Bio food is legally coined by the European Union. Foods falling into this category originate from controlled organic sources, are not genetically modifi ed and dont use conventional pesticides, artifi cial fertilizers or sewage sludge. For animal products it stipulates that animals be kept in appropriate conditions as defi ned by EU regulations and are not fed any antibiotics or growth hormones. Source: http://www.gesundwachsen. org/organic-bio-foods. More or less when we are talking about bio-food, it means organic food. Based on the small knowledge I have of the food crop production industry, I am reacting to points 75 and 76 of our budget speech 2015-16. First of all let me congratulate the Honorable Minister of Finance for his budget speech. There is no doubt that the use of chemicals has an impact on our health and it can be related to the increase in the amount of cancer diagnoses. But at the same time, since the last 10 years several harmful active ingredients have been banned worldwide and some are still on the waiting list. We do have competent bodies in our country which are monitoring these hazardous chemicals and persistent organic pollutants closely. Now, how are we going to implement such a dream project? Normally, we cultivate around 7000 hectares of land annually and the average production has remained almost the same for the last fi ve years. The bio-food crop production is around 1/3 of the conventional crop production and we must not forget that in Mauritius, we are almost self suffi cient in food crop production. Therefore, to cater for the 50% bio production we will need a surplus of 7000 hectares of land. Are these lands available? We are a young island compared to the old continents and most of our lands are marginal and are of basaltic type, they are very poor in nutrients and minerals as our average top soil is around 6 inches and those of the continents go up to more than 36 inches. To compensate these mineral requirements we are totally dependent on chemical fertilizers although we use manure and compost for the balance of the soil bio-diversity and there is no way out. Most of the time, we use seeds and tubers as planting materials. There are very few well-established companies around the globe, which can provide these bio planting materials under a bio certified label and they are very limited in terms of varieties for the same crop species. This can cause a high bargaining power by suppliers as there are monopoly situations on the market and taking such a risk will expose us to food security problems. There are two types of crops : the cash crop and the food crop. Those falling under the cash crop category are sugar cane, rice, wheat, maize etc. Food crops refer to vegetables and in Mauritius only sugarcane is produced as cash crop. Some bio-planting materials are patented and require an intellectual property rights fee on every production. These planting materials can be genetically modifi ed seeds or new hybrid seeds with characteristics of pests and diseases resistance. Therefore, embarking on the vision of 50% bio-food, we will need to set up an intensive research institution to produce around 30 common vegetable species. This will entail high investment and resources; over 90% of failures are recorded on research programs and out of which a percentage fails on trials and development programs; and only 10% remains. Out of this 10% rate of success only 1% will be adopted by the farming community. What about the alternatives of chemical fertilisers? Organic fertilizers are not the solution because of the adaptation problems and they need complex minerals to feed on so as to release absorbable minerals that are used as nutrients by plants. The source of manure must come from a bio certifi ed farm which is not applicable in Mauritius because none of our livestock and dairy farm can provide such product. Even our local compost manufacturers will have diffi culties to market under a bio label because their sources of raw materials are from household green waste and segregation is being done on site and not at source. Another issue is the process of certifi cation; there are two levels of certifi cation, one is land which will be under production and second the products. To certify 7000 hectares of land is quite a big task and necessitate a huge amount of time, resources and technology. Now just imagine about the production certifi cation. It can be done either by public or private sectors and this cost will be transferred to the customers. Are the customers ready to bear this additional cost which will be quite heavy? Above that, we will need a mechanism to control these rates because vegetables prices fl uctuate everyday depending on market demand and supply. We will also need new regulations under a Bio Food Act that will resolve disputes should there be frauds in production and sales of produce. Another issue will be the application of compulsory trademarks or labeling for traceability purposes for those dealing in bio production. The treatment and minimal processing zone facilities. On an individual basis we dont have capital for investment and even under regroupings it is quite a heavy investment. The type of water, the packing and labeling area, the control unit etc are the logistics that should be present to differentiate bio-food from common ones. All these additional costs will have an incidence on the customers bill at the end. Maybe there is a misinterpretation of bio-food production and sustainable agriculture which are two different concepts but bring almost the same results in the end. The world is moving towards sustainable development, and sustainable agriculture forms part of it. Production systems, policies and institutions that underpin global food security are increasingly inadequate. Sustainable agriculture must nurture healthy ecosystems and support the proper management of land, water and natural resources, while ensuring world food security. To be sustainable, agriculture must meet the needs of present and future generations for its products and services, while ensuring profi tability, environmental health and socioeconomic equity. The global transition to sustainable food and agriculture will require major improvements in the effi ciency of resource use, in environmental protection and in systems resilience. Sustainable agriculture requires a system of global governance that promotes food security concerns in trade regimes and trade policies, and revisits agricultural policies to promote local and regional agricultural markets. Source: FAO. We have chosen the wrong way and this bio-food project will engulf a huge amount of public funds. There is an alternative way, sustainable agriculture. Our farming community has already encompassed it and is moving slowly but surely.

