Quote of the week  'The life of this vigorous, wise, compassionate and humble man is an example to  all of us about how to make the most of our gifts and create our own opportunities to serve humanity's future.'   Hazel Henderson, author, about publisher and philosopher Satish Kumar. See "Like talking with God"  below. 

Wednesday 26th May 2004 
David and Goliath - a draw?  Feisty, Canadian septuagenarian farmer, Percy Schmeiser, has been fighting our anti-GM battles for years. He has been through a series of court battles with our favourite corporate organic-basher, Monsanto, who sued him for allegedly using their patented GM canola (rape seed) without their permission. Last week the Canadian Supreme Court ruled, in a 5-4 majority decision, that he does not have to pay Monsanto's costs or claims for compensation, as he had no intention of profiting (he always claimed accidental contamination) from the crop. However, the judges did rule that Monsanto had a patentable right to the GM canola and this is being held up by the industry as a major victory. However it may prove to be a Pyrrhic one that could backfire disastrously on the GM companies, as there is now a precedent set for ultimate ownership and thus responsibility for GM crops. 
It's a developing situation being extensively reported and analysed - see www.percyschmeiser.com/decisioncomments.htm and www.gmwatch.org  Newsletter 24/05/04 GMW ; Schmeiser claims moral and personal victory.. Follow the links therein to other sources
Schmeiser intends to relax a little now and enjoy more time with his family and friends.There is little doubt but that he has well-earned this respite and the huge respect of activists world-wide. He still has his own legal costs to meet but it will be surprising if he is not helped substantially by his supporters. There is another pay-off for his unstinting efforts in travelling the world, talking the anti-GM talk;  "Louise and I have made many friends and acquaintances in this crusade and we will cherish those memories and friendships forever." Maith an fear. 

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to - irrigate  Looking out on Bantry Bay (just 200 yards south of my desk) I am reminded of the vastness and interconnectivity of the world's oceans and the enormous volume of water they contain. In this incredibly dry and sunny spell of weather we are enjoying here in Ireland these last few weeks, I am also tempted to think that the parched soil of my garden could be easily relieved by dipping into this almost limitless resource lapping at my shore. Salt of course is the problem, but a few buckets of sea water on an experimental patch should not do any great harm - and it would have the satisfying result of keeping the slugs away. 
Others however do not have the luxury of such experimetation and knowing that everything will soon be put to rights by rain, bucketing rain - which in Ireland is ever just around the corner - and salt contamination of land is a serious world-wide problem. It is estimated that 25 million acres of land is rendered barren every year from salination due to over-irrigation. In most cases it is sadly land that was formerly highly productive. 
Spain, continuously hard-pressed with water problems, has had to face hard options. Under the  former conservative government, an enormously expensive and environmentally controversial plan to divert water from the Ebro river to the dry southeast was proposed. That has been shelved and now, the new government is proposing to deal with the problem by building 20 desalination plants "to provide 721 hectometres" (a hectometer, 1,000 cubic metres?) of water. Is that a better environmental deal? More herbicide-drenched golf courses, chlorinated swimming pools and more fruit and vegetables from already pesticide-toxic Almeria? (If you value your health, eat nothing from this region - 13,000 hectares under plastic, dreadful working conditions for their mostly Arab employees and agrichemical-polluted irrigation water. All Irish supermarkets use their products).    
The GM industry, proposes a solution that would bypass the desalination factories. A company, American, called FuturaGene, is working on beefing up the ability of genes within plants to resist salt (and cold and drought) and ultimately hopes to develop plants that are so hardy they can be irrigated directly with seawater. Prof. Carlo Leifert, of the Tesco Centre for Organic Agriculture at Newcastle University, however, thinks GM is not the answer; "It's by no means a long-term solution. The Americans are the worst with respect to sustainable soil management. They are creating a problem, then looking for a technological fix to get 10 or 20 years more profit out of the same land. Instead we should be educating people how to use irrigation more efficiently." 

