Playing with Smoke and Fire

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Yesterday evening, when I sat down to check out the news, I immediately came across two articles that almost blew the nonexistent hair off my head. The first, on Common Dreams, announced: “Canada Vows Plunder in the Arctic.” According to the report, Canada has just assumed the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, a consortium of states bordering the Arctic which met in Sweden this past week to discuss the region’s future. One would think the leaders of these nations, alarmed by the melting of the Arctic ice that takes place for ever longer periods each summer, have been anxiously discussing how we can preserve this natural wonderland and prevent its pristine beauty from being further defiled by the greedy hands of man. But let’s not fool ourselves. With global demand for oil and natural gas on the rise, they have other visions swimming around in their heads: of ships plowing the Arctic seas and previously inaccessible reserves of minerals, gas, and oil suddenly coming straight into their pockets.

The ostensible purpose of the Arctic Council is “to promote cooperation on environmental protection,” but it doesn’t take a PhD in economics to detect a wolf in lamb’s clothing. The council’s principal membership—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States—should give the lie to any sweet protests of environmental concern that might be voiced by the group. I can’t speak about the smaller Nordic nations, but are we to trust Canada with the future of the Arctic after it has turned its Alberta forests into a lunar landscape in order to extract tar sands oil? Or can we trust Russia, the world’s largest non-OPEC oil producer, home of the world’s second largest coal reserves, the largest exporter of natural gas? And least of all, can we trust the U.S., whose tentacles reach everywhere for more oil— from the Alaskan wilderness to the Persian Gulf to offshore ocean depths—ever thirsty for more energy to maintain its global dominance?  Greenpeace certainly doesn’t trust these nations but has thrown its weight behind the Indigenous peoples who also sat in the conference hall, vowing to stand “shoulder to shoulder with them on this issue to protect the Arctic from destructive oil exploration.”

The second article to blow my brain across the room appeared on the informative website Climate Progress, written by Deputy Editor Ryan Koronowski. The headline may beg belief, but I’m not playing a practical joke on you: Industry Groups Urge Supreme Court To Ban EPA From Regulating CO2. Really! According to the article, “conservative states, business groups, fossil fuel companies, and global-warming denying politicians are petitioning the Supreme Court to reverse Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on greenhouse gases and to weaken the Clean Air Act.” Nine petitions were submitted to the Court over the past few months seeking review of EPA regulations: “Don’t let that damn agency protect our environment!” Petitioners include such states as Texas, Alaska, and Virginia; industry groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, and the National Association of Manufacturers; and fossil fuel companies like Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company.

Ironically, these events occur right on the heels of another major event that should have been blazed forth by banner headlines on every newspaper on earth, but in most cases probably squeaked by with a back-page article at best. Last week the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, as measured by the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, passed “the climate’s grim milestone,” the mark of 400 parts per million (ppm). Numbers, of course, are mere abstractions along a continuum, but this figure portends serious consequences for our collective future. It is said to be the first time in at least three million years that the CO₂ concentration has reached this level.

Before the Industrial Age, CO₂ concentration was 280 ppm. The figure rose steadily with the onset of industrialization and then escalated sharply over the past half-century. According to leading climate scientist James Hansen, the maximum amount of CO₂ the atmosphere can safely hold is 350 ppm. Beyond 350 ppm, the worst impacts of climate change become unavoidable. And we’re already 50 ppm over the mark and well on our way to 450 ppm. CO₂ is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. Hence more CO₂ in the air means a hotter planet, and a hotter planet means ever more frequent, more destructive weather events.

Do we really think we can play with fire without getting burnt? Do we think we can play in the smoke without choking? Over the past decade we’ve already gotten a foretaste of what’s in store for us: disastrous floods, deadly heat waves, harsher droughts, raging wildfires, more devastating hurricanes, tornadoes, and super-storms. Even if we were to cut our carbon emissions by half overnight, the trajectory of warming we’re already on would still continue for decades before leveling off. But don’t count your luck. Since we’ve been doing little to reduce the extraction and burning of fossil fuels—and since the fuel corporations, politicians, and a supine press are doing their utmost to keep the public happy and oblivious—the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere is likely to continue unchecked for a long, long time to come. As Bill McKibben has pointed out in his book Eaarth, we’re ushering in a radically different planet.

