What Can Be Learned about North Korea: Defectors, COVID, Accidents

North Korea's Chairman, Kim Jong-un, surfaced on September 25, 2020, to send a letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in's Blue House apologizing for the North Korean troops who killed an official from South Korea's Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries on Septemebr 22. North Korea later claimed the official crossed North Korea's maritime border south of the Yeonpyeong islands it controls in order to defect to the north. This explanation occurred shortly before reports began to claim Jo Song Gil, North Korea's acting ambassador to Italy, who disappeared with his wife in Rome in November, 2018, had been living in South Korea since July, 2019. A North Korean diplomat in London, Thae Jong ho, and his family had defected to South Korea in 2016. Originally, Chairman Kim expressed condolences that the incident involving the death of the South Korean official had occurred at a time when both countries were suffering from COVID-19. On October 3, after President Trump was found to have COVID-19, Chairman Kim also expressed his wish that the president would recover. Commercial satellite imaging has shown the Yongbyon area, where North Korea's Nuclear Scientific Research Center is located, suffered severe damage from typhoons in September, 2020. The breach of a dam caused the lake that provides a steady water level for cooling when reactors are operating, which they are not now, dried up. Elsewhere, flooding in the area damaged grain in the country's already suffering economy. Grain is now drying on every available surface. At the UN in September, 2020, North Korea announced it is satisfied with the strength of its nuclear deterrent and intends to concentrate on economic development. A party conference is planned for January, 2021, in order to develop a new 5-year economic plan. Sanctions imposed to block North Korea's nuclear and missile program remain in place, although they have not been very effective. As usual, reports direct from North Korea, where citizens are afraid to talk to reporters, were not forthcoming immediately after neighboring countries announded North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, was in a coma on August 25, 2020, and observers saw explosions across China's border at Changbai on August 3, 2020. Since the sister of Kim Jong-un, Kim Yo-jong, who was anticipated to assume interim North Korean national and international duties while her brother was in a coma, had not been seen in public since July 27, 2020, some suggested a power struggle for leadership might be in progress. This no longer seemed the case, when Kim Yo Jong was seen with her brother, Kim Jong Un, inspecting the flooded area in Yongbyon in September. The August explosion in North Korea occurred in the Tapsong neighborhood of Hyesan City on North Korea's eastern border with China. These explosions caused articles to reference a July, 2020, train fire in Sinuiju on North Korea's western border with China. Firefighters were unable to contain the fire, because extinguishers at the train station were empty. In the process of describing how the explosion began with a gasoline fire and spread to LPG storage cylinders, we learned that homes in Hyesan each rely on their own stored gasoline or LPG. Finally, besides reporting on North Korea from South Korean and official Chinese sources, initial reports of the explosion revealed there are Chinese activists who help those trying to escape from North Korea.

Killer Hornets v. Lovable Honeybees

     Giant Asian "murder hornets" seem poised to attack hives just as World Bee Day approaches on May 20, the birthday of Anton James, teacher in the world's first beekeeping school, founded by 18th century empress, Maria Theresa. Modern day beekeepers already struggle with the impact of collapsing honeybee colonies on the world's food supply.   

     With spring planting in progress in the Northern Hemisphere, a review of recent findings regarding bee health is important.

• Honeybee-killing pesticides containing neonicotinoids have been banned throughout the world,
• Global warming that makes hives too hot, strong winds and cold winter temperatures require protective hive designs,
• To compensate for the loss of pollen from fewer natural wildflowers, gardeners need to plant bee-friendly blooms such as zinnias, cosmos and lavender,
• Every effort should be made to leave clusters of woody debris and leaf litter undisturbed in breeding areas where bees forage and nest.

Local bees deserve nurturing care, since the introduction of foreign bees rarely compensates for hive collapse elsewhere. Not only can a different species be unable to adapt to a new area, it may introduce a foreign disease harmful to local bees.

     What can be done to protect honeybees from the exceptionally long stingers of attacking hornets? Maybe the research that shows some success in eliminating malaria-carrying mosquitoes might help.

Refugees at Work

Not all 68.5 million migrants identified by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) live in camps. In the US, for example, asylum seekers can receive work permits, if their cases are not resolved in 180 days. In July, 2018, one asylum seeker from Sudan was given a court date in 2021.

     What do refugees do while they are in limbo? Some drive cabs or work in nursing homes. But refugees who fled a civil war in Ethiopia mobilized family members to bring their home town food-associated hospitality to a restaurant they opened in Washington, DC. Creative employers, such as the Palestinian and Yemen business partners, Nas Jab and Jabber Nasser al Bihani, look for asylum seekers who have skills they can employ. That way, they found chefs for their Komeeda restaurants in New York, NY; Austin, Texas; and Washington, DC.

     The UNHCR adopted an idea from a French catering company, Les Cuistots Migrateurs, that organized a festival to attract immigrant chefs for restaurants in Paris, Lyon, Madrid, and Rome. UNHCR-sponsored festivals have led to numerous international dining experiences.

• Women cook native dishes at Mazi Mas in London.
• Home cooking from Syria is on the menu at the New Arrival Super Club in Los Angeles.
• Detroit is opening Baobab Fare, a Burundian restaurant and market.
• The Sushioki chain in Durhan, North Carolina, advertises the cooking of refugee chefs.

Who can resist trying Zimbabwean chicken stew and crisp baklava triangles with vanilla ice cream?

   

Plant Flowers, Help Bees

To bees, a sweeping lawn, parks, and golf courses look like deserts, writes Thor Hanson in Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees. Without pollen from flowers, bees cannot survive and neither can people without the pollination bees provide for many food crops. Of the 20,000 different species of wild bees, some 40% are in decline or threatened with extinction. Domestic bees suffer from lost habitat, parasites, pesticides, and diseases picked up when transferred from farm to farm.

