http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49368

INDIA: ‘Glacier Man’ Vows to Build More Artificial Glaciers
By Keya Acharya

LADAKH, India, Nov 22 (IPS) – He is well known as India’s ‘glacier man’, but for 74-year-old retired government civil engineer, Chewang Norphel, accolades have made little dent in his quiet determination to build more high-altitude water conservation systems, or ‘artificial glaciers’, to beat the lack of water from receding Himalayan glaciers.

Over 70 percent of water in Ladakh district, India’s northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir, is sourced in springtime from the melting snows off glaciers, and is the sole source of water for irrigation for its remote mountain communities.

But in recent years, climate change and rising temperatures have resulted in decreasing snowfall in the upper-reach ‘accumulation’ zones of these glaciers, leading to reduced waters in the springtime.

A survey of 20 villages and 211 individuals over 65 years of age by the French non-governmental Groupe Energies Renouvelables, Environnement et Solidarités (GERES), showed over 90 percent of the respondents saying that winters were now warmer.

Meteorological data from 1973 onwards analysed by GERES—which in English stands for Committee for the Environment and Sustainable Development— showed a rise of one degree centigrade in the winter months in Ladakh, coupled with a sharp decline in snowfall and an equally sharp increase in mean summer temperatures in July, August and September.

The changing temperatures have already begun impacting the region’s biodiversity and its communities, says the international organisation, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).

“The breeding of the bar-headed goose and the black-necked crane is not on schedule in recent years,” says Nisa Khatoon, project officer of WWF at Leh. “And migration routes of communities on the Tsokar lake [who weave the famous Pashmina shawls] have become more frequented as these pastoral communities migrate due to degrading pastures.”

In Leh, Ladakh’s capital city, Norphel quietly refutes claims, the latest by India’s Ministry of Environment and Forest, that there is insufficient scientific data to prove that India’s glaciers are receding.

“I am the scientific data,” quips Norphel. “I have seen, for instance, the size of the Khardung La glacier—a high mountain pass in the Ladakh region, with an elevation of 5,359 metres above sea level—since I was a child: it was solid ice then,” he explains.

The Khardung La glacier is one example of Ladakh’s melting glaciers, barely recognisable now as a glacier.

“Four to five decades ago, there were so many glaciers you could see from Leh,” Norphel tells IPS, responding to the ministry’s refutation of receding glaciers. “Now you can’t even see small ones anymore.”

Norphel, a retired rural development engineer for Kashmir state, says the water problems faced by Ladakh’s impoverished villages bothered him as much as the “wasting” of water in winter, from taps that are left running to avoid pipes freezing and bursting.

“I noticed from my garden tap that the water would freeze where it flowed, so that’s where I got the idea of designing artificial glaciers that would freeze extra water in winter, melting just in time for sowing crops in April and May,” says this unassuming, quiet man.

In November, trickling glacial streams are diverted and made to flow down nearby slopes through channels and outlets with 1.5-inch diameter pipes installed every five feet.

Stone embankments built at regular intervals impede the flow of this water, making shallow pools down the mountain slope, which fill up gradually and freeze almost instantly in winter, forming a thick glacier-like sheet of ice over the slope that Norphel calls “artificial glacier.”

So far, Norphel has helped build 10 artificial glaciers, all near villages whose communities have helped construct and maintain them. In Stakna village, some 35 kilometres from Leh, 60-year-old Tashi Tundup is happy with the ‘Stakna glacier’.

Meetings are arranged in the village to discuss village history of water, its availability in their nearby stream during peak winter time and the location of shade along the stream’s course, where pools can be constructed to help freeze the water faster in the absence of direct winter sunlight.

Since the water is equally distributed to all in the village, sustainability of water-harvesting structures is ensured, says Norphel.

Norphel also dispels scientists’ criticism of his ‘artificial glaciers’ as not being glaciers. “What matters is that these artificial glaciers serve similar water conservation and harvesting techniques as glaciers,” says Norphel.

Norphel hopes to build two more such glaciers at Stakna village, holding two million cubic feet of iced water for its 700 residents.

