Key food crops save in the Arctic

                                              
 The vault's remote location in the Arctic Circle means there is very little need for human intervention. More than 20,000 crops from more than 100 nations have arrived at a "Doomsday vault" in the Arctic Circle.The latest delivery coincides with the sixth anniversary of the frozen depository in Svalbard, which now houses more than 800,000 samples.

                                            
The shipment includes the first offering from Japan, where collections were threatened by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011.The facility is designed to withstand all natural and human disasters. Deep inside a mountain on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago - located halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole - the vault, which cost US $7m and took 12 months to build, offers permanent protection for the world's food crops, say its operators.

                                  

The thick rock ensure that, even in the case of a power cut, the seed samples will remain frozen. "The vault can therefore be considered the ultimate insurance policy for the world's food supply," it adds."It will secure, for centuries, millions of seeds representing every important crop variety available in the world today."

The Japanese barley samples were provided by the Barley Germplasm Center at Okayama University. Prof Kazuhiro Sato from the university's Institute of Plant Science and Resources said experts became concerned about the long-term safety of the national collection following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused widespread devastation.

                                           

"If something bad happened to our gene bank, these resources could be damaged permanently," he said. "Barley is very important not just for Japan but for the food security of the world - we have varieties that are productive even in dry conditions and in saline soil." Look forward to getting this strong barley seeds from Japan soon in the Arctic Circle.


Your Cheap & Quality Hydroponics Growing System from http://www.chicfarm.net

Group pushes school junk food ban

                                                 

With elementary and junior-high schools resuming classes on Tuesday, the health advocacy group John Tung Foundation urged lawmakers to enact laws that would ban the sale of junk food within a 200m radius of schools.

“A significant lack of regulation on foods marketed to children has left them vulnerable to the temptation of high-fat snacks sold outside schools,” the foundation’s nutrition division chief Ms. Hsu said. The government should follow the example of South Korea, which promulgated a special act on the safety management of children’s dietary life in 2009, designating areas within a 200m radius of schools as “Green Food Zones,” where the peddling of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods are banned.

                                              
“Although compliance with the act is not mandatory and violations do not a carry a fine, more than 10,000 elementary and junior-high schools and neighboring restaurants in South Korea have voluntarily followed suit,” she said.

According to a survey conducted by the foundation in 2012, about 51 percent of young students routinely consumed junk food and sugary beverages for breakfast, such as French fries, hash browns, chicken nuggets, sodas, sometimes even ice cream. A handful of the more than 1,000 elementary-school students polled said they ate junk food almost every day, a dietary habit medical experts said could lead to a higher chance of developing depression, aggressive behavior or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

                                        
There are currently no laws prohibiting stores near schools or educational institutions from selling unwholesome snacks, it can only make a moral appeal. The possibility of imposing a ban on the sale of junk food in school districts similar to the one imposed on Internet cafes.
It has endeavored to improve children’s health by drawing up a draft regulation concerning the management of promotions and commercials for foods unsuitable for long-term consumption by children. The regulation seeks to prohibit commercials for food high in fat, sugar or salt from being aired on children’s channels, and forbids their manufacturers from using toys in promotions to market such unhealthy products to young people.


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“Behind the Brands” - starts from the bitter Sugar

                                                 

Sugar is sweet, but the ethics of its production is anything but appealing. Our use of sugar implicates us in land grabs that violate the rights of some of the world’s poorest communities. Better-informed and more ethical consumers could change this.We are genetically programmed to like sweet things, and when people become more affluent, they consume more sugar. The resulting increase in sugar prices has led producers to seek more land on which to grow sugarcane.

                                    
It is no surprise that the poor lose when their interests conflict with those of the rich and powerful. There are several examples of producers who have acquired land without the consent of the people who live on it, turning farmers into landless laborers. Here is one.In the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, a group of fishing families had lived since 1914 on islands in the Sirinhaém River estuary. In 1998, the Trapiche sugar refinery petitioned the state to take over the land. The islanders say that the refinery then followed up its petition by destroying their homes and small farms – and threatening further violence to those who did not leave.

