Tag Archives: crisis

Fukushima

Global Food Crisis and Government & Corporate Incompetence: Fish catch down 70% off the coast of Fukushima, U.S. FDA misleads!

Fish catches, off the coast lines of Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures, is down 70%.  That’s from the beginning of April 2011 to the beginning of October 2011, compared to the same time last year.

Those three prefectures are the main fishing grounds for the local Japanese fishing industry.

The reasons are a combination of tsunami damage to ports (especially Miyagi, which was literally wiped out), and radiation contamination caused by Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.  Most fishermen had voluntarily stopped fishing over radiation concerns, but some continued to fish, only to find out a lot of their catch was contaminated after it arrived at fish markets.

Contrary to the reassuring statements on the U.S. FDA website, there is no standardized Japanese government testing of fish (or any food product) for radiation contamination. Most contamination was (and still is being) found by private citizens groups, or local governments who acted on their own volition.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Government, Corporate & Farmer Incompetence: MF Global scandal will destroy U.S. Agriculture! “Christmas is canceled.” Is it all about creating the Great Global Food Crisis?

“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date.”-Jon Corzine, former CEO of MF Global

On December 8, all those investors got their answer from the former boss of investment company MF Global.  Jon Corzine told the House Agriculture Committee that he doesn’t know what happened to the billions of investment dollars from clients, that include single moms and a lot of the country’s farmers.

“I can’t start my business at all because I have absolutely no capital…my twins’ birthday is December 9th, we can’t have a party now, Christmas is canceled.”-Jennifer DaRuzza, invested with MF Global in the hopes of raising enough money to start a business

The bigger concern is the fact that so many U.S. farmers were using investments with MF Global to fund their operations.  Historically farmers do not make enough money to “pay as you go”, they must deficit spend.

Senator Pat Roberts, who leads the Senate Agriculture Committee, told PBS’s Nightly Business Report that the MF Global scandal is bringing U.S. agriculture to a screeching halt: “…think of the farmer that was driving back to Kansas from Colorado, heard about this on the news, all of a sudden found out $30,000 of his assets were frozen. He was getting prepared to buy seed, fertilizer, was talking to a local realtor in regards to some land he might want to purchase or rent, that just stops it like that!”

Roberts also gave a dire warning for the country’s food supply in 2012: “…gonna have an impact on crops. This is gonna have an impact on our food prices. It is pretty broad across all the farm country and I’m hearing more about this than I am with what’s gonna happen in the farm bill!”

Try this:  Incompetent and greedy Corporate America just shot the United States in the Bread Basket!  Remember the Dust Bowl and Okies of the 1930s?  This time, instead of Mother Earth destroying U.S. agriculture it’s the hand of our divinely inspired leaders!

The destruction of the 1930s agriculture industry, in the bread basket of the U.S. (Midwest), is talked about as only one aspect of the Great Depression of the United States, but it should be discussed much more because people gotta eat!

(here’s a link to an interesting timeline of the Great Depression, where you should notice some ominous similarities between what happened then and what’s happening now)

It’s such a concern that United Nations officials have been warning of a coming Global Food Crisis for the past several years.  In 2008 UN officials called it “a silent tsunami” that was about to wash over the world.   This year the UN is stepping up preparations for long term famine relief (sinisterly involving the World Trade Organization): “My High Level Task Force is working to ensure that the UN system, international financial institutions and the WTO are ready to provide robust and consistent support to countries struggling to cope with food insecurity. This is a long term effort and it will require a comprehensive push to back solid partnerships, strong strategies and well financed actions that empower communities to become food secure.”-Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General

The strange thing about Ban Ki-moon’s statement; notice the emphasis is on “financed actions”.  What happened to growing food?  This is even more reason for individuals to try and grow their own, remember Victory Gardens? We’re at war people, and it’s not one country against another, as our 1% Elitist leaders claim, it’s the We the 99% against the 1%!

