Survival Homestead

Source: La Leva di Archimede (ENG)

In at least a temporary diversification away from genetically modified crops, Monsanto, the agribusiness company, agreed yesterday to pay about $1 billion to acquire Seminis, the world’s largest producer of fruit and vegetable seeds.

Until now, Monsanto has focused on corn, soybeans and cotton seeds, and on using genetic engineering to produce crops that are resistant to herbicides and insects.

But executives said yesterday that Monsanto would develop new vegetable varieties using conventional breeding. They said the fruit and vegetable seed business could grow without biotechnology, based on a consumer movement toward healthier diets.

“It’s fine to dream, but you have to decide what you’re going to do tomorrow morning,” Monsanto’s chief executive, Hugh Grant, said about biotech fruits and vegetables during a conference call with analysts. “In the long term, there may be opportunities in biotech.”

Some genetically engineered papaya and squash are on the market. The first biotech crop to be commercialized was the Flavr Savr tomato, developed by a biotechnology start-up that Monsanto acquired. But that tomato did not catch on.

Now industry executives say it is difficult to bring new biotech fruits and vegetables to market because of consumer resistance. Also, fruits and vegetables are small crops, making it difficult to recoup development and regulatory costs. A few years ago, Monsanto decided to focus its biotech efforts on major crops.

The acquisition comes as Monsanto has been shifting its business from agricultural chemicals to seeds and biotechnology. Over the last decade, it has aggressively acquired seed companies, mainly in the corn and soy business, igniting some concerns that the markets were becoming too concentrated.

The new acquisition not only makes Monsanto the largest supplier of vegetable seeds in the world, but also, according to the company’s calculations, the largest seed and biotech company over all. It would surpass DuPont, which owns the corn seed giant Pioneer Hi-Bred, in terms of revenues derived from seeds and biotech traits.

Seminis, based in Oxnard, Calif., had sales last year of $526 million, with its leading products being tomato, cucumber, beans and pepper seeds. Its main brands are Seminis, Asgrow, Petoseed and Royal Sluis and it sells mainly to farmers, not gardeners. But, with partners, it has recently started to develop some consumer items, like the Bambino miniature watermelon and Lettuce Jammers, lettuce in the shape of a taco shell.

Its main rivals in fruit and vegetable seeds are Syngenta of Switzerland and Limagrain of France. Less than 1 percent of Seminis’s sales come from genetically modified seeds.

Under the deal, Monsanto will pay about $1 billion in cash and assume $400 million in debt. It might also pay an additional sum of up to $125 million by the end of fiscal year 2007 based on the performance of Seminis.

Seminis was started in 1994 by a Mexican entrepreneur, Alfonso Romo Garza, who decided to create a giant vegetable seed company by acquiring smaller ones. The company went public in 1999 at $15 a share, though Savia, a Mexican company affiliated with Mr. Romo, retained majority ownership.

But the company suffered severe losses and in 2003, majority control was acquired for $3.78 a share by Fox Paine & Company, a buyout firm.

Fox Paine, based in Foster City, Calif., paid $163 million for what is now a 58 percent stake in Seminis. New management helped spur growth and restore profits before special charges. Based on the $1 billion Monsanto is paying, Fox Paine will get about $580 million, the president and co-founder, Dexter Paine, said.

Shares of Monsanto, which have nearly doubled in the last year, fell $3.62, or 6 percent, yesterday to $54.10, as investors seemed to be surprised by the size and price of the deal.

“I think the market was expecting strategic acquisitions of the bolt-on variety,” like small corn-seed companies, said Kevin McCarthy, analyst at Banc of America Securities. “This deal is clearly in a different league.”

Frank Mitsch, analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners, pointing to how much the price of Seminis has risen since Fox Paine bought it in 2003, said, “It does make one step back and wonder as to why this transaction didn’t occur 18 months ago.”

Monsanto has said that sales of its genetically modified soy, corn and cotton continue to grow, but that it has had trouble expanding genetic engineering to other crops.

It dropped an effort to introduce genetically modified wheat last year after some American farmers said such an introduction might hurt exports. And its genetically modified grass for golf courses has run into opposition from environmental groups.

