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	Expert panel identifies unacceptable toll of food and farming systems on human health by Georgina Downs The Ecologist, IPES Food   A major new report on the damage to human health from existing industrial and chemical-intensive conventional food and farming systems has been launched by the UN Committee on World Food Security in Rome.   The report, entitled Unravelling the Food-Health Nexus: Addressing practices, political economy, and power relations to build healthier food systems, is authored by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) - an independent panel of food system experts - and was commissioned by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.   Exposure to pesticides   It outlines the unacceptable harm caused by our current food systems, exposes just some of the astronomical health costs externalized by the current food system and finds an urgent and "overwhelming case for action".   The report states: "The health impacts generated by food systems are severe, widespread, and closely linked to industrial food and farming practices," adding, "an urgent case for reforming food and farming systems can be made on the grounds of protecting human health."   The report points out that the complexity of health impacts in food systems is real and challenging, but "cannot be an excuse for inaction," and that a truly healthy food system will take as its starting point a preventative, precautionary approach, triggering a shift from a system that results in harm to a system that is based on prevention and health promotion.   The report recognises that exposure to pesticides, including Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs)2 3 4 - chemicals that interfere with hormonal systems and which are ubiquitous in food systems - has been clearly linked to a number of chronic long-term health effects including neurotoxic impacts, developmental impacts, as well as increased rates of cancers.   The report points out that exposure to such harmful chemicals in existing food systems poses one of the greatest challenges for public health, as the risks of long-term exposure to pesticides clearly extend beyond the farm.   The IPES-FOOD report also highlights exposure to other airborne substances used in conventional farming eg. nitrate and phosphorus pollution arising from chemical fertilizer use and feedlot runoff which the report states has been identified as a major health risk in agricultural areas and beyond.   The fact that the report found that many of the severest health conditions afflicting populations around the world - from respiratory diseases to a range of cancers - are linked to industrial food and farming practices, including chemical-intensive agriculture, comes as no surprise to those of us in the direct firing line from living near to regularly sprayed crops.   Rural residents have long reported - for many decades - the health damage occurring in their communities as a result of the existing chemical reliant conventional farming system.   Whilst operators will be in filtered cabs and/or have personal protective equipment when using pesticides, rural residents and communities around the world have no protection at all.   The fact the chemical poisoning of innocent rural communities was ever permitted in the first place - let alone to continue for over three quarters of a century with no action - is without a doubt one of the biggest public health scandals of any time.   Untested, unregulated   The agricultural sector is by far and away the largest user of pesticides, and in the UK alone approximately 80 percent of pesticides used each year is related to agricultural use.   The latest UK Government statistics show that in 2014 the total area treated with pesticides on agricultural and horticultural crops was 80,107,993 hectares, with the total weight applied being 17,757,242 kg. This does not include chemical fertilisers and all the other agro chemicals used in conventional farming.   The reality of this widespread pesticide use on crops has never been properly assessed in any policy either here in the UK or indeed in any country around the world.   Professor Ian Boyd, a key scientific advisor to the UK Government, has in recent weeks issued a damning assessment of the regulatory approach used around the world for pesticides sprayed on crops saying that it ignored the impacts of "dosing whole landscapes", and thus the assumption by regulators globally that it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes "is false" and must change.   The existing chemical conventional farming system has been an untested, unregulated, and unlawful experiment with human health and the environment for which untold damage has already taken place, as it has resulted in thousands of rural residents suffering devastating, even fatal, consequences on their health and lives.   Power relations   The IPES-Food report finds that action to date has tended to focus only on mitigating specific environmental outcomes of agriculture (e.g., restricting the use of specific pesticides with proven harmful impacts on pollinators) without considering a more fundamental redesign, and without addressing the central role of industrial food and farming systems in driving environmental degradation and disrupting ecosystems.   The report also finds that "as the industrial model is further entrenched, a narrow group of actors is able to exercise ever greater control over data provision and scientific research priorities, as well as continuing to shape the narratives and solutions."   