After "colony collapse" began to cause hive losses, dangers to bees and ways to help them often have been covered in previous posts:

• Bumble Bees Have Special Needs
• Don't Take Food for Granted
• World's Food Supply Needs Bees and Bees Need Help
• Be Kind to Bees
• The Bees and the Birds

New Beginning for Zambia and Zimbabwe Falters

In the unfortunate country, where a protected lion named Cecil met his fate at the hands of a trophy hunter, voters braved intimidation to elect members of parliament and a new president on July 30, 2018. But violence began tearing up the country days after the election. Not only losing candidates and their supporters protested the less than free and fair election, but winners in the Zanu-PF party and the military also split into competing factions.

     A rise in fuel prices on January 12, 2019 again set off protests, sent soldiers into the streets to kill 8, and blocked internet access until January 16. At the same time, President Mnangagwa departed for Moscow, where he agreed to give the Russian company, Alrosa, access to Zimbabwe's diamond mines.

     After World War II, Great Britain grouped Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), and Malawi (then Nyasaland) into the Central African Federation. London's plan made perfect sense economically, but not politically. Located within Northern Rhodesia, valuable exports from the Copper Belt, shared with the Congo's Katanga Province, already traveled south by rail through Rhodesia to ports in South Africa. Rhodesia, named for Cecil Rhodes, whose guns defeated Chief Lobengula of the Ndebele people who inspired the costumes for Black Panther, had a developed agricultural economy with farms capable of feeding the region and generating tobacco and chinchilla pelt exports. Yet to be mined rich deposits of gold and platinum still exist. Migrant workers from Nyasaland were used to working Rhodesia's farms. They would consult their lists of good and bad employers before agreeing where to work.

     The two most prosperous countries in the former federation, Zambia and Zimbabwe, struggle to get back on track. Zambia, one of the African countries that received debt forgiveness in 2005-2006 began spending freely just when copper prices tanked and a new regime increased the number of districts where it could reward leaders with graft. By 2018, Zambia defaulted on a Chinese loan repayment, and immediately Beijing was ready to begin talks to takeover ZESCO, Zambia's electric company, even though President Edgar Lungu claimed the Cabinet would have to approve such a measure. China already owns Zambia's national broadcaster, ZNBC.

     Black majorities in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland broke away from white-ruled Rhodesia. Ian Smith, like South Africa's white leaders, clung to power, and, in 1965, he unilaterally declared Rhodesia's independence from Britain. Later, Zimbabwe also would leave the British Commonwealth.To wrest control from Smith, blacks, led by Robert Mugabe's Zanu party, launched a successful civil war in 1972. Mugabe would exercise dictatorial power in Zimbabwe from 1980 until a military coup led by his vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, ousted him in 2017.

     Mugabe failed to follow the advice of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president after apartheid. (See Mandela's advice in the earlier post, "How to React When You've Been Wronged."). Doing unto Zimbabwe's white farmers what they had done to blacks, Mugabe's government seized the farms of white owners in 2000. The economic prosperity envisioned by Britain's plan for the Central African Federation disappeared, when whites quickly emigrated. Following the 2017 coup, Mnangagwa left Zimbabwe for a charm offensive designed to lure back white farmers who could feed the estimated 1.1 million to 2.5 million  people starving in his country.

     To avoid a runoff, a president in Zimbabwe needed to win over 50% of the vote. After a delay, 16 different polling stations reported exactly the same number of votes, and Mr. Mnangagwa won a slim 50.8% majority. His Zanu-PF's party candidates also won 145 of the 210 seats in the National Assembly. Rather than support a Zanu-PF leader who overthrew him, Robert Mugabe, who would die at age 95 on September 5, 2019, backed Nelson Chamisa from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, who received 44.3% of the vote, while the remaining votes were split among 21 presidential candidates. Six died, when the military quelled rioting in the capital, Harare, following the announcement of National Assembly votes. MDC voters, who are concentrated in Zimbabwe's cities, called the election unfair and a fraud. When the Constitutional Court rejected MDC's election challenge, members fled the country to escape violence.

     Most Zimbabweans live in rural areas where they depend on foreign food donations. By distributing food at rallies, the Zanu-PF military and traditional chiefs intimidate villagers to vote "the right way." Before the 2018 election, Catholic Church leaders attempted to counter fear, apathy, and violence used in past elections by recognizing the need to protect voters and by stressing a vote for the common good was a human right. Sister Mercy Shumbamhini took it upon herself to go to the streets to ask citizens what the common good meant to them. They answered: having enough to eat, health services, a job, a clean environment, dignity, good roads, and security. In other words, they wanted what citizens everywhere want.

     Zimbabwe entered a new election cycle starved for food, tourist and export dollars, and business investment to cover unpaid debts to the World Bank and African Development Bank. Initially, Mugabe's incompetent party loyalists, used to collecting bribes in their civil service positions, retained their jobs. But in an effort to demonstrate his determination to stabilize Zimbabwe's faltering economy and gain much needed IMF, British, and Chinese loans, President Mnangagwa replaced cronies with technocrats, including Ncube, his new finance minister.

      Funding still remains in doubt, since post-election violence caused lenders to back away from support for the new government. Inflation has soared. Everyone wants payment in US dollars instead of unbacked, government-printed zollars subject to devaluation. Goods, such as generators and building materials, and staples like sugar, maize, and gasoline, are in short supply as customers purchase everything they can before their money is worth even less.

      A 5G pilot project in rural Zimbabwe stands as a vestige of a once hopeful new beginning. Offering new hope, however, is the Friendship Bench organization founded by Zimbabwe psychiatrist, Dr. Dixon Chibanda. According to an article in TIME magazine (February 18-25, 2019), Dr. Chibanda's organization grew out of his advice to those with mental problems: Visit grandmothers. Friendship Bench trains grandmothers, who have time and a natural tendency to listen and guide, rather than tell people what to do, to use role playing and other behavior therapies. The medical journal, JAMA, published the positive benefits of the Friendship Bench approach.

     

Introducing the Real Mexico

Mexico is more than revolutions, drug smugglers, and undocumented immigrants. The country's probable new president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, founded the political party, Movement for National Regeneration (Morena), that expects to bring him to power in tomorrow's election on July 1, 2018. Victory over the earlier ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRD) and the National Action Party (PAN) would be much different from the bloody revolutios that once brought, for example, a Victoriano Huerta to his provisional presidency.