Since extreme changes in the weather strongly influence food production and food prices, curbing global warming is intimately connected to the work of BGR. Weather disasters strike and food supplies dwindle. Smaller food reserves mean higher prices, which in turn mean more hunger, illness, death, and despair. If we’re going to reduce global hunger, we’ve got to stop climate change. If we’re going to give people a fresh lease on life, we’ve got to ensure that their environment remains stable. Sadly, the most severe repercussions of global warming hit those in the global South, populations least responsible for it. Yet no one on earth is safe. There’s no place one can hide to escape the shocks to be unleashed when the planet’s mean temperature exceeds the range congenial to human life. We’re all vulnerable to floods and tornadoes; to droughts wilting our essential crops; to strange pests appearing out of the blue and ravaging our food supply. We’ll all have to face a future in which famished children in relief camps look up at us with hollow eyes, desperate populations migrate to our shores, and states descend into conflict, chaos, and perhaps regional wars.

Our moral responsibility extends both horizontally and vertically: horizontally, to our contemporaries throughout the world, who are already suffering under the impact of a warmer, stranger, more violent planet; and vertically, to our descendants, who will have to bear the weight of the legacy we leave to them. As Buddhists, we’re constantly enjoined to cultivate compassion to all sentient beings, above all to our fellow human beings. But compassion is not a luxury we can leave behind when we get up from the cushion. Under our present circumstances, the supreme gesture of compassion is to act—to act courageously, to act decisively, to act unrelentingly to protect the planet, to protect the poor and needy, to protect the voiceless species facing extinction, to keep the earth viable for present and future generations.

We can’t expect politicians to act without a strong push, no matter how bright their smiles and how eloquent their words. Far too many of our elected representatives are pawns of the corporations, whose contributions feed their campaign chests and gratify their ambitions. Even less can we expect the CEOS of the oil, gas, and coal corporations to take our side. Despite their lovely endorsements of environmental ethics, they know what sells, and their eyes are so glazed over by delusion that they can’t even see how their policies have thrown into jeopardy their own future and the future of their children.

It is we ourselves who must act—without procrastination, fear, or the despondent thought that we are powerless. In numbers there is power; in collective action there’s hope for change. Opportunities to act are sprouting up all around us. We need only open our eyes to see them. A search on the internet will turn up plenty of ways to act, many ways to take a stand. Already several campaigns are set to launch this summer, among them the Summer Heat campaign of 350.org and the June Week of Action of Fearless Summer. It’s our collective future that’s at stake, so let’s get to work.

A New Slate of Projects–Part 1

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

This is the first of a four-part series of posts giving brief summaries of the BGR projects approved for fiscal year 2013–14. Thanks are due to Patti Price, chair of the Projects Committee, and Jessie Benjamin, Carla Prater, Jennifer Russ, and Khanh Nguyen who all helped to prepare the material used in this series. Projects are arranged alphabetically by country, with the U.S. projects to follow the international projects.

Over the first weekend of May, months of hard work by BGR team members came to fruition at the annual general meeting and projects selection board meeting, both held in the Woo Ju Memorial Library at Chuang Yen Monastery, Carmel, New York. The general meeting, on Saturday, May 4, was attended by team members from as far away as California, Colorado, Illinois, and Texas. At the board meeting on Sunday, May 5^th, the board considered a slew of applications for partnership grants. Twenty-one projects were approved for the next fiscal year, at a total cost of $285,000. The projects are both international and domestic in scope. They include renewals of existing projects and a substantial number of new undertakings with partners both new and old. Their fields range from Cambodia and Vietnam, through India, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Cote d’Ivoire, to Haiti, New York, and California. Distinctive about this year’s register is the number of multiyear projects that are to be launched. Experience has taught us that projects extending over several years provide a better timeframe for accomplishing more ambitious objectives than is possible with a one-year project, our usual mode of operation. Here are brief summaries of the projects approved for implementation.

1. Bangladesh: Making Markets Work for Women           NEW

Helen Keller International, established in 1915, works in 22 countries to save the sight and lives of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged through programs in vision, health, and nutrition. BGR will be partnering with HKI on a three-year program in Bangladesh called “Making Markets Work for Women.” The program aims to uplift 75 extremely poor indigenous households in five villages in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), one of the poorest regions in the country. The project will train women in agricultural skills such as pest management, organic fertilizer use, and intercropping, as well as food processing techniques. It will also establish community marketing groups for women so participants can work together to process and sell their products, thus helping to combat discrimination at local markets. Courtyard sessions will focus on gender and nutrition issues relevant to both men and women, including optimal feeding practices for children from birth to two years of age. Year one of a three-year project.

2. Bangladesh: Educating Children in
the Chittagong Hill Tracts          NEW

Moanoghar was founded in 1974 by a group of Buddhist monks to provide shelter to children of the Chittagong Hill Tracts affected by conflict or living in remote areas. There are currently more than 1,250 children sheltered at Moanoghar, approximately 40% of them girls. Many of the children were left homeless or orphaned as the result of a decades-long ethnic conflict. All children at Moanoghar receive free or highly subsidized education. BGR will be sponsoring a three-year project to establish a sustainable educational system that can generate income to support the institution and support the children being schooled there. The program has three components: (1) to build a computer lab to teach the children IT; (2) to provide stipends for the children for general and technical education; and (3) to plant trees and bamboo orchards that will provide economic returns to Moanoghar. Year one of a three-year project.

