cialis free shipping class=”alignnone size-medium wp-image-1467″ title=”collage3″ src=”http://www.easttexasreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/collage3-271×300.png” alt=”" width=”271″ height=”300″ />The new Longview Historic Farmers’ Market has held its second monthly open air agricultural sales day. The market place was scheduled to open at 8:00 a.m., but local residents were already buying produce at 7:30.
The first Market Day back on the 15th sold out in just one hour. Locals did not want to risk missing out on the choicest selection of East Texas produce. Customers arrived early and swept up the vendors’ delectable crops. There is also the attractive personal touch.
In the good old days people went to market to buy produce from local farmers who were their friends, neighbors and relatives. The crops sold were grown and harvested without the pesticides and artificial colors included in modern grocery store produce. Consumers at the Farmers’ Market purchase veggies from the men and women who grew it, and can ask them questions about their methods. At this venue there is no need for “buyers beware” warnings.
Dr. Frank Tibiletti, Eleanor Kirk, Christina Massey, Evalonia Bolton, Ana Walker, her family and many other health-conscious Longview residents made the rounds of the booths, buying nutritious produce. Gynecologist Tibiletti brought a shopping list that included squash, potatoes and herbs. Still, a healthy diet was not his sole reason for coming.
“We definitely want to support this,” he said. “It is good for downtown revitalization.”
Professional photographer Christina Massey found the market both healthy and entertaining.
“I am here to get the very best,” she gushed. “This is locally grown, tastes better and [is] loaded with nutrition.”
Massey also bought homemade soap and urges everyone who has not come to the market to do so.
“You need to come and experience the market,” she said. “There are good people Ampicillin Online all over the place, and there is something for everyone.”
Wisconsin natives Steve and Cody Husman and their daughter Cheyenne and their horses love both the market and the Texas weather.
“We have been trying to get down here,” said Steve. “The ranch we bought around Liberty City has solar and wind turbines and all kinds of fruit trees.”
The family believes the property is just right for them, and they are vendors themselves in the Farmers’ Market, selling their home grown green beans. They plan to bring their elderberries for sale on the 29th. They grow their crops strictly organically, using compost fertilizers.
“This is locally grown, fresh picked and chemical-free,” said Cody.
Janet McKinney from Lanesville brightened up the array of edible merchandise by bringing her flowers for sale.
“We grow these beauties with the help of our five kids,” she said. “We sell wholesale and retail,” adding that her business phone number is (903) 854-2468.
Lowell Tanksley of Tanksley Farm recalled how early he sold out in the previous market, so he brought twice the amount of his crops this time. His busy booth was one of many where customers bought and socialized, meeting old friends and making new ones.
The Farmers’ Market still needs singers, musicians and other entertainers. Also, volunteer workers are needed to help set up and dismantle the booths before and after the market. Market Vice-President Danielle Heard described the market as a part of the local sustainability movement that will help the community grow and prosper. This makes volunteers even more vital.
The Longview Historic Farmers’ Market is located at the confluence of Cotton, High and Center streets. For now it opens Saturdays at 8:00 a.m., with plans to eventually also be open during the week as increasing volumes of produce are harvested and brought in by vendors. For more information call 903-746-2708.

cheap pills online size-medium wp-image-1471″ title=”090101 Top 10″ src=”http://www.easttexasreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/090101-Top-10-300×266.jpg” alt=”" width=”300″ brand cialis for sale height=”266″ />No matter what you think, the adage ‘prevention is better than cure,’ is still a timely advice especially when it comes to health. Why this adage – looking at the top ten men’s health threat leading to death in Untied States, they can be avoided if proper care is taken. The reason why this is so is because when you look at the top 10 leading causes of deaths in males in the United States, you would see that they are actually perfectly preventable.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) listed below are the top 10 leading killers of American men

Heart disease, 27.2% of total deaths
Cancer, 24.3% of total deaths
Unintentional injuries, 6.1% of total deaths
Stroke, 5% of total deaths
Chronic lower respiratory diseases, 5% of total deaths
Diabetes, 3% of total deaths
Influenza and pneumonia, 2.3% of total deaths
Suicide, 2.2% of total deaths
Kidney disease, 1.7% of total deaths
Alzheimer’s disease, 1.6% of total deaths