Playboy reveals all about GMOs  That article I mentioned last week can be read (no pictures!) at http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2004/Feeding-Our-Playboy1jun04.htm  Interesting particularly to hear the views of large-scale American farmers on GM crops: one,Tony Roush, once an enthusiast for Roundup Ready crops, now laments the ever-increasing scale that they have to farm at to remain profitable, and the unlikelihood of his children being able to follow him into farming. "I'd put the genie back in the bottle in a heartbeat," Roush says, glumly concluding that "Genetically modified crops are destroying the social fabric of our rural communities." Another GM crop grower, Doug Doughty, contemplating the triple problems of export difficulties to Europe, Monsanto's overweening power and the denial of the right to save seed, muses depressingly, "I think we've made a bargain with the devil." 

Never mind your mother, eat your thistles  A weed is a plant in the wrong place they say. Docks are plants that seem to occur in abundance in the wrong places on organic farms and various strategies are being employed to deal with them. This site - http://www.organicweeds.org.uk - organised by the UK's Henry Doubleday Research Association is devoted to dealing with docks and other out-of-place plants. Lots of useful information on the site. I didn't see, however, any mention of the old remedy of Dock for nettle stings and its efficacy as a laxative, and handily, as a toilet wipe (especially when wilted slightly, so I've been told) but it does recommend the leaves of Sow Thistle (Sonchus Oleraceus L.) for salad. A case of - If you can't beat them, eat them - perhaps. 

Wednesday 19th May 2004
"It is a sad day in the history of global agriculture" says respected, Indian rural policy expert, Devinder Sharma, in his reaction to the UN's, Food and Agriculture Organisation's favourable report on GM food and crops. In anger and disgust, he says the FAO "has been reduced to an extension of the US Agency for International Development (USAID)". Implying that the international agency has sold out and joined the "troika of World Bank/IMF, WTO and the GM industry" he believes that this study "will hasten the process of rural environmental destruction and the eclipse of farming communities." See more at www.gmwatch.org Newsletter 18/05/'04 - Sharma on FAO.

"The return of the East India Company" is what some in the Indian state of Andwahr Pradesh call Blair's and the West's input into the economic development of the region. Read the quite unbelievable story of "Vision 2020" - the Western-devised plan whose failure has to a large extent contributed to the political turnaround in India in the last week - on Guardian journalist George Monbiot's website, http://www.monbiot.com/dsp_article.cfm?article_id=654 

Europe's shame  Despite the hammering the GM industry is suffering on several fronts, it can garner succour from the support (sellout?) of the FAO (above) and, this morning, the likely breakdown of the EU moratorium on GM. After a six-year ban, the EU Commissioners are expected to give approval for the marketing of US sweet corn genetically engineered to be insect-resistant. Although sales of the product are expected to be negligible (the GM sweet corn = only 0.1% of all US corn) - especially as it will be labelled "Produced from GMOs", the move is seen by the US as at least a partial victory in their WTO case against the EU. There are 30 other GM products awaiting review. Some spokespersons for the industry are not impressed; "The approval of a single product does not affect our W.T.O. challenge,"said a US trade representative. 
It was good to see that the story was a main news item on RTE Radio 1 this morning. One of our men in Brussels, Davy Byrne, Commissioner for Health and Consumer Safety, was described in the broadcast as being "central" in pushing through approval for this product. Why is this unelected official allowed to facilitate a food technology that is rejected by more than 70% of European consumers? 

News Flash! As I go to press this lunchtime, it has been confirmed that approval has been granted to the GM sweet corn. And Commissioner Byrne has also announced his resignation!  Could it be that he feels it a case of mission accomplished? He certainly has endeared himself to the GM industry with this particular swan song. 
Apart from his enthusiasm for GMOs, Byrne has done much good work in Europe, establishing a food safety authority, central disease controls, and very laudable curbs on tobacco advertising (for which he won an international award). He scorned the idea put forward by RTE's Tony Connolly "that he was getting out ahead of the posse", that is, clearing the way for our Ag.Min.Joe Walsh to have a crack at the post. God help us! Come back Davy, all is forgiven. 

