Archive for July 11, 2016

Why do organic farmers have to pay for certification

Jul 11th

Posted by sky in Farming

Why do organic farmers have to pay for certification rather than farmers who use toxic chemicals?

 

BLOG HOME 3 Posted Jul 10 2016 by Simon Fairlie of The Land Magazine

 

“So if you’re a farmer and you want to produce food without using chemical fertilisers or pesticides, you have to pay to be certified, putting you at an immediate disadvantage compared to farmers who do use chemicals.”

 

Phil Chandler and I  made this point 17 years ago through the Wholesome Food Association.  Still today mega farms collect mega subsidies for poisoning the soil whilst organic growers pay large yearly fees to nourish the soil.

 

http://www.lowimpact.org/organic-farmers-pay-certification-rather-farmers-use-toxic-chemicals/

 

 

Black Lives Matter

Jul 11th

Posted by sky in Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter: The Baton Rouge photo hailed as ‘legendary’

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36759711

 

In 1958, I opened the bundles and distributed the Indianapolis Star morning newspaper for our local news agent.  There on the front page was a photo of a white man kicking a fallen black news reporter on a street in Indiana.  A few years earlier when I delivered on a paper route, my black good friend and neighbour and I entered a restaurant in Peru, Indiana where I chose to buy two cartons of chocolate milk for us.  The proprietor said to me. “You can drink yours in here but he will have to drink his outside.”  I walked out in a blind rage.  My friend calmed me down and said don’t worry about it, I’m used to that.  Indiana is not a Southern state.

When president Obama was elected, I thought that finally the American racial illness is healed.  How did I get it so wrong?

 

 

Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863. Yet:

 

“Calling for a greater sense of urgency in addressing America’s “broader set of racial disparities,” U.S. President Barack Obama told reporters on Thursday that  blacks were shot by police at more than twice the rate of whites last year.

 

The Guardian, however, pegged the 2015 rate of death for young black men, specifically, as five times higher than white men of the same age.”

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/number-of-black-people-killed-by-us-police-still-no-stats-1.3670513