This was the action strategy that laid the foundation of the Northern New Mexico Organic Wheat Project (and can be used elsewhere):
-Call for action in agricultural publications: are there market opportunities to grow high quality organic grains in a decentralized manner?
-Establishment of an ad hoc committee of farmers and processors and interested parties
-Investigation of regional farming traditions of wheat
-Selection of wheat seeds for planting based on a series of criteria
-2 growing seasons for testing varieties for growing and processing qualities: do the 'bake tests' and analyse varieties for protein content
-re-establish regional food infrastructure including machines, storage, processing
-Promotion of regional brand name: Nativo
-Direct marketing through farmers markets
-Growing for diversity: establishing organic high altitude seed varieties
-Establish a confederation of farmers, processors and consumers that control Nativo grains and all its derivative products (such as organic straw bales, flour, bread, animal feed)
-Formulate Common Goals and Values:
-food security through genetic diversity and a healthy eco-system-
-bio-regional organic farming an a locally based economy-
-meaningful work and micro-enterprise opportunities-
-open space and restoration of fertile farmlands-
-a storehouse of agricultural information and knowledge-
-cultural integration through collaboration and the achievement of common goals-
Challenge for the Wheat Project (then as now) is to re-conceptualize the role of farming in our lives......to understand food not as a commodity traded on the cheap, but rather as the very source of nutrition and health....as the integrating force of vital communities.....
Obviously there are enormous amounts of seemingly divergent issues at stake in Copenhagen --with climate change as their common denominator. These emergencies somehow need to be translated into action plans, new regulations, and long term monitary commitments to dollars and cents by the developed rich countries. Quite complex a process for it assumes that we will have the wisdom to compare justly apples and pears --bleaching of coral reefs with Sub-Sahara food crisis or receding glaciers -- and weigh our choices from the point of view of Being One -- One apelike family that has gotten itself into a lot of trouble and now needs to find a way out. We will need to go way beyond the idea of nationalities (and.... by the way: that is not necessarily an argument for global governance and the spector of its repressive tools that are exercised by the very few --I want to get back to this later).
At this point in time, the path of survival for humanity is dependent upon how deeply we can identify with each other. We need to realize that we are on one cosmic boat charting the unknown.....together.
In a way we all know this --what most of us don't understand is why our reality is so divergent with our ideals and common humanity. How come the US until shortly thought it was normal to use 25% of the world's resources, and yet refused to play a contructive role in any type of climate regulation ?
It should be clear to everyone that this is ultimately a reflection of ruthless (super)power --to quote Mao, Political power grows out of the barrell of a gun.
The capitalist economic model acquired a new levels of predatory ruthlessnesss after it wed to the Rand corporation game theory model, which has now infected Wallstreet, the military and (sadly to say) also our education and higher learning, and holds that billions of selfish acting people somehow can create some kind of self perpetuating (if unjust) equilibrium for all. Now, faced with its logical end point, a kind of predatory capitalism based on control of the markets and money supply, is ruthlessly grabbing power and looks for new opportunities for inflated bubbles and frauds, while meanwhile busily unloading the previous punctured frauds on to the sleeping populous by way of a corrupt congress, and weak presidency. It really is kind of a fascism, at least in the sense of Mussolini fascism, where corporate interests merge with the state while the population is marginalized into economic pions or worse: cannon fodder for the endless empire fights to control resources. How else can one explain that almost without a whimper 50 million people in the United States itself will suffer from food insecurity this year, including one in four children. And the strangest thing is.... that there is no outcry, no credible plan, no outstretched hand.....Food insecurity? We should really call it for what it is....Hunger. "Hunger" is a visceral word and using that we connect with the people that suffer from it. Humans know about hunger in their genes, while food insecurity is just some concept dreamt up by some bureaucrat somewhere to obscure the reality....
I am sorry --I wish I wouldn't have to say this, and history may very well prove me wrong. I hope so. But I say this to my brothers and sisters in many countries all over the world --cause I know that you, like many of us here, projected your highest hopes and aspirations on an Obama presidency. So, since I know that many of you have limited access to the media, it is easy to get stuck with your highest ideals pinned on Obama. I have to caution you here.
