“But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first,” (Matthew 19:30.) Those words of Jesus hold a lot of hope for Nagaland. The very lack of development to be found here is actually one of Nagaland’s greatest assets in a strange way.
You see, the western world is now waking up to many of the sorry results of more than one hundred years of industrialization and development without regard to human health and the environment. And it literally pains me to see many in developing areas of the world, rushing to follow the west down the same path. They seem to be unaware of the horrendous price that is being paid in terms of huge increases in degenerative disease.
Cancer now strikes as many as 50% of Americans. One out of every two men coming down with cancer is bad enough. And one out of every three women isn’t much better. Barely fifteen years ago, when I first started my lecture tour across the U.S., the numbers were not quite that bad. And you never heard of children getting cancer back then. Now its getting more and more common. Some are even born with it.
Such dread diseases hardly existed before the massive use of toxic chemistry became the standard in agriculture and the manufacture of everything from building materials to consumer goods. Most of the homes and offices of America have become poisonous places to live and work because the building materials give off toxic gasses. The buildings are built tightly so that no air can get in or out to save on heating and air conditioning expense which just keeps the poisonous air in and the fresh air out. This condition is now called “sick building syndrome.”
Last week there was a report of a new study about Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia. Currently, an estimated 5.3 million Americans of all ages have Alzheimer’s. In dementia there is a loss of or decline in memory and other mental abilities that is caused by damage to the brain cells. This new study found that the toxic pollution on the city highways and streets, caused by vehicle exhaust and industrial pollution, is what is doing the brain damage in many cases. But this pollution was caused by development that rushed forward with a high level of ignorance of what the consequences would be when that development polluted the soil, water, air, and food necessary for life.
Since the chickens have come home to roost and we now know the consequences, places like Nagaland can research and plan with more sensitivity for the environment and public health. Therefore, the last ones to develop have the opportunity to become the first and most advanced among societies, because they can achieve a high standard of living with far more health to enjoy it. This is what I’d like to see take place in Nagaland.
And the best place to start is with our agriculture. That’s because modern agriculture has done even more than industry to pollute the environment and deny the citizens the quality of nutrition that is possible with scientific and ecological farming methods. This happens to be a field of expertise for which I became widely known some years ago. I am the developer of a system of ecological gardening and small-scale farming known as Bionomic agriculture and the book that I published on the subject is called The New Bionomic Grower. I’ll quote a few paragraphs from that book so that you can get an idea of how vitally important ecological agriculture is to the health and prosperity of Nagaland.
But first, perhaps I should mention that these methods have been shown to produce anywhere from 200 to 600 percent higher yields and even more than that with some crops, without the use of environmentally damaging fertilizers or the even more damaging genetically modified crops (GMOs). The use of GMOs has already devastated countless numbers of Indian farmers to the place where they are actually committing suicide in large numbers, I recently discovered. God forbid that Nagaland permits these unnatural, humanly altered seeds to pollute the ecology of Nagaland and bring even more disease to the people. I’ll have to devote an entire column later on to the devastating effects of GMO crops on human health and the environment.
Even more important than increased yields are the significant increases in nutritional quality, or nutrient density, of food grown according to these scientifically validated ecological methods. Malnutrition has become a global plague. Americans are some of the most well fed yet malnourished people on earth and this malnourishment has also been shown to be a leading cause of susceptibility of degenerative disease processes. And the cause can be trace right to the soil. United States Department of Agriculture records show that American soils have lost close to 600% of their mineral content over the past one hundred years. And some researchers have traced a rise in degenerative diseases that exactly parallels the decline in soil nutrients.
Malnutrition contributes to 53% of the 9.3 million deaths of children under the age of five years. In developing countries the number of deaths due to malnutrition is actually higher than the deaths caused by AIDS, malaria and TB combined. So this is by no means an insignificant problem. And children and adults can die of malnutrition in many ways.
From my book now: “Trace elements are vital to good health and disease prevention. Copper is necessary along with iron for the formation of hemoglobin and copper deficiency can lead to an anemia that is indistinguishable from iron deficiency anemia. Copper also keeps bones, blood vessels and nerves healthy. It keeps the skin elastic and the hair from graying prematurely.
“Voisin and Kiederling independently concluded that copper is also linked to cancer. In a study entitled Soil, Grass and Cancer, Voisin documents soil copper deficiencies in areas of higher cancer incidence among the local population. “Other trace elements seem to be related to cancer too. Quoting from these and other supporting data, Dr. Karl Schutte says, ‘It looks as if the poor soils produce food that is progressively less nutritious as a result of soil impoverishment. [Soil losing its nutrients and getting poorer.] This may play a part in carcinogenesis,’ (which in simple language means the development of cancer.)”