Here’s another scary part concerning the UN preparations, I don’t think the UN had taken into account the possibility that the Japanese would destroy their agriculture with radiation, or that the U.S. agriculture industry would be done in by their own financial system!  If the UN was predicting, back in 2008, that more than 100 million people are going to be starving to death, what about now?

Conspiracy theorists blame the coming Global Food Crisis on the Trilateral Commission, the Club of Rome, UN Article 21, and more.  Why?  Because all these organizations and proclamations are about one thing: Destroying existing systems for the purpose creating an all powerful one world government.

Oh, don’t worry, there will still be national and local governments, but they’ll answer to one single world government.  As the Russian Foreign Ministry recently said, regarding the formation of CELAC, it’s all part of “…the formation of a polycentric world and the strengthening of the role of regions in the system of global governance…”

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Government & Farmer Incompetence: Apples and Rice poisoned by farm chemicals, FDA tries to blow it off! EPA has known since before 2007! Just more reasons for the coming global food crisis!

I’ve already criticized the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its handling of radiation contamination, now there’s evidence they’re ignoring arsenic poisoning of apples, rice, and other food due to farm chemicals.

In one study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. women who ate half a cup of cooked rice, ingested an amount of poisonous arsenic equivalent to drinking four and a quarter cups of water with the maximum allowable level of arsenic.

“The large and statistically significant association we observed between rice consumption and urinary arsenic, in addition to earlier reports of elevated arsenic concentrations in rice, highlights the need to regulate arsenic in food.”

But that’s not all.  Consumer Reports, and the TV show Dr. Oz, discovers that apple juice is also contaminated with arsenic.  Several brands of apple and grape juice were found to have arsenic levels exceeding Federal safe limits (max 10 parts per billion).

“Roughly 10% of our juice samples, from five brands, had total arsenic levels that exceeded federal drinking-water standards. Most of that arsenic was inorganic arsenic, a known carcinogen.”– Consumer Reports

Notice “inorganic arsenic”, that means it’s not naturally occurring arsenic in the soil, it’s coming from the chemicals used on farms!

Consumer Reports also added that other foods are contaminated with chemical arsenic, and that lead has been found in juices as well.

Dr. Oz questioned the FDA and they gave him the amazing response that most food born arsenic is “essentially harmless”!  He was also amazed to find out that the FDA has no criteria regarding lead in apple juice!

Inorganic (chemical) arsenic is absorbed by plant roots.  Inorganic arsenic gets into the soil because it’s part of the ingredients in the chemicals farmers use.  Over the decades those chemicals, including arsenic, has been building up in the farm soil, now it’s finally showing up in high levels in our food!

Researchers in Scotland found that most arsenic contamination can be found in U.S. states that used to grow cotton. Chemicals used on cotton plants had high levels of arsenic.  They also found that rice grown in those states had much higher levels of arsenic, than rice grown in California.

Andrew Meharg, of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, has been warning since before 2007 about arsenic contamination in rice!  He says it’s not just the U.S. and European rice crops, but rice grown in Asia (now you can add the radiation from Japan).

In fact, Meharg said the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a study and were concerned with the results: “…the risk assessment has been done for the U.S.A. by the U.S. EPA and they’ve actually found that there is a risk for the U.S. based population and that’s why the U.S. levels in water were reduced, because the risk from arsenic to the U.S. population was more perceptible, and above background, particularly for lung and bladder cancers and what we’re finding is that the levels of arsenic in rice for certain subpopulations exceed those current levels for safety and water. And eating high levels of rice, they’re actually well over what they should be consuming.”-from March, 2007 interview

Meharg said rice with the lowest levels of arsenic, according to his research, comes from India.

Don’t everybody rush for the ‘organically’ grown food, there just isn’t enough for all of us, just more reason there’s a coming global food crisis.  Grow your own!

Fukushima

Global Food Crisis: Fukushima needs help inspecting more than 24,000 rice farms, too much radiation, logistical nightmare!