     Northern Mexico reaps prosperity from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Unskilled, cheap labor initially attracted US. factories south of the border, but these opportunities in Mexico helped create a new, educated cadre with up-to-date experience. Sister city mayors of Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California, think in terms of a single urban region. A privately financed bridge enables travelers to walk back and forth between San Diego and the Tijuana Airport.

     As a presidential candidate, Lopez Obrador tapped into the feelings of southern Mexicans watching norther Mexicans thrive. He promised to pave roads through the south's mountainous Oaxaca state and to add oil refineries in the southern states of Tabasco and Campeche. In an effort to eliminate food imports, he proposes price guarantees for crops grown by southern farmers. Rising oil prices also expect to help Mexico recover from export revenue losses when prices collapsed in 2014. Yet, to gain electoral support, Mr. Lopez Obrador made a variety of expensive proposals, including a pension for the elderly and disabled, scholarships, and water system improvements. In one instance, Mr. Lopez Obrador is known for an extreme measure.  Residents in Tabasco, at his suggestion, did not pay their electric bills for two decades, thereby costing the company money and causing power to be disconnected periodically.

     From China, the new president is likely to accept an offer of loans to build a railway north of Guatemala to connect the states of Quintana Roo and Chiapas and to builld another road/rail connection through Tehuantepec to the Oaxaca and Veracruz states west of Mexico's southern isthmus. By working with China, Mexico would demonstrate how different international relationships are from 1823, when the Monroe Doctrine told Europe the United States considered any attempt to extend its influence in the Western Hemisphere a threat to its "peace and safety."

     Mexico's new leadership will have only one term to deal with two traditional problems. Drug gangs and the associated increase in murders and violence provide President Trump with justification to build a border wall. Yet, the US demand for cocaine and other illegal substances perpetuates the drug trade. Related turf wars among dealers cause violence and murders in the US and foreign countries, and the arrests of drug dealing criminals fill US prisons. In 2018, Mexico is on track to break the record for murders it set in 2017. With 22 homicides per 100,000 people, Mexico has one of the world's highest rates. The Tijuana arts council building on the site of a concrete-encased structure reminds those on the roof viewing California and those escaping across the border that the art gallery below them is in a tunnel that once carried drugs into the United States.

     Besides inheriting a traditional drug transit destination, Mr. Lopez Obrador also would inherit Mexico's reputation for corruption. Implementation of a National Anticorruption System (NAS) has been on hold pending the results of the presidential election. NAS requires:

• An independent national anticorruption prosecutor devoted to investigating and trying criminal cases,
• An autonomous Federal Administrative Court specializing in serious cases of bribery, vanishing public funds, benefits from campaign contributions, and other acts of corruption by administrative officials,
• Adoption of local anticorruption systems in each Mexican state, and
• A national computerized data platform capable of supporting NAS's objectives.

Facing an increased crackdown on corruption, companies doing business in Mexico are wise to finance serious compliance programs, and Mr. Lopez Obrador would be wise to make good on his presidential campaign promises to eliminate corruption and to abide by Mexico's rule of law.


     

Plan A Global Menu

McDonald's rotating menu of region-specific food items at its Chicago headquarters reminded me to incorporate foreign dishes, even if only rice and pasta, with domestic favorites, at home. As a tribute to the company's worldwide presence, McDonald's goes a bit further, according to trendwatching.com.

      At headquarters, a lighted map shows which countries' food items are on the menu that day. Trendwatching gives examples of the following food McDonald's serves and replaces with new items every two months: Chinese purple taro burgers, Australian curried noodles, Latin American desserts.

     In the Northern Hemisphere, when most students have a couple of school-free months, a library visit can find a cookbook offering foreign foods a family can cook together for any dinner or a special international feast. Outdoors and in, students can plant a variety of herbs used by cooks around the world.

Has DON'T Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Gone Too Far?

The absence of other customers in a store, where I was shopping, this week caused me to realize the growing number of options for NOT doing-it-yourself (DIY). Enter information about your style and size on an app, and you'll receive a selection of clothes. Decide what you want to eat and a meal to help you lose weight, a pizza, or the ingredients you need to prepare your own meal will turn up at your door. If you are willing to at least drive to a store, you can email your food, toys, or discount store shopping lists and the store will gather what you need/want and have your package ready for pick-up.

     It's not just a matter of creating apps-platforms to engage attention, technology has decided how we manage our lives. Now, there even are apps telling us to stop using apps. It doesn't take a smartphone to ask young people:

• Where would you like to travel?
• What would you like to eat?
• What is your favorite outfit? 
• What world problem would you like to solve?
• How much would you like to weigh?
• What sport do you like to play?
• What kind of song would you like to hear?
• What GPA would you like to have?
• What kind of movie would you like to see? 

Then, have young people decide how to "solve" any of these questions and begin their DIY solution. Decide on a time for them to show-off their solution (on a platform?). Or, invite original thinkers to communicate and publish their DIY ideas in a zine, hand drawn (some in the form of comics) and written (possibly as music). Also, look for a local library that has a section devoted to zines or a Zinefest, where other original thinkers share their zines.

Follow the Interest

Just as criminal investigators are advised to "follow the money," "follow the interest" is good advice for those hoping to engage young people in world affairs.

     A variety of interests might draw a student to Africa. Consider fashion. What inspired Ruth E. Carter, the costume designer for Black Panther,  the comic book-inspired movie kids are eager to see? Like Carter, who studied African tribal patterns, colors, and silhouettes, fashion conscious movie goers will be inspired to think about how they too could incorporate the Ndebele neck rings Okoye wears in the movie into their outfits.

     Students interested in film careers won't think twice about casting people of color from any country in the movies they plan to make. They know Lupita Nyong'O, a young Nigerian-raised star won an Academy Award for her supporting role in 12 Years a Slave.

