Erik BJORGAN for Parliament

Ontario farmer not guilty of selling raw milk

The Canadian Press

An Ontario farmer who operates a raw milk co-op was found not guilty Thursday of 19 charges related to selling unpasteurized milk. Michael Schmidt, from Durham, Ont., defended himself in 2009 against the charges for dispensing milk straight from the cow.

While raw milk is legal to drink, it’s illegal to sell in Canada.

Schmidt’s legal battles sparked a heated debate over the safety of raw milk. Advocates have extolled its flavour and health benefits, while health officials and the province’s milk marketing board, the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, have argued raw milk isn’t fit for widespread distribution.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/01/21/raw-milk-trial.html?ref=rss

Canadian agriculture salutes Margaret Webb of the Toronto Star for this exceptional piece of work.

Follow the flow of food. That’s what any farmer will tell you. Because apples don’t grow in supermarkets. So to get to the root of the exploding obesity epidemic, I went in search of a junk food farm.

Such farms are not so easy to spot. No fields of Dorito bags waving in the breeze, no orchards blooming with soda pop, no soil bursting with 99-cent burgers.

What you do see are vast operations growing the raw materials for junk food: soybeans and corn.

The two crops go into the production of many things: pharmaceuticals, industrial products, animal feed – and inexpensive calories.

Tonnes of soybeans and corn are turned into “edible food-like substances,” as food system critic Michael Pollan calls them, used in virtually all processed foods, beverages and junk food.

Last year, Ontario farmers planted 2.4 million acres of soybeans and just over 2 million acres of corn. That’s nearly half of all cropland in the province, a near-colonization of Ontario farms by the soy and corn industry.

It has provided an abundance of cheap calories for a food system that operates by Doritos economics. A bushel of corn produces some 440 two-ounce bags of 99-cent chips. Farmer grosses $3.70 for the bushel of corn, Doritos more than $440.

Read the rest of this article … http://www.agridigest.com/featureWherejunk.html

Dear Premier Campbell, Minister Shea, Eric Foster MLA Vernon-Monashee,
Colin Mayes MP Okanagan-Shuswap

Similar to other forms of “factory” farming, wherever in the world salmon is farmed in open net-cages, disease outbreaks cannot be controlled. The Chilean industry has been devastated by Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) for two years and both Scotland and Norway continue to discover new cases. North America is not immune to viral diseases.

The constant threat of a disease running rampant through the industry’s open net-cages puts our wild fish at unacceptable levels of risk.

This week, governments around the world are being asked to take responsibility for making salmon farming safe for wild fish stocks and ocean ecosystems. Please let me know what specific actions your governments are taking to address the impacts of open net-cages.

Sincerely,
Russ Collins and Huguette Allen,
130 Shuswap River Dr
Lumby V0E 2G6
250-547-0272

http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=10801

Tragedy struck the [U.S.] nation’s largest military base yesterday in Fort Hood, Texas when an Army Psychiatrist shot 43 people, killing 12 and wounding the rest. He was about to be deployed to Iraq.

Already the resulting media blitz is focusing on the greater need for mental health counseling for the extremely high rates of depression, suicide, and violent outbursts among troops strained by repeated deployments to the wars of the past 8 years.

But it’s not just troops. Studies attempting to measure happiness globally found that Americans rank surprisingly lower than expected. The United States as a whole consumes more antidepressants than any other country. Read the rest of this entry »

Monsanto has come out with a new GMO corn called SmarStax which is anything but smart. It consists of 8 traits stacked together and has been authorized by the CFIA without an assessment by Health Canada for human health effects.

Yes this is the same CFIA that prevents us from buying organic chickens from our neighbour because they might be “unsafe”.

Today is the the first international Day of Action Against Multinational Corporations and the Green party of Canada has joined citizens around the planet who support this day. see http://www.greenparty.ca/media-release/2009-10-16/smartstax-not-smart

It is worth noting that while Canada let GMO sugar beet be planted, California has ruled them out, saying that they prevent anyone else from growing non-GMO beets – of course, pollen mixes.

If you care to stop this new dangerous breed of corn, sign letter at: http://cban.ca/content/view/full/540 – for more information on dangers associated with this see: http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/press/press-releases/cfia-rubber-stamping?mode=send

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/18dairy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th