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Re: [OM] Monsanto patents Broccoli

Subject: Re: [OM] Monsanto patents Broccoli
From: Andrew Fildes <afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2013 19:55:12 +1000
As I said in the second message - I really meant 'plausible' rather than good.
And there are mechanisms alright - they just get the food to where it can be 
sold rather than where it is needed.
For instance, I understand that during the Ethiopian famines of 20 ears ago, 
you could buy produce grown in Southern Ethiopia in UK supermarkets, while 
people were starving in the north/Eritrea.
The thesis being that most famines are caused by war and political problems, 
rather than local conditions.
Butt...that said, there seem to be far fewer such widespread famines than in my 
youth and 'm not sure that Geldorf can take the credit.

As to the viability of unused land - given the quota practices of the Eu in the 
past, that's risible. 
I have relatives who could talk at you for weeks on that subject.
And virgin land is usually virgin for a damn good reason - you can't live off 
it for often non-obvious reasons.
(Most of Australia is seriously deficient in phosphate and cobalt for instance 
- this required huge amounts of Pacific guano to grow almost anything 
effectively and sheep did not do well at first either.
And, of course, we have lots of land in Northern Australia which could be used 
to grow rice and similar monsoon dependent crops.
Oddly, however, we seem to be very short of people who are prepared to live as 
peasants and cultivate padi fields.
So, that would have to be done by Mega-Agricorp as usual.

Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.soultheft.com
Author/Publisher: The SLR Compendium - http://www.blurb.com/books/3732813



On 07/07/2013, at 3:31 PM, Chris Barker wrote:

> I don't believe that one, Andrew.  There's enough food to go around, just not 
> the trade structure to enable it to get to the places it's needed.
> 
> For instance, there's plenty of land in the EU that is not used for 
> agriculture – under the Common Agricultural Policy.  We have to make the 
> current system work.

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