Zen priest in Fukushima plants flowers that absorb radiation & accepts radioactive topsoil at temple grounds

"Invisible snow" by Reuters Tokyo Pictures, Aug. 19, 2011

In August, Mike Willacy of ABC (Australian Broadcasting) reported that communities near the plant are reporting radiation at Chernobyl levels.  He spotlights one of many examples of Fukushima residents  have necessarily engaged in their own disaster response: A Zen Buddhist priest is now accepting highly radioactive topsoil on temple property:

He is the chief monk of Fukushima's 400-year old Joenji Temple and this is a sutra for peace and rebirth, a prayer for the resurrection of an entire community choked in radiation.

KOYU ABE, BUDDHIST MONK (voiceover translation): This radiation is like an invisible snow. It's fallen and brought us a long winter. But eventually the snow will melt and spring will come.

MARK WILLACY: To help his community rid itself of this invisible snow, Monk Abe is allowing people to dump their radioactive topsoil on temple land.

Armed with his four Geiger counters, he shows me just how contaminated this earth is.

The Japanese-made Geiger counter quickly blasts off the scale. The others reveal radiation levels ten times beyond what's considered safe.

KOYU ABE, BUDDHIST MONK (voiceover translation): The radiation level here is so high that some of the Geiger counters can't measure it. But I still accept this contaminated soil.

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Photojournalist Yuriko Nakao of Reuter has reported even more in-depth on Koyu Abe and his community at "Invisible Snow," a sensitive photo blog that includes the above video:  As well as engaging in radiation clean-up, residents  are planting flowers that absorb nuclear radiation:

Abe described the radiation particles as an “invisible snow”, “A snow you can’t see has covered the area, and has brought a long, long winter to Fukushima,” he said.

Abe’s organization called, “Make a wish upon flowers,” aimed to reduce the volume of radiation in Fukushima by using certain plants’ natural ability to reduce toxic materials in the ground. With his volunteer group, comprised of about 100 members, he planted sunflowers where radiation levels were high.

Abe hoped to lower the level of radiation and through that ease stress and anxiety experienced by the residents. He also strongly believed that his actions will tackle the prevalent sense of stagnation and help cultivate a sense of hope...

What moved me most was to see the residents not give up their hopes and strive to overcome their predicament. The three days that I spent with the monk’s family were very moving. They were like a blessing to me.

The monk also had his motives to tell me his story. He looked into my eyes and said: “Media outlets have the obligation to reveal and bring everything into the light, so that the people can make their decisions.” By making everything clear, the media can help stop the spread of bad rumors and lower the anxiety while speeding up the recovery process, he said.

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UPDATE: On Feb. 10, 2012, Yuriko Nakao updated her coverage on Koyu Abe's radiation clean-up efforts: Japan priest fights invisible demon: radiation:

On the snowy fringes of Japan's Fukushima city, now notorious as a byword for nuclear crisis, Zen monk Koyu Abe offers prayers for the souls of thousands left dead or missing after the earthquake and tsunami nearly one year ago.

But away from the ceremonial drums and the incense swirling around the Joenji temple altar, Abe has undertaken another task, no less harrowing -- to search out radioactive "hot spots" and clean them up, storing irradiated earth on temple grounds...

"You can't see it. Nothing looks as if it's changed, but really, radiation is floating through the area. It's hard for those hit by the tsunami, but it's hard to live here too."

Last summer, Abe grew and distributed sunflowers and other plants, such as field mustard and amaranthus, in an effort to lighten the impact of the radiation and cheer local residents.

Now he is trading his ceremonial robes for a protective mask, working with volunteers to track down lingering pockets of radiation and cleaning them up...

Abe said he and the other monks are storing the soil on a hill behind the temple as neither the government nor the nuclear plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) are helping with the clean-up.