The political legacy of the Obama administration so far is dismal and doesn't strike me as any "change" at all. And I don't say that as a conservative or a liberal, since I am neither. There is a change of the guard in Washington from the massive influence of oil and the Haliburton and Bechtel 'construction' companies under Bush, towards that of the financial and pharmaceutical sector under Obama: apparently it is 'their turn' to rape and pillage. These sort of tips of the corrupt government-corporate iceberg float on top of the constant drone of a hypnotized media-nized society, an 'underwater' militarized, nuclearized, security state that demands all resources to its disposal and forces its citizens into terrible debt in order to fight wars that are largely (but secretly) fought to secure economic gain (i.e the control of the Iraqi war-fields as real motivation to declare Iraq war, --still in progress, by the way) and force further monopolization of the money supply. The fact that most of the wars have gone badly, doesn't mean that not enormous sums of money are being made, in all kinds of ways that perpetuate the wars.(Karzai brothers link: how we fund Taliban). That is the problem with corruption and the privatization of the war. What people are talking about in congress and the media is the 'militairy' involvement in the war, but what is largely unseen is the commitment the US government has made to private security companies such as Blackwater. Privatizing wars with corporate armies to hide them from the public eye, will very much complicate solutions to these wars, for throughout history mercenaries have always been the conduits of corruption on all levels (including a corruption of ethics).
The relationship between paper tiger Goldman Sachs and the Obama administration is way too cosy, and I wouldn't be surprised that whenever the scales swing back to an empowerment of democracy, that heads may roll in the courts. It is amazing to see that the people who engineered the deregulation under Clinton, that lead to enormous fraudulent privately held wealth and a decapitation of the middle class, are in total control of the bailout and the financial future of America. Again, it is unfortunate to say.... but what that indicates is a weak presidency. Putin would have gone in with his gang and arrested them, and drawn power to the state, but not in this day and age in America. Clinton was a con who needed to be loved by all means. Obama, for whatever reason takes it one step further. Obama has a deep psychological need to be loved by his enemies and childishly he thinks that somehow it will give him power over them and he will master them. Other than clear betrayal, that is the only clear explanation of why Obama sold out the promise of 'Change' to vultures like Geithner, Bernanke, Summers, and why he has staffed his administration with people that work for the nuclear lobby, for genetic modification, for chemical farming, against organics (etc.etc.).
Apparently Obama is not just beholden to the Wallstreet Banks. Somehow touched by the poison of corruption and co-dependency, a robust public option health care bill morphed into health insurance reform that forces people under penalties by the IRS to sign up yearly for one private insurance or another. So here you got it: the corporate interests, such as insurance and pharma that wrote the law in concert with the Obama administration and congress, can now make use of the tools of government (the IRS in this case) to enforce 'toll' to themselves. Really....I am not kidding... that is an indication of fascism.
And meanwhile the US two largely privatized wars keep going on or are expanding, in many ways only visible to the americans by the human wreckage that is returning home from the war or the desperate atrocities that happen here such as the killings at Fort Hood or an epidemic of suicides and spousal abuse that tear the seams of civilization.
So.... you can see.... that I am not happy with Obama, and please don't think that it will be a victory when Obama attends Copenhagen. What that really means is that the definition of success in Copenhagen will be watered down to such an extend that Obama will be able to claim victory with almost no commitments to CO2 reductions by the US on the table. Watch out for that. It is like getting the nobel price for peace and meanwhile sending in more troops. It is the one dimensional man needed to sell the plan. Obama will try to direct money to nuclear energy interests instead of alternative energy, and he will commit to the Cap and Trade model, since this gives plenty of opportunity for Wallstreet to make hay out of monetizing these models, and weave them into endless webs of derivative value (of real trees...) that can then mysteriously be traded and will form the basis of the next speculative bubble being perpetuated on an exhausted world.
Copenhagen will have to address one really pressing issue and that is that of inequality: inequality between rich and poor, between North and South. It is sad that the current inequity between the rich and the destitute is much greater than ever in history. It is the divergence between the Pharaoh and his Slaves by a factor of a million or so. And...it is shameful. This is 2009, there are more than 6.25 billion of us, we need to find a moment of diplomatic enlightenment and throw off our chains to a system that has bred poverty and despair for the vast majority of humans living today. We have to go deeper. Cap and trade is not good enough (at all).
