Mika on Thom Hartmann today. (corrected link)

[Billy Burnett]

Go to Thom Hartmann's UStream site http://www.ustream.tv/thomhartmann and today's show is still on-demand (plays when you go there and click play on the Ustream player) advance the time line to 2:47:15.

Concise, clear, heartfelt, and to the point.

Nice, Mika. :fistbump:

[Judi Lynn]

1. Absolutely terrific. So great hearing Mika speaking with Thom.

It was too cool hearing him repeating what he's written here, stressing who has invested all the hard work and concern into Cuba's health and education systems all these years. Pretty neat knowing exactly where he was going with that, from familiarity with his beliefs, once he started discussing it.

Thanks, so much, for getting this link here for the ones of us who didn't hear it when Thom was on earlier today.

Rec. :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[Billy Burnett]

2. It was cool.

For anyone wanting to hear it, you can go to the Thom Hartmann Show UStream site http://www.ustream.tv/thomhartmann and click on the March 9 show in the archived video section.

I was doing a little work and had the show up on my monitor speakers, then, there was Dr Mika's familiar voice making his usual impassioned position on Cuba and health. He was rushing, because, I think, Thom often challenges Mika or cuts him off as he did again when he interrupted and asked Mika about what he thinks of the Cuban h-c system, for which Mika gave a wonderful answer. I know Mika's comment about Cubans inspiring and changing his life is completely true.

Viva Mika! :bounce:

Viva Cuba!

[Bacchus39]

3. organic farming isn't meeting Cuba and Venezuela's food demands

nothing wrong with it of course.

[Billy Burnett]

4. Mika was speaking to the reduction in oil consumption w/organic farming.

And also the reduction of the use of oil based pesticides.

[Bacchus39]

5. thats fine, and I am just noting that food shortage problems are severe

in those two countries despite having "model" organic farming examples.

[Billy Burnett]

6. Off topic, but a valid comparison...

11 Facts About Hunger in the U.S.
http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-hunger-us

[Bacchus39]

7. what comparison? more off topic

while I am extremely skeptical about mass hunger (in the starvation sense) in the US given empirical evidence that obesity is a much larger problem. yes, I admit fat people can be "hungry" at times and not have "enough" to eat on a particular day, however, I don't think thats comparable to a famine like situation, or even to lack of adequate internal food supply.

So yes, Venezuela has enough food but much of that is imported, and Cuba the food shortages I suspect are even more severe, but both countries appear to obtain enough to stave off a famine type situation. neither though, produces enough internally for their population needs and "organic farming" no matter how desirable is not going to solve their food security issues at this point in time.

so frankly, from my perspective, Mika's comments seem to lack significance and appear to be just more Castro propaganda.

[Billy Burnett]

8. WTF are you talking about?

" ... Mika's comments seem to lack significance and appear to be just more Castro propaganda."


Huh? I clearly heard Mika say that Castro didn't do the great successes of Cuba that he mentioned.

Did you even listen?

[Bacchus39]

10. yep, and I nearly gagged. talks about petroleum and pesticides and then brings up

organic farming in Cuba. as if that is unique to Cuba or is going to provide for Cuba's food needs. he just lays on the Castro propaganda/

[Judi Lynn]

11. There's complete blockage between the ears and the theoretical brain, it would seem. n/t

[ChangoLoa]

18. Be careful with auto-diagnosis, Judi. nt

[EFerrari]

24. Judi Lynn is easily the most productive poster to this forum.

Insulting her doesn't make her look bad.

[Bacchus39]

12. oh yeah, it was the Cuban people demanding organic farming

thats right.

[joshcryer]

9. Cuba is the US's third or fourth largest agri. trade partner.

The organic gardens were out of necessity more than anything else, at the fall of the soviet bloc Cuba got a wakeup call. They still play a decent role in Cuba's food industry, but I was amused to read articles last year about how if we lifted farm trade restrictions even more it would harm the urban agriculture.

[Bacchus39]

13. organic farming by country

it is odd that Cuba was brought up in the context of the radio program when the US, Brazil, and Argentina engage in much larger scale organic farming. why weren't these countries pointed out??


North AmericaIn North America, almost 2.2 million hectares are managed organically, representing approximately a 0.6 percent share of the total agricultural area. Currently, the number of farms is 12'064. The major part of the organic land is in the US (1.6 million hectares in 2005). Seven percent of the world’s organic agricultural land is in North America. Valued at more than 20 billion US Dollars in 2007 (Organic Monitor), the North American market accounted for 45 percent of global revenues. Growing consumer demand for healthy & nutritious foods and increasing distribution in conventional grocery channels are the major drivers of market growth. The U.S. organic industry grew 21 percent in sales in 2006, and was forecast to experience 18 percent sales growth each year on average from 2007 through 2010. Whether this rate will actually be realized is uncertain due to the economic downturn and reduction in consumer spending in the last quarter of 2008. Likewise, a downturn is expected in Canada, even though the market growth in Canada, paired with the introduction of the new organic regulations, should provide a good outlook over the coming years. In the United States, the National Organic Program has been in force since 2002. Canada has had a strong organic standard since 1999; this had been, however, voluntary and not supported by regulation. Canada’s Organic Product Regulation will be fully implemented on June 30, 2009. Canadian labeling requirements will very similar to those of the US and the EU. In 2008, the new Farm Bill was passed by the US Congress. Increasing expenditures on organic agriculture and programs to approximately 112 million US Dollars1 over the course of its five-year life, the 2008 Farm Bill provides a fivefold increase for the organic sector compared with federal funding in the previous bill.(FiBL, IFOAM, ITC 2009).

