559 - Famine, The Fruit of Disconnection (Jailing Gardeners, Raw Milk, Food Markets and Soil)

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Episode #559 - Famine, The Fruit of Disconnection (Jailing Gardeners, Raw Milk, Food Markets & Soil)

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⌚ Sat 9 July 2011  ☻Julian Cribb, Ivan Illich (reading), Michael Olsen (reading), David Gumpert, Patrick Holden, Frederick Kaufman

Download Hour1 Download Hour2A show on the 'developed' world's fundamental disconnection from the soil that ultimately sustains us all, with an emphasis on the insanity of modern US food laws. Julian Cribb on the global famines ahead, Ivan Illich on soil and virtue, David Gumpert on why FDA agents went undercover for a year to catch an Amish farmer accused of selling raw milk. Then Frederick Kaufman on global food market profiteering by Goldman Sachs and Patrick Holden from the UK soil association on organic food and use of direct action to escape the market model of food provision.

We start this week's show news of Julie Bass, a Michigan woman threatened with 3 months in jail for the crime of growing vegetables in her front yard. Then we hear Julian Cribb's predictions of ever sharper famines which send shockwaves around the globe and alert people to the seriousness of the ongoing ecocide. Then, a reading of Ivan Illich's 1990 one page Declaration on Soil in which he writes philosophically on the dangers of ignoring what is locally understood to be the right. This we follow up with a reading of Michael Olsen's 3 laws of the Food Chain.

Next an edited interview from the Food Chain Radio in which we hear from David Gumpert, author of Raw Milk Revolution on the case of Dan Alger, an Amish farmer accused of illicit trade in raw milk. Why does the US FDA claim unpasteurised milk is dangerously unsafe, while - in contrast to a lot of processed food - no recent deaths are attributable to it? Is the influence of agribusiness discernible in US food legislation which seems to disadvantage the small farmer? We continue into hour two.

Next it's a piece from Sea Change Radio. Frederick Kaufman, English professor, author and contributing editor to Harper's Magazine on how food markets Focusing on the global wheat markets. He demystifies some of the jargon such as Speculators Commodities Index Funds, and tells how they interfere with the market's abilities to connect buyers and sellers while making prices volatile, this making huge profits for the financial speculators who set them up, and adding to the prices of basic foodstuffs that consumers end up paying.

We conclude with an interview of Patrick Holden. He speaks about the UK Soil Association, and the importance of organic food, suggesting that relying on capitalism to keep the shops supplied with food is unwise, he recommends alternatives such as cultivating direct relationships with farmers.
Thanks to Michael Olsen from Food Chain Radio for the Dan Alger interview. Thanks to Alex Smith from Radio Ecoshock for the Julian Cribb interview. Thanks to Sea Change Radio for the Frederick Kaufman interview.
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Source archive: Julian Cribb Interview (42 min) Julian Cribb Raw Milk (42 min) David Gumpert A Declaration on Soil (6 min) Ivan Illich (Transcript available at http://UnwelcomeGuests.net/archive/559/1990_declaration_on_soil.pdf) Sea Change on Wheat Markets (30 min) Frederick Kaufman Can Britain Feed Itself? (23 min) Patrick Holden

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To link to this episode, please use the short, permanent URL: http://UnwelcomeGuests.net/559

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