Category: Articles

Humanism has become a necessity for Africa and for Africans particularly for young people across the region who are struggling to make sense of life and existence.  Youths are critical to any human endeavor because they are the agents of hope, continuity, change and promise. Without young people, any society or initiative will go into extinction. Without young people, there is no future for humanity. So, it is with Africa and the humanist movement in the region.

Africans are not exposed to humanist ideals and values very early in life. This is why the meeting of young humanists in Nairobi, from July 22 to July 24, is a welcome development. Young Africans who are atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers will convene at the Kenyan capital to articulate strategies to end witch-hunts in Africa and to raise the profile of humanism among youths in the region. Surely, the sponsors and organizers of the event in Kenya should be commended for their foresight and thoughtfulness because such an event will go a long way to guarantee a future for humanism for the coming generation of Africans.

Religious indoctrination often characterizes child upbringing and family life in Africa. Thus African youths get to know about humanism much later in life or they know it by default particularly with the availability of the Internet in today’s world. Also there is a lot of pressure on young Africans to be religious even when religious doctrines mean very little to them. African children are compelled to pray by their parents and family members who impress on them very early that observing such a ritual is a mark of discipline. As they grow up, praying becomes a habit they find difficult to abandon even when it means very little to them. Praying becomes a tradition which they are to pass on to the coming generations.

Apart from the heavy religious indoctrination at home, there are a lot of brainwashing schemes outside the homes. Children from Muslim homes are sent to Quranic indoctrination centers where they are taught to memorize verses of the Quran while those from Christian homes go to catechism or Sunday school classes where they are further indoctrinated with the religious teachings. African youths are socialized in ways that do not allow them to think outside religious boxes. They grow up caged and mentally trapped in the cave of dogma, ignorance and superstition.

Apparently, Africans grow up without knowing that there is an alternative to religion and without understanding that belief in God is a choice and an option. It is equally unfortunate that formal education has not been helpful in opening the minds of young Africans because schools, colleges, and universities are owned, managed and controlled by religious or quasi-religious individuals and groups.  Faith education is more or less the rule and secular instruction is the exception. Eventually, African youths receive faith-based schooling, which does not give them much freedom to think freely and question ideas particularly religious dogmas and superstitious beliefs. As educated people, many Africans find it difficult to question religious ideas because of fear of losing their jobs, business or political opportunities.

Religion is literally holding the African youth development hostage. To break this cycle of blind faith, dogma, and mental slavery. African youths need to be exposed to the ideals of humanism and free thought. Young people across the region need to understand that critical thinking is intellectually nourishing, existentially empowering and fulfilling.  We cannot achieve this goal by just saying it but also by doing it, by helping African youths who are humanists or who appreciate humanism to fulfill this objective. African youths need to be supported as they embarked on this process of intellectual awakening and enlightenment.  For instance, we need to support them as they try to organize events and articulate strategies to effectively promote humanism in the region.

African youths depend mainly on their family members who are religious and who would want them to be and to remain religious for financial support . Due to unemployment or underemployment, a self-supporting African youth humanist scheme is not viable at all. It does not make organizational sense.  So all who support the Afrivcan youth humanist scheme should explore ways of sponsoring this youth project and put the African youth resource into use.

We need to support the African youth humanist project because there is a fierce competition for the youth capital in the region. Religious extremists and superstitious movements are recruiting and enlisting youths and using them to further their dark and destructive schemes.  The sad thing is that young people are both the victims and the victimizers.  Young people populate the Islamic militants groups that are killing, maiming and destroying lives and property in different parts of the country. Youths are the suicide bombers and also most of those who are killed or maimed on the process.  Youths are the witch hunters in the communities. They are also those who are arrested and jailed for witchcraft related abuses. We need to ensure that the African youth capital is invested to further the cause of reason, science, and critical thinking. African youth resource has to be deployed to further life and happiness in the here and now, not in death and fathom happiness in the hereafter.The imperative of humanism is urgently needed to beat back the tide of witch hunting and religious fundamentalism in the region.

In Nigeria, politics is tied to religion. The State, Church and Mosque operate like conjoined twins. Efforts have been made to separate them with marginal success. Section 10 of the Nigerian constitution which says that ‘No part of the Federation or State should adopt any religion as state religion’ is a paper tiger because it seems to be of no import and has no practical effect or impact on how Nigerian politicians conduct state affairs at least by the incumbent presidents.

Any time that section 10 is invoked it is usually by the aggrieved ‘religious party or politician’, by the ‘marginalized’, ‘oppressed’ or ‘persecuted’ faith organizations that are negotiating for attention and space.

But as soon as some politicians from the aggrieved religion get into power, it becomes business as usual. They forget the provision in section 10 and turn the state house into a quasi church or mosque. They make religious affairs state functions and their religious allies turn a blind eye on such violations. In Nigeria, presidents from the two main religions seem to be taking turns in giving a religious character to statehouse activities. We saw this in the Aso Rock Chapel phenomenon during the reign of Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan and now it seems to be the turn of President Buhari to give Islamic flavor to state functions and activities in spite of the constitution and the promised change in the way Nigeria is governed.

Anybody who is following activities at the state house, particularly since the Ramadan started would testify that the Nigerian president has really been busy. The evidence of this are photos of delegations that came to break the Ramadan Fast with him at the state house flooding social media. First was the photo where he broke fast with APC politicians and then with members of the diplomatic community. President Buhari has equally broken fast with a delegation from the National Council of Traditional Rulers. I guess there are others I have not mentioned who are on their way to breaking fast with the president as the Ramadan draws to a close.

Nobody is against the president breaking his fast during this month of Ramadan. He has the right to do so as a Muslim. However, breaking Ramadan fast should be the president’s private; not official business. Buhari should not tie his religious practice to his state duty. Breaking Ramadan fast is not a state function and should not be organized at state expense. It is an abuse of office and a mismanagement of state funds. Thus it makes economic sense that Buhari stops hosting this breakfast particularly this is a president who pledged to be frugal in managing state resources. This is a government that claims to be finding difficulty paying workers’ salaries. This is a government whose economic policies have condemned millions of Nigerians to a life a poverty, beggary and starvation. This is not a good example for the state governors. In fact how will Buhari feel if state governors use their resources to sponsor Iftar for journalists, teachers, party stalwarts, the business community etc?

Indeed using state money to fund religious activities is inconsistent with the frugal management of state resources that Buhari pledged during his campaign. For instance Buhari opposed state sponsorship of religious pilgrimages on the ground that the state could not afford to defray the costs and now he is using state money to fund Iftar. Is that not a contradiction? Where lies the difference? Whether one is using state money to fund Hajj or to host Iftar, the bottom line is that state resources are still expended on religious matters.

How does hosting Iftar make sense in terms of his fight against corruption? The Buhari government is investigating the use of state money by the last administration to fund political campaign activities and President Buhari is using state funds to finance religious activity in this case, IFTAR. He has apparently forgotten that these religious schemes are clearly ways of spending state money in a very untransparent and unaccountable form because very often when money is spent on supposedly religious activities people hardly raise any questions.

This is manly because many people do not want to be branded as anti Islam or anti Christianity as if being pro-islam or pro-christianity says anything about transparent, accountable and judicious use of state resources. Thus, Buhari may have blocked some avenue of syphoning state funds under the pretense of religion by discontinuing the state sponsorship of pilgrimages. However, he has ended up opening another channel of religious (Islamic) business: Breaking fast with Mr President. Buhari should steer the state machinery away from religion and discontinue official schemes that privilege any religion. That makes both economic and political sense. Yes, that is the change Nigeria needs at the moment.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center has revealed that Ethiopia is the world’s most religious nation. According to this survey, nine-eight percent of Ethiopians thinks that religion is the most important part of their life. This development should not surprise anyone because Christianity and Islam are the dominant faiths in Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity accounts for most of the Christian population.

Though belief in God is pervasive, atheists, agnostics or freethinkers exist in Ethiopia and they are beginning to organize under different umbrella groups. Some of the atheist groups are visible online and they have Facebook pages, with hundreds and thousands of members, where they express themselves and socialize with people of like minds.

Recently I corresponded with two Ethiopian atheists, Yohannes and Girum, and they gave insights into the challenges and prospects of atheism in their country. Yohannes is an active member of one of the online groups. He told me that his becoming an atheist was a gradual process:

“It was rather an evolution over a couple of years. I didn’t identify as an atheist at first, nor did I know what I was becoming, lacking belief in gods, was called atheism. The main drive for my unbelief was the bible itself. I found it to be misogynist, racist, homophobic and backward”.

Girum, another atheist activist, embraced atheism after reading some books on philosophy: “Yes I’m an atheist, l became an agnostic in my teens mostly through common sense and by reading Amharic translations of different philosophical books and then after some time l began identifying myself as an atheist. I never told my parents about my disbelief in God but they knew that I had never been to Church for years and suspected that I was becoming skeptical. Yes I tell my friends about my atheism and they have no problem with it”.

Girum asserts that the deep religiosity in Ethiopia poses a big challenge to the cause of reason and free thought: “Yes, Ethiopia is a very religious nation with a large illiterate population. There is almost no space for reason and science. There is a tiny minority of atheists in the country”.

One major reason for the minority status of atheism in Ethiopia and in other African countries is because many atheists are in the closet and fear persecution by the theistic public if they go open and public with their atheism.

So, the challenge is not necessarily embracing atheism but coming out to friends and family members. Yohannes told me that he was a bit fortunate. “I guess I have been lucky with my beloved ones, they didn’t find it so much distressing. But I’ve lost some friends when I started to express my disbelief in their god or gods”. He notes that reactions to atheism vary according to family: “It depends on the particular family set up and even religious background I would say. For me, it was easy as my beloved ones are educated and accommodating. I have noticed Christian and Muslim parents and friends would react unfavorably as opposed to traditional religious people”.

Due to the socialist legacy in Ethiopia, the people are a bit more tolerant of atheism and do not find the outlook so offensive. Younger generations of Ethiopians are abandoning religion and if the trend continues, there would be a major shift in the country’s religious and theistic demography in the years ahead.

Yohannes stated that atheism could benefit Ethiopia in so many ways particularly in tackling superstition and religious extremism: “Atheism, a lack of belief in gods, could simply help the young people not to waste their energy on superstition and do something meaningful for a country riddled with poverty. Hatred amongst religious factions would diminish as many people would become irreligious”.

On that positive note, one may say that, though the present day Ethiopia may be designated as the world’s most religious nation, there are clear signs that with the flow of information, some renaissance is imminent in the country and the atheistic outlook has a great and promising future in the Horn of Africa.

Fifty people were gunned down in a mass terrorist shooting in Orlando; USA. They were deliberately targeted by a Muslim man, Omar Mateen,29, because they were gay. Outrage and shock followed the shooting which has been described as one of the worst mass shootings in US history. I will leave the issue of the gun ownership laws in the USA to one side, which are definitely a big part of the problem.

However, since the news broke I have noticed yet again those on the Regressive Left; Muslims and Religious Right, stating that ‘we should not ‘exploit’ the crime and talk about Islamic homophobia. As Hassan Raza put it:

If one thing that stays consistent every time there is a terrorist attack somewhere in the Western world where Muslims turn out to be the perpetrators is the response of majority of Muslims around the globe. Be it Paris, Brussels or the recent tragedy that hit Florida today, one of the responses that we often get to see is “Terrorism has no religion.” I personally believe nothing could be farther from truth. In my opinion, Terrorism definitely has a religion, whether it is the religion of Babbar Khalsa, Bajrang Dal, the Lord’s Resistance Army or the ISIS. As long as you’re carrying out attacks on innocent civilians in the name of your religion or after getting motivated by your religious sacred text, your terrorism, and extremism has a religion.

And yet homophobia and hatred is openly preached in US mosques. The Husseini Islamic Center in Florida, USA, invited Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar to speak at their Mosque. Dr. Sekaleshfar says the killing of homosexuals is the compassionate thing to do. In a 2013 speech Sheikh Sekaleshfar said this regarding gays:

Death is the sentence. We know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about this, death is the sentence…We have to have that compassion for people, with homosexuals, it’s the same, out of compassion, let’s get rid of them now.”

When Sheikh Sekaleshfar calls for the death of all homosexuals based on the tenets of Islam it cannot be ignored, he is an expert on Shariah Islamiyya or Islamic Law.

A recent survey of British (yes British) Muslims found that 50% (way more than the national average) thought that homosexuality should be illegal. Sadly, this does not surprise me at all as that has been my own personal experience when talking to ‘ordinary’ Muslims.

I taught English to a group of Algerian Muslim men  a couple of months ago. Without any provocation from my side, they asked me what I thought about gay people. I had been warned by my boss (eager not to lose paying students) not to be pro-gay or say anything that might offend them (what like expressing views of a decent, tolerant human being?). He told me that a male teacher had said something to the class that showed he supported LGBT rights. They were deeply offended and told my boss they didn’t want him to teach them.So I turned the question on the men and asked them what they thought. They all stated without hesitation that it was wrong and forbidden by the Koran. I am sure many Catholics and members of other major religions would say the same thing too.

Can you imagine a white man gunning down fifty plus black people and people saying ‘don’t mention the fact that he’s white because that’s exploitative and we need to let people grieve’? No. In fact, whenever a white guy guns down people in the USA it is immediately made into an issue of race. So why are people saying that when a Muslim man guns down gay people? That is the problem with Regressive Left PC advocates (and I consider myself to be a socialist-anarchist). It’s imbalanced and selective in its outrage. It also gives people the impression (in its misplaced need not to offend Muslims or people of colour) that religious homophobia and intolerance by Muslims should not be openly discussed. As Dave Rubin eloquently put it in Orlando Terror Attack is a Wake Up Call to Gays, Women, and You:

Imagine if there was a political party that believed in forcing women to dress head to toe, endorsed throwing gays off roofs, and killing apostates who left the party. Every sane person, both left and right in America, would be rightfully against this backwards ideology. Yet for some reason, as a religion, this set of ideas gets a pass. And not only does it get a pass, it gets handled with kid gloves, tacitly endorsed or intentionally obfuscated by Western intellectuals. Of course, irony being what it is, Radical Islam will come for these apologists right after they’re done with the gays, the women, and the other assorted infidels.

Some people were also angry at the hypocrisy of the sudden outpouring and grief for the LGBT community while the daily crimes against LGBT people in Muslim-majority countries (sanctioned by the state and police) go ignored and unreported. Habiba Effat had this to say about hypocrisy on this issue from the Egyptian State Department:

Where the fuck are your “heartfelt” fucking “condolences” for the thousands of LGBTQ Egyptians who are arbitrarily arrested and forcibly disappeared and subjectto the most inhumane forms of torture and killed in cold blood in your police stations and prisons, whose stories will never be heard and whose causes cannot even be publicly advocated for because both state and society viciously sanction brutality against anything remotely queer in the name of traditions and morality and religion? Do you experience the same kind of “grief” for every gay or trans Egyptian whose life you have ruined and whose family you have torn apart? Are you “united” with the many more who cannot dare express themselves freely in this country for fear of never seeing the light of day again? Fuck you, Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, you fucking joke of a diplomatic institution, and fuck you especially, Ahmed Abu Zeid, you hypocritical fucking cunt.

So if as many try to claim, those who hate and murder gay people are not real practitioners of Islam, how come the 10 countries that have the death penalty for gay people are ALL Muslim majority countries? Did all those people in those countries get Islam wrong then?

With the EU recently deciding to ban ‘hate speech’ on social media and German comedian, Jan Böhmermann, being prosecuted in a German court for ‘insulting’ the Turkish President, the importance of preserving liberal, secular values on gender equality and LGBT rights together with freedom of expression has never been more acute.

As Aayan Hirsan Ali said on Twitter in response to the cowardly murders:

No doctrine is more violent to the gay community than Islamic doctrine. It is time to take on Muslim homophobia.

Originally published at Ramblings of a Lazy Dakini.

Some bloodthirsty Muslim fanatics, who wanted to please Allah by all means and get into the good books of Prophet Muhammad, have been on a rampage in Northern Nigeria. The savage quest by those who are drunk with ‘Allah delusion’ and who are desperate to inherit the phantom paradise that was promised to the Ummah in the afterlife has been on obvious display in the past weeks. The Mujaheddin of northern Nigeria have been on the loose and the horrific consequences of their actions are graphic and glaring.