“We get water as early as April itself (instead of melting glacier water in June), and this has helped the wheat crop. Wheat production has gone up over the last five years because of the water from the artificial glacier, and I can now also grow potatoes and peas,” says Tundup of Stakna.

Norphel lists several other benefits: groundwater and spring recharge, significant increase in cash-crop farming, fuel, livestock fodder and livelihood incomes, mitigation of climate change for humans and livestock and ecological benefits to soil conservation.

He says the benefits of simulated glaciers have been confirmed by village folk and responses gathered over the last ten years.

The artificial glacier system can be replicated, says Norphel, in similar geo- climatic zones in central Asian countries such as Kyrgyztan and Kazakhstan.

“The problem is, it is difficult to find labour for maintenance work in the severe winter,” says Norphel. “And the remoteness of these high-altitude systems makes transportation of materials very expensive.”

In 1987, the first artificial glacier built by Norphel cost 1,580 euros (2,347 U.S. dollars) in Phuktse Phu village in Ladakh district. The latest plan by Norphel and the Leh Nutrition Project, a Britain-based non-governmental organisation, to construct five more comes at a total cost of 47,216.50 U.S. dollars, which is still just a fourth of the cost of concrete cement constructions for water conservation reservoirs, despite Norphel’s claims of high costs.

“We use mostly locally available stones and material,” says Norphel. The Indian Army—which has a heavy presence in Ladakh district due to its close proximity to China and Pakistan—and India’s scientific and technology department financed constructions of artificial glaciers in 2008 up to this year, but Norphel says he needs help from other sources too.

“I can do so much better if I have some more funds,” he says.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49238
AGRICULTURE-ARGENTINA: Desperately Dry
By Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 12 (IPS) – The persistent drought affecting some 90 percent of Argentine territory has slain cattle in the hundreds of thousands and caused forest fires, drastic restrictions on water use and local disputes over water.

The area around Tostado, a town in the northeastern province of Santa Fe, is one of the worst hit. Over the last two years, heat and drought have silently killed off cattle and bankrupted farmers on small and medium sized ranches.

“This area normally gets between 800 and 900 mm of rainfall a year, but in 2008 it got 344 mm, and this year it has had less than 340,” veterinarian Felipe Brizuela, the head of the Regional Economic Council of Tostado, told IPS.
…
Under an agreement between the two provinces, Santiago del Estero is supposed to supply the northwestern districts of Santa Fe with three cubic metres per second of water from the Salado river via a makeshift aqueduct. But in recent weeks, the supply has been only half that amount.

That is because there is a water shortage in Santiago del Estero too, where around a thousand small farmers grow alfalfa along the course of the river. If the authorities increase the water supply to Santa Fe it could be catastrophic for the livelihood of these small producers.

Tostado Mayor Enrique Fedele said the situation is critical. Two-thirds of the cattle have died, and unemployment has climbed to 50 percent. The municipal government this month declared a “social emergency.” As well as a lack of water, the area is suffering unbearably high temperatures of up to 45 degrees Celsius.

“It’s really terrible. I used to have 100 horses and now I have only 15. They took my cows and goats,” Armando Bustos, a farmer in the Toledo area, told IPS. “I don’t plan to kill myself because I love life, but four farmers around here have committed suicide because they had so few animals left,” he said.

According to the South American Climatology Laboratory, nearly 90 percent of Argentina’s territory is affected by drought to a greater or lesser extent. The National Meteorological Service reported that so far this year, maximum temperatures have been between one and two degrees higher than average.
…

Do you see what happens with only one or two degrees of higher temperature? Do you see what happens with only one or two more degrees of temperature?

You need to cut back on pollution at Copenhagen conference.

The US military is treating people like cattle, that is unacceptable.  You have forgotten the purpose for your own existence:  to protect a society where no unjust demands are put on people,  to protect people’s basic life and family.

It is totally unjust to ship a mother to war and leave the toddler stranded with no one to care for.   In fact, mothers must not be separated from their kids and should not be deployed to warzone at all.   If your regulations say otherwise, then it’s your regulations that are unjust and need to be changed.   Alexis Hutchinson needs to be able to appeal her arrest and not go to Afghanistan.  This is inhumane.   Is this the type of society that you are fighting for?  You can’t find a man to go in her stead?