Latin America and the CaribbeanIn Latin America, 220’000 producers managed 6.4 million hectares of agricultural land organically in 2007. This constitutes 20 percent of the world’s organic land. The leading countries are Argentina (2'777'959 hectares), Brazil (1'765'793 hectares) and Uruguay(930'965 hectares). The highest shares of organic agricultural land are in the Dominican Republic and Uruguay with more than six percent and in Mexico and Argentina with more than two percent. Most organic production in Latin America is for export. Important crops are tropical fruits, grains and cereals, coffee and cocoa, sugar and meats. Most organic food sales in the domestic markets of the countries occurs in major cities, such as Buenos Aires and São Paulo.

Fifteen countries have legislation on organic farming, and four additional countries are currently developing organic regulations. Costa Rica and Argentina have both attained third country status according to the EU regulation on organic farming.

[joshcryer]

15. Just talking points mainly.

People get so caught up in their defense of some given thing they don't give it full consideration and look into the entirety of the facts. As I said once before there were people I know who refused to believe that Cuba even had organic gardens, again, just people who were so convicted that it was "all bad." It's about controlling narratives and controlling information.

Of course you make good points and they will go over ones head.

[ChangoLoa]

19. Actually, thanks for the only facts in this thread.

I'm curious, where did you get the stats from?

TIA

[Bacchus39]

21. ooop, sorry didn't post the link here it is, I just looked up organic farming by country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming_by_country

[EFerrari]

23. You apparently haven't read the thread. n/t

[ChangoLoa]

20. Thanks for the info. nt

[Judi Lynn]

14. Billy Burnett, don't know how this happened.

Somehow your great thread has turned into a lounge, of sorts!

http://scrapetv.com.nyud.net:8090/News/News%20Pages/Health/Images/drunks.jpg http://www.zootpatrol.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/drunkcomp.jpg
It should clear up in time.

Thanks for posting the Thom Hartmann link. It was very well done, as we know. Hooray for Mika.

[Bacchus39]

16. absolutely nothing relevant to the program about organic farming in Cuba

other than its one country amoung a multitude that utilizes organic farming. the degree to which it is used there is completely undefined. meanwhile, the US and other countries use a measurable and significant if still small amount of organic farming of total production.

why not mention that instead of bringing up Cuba and Venezuela?? I surmise that organic farming is more labor intensive and yields are smaller, so that to meet the ever increasing population demand, pesticides and fertilizers are typically employed.

p.s. I have been to an organic farm in Venezuela. coffee mixed with Orange trees. the coffee and trees were dispersed over a wider area than a typical plantation therefore a larger area is required to obtain the same yield. this necessitates more land clearing. not that organic farming isn't ideal, but is insufficient to meet total demand given population.

[joshcryer]

17. It'd be perfectly sufficient if you were an agriarian society, I'd argue.

The key here being agrarian. Yes organic gardening / non-industrial gardening can feed millions (human civilization operated that way for most of its existence). But the labor requirements are enormous. In Cuba the labor goes to stores selling the organically grown foods and to the families that are growing it. Half of the reason for it is to feed your own people, the other half of it is because of fuel / vehicle shortages not available to the plebs.

We know for instance that theoretically Los Angeles could be fed with around 30k acres of land (or about 8-9% the land area of Los Angeles). But to do this with an organic approach would require far more labor* than if you were to just industrially harvest it all. On one hand you have people picking fruits and vegetables all day to feed a city of millions, on the other hand you have industrial machinery doing 90% of the work to feed you a staple food (corn).

BTW, there's something that may have been unclear in my statement about Cuba being one of our best importers; they import our food on top of the organic gardening that they do, indicating to a large degree that the organic gardening is just as you said:



From USDA's very comprehensive report: http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/cuba/CubaSituation0308.pdf

(USDA along with most farmers associations are pro-embargo lift, primarily because it means our exports go up exponentially and Cuba resorts to cash cropping again.)

*Philosophically speaking the labor requirements would be almost zero since if each person who wanted a fresh stalk of corn or fresh apple they'd just pick it themselves, but in reality it never works out this way. People grow organic food to sell on the markets, it doesn't matter if it's Cuba or if it's the United States. You can go to jail in Cuba just as easily as the United States for stealing from each respective garden, onle in uncommon circumstances are these gardens truly "commons" (there's one in San Fran if I recall correctly where people can pick their own stuff, etc).

[Bacchus39]

22. yes, and a small enough population. and a critical point, more labor and land required so

a higher cost.

[EFerrari]

25. LOL

:rofl: