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Learn The Art Of Preserving Fresh Cooking Herbs
Thursday, April 26th, 2012
Herbs are a good way of enhancing the flavor or your dishes. You can use either fresh or dried cooking herbs. There are many people who allocate a small space in their backyards for herb gardening. They aim to have a ready supply of fresh herbs.
Despite the desire to use fresh herbs all the time, the season of the year can affect the availability of fresh herbs. Many kinds die during the cold and icy months. In order for you to have a steady supply of your favorite cooking herbs, you will need to dry some of them for future use.
The first criterion in preserving fresh cooking herbs is to know the trick of harvesting them. There are herbs that can be pulled from the roots and there are those that had to be snipped with strong scissors or kitchen knives. There are also best times to harvest these for drying purposes. The best time to harvest your fresh cooking herbs is during rainy evenings or late mornings because it is during these times when herbs can better retain their oils and flavors. Furthermore, these are times when the plants are less prone to growth of mildew. After harvesting you must be sure to wash the herbs carefully, preferably just misting or spraying them with water followed by wiping them.
There are actually 3 ways to preserve your fresh cooking herbs – hanging them, freezing them or steeping them in oil.
Preserving fresh cooking herbs by hanging
After snipping the long stems. Remove the lower leaves from the stem. Then tie 5 to 10 stems into a bunch. Do not tie too many stems as this will hamper ventilation. Hang these bunches in a dark, dry, non-humid and well ventilated location in the house. If there is no dark spot in the house, you can cover each bunch with paper bags and pierce the bags with air holes.
It may take 1 to 3 weeks to have the fresh herbs dry. As you wait for them to dry, check them regularly. Thicker stems will take more time to dry. You can check if they are already ready by rubbing a leaf between two fingers. They must be crumbly otherwise give more time.
When totally dry, remove the leaves and place them in a jar with airtight lids. You can store the leaves whole or you can crust them to make a fine grounded mix. Label the jar and have the date noted.
Preserving fresh cooking herbs by freezing
Do the same process of picking and washing the fresh herbs. Remember that freezing can only be done with herbs that have soft leaves such as tarragon, basil or parsley. Chives can never be frozen.
After picking, washing and drying your fresh cooking herbs, place them in freezer bags. Label with the name of herbs and date. Frozen fresh herbs can be good for 3 months but if you want them to last longer blanch them first for a few seconds in hot water then dip then in iced water before putting them in plastic freezer bags. You can freeze this for 6 months.
Preserving fresh cooking herbs by steeping in oil
Harvest, wash and pat dry the fresh cooking herbs. Although any kind of oil will do, the most preferred kind is still olive oil. You can opt to have the leaves attached to the stem or you can detach them. You can just put the leaves in the oil or you can add the stems to the detached leaves. Inclusion of stems will add flavor to the oil.
Place the oil in a jar then arrange the herbs inside. Placing those in stems in upright position will look attractive. These can be both ornamental and useful culinary ingredient. Keep the jar in cool place especially during summer. Shelf life can be for 6 months.
Preserving your fresh cooking herbs will guarantee that you will have a ready supply of culinary ingredients anytime of the year. Herbs, whether fresh or dried will surely enhance the flavor and taste of any dish. However, be careful in the use of dried herbs. Use them sparingly as they are more potent.
Felicitas Ramos is writing articles as a hobby and she writes on different niche. Read more about herbs and plants by visiting her site http://www.potsofherbs.blogspot.com/
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History of Mexican Food and Flavors
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
Mexican food has a long and varied history starting back with the Mayan Indians and evolved with historical events and cultural changes. The Mayan Indians were hunters and gatherers. They did no farming or produced any of their own products. They fed themselves off the land, with wild game, tropical fruits and plants, and fish. Mayan Indians used corn and beans in their diets. The history of corn is another subject but suffice it to say the Americas have been using it for thousands of years. It only became popular in Europe after one of Columbus’ visits.
The Azteca culture introduced hot peppers, honey, salt and chocolate into their cooking and eventually found its way into the Mayan kitchen. The slow mingling of the foods took place until the Spaniards arrived where another culture mix of foods took place. Although the Aztecs had domesticated ducks and turkeys, the Spanish brought their beef, pork, goats and lambs. Again there is a change in recipes and eating styles.
