"2015 World Food Prize: worthy recipient / unworthy prize" article by Mike Miles, Anathoth CW Farm & video by Frank Cordaro, DMCW
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Frank Cordaro
Dec 11, 2015, 9:27:55 AM12/11/15
to National CW E-mail List, Google Iowa Peace List E-mail
…..(7 min) speech by Frank Cordaro, DMCW at Occupy the World Food
Prize Rally and Direct Action Oct 15 at the State Capital. Cordaro was
arrested and served 10 days in the Polk Co. Jail. (*See story below)
http://bit.ly/1SayBoQ
*A full report of this years OWFP events with photos and video clips
can be found on the OWFP web page occupytheworldfoodprize.com
---
2015 World Food Prize: worthy recipient / unworthy prize….. by Mike
Miles, Dec. 2015 issue of the via pacis, p.7
http://vp.dmcatholicworker.org/
[Mike Miles <anat...@lakeland.ws> is a Plowshares activist and long
time CW farmers in Luck WI at the Anathoth CW Farm
http://www.anathothcommunityfarm.org/2014/website/Joomla_3.2.3/ ]
The more I learn about agro-ecology the more I am convinced that it is
the future of food production. Using farm animals to build soil
health, moving from annual plants to perennials, cover cropping to
stabilize soils and increase organic matter, increasing plant
diversity to attract beneficial insects and birds, all are practices
that are being encouraged all over the world as the answer to
restoring farm lands that have been degrading since the beginning of
agriculture.
As I drove from Wisconsin to Iowa for our continuing battle with
industrial agriculture at the World Food Prize ceremony, I noticed
more than ever that I see the rural landscape around me with
increasingly skeptical eyes. The upper Midwest had ideal growing
conditions this summer which resulted in a banner year for corn and
soy production. Even though the, “corn was as high as an elephant’s
eye” the thought that kept running through my head was that I was
looking at an industrial wasteland on the verge of collapse. As
always, great production leads to bad prices at the expense of a worn
out environment.
As the industrialists continue to see their role to dominate nature so
production keeps growing, nature keeps fighting back with resistant
strains of weeds and insects that require farmers to use increasingly
lethal doses of chemicals just to stay in the game. The narrative Big
Ag presents always stays the same-the methods we employ are the only
way to feed the 9 billion people that are going to be on the planet by
2050. The good news this year in Des Moines is that this argument is
breaking down and there are other voices quietly, yet firmly,
describing a new future where agri-business will be displaced by a
return to agri-culture.
Monsanto has been having a very bad year. 26 countries have now
banned GMO seeds and the chemicals associated with growing them.
Cynicism with the company has been growing since 2013 when the World
Food Prize was awarded to their chief technology officer Robert Fraley
on the heels of a $380,000 donation to the organization. This follows
a $5 million donation in 2008 by Monsanto to help renovate the WFP
building in Des Moines.
Lawsuits have been multiplying against Monsanto since the World Health
Organization identified their flagship product Round Up (glyphosate) a
probable carcinogen back in March of this year. Their financial
support fighting GMO labeling referendums across the US hasn’t helped
their reputation either. The bottom line is that their stock value has
fallen over 30% this year causing huge layoffs across the company.
Accordingly, the tradition of awarding the WFP to GMO
frankenscientists didn’t happen this year. Instead it went to Sir
Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Committee, the largest non-governmental organization in the world.
They do anti-poverty work specializing in micro loans given largely to
women farmers in the developing world. The distancing of the Prize
from its corporate sponsors was so palpable this year that we found
ourselves in the curious position of being invited to a luncheon at
the conference center that featured the Prize winner as a guest
speaker.
Security was on full alert as four members of Occupy the World Food
Prize, as well as the speaker for our event, Zen Honeycutt, waltzed
into the Marriott Hotel and sat at the table directly adjacent to Sir
Fazle. Oxfam International was presenting awards to two women farmers
from Africa who employed agro-ecological methods to feed their
communities. Everything Sir Fazle spoke about highlighted the kind of
agriculture OWP promotes- small farmers, mostly women, feeding their
local communities using organic, regenerative practices. If this was
really what the WFP was moving toward as an organization, we would
simply have to stop protesting them. Then the other shoe dropped.
The final speaker at the luncheon was Patty Judge, a former Iowa
legislator, Secretary of Agriculture, and Lieutenant Governor. While
she had no problem singing the praises of the African farm heroes, she
also put her imprimatur on the way Iowa does agriculture measuring
success only in terms of financial gains while glossing over topsoil
losses (some of the biggest in the nation) and water quality which is
among the worst nationally (thanks to 15 million pigs and chemical
runoff from row crops). When we asked her about this later she simply
told us that this is not the place or time to discuss these issues.
