Tag: food

War on Farmers Continues in Many States, Expert Warns

The escalating attacks on small and medium farms and ranches is continuing in Democrat states in the form of burdensome regulations, attacks on water rights, dismantling infrastructure such as dams, and much more, warned agriculture expert and Yanasa.TV founder Charles Rankin in this interview on Behind The Deep State with The New American magazine’s Alex Newman. 

Rankin, who hosts a very popular agriculture show and publishes a successful newsletter on the topic, gave multiple examples of attacks on farming and ranching communities from West Coast states. And while some of the pressure from the federal level is easing, many states and even foreign governments—not to mention mega-corporations—are continuing to undermine U.S. food producers. 

Ultimately, the goal is to control the food supply, restrict choice, drive producers off their land, and force consumers to accept lab-grown “meat,” processed “foods,” genetically engineered products, and even horrors such as mRNA “vaccines” delivered via the food supply. Thankfully, everybody can play a role in pushing back against this assault, Rankin explained. 

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California Governor Vetoes Ban on ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Cookware

California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom halted legislation that would have banned “forever chemicals,” known as PFAS, from several products in his state. 

The legislation, which Newsom vetoed on Oct. 13, would have prevented the sale of cookware, cleaning products, dental floss, children’s products, food packaging, and ski wax containing the chemicals. 

Cookware with harmful substances would have been banned starting in 2030, and the other products in 2028. 

“Forever chemicals” is the nickname given to the group of chemicals called PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are synthetic and used widely in products, including non-stick, waterproof, or heat and stain-resistant items.

When announcing the veto, Newsom voiced concern about the availability of cookware if the ban were put in place.

“The broad range of products that would be impacted by this bill would result in a sizable and rapid shift in cooking products available to Californians,” he said.

“I appreciate efforts to protect the health and safety of consumers, and while this bill is well-intentioned, I am deeply concerned about the impact this bill would have on the availability of affordable options,” he added.

Dr. Anna Reade, director of PFAS advocacy with Natural Resources Defense Council, criticized Newsom for his decision in an Oct. 13 statement, saying, “By vetoing SB 682, Governor Newsom failed to protect Californians and our drinking water from toxic forever chemicals.”

According to Reade, the policy would have aligned with California with other states that have decided to phase out PFAS from these consumer products.

“Now, California is a laggard. It’s unfortunate that misinformation and greed by some in the cookware industry tanked this policy.

“But people are increasingly aware of the health and pollution risks associated with forever chemicals and are demanding PFAS-free alternatives for their homes and families.”

PFAS can stay in soil and water for centuries, and there has been a link found between the chemicals and health problems, including some cancers, and changes in immune and hormone systems.

However, those in opposition to the legislation said it wasn’t a clear-cut support of PFAS. 

The California Manufacturers and Technology Association stood against the legislation, saying, “We support targeted efforts to address harmful PFAS chemicals.”

However, the association said, the bill “continues an overreach by banning broad categories of PFAS used safely in cookware and by establishing unworkable standards for sectors like cleaning products.”

“SB 682 fails to distinguish between harmful PFAS and inert, stable fluoropolymers like PTFE, which are FDA-approved for food contact and used in medical devices,” it said.

“These materials do not pose environmental or health risks and have been safely used for decades.”

The association continued, saying that because the bill bans the distribution of affected products, it could push manufacturers to relocate logistics operations out of state, “costing California jobs.”

Similarly, the Cookware Sustainability Alliance said, “The fluoropolymers used by our industry, primarily polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), do not have the same characteristics of nonpolymeric PFAS of concern, which should be the focus of environmental and public health policy.”

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Food desert spreads in America’s barbecue capital as more grocery stores close creating ‘worrying bubble’

It’s known as the barbecue capital but grocery stores closing on both sides of Kansas City have created food deserts.

A Sun Fresh grocery store in Kansas City, Missouri closed in August, and six miles away in downtown Kansas City, a Merc Co+op grocery store will shutter at the end of the year. 

Both stores were the only nearby places for residents to get fresh and healthy groceries as opposed to processed and fast food. 

The stores were in historically redlined neighborhoods, and residents from those areas who still want to buy fresh groceries will be forced to travel at least a mile in both directions and transport heavy bags of food on public transportation.  