The Prefectural government of Fukushima (where the spewing Fukushima Daiichi GE designed disaster reactors are) is asking the Japanese government for logistical help.

Fukushima officials said they want to test one third of their rice farms/crops for radiation contamination, after several rice crops came up highly radioactive. Here’s the logistical problem: One third of Fukushima rice farms/harvests amount to 24,000 crops!

Fukushima Prefecture asked the national government to provide devices to measure radiation, dispatch personnel to expedite inspections, and shoulder the cost.

Fukushima

Government & Farmer Incompetence: More cesium contaminated rice, new farms affected!

Three farms in the city of Date, Japan, harvested rice that was found to be contaminated with cesium, up to 1,050 becquerels per kilogram.

Earlier in November as many as six farms in Oonami district were found with contaminated rice.  Those farms did not sell their rice, but the farms in Date did.

Now officials are trying to track down who bought the cesium contaminated rice.

Date, and Oonami are in Fukushima Prefecture, where the Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant continues to emit high levels of radiation.  Originally officials were testing rice just from the 154 farms in Oonami, but will now test more than 2,300 farms in the prefecture.

Business/Economics, International

Global Economic War & fighting Global Food Crisis: Communist Cuba starts Credit program for farmers

“The regulations ruling the new credit policy and other banking services will enter into force on December 20, aimed primarily at stimulating domestic production, which could generate incomes of foreign currency or replace imports.”-Cuban government statement

In July the Cuban banking sector started granting small loans to farmers, but in December much bigger loans will be made available.  The move is meant to increase local food production and decrease reliance on imported food.

The plan is part of more than 300 proposals adopted at the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in April.  Cuba’s current leader, Raul Castro, is pushing to update the Cuban economic model.

 

Business/Economics, Idaho, International, U.S.

Global Economic War, Global Food Crisis, What Economic Recovery? Big Potato producer Simplot to close plants, laying off 800 east Idaho workers (updated with pictures)

In the name of efficiency, and international competition, J.R. Simplot is building a new potato processing plant.  It will use only 250 employees.  The problem is that the new highly efficient Simplot potato factory will replace three existing plants (in Nampa, Caldwell & Aberdeen), resulting in 800 Idahoans losing their jobs.  That’s a net loss of 550 jobs.

East Idaho doesn’t have a big population so the job loses will hit hard: “It’s going to have a negative impact on Nampa and Caldwell and the whole country. We’re encouraged that they will remain in Caldwell, but certainly concerned about the overall impact of job loss.”-Steve Fultz, Caldwell Economic Development Council

J.R. Simplot officials say it’s necessary to build such an efficient factory, because global competition in the food market is getting tougher.  In fact potato prices for this years potato season have fallen to the point that Idaho farmers will be lucky to break even.

At least Simplot employees have been given a decent heads up; it’ll be at least two years before the new super efficient potato processing plant will be completed.

J.R. Simplot has been streamlining operations in Idaho since the 1990s.  Simplot’s corporate headquarters used to be in Chubbuck, Idaho.  But they closed it down and moved to Boise right after I moved to Chubbuck.

Their Chubbuck HQ was replaced with the TJ Maxx/IHOP strip mall.

Former location of J.R. Simplot Corporate HQ, Chubbuck, Idaho

The metal awnings/canopies covering the Simplot HQ entryway can now be seen in front of the Pocatello City Hall.

Ex Simplot Chubbuck HQ canopies adding charecter to the otherwise drab Pocatello City Hall

 

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? China is a paper tiger, reveals $1.65 trillion in debt, get ready for Global Great Depression

A surprise announcement, China says local governments (cities, provinces and autonomous regions) have racked up $1.65 trillion in debt, threatening a new credit crisis.

The revelation came after the Chinese government conducted audits of local governments.  It seems the local governments are playing the same financing games that got the United States (and Europe) into its own credit crisis, which led to one of its worst recessions.