The criminal silence of the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, the Kano state Governor, Umar Ganduje, and the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi 11, is deafening and sends worrisome signals about the threat of Islamic fanaticism in the region. Within a week, Christians have been murdered in different states across northern Nigeria in very gruesome ways for the supposed crime of blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad. The Christian woman is the latest. But is she going to be the last?

The government of Nigeria tells us that Boko Haram militants have been consigned to the Sambisa forest. No, they have not. Boko Haramism has diffused and what we have witnessed in Kano and Niger states is a testament to the diffusion.

This is evident in the pattern of killings in the two states and the reactions to these atrocities. Now why is beheading for prophet Muhammad a religious slippery slope and a worrisome development for Nigeria? Let us further examine this case that happened in Kano. The woman was decapitated because the killers believed that chopping off the head compensated for the offense which she committed, the offense of ‘insulting’ and making disparaging statements about the messenger of Allah.

The belief that those who insult prophet Muhammad should be executed is not a minority view that is shared by a fanatical fringe in the Muslim community. It is a widespread opinion that is strongly entertained by Islamic moderates and fanatics alike. That is why the killing of the woman in Kano was not the action of one individual or a crazy few. The beheading was not a secret operation but an open and public ritual. The head of the woman was paraded publicly in an environment where the perpetrators knew that they would get away with such deeds. And they did. The Mujahidin also got away with murdering another Christian in Niger State. They will still get away with such atrocities in another Muslim majority state, then in another sharia state another time.

The rampaging soldiers of Allah got away with this heinous crime in the case of Gideon Akaluka in the 90s, and are likely to get away with it again in the future because impunity is entrenched in Muslim communities in northern Nigeria. Extremism is ubiquitous and the political will to tackle this cancerous trend is lacking.

Islam in Northern Nigeria has caved in to the forces of bigotry. The enforcement of sharia law has created an atmosphere of impunity and intolerance. There is no doubt that some Muslims have condemned the beheading of the woman in Kano and the killings in Niger state. However, the weight of condemnation cannot be matched with the apparent endorsement of the murder from the rest of the population particularly those who have refused to express their disapproval of these murderous activities and those who think it is too ‘dangerous’ to speak out and express their outrage.

So where are the moderate Muslims? Why are they reluctant to speak out against the beheading of the woman in Kano? Why are they not marching on the streets in protest? Where are the Ulamas and the Sheikhs? Why are they silent?

Why has the Sultan of Sokoto not made any statement? Why is the Emir of Kano keeping quiet? Why has he not convened a press conference to condemn this atrocious act that took place in his emirate? What are the so-called progressive and moderate Islamic organisations doing? Where are the advocates of the Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace narrative? Why have they not issued statements to denounce these acts of religious war, recklessness and barbarism?

Nigeria needs a critical mass of active moderate and progressive minded Muslims to speak out openly and publicly against violent reactions to supposed insults on prophet Muhammad, Allah or Islam. These insane behaviors of Islamic jihadists must stop. These manifestations of Islamic religious insanity must end. People who murder innocent citizens for blasphemy must be punished because they are criminals and should be put behind bars. Moderate Muslims need to rally and act NOW to stop and prevent a recurrence of this savagery so that peace, freedom and justice would reign in Northern Nigeria.

The recent murder of a Christian trader in Northern Nigeria who was accused of blasphemy underscores the threat of Islamic extremism and the fact that Muslims with a Boko Haram mindset are not only in Sambisa forest. The mob reaction that led to the burning of churches and looting of shops shows that this murderous act enjoyed a wider support amongst the local Muslim population. This is unfortunate.

People may interpret what the Christian trader did in any way they can; there is not justification for this horrific killing and other cases of religious bloodletting in a civilized society. It is difficult to understand why any Muslim could decide to take the life of a fellow human being for making some statements about Muhammad. Mere statements! Just words!

Any intelligent observer of issues in Nigeria would testify that this killing is not an isolated incident but a pattern of reactions to real or imagined cases of blasphemy against Islam, not against Christianity or traditional religion, but against the Islamic faith and its prophet Muhammad in Nigeria. Violent reactions to purported blasphemous statements do not only target Christians and other non Muslims but also other Muslims as we witnessed recently in Kano.

These violent reactions do not reflect positively on the Islamic religion, particularly at this moment in human history. With horrific incidents like this, it is difficult for anybody to agree to the notion that Islam is a religion of peace unless the person has a twisted sense of peace. It is evident from the killing of the Christian trader and similar episodes around the globe that the peace which Islam promises is not for blasphemers or apostates or religious dissenters. The peace of Islam is not for those who say anything critical or derisive of prophet Muhammad. If the peace of Islam does not extend to those who hold or express views which some Muslims may find objectionable or disagreeable then what kind of peace is that? Is it peace in a graveyard of freedom, free thought, free inquiry and free speech?

If the peace of Islam applies only to those who say or post things that could be adjudged as respectful of prophet Muhammad, then is that a worthwhile peace? For me it is utterly shocking to see Muslims, particularly those of them from Nigeria or rather Africa, murder their fellow human beings in the name of Allah who in actual fact does not exist, in the name of a so called religion of peace that was brought by those who enslaved and killed their forefathers because they professed other religions. Is it not a shame that some Muslims think it is justifiable to kill a human being whom they see for insulting prophet Muhammad or Allah whom they do not see? I think that this idea among Muslims of reacting to purported statements that insult Muhammad or Allah is a clear demonstration of the impotency of these two entities. If prophet Muhammad feels insulted by whatever anybody does, he should be able to react, after all he was said to have gone to heaven on a flaming horse. Muslims should not react on its behalf. If Allah feels insulted by whatever anybody does, Muslims should allow their ‘most gracious’ to react and punish the person. Muslims should not react on Allah’s behalf unless they are saying that these entities are unable to do so.

Having said that, I think it is utterly senseless for any Muslims to think that they can live in a world where nobody would say, write or post anything which may be deemed offensive or blasphemous. Truths, they say, start as blasphemies. So it is with the blasphemies against prophet Muhammad, so it is with the defamation of Islam. Violent reactions to supposedly insulting statements are indicators of insecurity on the part of Muslims and a confirmation that Islam is a violent religion. Muslims in Nigeria or in any part of the world should imagine this: if everybody reacts violently by killing those who make blasphemous statements about their faiths and prophets as some Muslim fanatics did in Niger state, then there would be no person left in the world today. In fact there would be nothing like Islam. This is because Islam started as a form of blasphemy against earlier religions. In fact Prophet Muhammad was a blasphemer because he made statements and propounded teachings that some persons deem insulting to their faiths and religious personalities.

Now imagine as a blasphemer that Muhammad had been killed just as the Christian in Niger state was murdered, there might be nothing like Islam today. There might be no Muslims in the world. So prophet Muhammad lived to propagate Islam because people tolerated his blasphemies against their prophets. Muslims should learn to tolerate other people’s blasphemies against prophet Muhammad.

Though some people at his time might have disliked and disagreed with his teachings, it was not to the extent of killing him. Though Muslims may not like what other people say about prophet Muhammad, they should not kill them. Sharia states should not imprison or execute such persons.

In addition, blasphemy is a human right that Muslims have exercised throughout history and non-Muslims are entitled to as well. Muslim scholars are blasphemers. Muslim clerics blaspheme in their mosques and prayer grounds everyday. But thanks to the toleration of people of other faiths and beliefs, this blasphemy called Islam exists in the world today and continues to spread to other parts of the globe. Professors of non Muslim faiths and beliefs have extended their notion of peace to Muslim blasphemers, and Muslims in Nigeria and in other parts of the world need to reciprocate and extend the same gesture of toleration and humanity to those whom they think or imagine as making blasphemous statements against prophet Muhammad, Islam and Allah.

In the spirit of global peace.

After reading Carmel Cassar’s article on Witchcraft Beliefs and Social Control in Seventeenth Century Malta, one could easily conclude that magical beliefs and occult claims are actually a thing of the past in this country. This is because Cassar analyzed witchcraft belief as if it were merely a phenomenon that manifested centuries ago, not a contemporary issue that lurks in some sectors of the society. Some would argue that Cassar’s article which was written over a decade ago focused on a particular period, the 17^th century Malta. Now what about this piece in the current (May 2016) edition of the Air Malta magazine. Titled The Inquisitor’s Palace and the Inquisition, this article suggests that witchcraft belief is history, a relic of the past in Maltese society. The article, written by Lina Farrugia, rightly associates imputations and suspicions of witchcraft with the Inquisition and the early modern European era. Farrugia listed among those who appeared before the Inquisitor as:

…heretics which included those who converted to Judaism, Saracans, Muslims and pagans; those who blasphemed against God, the Virgin Mary or any of the saints,; those who kept book or writings of a heretical content or defended writing on witchcraft. In fact witchcraft was by far the most common fault or crime committed by the Maltese.

This ‘common’ crime of witchcraft took various forms including black magic, the use of evil eye, love magic, magical healing and divination. From the quotation, there is every reason to think that the belief in witchcraft and magic has been consigned to the dustbin of history in Malta. Unfortunately this is not the case. Belief in magical spells did not end with the Inquisition. Witchcraft and the occult have continued to manifest in present day Malta.

In fact there are Maltese who are ready to pay up to 3,000 (thousand) euros for the ‘service’ of a sorcerer. According to the Times of Malta, a court in one of the regions has acquitted a man of fraud. He was paid this sum of money to cast a magical spell. The court said the man did not defraud the woman who paid him to perform this magical feat. The police have earlier charged the man of fraud after the woman who paid 3,000 euros to cast the spell realized that the spell did not work. The woman reported to the police when the ‘spell caster’ refused to pay back the money. The man claimed that the money which she paid to him was for his ‘service’.  The court ruled that the spell caster did not deceive the woman and did not obtain the money through fraudulent means as charged.

The said spell involves invoking Pazuzu, which, according to Assyrian and Babylonian mythology is ‘the king of the demons of the wind’. The woman believed that the spell in the name of Pazuzu could end the extra marital affair the targeted woman was having with the husband. Magical spell serves a ‘useful’ purpose for aggrieved Maltese. It is a mechanism to ‘legitimately’ channel aggression and assault that would have otherwise been unlawful and criminal to do. Though, the mechanism eventually proved to be ineffective and useless. Hence, the sorcerer was charged of fraud.

There has been a resurgence of witchcraft and demonic beliefs in Malta. Researchers have attributed this development to the wave of neopaganism that is sweeping across the country. Though, Malta is dominantly catholic and Maltese equate paganism to devil worship, Satan and the occult, neo paganism is gaining momentum. ‘Modern’ witchcraft belief is on the rise. The increasing visibility of magical beliefs in Malta may be short lived because a society of humanists, skeptics and freethinkers now exists in the country and is committed to countering the spread of ‘modern’ witchcraft and the belief in magical spells. The group, which recently hosted international humanist events, promotes reason, science and rationality. It opposes superstition and dogma and campaigns for the separation of church and state. This humanist association is set to provide a counter narrative to the bizarre witchcraft notions, and serve as a mechanism to expose the fraudulent claims of charlatans, sorcerers and spell casters who prey on the gullibility of people in 21^st century Malta.

I have lived all my life in Africa, Uganda to be specific, but I must say, on many occasions I travel to other parts of Africa, I travel to Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania. I find that the citizens of these countries are warm, welcoming and friendly in most scenarios, until the moment when they detect your GLBT rights stand and approval. It becomes even worse when you are atheist. Usually atheists are not targeted in the mainstream yet I have been pushed into the wall and doors shut on me, for no particular reason but being atheist. I approve GLBT rights and am willing to walk an extra mile for them. I envision an African continent getting back to its roots of loving everybody, its roots of protecting your neighbour.

This is our African way that missionaries have taken away from us. Sometimes people in developed countries do not really understand this, but let me say it loud and clear, homosexuality has always been part of our societies, and it wasn’t a big deal until when these religious fanatics started pushing their noses in our continent. Homosexuality is not new in Uganda and on the African continent. Like everywhere, it has existed forever. Homophobia, however, is new. It didn’t start in Africa. It was strategically imported from the US and Europe. The goal of the missionaries, who carried this disease with them, was to have homophobia spread. They have been more successful in Africa than they have been anywhere else. It is now lethal.

The real import to Africa was not homosexuality but homophobia. You understand the importance of combating and preventing the spread of diseases like Ebola from the African continent to yours. You come to our continent to enlist our help in doing so. I’m here to enlist your help to combat and prevent the further spread of the disease of homophobia from your continent to ours.

To understand this problem, you need to speak to Africans in the USA. During my previous visits to the US, I met two Africans: one from Uganda and another from Eritrea, another failing state on this planet. Out of curiosity, I asked this Ugandan who now married an American man, what are her views on GLBT people, she spat down to prove how distasteful it is even to think of them as human beings before she jumped on their usual song of that’s not “African”. I keep on wondering, when do we determine that this is not African and this is?

Now to get back to the man from Eritrea, we were on the metro and we both smiled and talked warmly. We had some disagreements on whether he will go back to Africa or not, he has been in the US since 1996.He affirmed that he will never ever go back to Africa, he will die here. I asked him if he misses Africa, he said no, I asked him if he had a wife, kids be it in Africa or in here in the USA, in his affirmation, he replied no. Well we jumped on the metro. Like all men in Africa, we find it easy to hug and pat each other’s backs with no worry, now this is not possible in Africa anymore because people would suspect that you are gay, hence attracting mob justice. I extend my arms to the shoulders of the Eritriean to assure him that Africa will get better and that we shouldn’t stay for life in the US since Africa needs us more than the US does. Before I even explained to him what I think, he pushed my arms away and explained to me that US is fucked up and that if people on metro see us, they will suspect us to be homosexuals, I told him to get serious because I really don’t care how people on the metro feel. I assured him that we do this in Africa all the time, he said its ok in Africa, which is now too dangerous for GLBT people but he felt it was un-OK in the US?

He went on to tell me that now he is being Americanised, what does that mean or reflect? Do people in the US approve equality in law while in the public eye they continue being homophobic? I didn’t question him much on what he meant, but in his tone I observed the influence of Orthodox Tewahedo. I cannot imagine how these religious fanatics have destroyed with impunity all our African hospitality and warmth, from Capetown, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt, from Mombasa, Kenya to Accra, Ghana.

Oh how I wish atheists could come in and fill the vacuum, but indicators from Uganda and Kenya show that atheists are the next target of state-sponsored hatred. We must be prepared for the outcomes especially when the most hated group of our society join forces with their enemy to persecute atheists.

The recent arrest of six young men in Nigeria for the ‘supposed crime’ of homosexuality has once again demonstrated the misplaced priorities of the Buhari-led government. The arrest casts serious doubt on its supposed commitment to transforming Nigeria.

Going by recent developments, hope is fading very fast and disillusionment is setting in as many people are beginning to realize that the change mantra may end up being a ruse, a strategy that was used to win an election. The proposed change is a farce, at least when it comes to the dignified treatment of gay persons otherwise, how does one explain the current detention of some young men by police in Benin for engaging in homosexuality?

As if the arrest of these adults was not disturbing enough, the police further paraded them before the public and humiliated them.

The clearly laid back Assistant Inspector General of the Police, Musa Daura, issued a statement that would make an external observer cringe. Daura made it seem as if the arrest had more to do with breaking religious and traditional taboos, not state laws. His statement has literally foreclosed any chances for just and fair hearing for these young men. Is that what change is all about? The ‘suspects’ have been declared guilty even when the investigation has not been concluded and the trial has not commenced.  What kind of policing is this?

The government of Buhari, which came into power on the platform of change, must realize that Nigerians are yearning for a forward, not a backward looking change when it comes to the treatment of homosexuals. The Buhari change project must be in tandem, not at odds with the wind of progress that is sweeping across the world. In executing the change project, the Buhari government must think globally while acting locally. It must think love not hate.

This global wave of change does not sanction the arrest and prosecution of young adults for same sexual relationships. No, not at all. It does not condone or endorse homosexuality as a crime. Instead it is demanding a change of attitude towards homosexuals and homosexuality. Yes, the current wave of change urges the decriminalization of homosexuality and the recognition of the rights of homosexuals as human rights.