Kristina Bridges, a research assistant professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center’s department of family medicine and community health, explained that you live in a food desert if you can not get to a full service grocery store easily.

She told The Beacon: Kansas City that the University of Kansas’s Medical system has been mapping food insecurity among its patients since 2017 and found a strong correlation between historic redlining and rates of type-2 diabetes and food insecurity in those neighborhoods. 

‘We have big food insecurity bubbles, big Type 2 diabetes bubbles,’ she said. 

‘They were north, where downtown KC and the Merc is, and the east side where the Sun Fresh was. If we pull out our old redlining maps, it’s exactly the same pattern.’

The correlation between food insecurity and redlining has led some to label the problem as ‘food apartheid’ instead of food desert, because deserts occur naturally and they contend the problem was actually created by man-made systems. 

Chronic diseases such as type-2 diabetes, obesity and hypertension are more common in food deserts.

Bridges said even some doctors need to be educated as she had an experience where a medical practitioner told her he didn’t believe food insecurity was an issue because, ‘his patients were all fat.’

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California’s Fast Food Minimum Wage Hike Cost the State 18,000 Jobs. That Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone.

In 2023, California passed a law requiring a $20 per hour minimum wage for all fast-food restaurants with more than 60 locations nationwide. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom portrayed the union-supported law as pro-worker, saying it moved the state “one step closer to fairer wages.”

Other California politicians supporting the law claimed it would provide a path to economic security for lower-income workers, enabling them to more assuredly put food on the table.

“Sacrifice, dedication, and the power of a government who serves its people is what got us to this moment,” said then-Assemblymember Chris Holden (D–Pasadena).

But the carve-out for smaller chains was an implicit acknowledgment that the law would come with costs—costs that smaller businesses with slimmer margins presumably could not afford. New research suggests that the mandate has also resulted in fewer jobs for struggling entry-level workers.

The law went into effect in April 2024 and increased the hourly pay of an estimated half a million workers across the state. But without the law in place, thousands more workers would likely have been employed.

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Global push to reshape agriculture, human diets so every nation’s food supply fits within ‘sustainable’ and ‘planetary boundaries’

The global war on food continues to chug along under the radar of all the other problems going on in the world.

Some years ago there was a YouTuber named Christian Westbrook whose channel, The Ice Age Farmer, kept us informed on trends impacting the global food supply. Christian’s channel mysteriously disappeared in November 2022 and we don’t get nearly enough information on this important topic. He was warning back then that the globalists wanted us to eat their unhealthy, ultra-processed bioengineered food and in order to make that happen they needed to reduce our access to healthy whole foods.

Below is a video interview with Christian from five years ago that has aged extremely well.

It’s no accident that food prices keep rising at rates beyond the overall inflation rate.

Now, we have an interesting article posted October 6 at Modernity.news.

Modernity cites an article in The Lancet, titled “The EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy, Sustainable, and Just Food Systems,” which presents what the authors call “a great food transformation.”

Modernity points out that this is part of a coordinated global program (as promoted by the United Nations, Rockefeller and Gates foundations, and World Economic Forum) to reshape agriculture, human diets, and financing so that every nation’s food supply fits within quantified “planetary boundaries.”

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US Farmers Are Facing The Worst Economic Downturn In At Least 50 Years

The agriculture industry in the United States is deeply broken. Farmers are the foundation of it all, but they are being financially squeezed from every direction. They are being squeezed by the giant monopolies that control the seeds, fertilizer and machinery that they need. And they are also being squeezed by the giant monopolies that purchase most of what they produce. Meanwhile, demand from overseas has dried up thanks to the global trade war. U.S. farmers really are facing a “perfect storm”, and as a result most farms are losing money and bankruptcies are surging.

Most Americans have absolutely no idea how bad it has gotten.

According to the president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, this is the worst economic downturn for farmers in at least 50 years…

“We’re in the middle of the worst economic downturn that I’ve seen in my 50 years,” John Hansen, the president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said at a regional meeting in Beatrice, Nebraska, last week.

“Agriculture is our foundation here in Nebraska and many states in the Midwest,” Don Schuller, a corn and soybean farmer, told ABC News. “If agriculture is failing here everything is going to fail.”

I wish that I could tell you that he is exaggerating.

But I can’t.

