In 1850, 64% of American workers worked on farms.
Thu 6:56 am +01:00, 18 Jul 2024 9
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July 16, 2024
Dear Friends,
There is an apochryphal phrase that, despite its disputed source, probably everyone can agree with: “Control the Food and You Control the People.”
Our grandparents and great grandparents produced much of their own food in their gardens or on their farms. Food choices in stores were limited, with little frozen food available and fewer fresh and canned foods for sale.
In 1850, 64% of American workers worked on farms.1 In 1900 there were still 6 million US farms, with an average size of 150 acres.2 By 1920, 30% of US workers still did farm work.3 But after World War 2, the US government adopted policies to reduce the number of farmers and expand the size of farms–for more efficiency, it was said.4 5 6 Today, only 1% of Americans work on farms7 and the number of farms has dropped by 2/3.
Most US farmland belongs to farms that are over 2,000 acres in size, or more than 3 square miles. But along with efficiency came worsening food quality. The so-called “Green Revolution” allowed farmers to apply chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides while ignoring the overall fertility, quality and texture of their soils. Depleted soils subsequently produced less nutritious foods, while accumulating low levels of neurotoxins and carcinogens.
Decades of consolidation of food production, processing and distribution has steadily increased the size and power of a small group of global agricultural corporations. Most of those companies are in turn members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) or its Food Action Alliance, and they are wielding unelected power to influence food production and distribution in the name of climate change, sustainability,8 health, and equity.9
For example, the WEF had this to say about food systems in 2022:
“In the face of volatile global shocks from conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, and extreme weather events, it has become more urgent than ever to transition food systems to a net-zero, nature-positive infrastructure that nourishes and feeds everyone.10
Net zero means “removing an equal amount of CO2 from the atmosphere as we release into it.”11 This has never been accomplished by any food system, and the implications could drastically reduce the food supply–yet it is said to be the reason we must change the way we produce food.
The WEF and other international entities have recently increased the intensity of this concerted push, most visibly in policies targeting the reduction or elimination of livestock and related farming activities.
Climate change as a justification to attack food production
Advocates of climate change urgency have steadily honed their concerns about agriculture. The WEF boldly proclaims:
With the food system responsible for a third of overall global CO2 emissions, attention on ‘climate-beneficial’ foods has been slowly but steadily increasing.
The US EPA disagrees with the WEF that agriculture plays such a large role in global CO2 emissions.12 Nor are the many CO2-lowering effects of regenerative agriculture (like sinking CO2 into the soil from the air) mentioned as offsets.
Organic and regenerative agriculture, in which topsoil is rebuilt through composting, “green manure” plantings that enrich the soil, and good forestry practices, can sequester more CO2 in the soil and trees than is lost through other agricultural processes. These could potentially achieve ‘net zero’– and increase the production of more nutritious foods and healthier soils, but are not being touted as solutions. One must ask then, is the goal really “net-zero” or is there another goal?
Numerous international agencies and NGOs have converged to accuse cows and farming of harming the climate. They offer technological rescues, to be provided by corporate WEF members. These include the United Nations Environment Program and AIM for Climate.
Like carbon dioxide, methane is a greenhouse gas that is said to contribute to global warming. Over 150 nations have signed the “Global Methane Pledge” to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 203013–and some are reducing dairy and beef cows because the gas produced in their intestines contains methane. (Humans also expel methane.14) Methane is released naturally from cracks in the earth, as well as from fracking and oil drilling–which were recently shown to release 5x as much methane as earlier estimates suggested.15 But it is the gas produced by cows that is the current target for methane reduction.
Issues that have not been satisfactorily addressed include:
- whether our methods for measuring temperature in comparison to past decades provide accurate comparative results,
- how the doomsday targets for temperature and CO2 were arrived at,
- how members of the IPCC, an unaccountable body responsible for climate targets and projections were selected and retained,
- since scientists worried about a coming ice age during the 1970s, doesn’t that suggest considerable changes in climate (both up and down) over relatively short periods of time,
- what is the evidence that increased heat and increased CO2 are dangerous when both contribute to increased growth of plants,
- while it was claimed that sea level rises would be catastrophic, what we are seeing in fact is evidence of small changes in sea level in both directions.