Heart disease, stroke, respiratory diseases and kidney disease are actually preventable illnesses if only men will learn how to live a healthier lifestyle in the first place.
Healthy Woman, a FREE Longview Regional Medical Center resource will be holding a seminar Thursday, June 10 on the above topic. Come and get the information for the male individuals in your life. Dr. Robert Warden is the presenter.
To register or get more information, please call Claire Henderson at Longview Regional Medical Center marketing department at 903-381-7238 or 903-381-7239 or register on line at www.longviewregional.com

Hot news from CNN: Some university students are giving up casual sexual activity because they feel it’s not fulfilling.
I am not making this up.
Take, for instance, Vanderbilt University student Frannie Boyle. She told CNN that, in the past, she sometimes drank to excess before parties and hooked up with a stranger or acquaintance before the night was over.
“I saw it [hooking up] as a way to be recognized and get satisfaction,” Boyle admits. But satisfaction eluded her. “I felt so empty then,” she laments.
So she decided to kiss casual physical involvement goodbye.
(Intergenerational translator: “Hooking up,” an ambiguous term, refers to no-commitment sexual activity ranging from making out to intercourse.)
Criticism came. Some male friends shunned Boyle. “They probably weren’t my friends anyway,” she observes.
“I’m respecting myself,” she affirms. “And I won’t waste my time with some guy who doesn’t care about me.”
Boyle is in the minority, but she’s not alone. Of course, many students abstain from non-marital sex because of spiritual convictions. But nowadays, even nonreligious campus groups are promoting sexual self control and commitment.
For example, CNN notes that the Love and Fidelity Network features speakers and discussions to encourage students to rethink uncommitted sex. The secular nonprofit promotes “sexual integrity” and marriage.
Some observers, citing online dating’s campus popularity, say many students long for a return to traditional dating.
Even entertainer Lady Gaga said she’s chosen sexual abstinence brand cialis for sale “because drugs online without prescription I don’t have the time to get to know anybody.”
What’s going on here?
The long-term emotional links between the heart and the sex glands can be stronger than one might recognize when passion rages. Of course, in an HIV world, health and safety also are concerns.
A longing to be close to someone or a yearning to express love can generate intense desires for physical intimacy. Yet often sex brings an emptiness rather than the wholeness people seek through it.
When I appeared on her television program discussing this topic, one producer told me, “Frankly, I think the sexual revolution has backfired in our faces. It’s degrading to be treated like a piece of meat.”
The previous night her lover had justified his decision to sleep around by telling her, “There’s plenty of me for everyone.” What I suspect he meant was, “There’s plenty of everyone for me.” She felt betrayed, devalued, and alone.
I was on her program to discuss the positive influence that faith and spiritual convictions can have on sex. Mixing faith and sex may seem surprising. Of course, some see the biblical God as a cosmic killjoy.
But as popular speaker Josh McDowell points out, “A God who created sex can’t be all bad!”
The biblical writers portray God designing sex for pleasure, unity and procreation. “Let her breasts satisfy you at all times,” recommends a proverb about marital sex. “Be exhilarated always with her love.” Hardly prudish.
Faith can provide love, self-esteem, wisdom for choosing the best, and inner strength to follow those choices.
Plus forgiveness and hope of restoration when we blow it, as we all do. Practical stuff that affects life between the sheets and life in general. Sex is not the key to love; love is the key to sex. Many nonreligious people are making similar sounds these days.
Might those ancient texts have some genuine wisdom after all?