As recently as last year, the fishing families say, employees of the refinery burned down homes that had been rebuilt. Trapiche moved the families to a nearby town, where they gained access to electricity, water, sanitation, and schooling, but if they want to continue to fish, they have to travel a long distance. Many of them are still seeking to return to the islands. Both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo use Trapiche sugar in their products. Does that make them responsible for the wrongs done to the people whose land Trapiche is using to produce that sugar?
                                       

We here asking the ten biggest food brands to show leadership by acknowledging their responsibility for land-rights violations involving their suppliers.

In particular, they want these global companies to avoid buying from suppliers that have acquired land from small-scale food producers without these producers’ free, prior, and informed consent. Where land has already been acquired without such consent, and the acquisition is in dispute, they want the corporations to insist on fair dispute-resolution procedures.

 “Behind the Brands” includes a score sheet, ranking the Big 10 on a range of issues, including their impact on workers, water, land, women, and climate change. On land issues, they rate PepsiCo, and ABF either “poor” or “very poor.” Nestlé scores better, because its guidelines for suppliers – used for the sourcing of sugar, soy, palm oil, and other commodities – require that they obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous and local communities before acquiring land.


Your Cheap & Quality Hydroponics Growing System from http://www.chicfarm.net
                                      

Next Revolution Must Go GREEN

                                    The next Industrial Revolution must go GREEN!

The manufacturing industry has causing the human society to fall into to the region in a dilemma.
The healthy manufacturing industry conducive toward favor the economic development, the enhancement level of living, when speak of the developing nation, especially important. But the factory while satisfies expense demand which grows day by day, also in the consumption world of the natural resource, simultaneously pollutes the environment. Some people thought the world is facing in the economic boom、 pure and the sustainable environment to make the choice. In fact, uses the new technology and the new thought, these two contradictory benefits might have the long-term balance mutually.

Any government, regardless of the rich and poor, all cannot neglect the economic development. Manufacturing industry creates employment opportunity, to provide cheap products, to make society goal by tax revenues, and exporting goods to have income of foreign exchange. In brief, the normal manufacturing industry spreads the wealth to the entire society.

But, satisfies economical pyramid levels of consumers’ inexhaustible material demand, and has actually brought the burden to the nature. People consumption resources speed has surpass the Earth substitution ability. The manufacturing industry displays greedy, it swallowed half number of raw materials, 30% world energy and 20% water resources. At the same time, our frail ecosystem is also unable to digest the waste caused by the manufacturing industry production.

The technological innovation and the recycling investment, can fundamentally change the world the production and the consumption way. Just like the scale production changes, 3D printing, biological technology, science agriculture and conservation technology development and application, also bring the similar potential effect.

                                           

Actually, these technologies and the management ideas have been regarded as the new Industrial Revolution, although this revolution is difference with 19th century revolutions. At present this reforming will be more democratic, through the global supply chain and the modern communication way, to integrate the global economy from all countries. The government, the privately operated departments and the folk association cooperation all will bring characteristics to this silent revolutionary.

This revolution includes everyone in this world. Even the rich natural resource country, has no need to worry about this green world reforming. The creativity and the cooperation, confirmed, in the long run this  green revolution, will cause the world countries, the enterprises and the consumers all profitable, especially for our mother nature, so this new GREEN revolution has come to our generation quietly and rapidly.


Your Cheap & Quality Hydroponics Growing System from http://www.chicfarm.net
                                               

Kids eat vegetables while Cartoon figures show up

                                                       

Will Cartoon Make Children Eat more Fruits & Veggies?

The company My Fruity Faces is making edible stickers, to put on pieces of fruit to get children’s attention.
                                  

Cornell University researchers recently reported that kids are more likely to eat apples with Elmo stickers on them than without.

                                       

The stickers are made in Washington state by a company that makes cake decorations. They dissolve in the mouth, have no calories and are made from cellulose, sugar and baking soda. They have a strawberry-peachy flavor that doesn’t affect the taste of the fruit or vegetable.

