overblown, and also believe it is caused by some natural pathogens such as parasitic mites in combination with a virus or fungal disease.

Rarely have I seen so much BS in a document. What struck me is that there was absolutely no consideration of atmospheric CO2 in plant growth. Getting CO2 from the atmosphere where it is present at a concentration of .04% into plants requires lots of energy. By emitting CO2 into the atmosphere, we're reducing the energy plants need to concentrate CO2 against a huge concentration gradient and improving crop yields. Lowering CO2 concentrations would reduce crop yields, but then I wouldn't expect Greenpeacers suffering from vegetarian organic brain syndrome to think of something this obvious.

I've lost a few patients when I let them know that I think of vegetarianism as a psychiatric disorder (hasn't made the DSM-IV yet but after seeing a lot of vegetarians, I have no doubt that this is a pathologic condition). Vegetarians are generally deficient in B12 and iron as well as many other vitamins which are present in large quantities in meat. Many of them compound their problems by refusing to take "chemical" vitamins. I still remember one vegetarian with an undetectable B12 level who was blaming all of his problems on "chemical pollution" but absolutely refused a B12 injection as it was the "artificial product of the killer chemical industry". He was taking yeast tablets (the only other source of B12) but obviously couldn't break down the yeast cell walls as his B12 level was undetectable. I presume that he's now confined to a wheelchair in a psychiatric hospital somewhere.

Humans are carnivores. Out of curiousity, I tried a vegetarian diet some years back and lasted about 3 days. Aside from producing vast quantities of greenhouse gasses, I felt tired and listless. Once I had a steak, I felt my usual energetic self. My ancestors hunted animals for food and then later raised them for food. Meat is the ideal food.

What I do make a point of is getting grass fed beef and lamb whenever possible. I can't understand why one would take cattle with a good omega3/omega6 fatty acid composition and force feed them grain to drastically lower the amount of omega3 fatty acids in the meat. Omega3/omega6 should be about 1, but in the western diet it is about 0.05. That is one of the best reasons to eat buffalo as it's totally grass fed.

Pesticides do not cause cancer. The primary reason for increasing cancer rates is sunscreen use and widespread vitamin D deficiency (another "benefit" of a vegetarian diet). If people are worried about cancer, forget "organic foods" and start taking 2000 IU of vitamin D3 daily instead. Actually everyone in Canada should be on at least this much Vitamin D3 all winter.

"Organic" foods have lower nutrient levels than conventionally grown foods. Depending on where vegetables are grown, they can also have significant mineral deficiencies. In BC the Fraser valley and south-central interior have selenium deficient soils. Livestock need to be injected with selenium supplements at birth in this part of BC. Someone eating a totally vegetarian diet grown in the Fraser valley would stand a good chance of developing Keshan disease (a dilated cardiomyopathy) as they got older and would also have a much higher chance of developing various cancers.

I'll stop here as I can rant on this subject forever.

Woodporter writes:
"I don't know much about the bee disappearance issue, but I believe it is much overblown, and also believe it is caused by some natural pathogens such as parasitic mites in combination with a virus or fungal disease."

I agree with you on this. What I've noticed in my yeard in south-central BC is that there appears to have been a shift in bee species. 5 years ago I was seeing primarily honeybees but over the last few years I've seen far more bumblebees, leaf-cutter bees and a greenish burrowing bee I haven't identified yet. Obviously something is pollinating flowers since I've noticed no difference in the number of apricots I get from my trees despite the shift in bee species composition. Leafcutter bees are neat, as long as they stick to cutting circles out of my lilac bush leaves, and one can encourage them to stick around by putting up a board drilled with 1/4" holes which they will fill with leaf-encased larvae.

Obviously a drop in the number of honeybees has opened up a new ecologic niche for other bee species. This is the way nature works and is only a tragedy if one has a particular fondness for honey.

Thank you for taking the time and posting that, Loki! I agree with you 100% because unfortunately, I have had plenty of experiences with those that choose a vegetarian and/or vegan life style. Wholly negative experiences which, can only be described as psychopathological in nature.

This article is quite telling - particularly when viewed in the glow of Joanne's left-wing group mastabatory euphoria.

Twisted history.