Baring all for organics  A correspondent from California has informed me that his neighbour, publisher Hugh Heffner, has been taking an interest in organics (because of the Danish research was my first ignoble thought).
Consequently there is to be a major spread on organic food in the June issue of Playboy magazine. The author of the piece, Dan Baum, is a well-known writer on environmental issues and contributes to the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Wired etc. 
Now you can truly (yes?) claim that you only buy Playboy for the articles. If you're shy about it - and you're buying in Ireland, you can always wrap it up in ultra-respectable Organic Matters, the monthly magazine of the Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association (which incidentally is looking very attractive in its own right these days).
I've just been informed that the title of the Playboy article is, "How Big Agriculture and the U.S. Government Bungled the Biotech Revolution and Made a Deal with the Devil." 
If one of you would send me a photocopy of the article, I'd be grateful. It's not that I am a prude and wouldn't be seen buying it, or that SuperValu, Castletownbere doesn't stock it (it does), it's the price that would baulk me. My publications' budget only extends to the Sunday Times, the Guardian on Thursday's (mostly for the excellent computer supplement), and a very occasional copy of the ultra-local Southern Star (to keep abreast of the latest planning controversies, one of which is here referred to as "The Crying Game"). Apart from these, I am kept in quality reading with complimentary copies of many  magazines including Resurgence and New Internationalist. A loaned copy of The Ecologist from one of my good neighbours, R.S., completes my healthy periodical diet.

Tuesday 18th May 2004
Only Nature-al  Nature magazine has done a feature on organic farming that we should all look at carefully. "Is organic the future of farming?" it asks, and speculates that in its pure form, perhaps not. It argues however that elements of the organic philosophy are starting to be deployed in mainstream agriculture and attempts to frame the questions on which its wider adoption depends.
Unusually the subscription site is offering the full article and its linked-to pages free of charge until the end of May. www.nature.com/nature/focus/organicfarming/ 
 
Don't you love the picture (top right)?  Reminds me of the hippy lad in Bantry one Fair Day with a few sad, unsold organic turnips. He justified the exhorbitant price with "Soul food, innit?" Sadly, so much of high priced organic food and feed products results from a similar attitude - If you want it, pay for it. 

GM crops are being hammered worldwide Following Monsanto's humiliating withdrawal of its GM wheat crop last week, there have been other setbacks for the trnsnational industry.
Australian backout  Monsanto has abandoned its efforts to introduce GM "Roundup Ready" canola (rape seed) in Australia. Even though Monsanto had government approval for the crop, individual state moratoria on the crop spelt a commercial end to the controversial crop. http://abc.net.au/science/news/scitech/SciTechRepublish_1106592.htm 
Indian farmers' suicides scandal, it's claimed, has contributed largely to the electoral defeat of the ruling right-wing TD Party in the state of Andhra Pradesh and the national triumph of the Congress party. Over 3,000 farmers are said to have committed suicide in the state, most of them cotton farmers who suffered disastrous harvests using Monsanto's GM cotton. Politician S R Reddy, in the now-ruling Congress party, said his rivals came to grief because of overemphasis on economic reforms and information technology that failed to benefit farmers and the rural masses. See http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23692 and "Out of India" item below.
For other negative stories about Monsanto read about the public fears over their rbGH hormone in dairy cows, the class-action allegations of price-fixing, their African disaster over sweet potatoes, the collapse of their GM soybean market in Argentina, their row with fellow industry giants Syngenta and so on at http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23692 
Power to the people  It is gratifying to hear the following; "It is a remarkable achievement that ordinary people and campaigners have been able to change the direction of the GM juggernaut. The controversy has also contributed to widening the debates about agriculture and sustainability in welcome ways." Sue Mayer Director of Gene Watch UK in the Guardian 11/05/04. But it would be prudent to remember that this is still an industry with enormous resources and an awful lot to lose. They may be losing the west but they will undoubtedly refocus their selling and marketing energies on those developing countries desperate  for development. I doubt that in this new age of instant communication they will get away with it for long, but in the meantime they can cause much economic loss, suffering and death (as we've seen in India). Is it not about time that we bring these out-of-control economic behemoths to justice.
From Decoupling to Coexisting Is it not ironic that as we "decouple" from one kind of destructive agricultural technology here in western Europe, organic farmers are urged to accept the principle of "coexistence" with GM crops? 