Dan Duncan died at the end of March. The Houston gas pipeline mogul left behind a spouse, four children, four grandkids, and a fortune worth $9 billion.
Duncan, a prominent philanthropist who supported cancer research and the Boy Scouts, left behind another distinction. He was the first American billionaire to ever leave his heirs a tax-free fortune.
America’s first-ever billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, died in 1937. His heirs faced a 70 percent estate tax on the bulk of his estate. Duncan’s heirs are enjoying a zero percent estate tax. When he died, his son and three daughters became instant billionaires.
If Duncan had died last year, his heirs would have had to share their new billions with the rest of America. But for the first time since 1916, no estate tax graces the tax code. That’s because it’s been suspended for the duration of this year, thanks to a 2001 Bush administration maneuver and an impasse in Congress.
Heirs to billion-dollar fortunes, if they sell the assets they inherit this year, will have to report whatever windfalls they rake in as taxable capital gains. But analysts don’t expect this new capital gains rule to raise nearly as much money as the estate tax would have.
How much will the absence of an estate tax this year cost the Treasury? It’s impossible to say. No one knows how many other billionaires may pass to the great beyond between now and New Year’s Eve. We do know that in 2008, the latest year with figures available, the federal government collected $25.7 billion in estate tax revenue.
That sum, by coincidence, would be enough to fully Buy Ampicillin fund the $23 billion Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) want Congress to appropriate to avert the nation’s worst teacher layoff crisis since the Great Depression. Without additional federal funding, our schools may lose 300,000 teachers, causing cialis for men class sizes to balloon across the country.
But getting that help seems to be a long shot. The 2009 stimulus legislation saved tens of thousands of teacher jobs. But stimulus dollars are running out, and deficit hawks in Congress say we can’t afford more.
How can a civilized nation afford to hand the heirs of the super-rich billions of dollars tax-free and not afford to keep teachers in classrooms?
We can trace our current budget inanity back to when the Bush White House put on a full-court press to repeal the federal estate tax. The administration lacked the votes needed for a permanent repeal. However, it did manage to pass lower estate tax rates over the rest of the decade and a repeal in 2010. Under that legislation, the estate tax would reappear in 2011.
White House strategists never expected to see this reappearance. They counted on a future Congress to extend the repeal beyond this year. But by 2007, the GOP had become a minority in the House and Bush lost his shot at permanently scrapping the tax.
Meanwhile, estate tax supporters were confident the 2008 election results would make it possible to overturn the 2010 repeal. But in 2009, lawmakers deadlocked over many issues. The year ended without any congressional estate tax action.
Apparently no one in Congress expected a billionaire of Dan Duncan’s magnitude to actually go and die without an estate tax on the books. There’s hope that Congress will bring the estate tax back for the remainder of the year, and apply it retroactively. But with so much at stake, lawyers for Duncan’s heirs would likely battle that kind of action in the courts. The longer we go without the tax on the books, the higher the chances the courts will agree with them.
After his death, a close friend of Duncan’s noted “he really wanted to help everybody.” If Duncan’s heirs want to help everybody, they’ll troop over to Capitol Hill and demand the immediate reinstatement of a meaningful federal estate tax.

I don’t think President Obama should have nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. buy drugs online without prescription Don’t get me wrong; It’s not that I think she’s too conservative. That would be the granola/Birkenstock wing of the Democratic Party. And it’s certainly not because I think she’s too liberal. That would be nuts. I’m against her because she went to Harvard. Do you realize that if she is confirmed, everybody on the Supreme Court will be a product of either Harvard or Yale? All nine of them.
That’s ridiculous. I know, they’re both supposed to be really good schools but, really, they’re not that good. To those who think they are I have but two words: George Bush. He graduated from Yale and got an MBA from Harvard. If that’s an example of the kind of minds those institutions of higher learning turn out, I’d rather take my chances with a graduate from the Oelwein (Iowa) School of Law and Storm Door Technology.
And what about Michigan, Wisconsin, Cal-Berkeley, Duke, or Texas? You couldn’t find a graduate of one of those places who is fit to sit on our highest court? There are dozens of good law schools in this country. Why fill the Supreme Court with graduates of only two of them?
It’s institutional nepotism, is what it is. Obama went to Harvard and the three presidents before him all went to Yale. They think you shouldn’t be on the Court unless you know the secret Yale-Harvard handshake.
I don’t. I believe in diversity.
Not ethnic diversity so much; I really don’t care much whether a justice is of Hispanic, Italian, or Latvian pedigree. I don’t even care much about their religion, so long as they don’t take it too seriously. (It is the “deeply religious” one must avoid at all costs. Whatever the religion–Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish–its deeply religious practitioners would as soon burn you at the stake as look at you.)
No, what I’m talking about is intellectual diversity. I’d like to see a Court whose members offer differing perspectives (four of the current members, counting Kagan, grew up in New York City), who represent various philosophical universes.
What would be wrong with having an atheist on the Court, or at least an agnostic? I think he or she would be at least as qualified to judge issues of the separation of cialis pill identifier church and state as people who grew up religious.
Same with abortion. Why leave the question to a Court whose majority is instructed by their church that abortion is murder?
And don’t tell me that intellectual diversity doesn’t make any difference, because all the justices should be doing is executing the text of the Constitution without regard to their personal views. Strict constructionists, they call themselves. Strict constructionists, my foot: There’s no such thing, certainly not among the gang who stepped into the Florida election in 2000 and handed victory to George Bush in a decision so blatantly partisan that they said it shouldn’t be used as precedent. Everybody is a judicial activist; it’s just a question of which way their activism rolls.