The savaging of Sir Richard Doll reveals what some activists will do when scientists don't say what they want them to say

Dan Gardner
CanWest News Service

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Most people have never heard of Sir Richard Doll, but most who have think Doll -- a cancer researcher who died in 2005 at the age of 92 -- was a horrible man.
For years, he said things about synthetic chemicals that the chemical industry wanted to hear. There is no cancer epidemic, he said. And chemicals wouldn't be to blame if there were. What Doll didn't say is that he secretly accepted huge payments from major chemical companies.
This is the standard portrait of Doll among environmentalists and other activists fighting what they see as the terrible danger of synthetic chemicals.
Google Doll's name along with the words "chemical" and "cancer" and it appears in thousands of variations. It can also be found in the pages of The Secret History of the War on Cancer, a new book by epidemiologist Devra Davis that has garnered huge media attention and high praise from the journalists reviewing it.
But talk to top scientists in Doll's field and a different image emerges. Doll was one of the great scientists of the modern era, they believe. His work saved millions of lives. It advanced science by giant leaps.
"This book is dedicated to the memory of Sir Richard Doll," begins the dedication of a tome about the global burden of disease released recently by the World Health Organization. "It is entirely fitting that an assessment of world health at the end of the 20th century should be dedicated to the memory of a man whose work did so much to improve it."
How can there be such a vast gap in one man's reputation? Therein lies a tale, one worth telling because it reveals what some activists are prepared to do when scientists don't say what they want them to say.
There's little controversy about Doll's early career. In the early 1950s, he was one of several scientists to identify smoking as a major cause of cancer. He then fingered asbestos and several other occupational hazards. He became a leader in his field and, over the course of decades, helped lay the foundations of modern epidemiology. He was knighted in 1971 and received a heap of awards and honours in the years that followed.
In the same era, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring -- the seminal book that launched the environmental movement in 1962 -- raised an important new hypothesis. For the first time in history, Carson noted, we are exposed to large numbers of synthetic chemicals. Some are demonstrably harmful. Some we know nothing about. That toxic stew, Carson argued, is the cause of the apparent epidemic of cancer.
Some of the statistics Carson used to prove an epidemic was underway were misleading and exaggerated. Worse, she ignored the massive role of smoking. Still, her hypothesis was reasonable. It merited investigation.
Over the years the data grew and Doll and his long-time colleague Sir Richard Peto were asked by the U.S. government to put it all together. Delivered in 1981, that report concluded that occupational hazards like asbestos probably accounted for only four per cent of all cancers, while all forms of pollution were estimated to cause two per cent of the cancer burden, with most of that coming from car exhaust. Chemicals were simply not a big part of the cancer picture.
Doll's and Peto's conclusions starkly contradicted those of a small minority of cancer researchers who felt there really is an epidemic of cancer and chemicals are to blame. Chief among them was a University of Illinois scientist named Sam Epstein. Devra Davis of the University of Pittsburgh was another.
Most scientists sided with Doll and Peto. Their 1981 paper became a landmark in the field and it influences policy and research to this day.
Still, Epstein and the others remained unconvinced and they continued to pursue the chemicals-and-cancer hypothesis. That was fine, to an extent. Debate is an essential feature of science. But some of the critics -- notably Epstein, who embraced the role of scientist-as-activist -- went beyond science and started making personal accusations.
The chemical companies were buying scientists, they alleged. And their biggest purchase was Sir Richard Doll.
These charges had been percolating for years when Doll died in 2005. But papers Doll bequeathed to the archives of the Wellcome Trust, one of the world's largest medical research charities, seemed to verify the sordid truth. One 1986 contract with the multinational corporation Monsanto, for example, showed Doll had been consulting with the company since 1979 and his fee would be raised to $1,500 per day of work.
In December 2006, the British newspaper The Guardian trumpeted the discovery. In a joint letter to the newspaper, the heads of the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Science, the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research U.K. denied Doll had done anything wrong. But it made no difference.
Doll's old foes gloated. Activist groups spread the news on the Internet. Today, environmentalists scorn any mention of Doll and Peto and treat everything they wrote as mere industry propaganda.
The first clue that there's something wrong with this story lies in the fact that the allegations were confirmed by papers Doll himself made public. That's a strange way to keep a secret.
"There was no secret," Sir Richard Peto says on the phone from the Clinical Trial Service Unit at Oxford University. "The fact that he was consulting for Monsanto and that they would pay him an honorarium to do so, this is not a secret. Everybody knew he did this and everybody knew he gave stuff away."
What Doll's critics ignore, Peto says, is that the money didn't go in his pocket. "Under oath, a few years ago, he said that he did not take consultancy money from industry," Peto says. "And when he says that, what he means is that he's not going to take stuff for personal gain."
Although the issue of conflicts of interest in science only became heated in the 1990s -- when disclosure rules were first created -- Doll, Peto and other scientists in the Clinical Trial Service Unit long ago worried that personal enrichment could diminish their credibility. So they established a policy that any money they made in honoraria or consulting fees would be donated to charity.
"I've given a lot to Oxfam over the years," Peto notes. "The co-director of this unit, Roy Collins, when he produced results showing a cholesterol-lowering drug worked really effectively, he went around the world giving lectures on it and that year he gave more than £100,000 to Oxfam. It's because we want not to be misrepresented as paid hacks."
So why did Doll consult with industry if not for the money? "He wanted industry to listen to him," Peto says. Doll began his career in a time when corporations kept shoddy records and didn't bother to ask if workers were dying before their time. "And so he was prepared to consult with individual industries to actually identify hazards earlier than they would have done."
The misrepresentations of Doll's record do not end with money. Among many accusations made by Davis in The Secret History of the War on Cancer is the claim that, in their seminal 1981 paper on the causes of cancer, Doll and Peto "had not looked at all" at cancer rates among black Americans or at cancer incidence rates (diagnosed cases of cancer, as opposed to cancer mortality rates.) Worse, they had omitted cancer among whites older than 65 even though that's where most cancers occurred. A layperson reading this would have to conclude Doll and Peto were either foolish or up to no good.
But Davis is wrong. The 1981 paper included all the data for blacks and for whites over 65. It also included the incidence data. Doll and Peto didn't use these numbers in their final calculations for reasons they carefully explained in the paper -- they felt the data were distorted for complicated methodological reasons -- but they ignored or hid nothing. It's all there.
And there's plenty of reason to think they got it right. A recently released major study of the causes of cancer in France conducted by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) came to conclusions about the role of chemicals that look almost identical to those of Doll's and Peto's 1981 paper.
Will that matter to Doll's public reputation? Probably not. Reviewing The Secret History of the War on Cancer in the British medical journal The Lancet, Peter Boyle, director of IARC, was scornful: "Devotees of conspiracy theories and aficionados of gossip and innuendo will be drawn towards this book like wasps to a juicy piece of meat."
"You can do this sort of character assassination and it works," Peto says wearily. "Nothing you write in Canada will stop it from working. It actually works. It's bizarre to see somebody of such integrity so easily misrepresented. But that is what has happened and what will continue to happen."
© The Vancouver Sun 2008

