An interesting scenario with agriculture in Australia.
Farmers are complaining loudly that the prices they get for their produce is way too low and set by the duopoly retail chains (Coles and Woolworths supermarkets) along with a handful of intermediary processors and middle men.
The markup in the supermarkets can be as much as 2000 per cent on some items.
This is how I see things. The farmers are therefore always trying to reduce their costs and one way they do this is by ‘no till’ farming. This entails covering the farms with herbicides to kill the weeds. It’s cheaper than engaging in the usual tractor tilling. Less fuel costs and labour etc.
The Government and industry have convinced themselves that pesticides are, thus, indispensable to our agricultural economy.
In Tasmania this point of view – in the context of people being oversprayed and contaminated – has resulted in a discussion paper on changes to the aerial spraying code of practice only.
There’s no room for input on whether aerial spraying should be practised at all. Nor of course are we invited to comment on the viability of man-made pesticides as a technology in our food and fibre producing systems.
Knowledge is fragmented and extremely limited thanks to the Government and industry witholding information as a routine measure (for example, reports on the extent of pesticide contamination in the organisms that live in our rivers and streams, copies of original experiments, and so on).
So, from my point of view, the following website: Agribusiness Accountability Initiative US is worth a closer look. Here’s the opening blurb from the Centre of Concern.
http://www.coc.org/focus/private/aai.html
AAI is preparing to launch a new clearinghouse website at www.agribusinessaccountability.org.
The site will include comprehensive analysis of how agribusiness concentration affects farmers, workers, consumers and the environment.
It will also provide links to organizations working to address these problems and to offer alternatives for a more sustainable global food system.
It has become increasingly clear in the past quarter century that almost all aspects of the global food system are dominated by a combination of corporate agribusiness, wealthy people in both industrialized and developing countries, and the financial institutions and national governments that guide and support them… The primary responsibility for improving the failing global food system rests with these persons and institutions. They control the system, reap most of its benefits, and make and enforce the rules for its operation. Much of this power is exercised without accountability… Such exercise is basically undemocratic and unethical. It must be challenged and changed.
Brenda Rosser is Tasmanian Coordinator, MCS-Global Global Recognition Campaign for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and other chemically induced illnesses, diseases & injury
Website: www.mcs-global.org
www.yahoogroups.com/group/tascleanwaternetwork
Bryan
May 1, 2005 at 12:17
The article is full of anecdote, assertions, and some dodgy logic.
Farmers can sell to whomever they wish, they (most) maximize income by monocropping, minimizing expenses, and selling the lot to very few suppliers. The duopoly don’t force anything on them. Consumers want reasonable quality, at the best price, and so the current situation pertains.
As to multiple chemical sensetivity, I find it is controversial in the medical literature, and the two refs supplied are similarly full if unsubstantiated assertions.
Bit like RSI, and perhaps the truth is there are maybe very few with the condition, and plenty for whom it provides an explanation for unusual or bizarre symptoms.
Brenda Rosser
May 1, 2005 at 15:48
Not all farmers can sell to whomever they wish. Family-scale growers would not be accepted by the two major supermarket chains, for instance. The major buyers insist on a particular scale of operation.
Cost pressures are higher for smaller scale farming operations too. Tax deductions are not available unless you fulfill certain criteria. Further, the State Government will not allow farming families to live on new subdivisions set up for ‘human-scale’ or ‘family-scale’ operations. Multiple occupancy on rural land is also forbidden. The latter prevents small scale producers from benefitting from co-operative arrangements.
It is said that the roots of low prices for agricultural produce lie in over-supply – a situation created by international, cultural, corporate and Government pressures and outcomes that shape the design of farms and ways of farming.
Farmers must continually produce more and earn less.
If the pressure prices for farming produce came from consumers (for reasonable quality and price of product as you say, Brian) then we would expect the supermarket chains to reduce their mark-up to cater to such pressure. The fact is, they’re not doing this because they are not obliged to work with ‘market’ dynamics when they have sufficient economic and political presence to set prices and create the framework for the production of food.
In summary, farmers don’t have to sell to the big operators. But they will be heavily penalised if they don’t.
Comments on ‘multiple sensitivity’ later.
Diana Buckland
May 1, 2005 at 16:44
Pesticides, insecticides, herbicides etc. are huge $$$$$business$$$$- and human health and environmental health are paying the price for the massive and widespread use of such chemicals.