What will make adults eat vegetables then? Stickers of beer, beach,  love, respect, like, truth, fun? After a second thought, we choose "Health". How about you?


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Taiwan Costco, Carrefour poisoned food barred from entering

                                                 

 

US ham, French salad dressing, kimchi from South Korea and goji berries from China were among 16 products barred from entering Taiwan because they contained traces of banned drugs or excessive levels of preservatives and pesticides, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday.

                                       

The products, which also included dried chrysanthemums from Japan, dried penny bun mushrooms from France, green tea from Vietnam and corn and cactus extracts from the US, ready to sell in both Carrefour and Costco, failed to pass border inspections.

                                        

The items have been destroyed or sent back to the countries from which they were exported. The administration updates border inspection information on products banned from entering Taiwan from now. We just can't see that regularly ingesting small amounts of toxic chemicals won't hurt our bodies, and however much the Government tries to reassure us that such microscopic quantities are nothing at all to worry about. Who will buy it? Please take a look of Taiwan dialysis rate, too high to believe.
  
                                            

And being less than keen to eat traces of pesticides should be a goal for every liver of this planet. Importing food of high carbon footprint, high cost, and now more pesticides, with a good conscience,  the notion that air-freight, with all its CO2 emissions, is contributing to global warming and helping to heat up the planet towards the point of no return.

Air freight emits more greenhouse gases per food mile than any other mode of transport. This is what picking up any air-freighted product - whether or not it carries an organic stamp.

Planes have rapidly become the Achilles heel of many would-be environmentalists. Next time, as a consumer to eat fragile fruits and vegetables that have been transported, at great expense to the planet, from thousands of miles away. Please rethink about it.


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Global water shortages reaching critical level

                                          

Across huge swathes of the planet, water is drying up. Experts say the world is ‘standing on a precipice’ and predict internecine strife and security threats over access to ever-diminishing supplies. On Jan. 17, scientists downloaded fresh data from a pair of NASA satellites and distributed the findings among the small group of researchers who track the world’s water reserves.

At the University of California, Irvine, hydrologist James Famiglietti looked over the data from the gravity-sensing GRACE satellites with a rising sense of dread.The data showed California on the verge of an epic drought, with its backup systems of groundwater reserves so run down that the losses could be picked up by satellites orbiting 400km above the Earth’s surface.

                                             

Famiglietti said. “The groundwater is our strategic reserve. It’s our backup, and so where do you go when the backup is gone?” California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency and appealed to Californians to cut their water use by 20 percent.“Every day this drought goes on we are going to have to tighten the screws on what people are doing,” he said.

17 rural communities are in danger of running out of water within 60 days and that number is expected to rise, after the main municipal water distribution system announced it did not have enough supplies and would have to turn off the taps to local agencies.There are other shock moments ahead — and not just for California — in a world where water is increasingly in short supply because of growing demands from agriculture, an expanding population, energy production and climate change.
Already a billion people, or one in seven people on the planet, lack access to safe drinking water.
                                              

Britain is currently at the other extreme. Great swathes of the country are drowning in misery, after a series of Atlantic storms off the southwestern coast. However, that too is part of the picture that has been coming into sharper focus over 12 years of the GRACE satellite record. Countries at northern latitudes and in the tropics are getting wetter, but those countries at mid-latitude are running increasingly low on water.

“What we see is very much a picture of the wet areas of the Earth getting wetter,” Famiglietti said. “Those would be the high latitudes like the Arctic and the lower latitudes like the tropics. The middle latitudes in between, those are already the arid and semi-arid parts of the world and they are getting drier.”

The Middle East, North Africa and South Asia are all projected to experience water shortages over the coming years because of decades of bad management and overuse.Watering crops, slaking thirst in expanding cities, cooling power plants, fracking oil and gas wells — all take water from the same diminishing supply. Add to that climate change — which is projected to intensify dry spells in the coming years — and the world is going to be forced to think a lot more about water than it ever did before.