If I were picking a Supreme Court nominee I’d choose one who:

Went to a good school west of the Hudson River.
Had, at some time in his or her life, worked for tips. It is a great experience for learning about human nature.
Possessed a sense of humor. I don’t expect a justice to do standup, mind you, but it would be nice to have one with a sense of irony.
Was a skeptic, but not a cynic. The former questions everything; the latter rejects it out of hand.
Would under no circumstances sign an opinion, then say it should not be used as precedent. Setting precedent is what the Supreme Court does. It’s why it exists.

Having said all of that, I’d probably vote for Kagan, were I a senator. She’s the best we can get, given the system we’ve got.

E. coli-laden romaine lettuce recently sickened dozens of Americans in five states, as a food-related listeria outbreak killed at least two Texans.
These were just the latest in a string of similar incidents. An endless deluge of foodborne illness outbreaks demands the reevaluation of our food system.
But Americans need to adopt a broader approach to evaluating the quality of their food, from soil to plate. We must consider the integrity of the overall production process in addition to evaluating the immediate safety of the food that reaches the consumer. While outbreaks and hospitalizations grab headlines, there are unseen other costs to our current production system.
Food integrity considers all players involved in the lifecycle of food production: the health and wellness of associated citizens, the environment, and product itself. Safeguarding the process ultimately yields the safe food consumers want to eat.
Foodborne illness sickens over 76 million Americans every year, causing 725,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. One recent Georgetown University study showed that the related costs of foodborne illness (medical bills, lost wages, decreased productivity) totals over $152 billion a year. But environmental byproducts of food production often lead to “foodborne” illnesses. Waste and contaminants from industrialized factory farms endanger our fragile ecosystem and place us all at avoidable health risks. Consider concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, which are largely responsible for the low cost of meat, dairy, and poultry.
These facilities lower production costs by cramming animals into small spaces and enhancing animal growth to expedite the time between birth and slaughter. Chicken CAFOs, for example, can hold over 20,000 animals in an extremely confined area with little or no room to move, and without access to the outdoors. Numerous whistleblowers report these animals are subjected to further inhumane handling, which leads to wholly preventable, but serious, contamination.
Furthermore, CAFOs assault the rural environments in which they operate. Animal waste pollutes neighboring streams, poisoning wells and drinking water–which ends up sickening neighboring residents. This waste is teeming with the same harmful bacteria–E. coli, cryptosporidium and listeria–that buy pills online without prescription often contaminate ground beef. Therefore, meat produced by these factory farms should never truly be considered “safe food.”
Workers’ rights also directly impact public health. The food industry routinely exploits laborers. These individuals earn unconscionably low wages while performing vile, strenuous, and dangerous work. Often migrant workers find themselves in the untenable position of safeguarding the nation’s food supply, yet have no rights to speak out. If a worker witnesses gross violations and wishes to come forward, he risks not only his and his family’s welfare, but possible deportation. These workers are often the only ones in a position to protect all of us from unsafe food. Is it any surprise that the vast majority of these workers choose to keep quiet?
Meanwhile, industry regulators, silenced by corporate influence on government, go unheard. Citizen activists, crushed by industry giants, are powerless to confront agribusiness as it pollutes the water and soil. Our system is failing.
It’s easy to see why this has happened. Shoppers want cheap, convenient food. The industry is responding to consumer demand, and agribusiness is providing food at historically low prices. Today’s consumer savings will come at far greater societal and environmental costs tomorrow.
It’s been roughly 100 years since Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, an exposé about the nation’s meatpacking plants that led to many of our modern food safety reforms. Contrary to popular cialis super belief, that groundbreaking work was written to address the plight of the American food worker–not to make our food safer.
When asked about the food safety laws created as a result of his book, Sinclair replied: “I aimed for their hearts. I got their stomachs instead.” Either way, Sinclair advocated food integrity.
It’s time for Americans to demand the same.