3. Cambodia: System of Rice Intensification

Rachana is a Cambodian organization dedicated to improving the socio-economic well-being of poor and vulnerable communities in Cambodia. Rachana has been promoting the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), an ecologically sensitive agricultural methodology that increases yields of rice from an average of 2 tons per hectare to 4.75 tons per hectare. BGR has already partnered with Rachana over the past two years in spreading the use of SRI, with highly favorable results. The program has enabled farmers to feed their own families better and obtain a surplus to sell on the market. As a result, SRI has substantially boosted family incomes. The annually renewable program will promote SRI in eight villages, five old ones and three new ones, up to December 2013. 

4. Cambodia: Giving Girls Access to Education

Since 2009, BGR has been partnering with U.S.-based Lotus Outreach International in support of its life-transforming Girls Access To Education (GATE) program, intended to ensure that girls remain in school. In Cambodia the education of girls is considered unnecessary, but LOI and BGR are trying to promote a new perspective. To encourage families to keep their girls in school, Lotus Outreach provides 50 kg of rice monthly during the school year to the families of 50 poor girls in Siem Reap and Banteay Meanchey. Without such assistance these highly vulnerable girls would almost surely be forced to leave school for work; many would wind up in brothels. With support from BGR, Lotus Outreach has recently been extending rice support to GATE graduates who enroll in university programs. These graduates, who have risen up from poverty to enter university, are called GATEways scholars. The grant from BGR will enable 33 additional GATEways scholars to receive 15 kilograms of rice for each month they attend classes during the year or live away from home due to their individual circumstances. With continued scholarship support, we hope to see these young women rank among the exclusive 1% of Cambodia’s female population to receive post-secondary education. An annually renewable program.

5. Cambodia: Helping Women Escape the Sex Trade

Driven by desperate poverty, with no other opportunities in sight, many girls in Cambodia find themselves compelled to turn to the sex trade to support themselves and their families. Lotus Outreach’s Non-Formal Education program offers these women and their children a light in the dark. By teaching them basic literacy, health education, life skills, and vocational training, the program helps young women escape exploitation while discovering their own strength, self-worth, and competency. The renewed grant from BGR will provide non-formal education, vocational training, and life skills to approximately 30 sex workers and their children. Daughters of sex workers receive scholarship packages so they can return to school. Many of these women and children will learn to read and write for the first time in their lives. An annually renewable program.

 6. Côte d’Ivoire: Enhanced Homestead Food Production       NEW

BGR will be partnering with Helen Keller International on a three-year expansion of its innovative Enhanced Homestead Food Production program in Côte d’Ivoire’s Bouaké District (Gbèkè Region), an especially poor district where families struggle with food security and lack access to food markets. The project is designed to improve the food security and nutritional status of vulnerable households, with special emphasis on women and young children. A model of enhanced food production through the establishment of year-round gardens and farms will be taught to community gardening groups comprised mostly of women. A key component of the program is growing orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, a food rich in micronutrients especially good for children and pregnant women. The project will improve gardening practices, irrigation systems, and income generation, while empowering women. Farmers will also learn marketing strategies for selling their crops. Successful small-scale irrigation systems will be of use not only to programs in Côte d’Ivoire but throughout the region, especially to areas vulnerable to climate change. Year one of a three-year program.

To be continued

GMOs: Food, Money & Control: Part III

Charles W. Elliott

(In Parts I and II of “GMOs: Food, Money & Control,” we explored the failure of the leading U.S. state proposal to require labeling of GMO foods (California Proposition 37), the control of crop seeds through GMO patents and licensing, the loss of seed and crop diversity, and the increasing domination of the seed industry by biotechnology firms.  In this post, we examine GMO contamination of other food crops and the impacts of GMO technologies on pesticide use.)

“When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe. —John Muir

Despite pervasive human intervention, the dynamism of the natural world overcomes virtually all artificial boundaries and limits.  We directly experience nature’s refusal to stay within the lines we draw. Plants penetrate concrete sidewalks; moving water inexorably surmounts or breaks through barriers; nature retakes land abandoned by humans.

Seed dispersal and plant cross-pollination are examples of this dynamic movement in the natural world.  In fact, the plant world depends upon it.   The notion that we can control genetically modified organisms requires a willful blindness to this fundamental fact of nature.

“Guilty by GMO Contamination”

Genetically modified crop seed can contaminate other crops. Seed movement, pollen flow and other causes result in “gene flow”, the transfer of genes from one population to another.  This occurs in a variety of natural ways: via birds, animals, flooding, or wind.  It can also result from human activities such as farm or seed cleaning machinery, spillage during transport, and other human errors throughout the production process.