The Spanish also brought flour, spices and dairy products adding to a wonderful blend of ingredients that make up the Mexican food. Recipes were changed with new combination of meat and spices; thus giving us such dishes as barbacoas, moles, tacos, adobos and the unforgettable salsas. What, has not changed is the delicious flavors, textures and aromas. It has been said that Mexican food is the most consumed worldwide.
The methods of preparation, in many cases, makes Mexican food so flavorful. In early times the ground was the base of your stove, your oven was dried clay around a fire or a pit in the ground, and the pots and pans were also clay or stone. From these ancient people we get the molcajete, and metate y mano. Molcajete is a stone bowl with a pedestal and the metate is a stone slab used to grind things like corn and other seeds. The Mano is long stone, like the pedestal only longer, used to press against slab to cause the grinding.
Names of foods are as varied as the ingredients. Each state has its specialty and secret ingredient, but secrets are not to be kept. No matter where you go in Mexico, if you ask for the recipe it is yours. State of Michoacán is known for it carnitas, deep fried pork in its own lard and if properly prepared not greasy. State of Veracruz for its fish ala Veracruzana, fish smothered in fresh sautéed tomatoes, onions and peppers and as spicy as you like. My favorite and with the most Mayan influence is the food of the state of Yucatan. I don’t know of any specific dish that is more traditional, but my favorite is Cochinita Pibil a pork dish marinated in a red Achiote paste. The paste consists of Annatto seed, spices vinegar, garlic and corn flour, which can be purchased in most stores. My only comment is “so good!”
The only concern you have to have is that depending on the state you are visiting you must know the difference in terminology. In one state if you order a Torta you will get an omelet and in another you will get a sandwich. Southern Mexico pozole and northern Mexico pozole vary in ingredients and broth color. In Jalisco you would get a bowl filled with a pork stew usually made with the back bones of the pig and the sauce or broth is colored and flavored with red chilies. In Sonora you would mostly likely get a bowl filled with oxtail and white processed corn in a sauce or broth that is clear. It is always good idea to ask what the ingredients of what you are ordering. If you hear “Tripas” or “Panza” be aware that they mean inners of an animal. I would make faces at the thought but if prepared properly they are delicious and can only be appreciated by open minded distinguishing palates.
Mexican food history is a long and entailed subject. To truly explore the subject would take a book or two. So in the course of our continued exploration of Cooking ala Mexicana we will attempt to bring you more history and information to make your interest and taste in Mexican food more pleasurable.
Ricardo Mayoral retired after 22 year of law enforcement is now trying to enter the internet world. He has struggled with high blood pressure and weight control for years and now wants to develop new eating and exercise habits. He loves to cook and did as a hobby many years as he and his partner catered Department festivities. Mexico is his favorite and for that reason has developed his site to inform on the history, the ingredients, and flavors of Mexican food. Due to his health issues he would like people to learn good nutrition and enjoy what they eat. Go to his site and enjoy the variety of topics including cooking and utensils to help you.
http://cookingalamexicana.com
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How To Eat Healthy On a Budget – Part 1
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
Apologies, this is an article from an American writer, but the principle applies
There are a couple of common complaints I hear when it comes to eating healthy.
1. I don’t have the money!
2. I don’t have the time!
Today I want to dispel those common myths and show you exactly how to cook healthy meals for your family cheaply and efficiently! (Sorry, you just ran out of excuses to get healthy!)
I will deal with these myths one at a time…
Myth #1- I don’t have the money
I used to feel the same way. All the healthy food looks so expensive. It’s what we are told and what we tell ourselves over and over again. After all, every time we go on a new diet we spend a fortune! It feels like we just purchased the whole store! Isn’t it just cheaper to buy some frozen pizzas?
I decided I wanted to prove this myth wrong. So I set out to do it. I planned all the meals and my husband freaked when he saw the grocery list. He said, “This is going to be outrageous”. Keep in mind that I also buy organic whenever possible. This was my meal plan for the week:
Monday – Balsamic Roasted Chicken Breast with Sweet Potato and Broccoli
Tuesday- Almond Chicken with Sweet Potato and Green Beans
Wednesday- Sauteed Chicken with Onions, Green Peppers, and Shredded Cheese
Thursday- Meatloaf with Salad
Friday- Chili
Saturday- Chili leftovers
But wait, there’s more!
I also planned mine and my husband’s healthy lunches and snacks for the week! Our healthy lunches for Monday – Saturday were:
Baked Chicken with Salad
Morning Snack – Roasted Almonds and Apple
Afternoon Snack- 2 Boiled Eggs
So how did I do all this?????