Oct. 21, 1995 Okinawa People's Rally: "Deliver the Spirit of Okinawa to the World"

(Oct. 21, 1995 Okinawa People's Rally)
It's the 16th anniversary of the historic Okinawa-wide protest of the 1995 kidnapping, beating, and gang rape of a 12-year-old girl by 3 U.S. servicemen. The protest launched an ever-deepening Okinawan movement for democracy, human rights, and the indigenous Okinawan culture of peace.

Here is their statement:

Deliver the Spirit of Okinawa to the World

The citizens of Okinawa are a people who hope for peace.

Peace is the backbone which has supported Okinawa throughout history and has become something even more powerful to those who experienced the unprecedented Battle of Okinawa. It is also the basis for their view of the world, in which they are very confident.

The words "nuchi-do-takara" (Life is the greatest treasure) which symbolizes this reverence for peace, will surely last forevermore. The saying "ichariba-chode"(Once we have met, we are like brothers and sisters) has been carried down through the ages and represents the spirit of Okinawa. The spirit of "yuimaru" or helping, supporting and coexisting with one another, has overcome the ups and downs of history, and is considered to be a great asset to the Okinawan people.

Throughout history we have realized that our nation and humanity as a whole, should advance not in the direction of military power, but rather towards friendship and goodwill by accepting, trusting and helping one another. This rich culture which has made flowers bloom in the southern islands, is the essence of the history of the Okinawan spirit.

50 years ago, while the dust of combat had not yet disappeared, the first thing we set our minds on was the reconstruction of the peaceful islands of Okinawa, whose culture was reared by our ancestors. However, as if to laugh at the peaceful intentions of our people, the world took up nuclear arms and rushed into the winter known as the Cold War. Furthermore, like in the case of Korea and Vietnam, we have been forced to get involved in issues of war. And now, 50 years since the end of World War II, the situation regarding the bases has not yet changed in the slightest.

Approximately 20% of the main island of Okinawa, a prefecture which accounts for a mere 0.6% of the nation's total area, continues to be taken up by the huge bases and is forced to bear the burden of 75% of all US military installations in Japan. This provides clear evidence of the stagnant state of base affairs. The peace dividend that the people of Okinawa Prefecture have been hoping and waiting for has been continuously denied to them. The Okinawan people have not yet been allowed to benefit in the slightest from this peace, On the contrary, the one thing we are allowed to have is the unwelcomed presence of repeated military aircraft crashes and other such terrible occurrences. We are also "rewarded" with the destruction of our environment, including noise pollution and live firing exercise which destroy the forests that are important to the accumulation of our water resources.

Since the [1972] reversion to Japan, there have been approximately 4700 cases of base-related crime. These incidents pose a clear threat to the way of life and precious existence of the Okinawan people. And then of September 4, 1995, just as the people of Okinawa Prefecture had feared, yet another detestable and disastrous incident occurred. This brutal act, committed by three young American servicemen, is absolutely inexcusable.

We know the real evil and the fundamental cause of this incident because we have experienced it during the Battle of Okinawa and the US military occupation.

We saw the nature of the military on the battlefield during the Battle of Okinawa and under the 27-year-long US military occupation. Their inhuman behavior was a disregard for, and a complete desecration of human dignity. It contradicts the Okinawan spirit which is symbolized in sayings such as "Life is the greatest treasure," "Once we have met, we are like brothers and sisters," etc.

Through the sacrifice of many precious lives and a lot of bloodshed, we have reconfirmed our ancestors' unequivocally correct choice not to bear arms and to deny the use of military power as a means of diplomacy.

This year, which marks the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, "The Cornerstone of Peace" was constructed in the Peace Memorial Park in Mabuni, Itoman, the place of the last and fiercest battle of World War II, the Battle of Okinawa, in order to pray for the souls of all those who lost their lives during the war and to pray for everlasting world peace. Over two hundred thirty thousand names are inscribed on "The Cornerstone of Peace", irrespective of nationality.

Our heartfelt hope is to build a peaceful Okinawa and a world without weapons. We are certain that this is the only way that the over one million two hundred thousand Okinawans as well as all the people living in Asia and the rest of the world, can coexist as human beings and live together on the earth in the future. We appeal to the world to accept the Okinawan spirit as its own in order to ensure that the tragedy that this young Okinawan girl experienced is not repeated, and so that no one will commit such terrible crimes ever again.