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is real and affecting an ever increasing percentage of the global population – I present my website data for you to consider.
Thank you and kind regards,
Diana Buckland
Founder & Global Coordinator
MCS-Global http://www.mcs-global.org
Global Recognition Campaign for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and other chemically induced illnesses, diseases & injury
Brenda Rosser
May 4, 2005 at 03:57
Brian said:
“As to multiple chemical sensetivity, I find it is controversial in the medical literature, and the two refs supplied are similarly full if unsubstantiated assertions.”
Brian, could you identify the ‘unsubstantiated assertions’ that you refer to?
“perhaps the truth is there are maybe very few with the condition, and plenty for whom it provides an explanation for unusual or bizarre symptoms. ”
Perhaps the medical establishment don’t have an adequate diagnostic protocol in place for this condition. A not uncommon scenario from my very direct and long term experience (not so much with MCS but others that should not have been so challenging).
Bryan
May 4, 2005 at 11:43
Try reading some of the personal stories,on the MCS website.. like Francescas, who claims that amalgam fillings given to her Mother during breast feeding led to lifelong disability.
Amalgam filings have been subjected to the most stringent testing, without evidence of harm.
Whilst the people have dramatic descriptions of their problem, the link to “chemical sensetivity ” is tenuous, as their symptoms can be due to a wide variety of aetiologies.
Statements about “Immune collapse” show little knowledge of the complexities of the immune syste,such a collapse will be followed by rapid demise to death, within a week.
The practitioners who claim to treat it(MCS) usually do not come from a science background, sometimes denigrate doctors, and they use unsubstantiated remedies, that cost, and never publish their results in reputable journals.
Doctotrs are open minded, admitting that there may be some such condition, but at present it is not defined, has neither cause nor cure, but we wait the studies that will enlighten.
It is common to denigrate orthodox medicine on the basis of a few failures (as you do), but a least we are open about it, and striving for improvement.
Brenda Rosser
May 5, 2005 at 05:49
Brian you said:
“It is common to denigrate orthodox medicine on the basis of a few failures (as you do)..”
Please don’t extrapolate beyond the territory of what I’ve actually written. I did not say that I had experienced ‘a few failures’ in diagnosis from doctors. I and the Health Complaints Commission in Tasmania can assure you that this is definitely not the case.
Regarding your comments on MCS. Doctors are also aware that many specific diseases have symptoms that are attributable to a wide variety of causes. Not just MCS. Thus the need for doctors to draw upon the most up-to-date and reliable science available in the diagnosis of MCS and other diseases using properly drawn out diagnostic protocols. Most times this would actually involve GPs sending their patients to physicians who have done the ‘legwork’ on the diagnosis and treatment of any particular illness.
Who are the specialist science practitioners in Tasmania that diagnose and treat MCS, Brian? (Given that there are scientific studies and much knowledge available already on this topic).
On the pesticide topic:
“in the United States it is estimated that 10 to 20 percent of pesticides used on fruits and vegetables serve only to improve their appearance. ..
And
“it is estimated that more of the U.S. food supply is lost to pests today (37%) than in the 1940s (31%). i Total crop losses from insect damage alone have nearly doubled from 7% percent to 13% during that period.”
” ii Pesticides and nitrates from fertilizers and manure have been detected in the groundwater of most [US] states.
[That means, according the the Australian State of Environment report, that it could take 100 years before these groundwater chemical contaminants stop leaching into the rivers and streams there. No studies on groundwater were reported in the Tasmanian SofE report.]
References: Pimental, David, et al. 1992. Environmental and Economic Cost of Pesticide Use, BioScience, Vol. 42,No.10, 750-60
iiPimental, David and Hugh Lehman, eds. 1993. The Pesticide Question: Environmental, Economics and Ethics. New York: Chapman & Hall.
Brenda J Rosser
May 19, 2005 at 06:45
The need for pesticides???
“..It is claimed that aerial spraying is essential for profitable agriculture, though the Report of the Senate Select Committee on Agricultural & Veterinary Chemicals in Australia (1990)discovered that evidence to support this claim had never actually been collected…”
http://www.nccnsw.org.au/member/tec/projects/tcye/detail/Agriculture/airspray_27.html