 |
|||
 |
" I heard it |
||
October 22, 2010
· Big ag groups abandon sustainability talks
· School-grown veggies banned from schools
· Indians win $650 million in farm bias case
· India admits scientific papers plagiarized
· Forget pot: Hemp is the real economic issue
Big ag groups abandon sustainability talks
(Bio.org) WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representatives from national and regional agriculture, food and feed organizations withdrew en masse this week from the Leonardo Academy’s sustainable agriculture standard setting initiative citing “fatal, systemic limitations and chronic biases” within the Leonardo effort.
A letter addressed to Michael Arny,
“A successful American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
sustainable agriculture standard cannot be developed without the fair
representation and participation of those representing the overwhelming
majority of
The
“To meet the growing global demand for food, feed, energy and fiber, technology helps farmers achieve a more sustainable approach,” says Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, executive vice president for food and agriculture at BIO. “The success achieved in recent years is proof positive that science and modern agriculture technologies can provide more environmentally-friendly farming practices.”
In a September 11, 2008 letter to ANSI, the U.S. Department of Agriculture challenged Leonardo’s ANSI accreditation as a standards development organization for numerous fundamental flaws in Committee setup and management.
“At the early stages, mainstream production agriculture had difficulty getting a seat at the table,” said Bomer. “Over the years, it has become clear that the Leonardo ‘standard’ would not represent the needs of the people that actually grow the vast majority of our country’s food, feed and fiber.”
BIO maintains its commitment to agricultural sustainability and says it will work with the greater agriculture community on the development and implementation of a valid approach to agricultural sustainability in another venue.
A copy of the October 18, 2010 letter to the
School-grown veggies banned from schools
(UPI.com) – Chicago Public Schools officials said vegetables being harvested from school gardens are bound for sale rather than school cafeterias.
Administrators said the fruits, vegetables and herbs grown by students, teachers and volunteers at the 40 school gardens can't be served in cafeterias because they do not meet the rules set by the school district and its meal provider, Chartwells-Thompson, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.
"In order to use food in the school food program, it would need to meet specific/certified growing practices," school district spokeswoman Monique Bond said.
Chartwells-Thompson said the regulations include the elimination of "pesticides and insecticide" and the use of only "commercially prepared organic compost and fertilizers."
Officials said the produce will be sold or given away.
However, Kathleen Merrigan,
"Ideally, all of those products would make it from the garden to the lunchroom," Merrigan said.
US Indians win $650 million in farm bias case
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed to pay $680 million to settle claims by American Indians who said they were discriminated against in federal farm-loan programs dating back to 1981.
The settlement includes an additional $80 million of debt forgiveness and $20 million in administrative fees, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today in a conference call with reporters. The settlement does not require congressional spending authorization, Vilsack said.
The USDA has faced claims from black, women and Hispanic farmers for past racial discrimination. The largest lawsuit, Pigford v. Glickman, was filed by black farmers and led to a proposed $1.25 billion settlement in February which required congressional funding that has yet to be approved. This case, Keepseagle v. Vilsack, was originally filed in 1999.
“With today’s agreement, we take an important step forward in remedying USDA’s unfortunate civil rights history,” President Barack Obama said in an e-mailed statement. He called on Congress to implement the settlement in the Pigford case and others.
Non-Judicial Process
The settlement, which is structured similarly to that for black farmers, establishes a non-judicial process to settle claims. Growers who establish their credit-related claims can receive as much as $50,000.
A separate track for persons who have stronger evidence of economic losses caused by discrimination may provide actual damages of as much as $250,000. The awards may be reduced based on the number of claims, the USDA said. That number isn’t known, Vilsack said.
USDA’s civil rights record, the subject of lawsuits since the 1990s, gained greater national prominence last summer when Vilsack forced the resignation of department employee Shirley Sherrod after an edited video clip released by the website biggovernment.com left the impression that she didn’t fully help a white farmer she met with in 1986.
Vilsack and Obama apologized for the firing after the full video, which showed that she successfully helped the man save his farm, and Vilsack offered Sherrod either her old job back or a new job at USDA. Sherrod declined, saying the time wasn’t right for her return.
Vilsack today said the department is committed to remedying its past injustices. “USDA has zero tolerance for any form of discrimination,” he said.
The original lawsuit is Keepseagle
v. Vilsack, Civil Action No. 99-3119, U.S. District Court,
India
(IPS) NEW DELHI - Embarrassing retractions of scientific papers and a thinly-disguised report favouring introduction of genetically modified crops by the country's top science academies have revived calls for more stringent action against plagiarism and unethical practices.
Among the papers retracted is 'Microbial production of dihydroxyacetone' published by Biotechnology Advances (BA)
in July-August 2008 and authored by Ruchi Mishra, Seema Rani
Jain and Ashok Kumar of the department of biological sciences and
bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at
A group of 16 autonomous engineering and technology institutes IITs are deemed to be of national importance by parliament and are known worldwide for producing highly skilled scientists and engineers.
