China, the World's Factory

[MountainDon]

An astounding fact about China, and there are very many.

The Chinese province of Xinjiang produces 31% of the world's Ketchup.    Exports mostly to the USA and Europe.  Heinz USA is still the world's largest single producer.

[Sassy]

I hope Heinz ketchup isn't made there  

Here's a link to an article that is sure to make everyone feel much safer...  

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NATION/110030088/1001

Merger opens US Defense to China

A Chinese company with ties to Beijing's military and past links to Saddam Hussein's army in Iraq and the Taliban will gain access to U.S. defense-network technology under a proposed merger, Pentagon officials say.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

My mom sent me an email the other day labelled "Another Chinese Toy  Recall".  I opened it up to see a photo of a kid sliding down a metal slide, but at the bottom of the slide someone had combined the picture with a picture of a kitchen grater... sick, I know, but hilarious at the same time.

[glenn kangiser]

That's grate, Homegrown. :-?  

[John Raabe]

I saw an interesting article on Heinz and their ketchup...

Due to the large worldwide increase in corn prices, Heinz is genetically engineering a new breed of the Roma tomatoes they use in ketchup. The goal is to increase the sugar content and therefore cut down on the additional corn syrup.  

This underlines the concern big food companies have about long term food prices. Corn prices used to go up and down and companies like Heinz could smooth this out in the futures market. Apparently that no longer works too well.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21825517/

thought this was relevant...I remember a friend of mine in college decided, along with her then-fiance', to boycott things made in China because of human rights issues.  Here it was late fall and she was going everywhere barefoot because she couldn't find shoes that weren't made in China.  She finally made some really crude moccasins for the winter simply because she couldn't buy shoes made in the US...she was a lot more dedicated than the mom in this story...

It kills me to go in places like wal-mart and see the price of fabrics at $1 a yard, and not only are they cheap-looking, most of them are made in China, and the end of the bolt says, "Unknown fiber content".  In other words, it may or may not contain cotton... who knows?  And worse yet, who knows what the dyes are made of???  And because Wal-mart has shut out most smaller fabric stores, in a lot of places it is the only option to buy fabric... unless of course, you buy it on line or from catalogues...which has become my MO. 

We are really careful not to buy food products from China... even if they supposedly comply with USDA regulations, who is to say that they really do?  I found some frozen berries at the grocery store here a while back that were called something like TJs Farm and they had this story on the back talking about "Grandpa TJ" making strawberry shortcake for all the kids, and blah blah blah (sounded like this supposedly happened in the 1930s in the rural US) and then in small letters at the bottom of the bag "Product of China".  In fact, in going through the frozen veggies, very few were not from China, especially the cheaper brands.  Green Giant said it was a product of Mexico.  If I can't find out where the fruits and vegetables were grown, we skip them altogether, and try as much as we can to buy locally.  On products we can't buy locally, we try to at least get domestically grown produce (ie. California raisins, dates, and apricots as opposed to those grown in Turkey or the Middle East.)  Also, we generally buy California avocados (wish like anything we could grow them in Wisconsin!!!) instead of ones imported from Mexico.  Not too sure it really makes any difference... it is about the same distance either way, and most of those guys working in California are probably illegals from Mexico anyway. 

[glenn kangiser]

most of those guys working in California are probably illegals from Mexico anyway.

Nearly all that are doing the actual work are.  Some smaller farmers will do their own tractor driving and stuff like that but the hard labor is still done by Mexicans.

The USDA is another bad joke.  Just another excuse to get a bunch of people sucking blood from the working class.  They do enough to   give the facade of being needed.  It is impossible for us to pay for protection by the government.  It is more likely that they will do things that are detrimental to us like limiting our ability to buy from small farmers to get quality products in favor of the big corporate farms who lobby (pay off) politicians to put the mom and pop farms out of business.  They will see to it that we get our e-coli in large mass poisonings rather than in small isolated cases.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Ain't that the truth, Glenn... and they'll try to get things like NAIS passed "for our protection".  Every day around where we live now, I see another small farm bulldozed and turned into a housing development because it is so hard to make it as a small farmer.  It grosses me out to think of eating food grown in a foreign country and shipped from goodness-only-knows-where to make it to my grocery store shelf after HOW long???  It wouldn't be weird to eat foreign grown food IF I WERE IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY!!!  In India, the mangoes were out of this world... ever try 'em here?  Not so fresh. 