Health
WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that “a transformation of the world’s food systems is needed urgently, based on a One Health approach that protects and promotes the health of humans, animals and the planet.” We all want to protect animals and environment, as well as our own health, but it seems the obvious way to do that is to address the evils of factory farming and excess chemical additives used for crops and livestock, rather than a major transformation of what we eat. Consuming large amounts of insect proteins, or lab-grown ‘meat,’ for example, will have unpredictable effects on health. Do we really want to perform these experiments on billions of people at once?
“One Health” is also being used as the justification to vaccinate fur farm workers against bird flu in Finland,16 even though there have been no human cases in Finland, the disease does not spread person-to-person, and everyone in the US who has developed bird flu in the past 2 years has had an extremely mild illness: conjunctivitis +/- symptoms of a cold. None were hospitalized or died. The excuse is that vaccinating people will allow continued farming of mink and foxes, which were culled last year due to alleged bird flu infections. Here is how Finland’s health department draws from “One Health” to wordsmith the need to give experimental vaccines, never before tested in humans, to farmworkers in expectation that an outbreak of bird flu might occur:
“This issue must be evaluated within a framework which considers the intricate interplay between the environment, animals, and humans. Recognising this interconnectedness and the vast array of environmental impacts of human activity is crucial, and our protective measures should consider the overarching goal of maintaining and enhancing planetary health.”17
Equity
Equity is repeatedly embraced as the justification to change the way food is allocated. The roster of corporate players at AIM for Climate proclaims “Diversity, gender equity, and inclusion are critical to the success of the mission.” But real equity is allowing people to choose the food they eat, without interference, rather than restricting populations from accessing the foods they prefer and imposing new foods on them.
Animal Rights
The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) joined the plan to balance environmental demands against human needs for food through adherence to the loose “One Health” approach. At the same time, WOAH admits, “More than 75% of the billion people who live on less than $2 per day depend on subsistence farming and raising livestock to survive.”18
The world’s largest food producers, processors, and retail sellers are joined with governments and NGOs through the WHO, UN, WEF, and a plethora of interconnected organizations. Yet all these supposedly charitable organizations have become focused on reducing or eliminating livestock, despite the fact that the poorest peoples as well as the wealthiest rely on livestock for meat, dairy and for enriching the soil. The multinational organizations and food conglomerates want humans to convert to a state-specified diet comprised instead of synthetic meats, insects, and other novel food products manufactured by these companies, which have not previously been known for their concerns about our health.
Many question whether a group of global industrialists and politicians have either the expertise or desire to “improve the state of the world,” but there is no question that the proposed intention is to consolidate and control food production and distribution, thereby improving the state of member corporations’ profits. GMO crops and related chemical applications will be increased under the pretense of climate rescue, and synthetic meats will be favored in government food programs. Even more small farms will be shuttered.
This coordinated justification for global/government food control is presented in the name of sustainability, reducing global temperature, improving animal welfare, nurturing human health, and improving equity. However, there is no evidence it does even one of these things.
We do not intend to allow a small group of globalists to control global food production and thereby achieve control of the population.
This is why Door to Freedom will place a major focus on turning this agenda around. We will encourage government (at all levels) to support small farmers rather than industrial giants, to improve animal husbandry practices, to incentivize enhancing the soil and to achieve a much healthier food supply for all.
Our methods include education, policy development, and working for change at all levels of government. We will use the same strategy we used to stop the WHO’s agenda. Basically, once people understand what is happening and what is at stake, they refuse to go along–whether they are citizens or political leaders.
Our first large project will be a 2-day Symposium September 5-6 (online only) titled The Attack on Food and Agriculture, 2nd Annual. Please join us, support us, and work with us to heal our food systems and our planet.
My best wishes,
Meryl Nass, MD
- https://www.nytimes.com/1988/
07/20/us/farm-population- lowest-since-1850-s.html - https://www.census.gov/
library/publications/1902/dec/ vol-05-agriculture.html - https://www.nytimes.com/1988/
07/20/us/farm-population- lowest-since-1850-s.html - https://www.ucsusa.org/
resources/bigger-farms-bigger- problems - https://www.agrariantrust.org/
blog/butzs-law-of-economics/ - https://books.google.com/
books?id=oL2v87Rx2QQC& printsec=frontcover&source= gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v= onepage&q&f=false - https://usafacts.org/articles/
farmer-demographics/ - https://www.
foodactionalliance.org/home - https://www.