October 21, 1995

Okinawan People's Rally
Denunciation of the assault committed by the American servicemen
Demanding the reversion of the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement

Women for a Nuclear-Free Future: Sit-In Protest in Tokyo, Oct. 27-30, 2011: Evacuate children of Fukushima & no resumption of nuclear plant operation!

Women from Fukushima will be sitting in at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry office in Tokyo from October 27th to 29th to demand the evacuation of Fukushima children and no resumption of nuclear power plant operation. (43 of the 54 reactors are currently shuttered for scheduled maintenance.)

The women of Fukushima are calling on women around the world to act in solidarity with similar actions at the same time – (demonstrating in front of Japanese embassies or consulates).

They are launching Women for a Nuclear-Free Future in Sapporo, Osaka, and Tokyo on October 23-24; and are asking women from all over Japan to join the sit-in on October 30th. The women state that seven months of government refusal to evacuate Fukushima children is a crime against humanity, and it can no longer be tolerated.

Send a message of solidarity via Greenpeace.

Momiji-gari ("Searching for red leaves")

Global World Food Sovereignty Day: "From Food Monopolies to Food Commons"

( Family garden on an island in the Inland Sea. Photo: JD)
Comprehensive analysis of the engineered global food price hikes, the global food crisis, and how to fix it (agro-ecology, food democracy) at Slow Food International. (The author explains why US Big Ag is pushing so hard to force open markets in Asia (and Africa)): "From Food Monopolies to Food Commons" by Eric Holt-Giménez, Ph.D.:

Calls for food sovereignty, food justice and even “food democracy” are ringing from fields to kitchens around the world. In the face of the recurrent food and diet crises plaguing our planet, farmers, farm and food workers, consumers—politically engaged citizens—are struggling to regain control over their food systems. Why?

Because the “solutions” to these crises offered by governments, agri-food monopolies and multilateral institutions—e.g., more “free” trade, genetically engineered crops and the spread of giant retail chains—brought on the crises to begin with. With a billion people “stuffed” and a billion “starved” on the planet, why do the G-8 countries, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization continue to prescribe catastrophic solutions to catastrophe?

The answer is simple: the oligopolies dominating our global corporate food regime are also in crisis. The record profits and massive wealth they accumulated during the 2008 and 2011 food price inflation crises must be re-invested in order to maintain a compound rate of growth... Where can they re-invest their vast amounts of accumulated wealth? The monopolies have what is called a crisis of over-accumulation.

Who will solve the crisis of over-accumulation for the monopolies? The poor.

The poor are not getting any richer, but as a group they are growing at the rate of 8% and because they make up nearly half of the world’s population they offer a vast, expanding market opportunity for the agri-food monopolies. With the promise of “saving the world from hunger,” these corporations are now busy leveraging public development funds of northern governments to open new markets in Africa and Asia. Foreign food and development aid—which is fuelled by public money—is being directed to poor countries so that they can buy GM grain, fertilizers, pesticides, and genetic engineered seeds from the northern monopolies.

Many studies and reports have shown that agroecology is the best answer to hunger and climate change in the Global South. Poor countries also have to be allowed to protect their own agriculture. The oligopolies controlling our food systems are not solving the problem of hunger—rather, hunger is being used to solve the problem of over-accumulation for the oligopolies...

Over the last three decades the waves of neoliberal globalization has not only ruined local and regional food systems...

Food sovereignty, food justice and food democracy are movements of people that seek other solutions. They seek to re-open public spaces of decision so that people rather than monopolies decide what we eat, how it is grown, and how the multi-trillion dollar wealth of our world food systems is distributed. How can our movements make sure that our public resources are used for the public good rather than monopoly interests? By re-establishing the public sphere within our food systems—by taking back the “food commons.”