I’m going to break it down for you.
2 Large Packs of Chicken Breasts – $6.99 a piece – $2.00 Savings with my Kroger Card = $9.98
4 Large Sweet Potatoes (everyone gets 1/2 sweet potato with dinner) = $3.89
2 Bags Frozen Broccoli – $2.00
2 Bags Frozen Green Beans – $2.00
3 Green Peppers – $2.55
Bag of Yellow Onions – $3.76
Bag of Shredded Cheese- $1.89
1 lb hamburger for meatloaf – $2.49
2 Lg Containers of Organic Spring Lettuce Mixture – $7.98 (including $2.00 Kroger card discount)
3 lbs Hamburger for Chili – $6.99
2 Lg Cans of Tomatoes for Chili – $2.74
2 Organic Lemons for Chicken Recipes – $1.58
1 Head of Garlic for recipes – $.79
2 packs organic cherry tomatoes for balsamic chicken recipe- $5.00
Bag organic Fugi Apples for Snack – $5.99
Organic Block Cheese for Salads – $5.49
Almond Butter for Almond Chicken recipe- $4.95
Dijon Mustard for Chicken recipe – $.79
1 lb raw almonds for snack – $6.88
Sour cream for chili – $1.69
organic raisins (I LOVE these on my salad!) – $2.99
organic bananas (for my kids) – $1.94
I had eggs this week but normally a carton of organic eggs runs me – $3.00
= $87.45!!!!!!
Now we have dealt with the money excuse. In part 2, I will show you how you can cook weekly meals for your family without living in the kitchen! In part 3, I will share my recipes! We’re just getting started so you DO NOT want to miss parts 2 and 3!
Sunday- Leftovers from week
Megan Bullington is a Health and Fitness Coach that loves to help take people from where they are… to what they can BECOME! As someone who has personally struggled with depression and anxiety, at times not even being able to get out of bed, she believes that we can change where we are, who we are, by the foods we put into our bodies and the activities we do to strengthen ourselves inside and out!
For a free copy of “What to Eat (and NOT to eat) for More Energy and Lasting Weight Loss” go to http://www.meganbullington.com
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Shelter reveals ‘shocking extent’ of house price inflation
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
Shelter reveals ‘shocking extent’ of house price inflation
The average family’s weekly grocery bill would be around £420 if the cost of food had risen in line with house prices, housing charity Shelter revealed today.
To highlight the shocking extent of house price inflation, the charity has analysed the cost of a typical shopping trolley of groceries for a family of four if prices had risen at the same rate as house prices in the last 40 years.
In 1971, the average home cost £5,632. By 2008, that average had risen to £227,765. If food and other essential items had risen at the same rate, Shelter found that a pint of milk would cost £2.43, a chicken £47.51 and a jar of coffee £20.22.
It would mean the average family paying around three times as much for their weekly food shop as they do today.
The charity is highlighting the UK’s shockingly high housing costs in an advertising campaign launching at train and London underground stations from Monday (15th February).
Shelter’s director of policy and campaigns Kay Boycott said: “These calculations show just how out of line the cost of housing has become – yet we seem to have just accepted these inflated prices as normal in a way we wouldn’t with anything else.
“We’re asking people to join our online discussion forum at www.shelter.org.uk to have their say about the way high housing costs are affecting their lives. It’s time for people to make their voices heard and join the fight for affordable housing.”
Shelter’s work, by Leo Burnett London, is part of an ongoing campaign by Shelter exploring the effects that unaffordable housing has on all aspects of people’s lives. In particular, these adverts challenge people to consider if it is acceptable that house prices have been allowed to rise, unchecked by inflation, to the point where the average home costs around seven times the average UK salary.
Ms Boycott continued: “Housing affects so many areas of people’s lives and high housing costs are increasingly influencing the choices people make about how they live their lives. In this election year, it’s vital that all political parties make housing a top priority so that future generations are not held back by the cost of housing.
Leo Burnett London’s spokesperson said: “By applying housing prices to everyday items, the shocking reality of unaffordable housing becomes all too apparent. Hopefully this campaign will really bring home to people the seriousness of the current situation.”
Conservative Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps said: “Labour has presided over a damaging explosion in house prices. Failure to build enough homes coupled with an unsustainable credit bubble means house prices are now, on average, seven times earnings.