     Fashion designers-in-the-making also have seen Nyong'O modeling African-inspired clothes in Vogue. The magazine also introduced them to Nigeria and the Lagos-based Maki Oh, the designer responsible for the dress Michelle Obama wore on a trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2013.

     Paul Simon's interest in music caused him to sing with Mama Africa Miriam Makeba in South Africa in 1987 and to record his Graceland album with South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo choral group. The British hip hop grime of Ghana's Stormzy draws the current generation of music trend setters to Africa.

     With the Olympics approaching on February 9, student downhill skiers, cross-country skiers, bobsledders, figure skaters, and speed skaters might want to learn more about what produces champions in Austria, Germany, Russia, Canada, and Sweden.

     Those interested in soccer, already follow their favorite sport in Barcelona, Madrid, Manchester, and Brazil.

     And if students like food and cooking, those interests can take them anywhere in the world.  

   

The Palm Oil Dilemma for Consumers

Before consumers buy products they are going to eat or drink, they are beginning to turn them around to check for the added sugars, genetically engineered ingredients, and high fructose corm syrup they want to avoid. The palm oil they find listed in snack foods, as well as in ice cream and other products, also is an ingredient in detergents and beauty products. Africans cook with palm oil, and a woman from Nigeria told me it could control high blood pressure. This widespread use results in a constant pressure to expand palm oil plantations and the following unintended consequences.

• Deforestation of rain forests means fewer carbon emissions can be absorbed to limit climate change.
• Deforestation destroys the tropical forest habitats of endangered species, such as orangutans, rhinos, tigers, and elephants in Sumatra, Indonesia. Plus, roads built into forests enable illegal logging and exporters to reach the rare birds that become part of the underground trade in exotic creatures. 
• Deforestation in parts of Indonesia helped cause floods, according to the World Bank.
• Fires used to clear Indonesian oil palm plantations in 2015 caused the smoke that resulted in respiratory problems in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
• Although corporations make commitments not to use palm oil from suppliers accused of illegal deforestation and from uncertified mills, they often only honor these commitments when an NGO or other groups uncovers a violation or local law enforcement acts.
• Labor is exploited; living and working conditions on plantations are bad. Migrant laborers from Bangladesh, for example, who work on the palm oil plantations in Malaysia often owe third party company recruiters debts they cannot pay. They find they are like prisoners working seven days a week after being forced to surrender their passports.
• Needed food production decreases when farmers switch to growing oil palm. Their debts rise as they purchase seed and fertilizer from the palm oil companies they supply.
• Expansion of palm oil plantations which encroach on village farm land and grazing pastures leads to conflict. 

Ravenous demand for palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, the countries that produce 80% of the world's supply, has not gone unnoticed in Brazil, where research shows almost half of the country's land area is suitable for growing oil palm. At the moment, most of Brazil's palm oil comes from the Amazon state of Para, where plantations employ about 20,000. As in Indonesia and Malaysia, an increase in palm oil production raises fears of illegal deforestation and endangering the biodiverse ecosystem. Rising land prices already have led to land ownership conflicts and even murder.

Relying on Indonesia's environmental laws, eco-warriors now identify illegal palm oil plantations on protected National Park land listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Spotters tell owners of illegal plantations to return the land to authorities or face prosecution. They then cut down each oil palm. In about five years, replanted seedlings begin to help forests recover unless sun burns out young plants or elephants trample them. Altogether, it can take 20 to 200 years for forests to reach their original growth.

Other palm oil players also are determined to combat the effect of deforestation on climate change and to protect endangered animals, birds, and plants. Besides groups, such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) that uses an oil palm symbol to identify "Certified Sustainable Palm Oil," the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network, and Friends of the Earth, banks that finance palm oil plantation owners and investors in palm oil companies have begun to show greater concern about backing firms engaged in deforestation. When the Noble Group, owner of palm oil's Noble Plantations, prepared to issue a bond to finance clearing pristine rain forest in Papua, Indonesia, the HSBC bank involved in the bond issue asked RSPO to investigate charges that development on Noble's concession was about to violate RSPO standards. As a result, Noble's spokesperson announced work on Papua's plantations was on hold while sustainable analysis was pending. Other banks also have begun to require independent verification that palm oil borrowers comply with no deforestation, no peat, and no exploitation policies.

In the United States, the Ceres sustainability organization issued an "Engage the Chain" report to alert investors to the environmental and social threats posed by companies that rely on palm oil and other commodity suppliers.

Negatives associated with palm oil create a search for alternatives. But when the Ecover cleaning company produced a new laundry liquid using oil from genetically modified algae, customers refused to buy it. In the UAE, experiments show a species of alga that grows in fresh and salt water naturally produces the fatty palmitic acid found in palm oil. The University of Bath is experimenting with a yeast that has properties similar to palm oil that can grow in municipal, supermarket, or agricultural waste rather than on land. To date, however, substitutes, including rapeseed and coconut oil, cannot compete with less expensive palm oil that sells from $500 to $1,200 a ton, unless customers begin to recognize the non-price benefits of avoiding palm oil.

When consumers turn around a product and spot palm oil as an ingredient, what might they do?

(Also see the earlier post, "Long Supply Lines Foster Abuses").

Modern Deterrents

Watching today's young Japanese students push their desks to the side of the room and hide under them, as teachers pull shades over the windows to deflect flying glass, only reminds us this was a procedure that couldn't protect populations from nuclear attacks in the 1950s. Strategies designed to protect a retaliatory second strike weapon system after an initial surprise bombing in the 1960s are out-of-date as well.

     Nuclear-equipped enemies in the 21st century include minor nations and possible terrorist groups that have nothing to lose. Major players have cyber soldiers that don't move on their stomachs. They keep coming without food or sleep. Not only nuclear fallout can contaminate an environment, but climate change and asteroid collisions with Earth also threaten the world's food supply.

     We are seeing people taking survival into their own hands. One of the characters on "Orange is the New Black" represents those families who prepare their own caves with guns and a stockpile of food and water. Refugees already begin walking or taking to the sea in leaking boats and rafts to escape war-torn areas. Farmers are developing cross-breeding for livestock and hydroponic and aquaponic growing methods to produce food in new ways.

