Wed, November 03, 2010 D3 .. Songs and Sights on Route 2 Tim's blog Yesterday we started with breakfast at Manalo's Inn while I blogged, then picked up Michena for our bumpy journey along Route 2 to Léogâne/Darbonne. Our first stop was in Miragoâne to meet with Father Grandjean from the Petite Rivière school. We were surprised when we arrived to see his new school, with an audience already assembled to hear about our program. They even sang for us as we arrived. The group was very impressed with the laptop and with our vision for education. Father Grandjean seems like a great partner for both Petite Rivière and Miragoâne. I was very happy we brought Michena with us, as having her speak of her experiences (in Creole) to the group was clearly effective. After Miragoâne, we continued along a smoother section of Route 2 to Petite-Goâve to meet with O.N.E.T, another prospective Waveplace partner. They too had assembled many children and adults for our talk, and they too sang for us! At both locations, it was very difficult to say "maybe" to these hopeful people, particularly the children. Our purpose was to evaluate the locations for possible pilots, but when you're talking in front of a large group, it's hard to press the point that they might not be chosen. We are at the mercy of OLPC, who decides whether they will receive laptops, and our donors, who decide whether to help us fund these pilots. I did have the kids say into the video camera, "Please give us laptops", in English, just to make it harder for OLPC and the donors to say no. We at Waveplace of course would say "yes", though it is not for us to say. O.N.E.T looks like a very strong grassroots Haitian organization that would also be a very good partner. Meeting groups in person is incredibly valuable. After Petite-Goâve, we continued on Route 2 to Léogâne. Soon after we left, the car began to act funny, as though the transmission were in trouble. The car was shaking in frightening ways. After a while, it started to smell, so we pulled over to check things over. After scratching our heads about it, we decided to continue, and strangely, the problem had gone away. Later we determined that I had switched to 4 wheel drive while using the gas, which is not good. Finally reaching Darbonne, we saw Joseph, the team leader for our pilots there, on a motorcycle. After hearty greetings we continued to one of the four schools where they are working with the children. Today there were only a few of the 40 students working with the laptops, along with four mentors. They say "as well as"! (tarps, wall repair and destruction...) As in Petite Rivière, it was great to see the mentors again. It's also something to see Darbonne for myself. The destruction from the earthquake is clearly visible, as are the rebuilding efforts. The hammers didn't stop until well after 10pm. I only hope our efforts can help rebuild their education efforts as well.

Can gentically engineered foods help feed the hungry? Are anti-GMO activists and over-zealous environmentalists standing in the way of the hungry being fed? The hope that GMO foods might bring solutions to malnutrition and world hunger was never more dramatically illustrated than when Time magazine ran a cover story titled "Grains of Hope." The article joyfully announced the development of a genetically engineered "golden rice." This new strain of GM rice has genes from viruses and daffodils spliced into its genetic instructions. The result is a form of rice that is a golden-yellow color (much like daffodil flowers), and that produces beta-carotene, which the human body normally converts into Vitamin A. Nearly a million children die every year because they are weakened by Vitamin A deficiencies and an additional 350,000 go blind. Golden rice, said Time, will be a godsend for the half of humanity that depends on rice for its major staple. Merely eating this rice could prevent blindness and death. The development of golden rice was, it seemed, compelling and inspiring evidence that GM crops are the answer to malnutrition and hunger. Time quoted former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: "Responsible biotechnology is not the enemy, starvation is." Shortly after the Time cover story, Monsanto and other biotechnology companies launched a $50 million marketing campaign, including $32 million in TV and print advertising. The ads, complete with soft focus fields and smiling children, said that "biotech foods could help end world hunger." Other ad campaigns have followed. One Monsanto ad tells the public: "Biotechnology is one of tomorrow's tools in our hands today. Slowing its acceptance is a luxury our hungry world cannot afford." Within a few months, the biotech industry had spent far more on these ads than it had on developing golden rice. Their purpose? "Unless I'm missing something," wrote Michael Pollan in The New York Times Magazine, "the aim of this audacious new advertising campaign is to impale people like me -- well-off first-worlders dubious about genetically engineered food -- on the horns of a moral dilemma ... If we don't get over our queasiness about eating genetically modified food, kids in the third world will go blind." The implication of the ads is that