“This chronic lack of affordability has strangled both aspiration and opportunity putting huge pressure on thousands of families.”
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Britain facing a bleak future of food shortages
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Britain facing a bleak future of food shortages
Britain faces a ‘perfect storm’ of water shortage and lack of food, says the government’s chief scientist, and climate change and crop and animal diseases will add to future woes. Science is now striving to find solutions.
It was an ecological disaster that occurred on the other side of the planet. Yet the drought that devastated the Australian wheat harvest last year had consequences that shook the world. It sent food prices soaring in every nation. Wheat prices across the globe soared by 130%, while shopping bills in Britain leapt by 15%.
A year later and the cost of food today has still to fall to previous levels. More alarmingly, scientists are warning that far worse lies ahead. A “perfect storm” of food shortages and water scarcity now threatens to unleash public unrest and conflict in the next 20 years, the government’s chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, has warned.
In Britain, a global food shortage would drive up import costs and make food more expensive, just as the nation’s farmers start to feel the impact of disrupted rainfall and rising temperatures caused by climate change. “If we don’t address this, we can expect major destabilisation, an increase in rioting and potentially significant problems with international migration, as people move to avoid food and water shortages,” he told a conference earlier this year.
The reliable availability of food – once taken for granted – has become a major cause for alarm among politicians and scientists. Next month several of Britain’s research councils, together with the Food Standards Agency, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for International Development – will announce a taskforce that will channel the UK’s efforts in feeding its own population and playing a full role in preventing starvation in other nations.
The problem is summed up by Professor Janet Allen, director of research at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). “We will have to grow more food on less land using less water and less fertiliser while producing fewer greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.
No one said science was easy, of course. Nevertheless, the scale of the problem is striking. It is also unprecedented, says Professor Mike Bevan, acting director of the John Innes Centre in Norfolk. “We are going to have to produce as much food in the next 50 years as was produced over the past 5,000 years. Nothing less will do.”
It is a staggering goal that highlights the depth of the food security crisis that Britain and the world face. Over the next 40 years Britain’s population will rise from 60mn to 75mn while the world’s will leap from 6.8bn to 9bn. Feeding all these people will stretch human ingenuity to its limit. Crop yields will have to jump, a goal that will have to be achieved in the middle of global climatic disruption.
It took a green revolution in the 1960s that involved the development of new crop varieties, greater use of agro-chemicals and changes in farming practices to double production by the 1980s. Now a second revolution of equivalent magnitude is urgently required, say food scientists.
“We can certainly do it, although it won’t be easy,” said Bevan. For a start, farmers will have to increase yields using greatly reduced amounts of agro-fertilisers because their manufacture is energy-intensive.
“What we need are major research programmes to create new crop yields that, in effect, make their own fertiliser and will also be disease-resistant and more resistant to droughts and rising temperatures,” added Bevan.
“The wheat we use today is a hybrid, created by ancient farmers 10,000 years ago, from three different species of wild grass,” said Bevan. “We are going back to these first types of grass and from varieties of these create fresh hybrids.”
The importance of creating new crop varieties is also demonstrated by another threat to food production, the appearance of new crop diseases. For example, in 1999 a new variety of the wheat disease – black stem rust – appeared in Uganda. Since then, Ug99 has spread across Africa and Asia, destroying harvests and threatening the lives of millions.
However, scientists have recently discovered a strain of wheat, known as Sharon grass, that is resistant to Ug99, raising hopes that the outbreak could be contained. “Creating ranges of new crop varieties is going to be vital in feeding the world,” said Allen.
The farmers of tomorrow will not only have to improve yields using less fertiliser, they will also have to be increasingly wary of new agricultural pests and diseases as global temperatures have risen and more and more devastating varieties of viruses and fungi have spread around the globe. Britain will not be immune.
A classic example is provided by bluetongue disease, a virus that affects cattle, sheep, deer and goats and is spread by midges. Sheep are especially vulnerable and one in three can die if infected. The disease was unknown in north-west Europe until 2006, when an outbreak occurred in Holland and spread to nearby countries. Then, in 2007, it spread to Britain. Only swift action by agricultural authorities halted its advance. In future this will be harder to achieve.