A food commons is not only a physical place where food is produced, processed, sold or consumed; it is also a social space where decisions are made in the interest of the common good. Whenever food activists take back a part of the food system in the interest of the common good, they are constructing a food commons. This is why food sovereignty as an organizing concept and precondition for food justice, food democracy and the right to food is so important: it implies a space that is sovereign to the corporate food regime. It is a space in which people—not corporations—decide...

The social construction of food commons is taking place around the world in the nooks and crannies of the existing corporate food regime. Little by little, the different experiences of community gardens, fair trade, community service agriculture, food policy councils, farmer’s movements and consumer movements are slowly converging in their efforts to build a better food system.

Read the entire article here.

Slow, Fair, Humane, Healthful Food: "Occupy the Food System"

Slow Food USA's blog: "Occupy Wall Street: What’s food got to do with it?"

...good, clean, and fair food IS a value of the activists. But what does it have to do with Wall Street?

Food justice writer and activist Jan Poppendeick says the connection is corporate control of agriculture. The statistics are staggering (90% of the corn market is dominated by 3 companies, for example) and the resulting degradation of human health and the environment endangers our health, and the future health of our food supply.

Reclaiming control of the food system from corporate entities is one of the written tenets of the OWS declaration: “[corporations] have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.” Another tenet speaks to animal cruelty inflicted by the common industrial practice of confining animals into tight quarters with abhorrent conditions...

With so many messages on t-shirts and banners it’s hard for any one to rise to the top, but it’s clear that food activists are present on the scene. As Sheila Salmon Nichols noted on our Facebook page, “We might not all agree on all the ideologies of OWS…however, their position on what is happening to our food system is spot-on! Hopefully, this collective energy will move our country/world in a more positive, peaceful, and sustainable direction!”

Comment: The connection between the poor quality of the culture of food in the US and control of our food systems by extremely large companies as mentioned above is spot on. Major advertising budgets target children and adults with ads that have almost nothing to do with health, community or long term life-satisfaction.

"Food Inc." pointed out some of the ways that large companies are willing to directly harm small farmers - who are the best chance for renewed innovation and responsibility in agriculture - for the sake of a few more pennies profit, and increased control over farmers seeds and practices. I strongly support Occupy Wall Street for the simple reason that they are helping all of us to understand the connections between the systems we’ve created and our current reality...

Comment: Many of the rank and file dairy farmers are supportive of Occupy Wall Street.

We have watched as a handful of companies have come to dominate the prices that we receive for our milk. A handful of traders control the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that sets the price of cheese that tranlates into milk price formulas. The most spectacular display of greed was in 2009 when dairy farmers were committing suicides from milk prices that dropped to $9 0r $10 for 100 pounds of milk. There are 8.6 pounds of milk in a gallon) You, the consumer, continued to pay the same in the store. Farmers were committing suicide in rural areas. The CEO of Dean Foods, the nation’s largest milk processor, took home a cool $66,000,000 that year according to Bloomberg.

As markets have become more consolidated, the companies have tightened their grip on us, the average farmers. Our share of the dairy retail dollar has dropped tremendously over the past decade. The leaders of even the largest cooperatives will tell you that Walmart has big power to push us back and down in price. The biggest dairy companies in the US have just piloted an ad campaign to force the prices paid down to the farmers.

Where will this all end? Thank you, Occupy Wall Street. Some of us will try to get to smaller occupy wall street demonstrations since it is hard for us to leave the cows, it is difficult to travel to big cities, but we are with you.

Writers in Support of the Occupy Movement

3,227 Writers in Support of the Occupy Movement: http://occupywriters.com:

We, the undersigned writers and all who will join us, support Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world.

Includes Alicia Bay Laurel (beloved by Japanese eco-peace supporters), Naomi Klein, Alice Walker (published in Japanese in Japan, where she has a huge following), Francine Prose, Noam Chomsky, Salman Rushdie, Eve Ensler, and Jane Hirschfield (poet and translator of Japanese poetry).