lifesaving food is being held hostage by anti-science activists. In the years since Time proclaimed the promises of golden rice, however, we've learned a few things. For one thing, we've learned that golden rice will not grow in the kinds of soil that it must to be of value to the world's hungry. To grow properly, it requires heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides -- expensive inputs unaffordable to the very people that the variety is supposed to help. And we've also learned that golden rice requires large amounts of water -- water that might not be available in precisely those areas where Vitamin A deficiency is a problem, and where farmers cannot afford costly irrigation projects. And one more thing -- it turns out that golden rice doesn't work, even in theory. Malnourished people are not able to absorb Vitamin A in this form. And even if they could, they'd have to eat an awful lot of the stuff. An 11-year-old boy would have to eat 27 bowls of golden rice a day in order to satisfy his minimum requirement for the vitamin. I'm sure that given enough time and enough money, some viable genetically modified (GM) crops could be developed that contain more nutrients or have higher yields. But I'm not sure that even if that were to happen, it would actually benefit the world's poor. Monsanto and the other biotech companies aren't developing these seeds with the intention of giving them away. If people can't afford to buy GM seeds, or if they can't afford the fertilizers, pesticides and water the seeds require, they'll be left out. Poverty is at the root of the problem of hunger. As Peter Rosset, director of Food First, reminds us, "People do not have Vitamin A deficiency because rice contains too little Vitamin A, but because their diet has been reduced to rice and almost nothing else." And what, pray tell, has reduced these people to such poverty and their diets to such meager fare? In the words of the British writer George Monbiot: The world has a surplus of food, but still people go hungry. They go hungry because they cannot afford to buy it. They cannot afford to buy it because the sources of wealth and the means of production have been captured and in some cases monopolized by landowners and corporations. The purpose of the biotech industry is to capture and monopolize the sources of wealth and the means of production ... GM technology permits companies to ensure that everything we eat is owned by them. They can patent the seeds and the processes which give rise to them. They can make sure that crops can't be grown without their patented chemicals. They can prevent seeds from reproducing themselves. By buying up competing seed companies and closing them down, they can capture the food market, the biggest and most diverse market of all. No one in her right mind would welcome this, so the corporations must persuade us to focus on something else ... We are told that ... by refusing to eat GM products, we are threatening the developing world with starvation, an argument that is, shall we say, imaginative ... With rare exceptions, genetically engineered crops are being created not because they're productive or because they address real human needs, but because they're patentable. The biotech companies have invested billions of dollars because they sense in this technology the potential for enormous profit and the means to gain control over the world's food supply. Their goal is not to help subsistence farmers feed themselves. Their goal is maximum profit. While Monsanto would like us to believe they are seeking to alleviate world hunger, there is actually a very dark side to the company's efforts. For countless centuries farmers have fed humanity by saving the seed from one years crop to plant the following year. But Monsanto, the company that claims its motives are to help feed the hungry, has developed what it calls a "Technology Protection System" that renders seeds sterile. Commonly known as "terminator technology" and developed with taxpayer funding by the USDA and Delta & Pine Land Company (an affiliate of Monsanto), the process genetically alters seeds so that their offspring will be sterile for all time. If employed, this technology would ensure that farmers cannot save their own seeds, but would have to come back to Monsanto year after year to purchase new ones. Critics refer to these genetically engineered seeds as suicide seeds. "By peddling suicide seeds, the biotechnology multinationals will lock the world's poorest farmers into a new form of genetic serfdom," says Emma Must of the World Development Movement. "Currently 80 percent of crops in developing countries are grown using farm-saved seed. Being unable to save seeds from sterile crops could mean the difference between surviving and going under." To Monsanto and other GMO companies, the terminator and other seed sterilizing technologies are simply business ventures that are designed to enhance profits. In this case, there is not even the implication of benefit to consumers. I wish I could speak more highly of GM foods and their potential. But the technology is now held tightly in the hands of corporations whose motives are, I'm afraid, very different from what they would