Since winning the presidency last year and ending 61 years of domination by the conservative Colorado Party, Lugo has been trying to push reforms that aim to benefit Paraguay's numerous poor. He has criticized an elite class that "sits comfortably in air-conditioned offices," while the poor "survive on just one meal a day if they are lucky . . . without safe drinking water, surrounded by misery." (Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo replaces military chiefs, denies threat of coup 11/4/09)And if luck runs out? How do you cut back from one meal a day and survive? To survive people need more than one meal a day, plus safe drinking water, plus shelter. Wouldn't you need that much to survive?
So we have this problem: too many people have to rely on one meal a day. Poverty.
What is the solution?
Scientists have determined how to fortify the cassava plant, a staple root crop in many developing countries, with enough vitamins, minerals and protein to provide the poor and malnourished with a day's worth of nutrition in a single meal.
Mira Scharf cartoon
Regrettable.
And who could have predicted?
Well let us predict it right now, because maybe 800 million people rely on cassava as a food staple. If something goes wrong with the genetically modified varieties...
^^^^^^^
Some people think overpopulation is a problem.
The First Global Revolution by the Club of Rome spells out the reason for why the globalists use fears such as climate change, food shortages etc. They want a common “enemy” to “unite” mankind under a single system of control. And they decided that the enemy is “humanity itself”. So we are told over and over that normal human activity is a threat, not out of control war-mongering governments and resource-stealing corporations, but normal behavior. And all they have to do is make us believe that our fellow human beings are an incredible danger to our survival, and we will all fall into line under the sway of a bunch of elitist scam artists, and do whatever we are told to do, and stomp on each others’ rights and freedoms.
...Such as supporting the idea that if hundreds of millions of poor people have to survive on one meal a day, then we should encourage them to eat a genetically modified one meal a day, which it is more nutritious...?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsors this research into the so-called super cassava.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsors this research into the so-called super cassava.
^^^^^^^
Many indigenous cultivars of staple crops, including cassava, are very rich in nutrients and often well-adapted to stresses such as poor soil or severe climate. Yet researchers and authorities in developing countries frequently neglect these varieties....
Research of this type can be very cheap — selecting indigenous cultivars and producing hybrid cassava cost us no more than a few thousand dollars compared with the high price of developing a GM crop, which can cost up to US$100 million. GM crops are unlikely to reach the quality or adaptability of indigenous cultivars because, during their short synthetic life, they are not subject to natural selection, so may quickly break down or be ill-suited to local conditions. Cassava genetically engineered to resist mosaic disease is a case in point: despite spending more than US$20 million on developing it, no farmer is actively growing it.
...
Indigenous cultivars are the precious heritage of native people — selected by them and improved over thousands of years.
^^^^^^^
Cassava starch is an important raw material in food processing, paper, textile and adhesive manufacturing and in the oil drilling industry.
Cassava has many non-food / industrial uses. It's a crop that can be grown and sold whether or not the locals are there to eat it.
2. Corrugated cardboard manufacture. One of the large users of modified starches is the corrugated cardboard industry for the manufacture of cartons. Boxes and other packing materials. The layers of board are glued together with a suspension of raw starch in a solution of the gelatinized form. The board is pressed between hot rollers, which effects a gelatinization of the raw starch and results in a very strong bonding. Medium-quality flours are suitable for this purpose provided the pulp content is not too high.^^^^^^^
6. Well drilling. Starches and modified starches mixed with clay are used to give the correct viscosity and water-holding capacity in bores for the exploratory drilling of oil wells or water wells. These starch products are replacing other commercial products for making the muddy materials which are indispensable for drilling wells. For this purpose a coldwater-soluble pregelatinized starch which can be made up to a paste of the required concentration on the spot is desired.
11. Cassava as a biofuel crop. In Brazil, sugar cane is a major bio-energy crop and has made this country a world leader in bio-ethanol production. Cassava has the potential to become another major bio-energy crop together with sugar cane. It is an attractive fuel crop because it can give high yields of starch and total dry matter in spite of drought conditions and poor soil. Energy requirements of cassava represent only 5â€"6% of the final energy content of the total biomass, showing an energy profit of 95%, assuming complete utilisation of the energy content of the total biomass.
12. Alcohol production from cassava has an overall efficiency of 32%. Cassava could become an industrial crop by developing cultivars with different starch compositions. Useful variations in native starch quality â€" altering the proportion of amylase to amylopectin, for instance, which changes the physiochemical properties of the polymer â€" could open new market niches at better prices.
13. Bio-ethanol production. Brazil has already started producing bio-ethanol from cassava. Many African countries are now becoming major producers of bio-ethanol production. Cassava mutants could be developed to produce value-added biomass for cost-effective production of bio-ethanol.
Win win win.
10 comments:
That is unbelievable Peasant. Around Florida many hispanics grow it and it is called yucca. It is in the supermarkets here. It is also called tapioca and what is used to make pudding.