Transgenic contamination cannot be recalled.  Genetically modified plants continue to reproduce where the seeds are sown or blown and where plants are pollinated. Their traits are passed on to subsequent generations of crops. They also reproduce in nature where genetically modified varieties can forever alter wild relatives, native plants, and ecosystems.

This process is virtually inevitable:

Scientists generally expect that if a GM variety of a crop is grown near non-modified varieties, gene flow will be a fairly common occurrence. It is well known that pollen from, for example, one variety of corn (conventional or transgenic) can spread to an adjacent field containing another variety and create a hybrid. There are plenty of documented cases of this kind of spontaneous “crop-to-crop” gene flow occurring between transgenic and conventional varieties of corn and canola. The likelihood of gene flow through pollen drift will depend on the specific crop.[1]

In fact, the risk of gene flow between GMO crops and conventional or organic crops is considered so high that Monsanto has disclaimed any liability for such contamination, and has described the phenomenon in cross-pollinated crops as “well known and is a normal occurrence.” [2]

GMO contamination is not a merely theoretical concern; it is already a problem.  In one well-reported GMO contamination fiasco, the corporate chemical giant Bayer A.G. and its global affiliates agreed to pay U.S. rice farmers $750 million in damages caused by the 2006 contamination of the nation’s rice crop by Bayer’s experimental and unapproved genetically modified “Liberty Link” rice.[3]  Bayer’s contamination of the rice supply threatened the entire U.S. rice export market. Rice futures plummeted by $150 million immediately after the contamination announcement. European Union nations halted acceptance of shipments of rice from the U.S. that hadn’t been extensively tested to show they weren’t contaminated. Japan, South Korea and the Philippines imposed a strict certification and testing regime on all rice imports, and Russia and Bulgaria imposed bans on imports of U.S. rice. [4]

The problem is not limited to a few well-publicized market-wrecking incidents. Research performed by the Union of Concerned Scientists (www.ucsusa.org) found that seeds of traditional varieties of corn, soybeans, and canola were “pervasively contaminated” by GMO crops:

The study found that the seeds of traditional varieties [of corn, soybeans and canola] bought from the same retailers used by U.S. farmers are pervasively contaminated with low levels of DNA sequences originating in genetically engineered varieties of those crops. This conclusion is based on tests conducted by two respected commercial laboratories using duplicate samples of seeds of six traditional varieties each of corn, soybeans, and canola. One laboratory detected transgenically derived DNA in 50 percent of the corn, 50 percent of the soybean, and 100 percent of the traditional canola varieties tested. The other laboratory detected transgenically derived DNA in 83 percent of the traditional varieties of each of the three crops.[5]

The GM Contamination Register (http://www.gmcontaminationregister.org/) indexes more than 200 other publicly reported contamination incidents from 1997 to the present around the world.

GMO contamination can threaten the livelihood of farmers of traditional and organic crops. If organic crops or conventional crops are tainted with genetically modified material, “farmers can lose their crop certification, their customers and markets, their reputation, and the ability to sow the crop of their choice.”  [6] Conventional farmers are concerned that GMO crops may endanger sales to some of their overseas markets. See, Have Transgenes, p. 7. Regulatory and market restrictions on the labeling and sale of GMO crops in other countries create concerns that gene flow from GMO crops may make U.S. crops unacceptable in those markets. European Union policies require food and animal feed containing more than 0.9 percent of “approved” GM content to be labeled as genetically modified. For non-approved GMOs, the threshold is “zero” and thus requires that cargoes containing non-approved GMOs are returned to the port of origin or are destroyed.

In one case, U.S. food (supposedly a “non-GMO” soy flour) contaminated with GMO material was forced to return to its port of origin. [7] In another case, Canadian organic crop producers “have been unable to certify canola crops as organic for the EU market because of the extensive potential for cross-pollination between GM and organic crops; these producers are losing a lucrative and growing market.” [8]

But the implications of GMO contamination extend far beyond market concerns:

The recognition that the seed supply is open to contamination by low levels of a wide variety of genetically engineered sequences has broad implications. In general terms, seed contamination is important for two reasons. First, seeds reproduce and carry genes into future generations. Every season of seed production offers new opportunities for the introduction of new genes. In the case of genetic engineering, transgenic sequences that enter the seed supply for traditional crop varieties will be perpetuated and will accumulate over time in plants where they are not expected and could be difficult to control. Second, seeds are the  wellspring of our food system, the base on which we improve crops and the source to which we return when crops fail. Seeds will be our only recourse if the prevailing belief in the safety of genetic engineering proves wrong. Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level.[9]