The process of change in the world demands that people be sanctioned for engaging in homophobic acts not homosexual practice. It calls for an end to homophobic policing as is the case in Benin and in other parts of Nigeria.

Thus if one considers the enormous security challenges that Nigeria faces at the moment including the pervasive cases of violent crime and conflict across the country, it is evident that devoting the limited police force to investigating and prosecuting consensual sexual relationships and to monitoring what adults do in their bed rooms is obviously misguided. It is fiddling while the country burns.

He reached into his rucksack and said with a smile, “I have something for you.” I extended my hand and took the gift. A small book, 96 pages – a Bengali translation of Am I a Monkey?: Six Big Questions About Evolution by the Spanish-American evolutionary biologist and philosopher Fransico J Ayala. I looked at the illustration on the cover: a sad ape evolving into a human.

One of the translators of the book, Ananta Bijoy Das, was hacked to death by machete-wielding assassins in May 2015, outside his home in Sylhet, north-eastern Bangladesh. The other translator, Siddhartha Dhar, was standing in front of me, somewhere in Stockholm. A few months after the murder of his friend and mentor, Siddhartha left Bangladesh and is now in exile in Sweden. Translating a book on evolution is a dangerous business sometimes.

Ananta Bijoy Das (1982–2015) was a prophet of freethought who, in 2005, first organised a small group of freethinkers in Sylhet (which happens to be my home-town). Most of them were students of the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, named after a sufi saint credited for the spread of Islam in the region in the fourteenth century.

Ananta and his comrades had a different mission: spreading scientific knowledge and propagating rationalism in one of the most religiously conservative corners of the country. They organised study circles; translated influential and critical texts on science, pseudo-science, religion, sexuality, politics and world history; wrote essays that challenged systems of social, political or religious oppression; and, published a journal titled Jukti (rationality, logic). They were also part of Muktomona (freethinker), a larger network of Bangladeshi freethinkers founded by the Bangladeshi-American author Avijit Roy.

These, of course, were activities that angered lots of people. Homoeopathy practitioners threatened to sue the editors and writers of Jukti for publishing articles that exposed the pseudo-science behind their trade. Many people were offended by essays critical of Hinduism. Many more were uncomfortable with taboo-breaking discussions on sexuality. When Ananta wrote a book about pseudo-science in the Soviet Union, that ticked off the authoritarian left.

The most vocal opponents, however, were the Islamist students of the science and technology university. They had their own mission: propagating neo-orthodox Islam. Many of them were members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the pan-Islamist political party. While the freethinkers were translating the works of authors like Fransico J Ayala, the Islamists were busy spreading the gospels of Salafi preachers like Zakir Naik and Bilal Philips.

Across Bangladesh, a battle of ideas was going on between the freethinkers and the Islamists – a battle that mostly took place over the Internet, in weblogs and discussion forums. In this battle, people like Ananta Bijoy Das and Avijit Roy were manning the fort of freethought. It was under their leadership, freethinkers in Bangladesh were challenging the forces of ignorance and obscurantism. And, in this war of words, they were winning.

Sometime around 2011, another group of Bengali translators started organising themselves in some hidden corners of the Internet. To this day, if one looks closely, some signs of those early days can be found in different places – in abandoned weblogs, Facebook groups, image-hosting websites and cached pages available via the Internet Archive. These were Bangladeshi Islamists who had graduated from vanilla Salafism to the next level. They wanted to become the holy warriors of Islam by enlisting themselves as the footsoldiers of the global jihad. In preparation of this jihad, they translated hundreds of jihadi documents into Bengali: sermons, fatwas, communiques and martyrdom stories. Then, in early 2012, they took a name: Ansarullah Bangla Team. Thus, a new jihadi group was born on the Internet.

In the real world, the founder of Ansarullah Bangla Team was Jashimuddin Rahmani, a mufti who delivered the khutbah-e-Jumuah (Friday sermon) at a mosque in Dhaka (the Bangladeshi capital). He was one of the most influential Salafi preachers in the country, whose neo-orthodox interpretation of Islam attracted hundreds of young men to the mosque.

Rahmani’s disciples were mostly students from different private universities in the city. Many of them were former members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, banned by the Bangladesh government as a terrorist organisation in 2009. It was under the guidance and leadership of Rahmani, they were now trying to link themselves up with another terrorist organisation: al-Qaeda. Translating important al-Qaeda documents into Bengali was the first step towards that goal.

It was in May 2012, Ansarullah Bangla Team published a Bengali translation of The Dust will Never Settle Down, a lecture by the Yemeni-American imam and al-Qaeda ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2011. It remains one of the most influential sermons the imam ever delivered, outlining the theological basis for brutal and merciless assassination of blasphemers and apostates – in other words, anyone accused of insulting Muhammed or deviating from the diktats of Islam.

al-Awlaki’s genius was in that he produced the blueprint of a new form of jihad, in which purely intellectual ventures like a French satire newspaper (Charlie Hebdo) or a Bengali weblog (Muktomona) became legitimate military targets. It of course was quite a feat that he, from beyond his grave somewhere in Yemen, became the spiritual leader of a group of highly-motivated assassins in a faraway country like Bangladesh.

And, it is in Bangladesh, al-Awlaki’s followers are now slaughtering freethinkers like Ananta Bijoy Das and Avijit Roy. Their only crime was engaging in critical discussions on religion and exposing the systems of religious oppression. Since February 2013, at least ten intellectuals and activists have been assassinated across the country. All of them were hacked to death by machete-wielding young men: members of Ansarullah Bangla Team/Ansar al Islam. The latest victims were Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Tonoy, slaughtered inside Xulhaz’s home in Dhaka on April 25. Two courageous LGBT rights activists, fighting for gay rights in one of the most homophobic societies in the world – two martyrs in the struggle for freedom and human rights.

Will this struggle go on even when the list of the martyrs keep growing? I asked Siddhartha, as we were walking through the streets of Stockholm. “They will never be able to scare us into silence. When we signed up for this, we knew there would be threats against our lives. We accepted it as a fact,” he told me. The fact, of course, is that freethought can never be assassinated.

A German version of this article was first published in the Jungle World.

Recent reports from both local and international media have highlighted strains between a small atheist group, Atheists in Kenya (AIK) and mainly christian religious organisations in the country. These reports have focused mainly on the controversies surrounding the efforts of the group to gain local recognition and be registered under the Kenyan law. This move has elicited opposition from religious organisations and state officials. In this piece, I argue that these controversies, though understandable, are completely unnecessary and unhelpful to the nation of Kenya. The hostile reactions that the registration of AIK has generated are clear indicators of intolerance, fear and fanaticism. This is highly unexpected of a democratic Kenya that claims to uphold the rights and freedoms of its citizens. So what then could have been the reason behind the hateful and discriminatory attitudes against atheists in this country?

There has been tension in the country after an unsuccessful attempt by the AIK to get the government to cancel a public holiday and a day of prayer which it declared during the papal visit to Kenya in November last year. Harrison Mumia, the leader of the group, argued in court that to observe such a holiday was ‘unfair, contemptuous of the constitution and discriminatory’ because it violated provisions in article 8, 9 and 32 of the Kenyan constitution.

Some segments of the Kenyan press have described the demand as ‘ludicrous, disrespectful (of the Pope) narrow-minded and a publicity stunt’. In the suit that was filed at the court, Mumia argued that not all Kenyans were catholic and thus the entire population should not be compelled to observe a public holiday and a day of prayer in honour of the visit of the head of the Catholic Church. What is wrong in filing such an action? Is this not an issue that the Kenyan court and the public should have critically considered without casting aspersions on the atheist group?

Considering that the Kenyan constitution guarantees equality of all Kenyans before the law, and the fact that no Kenyans should be discriminated against on grounds of religion or belief. This could be interpreted to mean that Kenya should observe a public holiday when all heads of theistic or non theistic groups are visiting or observe no such public holidays at all. If the government of Kenya does not observe a national holiday and a day of prayer in honour of such visits, does that not amount to discrimination? What is wrong in opposing the observance of such a holiday on grounds of discrimination against atheists and other faith/belief minorities? Does opposing the observance of a public holiday in honour of the Pope’s visit discriminate only against atheists? Is it not an endorsement of religious privilege? Is privileging a religion not against the nation’s secular constitution? What is wrong in seeking to address this conflict in the court of law? Well the Pope visited and the public holiday was observed. However, the move that the atheist group made left a bitter taste in the mouths of many ‘faithful’ Kenyans.

Similar hostile reactions were accorded the atheist group when they demanded that the teaching of Christian and Islamic religious education in schools be scrapped. To put it in proper perspective, the group is actually demanding for an end to religious indoctrination in schools because that is what these subjects, as currently taught in schools across Kenya, are about. AIK is not opposed to informing pupils about religion, about the social and historical facts but they are against coercing children to accept religious myths and dogmas as facts under the guise of Christian or Islamic religious education. The nation of Kenya is today suffering as a result of religious indoctrination of youths. Jihadist members of al Shabaab are products of Islamic indoctrination. They pose serious danger to peace, security and development in Kenya. Al Shabaab militants have attacked the country several times and killed many of its citizens. If there is one country in Africa that should seriously consider this proposal to revise religious education in schools, it is Kenya. Thus this proposal is not merely for the good of atheism. It is for the benefit of all Kenyans.

The atheist group has also questioned the practice of praying for patients at state hospitals. Let’s face it. Prayer has been proven to have no medical value and given the assumed mechanics of prayers, people who conduct them do not really need to be physically present at the premises of state hospitals to let people know that they are really doing something that could enhance the recovery of patients.

AIK is demanding that education and religious indoctrination, prayers and evidence-based medicine be kept separate. Are these not legitimate demands?

Unfortunately, certain groups of people in Kenya have observed that by making these demands, AIK was overstepping its constitutional boundaries. However, Kenya is a free and democratic society. Isn’t it? The constitution guarantees freedom of thought and expression of its citizens. Thus the AIK has not violated the provisions of the constitutions in any way. In fact by making these thoughtful demands, the members of this group are actually exercising their constitutional rights.

Furthermore, the atheist group’s effort to register the body has attracted heated debates. To operate as a legal entity, AIK has to register with the relevant authorities. However, this did not augur well with the authorities, at first. They refused the application on the ground that incorporating the group would undermine ‘peace’ and ‘good order’ in the society. AIK protested the decision and the authorities eventually issued AIK a certificate of incorporation.

However, many Christian evangelical groups and religious believers in the country have received this news of the registration with mixed reactions. There have been several calls for de-registration of the AIK. One of the Christian clerics, Bishop Margaret Wanjiru described the registration as unconstitutional. She based her opposition on the notion that the constitution of Kenya acknowledged the existence of ‘the sovereign God’ and the atheists did not.

In the same vein, the Vice Chair of the Kenyan National Congress of Pentecostal Ministries, Stephen Ndichu, described the registration of AIK as ‘abominable’. He stated that it was foolhardy to act as if there was no God and worse still to try and ‘validate that theory by registering an association’.

Also, some Kenyans have equated the registration of the AIK to licensing devil-worship. Many religious believers in the country entertain this absurd notion that atheists are Satanists and devil worshippers. They have forgotten that atheists do not see any evidence for the existence of a god or the existence of the devil. For atheists, both god and satan are figments of human imagination. Put simply, there is no devil for atheists to worship. Thus it is evident that the opposition to the registration of the AIK is baseless and misinformed.

Hence, it was surprising to read that following the complaints from the religious and theistic public in Kenya, the authorities have suspended the registration of the AIK. The attorney general said that the nation’s Supreme Court would determine the legality of the registration of AIK.

As a religiously plural society it is imperative that the state of Kenya remains secular and not biased for or against those who believe in god and those who do not. The state of Kenya exists for all citizens and should treat all citizens equally and fairly whether they are theists or atheists. Atheists are human beings and the rights of atheists are human rights. One of the hallmarks of a state that is committed to secularism is the recognition and respect of the full human rights of atheists and non-believers and that includes protecting their rights to association, conscience and expression.

I therefore urge the government of Kenya not to bow to this campaign of blackmail and pressure from those who endorse the discrimination against atheists because their holy scriptures and traditions say so. Opposition to the registration of AIK is informed by creedal insecurity and fanaticism of those who, for no just cause or reason, are afraid of atheists and atheism. The government should not allow itself to be used to legitimize religious intolerance, fear and hatred of atheists in Kenya.

If the outcome of the recent investigative journalism project on the topic of witchcraft in Africa is anything to go by, then there is an urgent need to investigate ‘investigative journalism’ in the region. This is because the findings of this team are laughable in one sense and disturbing in another. They are laughable because they have reaffirmed the same old contradictory superstitious fantasies that have made Africans a laughing stock in the global intellectual market. They are disturbing because they are presented as products of investigative journalism! The resolution and manifesto issued at the end of the meeting in Accra are just uncritical rendering of commonplace witchcraft beliefs (I guess of the journalists), not a reflection of the region’s diverse critical mix of beliefs, ideas and notions.

First of all let us take a look at the event that led to the constitution of this ‘investigative team’. Two journalists, one from Benin in West Africa and the other from the Netherlands differed on reporting a story on witchcraft because the West African believed witches existed and the Dutch counterpart did not. As the report says, “While the Benin journalists worked to prove that witches exist, the Dutch journalist was tasked to prove that witches didn’t”. For me this is a clear indication that the investigative project was agenda driven or perhaps I should say the investigation was dead on arrival.

However the encounter led to the formation of a team of journalists from Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. The team was tasked to conduct a research with the following guiding questions: “Does everybody believe in the power of witches? Does it mean that everybody can become the victim of witches? Does it mean that anybody can be or become a witch or wizard?”

The reporter from Nigeria’s Daily Trust was part of this investigative team and covered the Nigerian leg of the investigation. Now let us look at their findings.

First of all, they found out that “Witchcraft is an invisible mafia-like system, practiced by faceless people and is practically impossible to prove”. I could not make sense of this, could you? They said that “Witchcraft not only kills people, it can kill countries as well. Witchcraft seriously retards the development of a country on all levels, democracy, economy, health, education, community life, relations. It can even kill a country.”

Now if witchcraft were impossible to prove, how did they know that it killed people, and that it could kill a country? How is ‘witchcraft’ a mafia like operation? This “investigative team” further stated as part of their findings that the witchcraft system “is egotistic, with no eyes for the common good. Witchcraft is built on fear and jealousy and nobody can escape it, neither the victims nor the people practicing it. Through witchcraft, people are threatened and manipulated; members cited many examples of blackmail, corruption, tribalism, nepotism, forgery, fraud, maltreatment, and abuse; all in the name of witchcraft. Witchcraft is responsible for many peoples’ deaths; it’s impossible to say how many”. I mean let’s think about this. How is witchcraft egoistic? Has a witch an ego? How is witchcraft responsible for deaths? Which deaths? Do they mean witchcraft or belief in witchcraft?

Anyway, the team further stated that “through witchcraft, elections could be manipulated. Several cases of politicians who used witchcraft, or became the victims of witchcraft were cited”. It would have been very interesting to know which politicians in Nigeria, Benin or Cameroon used witchcraft to manipulate the election. This team should have come out with findings based on facts and substance not hearsay. The team made reference to the abuse which African children suffer due to witchcraft beliefs. However, they could have investigated whether the claims of their users and abusers were valid, that is if the children actually did what they were accused of. Yes, the team could have extended their investigation to finding out about the veracity of witchcraft claims. I guess the journalists could not do this because the project was meant to prove a point: that witches existed. So sad!

Little wonder then as part of their so called ‘Witchcraft Revolution’ manifesto, they refrained from calling for the eradication of witchcraft beliefs. Instead they asked that witchcraft be used “for the good and not for the bad”. Really? How can people use something which they said was impossible to prove for good? In fact they planned starting a campaign to ask “local and national governments, associations of local chiefs and churches to take action”.

I hope the campaign that people should use witchcraft for good and not for evil never sees the light of the day in West Africa and in the entire region.