ron in kelowna

Where n' he** do all these nut-cases get their funding from ?

Try the UN, can't remember just which organization, I think the parent organization of Kyoto, IPCC, environment, all of which are offshoots of the original started by Uncle 'Mo' who of course was able to decide which NGO's were invited and received funding. Ultimately the UN, whose agenda is Global Governance. And who funds the UN? We should stop funding the UN now . . . . period

hmmmm -- from Oak Lake Manitoba Canada, eh ?

Joanne,

Pull my finger and save the world.

Didn't I read recently in Maclean's that someone at Greenpeace referred to humans as the AIDS virus of the earth?
In so far as fertilizing crops is concerned, any producer will tell you that without fertilizer there is a substantially reduced yield. Application rates vary with crop and soil type, etc. Larger producers can take advantage of expensive hi tech software which allows them to keep their fields evenly fertilized, reducing costs and avoiding over application.
Organic supporters will argue vigorously that their product is superior. Maybe it is but the fact remains that it is much more expensive and I believe that there is little difference in quality. (My wife sides with Joanne) Also the yields are substantially less. In addition land must be rotated with non food crops such as alf alfa in order to provide natural nitrogen which reduces grain production even further. The Greenpeacers must have been reading up on Malthus
again.
As for cancer I thought that Otto Warburg discovered a long time ago that cancer could not exist in an oxygenated environment. Oxygen rich blood cells protect cell wall membrane thus preventing the run away growth of cancerous cells.

a carrot is a carrot is a carrot.

...the report's author, Pete Smith, a professor of soils and global change at the University of Aberdeen...

Professor of soils and global change? Is he funded by the Ministry of Silly Walks?