                                              

A small portion of the water loss was due to soil drying up because of a 2007 drought and to a poor snowpack. Another share was lost to evaporation from lakes and reservoirs. However, the majority of the water lost, 90km3, or about 60 percent, was due to reductions in groundwater.Farmers, facing drought, resorted to pumping out groundwater — at times on a massive scale. The Iraqi government drilled about 1,000 wells to weather the 2007 drought, all drawing from the same stressed supply.
In South Asia, the losses of groundwater over the last decade were even higher. About 600 million people live on the 2,000km swathe that extends from eastern Pakistan, across the hot dry plains of northern India and into Bangladesh, and the land is the most intensely irrigated in the world. Up to 75 % of farmers rely on pumped groundwater to water their crops, and water use is intensifying.Indian farmers were pumping their way into a water crisis.

The US security establishment is already warning of potential conflicts — including terror attacks — over water. In a 2012 report, the US director of national intelligence warned that overuse of water — as in India and other countries — was a source of conflict that could potentially compromise US national security.

Regarding of agriculture water, Chicfarm notices that fogging hydroponics system is able to save 90% of water when irrigating the crops. It should be promoted by all means, by all governments to educate the farmers to develop this new scientific farming technique without any delay, before it’s too late.

    Your Cheap & Quality Hydroponics Growing System from http://www.chicfarm.net

                                                 

US, China to combat climate change

                                                    

The US and China, the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, yesterday announced they were joining forces to share more information on trying to combat climate change.

In a joint statement announced as US Secretary of State John Kerry wrapped up a two-day visit to Beijing, both countries said that they would work together “to collaborate through enhanced policy dialogue, including the sharing of information regarding their respective post-2020 plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions.”

The two sides have also reached an agreement on implementing five initiatives launched under a joint climate change working group.Those initiatives include emission reductions from heavy duty and other vehicles; smart grids; carbon capture utilization and storage; collecting and managing greenhouse gas emissions data; and energy efficiency in buildings and industry.

                                               

China’s cities are often hit by heavy pollution, blamed on coal-burning by power stations and industry, as well as vehicle use, and it has become a major source of discontent with the Chinese Communist Party.Authorities have become more open about pollution levels, in part as a response to public pressure, but officials have implied that it will take years before the situation improves.
The pollution has been linked to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths and has tarnished the image of Chinese cities, including Beijing, which saw a 10 percent drop in tourist visits during the first 11 months of last year.

                                       

After touring a factory which is a joint US-China venture making clean diesel engines for heavy vehicles, Kerry said the two countries were to try to pool their efforts.

“China and the United States will put an extra effort into exchanging information and discussing policies that will help both of us to be able to develop and lead on the standards that need to be announced next year for the global climate change agreement,” Kerry said.

Indiana-based Cummins has joined with China’s Foton to build the US$350 million plant on the edge of Beijing, which will initially produce about 60,000 of the new clean engines a year. When the second phase comes online next year, it is expected to double production of the engines, which will meet new emissions standards set to be adopted by Beijing.


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Taiwan Poisoned Sprout Beans for More Than 15 Years

                                        

For the good appearance, Taiwan sprout seller used the industrial bleaching, the “insurance powder” and the non-root medicinal preparation to soak the bean sprouts to make them white. The sodium hydrosulfite also called “the insurance powder”, only for the industry use, as the dyeing industry reducer of the silk, the wool. The sodium hydrosulfite has the decolonization function, but long-term taking, will create the human body burden and cause a cancer.

Male Qiu in the Taina Underground factory producing bean sprouts, he has adding “the insurance powder” the sodium hydrosulfite to whiten the bean sprouts, selling to Tainan, Kaoxiong tradition market and the dining restaurants more than ten years. His factory started from 2001 to produce the bean sprouts, the output approximately 1.8 to 3.6 Tons per day. So for these 12 years more than 15,000 metric tons of bean sprouts already entered the consumers’ belly mostly, the victim not able to be counted, “Perhaps besides the baby who cannot eat the vegetable, everybody in Taiwan has eaten completely.”