I go on to talk about a medical doctor who used vitamins, amino acids and trace minerals like manganese, zinc, cobalt, copper, and molybdenum to successfully treat conditions like angina pectoris, (severe and crushing pain due to an inadequate supply of oxygen to the heart muscle), rheumatic heart disease, and heart fibrillation. All these trace elements are needed for healthy crop growth as well as for human health and are supposed to be in the soil in sufficient quantities. When they are not there, cancer, heart disease, and other health problems become common place.
But in some cases the trace elements are actually in the soil, yet they will not be found in the food grown on that soil. The reason is admitted in a document published in 1974 by the World Health Organization and quoted in my book. The document is called Trace Elements in Relation to Cardiovascular Disease.
“Plant materials provide a major source of trace elements to man. The concentration of trace elements in plants, and the consequent levels of dietary intake by man are influenced by the type of soil on which the plants are produced, and the type and quality of fertilizer applied, and by the species and variety of plants grown… Changes in fertilizer practice [NPK chemical fertilizer in place of traditionally used composts and manures] or in the type of plants grown as a result of… plant breeding [of hydrids and now GMOs in place of open pollinated non hybrids]… can therefore influence the trace elem ent composition of the foods that comprise man’s daily diet… Agricultural technology designed primarily to increase the yield of food crops and animal products can affect the trace element content of these foods… For example, a new high yielding [hybrid] strain of rye grass was developed in New Zealand which was subsequently found to contain only one-tenth of the iodine concentration of its parents, whether grown on iodine-low or iodine-high soils…. These few examples… provide clear evidence that changes in agricultural practice can chance trace element intakes by man in ways which may be hazardous to human heal.”
So there you have the truth straight from the mouth of the world organization that was primarily behind the global spread of the so-called “green revolution.” That was what they used to call the changes in agricultural practices that caused millions of farmers around the world to abandon traditional Organic and ecologically sound soil management practices to adopt practices that have become one root cause of the very global malnutrition and disease that they were designed to combat.
Until next week, be wise, be healthy and God bless!
(Ian Anthony Jones is a health educator and missionary from the US now married to a Naga and residing in Dimapur. He will be contributing every Friday to the Morung Express under the column: Health & Healing. You may contact the Health and Healing columnist and give him feedback at:
edenbarak.ngo@gmail.com)
You see, the western world is now waking up to many of the sorry results of more than one hundred years of industrialization and development without regard to human health and the environment. And it literally pains me to see many in developing areas of the world, rushing to follow the west down the same path. They seem to be unaware of the horrendous price that is being paid in terms of huge increases in degenerative disease.
Cancer now strikes as many as 50% of Americans. One out of every two men coming down with cancer is bad enough. And one out of every three women isn’t much better. Barely fifteen years ago, when I first started my lecture tour across the U.S., the numbers were not quite that bad. And you never heard of children getting cancer back then. Now its getting more and more common. Some are even born with it.
Such dread diseases hardly existed before the massive use of toxic chemistry became the standard in agriculture and the manufacture of everything from building materials to consumer goods. Most of the homes and offices of America have become poisonous places to live and work because the building materials give off toxic gasses. The buildings are built tightly so that no air can get in or out to save on heating and air conditioning expense which just keeps the poisonous air in and the fresh air out. This condition is now called “sick building syndrome.”
Last week there was a report of a new study about Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia. Currently, an estimated 5.3 million Americans of all ages have Alzheimer’s. In dementia there is a loss of or decline in memory and other mental abilities that is caused by damage to the brain cells. This new study found that the toxic pollution on the city highways and streets, caused by vehicle exhaust and industrial pollution, is what is doing the brain damage in many cases. But this pollution was caused by development that rushed forward with a high level of ignorance of what the consequences would be when that development polluted the soil, water, air, and food necessary for life.
Since the chickens have come home to roost and we now know the consequences, places like Nagaland can research and plan with more sensitivity for the environment and public health. Therefore, the last ones to develop have the opportunity to become the first and most advanced among societies, because they can achieve a high standard of living with far more health to enjoy it. This is what I’d like to see take place in Nagaland.
And the best place to start is with our agriculture. That’s because modern agriculture has done even more than industry to pollute the environment and deny the citizens the quality of nutrition that is possible with scientific and ecological farming methods. This happens to be a field of expertise for which I became widely known some years ago. I am the developer of a system of ecological gardening and small-scale farming known as Bionomic agriculture and the book that I published on the subject is called The New Bionomic Grower. I’ll quote a few paragraphs from that book so that you can get an idea of how vitally important ecological agriculture is to the health and prosperity of Nagaland.