Joanne's logic:
Let's all go back to 19th century farming practices and lower production to save thousands from the outside chance of getting cancer caused by farm chemicals and ignore the impact of that decision which would cause mass starvation and kill millions.

The DDT ban killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined all because of "caring" people like Joanne.

I think we should just pass on her kind of "caring".

loki,

Good post with one exception: we are not carnivores but omnivores. We eat both plant and animals.

Nitpicky I know.

Vegans are freaks. Pasty, flighty, flacky, freaks.

Vegetarians do not live longer than omnivores; they just look older.

I'm disappointed with the commenters on this thread - rude and condescending comments, name calling, etc. You all should be proud of yourselves.

I'm for organic farming - organic foods are proven to be far more nutritious; I have an opinion....bite me.

http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~christos/articles/cv_organic_farming.html

It seems organically fertilized crops have higher yields than chemically fertilized crops and are much better for the environment.....go figure! There are plenty of links to support this claim, but please continue on being blissful.

You should get out more, Joanne. And, try to do some REAL research, instead of looking for rubbish that "supports' your very weak opinions.

"Organics" are a proven rip-off, a proven marketing scam. You are welcome to waste your money on blessed, sacred "organics". But please spare us your condesending attitude. I am sure you think VERY highly of yourself for taking a "brave" position. But, you REALLY do NOT make "organic" eaters look good, or intelligent. So, bite me!

BYW, you said you were not going to post any more. So, your words were empty and meaningless, if not dishonest. But, you have seen the light of "organics", so it does not matter what you say.

Joanne,
Your righteous railing against non organic farming is not about practical business or economics. Your opinion is based on wafer thin knowledge that you googled and about naive and idealized vision of food production.
Most of today's farmers have forgotten more about the business of farming than you will ever know in your lifetime.
Every day farmer's explore their options would jump on an opportunity that makes them more money.
So unless the importers of our grain are willing to pay a hell of a lot more for food that is "organic" it isn't going to happen.
By the way yes a properly processed organic fertilizer that has all the nutrients in perfect balance may yield better but the costs are out to lunch. I say this because I used to distribute all kinds of fertilizer including organic.
I find myself slapping myself for posting this terse rebutal because you are probably a nice person who has too much pride to admit you are simply clueless about food production.

Warwick, you're quite correct that humans are omnivores (I just happened to be in carnivore mode when I posted).

One intriguing site I ran into yesterday was neuropolitics.org which is a series of articles/surveys looking at the neurobiologic differences between conservatives and liberals. http://neuropolitics.org/defaultaug07.asp deals with the effect of diet on political views and, according to their survey, conservatives eat far more beef and lamb than liberals. Those describing themselves as very liberal are far more likely to be vegetarian than those who describe themselves as very conservative. I will note that this is an unscientific internet survey, but I know of many people who feel far better physically and mentally when they have a high meat diet so there is something to this.

terrence - I've noticed that when these threads have discussions, a screen will come up after I post stating something to the effect that no more posts are being allowed. I just didn't want other people to not be able to post a comment, so I thought I better stop responding. Today I saw that the thread was still taking comments so I continued on.

I do not understand your hostility at all - it is just organic food. I do not limit my diet to just organic food, or I would starve, but I buy it when I can, and not to think highly of myself, but just to be healthier.

I don't have the time to provide you with links that you would just disregard anyhow. The link I did give you came with references, if you would like to check them out.

Claude - actually as the demand for organics increase, more growers grow organics, thus supply increases, and the price comes down. It actually doesn't cost more to grow organic, but you may think differently.

Maybe it would be better to be clueless about food production, but I believe as I believe just like you do. My folks raise sheep, by the way, for several decades now, my husband raised cattle and many crops.....and he's all for organic. To each their own.

You are projecting your own hostility, Joanne.

I find "organics' silly, at best. I do not feel anything toward you (possibly some pity). As I said, you can waste all the time and money you want on "organics" – and you can remain as clueless as you want to be. But, please stop your condescending attitude, and please stop projecting your hostility on me. Try some REAL research (I am sure you will not, you are a true believer).

Beware of the enviromental fascists and their murder of millions after they used RACHIAL CARSONS fruadulent book SILENT SPRING to ban DDT and allow thousands to die of malaria now their using the lie of GLOBAL WARMING to allow millions more to die of starvation and other horible ways STAMP OUT DEEP ECOLOGY