Robert Thurman @ Occupy Wall Steet: "This planet is in jeopardy because of the military-industrial machine that is beyond East & West."

Via filmmaker Velcrow Ripper, chronicler of nonviolent faith-based social movements, at his latest blog—Occupy Love: Robert Thurman, engaged Buddhist scholar and friend of the Dalai Lama, calling for a "cool revolution", compassion, meditation (to create psychological strength & focus) to challenge the organized greed and high-tech violence of the less than 1%.)

Robert Thurman shares wisdom at Occupy Wall Street: "We need a cool revolution!":

By "cool" I mean...without getting angry, without indulging in hatred...

Here we are at Liberty Plaza and we're trying to keep liberty keep growing on this planet. Actually this planet is in dire jeopardy because of the military-industrial machine that is beyond East and West.

The industrial part has to do with organized greed. It combines individuals' limitless greed with high-tech power and it's transcending the capacity of the planet. Pollution, global warming, over-population all comes from this technological expansion of greed.

On the other side you have hatred which necessarily goes along with greed because a greedy person hates the other greedy person whom he feels is trying to take away whatever he wants.

So we need to control both of these problems. Therefore, in order to do this, every person has to control the inside of their own mind.

No one should be protesting the nasty bankers if they truly hate them. They are not worthy of being hated. They are just like us. They are just luckier at the moment and unluckier in the long run because they are taking away too much from too many. This makes them paranoid. They never can have any fun because they think we're going to pick their pockets. And one billion is not enough. Even ten...twenty...one hundred billion...By that time, they're reduced to a pile of shivering paranoia...Therefore we have to be sympathetic to them. We don't hate them. We feel sorry for them...

However the corporatocracy has taken over the mass media and the electoral process and so they are defeating your will. Every poll says 70% of us wants social security without problems; want a single-payer medical system; want to have bankers and insurers know they work for us. They are service industries: they serve us, we don't serve them.

The corporatocracy are a bunch of wimpy guys with a couple of token girls who don't actually know how to make anything. But they know how to sign checks and push papers which my pathetic university taught them, without properly teaching them ethics...But one thing they're good at is not wanting to pay people to make things. An honest wage, a decent job. So they support dictatorships like China to keep slaves on tap for them for a dollar a day so they can bust the unions here and export all our jobs and even get tax breaks for it. This has to stop.

You have to vote the congresspeople who are corrupt out of office so that 70% of the wishes of the American people will be honored by them. They should serve their constituents and not their [campaign] contributors like the people up there in those buildings [pointing at Wall Street buildings], who are the 1% or less...

Don't be brainwashed by political propaganda like Fox News...who lull us into complacence, which now you all are not doing...

Let's all meditate everyday. But not just "Duh...I didn't think anything. Oh that felt so good, I didn't think anything." That can be nice, like Prozac or something...But it can be a little addictive. It doesn't really bring you insight.

And, indulge your compassion. Indulge your intelligence: what you really need. So when you meditate, think about compassion. Here we are free to take our time, envisioning a happier world...a world with gross national happiness...

Erric Solomon posted the entire talk (with good sound) at whatmeditationreallyis.com. Solomon also posted on the group of about 100 meditators at Occupy, with a link to organizer Anthony Whitehurst.

Tim Shorrock: "Korea-US Trade Agreement: The Hidden History"

(Photo: Korea Policy Institute)
Despite widespread opposition from family farmer, labor, human rights, environmental, and Korean American groups, the US House of Representatives (in the wake of K Street's expensive lobbying for Seoul's and Wall Street's 1%) overrode the interests of the 99% and approved KORUS (the US-South Korea FTA) last night.

Main Street Americans have shifted their focus to the Senate...

Immediately after the House vote, Tim Shorrock posted this analysis (originally published at Foreign Policy in Focus in 2007) "Korea-US Trade Agreement: The Hidden History" which reveals the interconnections of U.S. military and economic neo-colonialism in a nation where the majority of people have challenged both for six decades:

The pact was approved along with treaties with Panama and Columbia – but those agreements pale against KORUS, which is the largest trade deal passed since NAFTA was signed by President Clinton in 1995

In fact, KORUS represents a major victory for U.S. multinational corporations, banks and financial institutions, which have lobbied intensively for the pact for more than half a decade. It’s also a major setback for Korean and American unions.