Nations and people often mention the ones that live on 2 dollars a day --realizing the abject poverty that this must bring is clear to everyone else. According to the 'stats' that includes actually 2.6 billion people of which 1.4 billion only have 1.25 or less per day. But how about $10 dollars a day ? Did you realize that 80% of the world population, or 5.15 billion humans live of $10 or less per day ? What many in the west don't fathom is that these people are not just sitting around being hungry.... most of them actually put in an over stressed and overstretched workday for that. Cash payment at the end of the day is often not a given --regardless of the effort made. This has to do with a global system that devours resources while disowning whole communities and any sense of commons.
The lives of the poor are more vulnerable to decease and hunger, and are often cut short due to violence and abuse of the people and land resources by corporate powers. The exposure to toxins that many indigenous communities all over the world have to endure because of toxic dumping, nuclear experiments, military occupations, petrochemical contamination, drug wars and mining, is criminal. Yet these same communities have no access to media or money or courts to counter their abusers, and victories are at best temporary -- like the one in Peru's latest confrontations between the (oil interests serving) army and several indigenous tribes. All the cards are stacked against them.
This constant conflict and need to repress is the actual face of inequality, and given the path that we are on, this face will start to distort and contort more and more deamonically. A lot of different capital entities (from drugs to mining) and corporations have interest in destabilization of a strong civil society (as Robert Kaplan laid out in his book: The Ends of the World ). Even societies like the US itself are not immune: it is destabalizing under the weight of militarism and excessively self serving corporate entities. The US government is arguably fully corrupted by money interests, think healthcare, energy ( think oil), military, and above all Wallstreet, and whereas these entities should be governed by law and regulation --in fact it's the corporations that dictate the laws and demand 'toll' --utterly destroying the middle class in its way. This too is a recipe for undermining democracy and semblance of a civil society. Tensions due to unequality are also rising here. Within this context of corruption and paper money deals, cap and trade is asking for ecological disaster and further disempowerment of common people.
It is high time that we wake up to the ethical dimensions of inequality and the injustices it brings. Why not let ethics be a guiding principle in 'making the deals', rather than the brute power underlying international relationships now ? Who will step forward to lead the world leaders into a whole new 'Gestalt of Politics' -- will it be Obama (or is he bought and sold? --let's root for Michelle!) ? Will it be the young smart Medvedev ? How about maverick Sarkozy ( let's root for Carla Bruni), Or president Hu Jintao (or is it Who ?) ? Or will it be you and me ? Someone will need to address the real issues head on in Copenhagen and speak truth and speak for the poor. The poverty I am speaking of here knows no boundaries and recognizes no nationalities: it is the same in the Laguna pueblo in New Mexico as it is in the sub Sahara or the Amazonian rainforest. It is about people that are going hungry and have lost control over their futures.
In the coming entries I intent to look at what is at stake in Copenhagen in particular cap and trade. Here I like to introduce you to some of the people I met in the makeshift harbour of Pucallpa, on the muddy banks of the Ucayali river in the Amazonian Rainforest of Peru. They haul the resources out of the jungle like you'll see here, day after day.... the wood, the food: they are the ones that live on a few dollars or less per day. Warning: this is considered to be a 'bad place' but don't feel scared: ........try to find yourselves.......
The Northern New Mexico Organic Wheat Project is a loose confederation of family farmers and local processors. There is no formal structure or incorporation thus far. Ultimately through the 'Nativo' brand name, it aims to localize production and market for high quality organic grains in particular wheat, but also spelt, rye, and barley and the processed foods such as bread that come from it.
New Mexico once had a culture of wheat production and diversity: in 1880 NM was 'best of fair' in Chicago for its quality and diversity (over 250 different varieties) in its wheat exhibit. Yet by the end of WW-2 (1945) hardly any of that agri-culture was left. By the beginning of the 90-ties only Scout 66 was grown in remote areas of Eastern NM, mainly for cow and animal fodder.
After examining the market, in 1993 a group of family farmers started to grow high quality organic grains and mill them locally, as a strategy for rural subsistence and maintaining water rights by keeping the land under cultivation. Cloud Cliff, a locally owned medium size bakery in Santa Fe, was mostly the designation of the milled flour and grain, where the wheat was processed into Nativo Bread. Sin Brokerage !!