                               

The sodium hydrosulfite is by the classification the low toxicity, to the eye, the respiratory tract and the skin of an irritating contact, if the human body swallows the massive ingredients, but then can create the stomach ill, having diarrhea, the vomit and so on is unable to know for certain whether can create the human body big harm.

The sprout beans color excessively white, the outward appearance excessively long, will have the questions mostly. Why not grow sprout beans ourselves?

                           
They will grow:
- in any climate, at any time of year
- without soil and in low sunlight
- without weeding
- indoors with a minimum amount of space
- to 400% their size or more in 5 days
- to maturity in 3-5 days!


Your Cheap & Quality Hydroponics Growing System from http://www.chicfarm.net

                                     

Development of Plant Pests Surveillance in Taiwan

The efforts of Taiwan in plant pests monitoring began in the 1960s when the “early alert of rice diseases and pests” program was implemented.

                                   

To protect the production of rice, the most important food source in Taiwan, the former Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR, currently the Council of Agriculture) coordinated with the district agricultural improvement stations (DAISs) of the Taiwan Provincial Government. Together, they conducted rice disease and pest monitoring and occurrence prediction work on all rice production areas in Taiwan. In 1974, the banana export of Taiwan reached a record high in history, with 8 million cartons of bananas exported from Taiwan to Japan. A banana disease and pest early warning system, which was under the supervision of Taiwan Banana Research Institute, was then established for monitoring the diseases and pests of banana in the Kaohsiung and Pingtung areas. In 1994, in order to reinforce the prevention and control of oriental fruit flies, melon fly, common cutworm and beet armyworm, Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) and Taiwan Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute (TACTRI) cooperated to set up a monitoring program for pest density and distributed the population density newsletter of those pests to extension workers and farmers. 96 monitoring sites were established around Taiwan, systematically surveying their occurrence and conducting data analysis to provide related information of the pests to farmers promptly.

Starting from 1990, in order to provide support and services of crop disease and pest diagnosis and to promote management technology to farmers, the Council of Agriculture (COA) subsidized TARI, TACTRI, DAISs and related universities to establish crop pest diagnosis service stations. Currently 30 stations are under operation. Through the provision of pest diagnostic services to farmers, the COA was able to collect information on various crop diseases and pests. For the first time in the agricultural history of Taiwan, scope of monitoring was greatly expanded to cover most crops and their diseases and pests in the system. In 1997, under the supervision of the former Department of Agriculture and Forestry of Taiwan Provincial Government, TARI, TACRI, and DAISs, then still governed by the former Taiwan Provincial Government, established a plant pests monitoring system (the forerunner of present plant pests monitoring system). The system comprehensively integrated monitoring survey, investigation, identification and reporting of plant diseases and pests in Taiwan. With the assistance of computer networks, the plant pests monitoring work of Taiwan was modernized and computerized.

                
                
On August 1, 1998, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine (BAPHIQ) was established with the responsibility of the planning and administering nation-wide plant health and pests management. In 1999, the BAPHIQ established the current “plant pest monitoring system” in that active monitoring of plant pest is conducted, and pest investigation, notification, warning are carried out, relevant data are recorded and analyzed, and diagnosis services is provided. In addition, the BAPHIQ further established the “Taiwan agricultural pest database” and “plant pest geographical information system” in 2003. These two systems offer pest control officers with information of the diseases and pests to facilitate their management. In order for improving the systems, the “plant pest management network” based on the current “plant pest monitoring system” and the “plant pest geographical information system” was constructed in 2005. The network will fulfill the needs for analyzing integrated plant pest information and establishing geographical information system.


Your Cheap & Quality Hydroponics Growing System from http://www.chicfarm.net
         

                

Warren Buffet looks up to his farmer son.

                                             

Warren Buffett wants his farmer son with no college degree to succeed him... but he'll only do it if he can continue growing corn. Warren Buffett has chosen his eldest son to replace him as non-executive chairman of Berkshire Hathaway after he dies, the multimillionaire stated in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes.

