Primavera en 160 países

Primavera en 160 países #aperturaintelectual #vmrfaintelectual @victormanrf @Victor M. Reyes Ferriz @vicmanrf @victormrferriz Víctor Manuel Reyes Ferriz

21 DE MARZO DE 2023 Primavera en 160 países POR: VÍCTOR MANUEL REYES FERRIZ A pesar de que en México conmemoramos con mayor frecuencia este día bajo el natalicio de Benito Pablo Juárez García, para 159 naciones más, pertenecientes al hemisferio norte, la celebración real es la entrada de la primavera, y es que resulta que de los países reconocidos en el mundo (195 en total), el 80% se…

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Revealing the true cost of food to transform agrifood systems.

FAO's latest State of Food and Agriculture report (SOFA) looks into the true cost of food for sustainable agrifood systems. The report introduces the concept of hidden environmental, health and social costs and benefits of agrifood systems and proposes an approach – true cost accounting (TCA) – to assess them. With this information, we can all work together to transform how food travels from farm to table.

State of Food and Agriculture 2023.

Ontario's health care spending was the lowest in Canada per capita and below the average of other provinces in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, according to a new report by a government watchdog.

The Financial Accountability Office (FAO) of Ontario report, released Wednesday, compares Ontario government spending, revenues, budget balance and net debt with other Canadian provinces using Statistics Canada's government finance statistics for that year. The FAO provides independent analysis on the state of the province's finances.

According to the report, health care spending per capita in Ontario was $4,889 in 2022-2023, the lowest in Canada, and $876, or 15.2 per cent, below the average of the other provinces. Health care spending includes spending on hospital and outpatient services, medical products and equipment, and public health services. You can read the report here.

"Since 2008, Ontario's health spending per capita has consistently ranked at or near the lowest in Canada," the report reads.

Education spending in Ontario, however, was $2,843 per capita in 2022, the fifth highest among the provinces and $71, or 2.6 per cent, above the average of the other provinces. Education spending includes spending on primary, secondary and post-secondary education programs. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid

The US Department of Agriculture (not known for its romantic food sovereignty bias) reports that “Around 15% of the world's food is now grown in urban areas. City and suburban agriculture take the form of backyard, roof-top and balcony gardening, community gardening in vacant lots and parks, roadside urban fringe agriculture and livestock grazing in open space." The FAO has also published updated work on urban and peri-urban agriculture. A recent FAO survey reports that “the latest data indicate a global farm area of more than 60 million ha within urban agglomerations” and that “it is likely that well over one billion people in urban and peri-urban areas are growing food or are engaged in other agricultural activities”.

Jim Thomas, George and the Food System Dragon

The FAO roadmap was published at the Cop28 climate summit in December and accepts that diets “absolutely must [change] for human and planetary health”. But its 120 actions do not include reducing meat and dairy consumption in nations where most people already eat unhealthy amounts. Instead, many of the FAO’s recommendations are to intensify the efficiency of animal farming techniques.

“It’s very striking: the FAO doesn’t include one of the clearest interventions that would help meet both environmental and health targets,” said Cleo Verkuijl, of the Stockholm Environment Institute US and one of the eight authors of the commentary from academic institutions in the US, the Netherlands and Brazil.

“Also really surprising is the fact that the FAO completely dismisses alternative proteins,” she said. These had been shown to have far smaller environmental impacts than conventional meat but the FAO claimed, without providing evidence, that plant-based meats had “nutritional deficiencies”, the experts said.

A report from the UN Environment Programme (Unep), published in December, said “alternatives to animal products such as meat and dairy may contribute to significantly reducing the environmental footprint of the current global food system”.

*Note: This post isn't about if this Ken in the Barbie movie is going to be queer but that he is inspired by a Ken doll that "accidently" became a queer icon. Ryan Gosling's Ken in Barbie(2023) is based on the famous best selling Ken doll, Earring Magic Ken, also know as Fey Ken or Gay Ken.