     Computer hacking and nanotechnology offer new defensive options for compromising the performance of all sorts of enemy systems. Enemies know how each others guidance systems work. Besides shooting nuclear ICBMs out of the sky and scattering radioactive particles over the Earth, redirecting ICBMs (and any enemy weapons) to strike whoever launched them has the potential to transform MAD (mutually assured destruction) into SAD (self assured destruction) and cause the most fearsome tyrant to try to scamper for a submarine.

     Programmers already send drones to destroy targets as small as individuals. There are "Hurt Locker" experts who disable bombs on land. Could drones disable nuclear missiles in space? In films, astronauts also keep asteroids from hitting Earth, and furry little forest creatures cause oncoming cyber soldiers to crash by tangling their legs in vines. Meanwhile, high-tech Star Wars airmen penetrate fortresses through air supply vents.

      In the past, shields have blocked arrows, gun powder reduced castle walls to rubble, tanks swept around the Maginot Line, and an armada of fishing boats rescued an army, while prayer and repentance saved Nineveh from destruction. Alliances change from century to century, but the darkness of night, fog, snow, and a blinding sunrise still have the power to deter an effective military response.

     The wise expect an unending race between offense and defense and use their smarts to triumph.

Don't Take Food for Granted

We all agree we need food to live. Drought in Africa and hurricanes in Haiti endanger lives. When the sunny, warm weather of June replaced May's surplus rainfall, Wisconsin't "Fabulous Farm Babe," Pam Jahnke, had good news for her radio audience: corn planting was 91% complete; soybean planting, 73% complete; and oats planting, 96% complete. Potato, pasture, alfalfa, and hay conditions also were coming along well.

     Besides the right amount of sun and rain, food crops require pollination and freedom from damaging pests and disease. The trouble is the neonicotinoid pesticide and glyphosate herbicide that crops, such as corn, soybeans, and alfalfa, have been genetically modified to survive cause bee pollinators and the milkweed wildflowers butterfly pollinators eat to die. Research indicates almonds, strawberries, peaches, avocados, and up to 140 crops depend on pollination. The cross-purpose of treating crops to resist pests and disease by killing the bee and butterfly pollinators many crops need to survive requires a major research solution.

     Monsanto, the seed and chemical company criticized for playing a role in every study that claims genetically modified crops are safe, donated a $10 million biotech lab facility to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in January, 2017. The installation's 28,000 square foot space accommodates 20 greenhouses and controlled environments in shade houses and light rooms that enable the university to do research on a scale with major companies. Although there has been no mention of studying the impact on bees of treating Monsanto's corn and soybean seeds with neonicotinoids or of creating plants that do not attract the insects that can destroy them, these would be excellent projects for what has been named the university's new Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center.

     Meanwhile, small scale farmers are in a position to plant crop seeds, untreated by neonicotinoid insecticide; to grow bee- and butterfly-friendly flowers (colorful zinnias, cosmos, and lavender), milkweed, and herbs; to leave woody debris and leaf litter undisturbed for bee breeding areas; and to avoid applying pesticides and herbicides to blooming flowers, weeds, and possible bee nesting areas.

      Finally, research suggests gardeners who want to discourage mosquitoes from ruining their outdoor activities should plant marigolds, citronella, lavender, basil, and catnip (mint).

Kids Helping Kids

Kids can trade their active play (running, jumping, climbing) for food needed by malnourished kids  around the world. To record their movements, kids do need to wear a wrist band, available for $39.99  at unicefkidpower.org. Maybe kids can work out a plan for sharing a band with each other on different days of the week. Lots more information is available at the UNICEF site.

Under "Kid Power,"  a program sponsored by UNICEF, 200,000 kids already have provided
6.4 million packets of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) to save the lives of more than 40,000 malnourished children. Schools, scout troops, summer camps. Little League teams, and families all can join the fun and feeling of service to those who need their help.

Chinese Culture Creep

The Chinese Year of the Rooster is fast approaching on Saturday, January 28, 2017. After the antics of the Year of the Monkey, the rooster wakes us up to prepare for fresh challenges that require a quick wit, practical solutions, and persistence.

     With theme parks and film, savvy showmen Qiaoling Huang and Wang Jianlin are providing entertainment and spreading Chinese culture at the same time. Huang's Songcheng Group is making its first overseas investment in the $600 million Australia Legend Kingdom. On Australia's Gold Coast, local visitors, the 1.2 million Chinese tourists who spend $8000 per trip, and other international tourists will be able to visit a theme park that features an aboriginal Australian village and the "Mystic Orient," which showcases Chinese and Southeast Asian culture.

     Chinese investors have acquired AMC movie theaters and the Legendary Entertainment movie studio in the United States. Wang Jianlin, chairman of the (Dalian) Wanda Group/Wanda Cultural Industry Group, is in the process of developing a state-of-the-art Movie Metropolis Complex and offering up to 40% of production costs to attract filmmakers to Qingdao. China's censorship State Administration of Press Publication, Radio, Film and Television is therefore positioned to counter Western values and to introduce China's core socialist values into films and to influence the culture of global moviegoers.

     China's attempt to buy into World-Cup-class soccer (football) suffered an initial setback. According to TIME magazine (Jan. 16, 2017), Christiano Ronaldo, a Real Madrid star, turned down a $314 million offer from a Chinese Super League club. But by 2018, Alibaba had a sports channel streaming soccer. China's HNA Group was one of  the sponsors at the French Open tennis tournament May 22 - June 11, 2017.

     Chinese culture has no trouble being represented on dinner tables around the world. Begin the Year of the Rooster by dining at a local Chinese restaurant or, with an adult's help, try this recipe at home.