The report recognises that this generates "highly unequal power relations" which help to obscure the real social, health and environmental fallout of industrial food systems, leaving "the root causes of poor health unaddressed" and reinforcing "existing social-health inequalities premised on further industrialization."   The report found that the existing unequal power relations means that those affected populations without power or voice are often exposed to the greatest health risks in food systems, meaning that these impacts often go unseen, undocumented and unaddressed, and that those most affected by the health impacts in food systems have become increasingly marginalized and that "this in turn makes people less attuned to the real costs of their food."   The IPES-FOOD report on the damage to human health from existing industrial and chemical-intensive conventional food and farming systems follows on from a scathing report on agricultural pesticides in March by the UN Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food.   This concluded that the agro-chemical industry has continued to falsely maintain that damage will be caused to agriculture and food production if pesticides are not used.   The UN report concluded that moving away from pesticide-reliant industrial agriculture to non-chemical farming methods should now be a political priority in all countries globally.   The origins of traditional farming methods did not include dependence on chemical inputs for mass production. Such poisons should never have had any place in the air we breathe, food we eat, and environment we live in. http://bit.ly/2IaQ7Kl   http://www.ipes-food.org/press-cuttings Visit the related web page
	If there is no common good, there is no society by Robert Reich Social Europe, agencies USA   Donald Trump once said he identified with Ayn Rand’s character Howard Roark in “The Fountainhead,” an architect so upset that a housing project he designed didn’t meet specifications he had it dynamited.   Others in Trump’s circle were influenced by Rand. “Atlas Shrugged” was said to be the favorite book of Rex Tillerson, Trump’s secretary of state. Rand also had a major influence on Mike Pompeo, Trump’s CIA chief. Trump’s first nominee for Secretary of Labor, Andrew Puzder, said he spent much of his free time reading Rand.   The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, required his staff to read Rand. Uber’s founder and former CEO, Travis Kalanick, has described himself as a Rand follower. Before he was sacked, he applied many of her ideas to Uber’s code of values, and even used the cover art for Rand’s book “The Fountainhead” as his Twitter avatar.   Who is Ayn Rand and why does she matter? Ayn Rand – best known for two highly-popular novels still widely read today – “The Fountainhead,” published in 1943, and “Atlas Shrugged,” in 1957 – didn’t believe there was a common good. She wrote that selfishness is a virtue, and altruism is an evil that destroys nations.   When Rand offered these ideas they seemed quaint if not far-fetched. Anyone who lived through the prior half century witnessed our interdependence, through depression and war.   After the war we used our seemingly boundless prosperity to finance all sorts of public goods – schools and universities, a national highway system, and healthcare for the aged and poor (Medicare and Medicaid). We rebuilt war-torn Europe. We sought to guarantee the civil rights and voting rights of African-Americans. We opened doors of opportunity to women. Of course there was a common good. We were living it.   But then, starting in the late 1970s, Rand’s views gained ground. She became the intellectual godmother of modern-day American conservatism. This utter selfishness, this contempt for the public, this win-at-any-cost mentality is eroding American life.   Without adherence to a set of common notions about right and wrong, we’re living in a jungle where only the strongest, cleverest, and most unscrupulous get ahead, and where everyone must be wary in order to survive. This is not a society. It’s not even a civilization, because there’s no civility at its core. It’s a disaster.   In other words, we have to understand who Ayn Rand is so we can reject her philosophy and dedicate ourselves to rebuilding the common good.   The idea of the common good was once widely understood and accepted in America. After all, the U.S. Constitution was designed for “We the people” seeking to “promote the general welfare” – not for “me the selfish jerk seeking as much wealth and power as possible.”   Yet today you find growing evidence of its loss – CEOs who gouge their customers, loot their corporations and defraud investors. Lawyers and accountants who look the other way when corporate clients play fast and loose, who even collude with them to skirt the law.   Wall Street bankers who defraud customers and investors. Film producers and publicists who choose not to see that a powerful movie mogul they depend on is sexually harassing and abusing young women.   Politicians who take donations from wealthy donors and corporations to enact laws their patrons want, or shutter the government when they don’t get the partisan results they seek.   And a president of the United States who lies repeatedly about important issues, refuses to put his financial holdings into a blind trust and then personally profits off his office, and foments racial and ethnic conflict.   The common good consists of our shared values about what we owe one another as citizens who are bound together in the same society. A concern for the common good – keeping the common good in mind – is a moral attitude. It recognizes that we’re all in it together. If there is no common good, there is no society. http://robertreich.org/ Visit the related web page
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