“The problem is that the life cycles of diseases such as bluetongue speed up as temperatures go up,” said Dr Chris Oura, of the Institute for Animal Health in Newbury. “The warmer it gets, the more infective they become.” Bluetongue could soon return. More importantly, it is only one of many other exotic, potentially devastating livestock ailments that could be spread by insects.
However, it is not just global warming that is increasing the risk of deadly new epidemics of livestock disease. Globalisation itself threatens to bring infestation in its wake. An important, and very worrying, example is provided by African swine fever virus, said Oura. “As its names suggests, it infects pigs. There is no cure and no vaccine and it kills every animal it infects.
Changes are not confined to exotic foreign viruses. Many of the pests that have been part of the British agricultural scene for centuries are also likely to gain new leases of life as climate change takes a grip on the country. A perfect example is provided by the aphid. “Aphids are one of the country’s main agricultural pests and they inflict about £100m of damage to cereal crops a year,” said Richard Harrington, of the Rothamsted agricultural research centre.
“But as the weather gets warmer and warmer, aphids are now arriving in fields far earlier than they used to do, and that is bad news. Crops in early spring are younger and more susceptible both to the damage inflicted by the aphid itself and also by the viruses they carry.”
One answer is to use increased amounts of pesticides. However, this solution is limited by the spread of pesticide-resistance and by the EU’s increased antipathy to their use because of potentially toxic side-effects.
One ingenious solution involves planting nettles around wheat fields. Parasitic wasps arrive to feed off the aphids that are found in nettles. Then, as the neighbouring wheat grows and aphid infestations arrive, there is a ready supply of wasp predators to deal with them.
Of course, some answers to the threat of the forthcoming perfect storm and the threat to our food security involve political and economic solutions as well. The end of cheap supermarket deals, restraints on water use and the need to change farming practice have all been touted. In the case of farming practices, economists argue that small farms are too inefficient and should be incorporated into larger outfits, for example. Owners of small hill farms oppose the idea, however. – Guardian News and Media
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Indian farmers adapt to shifting weather patterns
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Indian farmers adapt to shifting weather patterns
By Nita Bhalla
GORAKHPUR, India (Reuters) – As global leaders and top scientists in Copenhagen debate how to deal with climate change, farmers in flood-prone areas of northern India are taking it into their own hands to adapt to shifts in the weather.
For decades, people of Uttar Pradesh, whose population is more than half that of the United States, have been witnessing erratic weather, including increasingly intense rainfall over short periods of time.
The rain, combined with heavy mountain run-off from nearby Nepal, which is also seeing heavier-than-usual rains, has inundated villages, towns and cities in the region.
Such floods have destroyed homes, crops and livestock, highlighting the fact that the poorest in countries such as China and India are most at risk from climate change.
While world leaders in Copenhagen argue over who should cut carbon emissions and who should pay, experts say low-cost adaptation methods, partly based on existing community knowledge, could be used to help vulnerable farmers.
In the fields of Manoharchak village, where terms such as “global warming” are unknown, such experiments are bearing fruit, changing the lives of poor farmers who outsmart nature using simple but effective techniques to deal with rising climate variability.
“For the last three years, we have been trying to change our ways to cope with the changing weather,” said Hooblal Chauhan, a farmer whose efforts have included diversifying production from wheat and rice to incorporate a wide variety of vegetables.
“I don’t know what those big people in foreign countries can do about the weather, but we are doing what we can to help ourselves,” said the 55-year-old from Manoharchak, situated 90 km (55 miles) north of the bustling city of Gorakhpur.
IMPROVISATION
Villagers here have raised the level of their roads, built homes with foundations up to 10 feet above ground, elevated community handpumps and created new drainage channels.
Supported by the Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group — a research and advocacy group — farmers are also planting more flood-tolerant rice, giving them two harvests a year where they once had one, and diversifying from traditional crops to vegetables such as peas, spinach, tomatoes, onions and potatoes.
The diversity of crops, they say, is particularly beneficial when their wheat and rice fail. And the vegetables give them not only a more varied and nutritional diet, but also help in earning an income when excesses are sold.
Increasingly, intense rain means farmers in the region also have to contend with silt deposition from long periods of water-logging in their farms.
But 50-year-old widow Sumitra Chauhan, who grows about 15 different vegetables as well as rice and wheat on her two-acre plot, says she has learned ways to overcome the problem.
“We plant our (vegetable) seedlings in the nurseries and then when the water drains, we transfer them to the land so there are no delays,” she said, standing in her lush green plot packed with vegetables including mustard, peas, spinach and tomatoes.