                                                         Pineapple Chicken Stir-Fry
Servings: 4

1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
3 boneless, skinless Chicken breast halves, cut in strips
1/2 green or red pepper, thinly sliced
1 can (15.25 oz.) pineapple chunks in their own juice
3/4 cup sauce (1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup honey, 1/2 tsp ginger)
Hot cooked rice
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1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and green pepper, cook and stir 5 to 6 minutes or until chicken is done (no longer pink).
2. Drain pineapple and reserve 2 tablespoons of juice. Combine reserved juice and sauce.
3. Add pineapple chunks and sauce mixture to skillet. Cover and cook 2 minutes or until heated through. Serve over rice.




    

Are You Someone Who Says, "I don't cook?"

When I was helping out at a church luncheon yesterday, I was surprised to hear a woman say she had relatives coming for the weekend and she didn't cook. Unlike her, I look forward to having a house full of visitors who will gather around the table for meals and talk, which, I understand, is described in Spanish by the word, "sobremesa."

     With the joy of cooking fresh in my mind, I saw an internet item about the Common Threads program in Chicago and New York City that teaches low-income kids, in grades three to eight, to shop and prepare healthy, nutritious meals, when parents are busy and money is tight. In one aspect of the program, students learn about the history of a particular country's food, nutrition, and ingredients. It's a hands-on program that teaches cooking techniques and how to follow a recipe.

     Common Threads introduces students to new foods, like granola, whole wheat bread, cage-free chicken eggs, pesto, and various cheeses. Kids learn to make and love whole wheat pancakes, as well as salads and smoothies. There also is a gardening program, where kids might grow carrots and kale.

     Instead of expecting families to make radical new food choices all at once, Common Threads invites families to make gradual changes by adding just one or two new items to each shopping list. Families who grow their own food could try planting just one or two new crops.

     For more information about Common Threads and to sign up for a monthly newsletter, go to commonthreads.org/programs.

All I Want for Christmas Is Seeds

Who knew elves occasionally take a break from making toys to store seeds in Santa's warehouse. Although many put Syria on their naughty lists, in October, 2015 the Svalbard global seed vault half way between the north pole and Norway responded to an urgent request from the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (Icarda) and sent the 128 crates of wheat, barley lentil, chickpea, fava bean, pea, and legume seeds Syria needed.

     After seeds for another 70,000 crops were added to the Global Seed Vault in 2018, Svalbard now stores 1,059,646 seeds. 

     Svalbard, known as the "Noah's Ark of seeds," is just one of the storehouses for the diversity of seeds needed to grow fruits, vegetables, and grains; the collections of plants, like apples and grapes, that are not cultivated from seeds; and even the genetic material essential to maintain the bees that pollinate many crops.

     Individual farmers also are essential in the process of ensuring a lasting food supply. On one of his "Parts Unknown" TV programs, David Bourdain found restaurant owners in the US South have been searching for the seeds that grew foods popular before the US Civil War. They located seeds that had come down through the families of former slaves, when war wiped out the seeds held by plantation owners. When kids start collecting and drying seeds for diverse crops, they also will be getting involved in the vital task of protecting the world's food supply.

 Why is the world's food supply in danger? There are many reasons:

• Wars destroy farms. Research stations in Lebanon and Morocco are working to produce seeds and saplings to resupply Syria's farmers.
• Globalization of agriculture has concentrated seed production in companies that abandon many plant varieties in order to produce uniform, high-yield varieties. (See the earlier post, "World (Food) Expo. Hybrid Crops & New Farming Practices.")
• Pests and diseases can wipe out crops. (See the earlier post, "The Bees and the Birds.")
• Global warming has reduced the area suitable for farming. (See the earlier post, "Coffee Prices Going Up; Allowances Going Down?")
• Farmers have moved to urban areas to find work.
• Without a market, farmers have stopped growing foods that have gone out of favor when diets shifted to wheat, rice, potatoes, maize, soybeans, and palm oil.
• Deforestation has removed forests where plants thrive and evolve.

Kids used to get oranges and apples in their Christmas stockings. To be sure these fruits continue to exist, the world is counting on Santa to bring these goodies along with toys and candy.

An Army Moves on Its Stomach

Napoleon was right. Whether its the army of ISIS, the French Foreign Legion, or the US Marine Corps, food fuels military operations. I remember reading about an incident in the US Civil War, when General Lee's army arrived at a supply depot, found it completely empty, and knew the South's cause was doomed. Hunger (and thirst) saps energy and morale.

     Countries, causes, and individuals that underestimate agriculture's value are in trouble. Mohsin Hamid describes the misdirected rural to urban rush in his book, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. The billion dollars worth of items Alibaba sold on Singles Day are no more able to feed a single person than King Midas' gold. It is a great misfortune that Pakistan, with 180 million people, has only 20% of its GDP devoted to agriculture and that in Nigeria, with 170 million people, agriculture produces only 23% of its $510 billion GDP.

     Considering food's importance for everyone, not just armies, agriculture merits the attention of every country's best and brightest. Indeed, modern agriculture is every bit as dependent on skilled techies as fields that now employ digital whiz kids. To help kids discover the challenge of moving food around the world, draw or find a picture of a farmer on the right side of a paper or board and a grocery store on the left side. Start writing down all that needs to happen in between.

     What does it take in Uganda, Africa, to go from the gift of a $500 heifer from Heifer International (heifer.org) that produces three gallons of milk a day to the sale, in a local market, of some of the milk the family does not use? Consider all the steps between the woman growing cocoa for the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa, and the retailers selling chocolate bars in Europe. Here are just some possibilities:

• Ask local farmers or Peace Corps volunteers to provide training for raising animals
• Grow feed crops
• Buy disease-resistant seed
• Cool milk
• Buy a truck
• Produce fertilizer from compost to increase crop yields
• Contract shipping space on a cargo ship
• Form a 4H chapter to interest the younger generation in farming
• Pass land use laws to protect small farms from encroachment by corporate plantations
• Lease an acre of land
• Provide police and security measures to protect farmers from gang violence and terrorists
• Build a warehouse to store cocoa beans rather than selling them all at once for a lower price than the revenue that could be earned by selling them over a period of a year
• Install irrigation and water pumps

Nowadays, the "Moo monitors" that dairy farmers attach to their cows' collars produce data about the health of their herds. Machines can pick almost every crop. GPS satellite technology enables farmers to monitor weather, judge the health of their crops, pin point the application of pesticide sprays and fertilizers, spot weeds, and measure yields as crops are being cut. Satellites even monitor the temperature and humidity of produce carried by sea in shipping containers in order to predict its condition for sale on arrival. Thanks to government funding and developers in companies like Planet Labs in San Francisco, which has developed small earth observation satellites that can fit in a shoebox, subsistence farmers will be able to utilize this up-to-date technology.