A sobering article that was recently published by AGWEB that was just shared with me is warning that our farmers are facing a “generational collapse”…

Farmers are not crying wolf. The wolf is real and right outside the door in the form of generational collapse.

The inescapable crop math of sustained crippling commodity prices and high input costs has many growers screaming for immediate relief, potentially via aid payments in late 2025 or early 2026. However, bailouts are Band-Aids over bullet holes.

The giant monopolies that provide the things that our farmers need increase their profits by squeezing farmers, and the giant monopolies that purchase what our farmers produce increase their profits by squeezing farmers.

For a while, many farms could still at least break even, but now conditions have gotten so bad that many farmers are losing hundreds of dollars per acre…

Yes, says Bailey Buffalo, 40, owner of Buffalo Grain Systems in Jonesboro, and president of Farm Protection Alliance.

“Horror stories. The pain is unreal. Worst farming situation I’ve seen in my life,” Buffalo says. “Look at Extension [University of Arkansas] numbers — corn growers losing $240 per acre; soybeans losing $144 per acre; and rice losing $380 per acre. The cotton growers may be worst of all.”

This is what I mean when I say that the agriculture industry is broken.

So what is going to happen as vast numbers of our farmers simply go bankrupt?

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The Curious Case of Norovirus

First discovered in 1972, Norovirus is a highly contagious positive-stranded RNA virus that causes acute gastroenteritis (often called the “stomach flu”), which leads to significant global mortality, primarily through dehydration and complications in vulnerable populations such as young children and older adults. According to the most recent (modeling-based) estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the annual global mortality attributable to norovirus infection is approximately 200,000 deaths. This figure includes about 50,000 deaths among children under 5 years old, with the majority occurring in low- and middle-income countries where access to healthcare and sanitation is limited.

Norovirus causes around 685 million illnesses worldwide each year, but only a small fraction result in death due to its generally self-limiting nature. However, in high-risk groups, severe dehydration can be fatal without prompt intervention. Over 99% of deaths occur in developing regions, particularly Southeast Asia and Africa, which account for about 85% of norovirus-related fatalities. About 50,000 deaths occur annually in children under 5 years of age, often linked to malnutrition and poor hygiene. In those over 65 years of age, there is a higher risk of death in both developed and developing countries, estimated at about 800 deaths per year in the USA.

By comparison, as of March 7, 2023, the CDC reports 38 deaths classified as mpox-associated among persons with probable or confirmed monkeypox (DNA virus) in the United States during the period from May 10, 2022, to March 7, 2023. The recent monkeypox outbreak was treated as a major national and international health crisis, and a vaccine designed for preventing smallpox was deployed to provide immunity against the related monkeypox virus. This was done on an emergency use basis, with little or no clinical data to support that decision. For purposes additional comparison, adults aged 65 and older, an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 deaths occur each year due to RSV (respiratory RNA virus) in the USA.

Like Polio, morbidity and mortality (sickness and death) is largely preventable through hand hygiene, safe food handling, and clean water. In developed countries, norovirus has become the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks, while in developing regions, it exacerbates broader diarrheal disease burdens.

Shellfish and salad ingredients are the foods most often implicated in norovirus outbreaks. Ingestion of shellfish that have not been sufficiently heated – under 75 °C (167 °F) – poses a high risk for norovirus infection. Foods other than shellfish may be contaminated by infected food handlers. Many norovirus outbreaks have been traced to food that only one infected person handled.

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Gates and Rockefeller fund a report which describes a power grab of the global food system

The global war on food continues to chug along under the radar of all the other problems going on in the world.

Some years ago, there was a YouTuber named Christian Westbrook whose channel, The Ice Age Farmer, kept us informed on trends impacting the global food supply. Christian’s channel mysteriously disappeared in November 2022 and we don’t get nearly enough information on this important topic. He was warning back then that the globalists wanted us to eat their unhealthy, ultra-processed bioengineered food and to make that happen, they needed to reduce our access to healthy, whole foods.

Below is a video interview with Christian from five years ago that has aged extremely well.

[If you are unable to watch the video above on Rumble, you can watch it on YouTube HERE and find links to alternative platforms HERE.]

It’s no accident that food prices keep rising at rates beyond the overall inflation rate.

Now, we have an interesting article posted on 6 October by Modernity News.