CLIMATE REFUGEES
Farmers have also started using “multi-tier cropping” where vegetables like bottle gourd and bitter gourd are grown on platforms raised about 5-6 feet above the ground and supported by a bamboo frame.
Once the water-logged soil drains, farmers can plant the ground beneath the platforms with vegetables and herbs such as spinach, radish and coriander.
Warmer temperatures and an unusual lack of rain during monsoon periods in eastern Uttar Pradesh have also led to dry spells. To cope, villagers have contributed to buying water pumps for irrigation, lowering their dependence on rain.
According to Oxfam, which is supporting the action group’s work in Uttar Pradesh, millions of people in India have been affected by climate-related problems.
Some have been forced into debt. Others have migrated to towns and cities to search for manual labor or have had to sell assets such as livestock to cope.
“It is true that developing countries need a lot of investment to adapt to the effects of climate change, but small and marginal farmers, who are some of India’s poorest, can make a start by using simple, cheap techniques to help themselves,” said Ekta Bartarya of the Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group.
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Climate change: Rich must fund poor nations
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Climate change: Rich must fund poor nations
FIRST, it looked like the division of the house in the ongoing UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was clearly between the rich, developed nations and the poor, economically and industrially developing nations together with the poor, rather economically and industrially underdeveloped nations. To simplify the dichotomy:
The rich countries are neither willing to make larger reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions nor willing to accelerate their reductions so that the goal of nearly no emissions is reached before our planet becomes irreversibly doomed. (The doom scenario is based on calculations of the scientists favored by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.)
The poor countries want the rich ones to increase their GHG reduction targets and schedule the reductions faster. They refuse to curb their own emissions according to the targets the rich countries want because this would mean retarding their (the poor nations’) industrial development, economic progress and ability to reach the level of prosperity and global competitiveness enjoyed by the rich.
And the poor nations also want the rich to fund their projects to acquire and develop technology to achieve zero emissions. They make this demand (which President Gloria Arroyo articulated eloquently in the last Asean summit with key developed nations) because they rightly see that the rich and developed countries reached their level of wealth and development by causing much of the ecological harm to our planet.
The harm the industrialization and economic success of the rich countries caused over the past century created the global warming and weather effects that hit the poor countries hardest. These have scant resources to mitigate the severe rains, typhoons, flooding and rising of the sea that devastate their farms and cities (just as Ondoy, Pepeng and Santi recently did to us.) Therefore, the rich countries must make up for their abuse of the planet and endangering the poor countries by funding their climate-change projects.
New division among developing countries
Then, in the past couple of days, however, a new dichotomy has surfaced within the ranks of the developing and poor countries.
China is the perceived—and in effect the self-appointed—leader of the developing countries and the Philippines seems to accept this pecking order. China has been insisting, prior to the opening on Monday of the Copenhagen conference, that (as President Arroyo had also stressed) the developed nations must provide adequate funding to help poorer countries fight climate change and its effects. Chinese officials, the official media of the People’s Republic and of the Chinese Communist Party, have called for “fairness and justice” and for the rich countries to accept the responsibility of helping the poor countries, which contribute so little to global warming, pay for their “transition to cleaner economics.”
“Whether developed nations, as repeatedly promised, can provide short-term financial aid to poor countries, and gradually establish a long-term support mechanism . . . is the key to realizing this fairness and justice,” said an editorial of the state-run Beijing News. And the Communist Party’s People’s Daily ran a commentary, saying: “Developed countries should promise . . . to provide more funding and technical assistance to developing nations, to help them achieve emissions reductions.”
As if to validate the Marxist thesis-antithesis-synthesis description of socio-political progress, in Copenhagen there is now a division within the poor and developing nations’ camp. (The thesis-antithesis-synthesis formulation is wrongly used to describe the thought of Hegel, thus the so-called Hegelian Dialectic. But Hegel never used these terms. Marx and Engels adopted the formulation to elucidate their theory on poverty, society and the political economy.)
As China, the World’s No. 1 GHG emitter, continued to press for more action and aid from rich developed countries, which China again accused of reneging on their promises to cut their emissions and to give financial support to poorer countries to cope with the effects of global warming, Tuvalu, a small Pacific island country, submitted a proposal to have a “legally binding amendment” to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that would demand stricter and more substantial GHG emission reductions not just on the developed countries but also on China, India and the other richer and more successful emerging economies.