This stuff has been used for ages everywhere from Africa to Cuba and many call it the famine buster. The leaves they say contains some cyanide and the south American indians I have read boil it down and make the paste to kill monkeys with blow darts. Bugs die if they eat the leaves due to the cyanide. It really should not be a surprise these animals want to destroy it also. Killers wearing suits.
It is also what allowed the Seminole indians to survive the calvary raids in the everglades. The calvary could not understand how the Seminoles did not starve as they were on the run. I have read they had yucca stashes all over they could grab a chunk and keep moving. No wonder they want to destroy it. These people plan ahead.
It's so disgustingly obvious what they're up to when you see that every single O-administration appointment in the areas of food production, both domestically and world/aid-production policy come from monsanto and dupont.
People can sign petitions and write their representatives till kingdom come (and they have in the hundreds of thousands) and they couldn't care less.
Still wondering about that massive seedling 'sabotage' in Oz.
A young Michigan woman activist, mother of 2, was sentenced to 21 years for a GMO crop torching. They've now put her in solitary and plan to send her to the CMU (communication management unit) somewhere soon - with the mooozlim 'terrists'.
Can't love the earth and life or you're a 'most dangerous threat' to public order and 'our way of life'.
-respects
Nice job in showing that there are no humanitarian benefits to GM cassava, AP. And no economic benefits, either, unless it is for the GM companies and to the great cost of a huge section of humanity.
I think we can safely call this level of exploitation unmitigated evil.
It is already one of the most nourishing foods on the planet and grows like a weed. There is no need to change it. Some people with various diseases like cancer or aids if there is such a thing go on a yucca only diet. It is a complete meal. I always get a few chunks from the Cuban deli when I am in the area.
Not to mention that people on subsistence diets as long as the air and water are clean outlive the gluttonous recreational eaters.
Reminds me of hemp. Can't have a multi-use cheap to grow plant unless a very few can exploit it for their own profit. The peasants be damned.
yes, seems like pretty much anything that works and is cheap: sunlight (vitamin D), hemp, yucca, water... those things have to either be controlled or ruined or made illegal.
Hi Miss Peasant.
I've just got back from a camping holiday in France and was lucky enough to squeeze one book into the break (kids!). I read "Blood River - A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart" by Tim Butcher, who followed in Stanley's footsteps (he of, "Dr Livingston, I presume" fame) by travelling the length of the Congo river, from Lake Tanyanyka to the Atlantic.
I read this book because the grandfather I never knew worked in what was then The Belgian Congo and I wanted to know more about it.
The Congo is an excellent example of empire building gone wrong, but the book highlights some interesting points. Almost all the people the author met on his journey that remember Belgian colonial rule say things were better then than they are now, and the common theme seemed to be the perception of law and order was what made things work, however brutal that may have been.
The casava plant being a case in point. This is the staple diet of most of the people he met on his 2700 km journey. Under colonial rule, and not just in Congo, but think modern Zimbabwe too there were many staple crops. The problem the author highlighted was that when the Belgians granted independence in 1962, there were only a handful of Congoleans trained to run any kind of infrastructure, so inevitably what the Belgians built collapsed.
Without the necessary knowledge, people will grow what works best/easiest, Casava does just that.
I just thought it interesting, and thought I would put it down here, but I agree wholeheartedly with you, if Bill and Melinda are thinking of tinkering with the DNA of that plant, nothing good will come out of it.
hi Edo,
that is very interesting. i think people do find predictability comforting, which may be what people "remember" as law & order. the idea being, i think, that if we know where the lines are, we can decide to cross them or not, and even though we may not agree with the lines, at least things are clear. for example, many Iraqis say that life was better under Saddam Hussein, and for the same reason: order, even bad order, is better than chaos.
it also doesn't surprise me that the infrastructure collapsed for lack of people to run it. the thing about good leaders is this: a good leader prepares his or her followers to function when the leader is gone. so if things collapse without the leader, i consider that a FAIL. those situations create dependency, and that is what power is all about - setting people up for exploitation. dependent people are more easily controlled, a la women and children.
so i'm glad that there are crops like cassava that are easy to grow and allow people to survive in the absence of infrastructure and order. let's hope the indigenous varieties don't get wiped out by these GM crops.
Ah, it's interesting that you should pick up on the term 'remember'.
In the book, the author talks about institutionalised memory (i think thats what he said) - where everyone is aware of how things used to be, even though they may not have had experience (through relatives etc) of those memories themselves. In the Congo, this doesn't exist. There are few people who do actually remember, because they had personal experience (as would most people in Iraq). The time that has passed in Congo, and nearly 5 decades of Kleptocracy/Anarchy have wiped this institutionalised memory out.
That's why a poor nutritional crop like Cassava is the staple diet. Because it grows quick and is plentiful. Other crops would grow equally well, especially in the Congo, which it's superb soil, but not without the necessary know-how.
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