Moreover, hundreds of novel genes have been engineered into crops and field-tested. These include genes for the creation of so-called “pharma” and “industrial” crops that are genetically engineered to produce drugs, vaccines and industrial chemicals.  Examples include proteins, enzymes, hormones, antibodies, vaccines, and compounds used to manufacture paper, plastic and detergents.[10]

The problem of GMO contamination also creates legal confusion and unforeseen legal liabilities. Because United States patent infringement law does not require a showing of intent to infringe, farmers can be sued if their fields are contaminated and the patented GMO seed from the contaminated crop is saved and planted.  Monsanto and other corporate giants have investigated and sued farmers whose fields were contaminated by neighboring GMO crops or when a previous year’s GMO crop sprouted in fields planted with conventional varieties the following year. An investigation by the Center for Food Safety showed that “the industry also sues farmers even when they were never presented with, and hence never signed, a technology use agreement at the time of seed purchase.” [11]

Failed Promises: Failure to Yield

Although the advent of agricultural genetic engineering more than two decades ago arrived with promises of increased yields and reduction of world hunger, these promises have largely failed.  The only independent study of transgenic food crop yields concluded that, unlike traditional breeding techniques, transgenic crops have failed to increase yields. [12]

No commercial transgenic crop has been engineered for increased yield, nutritional enhancement, increased fertilizer use efficiency, or many other promised traits.  Instead, the biotechnology industry is focused on enhancing its bottom line.  Rather than concentrating its efforts on reducing world hunger, agricultural biotechnology firms have commercialized a small number of transgenic commodity crops that produce insecticides or withstand direct application of herbicides. Much of the commercial transgenic crop acreage is engineered to give crops the ability to survive intensive spraying of a single broad-spectrum herbicide: Monsanto’s RoundUp®.

“Rounding Up” the Corporate Bottom Line: More Herbicides and “Superweeds”

In this perfect marriage of business models, Monsanto has managed to create a fantastically expensive technology that allows it to control food crops with patents and license agreements while also significantly expanding the use of its primary chemical herbicide, RoundUp®.  Monsanto uses genetic engineering primarily to develop patented “Roundup Ready®” crops for use with its own Roundup® herbicide. American soybeans, corn, canola, and sugar beets are now largely Roundup Ready®. This has made RoundUp’s active ingredient, glyphosate, the most heavily used chemical pesticide in history.[13]  Overall pesticide use has increased by 404 million pounds in the 16 years since transgenic crops were first released, largely due to the massive increase in glyphosate use with Roundup Ready® crops.[14]

This increase in the use of glyphosate-based herbicides is associated with widespread environmental contamination.  Glyphosate was found in 60 – 100% of rain and air samples tested in Iowa and Mississippi by the U.S. Geological Survey, and nearly every stream, river, and reservoir in heavily farmed regions contains glyphosate and its degradation products. [15]

Roundup Ready® crops have also worsened an ongoing epidemic of glyphosate-resistant “superweeds.”[16] Given the widespread reliance on glyphosate-based herbicides, the emergence of herbicide resistant weeds is perhaps one of the most serious challenges facing American agriculture.

Since 2000, glyphosate-resistant weeds have infested approximately forty to sixty million acres of cropland. [17] As a result of this superweed infestation, farmers are forced to use more Roundup® or more toxic herbicides, and to mechanically remove the weeds through soil-eroding tillage operations.[18]  The biotechnology corporate response to this problem is to offer more of the same, only worse: more genetic engineering to make crops simultaneously resistant to several herbicides, including the more toxic herbicide 2,4-D. [19]  Approval of these “stacked trait” crops with resistance to multiple herbicides will inevitably lead to large increases of ever-more toxic herbicides and consequential environmental contamination.

Another Vision: Sustainable Agriculture

We can reject this industrialized, technology-based way of growing our food. There is another way.  Indeed, there has always been another way –sustainable agriculture based on both ancient knowledge and modern practices that respect the natural environment, make the most efficient use of non-renewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles.[20]  This approach to agriculture recognizes the need for sustainability in three inter-related domains: environmental, economic, and social. This ecosystem approach includes options such as long-term crop rotations, returning to natural cycles that annually flood cultivated lands (thus returning lost nutrients indefinitely), soil building and soil conservation practices (e.g., minimization of soil erosion through no-till farming, creation of wind breaks to hold soil, incorporation of organic matter back into fields), reduction of use of chemical fertilizers, and utilization of integrated pest management programs.

This approach to agriculture also respects and protects smallholder farmers, traditional cultures, and the human relationship with the natural world.  In the long run, it is the only sustainable way to feed a growing human population on a small and increasingly warmer planet.

