Driving up to the NAPC in Minnesota, I was struck by all the seemingly empty farmhouses. No cars, trucks or equipment, no animals. Just houses, with mowed lawns, trees, outbuildings including barns, fences all apparently abandoned? Of course the farm structures were surrounded by alternating soybean and corn fields, the two GMO ingredients found in processed foods that render Americans fatter and fatter, cause diabetes and other diseases, and boost pharmaceutical and medical profits way up.
I imagine some of these hauntingly empty, but oddly enough, well kept (lawns mowed, paint not yet peeling, roofs still intact) farms are rented out by people who drive away to work in the mornings. And I can imagine that fateful day of the estate auction, or the foreclosure auction, for each of these farms, with farmers still in business coming from miles around, to scavenge the remains — until it was time for their own demise from the work on land that sustained their families for generations.
This is the story of rural America.
Rural Poland has another story to tell, and one that we may well learn from. Here’s a letter from Julian Rose, with a wonderful video that rural America might well heed. It’s happening here, too, of course, this notion of small farms as multi-faceted “ecocenters” that educate and demonstrate regeneration and resilience, but much more slowly, and at least in the Midwest that I’m familiar with, much will have to be reversed in order to move forward.
Via email from Lance White.
Good News from Poland
Dear Friends,
*Don’t miss the short film at the end of this letter!*We bring you good news! – and that’s a rare enough commodity these days –
The Coalition for a GMO Free Poland has scored a dramatic success in
blocking a determined attempt by the Polish government to fast track a new GMO Act through parliament that would have opened the door for GM planting.
Our Coalition colleague and legal expert Pawel Polaneki, was able to openly expose the absurdity of the proposed new regulation during a specially convened environmental committee meeting in the parliament 10th September.
Amongst other things, he highlighted the fact that the new act proposed a 1,000 zloty fine for anyone found to be growing a GM crop on their land. 1,000 zloty is just 200 pounds!
To his great surprise – and ours – the vice chairman of the agriculture committee then jumped up and said that this was an outrage and called for a total ban of GM to be at the centre of the new act!
Disarray followed – and the meeting was called-off with all parties
told to resolve the situation before a further meeting is convened.
Of course we haven’t won yet – and these things tend to drag on interminably – but the deadly GMO machine has been foiled once again.
On another, yet related note – ICPPC’s founders are busy with an innovative project to promote solar energy in the Polish countryside.
We (Julian and Jadwiga) have already travelled to four different Provinces and have been meeting-up with farming families running agri-tourism initiatives who also wish to install passive and photovoltaic panels on the farmhouses where their guests will stay.
It’s a great thing for the health of both people and nature to be able to combine environmentally friendly farming practices with solar energy to power the household!
Here’s a short film shot at our Eco Centre in Stryszow, near Krakow.
It will give you a flavour of what we’re up to .. and maybe entice you to come and visit?
All best wishes,
Julian and Jadwiga
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ICPPC – International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside,
34-146 Stryszów 156, Poland tel./fax +48 33 8797114 biuro@icppc.pl
www.icppc.pl www.gmo.icppc.pl www.eko-cel.pl