The local governments were using loan after loan on infrastructure projects and real estate development.  The audit by the Chinese government came as national leaders expressed concern over evidence of the skyrocketing number of potentially bad loans being held by Chinese banks (sound familiar?).

Is this the real reason China is dumping U.S. bonds, to raise cash to pay its debts?

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Global Food Crisis: New Deadly Mutant E-Coli Outbreak

“This is a new strain, O157 was almost certainly one of its parents. It’s also got material from another type of E-coli. So you’ve got this germ that’s like O157 but has this extra weaponry, that makes it more nasty.”-Paul Hunter, University of East Anglia in England

E-coli O157 destroys your blood cells and kidneys, and might be the parent of the latest, deadliest form.

German press reports say World Health Organization officials have identified the e-coli, that has killed 17 Germans so far, as a new mutant strain, spawned by two deadly forms of e-coli.  The new strain has been seen before, but not at the level of an outbreak.

E-coli is a bacteria, and everyone has it (in our intestines), at least the non-lethal kind, but there are some very bad versions out there that will kill: “The vast majority of strains are harmless, but there are a select few that are armed and dangerous because of the particular genes they happen to have. These genes produce those toxins. If they produce these toxins, the outcome of infection, rather than just being a tummy upset, can be far more serious.”-Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading in England

Now health officials are trying to found out where the new e-coli spawned.  Originally Spanish vegetables were thought to be the carriers (vegetables from Denmark and the Netherlands are suspect as well), but the epicenter of the outbreak is around Hamburg, Germany.  More than 1,000 people in Germany are sick, 470 have reached the stage where kidney failure could occur.

Spain has two cases, but officials say those people had just returned from Germany, prompting Spanish politicians to point the finger of blame to Germany.

Sweden is now reporting cases; one death of a woman who went to Spain, 43 people sick.  The United Kingdom reports seven cases.  Denmark has 14.  Netherlands has eight.  Austria, France, Norway and Switzerland are reporting cases, most of the people had just got back from trips to Germany.

Russia and the United Arab Emirates have banned vegetables from European Union.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it’s increasing inspections of vegetables coming from Europe.

Since e-coli is usually found on the surface of vegetables, the best way to protect yourself is to wash them before eating.

Idaho, International, U.S.

Global Food Crisis: Idaho hit by cold, wet weather, and Potato Worms

The planting season is way behind schedule in the U.S. state of Idaho; at least two to three weeks according to some farmers.  The weather has been too cold, and too wet.  Here in eastern Idaho the Snake and Portneuf rivers are flooding, making it worse.

The flooding Portneuf is hitting farmers in Inkom: “We’ll lose about 4 to 500 ton of hay and probably, I don’t know how much barley, 150 ton of barley. The problem is there’s still a lot of snow to come down, and I think it’s probably gonna be in July or August before we can get in here, and it’s gonna be to late to crop.”-Jim Guthrie, Inkom farmer

The cold is keeping seeds from sprouting: “The cold weather has probably been as much of a delay as the moisture has been. My sugar beets have been in the ground three weeks and they haven’t sprouted yet. With the cold weather we’ve been having, maybe it’s a good thing they haven’t.”-Jim Tiede, American Falls farmer

Potatoes need relatively dry soil to be planted, and they need a hot summer to help them grow big.  Farmers are worried this summer might not be hot enough, or long enough.  Add to that a little worm that likes to eat spuds: “It’s an extremely difficult pest to get rid of.  The thing can last in the soil for decades, and so the process that you go through to get rid of it is extremely long.”-Larry Hawkins, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Hawkins is talking about a microscopic bug that has seen $36 million spent over five years, trying to get rid of it.  It’s shown up in several eastern Idaho potato fields this year.  The nematodes are not native to Idaho; they first showed up in Bingham county in 2006.  They’re not dangerous to people, but can reduce potato yields by 80%.