"Mattel had conducted a survey of girls asking if Ken should be retained as Barbie's boyfriend or whether a new doll should be introduced in that role. Survey results indicated that girls wanted Ken kept but wanted him to look "cooler". USA Today noted after the American International Toy Fair that the doll Soul Train Jamal was also wearing an earring that year. According to manager of marketing communications for Mattel, Lisa McKendall, "We tried to keep [Ken] as cool as possible." This generation of the Ken doll had blond highlights in his traditionally brown hair and was dressed in a lavender mesh shirt, purple pleather vest, a necklace with a circular charm and, as the name indicates, an earring in his left ear.

These clothing choices led to gay commentator Dan Savage joking that Mattel toy designers had "spent a weekend in LA or New York dashing from rave to rave, taking notes and Polaroids." He also suggested that little girls' idea of coolness was shaped by homoerotic MTV music videos, Madonna's dancers, and what ACT UP/Queer Nation members were wearing to demonstrations and parties. Donna Gibbs told the San Francisco Examiner in November 1993 that the team of (presumably straight) women who made the doll were surprised that gay men wanted him.

[...]

In July 1993, Dan Savage wrote an article on Earring Magic Ken titled, "Ken Comes Out." He noted in his article that, in addition to his outfit's perceived flamboyance, his necklace resembled chrome sex toys that queer people were wearing as charms at the time. Savage expressed feelings of ambivalence about Ken's new style, writing, "Queer Ken is the high water mark of, depending on your point of view, either queer infiltration of popular culture or the thoughtless appropriation of queer culture by heterosexuals [. . .] Queer imagery has so permeated our culture that from rock stars (Axl Rose and his leather chaps) to toy designers, mainstream America isn’t even aware when it’s adopting queer fashions and mores."

[...]

Kitsch-minded gay men responded to this press by buying the doll in record numbers, making Earring Magic Ken the best-selling Ken model in Mattel's history. The doll debuted in stores for around $11 (equivalent to $20.63 in 2021) and had completely sold out by the Christmas season, largely due to gay men buying the doll in droves. Due to high demand, Chicago's FAO Schwartz created a wait list, and, allegedly, some shops in San Francisco began to sell Earring Magic Ken for prices ranging between $17 (equivalent to $31.89 in 2021) to $24 (equivalent to $45.02 in 2021). (The latter claim was disputed in the Bay Area Reporter in October 1993 by the general manager of San Francisco FAO Schwartz. According to him, only a few gay men were coming into his store, and Earring Magic Ken was selling better in New York and Chicago than San Francisco.) Earring Magic Ken was also popular with gay men in the United Kingdom, and sold well at the toy shop Hamleys in 1993. Toy scalper Mr. Barger told the Wall Street Journal in 1996 that Earring Magic Ken was so popular that he was able to re-sell him to specialty shops at premium prices. Richard Roeper, writing for the Chicago Sun Times, referred to him as "The Cabbage Patch Doll of the summer of '93."

A major appeal of the doll for many gay men was that Mattel did not market it to them on purpose. Rick Garcia, director of Chicago's Catholic Advocates for Lesbian and Gay Rights, told People magazine in 1993 that the stereotypical dress was funny to him because he believed it was an accident, and that it would have offended him if it was purposeful. In 1993, many newspapers interviewed individual gay men in California to understand the phenomenon. San Francisco resident described Earring Magic Ken as, "a pariah setting foot in one of America's sanctuaries." Another California resident, Bill Harley, described Earring Magic Ken as, "A campy, funny thing to have." Laguna Beach resident Keith Clark-Epley had more reservations about the toy, saying that, "It's an uptight heterosexual male doll following gay fashion and who is still behind the times," and believed that calling the doll gay could potentially reinforce negative stereotypes about gay people." Source:

Former officials in the UN’s farming wing have said they were censored, sabotaged, undermined and victimised for more than a decade after they wrote about the hugely damaging contribution of methane emissions from livestock to global heating.