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49256

Green jobs should also be jobs for black and brown skinned people
Environment-friendly jobs should be available to all races, not limited to white neighborhoods.   There should be much development of all-garbage-recycling, wind energy, solar energy, hydrogen energy projects in poor neighborhoods.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49260

United Nations is having a world Food Supply meeting next week in Rome, why is America not attending?   Why are 7 countries out of G-8 not attending?   Berlusconi of Italy is attending because he lives in Italy…

“It’s a tragedy that the world leaders are not going to attend the summit,” Daniel Berman of … NGO Medecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)  told a news conference.

Many experts are also concerned that, as often happens at such meetings, after lots of fine talk there will be little that ties nations down to taking action at the end of the summit. Indeed, the first such food summit in 1996 set the goal of reducing hunger by half from around then 825 million sufferers at that time by 2015, but instead the world has moved in the opposite direction.
…
UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) director-general Jacques Diouf said this week that 44 billion dollars in official development assistance was needed each year for investments in agriculture and rural infrastructure, adding that developing countries themselves must allocate more of their budgets to these areas.

This money is needed to increase farmers’ access to irrigation systems, modern machinery, seeds and fertilisers, as well as improving rural infrastructure and roads so they can obtain the inputs they need to up production and then take their goods to market.

Jean-Philippe Audinet, director of the policy division of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), is more upbeat than some of the NGOs about what will come out of next week’s summit.

Rural poverty agency IFAD, part of the threesome of UN food organisations based in Rome along with the FAO and the emergency-relief-providing World Food Programme, champions the cause of small-holder farmers and their families, who number two billion people, or about a third of the world’s population.

IFAD says their plight should be paramount not only because three-quarters of the world’s hungry live in rural areas, but also because investing in them will help the world achieve the goal of increasing food production by 70 percent to meet the needs of a population likely to reach 9.1 billion by 2050.

So Audinet is pleased to see the importance of agriculture in general, and of [small-family-farmers] in particular, is now getting universal recognition.
…
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49248

For weeks I’ve been puzzling over a bumper sticker I see regularly: “Food for people, not profits.”

What does this mean?

I get that profits make the price of food higher. Eaters everywhere want more and better food at lower prices.

But what about farmers? They are the people producing more and better food. Are they not supposed to get profits from their labor? If I were a farmer, I would take umbrage at that proposal.

Maybe I just don’t understand the slogan. Can anybody explain it to me?

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. While it is almost unthinkable that we could ever grow enough food to feed ourselves in Vancouver, there are examples of cities like Havana doing just that. A longer growing season, and less competition for the land from developers gives Havana a distinct advantages over us, but there is still much we could do!

To the uninitiated, community gardens can easily go unnoticed. They’re usually tucked away and can easily pass for overgrown, disused lots. Well, actually many are in fact disused lots located on private property that is currently underutilized.

In most cases, loose agreements are formed between site owners and interested urban farmers to use the land for a predefined period of time. Gardens are usually tended by those living in the immediate neighbourhood, with individuals marking out plots of their own. Gardeners working the lot located at Victoria Dr. and 1st. Ave., regularly held dinners throughout the summer consisting of vegetables grown right there on the spot.

A quick look at the Social Planning page of the City of Vancouver website tells me there we’re approximately 52 community gardens operating this past growing season within Vancouver’s borders.

The success of community gardening in Vancouver cannot only be measured in the food that is produced, for it isn’t enough to sustain us. Instead, these gardens serve as community building exercises that educate, entertain and bring beauty into unloved spaces.

Student-led protest outside of McDonald's to help raise awareness about the suffering of animals coming from the fast food giant's suppliers.

One of the joys of being a teacher is seeing where students end up after they graduate from high school. In some cases, we’re lucky to have the teacher-student relationship evolve into one where former students start to get comfortable with the idea of teacher as friend, peer, or in a few instances, colleague. Today I was pleased to see that some of my former Social Justice students have continued to get active for others, in this instance, for animals within in the food system.