They were way ahead of the curve --and because of it, production and participation have fluctuated over the years. Yet in the economic crisis of the last years (and don't forget the foodcrisis that doubled prices for wheat) there are renewed efforts under way to integrate organic grain production and markets in New Mexico, also for other derivative items such as mushrooms (grown on straw), organic seed diversity, strawbales for building materials, eggs, chickens, etc.
It is a nice idea (for an intern ?) to document the history of the Wheat Project some time -- but that is not what I wanted to do in this space (right now). Let's instead analyze some numbers of the NNM Organic Wheat Project in the light of world food production and growing shortages. What does a decentralized solution look like ? Through both videos (embedded on this page) you can get a good sense of the scale of the project. Watch them now and then try to visualize them while reading the rest of this writing.
Real roughly, on the back of a napkin, let me have a shot at it here:
Northern New Mexico Organic Wheat Project: Farmers: 8 Bakers: 5
Land under cultivation (fluctuating): 80-220 acres (thus far: dry land/flood irrigation)
Production of wheat in pounds 1995-2008: fluctuating 120,000 to 250,000 #.
Maximum possible production on acreage: 400,000 #
Yearly capacity of Cloud Cliff: 400.000# flour or 350,000 loaves of bread or about 1000 per day
Market served: 70.000-100.000 people (which is more or less the population of larger Santa Fe)
Investment: close to 1 million $ (that includes buildings, storage and equipment, also combine,etc.)
World's growing food needs: world population: 6250.000.000 yearly increase: 80,000,000 + people (1.3% per yr. -- slowing some now) Hungry people estimate: 1.2 billion increase in malnourished people since 2006: 400+ million
Amount of new Wheat (Grain) Projects and Cloud Cliff' sized decentralized processing plants needed to keep up with the growth in world population ( of 80 million/yr): 800 per year
Investment needed for establishment of similar projects to maintain food security: 800 million per year
Amount of new acreage per year needed to be put under cultivation to keep up solely with the growth of population: 192,000 acres of irrigated land or about 1600 new "Center Pivot Crop Cicles"(120 acres ea)
Minimal new acreage needed per person (for grains only): .0024 acres (this number seems too low)
Employment growth per year, to man projects: 10400
Now let's address the immediate needs of the 1.2 billion that are going hungry: Amount of new decentralized Wheat (Grain) Projects and Cloud Cliff' sized processing plants needed immediately to feed the hungry: 12000
Investment required immediately by international community in farming and food production: 12 billion
Minimal Amount of new acreage needed for grain cultivation to alleviate existing hunger: 2.9 million, say 3 million acres or about 24000 new "Center Pivot Crop Cicles"(120 acres ea)
Employment created: 156,000 people
This is something to chew on. I have no idea how my numbers compare with any official projections. For once I didn't look at them --this time I wanted to start from what I know and then 'project out' to come up with acreage, etc. They are 'wet' numbers... If anything my numbers on needs, on acreage, yield and investments may be wildly optimistic: but may be they help provide a measure of scale.
The above exercise was mainly meant to get decentralized solutions to our world food challenges into focus by highlighting a small local initiative: The Northern New Mexico Organic Wheat Project.
We need to resist food monopolies by creating local alternatives. Your engagement is Key.....
For awhile it was too wet (snow), too cold and too muddy to harvest the local wheat grown in Sunshine Valley, Northern New Mexico -- a stone's throw away from the Colorado border. However last week there was a break in the weather delivering a glorious Indian summer: the fields dried up nicely and the wheat harvest was set in motion. Though farmed as dry land wheat, the wheat kernels looked healthy and plum.
In the coming weeks I would like to explore the whole scope of the wheat project as an example of a grassroots initiative that brings economic development to one of the poorest counties in the USA. Real briefly, the Northern New Mexico Organic Wheat Project is based on the idea that food security comes from a regionalization of food production and markets. Not just that.... true food security also has to do with bio-diversity, seed saving and perhaps most of all healthy communities.
Anyhow...here are some of the 'pics' for now... click on picture to enlarge.... enjoy!!