Team members at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tasked with estimating cattle’s contribution to soaring temperatures said that pressure from farm-friendly funding states was felt throughout the FAO’s Rome headquarters and coincided with attempts by FAO leadership to muzzle their work.

The allegations date back to the years after 2006, when some of the officials who spoke exclusively to the Guardian on condition of anonymity wrote Livestock’s Long Shadow (LLS), a landmark report that pushed farm emissions on to the climate agenda for the first time. LLS included the first tally of the meat and dairy sector’s ecological cost, attributing 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions to livestock, mostly cattle. It shocked an industry that had long seen the FAO as a reliable ally – and spurred an internal clampdown by FAO hierarchy, according to the officials.

“The lobbyists obviously managed to influence things,” one ex-official said. “They had a strong impact on the way things were done at the FAO and there was a lot of censorship. It was always an uphill struggle getting the documents you produced past the office for corporate communications and one had to fend off a good deal of editorial vandalism.”

Serving and former FAO experts said that between 2006 and 2019, management made numerous attempts to suppress investigations into the cow/climate change connection. Top officials rewrote and diluted key passages in another report on the same topic, “buried” another paper critical of big agriculture, excluded critical officials from meetings and summits, and briefed against their work.

"There was substantial pressure internally and there were consequences for permanent staff who worked on this, in terms of their careers. It wasn’t really a healthy environment to work in,” said another ex-official.

Scientists also expressed concern about the way the FAO’s estimate of livestock’s overall contribution to emissions is continuing to fall. The 18% number that was published in 2006 was revised downwards to 14.5% in a follow-up paper, Tackling Climate Change Emissions in 2013. It is currently being assessed at about 11.2% based on a new “Gleam 3.0” model.

But many scientists plot farm emissions on a very different trajectory. One recent study concluded that greenhouse gas emissions from animal products made up 20% of the global total and a 2021 study found that the figure should be between 16.5% and 28.1%.

Two pictures from a 1998 Hasbro annual report (the last two are just closeups of the second pic)

The second picture shows a FAO Schwarz building that has Furby posters stuck to its windows. It also shows a picture of a computer with a skinned Furby and another Furby with fur, sitting on top of the computer. The other thing on top of the computer could possibly be the skinned Furby's shell.

The computer screen shows a program that's displaying a 3D model of a skinned Furby, the modelled face alone, and what appears to be a model (or illustration? It's too blurry) showing the back of a Furby, but without its plastic shell.

Queen Camilla’s Patronages

Marwari Horse Society (Patron from 29.03.2006)

This Elegant indigenous breed of Marwari Horse was near extinct, as per the FAO report. We felt it was our duty to preserve and protect this important heritage of Marwari , which plays an important economic role in the life of breeders, farmers & our ceremonials in the region.

For this reason the “All India Marwari Horse Society” was formed in 1997 with following objects:

To preserve and improve the Marwari Breed of Horses.

To identify and recognize the true to the breed animals in the host region(Rajasthan) and nationwide (India.)

To promote the reorganization of Marwari Breed internationally.

To recognize and propagate the special qualities (like loyalty, endurance etc) of the Marwari Horses nationally and internationally.

To promote the equestrian potential of the breed, organizing special events for Marwari Horses in Horse shows regionally, nationally and internationally.Create and provide opportunities for other such like horse sports as endurance ride,, racing or any such financially benefiting activities for the breeders.

To maintain the register of Marwari Horses and help publish Marwari Horse stud book.

To operate the registration scheme of breeding stock to help to improve the standard and quality of the breed.

To create marketing facilities for the sale of stock.

To make beneficial scheme in coordination with Central and State Governments, Equestrian Federation of Rajasthan and India.

To acquire historical and veterinary knowledge from manuscripts or otherwise and to facilitate this knowledge among breeders of Marwari Horses.

On June 25th 1971 , John Boyd Orr, biologist and Nobel Prize Winner, died.