But first, perhaps I should mention that these methods have been shown to produce anywhere from 200 to 600 percent higher yields and even more than that with some crops, without the use of environmentally damaging fertilizers or the even more damaging genetically modified crops (GMOs). The use of GMOs has already devastated countless numbers of Indian farmers to the place where they are actually committing suicide in large numbers, I recently discovered. God forbid that Nagaland permits these unnatural, humanly altered seeds to pollute the ecology of Nagaland and bring even more disease to the people. I’ll have to devote an entire column later on to the devastating effects of GMO crops on human health and the environment.
Even more important than increased yields are the significant increases in nutritional quality, or nutrient density, of food grown according to these scientifically validated ecological methods. Malnutrition has become a global plague. Americans are some of the most well fed yet malnourished people on earth and this malnourishment has also been shown to be a leading cause of susceptibility of degenerative disease processes. And the cause can be trace right to the soil. United States Department of Agriculture records show that American soils have lost close to 600% of their mineral content over the past one hundred years. And some researchers have traced a rise in degenerative diseases that exactly parallels the decline in soil nutrients.
Malnutrition contributes to 53% of the 9.3 million deaths of children under the age of five years. In developing countries the number of deaths due to malnutrition is actually higher than the deaths caused by AIDS, malaria and TB combined. So this is by no means an insignificant problem. And children and adults can die of malnutrition in many ways.
From my book now: “Trace elements are vital to good health and disease prevention. Copper is necessary along with iron for the formation of hemoglobin and copper deficiency can lead to an anemia that is indistinguishable from iron deficiency anemia. Copper also keeps bones, blood vessels and nerves healthy. It keeps the skin elastic and the hair from graying prematurely.
“Voisin and Kiederling independently concluded that copper is also linked to cancer. In a study entitled Soil, Grass and Cancer, Voisin documents soil copper deficiencies in areas of higher cancer incidence among the local population. “Other trace elements seem to be related to cancer too. Quoting from these and other supporting data, Dr. Karl Schutte says, ‘It looks as if the poor soils produce food that is progressively less nutritious as a result of soil impoverishment. [Soil losing its nutrients and getting poorer.] This may play a part in carcinogenesis,’ (which in simple language means the development of cancer.)”
I go on to talk about a medical doctor who used vitamins, amino acids and trace minerals like manganese, zinc, cobalt, copper, and molybdenum to successfully treat conditions like angina pectoris, (severe and crushing pain due to an inadequate supply of oxygen to the heart muscle), rheumatic heart disease, and heart fibrillation. All these trace elements are needed for healthy crop growth as well as for human health and are supposed to be in the soil in sufficient quantities. When they are not there, cancer, heart disease, and other health problems become common place.
But in some cases the trace elements are actually in the soil, yet they will not be found in the food grown on that soil. The reason is admitted in a document published in 1974 by the World Health Organization and quoted in my book. The document is called Trace Elements in Relation to Cardiovascular Disease.
“Plant materials provide a major source of trace elements to man. The concentration of trace elements in plants, and the consequent levels of dietary intake by man are influenced by the type of soil on which the plants are produced, and the type and quality of fertilizer applied, and by the species and variety of plants grown… Changes in fertilizer practice [NPK chemical fertilizer in place of traditionally used composts and manures] or in the type of plants grown as a result of… plant breeding [of hydrids and now GMOs in place of open pollinated non hybrids]… can therefore influence the trace elem ent composition of the foods that comprise man’s daily diet… Agricultural technology designed primarily to increase the yield of food crops and animal products can affect the trace element content of these foods… For example, a new high yielding [hybrid] strain of rye grass was developed in New Zealand which was subsequently found to contain only one-tenth of the iodine concentration of its parents, whether grown on iodine-low or iodine-high soils…. These few examples… provide clear evidence that changes in agricultural practice can chance trace element intakes by man in ways which may be hazardous to human heal.”
So there you have the truth straight from the mouth of the world organization that was primarily behind the global spread of the so-called “green revolution.” That was what they used to call the changes in agricultural practices that caused millions of farmers around the world to abandon traditional Organic and ecologically sound soil management practices to adopt practices that have become one root cause of the very global malnutrition and disease that they were designed to combat.
Until next week, be wise, be healthy and God bless!
(Ian Anthony Jones is a health educator and missionary from the US now married to a Naga and residing in Dimapur. He will be contributing every Friday to the Morung Express under the column: Health & Healing. You may contact the Health and Healing columnist and give him feedback at:
edenbarak.ngo@gmail.com)