She also had no idea what the Rodale Institute was and that they had
surpassed industrial ag production levels in test plots they managed
utilizing organic, regenerative practices. While the talk is that
agro-ecology may be the future for Africa, it’s going to be a while
before we see it practiced widely in Iowa.
Another curious element of the week was the daily paid advertisements
in the Des Moines Register by Howard Buffett, son of billionaire
investor Warren Buffett. The ads, paid for by the Howard Buffett
Foundation, were a daily chronicle of all the best practices that
regenerative, sustainable, organic agriculture has to offer. If global
agriculture were done the way the Howard Buffett Foundation was
advocating it would mark the end of corporate, industrial agriculture.
Rural women would be empowered to feed their families and communities,
building healthy soils would be the primary goal of agriculture,
pollution would be a thing of the past, ecological diversity would be
more important than mono-cropped commodities. In a word it would be
agricultural nirvana.
However, Howard Buffett the businessman has been a director of some of
the largest corporate agri-businesses in the world: Archer Daniels
Midland, ConAgra Foods, Agro Tech Foods Ltd., Sloan implements, Coca
Cola Company, GSI Group (grain storage and poultry/swine production
systems), and Berkshire Hathaway (the company his dad Warren owns and
wants to bequeath to his son). How can these two disparate faces of
agriculture coexist in one individual? How can Howard the foundation
director advocate for everything that is right in farming and Howard
the businessman be invested in everything that is wrong?
In the end, the paths that we walk as individuals, has everything to
do with how we perceive Empire and our relationship to it. In
Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor tells his
prisoner Jesus that he got it all wrong when he rejected Satan’s three
offers to power and control over the masses. The people need someone
to watch over and protect them and the best way to do that is with
financial, political, and religious manipulations. He goes on to tell
Jesus that he, the Inquisitor, has done more for the people than Jesus
ever could because he gave them everything they were looking for.
He also reveals his terrible secret that he is in league with Satan
and that, more often than not, the Evil One is disguised as an angel
of light. As we try to free ourselves from the machinations of Empire,
Empire is always ready and willing to welcome us home. Empire wants us
to settle in and live the good life. Empire will use thumb screws and
truncheons to get us to go along but it is much easier to offer the
perks of the “good life” and have citizens volunteer to sedate
themselves and come along for the ride.
The problem with the World Food Prize is not who gets the prize but
that a concocted entity thinks they have the power to offer it to
someone at all. Those who fund the prize have an agenda that is in
conflict with the conviction they have that they are the judges of who
does the best job feeding a hungry world. They simply need to get out
of the way and let the people of the world take care of the task of
feeding themselves.
---
*A full report of this years OWFP events with photos and video clips
can be found on the OWFP web page occupytheworldfoodprize.com
4 arrested at Occupy the World Food Prize, Oct 15, 2015
Dec. 2015 issue of the via pacis, p.7
http://vp.dmcatholicworker.org/
The annual OWFP Rally and Direct Action began at approximately
6:30 on the west side of the Capitol building. We barely broke double
digits this year. Rally speakers were Mike Miles “Living in the
Empire”, a rare Eddy Bloomer speech that lasted 44 seconds, a
powerful Monsanto rant by Sharon Donovan and Frank Cordaro on "What's
wrong with the WFP"
At approximately 7:00 P.M. begain on the inside of the Capitol, four
protesters crossed the street with the intention of entering the
Capitol building to bring their Occupy World Food Prize message to the
World Food Prize awards ceremony. They were confronted by State
Troopers, who informed them that they would not be permitted to enter
and further attempts to enter would constitute criminal trespassing.
The protesters asked why they were not allowed to enter the Capitol
building, which is public property, to exercise their first amendment
rights. All four were arrested. Those arrested were Alan Smith, 25,
visiting CWer from Lodi, NY, Jessica Reznicek, 34 DM and DMCWers Ed
Bloomer, 68 and Frank Cordaro, 64,
Alan Smith and Jessica Reznicek were released the following day.
Frank Cordaro and Ed Bloomer were sentenced to 10 days in jail and
were released at 1 a.m. October 24.