For me this project was a wasted time, effort and opportunity because there was literally nothing new in their findings – still the same old story, the same old narrative and prejudice recycled. In fact it was a misnomer to have called what these journalists did an investigative project. No. This is a witch hunting project. This is witch finding journalism at work. This project raises much doubt about the worth, substance and credibility of investigative journalism in Africa. It reinforces the stereotype that Africans are mentally wired to think magically and mystically, that Africans are intellectually stuck in the early modern European phase of human development and that the witch doubting, disbelieving and questioning mind is white, European and western. Unfortunately, this is what this ‘witchcraft revolution’ has achieved.

Thus we need to rethink the project of investigative journalism in Africa because what these journalists have done is definitely not the critical, fact-finding, unbiased, hard hitting, objective inquiry which the topic of witchcraft in Africa urgently needs.

In a lot of liberal parlance there is this idea of being an “ally” which I find just a wee bit less than satisfactory.

The thing about an ally is that they’re not there because they actually believe in your cause, but because they feel they can benefit in some way.

Hence for example during WWII the US and the USSR were allies – even though for most of the rest of the century they were on the brink of ending the world over each other’s continued existence.

Allies are not friends; they’re people who seek mutual benefit in order to achieve strategic goals. That is an important distinction when we talk about social justice.

When we say we’re being good allies, what we’re actually saying is that we’re going to paint ourselves as being in favour of a cause basically for some sort of benefit to ourselves.

To be an ally to feminism is that to not so much embrace the idea that women are equal to men and should be afforded to the same rights and general treatment as men, but to say that the movement that says that is in some way useful to me.

And allies come with demands. A lot of digital ink has been spilled in the atheist community over being good allies to various other communities, but this comes with an inherent idea that those communities would owe us in some way for basically being minimally decent human beings.

And I cannot do that. I cannot say that racism is wrong because that aligns me with a movement that will pay me back some day for saying that, I say it is wrong because it is wrong.

And as an anti-racist, I will accept the leadership of those impacted hardest by racism in the battle against it, because I recognise that they are the ones who know best what they’re talking about.

I do not do this uncritically, anymore than I would do so with any other sort of expert, but rather with an understanding that I have inferior knowledge.

The same thing goes with feminism. I do not define myself as a feminist ally because I do not believe that those fighting for gender equality are potential useful assets to my other causes, I believe that they’re right hence I call myself a feminist.

I am happy to accept the leadership of women in that fight, because they know much better than I do what they’re talking about.

And that is an important point here. Men like me can end up overpowering voices that actually are much better suited to the argument, voices whose authority is layered with lived experience and data that I easily miss because my frame is fundamentally informed by the accident of birth that rendered me male in a male dominated world.

So I have to learn to shut up and listen, something which is not exactly in my nature in most cases. The ability to recognise my own incompetence is a difficult one to master, and I have not fully done so yet.

But I have no better label for my beliefs than to say I am a feminist, not as a mark of pride, not as a member of a movement I seek to dominate, but as a statement of what I believe to be true.

I cannot call myself an ally, because that is not what I am. This isn’t some sort of transaction to gain myself some sort of benefit.

And simply believing feminism to be correct – is no guarantee of personal perfection. Too often people like me like to say we want to hear a variety of voices – but all singing from our own song sheet.

Saying that I am a feminist is not saying that I should not be criticised for my sexism, but that I should listen when such criticisms are made. I’m a slow study, but I have the duty to learn.

This is the work that God gave me to do. From my youth, I helped my mother to deliver babies. God has been helping me, and God will not allow anything dangerous or evil to happen.

Women’s rights and feminism has come a long way in the past 100 years. Many women worldwide now have the right to vote, to travel freely without a male companion, to get an education, to work, to marry and divorce out of choice, to take control of reproduction, sex and family planning and get a decent wage for their work. There is still much work to be done though, with some countries still suffering from unacceptably low levels of gender equality and human rights for females.

For some on the bourgeois ‘Liberal­-Left’, or what feminists like Aayan Hirsi Ali accurately call the Regressive Left, the reason why women of colour still lag behind on human rights and freedom in the vast majority of countries is partly due to European colonialism and ‘white feminists’ ignoring the plight of their sisters. Although there is no doubt some truth in this assertion, to simplify it in such a manner also glosses over and diminishes the patriarchy and misogyny present in these cultures long before any ‘white colonialism’ arrived. In addition, the global internet, media and greater levels of education, travel and literacy have only recently given ‘white women’ access to information about the situation of women of colour in distant lands.

The claim that women of colour have been ignored by white feminists (and are even being undermined by them) so often dominates debate and narratives, particularly in the US, to such an extent that any discussion of misogyny or inequality in people of colour cultures or religions is immediately derailed by accusations of racism and white supremacy. My essay ‘The Hoodie and the Hijab are Not Equals’ and the controversy it created with over 80 North American academics issuing a letter to condemn it, is an example of how this works. This reactionary ideology has also driven an increase in ‘Identity Feminism’, (‘Intersectional Feminism’ suggests these groups recognise the intersectionality of all racial groups which they often don’t); feminist groups associated with a particular race, religion or nationality.

For example, I spent a few years living and working with the Tibetan community in exile in India and Nepal, countries which have some of the lowest levels of gender equality in the world and have written about issues related to gender and patriarchy in these communities. Last year, a small group of ethnic Tibetan women (based predominantly in the USA) founded a group called the ‘Tibetan Feminist Collective’(TFC), inspired, in a back­-handed way, by criticism of the Tibetan patriarchal culture by non­Tibetan women. Their first essay complained about my critique of Tibetan exile patriarchs as unfair because (according to their logic) I am white and any critique of Tibetan patriarchy or culture should come from an ethnic Tibetan.

While the creation of such a group is to be welcomed if it helps empower Tibetan women, ironically, despite the fact that the majority of Tibetan women live in Tibet, India and Nepal, the majority of TFC’s social media posts have been US-­centric and dominated by a brand of feminism that grew out of the black civil rights movement in the USA. In addition, they rarely support or encourage solidarity with Indian or Nepali feminist groups or writers, which are the natural allies to look to in terms of dealing directly with issues that affect the majority of Tibetan women in exile. Issues such as the continuing male dominance of Tibetan Buddhism are still left largely unchallenged outside of western, academic circles.

This ideology and tendency is not unique to a small group of Tibetan­-American women though. In fact, one could say that ‘Identity Feminism’, which claims to offer a ‘unique’ perspective for that particular race, nationality or religion, is often nothing other than thinly-­disguised ethnic or cultural nationalism or religious propaganda or denial. It is no accident that many men (and women) on the Religious Right in deeply patriarchal cultures often cite and use ‘Identity Feminism’ (and its continual attacks, stereotyping and degradation of ‘white women’ and ‘the West’) to prop up and support misogynist culture and practice.

Although there is no doubt that race is a factor that cannot be ignored in feminist discourse, to blame that on some kind of inherent racism or supremacy in white feminism is simplistic and also, at times, serving the patriarchal status quo. As Nushin Arbabzadah who was raised in Afghanistan and fled to Europe as a refugee says in her article In My Life, Headscarves Have Been Symbols of Oppression, Not Solidarity in relation to American women showing ‘solidarity’ with Muslim women by donning headscarves:

Women may want to express “solidarity” with Muslim women by covering up. But Muslim women don’t need to cover up. This act of solidarity perpetuates a version of Islam that says it’s O.K. to poison little girls who dare to feel the sunlight on their heads.

Ex­Muslim feminists and activists like Maryam Namazie continually protest the convenient Regressive Left Myth that homogenises women who have grown up in Muslim­-majority countries as supporting the hijab or even see it as an expression of Muslim identity:

Nonetheless, many post-­modernist and culturally relativist Leftists, liberals, and feminists remain firmly on the side of the Islamists. Any opposition to Sharia law, (which is based on the Koran, Hadith, Islamic jurisprudence), the veil, and Islamic misogyny are met with charges of racism and Islamophobia, cultural imperialism and more. Those who say so though have bought into the culturally­-relativist notion that societies in the Middle East and North Africa (and even the “Muslim community” in the west) are homogeneous, “Islamic” and “conservative”. But there is no one homogeneous culture anywhere. Since it is those in power that determine the dominant culture, this point of view sees Islamist values and sensibilities as that of “authentic Muslims’…..Those who assert that a demand for secularism and opposition to the veil and Sharia law are “foreign” and “culturally inappropriate” are only considering Islamism’s sensibilities and values, not that of the many who resist.

This ‘Liberal’ attitude towards Islamists or misogyny also reared its ugly head on New Year’s Eve in Germany, Finland and Switzerland, where over one hundred women were robbed and sexually assaulted by a group of men of ‘Arab and North African’ origin (many of whom have been identified as asylum seekers), in what appear to be co­-ordinated attacks. Such crimes are unprecedented in these countries but yet again in social media, there was denial and dismissal of the hundreds of eyewitness reports by women and police with suggestions that such reports were racist or promoted racism and that the ethnicity or culture of the men should be ignored as irrelevant.

The question to ask any ‘Identity Feminist’ group is how does being X really make a difference to your ultimate goals of human rights and equality for women? Of course, race, gender, class, sexuality and economic power need to be considered when dealing with inequality but how does being a certain race or nationality make the goal or ideology different? The question here is about whether human rights are culturally relative or universal. I, and many other women (including those from Muslim­-majority countries) assert that such rights are universal and any attempt to make them culturally or racially relative sadly serves patriarchs more than women.

In fact, such attempts are symptoms of ‘the racism of lower expectations’ which ‘expects less’ from the ‘Other’ because ‘that’s their culture or religion’. Ironically, by pandering to the idea of ‘difference’ it divides women and puts them on the side of the patriarchs and misogynists. As the 14th Dalai Lama has often emphasised when talking about ways to solve conflict, inequality and division:

What is important is finding the common ground between religions and therefore cultures, identifying those common morals that can unite us all. Multiculturalism, then, is not so much about celebrating differences, but emphasising our similarities.

The common unity to be found in feminism is how ALL females are oppressed and suffer through gender inequality, patriarchy and misogyny, and by prejudicial gross stereotypes that reduce a whole race or nation to a ‘single story’. As we all know, the best strategy for achieving control in any situation is to ‘divide and conquer’ and that is why the patriarchs are still in control.

Copyright 2016.

Going by its name, one expects Regent University in Ghana to be a institution that is committed to the pursuit of academic excellence in science and technology. But in actual fact it is not, at least going by the experiences of Bede Nkumasi. Nkumasi earned his doctoral degree from one of the top universities in Europe last year. At the end of the program, he returned to his native country, Ghana, where he planned to put his knowledge to use in the development of the country. For now, that dream is on hold because Nkumasi recently resigned from his teaching position at Regent University due to compulsory religious devotion and other ‘unacademic’ policies and practices on the campus. The university’s president is slowing turning the institution into a quasi-church. In fact Regent is better called a university of ‘Christian Science’ and theology, not a ‘Christian’ university of science and technology. This is what happened.

Some months ago, Bede Nkumasi secured a job at this university and has looked forward to teaching and nurturing students, inculcating the skills and expertise he has acquired over the years. A few weeks after resuming at the university, he noticed that Regent University was not really committed to science and technology education. This is mainly due to the way the institution was managed by the president. He realized that Regent university was actually a front for Christian evangelism and indoctrination of both students and staff. Bede Nkumasi is a self styled christian. So one should not think that he is a militant atheist who may be against religious observance. No, he is not. Nkumasi thinks that religion, christianity in this case, should not be used to undermine the learning of science and technology in a university. Nkumasi is of the notion that education and religious service should not mix.

Unfortunately he was mistaken because that was not – and is not – the case at Regent University of Science and Technology in Ghana. Learning and pentecostal christianity mix in ways that hamper academic pursuits. Shortly after Nkumasi started teaching at Regent University, the President made it compulsory for the teaching staff to attend chapel service for the five working days in a week. Staff members who did not attend the service were queried. They risked being sacked from their jobs. Meanwhile, compulsory chapel service was not in the job contract that Bede Nkumasi and other lecturers signed when they joined the University.

At Regent University, attending chapel service is compulsory for all students only on Thursdays. Students who do not attend the service may not graduate from the university even when they have excelled in their courses. The university has a machine at the Chapel that records the attendance of students and staff. The President of Regent University literally ‘worships’ the Nigerian pentecostal pastor, Bishop David Oyedepo and uses his videos and publications as the basis of learning and instruction at the university.

The course outline at Regent is based on Biblical teachings. For instance, though, Regent styles itself as a university of science and technology, it does not allow the teaching of evolution. So this university graduates science students who are ignorant of the central pillar of modern biology! Lecturers are compelled to teach creationism – Bible based creationism only in science classes, not evolution. Now may I ask: What kind of scientists do they want to produce? Creation scientists?

This so-called university of science and technology included 4 videos of Bishop Oyedepo as compulsory reading materials for the general studies program. A concerned Ghanaian said regarding the videos, “I do not understand how these videos are connected to teaching and learning in a university of science and technology but they said the videos are compulsory and that the students and staff should use Oyedepo as a reference point and a role model.”

Meanwhile Oyedepo is not a scientist. Oyedepo is not a technologist.

This travesty going on in the name of tertiary education at Regent University of Science and technology should stop. Those who are administering this institution should be called to order. The university defines its domain as that of “advancing science, engineering and technology education to meet the growing industry needs. Its programmes are distinctively developed with the aim of producing the technological human resource capacity for the nation and beyond. The University prepares graduates who have the proficiency to deal with the challenges of the 21st century, the capacity for insightful understanding of prevailing economic issues and technological problems. Over the years, Regent-Ghana has been committed to achieving high academic standards and compliance with all regulatory requirements”. Now I ask, how can Regent University effectively occupy this domain with an educational program that is based on the Bible, not on natural science?

The university says that its mission is “to become a cutting-edge, world-class, Christian University, committed to raising highly skilful, visionary, ethical and God-fearing leaders to function as change agents” and with its vision of “raising highly skilful, visionary, God-fearing, ethical and passionate leaders, to function as change agents” How does compulsory religious service for students and staff help in raising highly skilful change agents with cutting edge knowledge in terms of science and technology?

The university’s commitment reads as follows ”As Ghana (and for that matter, Africa) searches for answers for her developmental challenges, all stakeholders have a duty to make significant contributions to making Africa gain a 21st century push in its social dream and economic development. In this regard, the higher education sector will have to be the nation’s pacesetter in innovation, and a major player in capacity building. Regent University College of Science and Technology is thus playing its part by preparing graduates who will rise to Africa’s scientific and development challenges of the 21st century”.

One wonders how Regent University could achieve these lofty goals when there is no real commitment to qualitative education and learning. The president of the university describes the institution as

a place where lives are shaped, and destinies are formed to impact generations. We are committed to raising visionary, ethical and dedicated passionate leaders to contribute positively to the African renaissance. As the African renaissance gradually builds momentum, we at RUCST are determined to preparing and equipping our students to fully take up their rightful roles as responsible citizens across the continent in whatever role they may see themselves. As an institution, our insistence is that our graduates must be different; for if certificates and degrees alone can transform Africa, the continent will not be where it is at the moment! At RUCST, we place strong emphasis on theory and practice, and on character formation, aiming at producing well rounded and well grounded graduates, with strong ethical grounding. Our relatively young and dynamic faculty, are complemented by seasoned, highly qualified and experienced professors from around the globe.

Definitely, this is mere rhetoric that is meant to attract students and get parents to send their children to this institution, not a demonstration of genuine commitment to academic excellence. This message does not reflect what is actually going on at the institution. Otherwise, how does one explain the fact that this same president sanctions compulsory religious devotion as a strategy to attract students and banks and grow the university? So, praying and mandatory religious worship is a way that this university plans to raise students who would contribute to the cause of African renaissance and development? I totally disagree.

The circumstances that led to the resignation of Bede Nkumasi are clear indicators of the decadence at this university, and it should serve as a wake-up call for all those who are concerned about the standard of education in Ghana. Ghana’s Ministry of Education and other regulatory agencies in the country should look into what’s going on in the name of university education at Regent University of Science and Technology. That an institution is a Christian university is not a license for the president of the University to treat the students and staff as he or she likes or to introduce any Christian program anytime he deems fit. The Government of Ghana issued a licence to the owners to operate a university, not a church or as a church. Regent University was given the permission to operate to educate students not to indoctrinate them. This institution is licensed to teach students science and technology, not to brainwash them with christian ‘superstitions’ and dogmas. Those who run the university should not take advantage of the limited job and tertiary educational opportunities in Ghana to manage it any manner that they like. If the president of Regent University could not run the institution in accordance with the law and the educational standards in Ghana, then the license that was issued for the operation of the university should be revoked. That is to say, Regent University should be de-registered.