                              

What may be most surprising by the billionaire investor, however, is that his son, who's without any university degree, is also farmer. 'I was surprised,' Mr Buffett's eldest son, Howard Buffett, 56, told CBS when the position was suggested to him by his father.
Scroll down for a clip of his interview.
 
Replacing: Billionaire Warren Buffett (right) has asked his eldest son (left), a farmer, without any college degree, to replace him at Berkshire Hathaway after he dies.The possible predecessor says he's open to the idea, but just as long as he doesn't have to stop tilling his Nebraska farm for corn and soybeans.

                                        

'Well you worry that somebody will be in charge of Berkshire that, that uses it as their own sandbox in some way that changes the way that decisions are made in reference to the shareholders,' the elder Buffett said.'The odds of that happening are very, very, very, low,' the third wealthiest man and investor in the world according to Forbes states, 'but having Howie there just adds one extra layer of protection.'

The 82-year-old says his suggestion waits at the approval of the company's board.Berkshire Hathaway's stock has remained largely unchanged following Mr Buffett's announcement.
If his son follows his plan, Mr Buffett says his son would be appointed to an unpaid position that serves as solely a 'guardian' of the company's 'values.'

                               
In his son's business background, he was appointed director of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. in 1993 and served as President of Buffett Farms from 1995 to 2001.Through his vast philanthropy work he was presented with Mexico's highest possible honor to a foreign citizen in 2000 with their Aztec Eagle Award.He is also president of the Howard G. Buffett foundation which focuses on international agricultural development. The 56-year-old farmer and possible Berkshire Hathaway chairman reminds about the possible passing of his father's torch, however: 'He won't leave until he's buried in the ground.'

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Chicfarm StackGro

   

StackGro was designed to avoid root rot in plants and work efficiently in conjunction with the soils own capillary action within the confines of a smaller, stacking pot system.

StackGro every layer has its own water well and water well divider to prevent soil entering the reservoir. The water well divider incorporates 6 evenly placed and strategically positioned seepage chambers extending down into the water well.

                                         

Moisture is transported through the seepage chamber into a small amount of submerged growing medium and gradually drawn up into the growing area by the soils own capillary action.

This method of self-watering can allow you to go on that business trip or holiday without having to rely on a neighbor or friend to maintain your plants. It can make a perfect seed raising bed. Simply fill each layer with seed raising medium, plant your seeds and draw a white kitchen tidy bag down over the whole stand of stacking pots… your own miniature hothouse.

Kit Includes:

•6 Stacking Pot Layers
•1 Tray
•6 Water Well Dividers

Your Cheap & Quality Hydroponics Growing System from http://www.chicfarm.net

                                    

New Taipei City School Kids Eat Safe Food

After New Taipei City started the elementary school lunch to supply meal of pure organic vegetables each week, New Taipei City government announced, in February 2014 will increase to eat four meals of certified vegetables each week. There are more than 346,000 students to be benefited, without any increase fees to bear, the school lunch price remaining the same. So far, this act scores for the national first example.

                                       

New Taipei City mayor Mr. Zhu indicated that, New Taipei City government in the implementation to supply meal of organic vegetables each week last year, feedbacks very well. So in February, we will expand to all schools, starting with ones of equipped kitchen from 109 junior high and elementary schools as an experiment. We start to provide 4 meals of certified authentication vegetables; Last September of 2013, there were 280 schools starting off, estimated to have approximately 4,400 ton certified authentication vegetables for a year, budgets more than NTD 120 millions. Mayor Zhu stressed that, the New Taipei City government will subsidize the meal fees, school lunch not going to adjust prices. At present, each student pays NTD 600 per month for school lunch fee.

                                                
Agricultural committee Chairman Mr. Chen said that, the agricultural committee will have to push local production to cut down CO² footprint, and let the students to understand that all vegetables and fruits are from hometown to link the students to the Taiwan agriculture emotion. The certified authentication vegetables not permit to have excess pesticides, pure safe food to feed the students. Some housewives worry about once heard the organic vegetables picked out pesticide residue in the past, and desired earnestly the government’s strict supervision.


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