Wednesday 12th May 2004
News Flash. 'Worldwide victory for consumers' is claimed by Friends of the Earth Europe as Monsanto drops GM wheat. Splashed all over the world media today, you can't miss this story but see particularly, Andrew Pollack in the New York Times - www.nytimes.com/2004/05/11/business/worldbusiness/11wheat.html?ex=1084852800&en=00130a571ebb059a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE and in the UK, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=520126 (thanks to 'Driftwood'). 
Trying not to sound like a stuck pig, Tom McDermott, Monsanto's European spokesman, said on Irish radio today that the dropping of their GM wheat is just a 'deferment' and amounts to but a 'minor holdup'. In the meantime they are going to 'focus on other crops, like drought-resistant corn'. Financial markets take the move somewhat more seriously and Monsanto's share price took a sharp downward turn in the last 24 hours.

Tuesday 11th May 2004 
"Like talking with god"  Regular readers of this column will have picked up on my enthusiasm for the 'deep ecology' magazine Resurgence. I couldn't then, in all conscience, miss its editor for 27 years, Satish Kumar, when he came to Dublin and gave The Schumacher Lecture during the recent Convergence Festival.
'Slow down - go further' was the title of the talk given to a ticket-only, capacity audience. Indian-born Mr Kumar, without a note to refer to (or any threat of 'death by Power Point!'), gave an inspirational talk which ranged from advice on how to influence international politics, to making one's own bread. 
He gave generously too of his time and energy in the following question time (I managed to ask the last question, to which he gave a ten-minute reply). He received a prolonged, standing ovation, something I had never seen before (except for the Pavlovian stuff from the party faithful at Árd Feiseanna, which of course doesn't count. And, incidentally, of the people who would have most benefitted from Mr Kumar's wisdom and insights, our politicians, there wasn't one in sight - not even a Green one!).
People were aglow after the talk, as they queued to buy, and have signed, copies of the speaker's books. One women I overheard, remarking to her companion, said, 'Wasn't it fantastic? Did you ever hear anything like it? God, 'twas like talking with God'. 
The event was recorded and there are to be tapes and videos of it. Contact www.sustainable.ie  for details. 
Two books by Satish Kumar, You Are therefore I Am, and his autobioghraphy No Destination, both published by Green Books, UK, are also available at the Cultivate Centre, Essex Street, upper Temple Bar, or from your local good bookshop or library. Copies of the bi-monthly Resurgence magazine are also available at the Cultivate shop. It can also be subscribed to through the website www.resurgence.org. 
      
Also out of India  Pavitra Chalam (pictured left) a young indian peace activist and documentary film maker, delivered a hard-hitting report on GMOs in India at the Convergence Festival in Dublin two weeks ago. 
As any of you who visit www.gmwatch.org - or get their newsletters* -  will know, India has long been both a test-bed for the GM industry and a hot-bed (literally at times - e.g. the Cremate Monsanto campaign) of protest. Ms Chalam's report, concentrating mainly on Monsanto and its attempts to establish GM Bt. cotton in the sub continent, is a devastating indictment of this miserable, transnational corporation's methods of operation. Doctored reports, lies, environmental devastation, financial ruin of growers (resulting in hundreds of suicides) .... the catalogue of horrors she depicts is depressing** 
See the full text of Pavitra's talk - Click here  
There are dozens of links throughout the document that would well justify a visit.