South Africa is one of the least religious countries in Africa. About 15 percent of the population identifies as having no religious affiliation and that includes atheists. While some would argue that the country’s non-theistic demography is mainly white, there is a growing number of black South Africans who are atheists and who do not profess any religion. So, the religious demography in the country is undergoing a rapid change. Recently I conversed with a black South African woman, Nosipho, who narrated how she abandoned her Christian faith and embraced atheism.

I am 39 years and was raised by my grandparents, my mother had me when she was just completing school and when she got married, my grandparents thought it was better that they raised me. My grandparents both attended Assemblies of God and so I grew up having to compulsorily attend church. I therefore became aware of “Jesus the Savior” early in my life and of course the promise of heaven through Jesus, and Hell if you reject him.

Nosipho had a difficult childhood and that caused her to become very religious.

Growing up with a mother who was in and out of my life (as every time she had marital problems she would come back home and then after a period she went back to her husband), I started to have poor self-image issues and found it very difficult to relate to my peers as I somehow felt like a rejected person as I had no mother to guide me. So I had moments where I would try to find my identity independent of human beings and of course I had the belief in a “Jesus” or God who was the perfect father who would not disappoint me.

Nosipho’s struggles continued in her teenage years:

I had some years from my early teens through to my late teens of being on and off with my being ‘born again’ and struggling with the challenges of being a teenager who was trying to discover herself as a woman. It was in 1997, when I was doing the last year of my three year tertiary education that I finally made the full “conversion”.

However Nosipho’s ‘full conversion’ took a toll on her education:

I then poured out all my being into becoming a fervent “child of God”. I remember that at the time I was doing my third year, I was very determined to do well and score high grades, but unfortunately, when “Jesus” came, everything else took a second seat, so much so that I dropped my grades even though I was able to pass.

The experience did not deter or cause Nosipho to question her faith; instead it made her even more fervent and devout:

When I say full conversion I mean that I decided that I was into it for good. I found a different church to join and became active, got baptized and devoted myself to the whole charismatic church business. I left my grandparents church as I felt they wasted time in mundane issues like not wearing this and that, instead of worrying about saving souls. That was a start of a very turbulent life I would live over the years. I always had a feeling of never being holy and obedient enough. I came under so much pressure whenever I heard other “brethren” give testimony of how they were growing in the Lord and how they had overcome this and that. All the while, after so many years I knew myself to still be struggling with those challenges they seemed to have quickly overcome. I went through a period of depression and at some stage I concluded that I must be a devil’s child as I seemed not willing to let go of the “worldly” ways. It was a traumatic thing even for my family as they believed it was because of the church I had gone to, but for me I believed that I had to do better. But then I did meet some “pastor” who counseled me and managed to get me to tone down on wanting to be perfect as apparently God can forgive time and time again. So I remained a believer and started to have different views as I now thought of “God” more as a loving than a punitive person.

However Nosipho’s quest for a more intimate relationship with God led her to make discoveries that awakened her to the omni-impotence of god and the illogic of god belief:

It was last year in September as I was going through some phase of trying to have a deeper “relationship” with God and was now seeking to remove everything that could hinder me from getting into a more deeper relationship with God that I again realized that it just did not seem natural for God to be asking us to stop certain things in our lives but at the same time not even lift one finger to help us overcome them. That was when I started to do research and to differentiate for myself things that God would really expect from us as human and doctrines that human beings have invented.

As she wrestled with her doubts, Nosipho tried using the knowledge of science to make sense of God’s existence at least as a passive creator:

Of course I felt that the first place I could draw knowledge was from scientists whose studies were not influenced by religion. I just wanted to be able to say ‘God created us like this and so he would not come round and expect us to fight what he naturally put there’. To my greatest surprise, when I searched on the internet and googled my queries, I came across these websites that stated that Jesus was never a historical figure. That was the first time I came across a publication that talked about Jesus as having never existed. And for me, having spent the last 17 years of my life trying to attain that higher place where I would know that I hear from Jesus exactly as others used to claim. It was just a numbing shock. And as I searched further on the net, I had to admit that the only thing I knew about God was what someone told me about him and I knew that was the only reason I thought he existed. I therefore could find no reason to believe anymore as I understood that Christianity was just as fabricated as all other religions which I knew were mere human creations. I was in a confused state for only a short period because I could not explain what then I was as a human but then as I checked about the state that I was now in, I came across stories of people who wrote about how they made sense of their existence after deconverting and those also who had never been religious.

After realizing that the god idea was a form of fiction, Nosipho had to contend with the issue of human origin :

I was then interested in reading about evolution just to understand how far science had explained who we are and where we came from. I had of course always thought it ridiculous that they would suggest that humans were once primate and had always been confused as to what bones they have really uncovered to be saying that.

Her readings about evolution reinforced her atheistic notions:

Of course I am an atheist if that is the word I can use as I do not believe in any supernatural power or unseen power being in existence and I accept that we only take ourselves seriously because we are self-aware and in our ‘primitive’ minds we were not able to explain everything about what or who we are and how we came to be.

One of the challenges atheists in Africa face is how to come out to their families. Many prefer not to disclose their atheism to their family members because of fear of being ostracized or maltreated. In her own case, Nosipho said:

Only a few of my close family members in the younger generation know. My mother and sister do not know nor my grandma who is now old. I have not informed most of my family and also we are no longer staying close to share our lives that much. And also most of them, even when I was a Christian, we still had a friendship that was not hindered by religion and so I have not really brought up this issue.

Nosipho thinks that atheism could be of enormous benefit to blacks in South Africa:

Of course, rejecting religion with its superstitions and even the African type of beliefs would bring so much light into people’s lives”. She is of the view that in black South African communities, atheism would be helpful in freeing the people from “ignorance and fear that so much diminish the quality of life”. Nosipho objects to what she perceives as the intolerant attitude of some atheists and their lack of ‘tact in trying to win people over from being religious’. She faults the notion of some atheists who think that “without religion the world would suddenly all lighten up”. Though she agrees that “religion is such a waste of the precious limited time we have of being human.

Though many sections of black South Africa are bubbling with religious fervor and mysticism, there is a wave of non-religiosity and unbelief sweeping across these communities. Individuals, like Nosipho, are part of this wave of change and transformation. One only needs to look beneath the charged surface of religiosity and theism to capture this undercurrent of atheist awakening in black South Africa.

In the following Appendices, we provide a selection of authors and their data including some used in the text that reinforce the argument being made here.

Appendix  I – Dairy production – Capper http://jas.fass.org/cgi/content/full/87/6/2160 and https://www.academia.edu/195371/The_environmental_impact_of_dairy_production_1944_compared_with_2007

The environmental impact of dairy production: 1944 compared with 2007 by Jude Capper, Journal of Animal Science, Vol. 87, March, 2009, pp.2160-2167.

ABSTRACT:

A common perception is that pasture-based, low-input dairy systems characteristic of the1940s were more conducive to environmental steward-ship than modern milk production systems. The objective of this study was to compare the environmental impact of modern (2007) US dairy production with historical production practices as exemplified by the US dairy system in 1944. A deterministic model based on the metabolism and nutrient requirements of the dairy herd was used to estimate resource inputs and waste outputs per billion kg of milk. Both the modern and historical production systems were modeled using characteristic management practices, herd population dynamics, and production data from US dairy farms. Modern dairy practices require considerably fewer re-sources than dairying in 1944 with 21% of animals, 23%of feedstuffs, 35% of the water, and only 10% of the land required to produce the same 1 billion kg of milk. Waste outputs were similarly reduced, with modern dairy systems producing 24% of the manure, 43% of CH 4, and 56% of N2O per billion kg of milk compared with equivalent milk from historical dairying. The car-bon footprint per billion kilograms of milk produced in2007 was 37% of equivalent milk production in 1944. To fulfill the increasing requirements of the US population for dairy products, it is essential to adopt management practices and technologies that

improve productive efficiency, allowing milk production to be increased while reducing resource use and mitigating environmental impact.

See Figures 1 & 2 – Page 2163 and Figure 3 – Page 2165 for some revealing data – the entire article is essential reading.

Figure 1. Changes in total US milk production, cow numbers, and individual cow milk yield between 1944 and 2007.

Figure 2. The dilution of maintenance effect conferred by increasing milk production in a lactating dairy cow (650 kg of BW, 3.69%milk fat).

Figure 3. Carbon footprint per cow and per kilogram of milk for1944 and 2007 US dairy production systems. The carbon footprint per kilogram of milk includes all sources of greenhouse gas emissions from milk production including animals, cropping, fertilizer, and manure.

Appendix II – Dairy and Beef production  http://jas.fass.org/content/89/12/4249 and https://www.academia.edu/1123092/The_Environmental_Impact_of_Beef_Production_in_the_United_States_1977_Compared_with_2007

The environmental impact of beef production in the United States: 1977 compared with 2007 by Jude. L. Capper, Journal of Animal Science, Vol. 89  July, 2011, pp. 4249-4261

ABSTRACT:

Consumers often perceive that the modern beef production system has an environmental impact far greater than that of historical systems, with improved efficiency being achieved at the expense of greenhouse gas emissions. The objective of this study was to compare the environmental impact of modern(2007) US beef production with production practices characteristic of the US beef system in 1977. A deterministic model based on the metabolism and nutrient requirements of the beef population was used to quantify resource inputs and waste outputs per billion kilograms of beef. Both the modern and historical production systems were modeled using characteristic management practices, population dynamics, and production data from US beef systems. Modern beef production requires considerably fewer resources than the equivalent system in 1977, with 69.9% of animals, 81.4% of feedstuffs, 87.9% of the water, and only 67.0% of the land required to produce 1 billion kg of beef. Waste outputs were similarly reduced, with modern beef systems producing 81.9% of the manure, 82.3% CH4, and 88.0% N2O per billion kilograms of beef compared with production systems in 1977. The C footprint per billion kilograms of beef produced in 2007 was reduced by 16.3% com-pared with equivalent beef production in 1977. As the US population increases, it is crucial to continue the improvements in efficiency demonstrated over the past30 yr to supply the market demand for safe, affordable beef while reducing resource use and mitigating environmental impact.

See Figure 2  Page 4255 and Figure 3 – page 4256 for more detail

Figure 2 – The “dilution of maintenance” effect conferred by increasing growth rate in steers within the 2007 US beef production system when compared with the 1977 US beef system. Energy values represent the average maintenance and growth requirements for steers destined for slaughter within the beef system. Requirements were weighted according to the number of days spent within the cow-calf, stocker, and feedlot system, and in the case of the 2007 system, to account for the proportion of yearling-fed beef, calf-fed beef, and calf-fed dairy steers within the slaughter population http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22665660

https://www.academia.edu/1720592/The_Environmental_Impact_of_Grain-fed_vs._Grass-fed_Beef

http://www.heartlandwq.iastate.edu/NR/rdonlyres/F6E4ABDB-6A8E-4775-97BE-99E20FB3CAC0/159548/Capper.pdf

Is a Cow Still Eating My Lunch? CAST Presents New Video Regarding Animal Agriculture

Blayney, D. P., 2002. The changing Landscape of U.S. Milk Production, USDA/ERS, Stat. Bull. 978, June, http://ers.usda.gov/publications/sb978/sb978.pdf

Brown, C. A., P. T. Chandler, and J. B. Holter. 1977. Development of predictive equations for milk yield and dry matter intake in lactating cows. J. Dairy Sci. 60: 1739-1754  http://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(77)84098-8/abstract

The dairy industry has been especially successful in improving the efficiency of milk production through the selection of superior performing cows and bulls from summaries of the Dairy Herd Improvement Association. In 1950, the U.S. had 22 million head of dairy cows producing an average of 2,415 kg of milk per year. In 2,000, the U.S. dairy industry had 9.2 million cows averaging 8,275 kg milk per year. Total U.S. milk production in 1950 was 53 MT, compared to 76.2 MT in 2000. The dairy industry produced 44% more milk in 2000 with 58 percent fewer cows than in 1950 (Blayney, 2002). Dry matter intake per dairy cow was about 12.3 kg per day in 1950 and had risen to about 20.9 kg per day in 2000 (from DART Ration program of the Dairy Records Management System, based on Brown et al., 1977). Again, these changes are largely the result of genetic selection applying the science of quantitative genetics.

Blayney, D. P., 2002. The Changing Landscape of U.S. Milk Production, USDA/ERS, Stat. Bull. 978, June, http://ers.usda.gov/publications/sb978/sb978.pdf

Brown, C. A., P. T. Chandler, and J. B. Holter. 1977. Development of predictive equations for milk yield and dry matterintake in lactating cows. J. Dairy Sci. 60: 1739-1754  http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0022-0302/PIIS0022030277840988.pdf

The dairy industry has been especially successful in improving the efficiency of milk production through the selection of superior performing cows and bulls from summaries of the Dairy Herd Improvement Association. In 1950, the U.S. had 22 million head of dairy cows producing an average of 2,415 kg of milk per year. In 2,000, the U.S. dairy industry had 9.2 million cows averaging 8,275 kg milk per year. Total U.S. milk production in 1950 was 53 MT, compared to 76.2 MT in 2000. The dairy industry produced 44% more milk in 2000 with 58 percent fewer cows than in 1950 (Blayney, 2002). Dry matter intake per dairy cow was about 12.3 kg per day in 1950 and had risen to about 20.9 kg per day in 2000 (from DART Ration program of the Dairy Records Management System, based on Brown et al., 1977). Again, these changes are largely the result of genetic selection applying the science of quantitative genetics.

Blayney, D. P., 2002. The Changing Landscape of U.S. Milk Production, USDA/ERS, Stat. Bull. 978, June, http://ers.usda.gov/publications/sb978/sb978.pdf

Brown, C. A., P. T. Chandler, and J. B. Holter. 1977. Development of predictive equations for milk yield and dry matterintake in lactating cows. J. Dairy Sci. 60: 1739-1754  http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0022-0302/PIIS0022030277840988.pdf

February 6, 2014

Is a Cow Still Eating My Lunch?

New CAST Video (click here) Examines Debatable Information Regarding Sustainability of Animal Agriculture

Consumers have questions about the effects of animal agriculture. Many are concerned that it takes away human food supplies and wastes resources. CAST wants to help consumers learn about the role animals can have in a healthy diet and a sustainable environment.

Re-defining efficiency of feed use by livestock by J. M. Wilkinson, animal/ Volume 5 / Issue 07 / May 2011, pp 1014-1022, The Animal Consortium 2011

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S175173111100005X  03 February 2011

http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FANM%2FANM5_07%2FS175173111100005Xa.pdf&code=c7f00b01e07f69deead73b8e039e5e6c

Abstract

Livestock, particularly ruminants, can eat a wider range of biomass than humans. In the drive for greater efficiency, intensive systems of livestock production have evolved to compete with humans for high-energy crops such as cereals. Feeds consumed by livestock were analysed in terms of the quantities used and efficiency of conversion of grassland, human-edible (‘edible’) crops and crop by-products into milk, meat and eggs, using the United Kingdom as an example of a developed livestock industry. Some 42 million tonnes of forage dry matter were consumed from 2008 to 2009 by the UK ruminant livestock population of which 0.7 was grazed pasture and 0.3 million tonnes was conserved forage. In addition, almost 13 million tonnes of raw material concentrate feeds were used in the UK animal feed industry from 2008 to 2009 of which cereal grains comprised 5.3 and soyabean meal 1.9 million tonnes. The proportion of edible feed in typical UK concentrate formulations ranged from 0.36 for milk production to 0.75 for poultry meat production. Example systems of livestock production were used to calculate feed conversion ratios (FCR – feed input per unit of fresh product). FCR for concentrate feeds was lowest for milk at 0.27 and for the meat systems ranged from 2.3 for poultry meat to 8.8 for cereal beef. Differences in FCR between systems of meat production were smaller when efficiency was calculated on an edible input/output basis, where spring-calving/grass finishing upland suckler beef and lowland lamb production were more efficient than pig and poultry meat production. With the exception of milk and upland suckler beef, FCR for edible feed protein into edible

Appendix III – Poultry and eggs  Performance Changes in Poultry and Livestock following 50 years of Genetic Selection by Gerald B. Havenstein,  Lohmann Information, Vol. 41 December 2006 http://www.lohmann-information.com/content/l_i_41_2006-12_artikel5.pdf

This publication is extremely rich in data, charts and tables. Particularly striking are the pictures of Chickens and Turkeys showing the change in size on page 34, the changes in Beef Industry on page 35. Figure 2 on page 32 “summarizes the numbers of broilers produced in the U.S. from 1940 through 2000. Broiler production has increased from about 280,000 in 1950 to over 8.2 billion in 2000”

Figure 2: U.S. Broiler Production, 1940-2000 (Source, USDA).