     Already, in countries with impassible roads that subject supplies and produce shipments to long delays, the widespread use of mobile phones enables farmers and fishermen to arrange trades, sales, and payment transfers.

     Since we all move on our stomachs, we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." The world is depending on kids to get involved in producing and distributing the food we all need to live.

                          Also, check out a few of the earlier posts on food and farming:

• Can Small Farms End Poverty?
• Nigeria's New Beginning
• World (Food) Expo, Hybrid Crops & New Farming Practices
• Back to the Land
• Dairy Cows on the Moove
• The Bees and the Birds
• Chocolate's Sweet Deals
• Coffee Prices Going Up, Allowances Going Down?

     

World (Food) Expo, Hybrid Crops & New Farming Practices

 Participants from 145 countries will interpret the theme, "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life," at the 2015 World Expo (expo2015.org), which is about to open May 1 and run through October 31 in Milan, Italy. At the fair, visitors will see technological advances aimed at making the food chain healthy, safe, and sufficient.

   When we were much younger, my sister and I used to collect and dry seeds from our cosmos and zinnia flowers at the end of the growing season. The next spring we planted them, just as farmers do with non-hybrid seeds for their crops. Farming with hybrid seeds is different. Developed to permit machines to harvest and husk corn, for example, hybrid seeds produce plants that are all the same height and yellow ears that are the same size with the same number of kernels per row.

    There are two reasons why hybrid seeds cannot be saved and planted again the next growing season. First, they produce variable plants with characteristics of only one parent or something entirely different from the crop from hybrid seeds. Second, since the major seed producing corporations that control over half of the global market, such as Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta, make a major investment of time and money to produce hybrid seeds, they patent and license their seeds, sue unauthorized users for patent infringement, and, of course, charge farmers who have to purchase new seeds every year.

     The increased worldwide corporate control of soybean, corn, cotton, and other hybrid seeds has led to several developments. An Open Source Seed Initiative has been formed to make sure some unpatented seeds are available to home, organic, and other farmers who are unconcerned about, for example, a variable corn crop that has pink and yellow tassels, plants that grow to different heights, and ears that have white, red, or yellow kernels. At the same time, agonomy scientists and farmers interested in seed breeding are working to develop new varieties of unpatented, non-hybrid seeds that are well adapted to different growing conditions. To discover the best seeds to save for planting from year to year, individual farmers, on a smaller scale, might try to imitate what the University of Wisconsin's agricultural department did under the direction of Professor Bill Tracy. Students planted 200 rows of seeds from 200 different varieties of corn. After they tried bites of the crop from each row, they stored seeds from plants in the row they liked best, sent the seeds to another country with similar growing conditions, and repeated the sampling process until they found the variety that grew reasonably well, tasted the best, and had good disease resistance.

     Local soil, water, and climate conditions have a major impact on farming. When English settlers came to North America, the Indians introduced them to new crops like corn, beans, and squash and new methods of fertilizing the soil by planting seeds with fish. As water shortages escalate, in part because of climate change, there may be a need to rethink age-old farming practices. In India, where the World Resources Institute figures demand for water will outstrip supply by 50% as early as 2030, the Water Footprint Network expressed concern that the water India used to grow the cotton it exported in 2013 would have supplied 1.24 billion people (85% of India's population) with 100 liters of water every day for a year. Traditionally, India grows cotton and cereals in the drier northwestern parts of the country, where the government subsidizes the cost of electric pumps farmers use to deplete groundwater reserves. Consequently, there is no incentive for farmers to shift plantings to wetter parts of India where less evaporation would occur, to use water efficiently with irrigation, or to grow organic cotton and reduce the contamination of water by pesticides.

     Farming is changing in other places and ways. A former factory site has become a 1.5-acre micro-farm that provides job training and produces lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers for local restaurants and farmers markets. The storm-water management system the farm installed both reduced flooding and provided irrigation. Contaminated soil was covered with a layer of gravel and two feet of clean soil. By adding a greenhouse, the micro-farm could produce vegetables all year.

     To ensure a market for organic farmers, there are places where local folk sort of become shareholders who purchase a share of a farm's products when farmers need money before the planting season each spring. These shareholders receive a box of food from the farm during a 20-week growing season. In the U.S. the first box might arrive with asparagus, broccoli, and radishes in the spring and early summer; tomatoes, beans, bell peppers, cucumbers, and watermelons in summer; and pumpkins, squash, and sweet potatoes in the fall. Some farms also offer add-ons, such as eggs, honey, bread, cheese, wool, and meat, and there are farm events like potluck dinners and opportunities to work on a farm.

     To grow, I once learned that vegetables need a soil temperature of 45F degrees and overnight the temperature should not fall below 45F degrees either. In the U.S. Midwest, it is time to begin planting the crops.

(For more about farming, see the earlier blog post, "Back to the Land.")

Food Photo: Memorable or Meager?

A local newspaper just ran a contest inviting readers to send in pictures of food in order to win tickets to shows and restaurants. An organization in Colombia had a related, but different, idea. To inspire people to give to its "Meal For Share" campaign, the group posted photos of frugal, often disgusting, meals that poor people eat to survive.

     Incidentally, hunger is not limited to any one place in the world. In the past month, 9% of the 11,979 U.S. adults who responded to an online survey (which missed those too poor to have online access at home) by Zogby Analytics (zogbyanalytics.com) said they had gone without food for 24 hours because of lack of money.

