{"article":{"id":9517,"heading":"WRFG 89.3 FM 100,000 Watts Airs Key News in Farm Crisis:Middle America's Crisis!","author":"Paul Hays","created":"2001-08-29 01:29:17","modified":"2001-08-29 02:00:02","last_modified":"Wed, 29 Aug 2001 09:00:02","article":"

I am using some terms that are unfamiliar\/new\/ or not yet agreed upon. Please download this and forward it because FARM AID's yearly fundraiser is at the Indianapolis State Fairgrounds on September 29, 2001.



Open pollinated seed corn is only sold in a handful of U.S. states. It has made a resurgence after a steep decline since either the end of WW1 or the 1930's depending on whom you ask.

Abbey Krause (spelling?) is a seed preservationist who works on the Cornell campus and has a degree in Biology. Her agricultural roots go much deeper than most activists because she studied agronomy at Iowa State University in Ames and did some work with wheat in Kansas.

To her credit she has also worked with an Emergency Services Center for two categories of important people: currently homeless and farm workers in an area of Florida that produces much of the winter produce for the eastern U.S.--Between Tampa and Miami.

Today's radio program did not mention the town by name--it may be Fort Meyer.

As the low budgets and high needs of Florida taxed her, she offered another challenge to herself: Go to Central America : a land in the shock of post-civil-wars with the people in need the crying stark poverty most damaged; in some regions decimated.

Her mother called her and reported that a farm with a size of 70 acres was available.

Abbey took the many risks and has survived continuing to grow open pollinated corn and to sell it to a wider market.

Corporate-controlled, managed, or dominated farms have been taught to like a manipulated corn that is tall, and has higher yields. But like the princess who turns into an ugly mean wife this type of genetic manipulation is appears to be a great leap forward for yields, profits and easyness when it is an expensive marriage made in hell.

For corporations that sell 3 story tractors with combines that pull ears of corn from stalks GMO is good because a tractor needs uniformity.

Get into the details and you will be hoping the next state does it different. The seeds when planted the next crop-*normally* 1 crop maybe 2 crops only produce 70% of the original crops yield. So if your neighbor John used GMO seeds for white tooth corn and then he plants seeds left over like his parents did he will only have 7 ears for every 10 ears grown in the 1st year.

Farmer John will require huge amounts of income or loans to buy seeds, fertilizers and herbicides\/pesticides. Then he has to re-buy every year. This is going on in many farms with estimates that 50% of all farms are using this capital-intensive method (especially in the Midwest).

To Be Continued

Volume 2 Monday 3 of September

Volume 3 Monday 10 of September<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"1 (800) 708-1392","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":" This is a rough transcript from today's broadcast of our 100,000 watt radio station. Heather Gray has done work in interviewing a wide range of human-rights activists. Including people who work with her at the 12 state Federation of Southern Cooperatives: an outgrowth of the Civil Rights Movement that took seed in 1967.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2001\/08\/9517.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}