Figure 3: Broiler carcasses from the Ross 308 and the Control (ACRBC) broilers in the 2001 study (Havenstein et al., 2003a,b) ACRBC Males –

Figure 4: Turkey carcasses at 196 days of age from the randombred RBC2 strain established in 1966 and maintained at Ohio State University and a modern turkey hatched in 2003 (Source: Havenstein et al., 2004a,b; 20

Figure 5: Changes in the U.S. beef industry from 1955 to 2000 (Source: USDA)

See also – Havenstein, G. B., P. R. Ferket, and M. A. Qureshi. 2003. Growth, Livability and Feed Conversion of1957 vs 2001 Broilers When Fed representative 1957 and 2001 Broiler diets1 Poultry Science 82: 1500-1508).

http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/82/10/1500.full.pdf+html

Why the Rapid Growth Rate in Today’s Chickens

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/2699/why-the-rapid-growth-rate-in-todays-chickens/

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/

http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is1950.pdf

Figure 1 show why genetic selection and improved nutrition are the main reasons poultry producers are able to produce a much larger bird than they were 50 years ago. – More dramatic pictures showing the change in chicken size

“Figure 1 illustrates genetic selection in chickens. The two carcasses are the result of feeding and raising two different types of chickens under the same conditions. The chicken on the left is a strain known as an Athens/Canadian Random bred control. This strain has been maintained at the University of Georgia and has undergone no genetic selection for growth rate since it was formed in 1957. The carcass on the right is the popular broiler strain that the industry was using in 2001. This strain had undergone genetic selection for about 45 years. As you can see, the genetically selected bird is about five times larger than the strain that has undergone no genetic selection. Breeding scientists continue to select chickens with better growth rates, more efficient feed conversions, and stronger immunity to disease. This quick genetic selection for the best possible broiler bird has resulted in a large bird that can grow very quickly and be very cost-efficient. “Another reason poultry breeders are able to grow bigger chickens is that poultry nutrition has improved tremendously in the last several decades. Through nutritional research, we have discovered what ingredients broilers need in their feed in order to maximize their growth rate. A typical broiler feed includes regular grains, such as corn (a major energy source), soybean meal

(a protein source), vitamins and minerals (for better immunity) and enzymes. “Contrary to popular belief, enzymes are not hormones. Enzymes are used to help chickens digest phosphorus and protein. Enzymes also reduce environmental pollution by breaking down the phosphorus and nitrogen in broiler waste. Chickens are fed formulated diets with balanced nutrients. More is known about broiler nutrition than the nutrition of any other animal. Several of the vitamins we know now were first discovered with the chicken as a model.

Appendix IV – Land Sparing

Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing By Jesse H. Ausubel,, Iddo K. Wernick, and  Paul E. Waggoner, Population and Development Review, Volume 38, Issue Supplement s1, pages 221–242, February 2013

“The past 50 years have already witnessed important peaks for environment and resources. The rate of increase of world population peaked around 1970 and has slowed considerably since then. Peaks of forest destruction also have passed with a transition from less to more forests in many countries and regions. By the 1980s wooded areas in all major temperate and boreal forests were expanding. After 1990, growing stock expanded in many forested countries … during 1990–2010 the density of forests grew in all world regions …

“As we hinted above, peaks of farmers’ use of nitrogen and water may also have passed …

“Another 50 years from now, the Green Revolution may be recalled not only for the global diffusion of high-yield cultivation practices for many crops, but as the herald of peak farmland and the restoration of vast acreages of Nature.  … we are confident that we stand on the peak of cropland use, gazing at a wide expanse of land that will be spared for Nature”

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x/abstract Scientists See Promise for People and Nature in ‘Peak Farmland’ by ANDREW C. REVKIN, The New York Times, December 17, 2012 http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/scientists-see-promise-for-people-and-nature-in-peak-farmland/?_r=0  Peak Farmland? The landscape of the future has more wilderness by Ronald Bailey from the June 2013 issue http://www.farmingfutures.org.uk/blog/peak-farmland  http://reason.com/archives/2013/05/27/peak-farmland

“Ausubel and his colleagues calculate that rising Chinese corn productivity spared 120 million hectares from the plow. In the United States, corn production grew 17-fold between 1860 and 2010, but more land was planted with corn in 1925 than in 2010. (The area planted in corn has started increasing again, thanks to the federal government’s biofuels mandates and subsidies.) Today U.S. forests cover about 72 percent of the area that was forested in 1630. Forest area stabilized in the early 20th century, and the extent of U.S. forests began increasing in the second half of the century.

“If global crop yields had remained stuck at 1960 levels, Ausubel noted in his lecture, farmers around the world “would have needed about 3 billion more hectares, about the sum of the USA, Canada, and China or almost twice South America.” Plowing down this amount of the world’s remaining forests and grasslands would have produced what Ausubel calls “Skinhead Earth.” Restoring the Forests: SKINHEAD EARTH?  by David G. Victor and Jesse H. Ausubel

-Foreign Affairs, Vol 79, No. 6, (November/December 2000 pp. 127-144.  URL: http://phe.rockefeller.edu/restoringforests/

“EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS AGO, when humans played only bit parts in the world ecosystem, trees covered two-fifths of the land. Since then, humans have grown in number while thinning and shaving the forests to cook, keep warm, grow crops, plank ships, frame houses, and make paper. Fires, saws, and axes have cleared about half of the original forestland, and some analysts warn that within decades, the remaining natural forests will disappear altogether.

“But forests matter. A good deal of the planet’s biological diversity lives in forests (mostly in the tropics), and this diversity diminishes as trees fall. Healthy forests protect watersheds and generate clean drinking water; they remove carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere) from the air and thus help maintain the climate. Forests count — not just for their ecological and industrial services but also for the sake of order and beauty.

“Fortunately, the twentieth century witnessed the start of a “Great Restoration” of the world’s forests. Efficient farmers and foresters are learning to spare forestland by growing more food and fiber in ever-smaller areas. Meanwhile, increased use of metals, plastics, and electricity has eased the need for timber. And recycling has cut the amount of virgin wood pulped into paper. Although the size and wealth of the human population has shot up, the area of farm and forestland that must be dedicated to feed, heat, and house this population is shrinking. Slowly, trees can return to the liberated land.

How Much of This Do We Use Up Every Year? – Book Review- The Blog of BILL GATES, gatesnotes, January 26, 2015

http://www.gatesnotes.com/Harvesting-The-Biosphere-NotesSet

‘Humans will harvest roughly 17% of what the biosphere grows this year.’

“Smil tries to figure out what portion of the biosphere’s primary productivity — the amount of plant life generated each year by photosynthesis — is consumed by humans. He estimates that

we will harvest roughly 17 percent of what the biosphere grows this year — mostly plants. (He admits it could be as little as 15 percent or as much as 25 percent.)

“About 12 percent of the Earth’s land mass is now devoted to farmland.

“Twelve percent is a big number, but it would be even bigger if it weren’t for innovations in crop breeding, field machinery, and other areas that made farming much more efficient. If crop yields had remained stagnant since 1900, in the year 2000 we would have needed nearly four times more crop land to feed everyone. That’s practically half of all the ice-free land in the world.

“We’ve also had a huge impact on the biosphere by building major cities, which essentially eliminate or drastically reduce any natural productivity from those areas. Smil notes that major cities now cover nearly five million square kilometers. If you clustered them all together, they would cover an area 50 percent larger than India.”

“With crop yields had remaining at the 1900 level, the crop harvest in the year 2000 would have required nearly four times more land and its total (nearly 60 MKm2)  would have claimed nearly half of all ice-free continental area rather than the less than 15% the agricultural lands claim today.”

Comparing 20th Century Trends in U.S. and Global Agricultural Water and Land Use By Indur M. Goklany, Water International, Volume 27, Number 3, Pages 321–329, September 2002 , International Water Resources Association

http://goklany.org/library/Water%20International%202002.pdf

“Despite the pressures agriculture has brought to bear on global biological resources, similar to the situation in the U.S., those pressures could have been much worse had global agricultural productivity, and therefore yields, been frozen at, say, 1961 levels. This is equivalent to freezing technology, and its penetration, at 1961 levels. In that case, agricultural land area would have had to more-than double its actual 1998 level of 12.2 billion acres to at least 26.3 billion in order to produce as much food as was actually produced in 1998 (Goklany, 2001). Thus, agricultural land area would have had to increase from its current 38 percent to 82 percent of global land area (FAO, 2001; Goklany, 2001). Cropland would also have had to more than-double, from 3.7 to 7.9 billion acres. In effect, an additional area the size of South America-minus-Chile would have to be plowed under. Thus increased land productivity forestalled further increases in threats to terrestrial habitats and biodiversity.”

Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).  2001. FAOSTAT Database, 2001. http://apps.fao.org/ . 3

October 2001.

Goklany, I.M. 2001. “Agricultural Technology and the Precautionary Principle.” Political Economy Research Forum (PERC), November29-December 2, 2001, Bozeman, Montana, USA:PERC

Appendix V – Food Safety

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/04/the-ten-deadliest-outbreaks-in-history-revisited/#.VkFFtNKrSUk  The 10 Deadliest Outbreaks in U.S. History — Revisited  By Dan Flynn | April 4, 2012

The ten deadliest food- and waterborne outbreaks are: 1. Typhoid fever, 1924-25

Oysters from Long Island, NY, held in polluted waters, sickened more than 1,500 in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.; 150 died. 2. Typhoid fever, 1903

A public water source in Ithaca, NY, was polluted from a dam construction site, resulting in typhoid outbreak involving 1,350 people; 82 were killed, including 29 Cornell University students. 3. Streptococcus, 1911

Raw milk delivered door-to-door in the Boston area was responsible for a strep outbreak;

48 people died. 4. Listeria, 2011

“Rocky Ford” cantaloupes from Colorado became contaminated, probably in the packing facility, sickening at least 146 in 28 states; 36 died. (pesticide free – TRD) 5. Listeria, 1985

Mexican cheese made by a Los Angeles company sickened mostly Hispanic women, many who were pregnant; 28 died. (made from raw milk – TRD) 6. Streptococcus, 1922

Raw milk delivered door-to-door in Portland, OR was contaminated; 22 killed. 7. Listeria, 1998

Ball Park hot dogs and Sara Lee deli meats were recalled after Listeria was found in the Michigan processing plant; 21 killed. 8. Botulism, 1919

Canned ripe olives from California sold to inland states were contaminated and caused outbreaks in three states; 19 died. 9. Salmonella Typhimurium, 2008-09

Peanut butter and paste contaminated with S. Typhimurium caused at least 714 illiness in 46 states; 9 killed. (largest producer of organic peanut butter – TRD) 10. Listeria, 2002

Sliced turkey meats from Pilgrim’s Pride were responsible for a multiple state outbreak; 8 killed.”

© Food Safety News

My observation – Before 1950 when U.S. population was less than half of what it is today and food production was only nation in packaged or process foods and only a few items of produce. Very little was imported:

Top three deadliest before 1950

Five of the top ten before 1950

After 1950:

Two are from raw milk or raw milk cheese

One was pesticide free

Two – numbers 8 & 10 (out of ten) were from produce conventionally grown in the United States

The two large outbreaks outside the U.S.in recent times have both been attributed to sprouts, at least one of which if not both were organically grown..

Massive outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection in schoolchildren in Sakai City, Japan, associated with consumption of white radish sprouts  Michino H, Araki K, Minami S, Takaya S, Sakai N, Miyazaki M, Ono A, Yanagawa H. Environmental Health Bureau, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Tokyo, Japan. Jonathan H. Mermin1- and Patricia M. Griffin, American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume. 150, No. 8, October 15, 1999, pp. 787-96.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10522649

“In July 1996, Sakai City, Japan, experienced the largest outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 infections ever reported, involving over 7,000 persons.”

2011 Germany E. coli O104:H4 outbreak – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “A novel strain of Escherichia coli O104:H4 bacteria caused a serious outbreak of foodborne illness focused in northern Germany in May through June 2011. The illness was characterized by bloody diarrhea, with a high frequency of serious complications, including hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), a condition that requires urgent treatment. The outbreak was originally thought to have been caused by an enterohemorrhagic (EHEC) strain of E. coli, but it was later shown to have been caused by an enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC) strain that had acquired the genes to produce Shiga toxins. “In all, 3,950 people were affected and 53 died, 51 of which were in Germany.[7] A handful of cases were reported in several other countries including Switzerland,[8] Poland,[8] the Netherlands,[8] Sweden,[8] Denmark,[8] the UK,[8][9] Canada[10] and the USA.[10][11] Essentially all affected people had been in Germany or France shortly before becoming ill. “A joint risk-assessment by EFSA/ECDC, issued 29 June 2011, made a connection between the German outbreak and a HUS outbreak in the Bordeaux area of France, first reported on 24 June, in which infection with E. coli O104:H4 has been confirmed in several patients.[51] The assessment implicated fenugreek seeds imported from Egypt in 2009 and 2010, from which sprouts were grown, as a common source of both outbreaks, but cautioned that “there is still much uncertainty about whether this is truly the common cause of the infections”, as tests on the seeds had not yet found any E. coli bacteria of the O104:H4 strain.[52][53] The potentially contaminated seeds were widely distributed in Europe.[54] Egypt, for its part, steadfastly denied that it may have been the source of deadly E. coli strain, with the Minister of Agriculture calling speculations to that effect “sheer lies.”[55] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/nonpasteurized-outbreaks.html

Nonpasteurized Disease Outbreaks, 1993-2006

Raw milk was much more likely to cause outbreaks than pasteurized milk.

* Probably no more than 1% of the milk consumed in the United States is raw, yet more outbreaks were caused by raw milk than by pasteurized milk.

* If you consider the number of outbreaks caused by raw milk in light of the very small amount of milk that is consumed raw, the risk of outbreaks caused by raw milk is at least 150 times greater than the risk of outbreaks caused by pasteurized milk.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/irradiation_food/

“Which foodborne diseases could be prevented with irradiation?

Treating raw meat and poultry with irradiation at the slaughter plant could eliminate bacteria commonly found raw meat and raw poultry, such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Campylobacter. These organisms currently cause millions of infections and thousands of hospitalizations in the United States every year. Raw meat irradiation could also eliminate Toxoplasma organisms, which can be responsible for severe eye and congenital infections. Irradiating prepared ready-to-eat meats like hot dogs and deli meats, could eliminate the risk of Listeria from such foods. Irradiation could also eliminate bacteria like Shigella and Salmonella from fresh produce. The potential benefit is also great for those dry foods that might be stored for long times and transported over great distances, such as spices and grains. Animal feeds are often contaminated with bacteria like Salmonella. Irradiation of animal feeds could prevent the spread of Salmonella and other pathogens to livestock through feeds.”

“Alfalfa seeds used in making alfalfa sprouts can sometimes be contaminated with Salmonella.

“Using irradiation to eliminate Salmonella from the seeds may require a dose of irradiation that also interferes with the viability of the seeds themselves. Combining irradiation with other strategies to reduce contamination with germs may overcome these limitations”

Appendix VI – “Blame Factory Farming” for Everything?