With fruits and vegetables, it said, it will analyze genes in the crops to speed conventional breeding of improved varieties but would refrain for now from putting new genes into the crops.

We are not vegetarians because the Biblical Dietary Laws require us to be vegetarian (they don’t), but we are vegetarian because the animals used for food in this industry are made to be unclean, by the methods and conditions of their “production.”  A cow becomes an unclean animal when it is fed sheep brain, no matter what form the sheep brain is converted to and, as this story demonstrates, the people who eat the unclean beef are made to be unclean as well.

Source: CNN.com

The mother of a Spanish man who died from the human form of mad cow disease has also died from the illness, Spain’s Ministry of Health says.

“It’s noteworthy that there’s a double case in the same family,” Badiola said.

Until now, Badiola added, clinical evidence that he’s seen from the United Kingdom and France — which have had the most deaths due to the human form of mad cow disease — had not recorded two cases in a single family.

The mother, in her early 60s, died last month. The government confirmed Wednesday that it was because of mad cow disease but did not, by custom, make her name public.

Her son, 41, died in February from the same disease, Badiola said.

The latest confirmed case makes a total of four deaths in Spain from mad cow disease since 2005.

Full Story…

Via: Reuters

By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - A study has for the first time linked a common chemical used in everyday products such as plastic drink containers and baby bottles to health problems, specifically heart disease and diabetes.

Until now, environmental and consumer activists who have questioned the safety of bisphenol A, or BPA, have relied on studies showing harm from exposure in laboratory animals.

But British researchers, who published their findings on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed urine and blood samples from 1,455 U.S. adults aged 18 to 74 who were representative of the general population.

Using government health data, they found that the 25 percent of people with the highest levels of bisphenol A in their bodies were more than twice as likely to have heart disease and, or diabetes compared to the 25 percent of with the lowest levels.

“Most of these findings are in keeping with what has been found in animal models,” Iain Lang, a researcher at the University of Exeter in Britain who worked on the study, told a news conference.

“This is the first ever study (of this kind) that has been in the general population,” Lang said.

Steven Hentges of the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry group, said the design of the study did not allow for anyone to conclude BPA causes heart disease and diabetes.

“At least from this study, we cannot draw any conclusion that bisphenol A causes any health effect. As noted by the authors, further research will be needed to understand whether these statistical associations have any relevance at all for human health,” Hentges said in a telephone interview.

Full Story

The primary way that this is accomplished is the television. Turn it off. Throw it away. Take the kids into the garden and orchard. Involve them in the process.

Via: guardian.co.uk

The nation’s largest food and beverage companies spent about $1.6 billion in 2006 marketing their products - especially carbonated drinks - to children, according to a Federal Trade Commission report.

The report, to be released Tuesday, stems from lawmakers’ concern about growing obesity rates in children. It gives researchers new insight into how much companies are spending to attract youth to their products, and what venues the companies are using for their marketing. To come up with its estimate, the FTC used confidential financial data that it required the companies to turn over. An executive summary of the report was obtained by The Associated Press.

Overall, the spending was less than some previous estimates had indicated. Still, it represents a large pot of money that is being used to entice children to foods that are often unhealthy choices, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who had sought the study.

“This study confirms what I have been saying for years. Industry needs to step up to the plate and use their innovation and creativity to market healthy foods to our kids,” Harkin said. “That $1.6 billion could be used to attract our kids to healthy snacks, tasty cereals, fruits and vegetables.”

See, the problem is that these actions by people should really be undertaken during the ‘fat years’ rather than waiting until things are already lean.

Via: Reuters

Americans, unnerved by a worsening job market and sky-high oil prices, plan to pay off debt and boost savings in preparation for expected further economic turmoil, according to a survey from Reuters and the University of Michigan.

Half of U.S. consumers polled said they plan to speed up reducing their debt and a third said they plan to save more in the year ahead, according to the survey, which will be released next week.

“Most of the planned declines in debt and increases in savings are intended as a precautionary measure in the face of a deepening economic downturn,” Richard Curtin, director of Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, said in a statement on Friday ahead of Tuesday’s release of the poll.

The Reuters/University of Michigan’s widely followed U.S. consumer sentiment index has fallen sharply this year, as the economy slows and oil prices hit record highs.