It is no secret that concentrated animal feeding operations are torture for animals, and while McDonald’s has led the way in the past with animal welfare reform issues, when you start calculating the overall good vs. harm of the fast food giant it is hard to see how anyone could defend them. They provide jobs, they operate more playgrounds than most cities, and give people a delicious convienent meal option, but they are also responsible for more environmental degradation, animal suffering (and human rights abuses if you consider slaughterhouse workers), and hefty waistlines than most other businesses.

In addition, I’m sure there are several children (and probably some adults) who are terrified by that deranged looking clown and his cohort of hamburger patch friends. Anyone who as seen or read “IT” by Stephen King knows what I’m talking about.

As today is Halloween, there’s reason to give people a good scare. We’ll be spending the evening watching slasher movies with friends, but there’s nothing more scary than the reality of the slaughterhouse, or the terror that slave children feel harvesting cocoa for those little chocolate bars being passed out across the nation. While many people will be applying some fake blood for theatrical purposes today, 2.7 million land animals will be killed for food,  and close to 15,000 young boys will continue to endure forced labor, many who will be beaten and whipped on one of the 600k cocoa plantations in west Africa. That blood is real, and covers the hands of all who take part in these industries. Which is why one man even tried to prosecute himself for being involved.

Luckily, one of the other benefits of being a teacher is that I have the opportunity to help students explore these issues in the classroom. I feel hopeful knowing that tonight several of my students will be participating in reverse trick-or-treating in order to educate the community about slave chocolate, and others will be trick-or-treating for UNICEF in order to help children around the world.

However, if all of this serious stuff is too scary for you, at the very least you can enjoy these recipes for your left over pumpkins.

Happy Hallows!

- Christopher

Two old friends called a week ago to talk about food. No, not recipes, food. John Vendeland and Steve Savage are consultants in agriculture, and they foresee a slowly unfolding disaster in food supply. The world population is growing, and according to projections will peak in the next 50 or 60 years. We need to grow more food to feed billions of new lives. John and Steve know a whole lot about food production. They point out that increasing agricultural production is a slow process. You can’t just invent a better wheat and produce it worldwide next year. Innovation depends on multiple crop cycles, if only to increase the supply of seed.

They say that current trends suggest a big food shortfall is coming, and that it will hurt the poorest and most vulnerable citizens on the planet. They worry that several trends are holding back agricultural innovation.

On the left, they see a romantic preoccupation with organic farming, which will never be sustainable. They see the paralyzing power of the precautionary principle. They see an active dislike of corporations that provide much of the investment and invention in agriculture. They see distrust of science. Such forces have restricted research in genetically modified food to just a handful of major crops in a few major markets. That means the most powerful tool in the 10,000-year history of agriculture is currently not addressing some of the most pressing needs on the planet.

On the right, they see a similar distrust of science and technology, a dreamy hope for home gardening, and an unwillingness to contemplate the impact of global warming, which they believe will force us to innovate much more quickly as climates shift. It distresses both John and Steve that some of their fellow Christians most vocally distrust science and deny global warming.

For them, these are not just interesting questions. They have moral dimensions.

If you are interested in getting into the details, go to Sustainablog.com and search for Steve Savage articles. He’s posted a great many lively and not-too-technical articles on various issues related to food. You might start on this one on 700-year-old technology in agriculture.

The flippin’ FDA can’t handle getting the drugs right…now they are going to get authority on the Food Supply.  Hope everyone has a tiller! This article is from the LA Times:

Bill giving FDA new powers to oversee food supply has wide support

Industry and public backing — a recent poll showed 90% of voters favor measures similar to those in the legislation — add up to a ‘quick win for both parties,’ supporters say.

By Andrew Zajac

October 22, 2009

Reporting from Washington

Legislation granting the Food and Drug Administration new powers to oversee the nation’s food supply has elbowed its way onto Congress’ crammed calendar with bipartisan support and rare agreement between consumer groups and an industry stung by product recalls.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), would require the FDA to step up inspections of food facilities and to issue new rules to improve the quality of imported food and to combat contaminants in fresh produce. The measure also would give the agency authority to recall products on its own, instead of relying on industry cooperation.