In response to an article titled – Blame factory farming, not organic food in Nature Biotechnology 25:165, 1 February, the editors of Nature Biotechnology stated the following: “The most comprehensive peer-reviewed study to look at contamination of produce found that organic fruits and vegetables are three times more likely to be contaminated with bacteria than conventional produce; indeed, of all the produce tested, the study found the pathogen Salmonella exclusively in organic lettuce and organic green peppers. Of a total of 15 farms that had E. coli-positive samples, thirteen were organic and only two were conventional.”

“There is a simple fix available, however, that could stem the rising tide of cases of food-borne illness in the United States. Irradiation of fruits and vegetables would eliminate 99.999% of pathogens. It would have prevented or drastically reduced all of last year’s E. coli outbreaks. And most important of all, it would have saved lives. It’s hard to understand why a country that already irradiates its meat should not do the same to its fruits and vegetables “(Blame factory farming, not organic food: a response, Nature Biotechnology 25:165, 1 February 1, 2007).”

Modern agriculture and the favorite pejorative describing it, industrial agriculture are deemed to be evil by many critics. Readers of The New York Times might have found it strange that one of its food columnists, Mark Bittman flew out to California to visit a high tech, science based industrial tomato farm and a nearby cannery. The farm is a neighbor to one of the world’s leading agricultural biotechnologist in rice cultivation and has close ties to scientist at one of the world’s leading agricultural universities, the University of California, Davis (see Building a Better Tomato http://www.americasheartland.org/episodes/episode_604/better_tomato.htm).

It came as no surprise to some of us, that Bittman declared that “Not All Industrial Food Is Evil” (The New York Times, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/not-all-industrial-food-is-evil/). To some of us with a penchant for cynicism might believe that whatever his misgivings allegedly were – “So, fearing the worst — because we all `know’ that organic farming is `good’ and industrial farming is `bad” – as a food writer, he did not have a choice. Why, because the leading chefs consider canned tomatoes to be better balanced because of a lower ph and therefore better than fresh tomatoes for a basic tomato pasta sauce. The farm that Bittman visited was harvesting a plum tomato that would be considered a modern variety of Roma tomatoes.

Various modern varieties of Roma tomatoes such as the “Roma VF” can be found in seed catalogs. First developed by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Beltsville, Maryland in the 1950s from the famed San Marzano (see below), its’ importance was as a fusarium wilt-resistant cultivar. Further breeding has resulted in more modern varieties.  While Roma was originally an open-pollinated variety rather than a hybrid, it has been steadily transformed for improved taste, additional resistance capabilities and increased yield – from 25 to 80 tons per acre on the farm visited by Bittman.

Though considered better than fresh tomatoes, the canned tomatoes that most of us can afford to use are not what the more affluent purists include in their basic tomato sauce for pasta – canned San Marzano tomatoes certified DOP – Denominazione d’ Origine Protetta (protected designation of origin) grown in the volcanic soils of Mount Vesuvius in Valle delSarno, San Marzano sul Sarno in the Campania (Italy) near Naples.  It is a variety that dates in the Campania from the late 1700s but its commercial availability was not until the mid-1920s. Far be it from be to challenge the culinary authority of the great chefs but it might be noted that that some taste tests – I assume blinded if not double blinded – did not rate the DOP San Marzanos that high (Serious Eats – What Is a DOP Tomato? http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/12/what-is-a-dop-italian-san-marzano-cannedtomato.html, A Preliminary Canned-Tomato Taste-Test, http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/09/what-are-the-best-tasting-canned-san-marzano-grocery-store-italian-tomatoes.html, EXPERIENCE COMES WITH AGE , http://negramodelousa.com/agegate )

Bittman’s dilemma in having to find some aspects of the evil Industrial agriculture to be good, is actually shared by most of those who share his views. It is one thing to proclaim in stentorian tones on the evils of industrial agriculture and how it is unsustainable and has to go and it is another thing to try to farm without the use of critical components of modern scientific, technological, industrial agriculture. Unless you are able to command astronomical prices, your boiler chickens will be Cornish Crosses. Free range or organic chickens will also be modern breeds using modern techniques that have raised egg production in the last century from 88 to over a hundred per year. You will buy your chicks from a hatchery which will likely vaccinate them while still in the shell and add in an anti-biotic to protect them from infection. Organic vegetable farmers will likely use F-1 or F-2 hybrids (as farmers all over the world are doing) and the poultry manure that they use would have come from birds fed with genetically modified corn raised using synthetic fertilizer and some pesticides. In other words, synthetic fertilizer, pesticides and GM grains are laundered through poultry in order to protect the purity of organic farmers and their customers. We could carry this argument across the spectrum of modern agriculture but my favorite is the premium Scotch and Irish whiskeys and artisan beers that use only Golden Promise barley, a product of 1950s mutation (radiation) breeding.

Appendix VII- Agricultural Subsidies, Cheap Food & Fast Food

There seems to some confusion about what agricultural among the critics of modern agricultural policies as to what the intent of agricultural subsidies in the U.S. has been. Historically beginning in the 1930s, it was to raise farm incomes by raising the prices of farm products not lowering them. Over the decades, various schemes paid farmers to take land out of production or bought up surplus product to take it off the market. These surpluses have provided the food for the U.S. PL 480 food aid programs and their successors. For the last half century, the U.S. agricultural subsidy programs have passed in Congress with a coalition of rural votes for the income support joined by urban representatives by including a variety of food aid programs for the poor. The Ethanol requirements which many of us consider to be ridiculous are a further attempt to draw down a product, in this case corn, off the food market to raise its price.

To say that there is confusion on the subsidy issue would be a considerable understatement. Even some of the finest writers on food writing for a publication renowned for its fact checking is not always clear on this issue. (see page 63 – Michael Specter, Freedom From Fries: Can fast food be good for you? The New Yorker: The Food Issue, November 2, 2015, pp. 56-65 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/02/freedom-from-fries ). Subsidized crop insurance would be one form of subsidies that can help the farmer without necessarily raising

prices and possibly lowering them. The claim is often made that conventional agriculture is subsidized and “organic” is not. But crop insurance, which is becoming the dominant form of subsidy and it is available to most all farmers. Since it seeks to reimburse lost revenue  but acre, an “organic” farmer might get a larger payout for losing the same size crop as a conventional famer since his or her product’s ability to command a higher price would translate into greater lost revenue. One eminent food writer, Tamar Haspel is a strong proponent of what she calls crop “neutral” insurance subsidies (Unearthed: A rallying cry for a crop program that could change everything by Tamar Haspel, The Washington Post, February 2, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/unearthed-a-rallying-cry-for-a-crop-program-that-could-change-everything/2015/02/01/ea7988b2-a741-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html , see also, If GMOs aren’t the problem with our food system, then what is? By Tamar Haspel, The Washington Post, November 8, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/if-gmos-arent-the-problem-with-our-food-system-then-what-is/2015/11/08/501a01c4-826b-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html ).

Given the potential volatility of agriculture, it is probably important that we protect our skilled farmers from being wiped out in a severe drought or some other climatic event. Since the depression of the 1930s, the rapid decline of the rural/farm population appears (to this non-expert) to have been relatively orderly with those leaving either selling or leasing their land to neighbors who are allowed to grow bigger and more efficient. If the price of food has been falling, as it has, then it is because of the ever increasing efficiency/yield of modern agriculture and not the subsidies. The biggest subsidy to agriculture from the public sector at all levels and from the private sector has been the great agricultural universities and the research and extension that they provide. Few could argue against the proposition that this research has benefited all of us in addition to farmers.

Crop insurance along with cell phones are currently playing a critical role around the world in allowing small subsistence farmers to become small agribusinesses to their benefit and to the benefit of the global community as the above noted shift into more fruit and vegetable production appears to be accelerating. It is a story that needs to be told in more detail in another article.

We are told of the horrors of cheap food and fast food and its responsibility for the rising epidemic of obesity. A forthcoming report from the Cornell Food Lab argues that the increased consumption of cheap fast food appears most significant at the extremes, the underweight and the morbidly obese (Fast Food, Soft Drink, and Candy Intake is Unrelated to Body Mass Index for 95% of American Adults by David Just and Brian Wansink, Obesity Science and Practice, November 2015, http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/OP/fast_food_science

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2055-2238, This infographic explains why junk food isn’t to blame for obesity http://www.sciencealert.com/this-infographic-explains-why-fast-food-soda-and-candy-aren-t-to-blame-for-obesity , For Most of Us, Obesity Is Unrelated to Junk Food: Don’t start stuffing your face, though. It’s not like burgers and pop are good for you. http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/for-most-of-us-obesity-is-unrelated-to-junk-food?utm_source=Pacific%20Standard%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=da231c32f0-daily-rss-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a4fd1bcb7e-da231c32f0-80556629 ).

Even though our diet “remains poor,” it does appear that overall; we are making progress (Improvements In US Diet Helped Reduce Disease Burden And Lower Premature Deaths, 1999–2012; Overall Diet Remains Poor http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/34/11/1916.abstract). The danger is that policies that are offered to counter obesity such as taxes on certain foods, may do serious harm to those allegedly being protected.

“Using data relating index scores to health outcomes in two large cohorts, we estimated that the improvements in dietary quality from 1999 to 2012 prevented 1.1million premature deaths. Also, this improvement in diet quality resulted in 8.6 percent fewer cardiovascular disease cases, 1.3 percent fewer cancer cases, and 12.6 percent fewer type 2 diabetes cases. Although the steady improvement in dietary quality likely accounted for substantial reductions in disease burden from 1999 to 2012, overall dietary quality in the United States remains poor. Policy initiatives are needed to ensure further improvements.”

There is a delicious irony that globally and in the U.S., the cheapness of foods that are the object of such scorn may be the means that allows people to consume less of them rather than more. In micro-economics, we have what are called Giffen or inferior goods. Contrary to the Law of Demand where quantity demand varies inversely to price, for inferior goods, quantity demanded varies directly with the price. There is what is called the income effect, namely the rising price of an inferior good that constitutes a large part of a poor person’s consumption leading to a loss in real income. There real income loss means that the poor consumer has to buy more of the cheaper good even though its price has risen and less of other items. In micro economics, it has been an easy theory to illustrate and a difficult one to prove.

On a macro level in the global economy, the micro theory seems to be working. For example, throughout Asia, the proportion of the land devoted to the primary grain, generally rice but sometimes another grain, has been declining in throughout region in virtually every country. In most every country in Asia, people are now eating less rice and more of other foods. The major exception seems to be India, where they are eating more rice and more of other foods as overall consumption continues to rise. All this is consistent with the above data that shows the portion of the cultivated land in fruits and vegetables continues to rise.

We close with the observation that many critics speak in near apocalyptic terms about the need to overturn the industrial agricultural system lock, stock and barrel. They seem to pounce on all bad

news as proving their contention even if the bad news, the number of people in hunger reflects a continuing decline in that adverse condition. Let there be some good news, of which there is plenty, guess who is first in line to take credit.

Nothing could be more obvious about the beneficial transformation of our food system then the modern super market or hyper market. When in college in the 1950s, I worked at any number of different jobs including one year working in a supermarket for the chain that was the second largest in the U.S. and the largest west of the Mississippi where I was located (Albuquerque, New Mexico). There was no deli, the dairy case was extremely limited and the produce department had about forty items in it. In winter, coconuts were brought in to fill the empty bins. Yet at the time, this was rightly seen as a cornucopia, the wonder of the world and unmatched anywhere. And it was compared to what existed when my parents were young adults. Today, an average supermarket will have as many as 400 items in the produce section and some where we shop will have a many as 700. Some of that 700 will be fresh spices in little small sections but that as what appears to satisfy market demand.

Credit the global economy and agricultural system for this cornucopia. Heavens no! Let us give thanks and praise to our foodie friends who will save us from a culinary perdition. “The food movement over the past couple of decades has substantially altered consumer behavior and reshaped the competitive landscape.” Oh thank you! “There was a time when consumers used to walk through every aisle of the grocery store, but today much of their time is being spent in the perimeter of the store with its vast collection of fresh products — raw produce, meats, bakery items and fresh prepared foods. Sales of fresh prepared foods have grown nearly 30 percent since 2009, while sales of center-of-store packaged goods have started to fall. Sales of raw fruits and vegetables are also growing — among children and young adults, per capita consumption of vegetables is up 10 percent over the past five years.” Note that our global food system from farm to fork had nothing to do with is; the foodies wished it and it miraculously happened. (A Seismic Shift in How People Eat by HANS TAPARIA and PAMELA KOCH, The New York Times, November 6, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/opinion/a-seismic-shift-in-how-people-eat.html?ref=opinion)

Having already initiated the transformation of our food system, our urban foodie professoriate feels free to tell the large corporate food entities what they must do. Don’t ask them how it is to be accomplished; they make policy – others are to carry it out. It seems not to have occurred to them that the very forces so often condemned that made the stuff in the center so cheap, allowed for more income left to buy those items around the perimeter. And that these same scientific and technological forces that made some of the packaged food cheap,, also is responsible for all that fresh stuff being available and affordable. Sorry professors, it didn’t just happen out of nothing ex nihilo nihil.

“For legacy food companies to have any hope of survival, they will have to make bold changes in their core product offerings. Companies will have to drastically cut sugar; process less; go

local and organic; use more fruits, vegetables and other whole foods; and develop fresh offerings. … These changes would require a complete overhaul of their supply chains, major organizational restructuring and billions of dollars of investment, but these corporations have the resources. It may be their last chance.”

Appendix VIII

NAS (National Academy of Sciences). Toxicants Occurring Naturally in Foods. Washington: National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Food protection, Food and Nutrition Board, National Research Council, 1973.

NRC. (National Research Council). Committee on Comparative Toxicity of Naturally Occurring Carcinogens, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, and the Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council. Carcinogens and Anticarcinogens in the Human Diet: A Comparison of Naturally Occurring and Synthetic Substances. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1996

Smale, Melinda; M. P. Reynolds; M. Warburton; B. Skovmand; R. Trethowan; R. P. Singh; I. Ortiz-Monasterio and J. Crossa. “Dimensions of Diversity in Modern Spring Bread Wheat in Developing Countries from 1965.” Crop Science 42 (November-December 2002):1766-1779.

Smale, Melinda and T. McBride. Understanding global trends in the use of wheat diversity and international flows of wheat genetic resources. Part 1 of CIMMYT 1995/96 World Wheat Facts and Trends: Understanding Global Trends in the Use of Wheat Diversity and International Flows of Wheat Genetic Resources. Mexico, D.F.: CIMMYT (Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo – International Center for the Improvement of Wheat and Maize), 1996

Research, 1983, Vols 1-4

Rao, I and G. Cramer. Plant Nutrition and Crop Improvement in Adverse Soil Conditions. In M. Chrispeels and D. Sadava (eds.) Plants, Genes, and Crop Biotechnology, pp 270-303. Sudbury, MA: American Society of Plant Biologists, ASPB Education Foundation, and Jones and Bartlett Publishers. 2003.

Smalling, E.M.A; S.M. Nandwa; and B. H. Janssen. Soil Fertility in Africa is at Stake. In R.J. Buresh and P.A. Sánchez and F. Calhoun (eds.) Replenishing Soil Fertility in Africa, pp 46-61. Madison, WI: American Society of Agronomy and Soil Science Society of America, Special Publication No. 51, 1997

Appendix  VIII

Personal Statement – I have been involved in economic development for over 50 years. My first trip to Africa was in 1962, my first trip to Asia was nearly 40 years ago and though I was in the Caribbean nearly 40 years ago, my development work there began about a quarter century ago. I have returned to these areas on a regular basis and been to the developing world more times than I can count. Since leaving the hospital with only one leg, I have still been able to return to Asia and Africa and I maintain daily contact with these regions via email. I have been privileged to work in every aspect and every level in about everything that I have discussed above. I have known some of the people that I have worked with for 30 years or more and I am in regular phone and email contact with them in addition to meeting with them in London or Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. I say this because in my classes I illustrate many of my points with stories of my personal experience in development. I am likely to do that in a public presentation. Let me make clear that I do not offer my personal experiences as proof of anything. They are meaningful to me and I hope that they help my audience understand the point that I am making. But repeat, my personal experiences are not offered as evidence – merely illustration. I stand or fall on the factual accuracy of what I write or say.