John Boyd Orr's pioneering research led to millions of children across the UK being given free school milk from 1946 to 1971 when Margaret Thatcher, then education secretary, cut provision giving her the mick name Thatcher, "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher”

Boyd Orr was born in Ayrshire into a religious and highly literate family, and it was perhaps inevitable that he should be destined for a career in teaching after studying theology. However, his studies at Glasgow University also opened up new avenues for him. He became interested in the theories of Darwin, and this led to a fascination with zoology.

When he graduated with his MA in 1902, he was assigned to a teaching position in the Glasgow slums to fulfil the obligations required by his scholarship. He lasted only a few days before resigning and going back home to Ayrshire where he was reassigned to a school in Saltcoats. There he completed his teaching but left as soon as he could, saying: "though I liked the children, I hated teaching them”.

Boyd Orr returned to university to study biology and medicine, and he graduated with a BSc in 1910 and MB ChB two years later. He only practised for one month before returning to university to undertake nutritional research. His MD thesis in 1914 was awarded the Bellahouston Gold Medal for the most distinguished thesis of the year.

On the recommendation of his supervisor, he was asked to be the first director of a new research institute in Aberdeen, which would later become the world renowned Rowett Institute. At the time of his appointment, it did not exist, but he would spend the next twenty-five years raising both funds and the profile of nutritional research to make it a reality.

The initial work to build the institute was, however, interrupted by the outbreak of war. Boyd Orr enlisted in the RAMC and saw active service on the Western Front where he was awarded both the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order. Later he would never wear the medals saying that the truly brave men had all died.

In the interwar years, he travelled widely and published extensively, emerging as one of the country’s leading experts in nutrition. He first came to national attention in 1936 with the publication of Food, Health and Income, a report of a dietary survey by income group, which revealed that the cost of a diet meeting basic nutritional needs was beyond the means of half the British population.

This led to similar studies being conducted in nineteen other countries and prompted the creation of a Commission of the League of Nations, which tried to formulate a global food policy. It became the forerunner of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Boyd Orr would become the Director General of the FAO from 1945-48. These were important years because the predicted European post-war famine was averted in part by policies put forward by the organisation.

Boyd Orr was no stranger to the challenges of developing and implementing food policies, many of which are still with us today. He spent his later career trying to persuade governments and presidents, organisations and companies to rethink the way they did things. However, he would often bemoan the fact that while he could persuade farmers of the importance of the nutrition of their animals, he could not stir their interest “in the food of their ain bairns, far less in the bairns of ither folks”.

His was a life filled with honours and awards, from Gold medals at University to military decorations to honorary degrees and more. He was elected Rector of Glasgow University and subsequently became its Chancellor. He was briefly a British Member of Parliament, and in 1935 he was knighted for his services to agriculture. In 1949, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Prime Minister Clement Attlee ennobled him as Baron Boyd Orr of Brechin Mearns.

Reading of Boyd Orr’s long career it seems he had a series of false starts and perhaps even failures. But he was no dilettante. He combined a powerful intellect with an admirable work ethic to achieve a mastery in everything he tried. That he chose to move from a career in teaching to medical practice, to research, to politics and then to governance and policy making was not evidence of mere restlessness but of a constant desire to do meaningful work.

Boyd Orr was at heart a man with an ambitious vision for the world, and he firmly believed that real peace and prosperity would only ever be achieved when no one was hungry.

The citation for the 1949 Nobel Peace Prize read: “for his lifelong effort to conquer hunger and want, thereby helping to remove a major cause of military conflict and war”.

“71% percent of emissions are directly caused by 100 fossil fuel companies so going vegan (or literally changing any of my habits) wont mean a thing”

i am literally begging you guys to please please stop repeating this statement over and over and over without having any idea what it means, and without having ever read the study this comes from.

the report looked at industrial carbon dioxide and methane emissions deriving from fossil fuel producers. They are excluding emissions from land use, land use change, forestry, and agricultural methane (which is a pretty big thing to exclude).