Both men and women have specific health issues related to hormone imbalances. Men generally are less concerned about their health to the point our wives help us take care of ourselves. So now let us explore women’s problems so us men can help our wives with their health and be compassionate and understanding.
The ovaries get stimulated from the pituitary gland to produce estrogen, progesterone and a small amount of testosterone. This proper balance allows for proper implantation of the fertilized egg or the continuation of the cycle.
I have talked about stress in an earlier column and how this can upset our balance of health. Stress also affects our adrenal glands which make the precursors to sex hormones.
Some of the problems from hormone imbalances include cysts, painful menstruation or PMS, cancer, abnormal bleeding, absence of menses, vaginal infections, infertility, endometriosis, painful intercourse, uterine growths, abnormal facial hair growth, etc. If this sounds familiar then read on while we discuss the “why’s” and the “how-to’s”.
While many people want to blame genetics, usually problems can be mostly attributed to nutritional, environmental, and emotional stressors.
The nutritional deficiencies are well illustrated in Dr. Westin Price book, when it talks about how harsh chemical fertilizers and pesticides depress and destroy the important biological activity of the soil, forcing our plants to live on a “fast food” diet of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. This leaves plants weakened and more vulnerable to pests and diseases and diminishes their nutritional value.
We now have to eat three apples to equal the nutrients of one apple from 1940. Oranges in some areas can now be picked fresh from the tree Buy Ampicillin Online that contains no vitamin C! So even though we need more fruits and vegetables it is absolutely necessary to supplement with high quality vitamins and minerals to make up for the lowered nutritional levels prevalent in our food.
On the topic of environmental causes it gets really frustrating. Please understand that there are supplements that can help you detoxify since you can not avoid most of the toxins that cause your hormones to work incorrectly. The toxins are estrogen mimickers like plastics, phthalates, pesticides, and heavy metals. Since they have an estrogen like effect we end up with more estrogen than progesterone. This makes women more susceptible to emotional issues and cancer. (J. Cancer Research).
I have a power point presentation, “Estrogen Overload – The Danger Every Woman Should Know. If you have a group I am available for presentations and education. 903-663-1008 Doctor’s Nutrition.
One of the most effective detoxifying supplements called diindolylmethane or DIM. DIM contains very concentrated amounts of cruciferous vegetables known to have major detoxifying properties that help in cancer and hormonal-balancing properties. (J. Cancer Research).
B-Complex is also very important as they have a role in almost all processes of the body. Healthy intestinal bacteria also protect against cancer and hormonal problems by building the immune system.
So an imbalance of intestinal bacteria can actually lead to cancer of the sex organs! (J. Letters Applied Microbiology). The research is there and I have many patients cialis 40 mg dose that can attest to the value of these supplements both in how they feel and their lab results that improved. Emotional stressors contributing to hormonal imbalance usually give the quickest indication of working. I have had patients that call some of our emotion balancing supplements the “Peace of God in a bottle.” This is very gratifying to see people that enjoy decreased stress, anxiety, and depression.No discussion about emotional stress and hormonal imbalances would be complete with out examining the thyroid. It is closely linked to the endocrine system and must be nutritionally supported and balanced in “optimal” ranges for the patient to feel at her best. This is also extremely important in weight loss.
So whether it is a minor problem or becoming worse it is easy to find out what it is and how to detoxify and how to nutritionally support your own innate potential.
Come on men, now it is your turn to support the land in your life and encourage her and help her to fix that unresolved health issue. Hey, it might even make your life better so she is able to take better care of you.
Call 903-663-1008 or etxdrsnutrition.com. Remember there is no charge for consultations!

Dr. Stephen and wife Janet with the help of Longview Partnership recently had their ribbon cutting joining many Longview businesses that support the local economy.
Dr. Lewis a chiropractor is very interested in the overall health of his patients. He dubbed his style of care “complimentary medicine.”
“I am good at doing it not talking it,” said Dr. Lewis.
“I will break it down in simple steps that anyone can do.”
According to the World Health Organization, despite our state-of-the-art technology, in 1980 America wrote more prescriptions, did more surgeries, and gave more diagnostic tests than any other developed country. In 2000, we increased our surgeries, diagnostic tests and quadrupled our drug prescriptions and moved from number cost cialis 17 in 1980 to number 37 in overall health.
Lewis says although we have the best medical care in the world, the missing link is proper nutrition and this is where his complimentary is essential.
In Texas everything is big including human buy pain pills online without prescription beings. Susan Combs, the State Comptroller called the problem of obesity in Texas a ‘crisis.’
According to Lewis, simply adjusting one’s nutritional intake and buying natural or organic foods whenever possible can alter both male and female hormones, weight and fatigue issues for good. “Dr’s Nutrition is here to educate people on how to be healthy, happy while living a longer productive life.”
For more information, please call 903.663.1008