Part 2

“In 1950, the U.S. had 22 million head of dairy cows producing an average of 2,415 kg of milk per year. In 2,000, the U.S. dairy industry had 9.2 million cows averaging 8,275 kg milk per year. Total U.S. milk production in 1950 was 53 MT, compared to 76.2 MT in 2000. The dairy industry produced 44% more milk in 2000 with 58 percent fewer cows than in 1950” (Blayney, 2002, cited in  Havenstein, 2006). Blayney, D. P., 2002. The changing Landscape of U.S. Milk Production, USDA/ERS, Stat. Bull. 978, June, http://ers.usda.gov/publications/sb978/sb978.pdf

Contrary to the critics of modern agriculture, there is no scientific evidence that “organic” is healthier. There is substantial evidence in peer reviewed scientific literature that there is no appreciable difference. Nor is it more sustainable. Yet too often, the media simply assumes these to be true as do the grocery chain stores ex. – “Stores find organic food is the natural way to go” Houston Chronicle 01/19/2013. 

Per unit of output, organic agriculture as it is allowed to be practiced has a larger carbon footprint and is often less environmentally friendly overall. This includes consideration of nitrogen and other nutrient run-off in food production. Further, conventional agriculture is more amenable to improvement through scientific research. Feedlots animal wastes present a problem but feedlot finished cattle are so much more efficient in animal production, particularly in terms of carbon footprint, that strict regulation of containment ponds to control environmental contamination would be warranted and cost effective. Even better would be regulations mandating the installation of anaerobic biogas digesters that would create a relatively clean fuel and safe fertilizer.  Some of the larger poultry facilities have already done so and found it reduced the operations need for an external fuel source and added to profitability

Being “organic” does not necessarily mean being pesticide free or even being grown without synthetic pesticides. In fact, some of the “all natural” pesticides such as copper sulfate are highly toxic and persistent in the environment. The USDA’s organic program has a list of approved pesticides including some synthetic pesticides. Nor was pre-modern agriculture pesticide free as there was a long history of using toxic substances such as arsenic to protect plants. In agriculture when you grow and concentrate nutrient for human use, you are also concentrating nutrient for birds, rodents, insects, bacteria, fungi and viruses. Plants had to be protected and often substances far more persistent and toxic than those used today were applied to the fields. Again agriculture is not magic and though there were various protective strategies that farmers could use, too often they had to use a toxic substance.

Being organic does not mean being free of toxins – in fact, in many instances, organic produce is likely to have a higher load of toxins. Plants are chemical factories that produce a variety of toxins to defend themselves many of which are carcinogens. According to toxicologist Bruce Ames, over 99% of the toxins that we ingest each day are from those produced by plants. Michael Pollan and others claim that organic produce is more nutritious because it is “less-well protected.” This means that if a plant is invaded by micro-organisms or insects, it will express toxins to defend itself. What is toxic to one organism is not necessarily toxic to another but the proponents of the organic/anti-GMO play word games not using the word toxin when it suits them but use the term toxin (or even poison) to identify plant proteins that protect against micro-organisms or insects but are harmless to humans. The supposedly “more nutritious” parts of the “less-well protected” plants turn out to be antioxidants – flavonoids and phenolics – that are now considered to be of questionable benefit. (Note: Fruits and vegetables are loaded with antioxidants and are considered to be beneficial to human health. Is it because of the antioxidants or the form in which they take in fruits and vegetables? Are fruits and vegetables beneficial because we eat less of other things that might be harmful? Clinical studies on adding antioxidants to diets not only fail to show any benefit but often find significant evidence of harm.)  Not mentioned are the other toxins produced by the invading micro-organisms of the less-well protected organic plants some of which are very toxic to humans. Many chemical food preservatives are also antioxidants.

USDA certification of a product as being organic has no meaning other than it was grown using certain means (and not others) – it has no implications about quality, nutrition etc. as clearly stated by the USDA. These standards were largely the creation of those who either wish to grow or to consume “organic.”

The most sustainable form of contemporary agriculture is what is called “conservation tillage” (AKA – no tillage or minimum tillage) using a genetically engineered herbicide tolerant (Ht) crop with a broad spectrum pesticide such as Glyphosate. 

There is no scientific controversy concerning the safety of transgenic transformations using rDNA (AKA GMOs, “frankenfoods,” genetically modified among others) food crops nor is there about cisgenics, intragenics or antisense technologies (RNAi) though the anti-GMO groups have convinced large segments of the public and the media that there is. This point could easily be documented in detail along with the multitude of examples of activist’s ignorance of some of the basic understandings of modern science. Michael Pollan’s claim in the early editions of “Omnivore’s Dilemma” that carbon was the most common element in the human body and in all life forms would be risible if it were not so pathetic. What about the activist promoted referendum for an ordinance banning the growing of GMOs in Mendocino County, California that defined DNA as a complex protein found in every cell in the body. It passed. Or what about the polls in Europe that found that a majority or sometimes just a plurality of the population believed tomatoes did not have genes unless biotechnologist put them there? In the U.S. we did a little better with a plurality but not a majority believing the claim to be in error. This is just a sample of the activist errors of fact.

In the media and on the internet, much of the opposition to genetic engineering of plants focuses on Monsanto even instances where Monsanto is not involved. Monsatan as the clever activist wordsmiths call it. One of the enduring myths of the anti-transgenic is that farmers are sued by Monsanto for pollen drift on to their fields. This is widely claimed, endlessly repeated in a multitude of different media and widely believed even though there is not a scintilla of evidence for it. The myth is repeated so often that I periodically would called a friend of mine who is considered a leading expert on agricultural law who would reassure me that in no instance in the cases settled in court did the defendant claim accidental pollen drift. It is one thing to make a claim in a documentary film and another to make it under oath in court.

Much as we are all must trust the expertise of others since it is impossible for any one of us to know everything first hand. On a controversial issue like farmers being sued by Monsanto, I would prefer to have direct knowledge but there was no way I was going to read all the many court cases. Fortunately, the activists overplayed their hand and filed a suit to enjoin Monsanto from suing farmers for being the recipients of pollen drift. The case was Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association v. Monsanto Co., 11cv2163, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan) filed in March 2011 with a ruling on January 2012 by Judge Naomi Buchwald, a Clinton appointee.  

Judge Buchwald dismissed the case since the plaintiffs could not offer in court a single instance where Monsanto had sued a farmer for accidental pollen drift. It was dismissed, not tried because there was not a case to be made. Her dismissal was affirmed June 2013 (Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association v. Monsanto Co., 12-1298) by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Washington).

The anti-Monsanto activists have also been peddling the tale of the Canadian canola grower Percy Schmeiser who it is claimed was the innocent victim of a lawsuit by Monsanto. Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser is a case that I have read and re-read multiple times to make sure that I was not missing something that those who use it for ant-GMO propaganda were finding. I encourage those who are interested in these issues to read the case themselves. A reasonable person would find that numerous claims made by Schmeiser were rather preposterous.   

“The courts at all three levels noted that the case of accidental contamination beyond the farmer’s control was not under consideration but rather that Mr. Schmeiser’s action of having identified, isolated and saved the Roundup-resistant seed placed the case in a different category” (Quoted from Wikipedia, September 2013). The judge in the initial case ruled that Schmeiser had either known or ought to have known that he was planting a patented seed.

Pollen drift is not “contamination” unless one can demonstrate harm in that the resulting crop actually harms those who eat it. By clever use of language such as “contamination,” activists seek to control the discourse by controlling the language. Historically, those producing a specialized crop are responsible for maintaining its genetic identity. Similarly, those whose religion requires food to be halal or kosher assume the full cost and responsibility for maintaining it. I respect that.

The proponents of organic agriculture, unlike those who require halal or kosher expect other farmers and producers of food to bear the cost of sustaining their ritual purity for a product for which they receive a price premium. The rules for what could be labeled organic were established following a series of town hall meetings. Organic farmers were prohibited from planting GMOs. The USDA certified organic label strictly applies only to the way that a crop was raised and has no implications concerning sustainability of the production system or the nutritional quality of the food produced.

Not satisfied with the rules that they created, organic consumers and others demanded even stricter prohibitions against any pollen drift into a field of organic production even though it would still qualify for USDA organic certification. It is a free country and if that is what they want and they are willing to pay for it, then that is their privilege. But instead of paying for it, they are seeking to use the courts to shift the burden from the roughly those who grow 1 to 5% of the sugar beets and the alfalfa to those who grow the roughly 95 to 99% of these crops. This is the antithesis of democracy.

Many of those involved in lawsuits and organizing for labeling laws have made it clear that there ultimate objective is to eliminate genetically modified food from the marketplace. There is more than a bit of hypocrisy or even fraud for those who rail against Monsanto for allegedly tyrannizing American farmers then filing a lawsuit that would have forced GMO Alfalfa growers (representing at least 95% of all Alfalfa grown) to pull up their already planted crop, a crop that they had been growing for five seasons. The basis of the lawsuit was not any evidence of harm but on a technicality in the previous approval process. Fortunately, an Appeals court overturned the initial court decision ordering the uprooting of the plants.

This has become a common tactic of claiming to represent the “oppressed” farmers while working to impose restrictions on the choices of the vast majority of farmers. It should be noted that in the above cases, the organizations representing the majority of the affected farmers stood in opposition to the activist’s legal position. This is part of a larger narrative in economic development where NGOs claim to offer a bottom up process of development as opposed to the alleged traditional top down approach to development. Yet when those they presume to want to help fail to follow their development prescriptions, they inevitably turn to the UN or supporting governments or institutions in the developed world to try to impose their agenda.

In Brazil, it was Greenpeace that sued to block the planting of GMO soybeans. It was farmers illegally planting GMO soybeans smuggled in from Argentina that eventually forced the Lula government to reverse course and approve their use. In India, planting Bt. cotton was banned by the Government in spite of the fact the a 30 person panel of leading scientist tasked to study the issue and rule on it found them to be safe. Some farmers were illegally planting the Bt. cotton seeds anyway. When a devastating attack of the Asian Bollworm wiped out field after field of cotton in Gujarat, the largest cotton growing state in India, it was the fields of the illegally planted Bt. cotton that were left standing. After initially threatening to destroy the unaffected fields, the Government capitulated and approved the planting of Bt. cotton.

From 20,000 farmers growing Bt cotton in India the 1st year of approval, it grew to 7.4 million farmers growing it in a few years. It has continued at this level to the present as over 90% of cotton grown in India is GMO. India has gone from being the largest importer of cotton in the world to being one of the world’s largest exporters of cotton. The farmer’s real income is up which is reflected in a recent study by Matin Qaim and Shahzad Kouser finding improved health and nutrition among those growing Bt. cotton. Numerous other peer-reviewed studies including some by Qaim have found increased real income from growing Bt. cotton for farmers, for women and for field workers (Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security, PLOS/ONE, June 5, 2013, http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0064879

If you can’t beat them then lie by claiming that farmers in India have been driven to suicide by the failure of transgenic cotton. This has been refuted by numerous careful studies such as one by IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute). More important, it is refuted by the fact that 7.4 million Indian farmers continue to grow it. Some of these are farmers who have switched to cotton from other crops because of the more reliable yields and higher income. Yet the myth of Bt. cotton leading to farmer’s suicides continues with some clever activists branding them as suicide seeds (Bt cotton failure and farmer suicides in India: Reviewing the Evidence, The International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) IFPRI Discussion Paper 00808, October 2008, http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/printview/collection/p15738coll2/id/14501/type/compoundobject/show/1/popts/all/filename/14438.pdf page or http://ebrary.ifpri.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15738coll2/id/14501 )

GMO soybeans in Brazil and Bt. cotton in India are only two of many instances where European and North American based ideological NGOs have worked to thwart the choice of farmers and others in the developing world while claiming to be defending them. In some areas, such as India, they frequently work with urban based elite groups. Not content to restrict themselves to a variety of propaganda and legal tactics, the anti-GMO activists have attacked research labs, slimeing transgenic plant researchers and going into the fields destroying crops in test plots. The most recent destructive rampage of a test plot of Golden Rice in the Philippines gave rise to a letter condemning it signed by over 6,000 scientists from around the world many of them being leaders in their field.

One can’t even begin to tell the story of Golden Rice and the 400 to 500 million children in the world who are Vitamin A deficient with horrendous consequences for life and for death. Opposing some forms of transgenic agriculture such as Golden Rice (Vitamin A enhanced – actually enhanced with Beta carotene the precursor of Vitamin A) has very serious consequences for poor children in developing countries. Those who engage in disruptive activities or support organizations that do, have to accept responsibility for the adverse consequences that flow from their actions. What we are talking about is children going blind and dying from Vitamin A deficiency.  Today over 1,000 children will directly die as a result of Vitamin A deficiency. Another 5,000 are estimated to die each day because their immune system was weakened  by Vitamin A deficiency for a total of 6,000 deaths each day. On an annual basis, this comes to 350, 000 children dying each year directly of Vitamin A deficiency while the best estimates are that the direct and indirect deaths from Vitamin A deficiency are 2 to 2 ½ million (some estimates run as high as 3 million)  deaths each year. A significant number of these are children of subsistence rice farmers and their deaths could have been prevented by Golden Rice. Will those opposed to Golden Rice accept responsibility for this outcome? The safety and potential benefit of Golden Rice has been demonstrated by multiple projects with their results being published in leading peer reviewed journals such as the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

See for example: Golden Rice – Lifesaver? By Amy Harmon, The New York Times, August 24, 2013.

Golden Rice is an effective source of vitamin A1–4 by Guangwen Tang, Jian Qin, Gregory G Dolnikowski, Robert M Russell, and Michael A Grusak, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 89 no. 6, June 2009 , pp.  1776-1783; DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.2008.27119

β-Carotene in Golden Rice is as good as β-carotene in oil at providing vitamin A to children,  American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 96 no. 3, September 2012, 658-664

For some earlier articles see Stein A.J., Sachdev H.P.S., Qaim M. . “Potential impact and cost-effectiveness of Golden Rice.” Nature Biotechnology 24(10),2006 1200-1201. http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v24/n10/extref/nbt1006-1200b-S1.pdf  and

Genetic Engineering for the Poor: Golden Rice and Public Health in India by Alexander J. Stein, H.P.S. Sachdev and Matin Qaim 2008. World Development  36(1): 144-158, January 2008.

It is more than ironic that the list of organizations actively opposed to modern agricultural science such as transgenics are largely those who have never done anything, I mean never done anything to help poor people obtain the food they need or in any way contributed to the food production in general. Tragically, those they most often attack are they very persons and organizations that have done so much to reduce to help produce the food to feed the needy and who are working constantly to continue fight against hunger and malnutrition. For some inexplicable reason, much of the media and the public give credibility to ideological organizations whose main functions seems to be to disrupt the work of those seeking to solve problems.

What we are trying to show is that there are a multitude of very favorable trends in the world from declining infant, child and maternal mortality to increases in food supply and decreases in hunger and malnutrition. In agriculture, there are trends in efficiency in milk, meat and grain production including decreases in fertilizer and pesticide use per unit of output. As the UNDP report that I cited indicates, there are many more favorable trends then I can even begin to enumerate. These trends can neither be denied  or  ignored. They must be included and protected in solutions to problems that we face. In many respects, they are a vital part of the pathway to progress on our environmental problems. Unfortunately, too many activists see to condemn and eliminate the very important means necessary to solve our problems.

Let me close with a cogent statement by Rajiv Shah, Administrator, United States Agency
for International Development:

“What’s really at stake in the genetic engineering debate? Better nutrition and incomes for poor families everywhere.

“Throughout history, our greatest development advances have come from introducing safe, proven and appropriate technologies to the world’s most vulnerable people. That’s how we helped hundreds of millions of people avert starvation during the Green Revolution. Today, stresses from climate change, conflict and poverty make this approach more urgent than ever.

“It’s taken 25 years of ingenuity and perseverance to bring Golden Rice from vision to reality. Who will stand between it and millions of undernourished children?”

Are those members of or in any way supportive or connected to the organizations opposed to Golden Rice who read this or who hear my lecture willing to take responsibility for their actions? Are they willing to consider the possibility that their actions may be costing the lives of poor children around the world?