have us believe. Despite the PR, Monsanto's goal is not to make hunger history. It's to control the staple crops that feed the world. Will GMOs help end world hunger? I don't think so. John Robbins is the author of many bestsellers including "The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World," the classic "Diet For A New America" and "The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less." He is the recipient of the Rachel Carson Award, the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, the Peace Abbey's Courage of Conscience Award and Green America's Lifetime Achievement Award. To learn more about his work, visit www.johnrobbins.info This Blogger's Books from The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less by John Robbins Food Revolution, The: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World by John Robbins Many supporters of GMO seeds, are Monsanto supporters. Who is in charge of the USDA-Agricultural Research Service ? I believe it was Tom Vilsack,who is now a member of the cabnit our current Secretary.Who is Tom Vilsack?Google him and find out. Our Supreme Court Justice,Clarence Thomas,,,Used to Work for who> Monsanto.and several top positions in the Food and Drug Administration,and the Department of Agriculture,all filled with former Monsanto Lobbyist, do you really want to believe any thing these people say? I can post more articall s,but I will not, enough has been said,if you are interested at all, in what you, your children,and grandchildren are eating, do your research,,make up your own mind,in the mean time,keep saving your seeds.You might want to google, how many seed saving banks are left here in the U.S., compared to how many there used to be, and why. cAROL

Yes! I sent many seeds from Walmart. The problem might be if the stores are still carrying them. We are getting out of seed buying season here. If you have enough time to order seeds, Willhite Seeds is a great place to order from. If you order in bulk, you can split the seeds up into small ziplocks...either snack sized ones, or you can get smaller ziplocks in the craft section of Walmart or any craft store. When I was seed trading, I used to use 2 x 3s I think. Here is a link that might be useful: Willhite Seeds

Yes, it is a good idea to be wise about which charities we support. My hubby and I have a group of charities we support yearly, including the two I listed above. I have to admit that initially we chose charities based on a personal connection. For instance, we support Medical Teams International because it's home-grown and a high school friend of hubby's worked there for many years. We support two others because we've been personally affected by the diseases they represent. There were times when we wondered whether those we supported deserved our respect and patronage. A few years back I found a website that rated the charities based on the percentages of donations spent on programs versus fundraising and administrative costs. Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark it but I did find two worth checking. One is the Better Business Bureau, which provides a monetary breakdown of money in/money out so that you can see how much of what you send actually goes to the cause. Most charity watchdogs suggest that at least 80% of funds should go to the cause and the higher that percentage the better. According to BBB, Medical Teams International spends 3% on fundraising and 2% on administration with 95% of donations going to programs. The American Red Cross spends 4% on fundraising and 6% on administration with 90% going to programs. I just learned, to my dismay, that one of the two disease affiliated charities spends 18% on fundraising and 9% on administration. That's $27 for every $100 donated. Not so good. Given our recent experience, I'm not surprised. As a thank you for our $100 donation, we received - by Fed Ex, no less - a reusable tote with their logo. I called to tell them that we were not pleased with this gesture, a waste of donation dollars in our opinion, especially when a letter of thanks would have been sufficient. We'll have to think hard about whether we want to continue to support this organization. But I digress. The other website that I found is Charity Guide, which seem to be a compilation of resources that vet charities. As someone who is active in a local non-profit, I know that the above may not always give a full picture, especially if it's a new charity. We spent a large percentage of money our first year on fundraising paraphenalia and if we'd been judged by that first year, it would not have looked good. Since then, however, we've kept costs low and we're forever looking for other ways to save so that more of our fundraising dollars support the program. As an aside, we always request to be left off an organization's mailing list, especially those that send out fat newsletters on a regular basis (such as the disease affiliated charity above), so that more of the donated funds can be spent on programs and not on paper costs and postage. Many charities now offer to send e-newsletters instead. If you regularly support a charity, ask if this service is available and help them reduce their overhead costs. HTH