foodactionalliance.org/ partners - https://www.weforum.org/
agenda/2022/02/food-systems- 2022-outlook/ - https://www.weforum.org/
agenda/2021/11/net-zero- emissions-cop26-climate- change/ - https://www.epa.gov/
ghgemissions/overview- greenhouse-gases - https://www.
globalmethanepledge.org/ - https://citizensustainable.
com/human-farts/ - https://www.npr.org/2022/09/
29/1125894105/oil-field- flaring-methane-report - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pmc/articles/PMC11191420/ - ibid
- https://www.woah.org/en/what-
we-do/global-initiatives/one- health/
—
A similar story here no doubt. Enclosure Acts led to ordinary folk being dispossessed of common land for the ultimate benefit of corporations and their rich owners
I was up on the north coast of Scotland a few years back in my camper van, and I came across a local folk museum at Bettyhill, in an old church. It had first hand testimonies, translated from the original Gaelic, that explained what had happened to the locals during the “Highland Clearances”. Folk who had been totally self sufficient for hundreds of years. They were literally driven off the land by force. The Jewish land agent of the Duchess of Sutherland, oversaw the evictions. There was even a photo of the evil man on the wall, which I photographed myself as a reminder. In some cases they turned up and said “get out we are going to burn your house”. Some old folk refused and were literally burned alive. I was in tears by the time I left that museum….
We moved on and went to Wick, on the NE coast of Scotland, where we realised that the dispossessed had been herded into new housing in Wick. To provide labour for two new industries, fishing and kelp production. Both controlled by London based corporations, owned and run by very rich English capitalists. The southern part of Wick was built for the new herring fishing industry
Wiki:
“Pulteneytown, which was developed on the south side of the river by the British Fisheries Society during the 19th century,[6] was officially merged into the burgh in 1902”
and
“Pulteneytown was founded in 1808 to provide space for the many Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances, who poured to the coast in search of work in the fishing industry.[36] By the 1840s it was reported there were over 1,000 herring boats in the harbour alongside a large curing industry which had been developed around the harbour”
Incidentally, I just googled the museum, only to find that it is now “charitable” and funded by corporations, including SSE
Wiki:
“SSE plc (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy plc) is a multinational energy company headquartered in Perth, Scotland.[4][5] It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. SSE operates in the United Kingdom and Ireland”
It was a scruffy old place when we went there in 2019. But it was the most informative UK folk museum that I’ve ever been….
Not any more because, checking the new website of the museum then, there is a section on the Gaels, the folk who were evicted and sometimes killed. Guess what? Not a peep about those moving testimonies, they’ve disappeared, no doubt never to be seen again
But I photographed some of them, so I have copies somewhere. So, I will dig them out at some point…
Interesting information Pete. In my younger days I did a motorcycle tour of Scotland and on the way to Durness and wondered if I would ever find a B&B, but came across one near Betty Hill, very primitive with no tap water, but very nice people. The clearance of the Highlands was all to do with one of the big battles in Scotland between the English, who nearly lost. The City of London went into panic mode, as the Scots were near to reclaiming their right to issue real money. So, with most of the Scottish nobility being in hooch to the City, they were able to bribe them into clearing their estates of people. The cover story is that they removed the people to make for sheep farming, to hide the hand of the City of London! That in itself is a lot of nonsense as sheep graze on the hills where people don’t live.
Thanks newensign, that makes sense
Always the false debt money lurking in the background
Post them on Tap please Pete.
A good article Tap, but people get hung up on the propaganda that CO2 is bad, but it is essential for life. We would be dead without CO2, as the late Dr Peat showed we need CO2 in order to absorb oxygen into the blood cells, who points out that there have many cases where people could have saved, when fighting for breath, instead of giving them 100% oxygen were given some co2 first as reported by Dr Mercola. Suffering from asthma myself, I have found the benefit of breathing into a paper bag and breathing back in again to maximise co2.
Food will be our survival battle to come, along with CBDCs mandating mass medical interventions. By cutting us off from food, they can force us to commit self-poisoning against our will. I didn’t even use the word vaccine. The theme is brutality whether driving out crofters from their lands in Scotland or murdering the human population with medication.
Quite right Tap. Food is the key, as we can survive without their currency, and they know it. I tell people about the coming food shortage and most think I am mad!
Yes exactly Tap
I suspect that the food shortages to come will hit the poor countries most, rather than Britain. We are gilded here and we can afford the inevitable high prices, if push comes to shove. All the more reason to grow your own as much as possible too