Of those emissions, 71% originate from 100 fossil fuel producers. These producers include, among others, actual countries as producers, like China.

And we are not talking about these companies just producing those fossil fuels for the fun of it. The calculations include downstream use of the fossil fuels. Which accounts for about 90% of the emissions. Those emissions come from our cars, heating our houses, making the clothes we buy, building things etc. They are absolutely consumer driven.

All this just means that about 100 companies extract much of the energy that we use in our everyday lives, that moves our economy. These companies would not produce those fossil fuels if we were not buying them.

And again, the report excludes agriculture. I have talked about the negative effects of animal ag ad nauseam, just let me repeat myself again by saying that the IPCC says that a vegan diet has the highest potential for ghg mitigation of all diets they looked at.

In 2006 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that: “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global”.

this whole idea of how no one is responsible for their actions and no one can do anything about climate change bc of corporations is honestly terrifying, because it is not true. of course no single person will save the planet. but saying your own personal choices don’t matter is ridiculous. please don’t fall for the newest version of climate denial propaganda that these huge companies are pushing. we all still have the power to do good!

but in order to do so, we need to be willing to change our (consumer) behavior, according to our abilities. we need to actively consider how our actions are affecting the environment. and then we need to do something about it. and that can absolutely be campaigning for law changes. but it also has to include personal changes. and if you are truly not willing to do that, then i think you need to seriously consider how much of an environmentalist/activist you really are.

some sources: x x x

China has headed the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) since 2019. During this time, the country has restructured the organization’s personnel. Critics complain that China is advancing its own interests, using the UN's largest specialized agency. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), headquartered in Rome, is responsible for food and agriculture worldwide. It is the UN's largest specialized agency. It collects data on the agricultural sector and develops projects to help people access better nutrition - something that is more important than ever, with climate change and the growing world population. Qu Dongyu, from China, has been Director-General of the FAO since 2019. After taking office, he restructured the organization. He appointed Chinese directors to central departments. Before Qu's election, two director positions were occupied by Chinese nationals. Now, that number is six. One of these directors is responsible for crop protection - which includes the handling of pesticides. A research team was able to view internal documents that show that dozens of shipments of problematic pesticides to countries in Asia and Africa have been approved since 2020. Approvals were granted not only for insecticides used in emergencies -- for example, to combat a locust plague -- but for herbicides and fungicides, as well. These are used against weeds and fungal infestations. Many of the pesticides approved for delivery by the FAO contain active ingredients that are no longer allowed in the EU due to their toxicity. When asked, the FAO replied that it does not supply pesticides that qualify as ‘highly hazardous’ and only sends those that are approved in the recipient country. But the FAO left questions about specific pesticide approvals unanswered. An insider who has worked at the FAO for many years also made serious accusations against the Chinese leadership, claiming that it was instrumentalizing the UN organization for geopolitical purposes. Further research shed light on the role of Chinese officers in the FAO. These Chinese nationals are employed by the FAO -- but their salaries are paid by China. Other countries also pay officers from their home countries. However, the regime in Beijing puts a premium on "political ideology" - as Chinese tender documents show. According to these documents, the officers must regularly report on their work at the FAO to the Chinese embassy in Rome. And none of this is set to change anytime soon: in July 2023, Qu Dongyu was re-elected as Director-General for another four years.

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Something for that ass: @redhead-reporter

WRITING:

Love the way you write! It's this very easy to follow series of events that always leads itself to the turn of the wheel. I've gotten into how I adore your approach to the collaborative efforts, but that was more than a week ago so! Every thread I've ever seen you writing has always been easy to transpose over a storyboard in my head. I can see where the action starts, I can follow the camera's movements, follow MJ's blocking & antics, and then get to the end of the scene easy each and every time.

I positively adore your ability to structure, because I can't structure a story for shit, and seeing it done well and with someones I adore both in and out of character? You've got it.