*A full report of this years OWFP events with photos and video clips
can be found on the OWFP web page occupytheworldfoodprize.com
Occupy the World Food Prize campaign
http://occupytheworldfoodprize.com
Occupy the World Food Prize Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-the-World-Food-Prize/789280197790588?fref=ts
Occupy Food Prize twitter
https://twitter.com/occupyfoodprize
Prize Rally and Direct Action Oct 15 at the State Capital. Cordaro was
arrested and served 10 days in the Polk Co. Jail. (*See story below)
http://bit.ly/1SayBoQ
*A full report of this years OWFP events with photos and video clips
can be found on the OWFP web page occupytheworldfoodprize.com
---
2015 World Food Prize: worthy recipient / unworthy prize….. by Mike
Miles, Dec. 2015 issue of the via pacis, p.7
http://vp.dmcatholicworker.org/
[Mike Miles <anat...@lakeland.ws> is a Plowshares activist and long
time CW farmers in Luck WI at the Anathoth CW Farm
http://www.anathothcommunityfarm.org/2014/website/Joomla_3.2.3/ ]
The more I learn about agro-ecology the more I am convinced that it is
the future of food production. Using farm animals to build soil
health, moving from annual plants to perennials, cover cropping to
stabilize soils and increase organic matter, increasing plant
diversity to attract beneficial insects and birds, all are practices
that are being encouraged all over the world as the answer to
restoring farm lands that have been degrading since the beginning of
agriculture.
As I drove from Wisconsin to Iowa for our continuing battle with
industrial agriculture at the World Food Prize ceremony, I noticed
more than ever that I see the rural landscape around me with
increasingly skeptical eyes. The upper Midwest had ideal growing
conditions this summer which resulted in a banner year for corn and
soy production. Even though the, “corn was as high as an elephant’s
eye” the thought that kept running through my head was that I was
looking at an industrial wasteland on the verge of collapse. As
always, great production leads to bad prices at the expense of a worn
out environment.
As the industrialists continue to see their role to dominate nature so
production keeps growing, nature keeps fighting back with resistant
strains of weeds and insects that require farmers to use increasingly
lethal doses of chemicals just to stay in the game. The narrative Big
Ag presents always stays the same-the methods we employ are the only
way to feed the 9 billion people that are going to be on the planet by
2050. The good news this year in Des Moines is that this argument is
breaking down and there are other voices quietly, yet firmly,
describing a new future where agri-business will be displaced by a
return to agri-culture.
Monsanto has been having a very bad year. 26 countries have now
banned GMO seeds and the chemicals associated with growing them.
Cynicism with the company has been growing since 2013 when the World
Food Prize was awarded to their chief technology officer Robert Fraley
on the heels of a $380,000 donation to the organization. This follows
a $5 million donation in 2008 by Monsanto to help renovate the WFP
building in Des Moines.
Lawsuits have been multiplying against Monsanto since the World Health
Organization identified their flagship product Round Up (glyphosate) a
probable carcinogen back in March of this year. Their financial
support fighting GMO labeling referendums across the US hasn’t helped
their reputation either. The bottom line is that their stock value has
fallen over 30% this year causing huge layoffs across the company.
Accordingly, the tradition of awarding the WFP to GMO
frankenscientists didn’t happen this year. Instead it went to Sir
Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Committee, the largest non-governmental organization in the world.
They do anti-poverty work specializing in micro loans given largely to
women farmers in the developing world. The distancing of the Prize
from its corporate sponsors was so palpable this year that we found
ourselves in the curious position of being invited to a luncheon at
the conference center that featured the Prize winner as a guest
speaker.
Security was on full alert as four members of Occupy the World Food
Prize, as well as the speaker for our event, Zen Honeycutt, waltzed
into the Marriott Hotel and sat at the table directly adjacent to Sir
Fazle. Oxfam International was presenting awards to two women farmers
from Africa who employed agro-ecological methods to feed their
communities. Everything Sir Fazle spoke about highlighted the kind of
agriculture OWP promotes- small farmers, mostly women, feeding their
local communities using organic, regenerative practices. If this was
really what the WFP was moving toward as an organization, we would
simply have to stop protesting them. Then the other shoe dropped.
The final speaker at the luncheon was Patty Judge, a former Iowa
legislator, Secretary of Agriculture, and Lieutenant Governor. While
she had no problem singing the praises of the African farm heroes, she
also put her imprimatur on the way Iowa does agriculture measuring
success only in terms of financial gains while glossing over topsoil
losses (some of the biggest in the nation) and water quality which is
among the worst nationally (thanks to 15 million pigs and chemical
runoff from row crops). When we asked her about this later she simply
told us that this is not the place or time to discuss these issues.