     Once you see someone digging through a dumpster or dump to make a meal out of scraps, carefully styled and lighted food photos become a reminder to make a contribution to organizations that feed the world's hungry. One food blogger reports that she uses salad forks and dainty appetizer spoons in her pictures, because she doesn't want regular-sized flatware to overpower the colorful servings shown on her tasteful aqua plates. Poor people are just happy to grow what they need or earn enough money to feed their families.

Back to the Land

The world needs food. Too many are starving, and too many are unemployed. As summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the perfect time for kids to discover the art of farming, not only to feed their families, but also to earn money. Whether at a roadside stand, farmers' market, or open bazaar, there is income to be made by selling vegetables, herbs, fruit, plants, flowers, and seeds. A youth group, for example, grows tomatoes and peppers in a community garden, cooks them, and packages salsa for sale. A bride who wanted her reception to be filled with sunflowers paid neighborhood youngsters to grow them.

     Farming can be simple or sophisticated. There are ready-made kits that include the proper seeds and soils children need for indoor gardens of basil, parsley, thyme, and other herbs that can be used in cooking. These kits come with directions for the amount of light and moisture plants need. Usually plants need 12 to 16 hours of light a day near a window, but strong, prolonged sunlight is harmful. It is a good idea to turn plants around once a week, since they will grow lopsided toward the light otherwise. The best water for plants is tap water that has been left out overnight to reach room temperature and to let some of its chemical content evaporate. Adding eggshells to the water left out overnight enriches the solution.

     It also is fun for children to try to grow a plant from plump apple, lemon, orange, or grapefruit seeds that have been washed and dried. Begin by covering the drainage hole in a 4-inch flowerpot with a thin layer of clean small stones and adding about 2 cups of potting soil up to an inch from the top of the pot. (It is possible to remove insects and disease from any outdoor soil by spreading it in a pan, heating it in an oven at 180 degrees for a half hour, and letting it cool.) Lay several seeds of the same fruit on the soil, cover with 1/4-inch of soil, carefully water with room temperature tap water and repeat when needed to keep soil moist, place in a sunny spot, and see if sprouts develop in 3 weeks or longer.

      At the end of the earlier post, "A Healthy Environment," there is a detailed description for growing an outdoor garden. According to the National Gardening Association, about 40 million households in the U.S. are growing herbs, vegetables, or fruits, because they want to save money and to raise healthy, organic produce. In an item in the AARP magazine (August/September, 2014), frugal living expert Erin Huffstetler claimed many fruits and nuts are very easy to grow and that there are varieties that suit almost any climate. In particular, she mentiond raspberry, blueberry, and strawberry plants, red seedless grapes, cherry bushes, and almond trees.

     In a backyard or community garden, planting a mixture of crops and flowers discourages the pests that like to feast on one particular plant, and using compost cuts down on the need for and cost of using synthetic fertilizer. Using compost, other natural fertilizers and pesticides, mulch, hand-weeding, crop rotation, and earthworms, it is possible to feed the soil, reduce pest infestations, and manage weeds without pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, or other chemicals. (At the end of the earlier blog post, "A Healthy Environment," How Does Your Garden Grow? describes the composting process.) African subsistence farmers even have increased yields by composting and reducing the need for pesticides by growing diverse crops.

      Iroquois Valley Farms in Illinois has come up with a way to help farmers, at any age, become organic farmers. Before leasing a conventional farm of at least 80 acres to a tenant, it takes three years for a diverse rotation of crops and earthworms to rebuild soil fertility naturally. After seven years, Iroquois Valley Farms offers the new organic farmer a purchase option.

     School projects often lend themselves to farming experiments. Water one part of a garden at night and one during the day to see which plants thrive best. Take a photo of each plot. Supposedly, since less water evaporates at night, that section should look better. Or weed one section and not another. Plants that share water and soil nutrients with weeds should be smaller. Over several years a student could document the effect of rotating crops by planting the same crop over and over every year in one section of a garden and, in other years, alternating that crop with different ones, even flowers, in a nearby section of the same garden. If there are trees on the southern and western sides of a building, see how much cooler the temperature is there compared to the temperature on the other sides of the building.

     Experiments with cross-breeding are not new to farmers who have wanted to deter pests, increase yields, and produce crops that tolerate drought, floods, and soil contamination by salt water.The fast growing, high yield rice strain credited with preventing famine in India was the result of cross-breeding a dwarf strain of rice from Taiwan and a taller variety from Indonesia. What is new is the ability to identify the DNA marker or markers in seedlings with desirable genes and to use marker-assisted breeding to produce high yield and other specialized crops. It should be noted, however, that U.S. Department of Agriculture standards do not permit organic farms to use genetically modified hybrid seeds.

     Companies, such as Monsanto and DuPont, have profitable seed patents on genetically modified seeds that grow corn, soybeans, and cotton. Before the U.S. pressured Sudan to expel Osama bin Laden in order to purge the country of involvement in al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks, he used to invite visitors to the laboratory where he was developing high quality seeds appropriate for Africa. According to Lawrence Wright's book, The Looming Tower, bin Laden claimed the Dutch had a monopoly on the best banana pods, and he thought Muslims should devote similar diligence to the process of genetically engineering plants.

     Whether children live in the city or the suburbs, they can develop an appreciation for how farmers around the world produce the food they eat. An earlier post, "The Bees and the Birds," tells how the pollination process for producing fruits and nuts relies on bees. Why do radio stations like WGN have farm reports telling how much soybeans are selling for? Farmers who know corn is going for $6 a bushel figure the cost of growing a bushel of corn to see if they can make a profit. (An earlier post, "Dairy Cows on the Moove," discusses the costs and income of cows.) Children cannot see the sensors embedded in some fields that monitor when water is needed or the drip irrigation methods other fields use to prevent water loss to wind, runoff, and evaporation. But on a drive in rural areas, they may see the long arms of machines irrigating a dry field. At petting zoos, kids can get up close to goats, and at state and county fairs, they can see prize winning animals and produce. In fall, they might visit a farm for a hay ride or walk through a corn maze.

     Away from video games and trash littered highways, in the country, children and adults come face to face with their interrelationship with the natural environment.