Support the Tuvalu proposal
Tuvalu and other Pacific islands fear being submerged by the rising seas when the ice caps melt. The Tuvalu proposals, backed by the poorest countries most vulnerable to climate change, want the major emerging nations to make heavy reductions in their emissions by 2013. China and India (two of the BRIC nations), Saudi Arabia and other rich developing nations, oppose the Tuvalu proposal.
The tiny island states and African countries reject the goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2.0°Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels. This seems to be acceptable to most of the 192 countries in the Copenhagen conference although it was proposed by the world’s richest and most industrialized G-8 nations.
Tuvalu and others want to set a lower temperature rise cap of only 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit). They think this lower increase of heat would give their countries a chance of not being devastated by deep flooding or deadly drought.
Tuvalu’s head delegate, Taukiei Kitara, said on Thursday that the biggest emission constraints would still
be on the rich developed countries but there must also be large demands on the rich and most polluting developing economies, foremost of which is China.
Where does the Philippine delegation stand on this controversy in Copenhagen? We tried but failed to get that information up to press time.
The Philippines must support the Tuvalu proposal. Most of our most important cities are extremely vulnerable to high sea rising after all—just like Tuvalu.
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Blog: A black day for fairtrade
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Blog: A black day for fairtrade
Finance | Joe Turner | 9 Dec 2009
Topics: Ethical investment
In the battle for ethical trading, Monday 7 December will go down as Black Monday – the day when the Fairtrade Foundation finally lost all credibility.
In the headlong rush to certify everything that moves the Fairtrade Foundation, Britain’s self-proclaimed guardian of all things fairtrade, gave Nestlé the ethical pass it so desperately wanted. I shudder to even type the words: The Fairtrade Kit-kat.
Yes, that biscuit coated in the most sickly chocolate has finally burst through the winning tape. But only the four-fingered version, you’ll understand.
The two-fingered version can continue being made by children and slaves in the Cote d’Ivorie. Four fingers good, two fingers bad. Though apparently they will also certify the two-fingered version. At some point in the undefined future.
The problem is not really that multinational brands are interested in the fairtrade mark, because that is what it is for, in the sense that many consumers want the multinationals to improve their purchasing policy. The problem is when the brand behind the label is so notorious and when the act of certifying devalues all those smaller brands who will inevitably lose out against the world’s biggest food multinational. Brands, don’t forget, who were the originators of the fairtrade concept.
Cocoa is an odd product. According to the charity Trading Visions in October of this year, the world price for cocoa hit a 24 year high of over $3000 per tonne which is almost twice the fairtrade minimum of $1600 a tonne. Hence it is clearly not so difficult to pay the farmer exactly what you would pay him otherwise and still claim it is fairtrade. A marvellous bit of double-speak.
The Cote d’Ivorie is said to produce more than 40% of the world cocoa crop with the farmers representing some of the most exploited people on the planet. Child slavery is rampant. Low wages are widespread. Using the fairtrade system as a sticking plaster on one of the planet’s most notorious, most ruthless and most profitable multinationals is, quite simply, a disgrace.
To access the fairtrade system, producers have to prove their ethics. They must be co-operatives and must meet rigorous standards. Standards that, strangely, do not apply to the multinationals. Co-operatives have to show they are whiter than white otherwise they can be assessed and have to withdraw from the system, excluding the very groups which started the process. Multinationals do not even have to show a commitment to fairtrade.
Those multinationals can use fairtrade as an ethical crutch – deceiving consumers to the extent of their ethical credentials whilst continuing with their ways with more than 90% of all the raw materials they buy. Nestle uses 370,000 tonnes of cocoa a year. The Fairtrade Kit-kat deal represents 4,300 tonnes of cocoa. Just over 1% of Nestlé chocolate will be fairtrade.
Nestlé are not doing it from the goodness of their heart. They are doing it because they think they can extract some positive feelings from people of goodwill and at the same time hoodwink us from the reality of the way they do business.
Acting as some kind of perverse PR machine for a succession of the world’s worst food multinationals, the Fairtrade Foundation seems to relish the challenge of persuading us that black is actually white. According to their Press Release on the Kit-kat decision, “The public will be cheering this groundbreaking move taking Fairtrade further into the mainstream”.
Woo.hoo.
Shame on Nestlé and shame on the Fairtrade Foundation.
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