She also had no idea what the Rodale Institute was and that they had
surpassed industrial ag production levels in test plots they managed
utilizing organic, regenerative practices. While the talk is that
agro-ecology may be the future for Africa, it’s going to be a while
before we see it practiced widely in Iowa.
Another curious element of the week was the daily paid advertisements
in the Des Moines Register by Howard Buffett, son of billionaire
investor Warren Buffett. The ads, paid for by the Howard Buffett
Foundation, were a daily chronicle of all the best practices that
regenerative, sustainable, organic agriculture has to offer. If global
agriculture were done the way the Howard Buffett Foundation was
advocating it would mark the end of corporate, industrial agriculture.
Rural women would be empowered to feed their families and communities,
building healthy soils would be the primary goal of agriculture,
pollution would be a thing of the past, ecological diversity would be
more important than mono-cropped commodities. In a word it would be
agricultural nirvana.
However, Howard Buffett the businessman has been a director of some of
the largest corporate agri-businesses in the world: Archer Daniels
Midland, ConAgra Foods, Agro Tech Foods Ltd., Sloan implements, Coca
Cola Company, GSI Group (grain storage and poultry/swine production
systems), and Berkshire Hathaway (the company his dad Warren owns and
wants to bequeath to his son). How can these two disparate faces of
agriculture coexist in one individual? How can Howard the foundation
director advocate for everything that is right in farming and Howard
the businessman be invested in everything that is wrong?
In the end, the paths that we walk as individuals, has everything to
do with how we perceive Empire and our relationship to it. In
Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the Grand Inquisitor tells his
prisoner Jesus that he got it all wrong when he rejected Satan’s three
offers to power and control over the masses. The people need someone
to watch over and protect them and the best way to do that is with
financial, political, and religious manipulations. He goes on to tell
Jesus that he, the Inquisitor, has done more for the people than Jesus
ever could because he gave them everything they were looking for.
He also reveals his terrible secret that he is in league with Satan
and that, more often than not, the Evil One is disguised as an angel
of light. As we try to free ourselves from the machinations of Empire,
Empire is always ready and willing to welcome us home. Empire wants us
to settle in and live the good life. Empire will use thumb screws and
truncheons to get us to go along but it is much easier to offer the
perks of the “good life” and have citizens volunteer to sedate
themselves and come along for the ride.
The problem with the World Food Prize is not who gets the prize but
that a concocted entity thinks they have the power to offer it to
someone at all. Those who fund the prize have an agenda that is in
conflict with the conviction they have that they are the judges of who
does the best job feeding a hungry world. They simply need to get out
of the way and let the people of the world take care of the task of
feeding themselves.
---
*A full report of this years OWFP events with photos and video clips
can be found on the OWFP web page occupytheworldfoodprize.com
4 arrested at Occupy the World Food Prize, Oct 15, 2015
Dec. 2015 issue of the via pacis, p.7
http://vp.dmcatholicworker.org/
The annual OWFP Rally and Direct Action began at approximately
6:30 on the west side of the Capitol building. We barely broke double
digits this year. Rally speakers were Mike Miles “Living in the
Empire”, a rare Eddy Bloomer speech that lasted 44 seconds, a
powerful Monsanto rant by Sharon Donovan and Frank Cordaro on "What's
wrong with the WFP"
At approximately 7:00 P.M. begain on the inside of the Capitol, four
protesters crossed the street with the intention of entering the
Capitol building to bring their Occupy World Food Prize message to the
World Food Prize awards ceremony. They were confronted by State
Troopers, who informed them that they would not be permitted to enter
and further attempts to enter would constitute criminal trespassing.
The protesters asked why they were not allowed to enter the Capitol
building, which is public property, to exercise their first amendment
rights. All four were arrested. Those arrested were Alan Smith, 25,
visiting CWer from Lodi, NY, Jessica Reznicek, 34 DM and DMCWers Ed
Bloomer, 68 and Frank Cordaro, 64,
Alan Smith and Jessica Reznicek were released the following day.
Frank Cordaro and Ed Bloomer were sentenced to 10 days in jail and
were released at 1 a.m. October 24.
*A full report of this years OWFP events with photos and video clips
can be found on the OWFP web page occupytheworldfoodprize.com
Occupy the World Food Prize campaign
http://occupytheworldfoodprize.com
Occupy the World Food Prize Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-the-World-Food-Prize/789280197790588?fref=ts
Occupy Food Prize twitter
https://twitter.com/occupyfoodprize
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