Category: Uncategorized

DELOCALIZATION OF FOOD (III). "By the 1960s, regional supermarket chains – Kroger, Safeway, A & P – had replaced most local “mom and pop” grocery stores and by the 1970s fast food franchises – McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken – were “freeing housewives from their kitchens.” Today’s industrial food system in not only non-local, it’s global, with the average food item sold in America traveling something like 1500 miles." http://lnkd.in/d3dHPvX View in LinkedIn

POST WWII, BIG CHANGES IN FOOD SYSTEM (II). "Geographic specialization of the food system followed improvements in U.S. highways, particularly with the interstate highway system. Rail shipments of perishable foodstuffs had been slow, costly, and inconvenient for most food retailers. With better highways, California and Florida quickly became major centers of agricultural production and Americans no longer needed to eat in season, or even to preserve foods for off-season use." " " http://lnkd.in/d3dHPvX View in LinkedIn

GLOBALIZED FOOD AN ANTI-COMMUNIST STRATEGY? "A major critic of the Green Revolution, U.S. investigative journalist Mark Dowie, writes:" ""The primary objective of the program was geopolitical: to provide food for the populace in undeveloped countries and so bring social stability and weaken the fomenting of communist insurgency." In addition, sociological impacts included farmer's new debt status. " " http://lnkd.in/dmXPY8k View in LinkedIn

POST WWII, BIG CHANGES IN FOOD SYSTEM (II). "Geographic specialization of the food system followed improvements in U.S. highways, particularly with the interstate highway system. Rail shipments of perishable foodstuffs had been slow, costly, and inconvenient for most food retailers. With better highways, California and Florida quickly became major centers of agricultural production and Americans no longer needed to eat in season, or even to preserve foods for off-season use." " " http://lnkd.in/d3dHPvX View in LinkedIn

PESTICIDE CONSEQUENCES. "In the Philippines the introduction of heavy pesticides to rice production, in the early part of the Green Revolution, poisoned and killed off fish and weedy green vegetables that traditionally coexisted in rice paddies. These were nutritious food sources for many poor Filipino farmers prior to the introduction of pesticides, further impacting the diets of locals."" " http://lnkd.in/dmXPY8k View in LinkedIn

WW II: AG TURNING POINT (I). "The delocalization of the American food system began with the industrialization of American agriculture following World War II. The wartime munitions and chemical warfare industries were quickly converted to produce the nitrogen fertilizers and chemical pesticides that allowed American farms to specialize, mechanize, and grow larger in scale."" " http://lnkd.in/d3dHPvX View in LinkedIn

GREENREV LED TO MONOCULTURE CONSEQUENCES. "These monoculture crops are often used for export, feed for animals, or conversion into biofuel. According to Emile Frison of Bioversity International, the Green Revolution has also led to a change in dietary habits, as fewer people are affected by hunger and die from starvation, but many are affected by malnutrition such as iron or vitamin-A deficiencies."" " http://lnkd.in/dmXPY8k View in LinkedIn

WWiI MUNITIONS PLANTS. "When World War II started, the government constructed 10 new plants to produce ammonia for munitions. All were located in the interior of the country. Several of the plants were built alongside natural gas pipelines so they could use the gas as raw material for their production. By the end of the war, these new plants and the old ones were producing 730,000 tons of ammonia each year, and had the capacity of producing 1.6 million tons." After the war they were used to make fertilizer." " http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/crops_04.html View in LinkedIn

FOOD AND OIL NOW LINKED. V. "Since supplies of oil and gas are essential to modern agriculture techniques, a fall in global oil supplies could cause spiking food prices in the coming decade." http://lnkd.in/dmXPY8k View in LinkedIn

CLOSE CALL ON BLANKET SPRAYING. "After World War II, the government had found itself with a tremendous surplus of ammonium nitrate, the principal ingredient in the making of explosives. Ammonium nitrate also happens to be an excellent source of nitrogen for plants. Serious thought was given to spraying America's forests with the surplus chemical, to help the timber industry."" " http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/whats-eating-america-121229356/ View in LinkedIn