Raw Deal Between Washington and Seoul (April 2007)

The South Korean-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS) cannot be seen apart from U.S.-South Korean security ties, the presence in South Korea of more than 30,000 U.S. troops and a 50-year economic relationship that has been heavily weighted towards American interests. From this perspective, KORUS is the fourth attempt by the United States to force its economic will on South Korea over the past half-century.The trade deal still has to pass in South Korea, where Lee does not enjoy widespread support. Among numerous questionable policies, Lee initiated the environmentally massively destructive "Four Rivers" construction project (he is compared to 1970's-era Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka for his use of public office to push through construction boondoggles) and has contravened democratic process to force the seizure and demolition of private property on Jeju island, a World Natural Heritage Site, to make way for a naval base.

Sakai Tanaka's "How Long Will US Forces Continue to Occupy Japan and Korea? China, the US and the New Division of Power in the Asia-Pacific" published at The Asia-Pacific Journal last year also takes a close look at the wider geopolitical and military contexts of KORUS.

More perspectives from the broad spectrum of American groups opposing KORUS:

• Environmentalists: "Friends of the Earth denounces passage of unjust trade agreements: President Obama broke his campaign promises in backing Bush-era trade pacts that repeat mistakes of NAFTA" (Oct. 13, 2011)

• Traditional Conservatives: "Why Conservatives Should Oppose KORUS Part I: Sovereignty" (Conservative Times, Feb. 17, 2011)

• Unions: "South Korea ‘Free Trade’ Deal: Another Funnel for Exploitation" (In These Times, June 3, 2011)

• Korean American organizations: "Why We Must Oppose the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement" ( Korea Policy Institute, May 25, 2011)

• Peace and Social Justice advocates: "Legal protest dispersed during S.Korea-U.S. summit: Secret Service shuts down protest of KORUS FTA and Jeju naval base in front of the White House" (The Hankyoreh, Oct. 17, 2011):

According to John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, the fates of the U.S. and South Korea are more interconnected than most realize.

“The United States and South Korea are celebrating the passage of the [free trade agreement] and a very close military alliance,” said Feffer, who attended Thursday’s protest. “But the relationship between the two leaders conceals a number of unfortunate failings: a trade agreement that will throw a lot of workers out of jobs, a shared North Korea policy that has done nothing to improve peace and security on the peninsula, and a project to build a naval base at Jeju that will further jeopardize regional stability. What many observers have called a win-win set of U.S.-South Korea deals has actually been lose-lose for a lot of people in the region. And that’s what people were protesting in D.C. during Lee’s visit.”

• Family Farmers: "Korea US Free Trade Agreement Another Cash Cow for Corporations" (Familyfarmers.org, April 11, 2011)

Short investigative report on corporate media coverage of the FTAs with South Korea, Columbia, and Panama: "Bait-and-Switch Boosterism on Trade Pacts" (Janine Jackson, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), Oct. 13, 2011):

What else but blind faith would allow a story to carry a line like one in the October 12 New York Times, about textile industry opposition to the new deal with South Korea: "The production of shirts and sheets has shifted steadily from the United States to countries with lower-cost labor. Economists argue that this process strengthens the economy as companies and workers shift to more productive and lucrative kinds of work." Of course, if the Times has evidence of laid off textile workers' mass movement to more lucrative work, they're sitting on the scoop of the century...

Then you get a line, like that in the October 13 New York Times, once the deals have passed and been heralded as a "rare moment of bipartisan accord," that "the passage of the trade deals is important primarily as a political achievement, and for its foreign policy value in solidifying relationships with strategic allies. The economic benefits are projected to be small."