BLOG VIBE:

Shaye you run your blog like its FAO Schwartz. (I'm still in early 90s mode, I need you to walk with me here.) Its HAPPINESS when you're on the timeline. People show up, they see Shaye posts and the general energy is "Great! It's a sunny day, I can get into my little tumblr blog posts knowing I won't be in the shade."

Everyone and their Zauntie (Zaddy Auntie) drops what they're doing to give you your 'attagirls' because we feel [and I am speaking for everyone here, come check me if you disagree] that you need to be reminded, you need to be told, you need to be kept aware that we fuck with you HEAVILY and want only for you to be respected, uplifted and adored the way you seem to want to respect, uplift and adore the rest of the community.

THIRD BULLET POINT:

I actually don't know what to put here. Chatting about you is easy, I can riff on all the little positive memory nuggets in my head forever, that's not a struggle, but like... saying something that hasn't been said before? Something you need to hear to let you know I care big time about what it is and what you're bringing to the table.

... ... ...

OH! Dude, congrats, shaadi mubarak and BIG FUCKING UPS on your oncoming marriage!! I don't know HOW you writing Mary Jane has domino'd into a life of matrimony, but I don't need to know the 'HOW' I only need to feel the 'WHAT' and the WHAT that I am feeling is 'What a fucking joyous occasion!!' May happiness fucking surround you for the rest of your schedule, and may prosperity rear its head in every chaos you endure.

On July 2, Qu Dongyu, a former Chinese government minister, was reelected to a second term as director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Qu was the only candidate in the election. One of the United Nations’ largest and most influential agencies, the FAO is tasked with overseeing international efforts to defeat hunger and achieve food security globally. Two days prior to the FAO leadership election, a German investigative report accused Qu of corrupting the U.N. food agency and deviating from its policy of reducing farmers’ dependency on pesticides. The investigation revealed that under Qu’s leadership, the FAO approved, facilitated and funded providing poor African and South Asian countries with pesticides banned in Europe for their high toxicity.

When asked about the accusation against Qu, China’s Foreign Ministry responded: “…[H]is [Qu Dongyu] reelection with a big majority fully shows that his work over the past four years has been highly recognized by the international community, and the argument you just cited is totally unacceptable to the international community,” ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on July 3. That is misleading. Under Qu, the FAO has deviated from its longtime policy of reducing global reliance on pesticides and entered into partnership agreements with agrochemical industry lobbying groups and firms, including those linked with the Chinese government. When it comes to crop health, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization states that its policy is to promote a method called Integrated Pest Management, which emphasizes the least possible disruption to agroecosystems and encourages natural pest control mechanisms. Formally, the FAO recommends judicious use of pesticides “only as a last resort” when there are no adequate alternatives.

However, the investigation titled “Food.Power.China”, produced by German public broadcasters Bavarian Broadcasting, Central German Broadcasting, RBB Fernsehen and SWR Fernsehen, revealed how the FAO under Qu’s leadership has facilitated and funded the increased use of pesticides in Africa’s and Southeast Asia’s poorest countries. In 2020, one year after he took over as FAO head, Qu signed a letter of intent to explore a new partnership with CropLife International, the agrochemical industry’s largest lobbying group.

Meat and dairy companies are under increasing pressure over their large greenhouse gas footprints. The dairy industry is responsible for 3.4% of global human-induced emissions, a higher share than aviation.

Trade groups also give some indication in the documents of how they hope to shape conversations in Dubai. One said it will “push” the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to host “positive livestock content” at Cop28. The Guardian recently revealed that pressure from the industry led to censorship of FAO reports on the role of cattle in increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Animal agriculture is the largest emitter of methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide when measured over a 20-year period. Scientists said that unless swift action is taken, methane from agriculture alone will push the world beyond a 1.5C (2.7F) rise in temperature above preindustrial levels that risks tipping the world into irreversible climate breakdown.