* See e.g. their 11/05/'04 newsletter, Dr Sunan Sahal on GM regulation in India and  01/05/'04, New study nails Monsanto's lies over GM cotton in India. See also the many contributions by the ultra-prolific, food policy analyst Devinder Sharma. All at www.gmwatch.org 

** But lets not get too down about it - Monsanto and their ilk don't get away scot free; look up the site of the greatest thorn in their side, Dr.Vandana Shiva at www.vshiva.net. Follow through by visiting the spinoff site from Dr. Shiva's foundation, www.navdanya.org. And see particularly, the connections between Prince Charles, Shiva, Navdanyu and organics.
Read also her Gandhi Peace Foundation Lecture, 30th January, 2004, The Spinning Wheel and the Seed: Gandhi's Legacy, Humanity's Hope. 

Thursday 6th May 2004 
"Everybody has a right to healthy food"   So said top restaurauteur, Evan Doyle*, at the recent GM-free workshop in Dublin. In a surprisingly hard-hitting talk, (for full text Click here) enthusiastically received, he said  "... everyone in Ireland and indeed the world has the basic right to eat safe, healthy, unadulterated food – it should not be just for the sole privilege of those 'discerning customers whose primary concern is healthy eating' ". See below **
Mr Doyle co-owns and runs the Brook Lodge hotel in Wicklow (www.brooklodge.com ) which, apart from its luxurious accomodation, has an exclusively wild and organic restaurant, the Strawberry Tree. It might seem slightly at odds for a four-star hotel proprietor to be advocating sharp change on food and social justice issues but he has learned well on his hard-working way to the Brook Lodge. 
Doyle, who will spend over €1 million on organic and wild ingredients for his restaurant this year, berates our "irrational food production methods" and urges that we declare ourselves to be "green and clean". On the GM industry, he, unlike his co-panellist, Deasy of the  IFA, is clear and unequivocal: "They are set on world food domination and huge economic benefit."
At a grass-roots level, a farmers' market is run once a month in the grounds of the hotel. Up to 3,000 visitors attend.
See Mr Doyle's perceptive comments on insurance and GM, and Teagasc's "two-tier food market".  Click here

* Mr Doyle and his hotel were also  pictured and featured in the Sunday Times last week. The article, in the Business section, was titled "Why Slow Food is growing so fast". Try for it online at www.sunday-times.co.uk 

 ** Such a simple statement, fundamentally ethical and, one would think, so self-evident that it hardly needs to be said, is a principle that should guide us all in our efforts to bring about change in food production and food supply systems (It is certainly and consistently mine; see The Killing Fields from five years ago and the About/Contact page, read on from No Slave to Organic ).
But it is astonishing how much ignored this aspiration is, even within the organic movement. In Ireland, for example, it is the declared policy of one large organics marketeer that if you want organic, you have to be prepared to pay for it. This elitism says to me - Let the rich get healthier and f..k the poor. Who is doing anything to bring the benefits of organic food to those who especially need it, e.g. mothers and children at the bottom of the social pyramid? We need a Dr Noel Browne of the food industry. 

Organics delivers social benfits  This is the substance of an academic paper that I am trying to get permission to publish. The paper concludes by arguing that "the future support for organic farming will rest on the social benefits that it may bring to rural people and rural communities, and that without understanding what the social impacts are a compelling case is unlikely to be made."
I have the full hard-copy text already and the e-version is hopefully in the pipeline. 

"The costly fraud that is organic food"  Lord Dick Taverne is at it again. In a column in the Guardian today, the chair of Sense About Science, has an umitigated rant against organics. Organic farming is a billion-pound (Ed. the UK, presumably) industry promoted by a stream of propaganda from green lobby groups, he tells us. The only contribution organics can make to sustainable agriculture - Lord Dick here quoting the Indian biologist, C.K. Prakash - will be to sustain poverty and malnutrition. "To question claims made by the organic lobby is not just akin to doubting the virtues of motherhood, but to reveal indifference to the poisoning of the nation and the fate of the planet..."  continues the provocative peer. 
I know that many of you will want to challenge him (go on, it's easy) so here is the URL for the full article http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1210493,00.html  and the good lord's email address is dicktaverne@hotmail.com 

Corrections and additions I do get my wires crossed at times. In Dublin, two weeks ago, I quoted Craig Gardner as the originator of the following statement, getting the accountant mixed up with Craig Ventner, the biologist.
Apologies to Ruaidhri Deasy and one other I can't remember. 