Originally posted here:
WHAT A TARGET, 50% BIO-FOOD : Is it a joke or a dream? Lets find out.

Before we talk about the New MacDonald video, let's acknowledge the obvious: All organic-food marketing is comparative marketing. Explicitly or implicitly, organic marketing touts organic agriculture as superior to conventional agriculture.

It has to. The only reason to pay more for organic food is if you believe it's somehow better -- better for your health, better for the planet, better for whatever reason. Encouraging that belief is the organic marketer's job.

But is it the organic marketer's job to attack conventional agriculture? What if the attack blurs the line between legitimate criticism and misrepresentation? What if the attack is emotional rather than factual? Those are among the questions the New MacDonald video (http://tiny.cc/) raises anew.

New MacDonald paints a toxic picture of conventional agriculture. It depicts a troupe of children wearing straw hats and un-tucked shirts singing a takeoff on "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." As they sing and sway, other children prance across the stage, acting out the song. At one point the prancers wear hooded protective suits, gas masks and scuba-like tanks and spray billowing white puffs at tall plant stalks. The troupe sings:

"And on that farm he sprayed some crops

E-I-E-I-O.

With some GMOs here and a pesticide there

Here a spray, there a spray

Everywhere a spray spray"

Suddenly a small yellow plane gliding down a rope on pulleys bombs the stage with more spray. A white cloud envelops the world. The piano thunders a dissonant chord, then pauses. Children shriek and flee, waving their straw hats at the cloud as they evacuate.

Excerpt from:
Old, Old MacDonald Never Excited This Kind of Controversy

Those new to Buddhism, especially Westerners, often get caught up in the wrong notion of emptiness. This is easy to do, I must admit, having done it myself especially as a Westerner. Such emptiness is best described by Asanga in the Bodhisattvabhumi who said that anyone asserting that emptiness is the negation of all (sarvbhvat) has wrongly conceptualized emptiness.

We learn from the Buddhist canon that the Buddha was not a pan-positivist (all is). However, we are comfortable with the negation of "all is" which Asanga warned us against. Then we discover later that the Buddha was also not a pan-negativist-he didn't accept the negation of "all is." We tend to forget this. The Buddha's great enlightenment transcended both the position of the pan-positivist and the pan-negativist.

Believe me, I have sympathy for the beginner who does not have a good grasp of emptiness. It is easy to misunderstand emptiness.

We can also wrongly misunderstand emptiness by falling into the habit of believing nirvana to be a kind of extinction or annihilation. We gloss over all of the positive epithets of nirvana that it is the beyond, the subtle, permanence, the exquisite, bliss, the wonderful, the marvelous, the pure, the island, the shelter, the harbor, a refuge and the ultimate.

Exploring the term empty, its use in the Pali canon, we find it used as an adjective, "the empty village." Here empty doesn't mean that there is no village, only that the object qualified, namely, the inhabitants of the village, are not there at this time. They are elsewhere. This is the same with an empty house in the empty village. There is nobody in the particular house at this time. When we read that a monk goes to an empty place to meditate, the place he goes to is not emptiness, but a place that is empty of distractions. We also learn from the Pali canon that the world is empty (suam lokam) in the sense of being empty of what belongs to the true self.

Turning now to the freedom of Mind (ceto-vimutti), it is empty. This means that Mind is empty of desire and delusions. Next, when a monk's Mind is freed he enters pure ultimate unsurpassable emptiness, this is a positive state devoid of all determination which means that emptiness, i.e., the state of the empty, is a pure dynamic field-not mere absence.

Needless to say, emptiness occupies an important place in Mahayana Buddhism which can be very confusing for the beginner because the term can be used in different ways. Here are some examples.

"The ambrosial teaching of emptiness aims at abolishing all conceptions (samkalpa). But if someone believes in that [emptiness] you [have declared] he is lost" (Lokttastava).

"Majushri said....if he contemplates emptiness as the defilement, he is said to be engaged in right practice" (The Inconceivable State of Buddhahood Sutra).

"The Buddha-essence is emptiness of traits of adventitious [defilements] with discriminations, but it is not emptiness of the supreme attributes of Buddhahood, which have the character of differentiations" (Uttaratantra).

Go here to read the rest:
Grasping emptiness with an empty mind