“Hardly a week goes by that there isn’t a report of an outbreak of food-borne illness or death in America,” Durbin said. “The current system really just reacts to food illness. We have to have a system that is protective of consumers” by preventing outbreaks or nipping them in the bud.

The bill is slated for a committee hearing today even as lawmakers wrestle with the tasks of overhauling the healthcare system, writing new regulations for the financial services industry and shaping major measures on global warming and education.

The reason for a sense of urgency is evident from opinion polls. A July survey for the Pew Charitable Trusts found that nearly 90% of voters favored new food safety measures similar to those found in Durbin’s bill and a slightly more expansive proposal that the House passed over the summer.

“There’s broad public support. It would be a quick win for both parties,” said Erik Olson, director of chemical and food safety programs in Pew’s Health & Human Services Policy program. “This is a rare situation where the industry is shoulder to shoulder with consumers.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that food-borne illness causes 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths annually in the U.S.

Beyond hazards to health, the food industry has paid a hefty toll.

Growers and distributors lost an estimated $100 million in a 2008 recall of salmonella-tainted jalapeño peppers and tomatoes initially blamed for the outbreak, said Patrick Delaney, a spokesman for the United Fresh Produce Assn., which represents fruit and vegetable producers.

A similar amount was lost in a spinach recall two years earlier, he said.

A recall of peanut products early this year cost Kellogg Co. about $70 million.

One major question is how to pay for the legislation.

The cost of reforms in the House bill is estimated at $3.7 billion over five years, with $1.4 billion of that to come from a $500-per-facility fee on food makers.

Durbin said he doesn’t yet have a price tag for his bill.

An indication of the breadth of support for reform is the list of co-sponsors on Durbin’s bill. It includes five Republicans, including Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, both from Georgia, a state hard-hit by the peanut recall.

“This legislation affords regulators the authority they need to better identify vulnerabilities in our food supply while maintaining the high level of food safety most Americans enjoy and take for granted,” Chambliss said in a statement.

Scott Faber, vice president of federal affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Assn., a trade group that represents food makers, said the regulatory regime has been overwhelmed by the size and scale of a global food supply network, making an overhaul a compelling need.

“There are no obvious substantive or political roadblocks to passing food safety legislation this Congress,” Faber said.

Funding for the reforms will be key for quick, early detection of sickness from tainted food, said Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in representing victims of food-borne illness.

One little-noticed provision of both versions of the food safety bill requires the FDA to bolster the capabilities of local and state officials to spot illness outbreaks more promptly, Marler said.

“Assuming proper funding — and that’s a big assumption — the focus on money flowing to state and local health departments would allow you to do more rapid surveillance,” Marler said.

“They would have more information sooner, and illness and business disruption would be reduced.”

FDA Chief Says Agency Needs More Funding to Implement Safety Measures

By JANE ZHANG

OCTOBER 23, 2009

WASHINGTON — A Senate bill to overhaul food safety and expand FDA oversight needs to be stronger and include more funding and authority, the head of the agency told lawmakers Thursday.

The legislation would require the FDA to more frequently inspect food facilities and gear its safety mission toward preventing, rather than reacting to, outbreaks of illness due to food contamination. The FDA, for example, would have the power to set safety standards for fresh produce and make sure food companies take steps to prevent outbreaks.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that the agency wants the Senate bill to look more like legislation the House approved July. She noted that the House bill would give the FDA easy access to food-production records during routine inspections and would help fund the agency by charging food companies registration fees of $500 a year per facility.

“It is the case that our mandate and responsibilities have far outstripped our resources,” Dr. Hamburg said. “We are concerned that the [Senate] bill does not provide a guaranteed consistent funding source to help FDA fulfill its new responsibilities.”

Even without the legislation, Dr. Hamburg said she plans to hire 350 new employees for the FDA’s food program, including 125 people for field inspections. The FDA also plans to conduct 2,000 more inspections next year, bringing the total to 9,000. Most will be at domestic facilities, but she said the agency also plans to increase inspections of foreign imports at the border.

via wsj.com