The reason given by BA for the retraction was that ''the authors have plagiarised part of several papers that had already appeared in several journals'' when ''one of the conditions of submission of a paper for publication is that authors declare explicitly that their work is original and has not appeared in a publication elsewhere.''
BA goes on to say that the ''article represents a severe abuse of the scientific publishing system. The scientific community takes a very strong view on this matter and we apologise to the readers of the journal that this was not detected during the submission process.''
Similar reasons were given for withdrawing 'Molecular imprinting in sol-gel matrix', by Radha Gupta and Ashok Kumar, also of IIT Kanpur, and published by BA in November-December 2008.
In a statement issued Oct. 10, Sanjay Dhande, director of IIT Kanpur, announced that a three-member panel would examine the plagiarism charges and submit a report to the board of governors by Nov. 2.
''We have a serious problem with plagiarism and no institute is ready to acknowledge it,'' said K.L. Chopra, a former director of the IIT at Kharagpur and now president of the Society for Scientific Values, an independent watchdog that boasts membership of 363 of India's leading scientists.
Chopra told IPS that
At the beginning of the year two Chinese university lecturers were sacked two weeks after the journal 'Acta Crystallographica Section E', published by the International Union of Crystallography, a non-profit, global scientific union, withdrew papers submitted by them on grounds of plagiarism.
In
Indeed, a third paper retracted by BA, 'Nanosilver
- the burgeoning therapeutic molecule and its green synthesis', was sent up by
scientists from the biotechnology department of the relatively obscure
''Scientists are under pressure to publish and too often
resort to cut-and- paste from the Internet in the mistaken belief that they are
not going to get caught,'' Chopra said.
Chopra said that instances of plagiarism are high in
He referred to a row over over a report favouring quick commercial release of genetically modified (GM) brinjal (eggplant or aubergine), jointly presented on Sep. 24 to Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Environment, by six of India's top scientific academies.
Parts of the inter-academy report turned out to be have been copied from a pro-GM paper funded by Monsanto, the United States-based biotechnology giant. .
Ramesh quickly dismissed the report -- by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Academy of Medical Sciences and National Academy of Sciences -- saying it was ''not a product of rigorous scientific evaluation."
Compelled to respond to the ministerial rebuke, Mamannamama Vijayan, who coordinated the report, issued a statement on behalf of the academies admitting to the ''inappropriateness'' of copying text without citations or references. He said the report would be reviewed but also that it was ''very unlikely that the recommendations (on GM brinjal) will change."
''There is a lesson here for the academics,'' said Chopra. ''They may have harmed rather than helped the cause of introducing GM crops in this country with a shoddily produced report.''
The anti-GM lobby quickly seized the advantage. On Oct. 18 a group of 14 non-government organisations jointly petitioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding that the presidents of the six academies be sacked for demonstrating ''inherent scientific bias that can have a serious impact on the future of Indian science as well as its relevance to the needs of the country.''
The petitioners pointed out that the president of the
National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Mangala Rai, is on the board of the Indo-U.S. Knowledge Initiative
in Agriculture, Research and Marketing which has been ''aggressively pushing GM
crop research in
''In an age where science and technology play an important
role in socio- economic development, this country needs to encourage excellence
and ensure accountability,'' Devinder Sharma, one of
the petitioners said. ''
Forget pot: Hemp is the real economic issue
(AlterNet.org) – Hemp is the far bigger economic issue hiding behind legal marijuana.
If the upcoming pot legalization ballot in
If
But with legal marijuana will come
legal hemp. That will open up the
Hemp is currently legal in
For paper, clothing, textiles, rope, sails, fuel and food,
hemp has been a core crop since the founding of ancient
If the American Farm Bureaus and Farmers Unions were truly serving their constituents, they would be pushing hard for legal pot so that its far more profitable (but essentially unsmokable) cousin could again bring prosperity to American farmers.
Hemp may be the real reason marijuana is illegal. In the 1930s, the Hearst family set out to protect their vast timber holdings, much of which were being used to make paper.
But hemp produces five times as much paper per acre as do trees. Hemp paper is stronger and easier to make. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper, and one of Benjamin Franklin’s primary paper mills ran on it.
But the Hearsts used their newspapers to incite enough reefer madness to get marijuana banned in 1937. With that ban came complex laws that killed off the growing of hemp. The ecological devastation that’s followed with continued use of trees for paper has been epic.
As canvass, hemp has long been essential for shoes, clothing, rope, sails, textiles, building materials and much more. It’s far more durable than cotton and ecologically benign compared to virtually any other industrial crop. Hemp needs no pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers, and can grow well without much water.
Hemp’s use for rope was so critical to the US war effort that in the 1940s, the US military the bans and blanketed virtually the entire state of Kansas with it.The War Department’s “Hemp for Victory” is the core film on how to grow it.
Henry Ford produced an entire automobile made from hemp fiber stiffened with resin. Like the original diesel engine, it was designed to run on hemp fuel.
End Transmission