Also see more at this compilation post: "Worse than NAFTA: S. Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) would hurt U.S. & S. Korean small farmers and workers; Burmese, N. Korean slave laborers" (TTT, June 21, 2011)

6,000 family farmers protest in Seoul against US-South Korea FTA (KORUS) which would destroy what's left of South Korean agriculture

(Image: Nile Int. (Egyptian TV channel) via APTN)

On Oct. 6, 2011, 6,000 South Korean family farmers protested against the proposed US-South Korea FTA (KORUS), stating the agreement will endanger their livelihood by flooding the South Korean market with cheaper, government subsidized U.S. agricultural products.

Martin Frid, who participated in an organic farming conference in Korea earlier this month, posted on the incredible amount of food that South Korea imports: 80-90%. Most of it comes from the U.S, followed by China.

This is by design and parallels political economic shifts in other countries. The South Korean government uses state policy to intentionally undermine small family farmers (and traditional landed culture), similarly to the U.S. in the 1970's and Japan in the 1990's (when the USTR forced Japan to open its previously fiercely protected rice market). The common agenda against family farmers in these countries (and elsewhere) was and is to enlarge markets and profits for global (especially US) agribusiness ("Food Inc".); alter traditional (local) food production in favor of neoliberal agricultural (plantation monoculture) food production; and to diminish the political influence of family farmers.

In "Crisis at Daechuri - the latest phase of the Korean War," which explores the back stories behind Seoul's forced, violent seizure of farmland to expand a U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek, Brian Mac Grath describes the long domestic war against Korean farmers:

The political activism of Korean farmers has long been a thorn in the side of the global agricultural industry and as such is consistently denounced by the media. After the Korean War, South Korean agriculture was sacrificed to enable industrialization to take place, with land nationalization less thorough and complete than it appeared on the surface.

US agribusiness has gradually gained total access to the South Korean agricultural market, with over half of Koreas food imports now coming from the US. The result could be the total disappearance of the small farmers who are the backbone of Korean agriculture. If the farmers of South Korea can be successfully defeated through the subtle warfare of international trade, and the less-subtle warfare of outright land seizure at Daechuri and Doruri, then Korean nationalism will of itself wither and die, as the South Korea industrial economy is increasingly absorbed into that of the US.

The destruction of South Korean agriculture is a vital stage in increasing the dependency of the peninsula as a whole upon the United States, given the disastrous condition of North Korean agriculture, as a result of flooding, state mismanagement, and international sanctions imposed by the US.

In-depth 2008 reports at Grain.org on U.S. agribusiness introduction of GMO foods into South Korea: "Food Safety on the Butcher's Block" and Daewoo's attempted immense land-grab in Africa for corn and palm oil plantations: "Korean women farmers on the Daewoo/Madagascar land deal" (The deal was rescinded in 2009 by the president of Madagascar who replaced the president who was forced from office (in part for outraging citizens by leasing half of Madagascar's arable land to Daewoo.))

For a compilation of articles on KORUS, please see this post: "Worse than NAFTA: S. Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) would hurt U.S. & S. Korean small farmers & workers; Burmese, N. Korean slave labor"

Some background on petrochemical-intensive industrial agriculture from Fritjof Capra's The Turning Point:

Three million American farms have been eliminated this way since 1945...

The farmers who were able to remain on the land had to accept a profound transformation of their image role, and activities. From growers of edible foods, taking pride in feeding the world's people, farmers have turned into producers of industrial raw materials to be processed into commodities designed for mass marketing. Thus corn is converted to starch or syrup...it is not surprising that many children today grow up believing that food comes from supermarket shelves...

In this industrialized system, which treats living matter like dead substances and uses animals like machines, penned in feedlots and cages, the process of farming is almost totally controlled by the petrochemical industry...Nevertheless, a growing number of farmers have become aware of the hazards of chemical farming and are turning back to organic, ecological methods.

In-depth analysis of KORUS: "Capitalism, the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, and Resistance" by Martin Hart-Landsberg, temporarily available as a free download at the Critical Asian Studies website.