Where we used to live, the USDA controlled the farmer's market.  I wanted to join to sell vegetables, but they made it cost prohibitive, and they also limited what you could and couldn't sell. You couldn't sell any mark-up items like canned jellies or apple butter unless you had a liscense and a commercial kitchen.  That pretty much ruled common folk out.  You couldn't sell any baked goods made from things in your garden or farm.  No meats without the USDA seal.  And don't you dare call it organic if you weren't certified, even if you were growing organic before USDA ever heard about it, and you are above reproach as far as their organic standards are concerned.  If you were interested in selling some processed foods, they had a class you had to take, and then you had to have an inspection to show that your kitchen was a "commercial" kitchen.  Ridiculous.  We could barely feed ourselve, let alone cough up the money for all that nonsense.

[glenn kangiser]

I don't know who controls ours here, but I know for a bit , they were going to add fees or requirements that would make it prohibitive for even larger gardeners to show up.  They got past that one, but who knows what's in the future.

It burns me up that they prohibit us from buying from small dairy people such as our Sherri in Wyoming by turning them into criminals if they sell to us.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

The way dairy is regulated is absolutely absurd.  My mom used to take some our tomatoes and pecans to trade for goat milk and goat cheese from a lady she knew.  It was against the law for her to sell it, so she actually managed to get by with trading things for it.  The cheese was especially good (I liked the garlic and onion one she made.)  When I was a kid, one of my friend's dads drove a truck to collect milk from all the small local dairies, but eventually all the small dairies were forced out... and so was my friend's dad. When you think about it, one cow produces more milk than most families can use at one time... they either have to give it away, freeze it or products made from it, OR they have to just let it go to waste!  It's so stupid!  I was an ag major for three and a half years in college, before I decided that I no longer wanted to be a vet, but my biggest bone to pick with the ag department at our school was that they always pushed more production of product as being the solution to world hunger.  It is not a lack of food that keeps a lot of the world hungry... it is all the red tape that prevents food from getting to the people who need it the most.  And all the government being invested in industrial agriculture, which destroys the land...not to mention runs small farmers out of business by driving down prices.  Even on a small farm when I was a kid we produced so much more than we could possibly eat, but if we sold beef, we had to sell it on the hoof... once it was processed, it was stamped "not for resale" because, heaven forbid, it was grass fed and not monitored in some big feedlot in the panhandle!  We sold all we could, canned all we could, froze all we could and dried all we could... and yet there were things leftover for the birds and the chickens and any other wild critter that happened upon it.  Our whole extended family ate either fish or hamburger every Friday night when I was growing up, and every single Sunday, we had pot roast or brisket, and that was for all of us... about 30-40 most weekends... the problem was not production... it was the red tape that kept us from selling what we did produce.  It's impossible to sell all the produce you grow fresh, yet the government intervenes and tells you that you can't sell it preserved unless you spend $100K for a commercial kitchen and certification... we traded hay for goat milk from the neighbors and traded peaches and grapes for labor (I remember working out a deal with my best friend's brother to help haul hay in exchange for peaches for his mom to can, and then his mom paid him back for the peaches...)

[glenn kangiser]

Since government has legislated itself out of any interest in small farm advancement or even assistance due to whoring itself off to corporate America, I think it is imperative that each of us work to improve our own local barter network.  Forget money - its growing more worthless daily.  These are the people you will need to count on in the event of a system meltdown of one sort or another. 

Having a network in place will smooth the bumps.

It is Constitutionally legal and that renders null and void all ex-post-facto laws our treasonous government agencies have made limiting us.

[MountainDon]

My brother-in-law owns part of a cow at a raw milk Dairy in/near Boulder, CO. He has it separated and gets his milk in a low fat version. The Dairy keeps most of the butter fat.

[glenn kangiser]

Which part - front or back? 

I can see the advantage to getting milk and fertilizer, but nobody wants to get an ugly one either.  This could be an issue.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Is it legal to sell raw milk in CO?

[peternap]

Is it legal to sell raw milk in CO?


Well....I for one would never break a stupid law!

[MountainDon]

Is it legal to sell raw milk in CO?

That's why they own a part of that cow. It's theirs, they're not buying something from anyone and nobody's selling any raw milk. I don't know any of the details how it works, how much it costs, but it's a way around the problem.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Pretty creative... but they'd have to divide the cow into fourths if they really want to get technical...   or I guess you could own 1/2 or 3/4? 

See, it isn't really necessary to break the law, Peter, but merely find a subversive way around it. 

[MountainDon]

Fine word that... subversive.

The only cows I've ever owned were sides. Cut, packaged and frozen.