'The hope of the industry (GM) is that over time the market is so flooded (with GM organisms) that there’s nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender!'  
This is the GM industry letting the cat out of the bag! Don Westfall, Vice President, Promar International, Washington, consultants to Kellogs, Unilever, Aventis etc. Full report, $5,000!

This is the C.V. quotation: We don’t know shit about biology.' - Craig Ventner, the head of the company that first unravelled the human genome. 

Both above, from my Quotes page. 
Here are a few others;

This is from the GM industry also. "'If anyone tells you that GM is going to feed the world, tell them that it is not…To feed the world takes political and financial will'.  Steve Smith, SCIMAC and Novartis (now Syngenta), Tittleshall Village Hall public meeting on proposed local GM farm scale trial, 29th March, 2000.

I said the same in a letter published in Time magazine; 
It is poverty that denies people access to food; gene technology makes food even dearer and thus even less available to the poor. Political and financial will combined with safe, sustainable agricultural systems and a move towards vegetarianism realistically promise lasting solutions to world hunger and environmental conservation. Jim O'Connor, Hungry Hill, Cork, Ireland.  Letter published in Time, Aug 28th '00,  in reply to a pro-GM article by Bill Gates (what the hell was he doing writing about GM, you might well ask?)

This one is aimed especially at Mr Deasy, wearing his cap as a director of Teagasc.
 'For some, talk of sustainable agriculture sounds like a luxury the poor can ill-afford. But in truth it is good science, addressing real needs and delivering real results. For too long it has been the preserve of environmentalists and a few aid charities. It is time for the major agricultural research centres and their funding agencies to join the revolution.'  New Scientist, 3 February, 2001.


Monday 3rd May 2004 
New! Feeling my way in biodynamic gardening -  A new column by Beara organic farmer and gardener, Christine O'Sullivan.  Click here 
Christine, and her husband Paul, run 75 acre Clover Farm, at Allihies, Beara Peninsula, West Cork. They have two young children.
In their unsurpassable Atlantic-fringe setting, they produce beef, lamb, pork and eggs, and a wide variety of vegetables (and luscious strawberries!) in season. They sell much of their produce at the farm gate but meat and eggs can also be ordered by phone. Tel 027 73295.   

Saturday 1st May 2004 
The Ten  Welcome to the latest members of the European Union. Celebrations were opened last night in Dublin with a spectacular fireworks display, Stars of the Sea.
My enthusiam for political European unity is undiminished since the 1960s. I wish the hopes and aspirations of them all are going to be largely realized. 
There will however be many problems to face. May none experience the trauma in agriculture that Ireland suffered in the 1970s in the first years after accession.
It would be naive however to expect that we Europeans have achieved any great economic or  social wisdom in the interim. Poland, for example, the largest of the new members, has a huge agricultural sector that is already showing signs of major upheaval and exploitation that bodes badly for their people and their environment - and indeed other mass exporters of food like ourselves. See some of these issues discussed in Guardian article Thursday last, Poles fear the yoke of agri-giants www.guardian.co.uk  

Let there be nyet beef  There were no offers from Ireland to my invitation to supply my Russian enquirer with even a scraipín of organic meat. I shall have to tell them to come back in a few decades - if one of their other, closer neighbours, enthusiastically developing their organic sectors, have a hiccup in supplying them. 

Rallying round  Best of luck to my son Senan, and his Finnish co-driver, Pasi, who are whizzing around the beauty spots of West Cork and Kerry in the Rally of the Lakes this weekend. See www.rallyinsite.com  
They are driving a works-built Volkswagen Polo rather than the Subaru WRC mentioned on the site. The car's number is 65. 
I am about to head off to the spectacular Healy Pass road on my bicycle (carbon sinking?) to see them go by - in a momentary blur, probably.
(3rd May. They finished fifteen stages before retiring with broken drive shafts on Moll's Gap on Sunday. There is a spectacular photo of them "airborne" near Ard groom - should be on Rallyinsite tomorrow).