---

[1] “Have Transgenes, Will Travel: Issues Raised by Gene Flow from Genetically Engineered Crops”, Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, August 2003, available at: http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/ wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Food_and_Biotechnology/food_biotech_transgenes_081803.pdf

[2]  Monsanto Co., 2005 Technology Use Guide, at 17 (“Since corn is a naturally cross-pollinated crop, a minimal amount of pollen movement (some of which can carry genetically improved traits) between neighboring fields is well known and is a normal occurrence in corn seed or grain production.”). The Monsanto 2005 Technology Use Guide can be found at: http://goo.gl/PsJ3g

[3] http://www.bayerricelitigation.com/

[4] See, e.g.,http://www.bayerricelitigation.com/PDFs/ SKELLY67_1271429373912.pdf; http://www.gmcontaminationregister.org/ index.php?content=nw_detail2

[5] M. Mellon, J. Rissler, “Gone to Seed – Transgenic Contaminants in the Traditional Seed Supply”, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004, p.1 . The report is available at: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/ our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/gone-to-seed.html

[6]  Center for Food Safety, “Seed Giants v. U.S. Farmers, A report by the Center for Food Safety and Save Our Seeds” (2013), p. 7. The report is available at: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Seed-Giants_final.pdf

[7] Davison, J., “GM plants: Science, politics and EC regulations”. Plant Science 178 (2): 94–98. doi:10.1016/j.plantsci.2009.12.

[8]  Belcher, et al., “Genetically modified crops and agricultural landscapes: spatial patterns of contamination”, Ecological Economics 53.3 (2005): 387-401. The report is available at http://www.saveourseeds.org/downloads/ belcher_contamination_2005.pdf   (last accessed February 16, 2013).

[9] “Gone to Seed – Transgenic Contaminants in the Traditional Seed Supply”, Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004, p.2.

[10]  For a list of pharma/industrial crops, see UCS, “Gone to Seed”, p. 36; Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology (PIFB),“Harvest on the Horizon: Future Uses of Agricultural Biotechnology”, (2001) Washington, DC: PIFB, pp. 53-63 and references therein; Union of Concerned Scientists, “Pharm and Industrial Crops: the Next Wave of Agricultural Biotechnology” Washington, DC, pp. 3-4 and references therein, available at http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/ food_and_agriculture/pharmcropsucs403.pdf

[11] Center for Food Safety, Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers, (Washington, DC: Center for Food Safety, 2005), http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/pubs/CFSMOnsantovsFarmerReport1.13.05.pdf, pp.37-45.

[12]  See, Doug Gurian-Sherman, Union of Concerned Scientists, “Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops” (Apr. 2009),  pp. 1-5 .The report is available at http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/failure-to-yield.html.   Monsanto disputes these claims, asserting that genetically modified traits have indeed increased yields of various crops. http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/do-gm-crops-increase-yield.aspx   These reported Monsanto claims are largely based on analyses by PG Economics Ltd, a UK-based independent consultancy that “specializes in analyzing the impact of new technology in agriculture.” http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/pdf/focusonyieldeffects2009.pdf. Its work has been criticized as relying on biased data and using faulty analyses.  See, “Cooking the Books: A Methodological Critique of PG Economics’s 2011 Global Report on GM Crops,” http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/briefs/cooking-the-books/. For more information about critiques of the UCS study and UCS’ responses, see http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/48-2009/11340-responses-to-qfailure-to-yieldq-critics.

[13] EPA, Pesticide Industry Sales and Usage: 2006 and 2007 Market Estimates, tbl. 3:6 (Feb. 2011), available at: http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/pestsales/07pestsales/market_estimates2007.pdf

[14] Benbrook, C., Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the U.S. – The First Sixteen Years, 24 Envtl. Scis. Eur. 24 (2012), available at http://www.enveurope.com/content/pdf/2190-4715-24-24.pdf; Brian Clark, “Pesticide Use Rises as Herbicide-Resistant Weeds Undermine Performance of Major GE Crops, New WSU Study Shows”, Wash. State Univ. (Oct. 1, 2012), http://news.cahnrs.wsu.edu/2012/10/01/pesticide-use-rises-as-herbicide-resistant-weeds-undermine-performance-of-major-ge-crops-new-wsu-study-shows/

[15] Feng-Chih Chang, Matt F. Simcik, P.D. Capel, 2011. “Occurrence and Fate of the Herbicide Glyphosate and Its Degradate Aminomethylphosphonic Acid in the Atmosphere,” Envir. Toxicology  Chem., Vol. 30, pages 548-555.

[16] Comm. on the Impact of Biotechnology on Farm-Level Econ. & Sustainability, Nat’l Research Council, “The Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States”, 82 (2010), available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12804; Stephen B. Powles, Gene Amplification Delivers Glyphosate-Resistant Weed Evolution, 107 Proc. of the Nat’l Acad. of Sci. 955, 955 (2010).]

