“A hungry man is not a free man.”
Adlai E. Stevenson

An important tool to cure the health care dilemma in this country is to make sure all Americans adopt a proper and healthy diets.

Three things that primarily define freedom is one, what Stevenson alluded to, making sure the nation has food security; two, a healthy and competitive economy; and three, a security. 

But is there true food security in this country?

According to the American Dietetic Association, in its updated position paper on food insecurity in the United States, funding for food and nutrition assistance programs, increased nutrition education and efforts to promote economic self-sufficiency for all households and individuals is needed.

According to ADA’s position paper, access to food “a basic human need and fundamental right,” defining food insecurity as “limited or intermittent access to nutritionally adequate, safe and acceptable foods accessed in socially acceptable ways.”

According to ADA’s position paper, food insecurity is prevalent throughout the country: More than 49 million people living in the United States experienced food insecurity in 2008. In addition, 5.7 percent of all households representing 17.3 million people including 1.1 million children, had “very low food security,” defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.”

Area farmers who sold corn to the former VeraSun Energy Corporation have recently been receiving notices by law firms in New York demanding that they pay back any money received from VeraSun 90 days prior to the company filing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy on Oct. 31, 2008. The is to be returned to the bankruptcy reorganized VeraSun.

VeraSun operated ethanol plants in Ord, Central City and Albion.

An informational meeting is planned on Wednesday, Sept. 8 at the Valley County Fairgrounds in Ord, beginning at 7 p.m.

According to Tom Kruml of Stowell, Kruml & Geweke, P.C., LLO law firm in Ord, farmers, and any other corn supplier or vendors do need to react, and respond, to the notices being received in order to avoid losing their rights or defenses by default.

And what is at stake, just with the three former VeraSun plants could amount to more than $100 million.

Prior to VeraSun filing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that average cash corn prices in Nebraska on Sept. 15, 2008, was averaging $5.20 per bushel. During that time, if the Ord, Central City and Albion plants were running at its full capacity, they would have used 19.6 million bushels of corn during those 90 days prior to VeraSun declaring bankruptcy.

But, it was during that period that corn prices were on the rise, eventually hitting over $7 per bushel on the futures market, causing some ethanol companies to go into bankruptcy or temporary shutting plants down. In 2008, Nebraska ethanol plants were running at 87.2 percent of capacity, which reflected some of the economic turmoil caused by the skyrocketing corn prices.

Kruml said a number of Nebraska farmers and small agri-business companies have recently received notices from law firms representing the reorganized VeraSun Energy Corporation. He said his law office has received a number of calls from concerned farmers or businesses about the notices, which prompted calling the information meeting on Sept. 8 and to make sure that farmers or businesses didn’t just toss the notice into the trash bin.

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Civilization needs energy to drive progress, but at what cost to our lives and our environment.

Gandhi’s words echo truth to the world’s current energy crisis. The Earth not only provides, it also provides alternatives. Those alternatives, if managed right, will satisfy “every man’s need.” Fossil fuels still have a place, but the Earth is starting to tell us it has more to offer and it’s time we consider seriously those alternatives.

In an article in the Edmonton Journal by Hanneke Brooymans, said that Canada’s oilsands industry is polluting northern waters with toxic concentrations of metals, according to new research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 The research, according to the story,  found that national or provincial guidelines for the protection of aquatic life were exceeded for seven metals considered toxic in low concentrations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, silver and zinc — in the Athabasca River watershed in northern Alberta.

“The results, which are certain to fuel growing global opposition to Canada’s $30-billion-a-year oilsands operations, contradict claims by the Alberta government that toxins in the watershed are naturally occurring. One of the study’s authors argues that the new data ought to convince the Alberta government to call a halt to any expansion of the oilsands.”

“I really think it’s time to cut down the expansion until some of those problems and how to reduce them are solved,” said David Schindler, a University of Alberta ecologist who conducted the study with his colleague Erin Kelly and scientists from Queen’s University in Kingston and from Alaska.