City of Longview offices will be closed Monday, May 31 for Memorial Day.
The Sanitation Division will not cialis overnight pick up trash Monday, May 31, due to the holiday. Collection schedule for the rest of the week will remain the same.
The Compost Facility will be closed on Monday, May 31, as well as Tuesday, June 1. The Longview Public Library will close at 6 p.m. Friday, May 2, and remain closed through Monday, May 31. The Library will resume normal business hours Tuesday, pills online without prescription June 1. The book drop will also be closed.
The Broughton Recreation Center, Green Street Recreation Center, and Paula Martin Jones Recreation Center will be closed Saturday, May 29, through Monday, May 31.
Longview Transit, the public bus transportation system, will be closed Monday, May 31, and will resume regular operating schedule on Tuesday, June 1.
If you have a Water or Sewer Emergency during the holiday, please call 903-236-3030.
All City offices will resume regular business hours Tuesday, June 1.

What has happened since the “poorest country in the Western Hemisphere” experienced its debilitating January 2010 earthquake? A quarter of a million Haitians perished, and survivors have experienced widespread devastation and damage.
The infrastructure necessary to respond to the disaster was severely damaged or destroyed; including hospitals and air, sea, land transport facilities and communication systems. Over 250,000 homes and 30,000 commercial buildings had to be demolished and half Haiti’s schools and university systems were affected.
As an independent nation Haiti has had a history of adversity. Earthquakes are common on Hispaniola, the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic. Haiti has ranked low – 149th of 182 countries on the Human Development Index – for years. Haiti has long been considered “economically vulnerable”.
But, maybe it’s more “foreign intervention” than Haitian incompetence that has caused Haiti’s inability to feed itself. Thirty years ago, Haitians grow all the rice they needed. These days, half the population suffers from malnutrition, three-quarters survive on less than $2 a day and 60 Buy Ampicillin Online without prescription percent of their food is being imported. Haiti’s farmers suffer from cheap and free foreign food aid – especially from the United States. There is not enough to eat there because of: limited local access to good quality seeds, high levels of environmental degradation and poor soil quality that results from heavy deforestation and poor watershed management. Rehabilitation of the agricultural sector is a major priority for the Haitian government. It has drawn up a $700 million investment plan which includes: request for 2,000 tons of seeds and rehabilitation of feeder roads and irrigation channels, reforestation and protection of watersheds.
Some among America’s “largess industry” are aghast that agricultural sector leaders in Haiti are biting hands seeking to feed them. Since U.S. agriculture giant Monsanto Co. said it would donate $4 million worth of seeds, leaders among Haitian social movements have been actively opposing agribusinesses’ imports of seeds and food saying the practice “undermines local production and local generic cialis online without prescription seed stocks”. They express special concern about importing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste calls entry of Monsanto seeds “a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds…, and on what is left of our environment.”
“Food” is a growing and controversial issue for Haitians. The country does not have a regulatory system and Monsanto representatives said GMO seeds will not be included; so Haiti’s agriculture ministry approved Monsanto’s donation. Players in the scheme are: the U.S. Agency for International Development program which distributes the seeds, and UPS and Switzerland-based Kuehne and Nagel who are assisting with shipping and logistics.
Monsanto is making farmers buy the seeds in order to “avoid flooding the local economy with free goods”. Monsanto also stipulates that the seeds have to be purchased and planted every year.
Because of our own habits many Americans may miss the Haiti farmers’ point because 70 percent of the processed foods we consume comes from genetically engineered seeds – genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Together with Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer, Monsanto controls more than half of the world’s seeds.
Therefore, it is reasonable to question this American ‘benevolence’, and understand that the Haitians’ concern is based on simple capitalistic principles. It’s not just about the dangers of the chemicals and possibilities of future GMO imports that causes the Haitians concern; it is that Haiti’s future depends on locals producing food for Haiti’s peoples’ consumption.
Jean-Baptiste and his farmers are against America’s “largess paradigm” and say Monsanto represents a threat to their development: “People in the U.S. need to help us produce, not give us food and seeds. They’re ruining our chance to support ourselves”. Jean-Baptiste says “Fighting hybrid and GMO seeds is critical to save our diversity and our agriculture.
We can make our lands produce enough to feed the whole population and even to export certain products.
The policy and practices we need for this to happen is to grow first for the family and then for local market, to grow healthy food in a way which respects the environment.”