[17] Melody M. Bomgardner, War on Weeds, Chemical & Eng’g News, May 21, 2012, at 20, 20-22 (see map), available at http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i21/War-Weeds.html;  Benbrook, supra note 7, at 4 .

[18] Benbrook, C., “Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years”, pp. 28-30, 34-36, 40 (The Organic Center, 2009), available at http://www.organic-center.org/science.pest.php?action=view&report_id=159n; Georgina Gustin, Resistant Weeds Leave Farmers Desperate, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 17, 2011.

[19] See, Green, J.M., C.B. Hazel, D.R. Forney and L.M. Pugh. 2008. “New multiple-herbicide crop resistance and formulation technology to augment the utility of glyphosate”, Pest Manag. Sci. 64:332-339; Benbrook, C. 2009. “Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: the First Thirteen Years”, The Organic Center, Boulder, Colorado, http://www.organic-center.org; Gray, M.E. 2011. “Relevance of traditional integrated pest management (IPM) strategies for commercial corn production in a transgenic agroecosystem—a bygone era?”, J. Agric. Food Chem. 59:5852-5858.

[20] Detailed information about sustainable agriculture is widely available.  One good source is “Applying the Principles of Sustainable Farming: Fundamentals of Sustainable Agriculture” from the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, a program of the National Center for Appropriate Technology, available at: https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/viewhtml.php?id=29

Celebrate World Food Day and Help End World Hunger

Charles W. Elliott

Each October 16 is World Food Day, a celebration of the founding of the lead international agency for global efforts to combat hunger: the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). World Food Day has been observed every year since 1979, in more than 150 countries, raising awareness of global poverty and hunger. It serves as a wonderful example of international cooperation and community-building to help the poor, exemplifying our common humanity and basic goodness.

For World Food Day 2012, Buddhist Global Relief joins the FAO and our partner, Oxfam America, to both celebrate FAO’s work and to raise awareness of how much more work must be done to ensure a world in which everyone has enough food. We still confront the unacceptable: one billion people continue to suffer from chronic hunger and malnutrition in a time of unprecedented plenty.

The FAO’s tireless work to end hunger is well worth an annual celebration. It has been a central driving force for worldwide fulfillment of the human right to food. It responds to soaring food prices by helping small scale farmers raise their output and providing direct aid. It supports projects in more than 100 countries to enhance food security, providing early warning and emergency response to mitigate the impact of natural disasters on food security. Its Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition (AAHM) creates global connections between local, regional, national and international institutions which share a common commitment to the rapid eradication of hunger and malnutrition. FAO “Goodwill Ambassadors” such as Jeremy Irons and Céline Dion attract public and media attention to the problem of hunger. Its online campaign against hunger, www.EndingHunger.org, is a vital networking campaign to build the movement through social networks, presenting world governments with more than three million signatures on a global petition to end hunger.

World Food Day is a wonderful opportunity to share your concern for the world’s poor and hungry with your family, friends and community. You can “walk the talk” and join Buddhist Global Relief’s Walks to Feed the Hungry by walking with us, or simply making a walk donation through our First Giving page.

As Oxfam America suggests, you can host a simple World Food Day dinner on October 16th that “fosters a conversation about where your food comes from, who cultivates it, and how you can take personal actions that will make the food system more just and sustainable.” You can get discussion guides and free materials from Oxfam at: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/campaigns/food-justice/world-food-day. You can organize a “food and fund drive” for local food banks and pantries. In the United States, if you don’t know where your nearest food bank is located, you can find one in the nationwide list at: http://www.feedingamerica.org/Home/foodbank-results.aspx. Food banks help feed tens of millions of people in the United States. They need your support and food donations.

Taking action can be as simple as picking up the phone. Call your political leaders and representatives and ask them: what specific, concrete steps are they taking to end hunger? Each one of us can find our own best way to help on World Food Day.  For more information, visit Buddhist Global Relief’s World Food Day page at http://www.buddhistglobalrelief.org/active/WorldFoodDay.html

Budget Slashing and Food Aid: Taking the Long View to Help the Hungry

Charles W. Elliott

The United States federal budget is in the news, and once again partisan U.S. political battles over the role of government, budget priorities, and fiscal policy place the world’s poor in the crosshairs. Often, behind the dry budgetary text are the cries of hungry children and the desperation of the poor.

How the richest nation in the world addresses the problem of hunger is not merely an obvious moral issue. Food security plays an important role in global stability and, therefore, our own national security. As U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently said: “Our national security depends on feeding a growing world.” So does our domestic security. President John F. Kennedy wisely said: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” In the practice of giving, we serve even our own enlightened self-interest.