Modernity cites a report in The Lancet, titled ‘The EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy, Sustainable, and Just Food Systems’, which presents what the authors call “a great food transformation.”

Modernity points out that this is part of a coordinated global programme (as promoted by the United Nations, Rockefeller and Gates foundations, and World Economic Forum) to reshape agriculture, human diets and financing so that every nation’s food supply fits within quantified “planetary boundaries.”

Keep reading

Agriculture Secretary Announces Update As Flesh-Eating Screwworm Comes Within 70 Miles Of US Border

More than 8,000 traps have been deployed across Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, targeting the New World screwworm (NWS) flies, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a Sept. 26 post on X, adding that no additional NWS infections have been detected since last Sunday.

On Sunday, Sept. 21, an announcement was made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which said that Mexico’s National Service of Agro-Alimentary Health, Safety, and Quality had confirmed a new NWS infection in Sabinas Hidalgo, Nueva Leon state, less than 70 miles from America’s southern border. The infected animal was an 8-month-old cow.

Earlier in July, an NWS infection had been reported 370 miles south of the U.S.–Mexico border.

In her post, Rollins said that over 13,000 screening samples have been screened, and zero NWS flies have been identified thus far.

In addition, 750,000 sterilized NWS flies are being trucked in and dispersed in the Nueva Leon region twice a week, she said.

Mass-produced, sterile male NWS flies are often used to tackle the spread of wild NWS fly swarms. When these sterile flies are released into a swarm in large numbers, they mate with the wild female flies, which end up laying unfertilized eggs, thus lowering the swarm population.

Tackling NWS swarms is crucial since they pose a major threat to livestock. In an Aug. 15 statement, USDA called NWS a “devastating pest.”

“When NWS fly larvae (maggots) burrow into the flesh of a living animal, they cause serious, often deadly damage to the animal. NWS can infest livestock, pets, wildlife, occasionally birds, and in rare cases, people,” the agency said.

“It is not only a threat to our ranching community, but it is a threat to our food supply and our national security.”

Since May, U.S. ports have been closed to imports of cattle, horses, and bison from Mexico to prevent the spread of NWS flies into the United States.

Rollins accused Mexico of having “failed to enforce proper cattle movement controls and neglected to regularly maintain fly traps as agreed, undermining detection efforts.”

“This is unacceptable,” she said in the post on X. “Mexico must immediately implement agreed-upon protocols, expand surveillance, and restrict cattle movement in infected zones. For the foreseeable future the border will remain closed.”

In a Sept. 22 statement, Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the Sept. 21 detection was of an NWS fly in its larval stage, “meaning there is no possibility of the fly emerging.”

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After Massive Shrimp Recalls, the FDA Finds Radioactive Contamination in Spices Too

Federal regulators have detected possible radioactive contamination in a second food product sent to the U.S. from Indonesia, even as recalls of potentially tainted shrimp continue to grow. The discovery adds to questions about the source of the unusual problem.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials last week blocked import of all spices from PT Natural Java Spice of Indonesia after federal inspectors detected cesium 137 in a shipment of cloves sent to California.

That follows the import alert imposed in August on the company PT Bahari Makmuri Sejati, or BMS foods, which sends millions of pounds of shrimp to the U.S. each year.

Here’s what you need to know about potential cesium 137 contamination:

What is cesium 137?

Cesium 137 is a radioactive isotope created as a byproduct of nuclear reactions, including nuclear bombs, testing, reactor operations and accidents. It’s widespread around the world, with trace amounts found in the environment, including soil, food and air.

What have U.S. officials found?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials detected cesium 137 in shipping containers of shrimp sent by PT Bahari Makmur Sejati to several U.S. ports. CBP officials flagged the potential contamination to the FDA, which tested samples of the shrimp and detected cesium 137 in one sample of breaded shrimp.

The company has sent about 84 million pounds (38 million kilograms) of shrimp to U.S. ports this year, according to data from Import Genius, a trade data analysis company. It supplies about 6% of foreign shrimp imported in the U.S.

This month, FDA officials detected cesium 137 in one sample of cloves exported by PT Natural Java Spice, which sends spices to the U.S. and other countries. Records show the company sent about 440,000 pounds ( 200,000 kilograms) of cloves to the U.S. this year.

What are the health risks?

No food that triggered alerts or tested positive has been released for sale in the U.S., FDA officials emphasized.

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