A Planet Under Pressure

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

From March 25th to March 29th, a “Planet Under Pressure” conference was convened in London as a prelude to the Rio+20 convocation due to take place in June this year. The conference brought together scientists, economists, and policy experts to explore the formidable challenges we face as a global community. These challenges span multiple dimensions—scientific, social, economic, environmental, and educational—but they are intimately interconnected and the hub on which they all converge is the task that engages Buddhist Global Relief. This is the need to produce sufficient food to feed a global population that by mid-century is likely to hit nine billion people, and to do so on a planet going through cataclysmic changes.

Although at present the world produces a surplus of food, close to a billion people, mainly in the global South, struggle daily with the ordeal of chronic hunger and malnutrition. The industrialized North, in contrast, faces a problem of a different sort. Here, millions consume to excess foods loaded with fats, sugars, and salt. The result is high rates of chronic illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. These conditions prevail most among the poor, for it is those who cannot afford nutritious food that are compelled to resort to cheap, calorie-laden substitutes detrimental to their health.

The problem we must solve, and solve with utmost urgency, is increasing agricultural productivity while at the same time ensuring greater equity in the distribution of food, especially for those at risk. If, despite a surplus of food production, a billion people still go hungry today, our task will be so much more difficult in 2050, when there are two billion more bellies to feed. Not only will the numbers of people rise, but the planet will also continue to heat up, resulting in diminished agricultural yields. To shift the arc away from crushing malnutrition will require drastic changes in the prevailing food system, which is currently geared more toward profits than toward health and food justice.

Helping Hungry Kids in Haiti

From BGR Executive Director, Kim Behan:

I would like to share the heartfelt communications from Margaret Trost, Founder of the What If? Foundation, on the occasion of the anniversary of the food program we support in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The need for these meals is still great, and many of the children coming to the food program are still living permanently in tents together with their families. For many of these children the meal they receive here is their only meal of the day.

It commonly happens that when the news disappears from the headlines, funds that would be donated to help people trapped in a crisis dry up along with the help those donations facilitate. But Buddhist Global Relief remains firm in its commitment to the poor children of Haiti. We have been supporting and renewing the food program in Port-au-Prince for the past few years and plan to continue to support it into the future. If you wish to show your own concern for the children of our island neighbor in the Caribbean, you can donate to BGR or directly to the What If? Foundation.

With metta,
Kim Behan

Tackling Childhood Malnutrition

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

The prestigious international relief organization Save the Children has just issued a report on the danger of chronic childhood malnutrition, entitled  A Life Free from Hunger. The report says that chronic childhood malnutrition puts almost half a billion children at risk of early death or permanent damage over the next 15 years. According to Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children, malnutrition afflicts one in four children around the world and takes the lives of 300 children every hour.

Chronic malnutrition means lack of proper nutrition over time. Because chronic malnutrition is a persisting condition, it rarely captures headlines or attracts public attention in the way that acute malnutrition does, as seen during a food crisis. Yet chronic nutrition is far more widespread, and its consequences much deadlier. Even when it does not directly result in death, it weakens young children’s immune systems, making them more likely to die of childhood diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria. It leads to 2 million child deaths a year, three times as many as result from acute malnutrition. It also leaves children more vulnerable to extreme suffering and death when an emergency food crisis hits.

Why Does BGR Focus On Global Hunger? Part 3

 Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

 When I got back to Balangoda after my first rains retreat (Vassa), spent at Island Hermitage, my teacher, Ven. Ananda Maitreya, had already returned from his rains retreat in England. By now I had steeled my resolve to discuss the diet with him and make him understand my needs. He kindly heard me out and told me he would see what he could do.

Shortly afterwards he gave me a piece of good news. He had spoken to a well-to-do ayurvedic physician, a supporter of the temple who lived across from the rice fields, and asked him to provide for my daily meals. The physician took this as an honor. He would give money to a villager who lived down the road from the temple. The villager would cook at his home and bring me my mid-day meal each day.

Why Does BGR Focus On Global Hunger? Part 2

In the previous installment of this essay I said that I suggested BGR make hunger and malnutrition the center of our mission on the basis of my personal experience of hunger during my first years as a monk in Sri Lanka. Here is the first part of this account, which will continue in the next post.

I arrived in Sri Lanka at the end of October 1972. A week after my arrival I traveled inland to the town of Balangoda, where months earlier, while I was still living in Los Angeles, I had arranged to take ordination under Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Mahanayaka Thera, a prominent English-speaking Sri Lankan scholar-monk, who was then 77 years of age. In Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks take as their first name the name of their native town or village. This explains why Ven. Ananda Maitreya’s first name is identical with that of the town where his monastery was located. I intended to stay with him and to study Pali and Theravada Buddhism under his guidance.