posted May 03, 2004 02:11 PM            

These could very easily have been posted in this forum because this issue if VERY political. It's so shocking to me that this issue falls so far beyond the radar of the average American. We are basically all gunea pigs in the gigantic experiment taking place with our food supply. If it fails, which it is set up to inevitably do in its current state of practice, then we don't eat.

I'm transcribing them all myself since I don't have a scanner or anything nifty like that so they aren't all typed up yet. I just did number four today. More soon to come!

MYTH #1- INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE WILL FEED THE WORLD

MYTH #2- INDUSTRIAL FOOD IS SAFE, HEALTHY, AND NUTRITIOUS

MYTH #3- INDUSTRIAL FOOD IS CHEAP

MYTH#4- INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE IS EFFICIENT

MYTH #5- INDUSTRIAL FOOD OFFERS MORE CHOICES

posted May 03, 2004 03:45 PM            

As far as the over abundance..there are several types of grades on food. Ever eat a peice of corn that is waxy and thick? That is because it is from corn stalks placed along the outside of the actual corn field. It is done to deter people from stealing the corn and is graded to feed animals that can more readily digest that type of corn. Therefore it is a win-win situation for the farmer.

I won't get into the genetic engineering because there is no way to use objectively in this type of emotional argument. Obviously there are people that believe in these mistruths because it supports their idealistic notions or political agenda. It takes working in the industry, looking at both sides of the argument and then determining what is right. Not just reading and quoting only ONE side. Part of my background was too look at genetic engineering, disease and agriculture. I was surprised at just how wrong the anti-gmo people really are.

posted May 03, 2004 05:42 PM            

quote:

---

because you cannot produce enough food on a tiny farm to sustain a culture. It doesn't work.

---

posted May 03, 2004 08:32 PM            

quote:

---

what do you think sustained the world's cultures before the relatively recent advent of industrial farming?!

---

posted May 03, 2004 10:02 PM            

MYTH #1- INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE WILL FEED THE WORLD

Clearly industrial agriculture is not feeding the world's 800 million hungry people, including 33 million of which live in the U.S.

quote:

---

Studies conducted by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) clearly indicate that it is abundance, not scarcity, that best describes the world's food supply. Every year, enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human with 3,500 daily calories. In fact, enough food is grown worldwide to provide 4.3 pounds of food per person per day, which would include two and a half pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, a pound offruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk, and eggs.

....during the last 35 years per capita food production has actually grown 16 percent faster than the worlds population.

...Just 50 years ago, only 18 percent of the population of developing countries resided in cities; by the year 2000 the figure jumped to 40 percent. Unless current policies change, by 2030 it is estimated that 56 percent of the developing world will be urban dwellers. A United Nations report has found that close to 50 percent of this urban population growth is due to migration, much of it forced, from rural to urban communities.

...Advances in industrial agriculture have therefore put millions of the world's farmers in a fatal bind, as they spend ever more in production costs, yet receive ever less income. The cruel irony is that even as these farmers grow the world's food, they cannot afford food for themselves or their families. This has resulted in mass starvation in the rural communities, epidemics of farmer suicides, and the annihilation of farm communities throughout the globe. Currently, more than half a billion rural people in the third world have become landless or do not have either sufficient land to grow their own food or money to buy that food.

..Global corporations favor luxury high-profit items like flowers, sugarcane, beef, shrimp, cotton, coffees, and soybeans for export to wealthy countries. Local people are often left with nothing. In Africa, where severe famines have occurred in the past decade, industrialized agriculture has not produced foods for the people, but rather record crops of cotton and sugarcane. As export crops and livestock use up available land, small farmers are forced to use marginal, less fertile lands. Staple food production for local use plummets and hunger increases.

...it is not surprising that during industrial agriculture's prime years (1970-90), the number of hungry people in every country except China actually increased by more than 11 percent.

---

MYTH #2-
INDUSTRIAL FOOD IS SAFE, HEALTHY AND NUTRITIOUS

hahahahahahahahahah yeaaaaah sure it is..

quote:

---

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report that between 1970 and 1999, food-borne illnesses increased more than tenfold. And according to the FDA, at least 53 pesticides classified as carcinogenic are presently applied in massive amounts to our major food crops. While the industrialization of the food supply progresses, we are witnessing an explosion in human health risks and a significant decrease in the nutritional value of our meals.

...the Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that more than 1 million Americans drink water laced with pesticed runoff from industrial farms. Our increasing use of these chemicals has been paralleled by an exponential growth in health risks, to both farmers and consumers.

..in 1998, the FDA found pesticide residues in over 35 percent of the food tested. Many U.S. products have tested as being more toxic than those from other countries.

..A National Cancer Institute study found that farmers who used industrial herbicides were six times more likely than non-farmers to develop non -Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer.

..According to the CDC, reported cases of disease from salmonella and E. coli pathogens are ten times greater than they were two decades ago, and cases of campylobacter have more than doubled. The CDC saw none of these pathogens in meat until the late 1970's when "animal factories" became the dominant means of meat production. Even our fruits and vegetables get contaminated by these pathogens through exposure to tainted fertilizers and sewage sludge. Contamination can also occur during industrialized processing and long distance shipment.

...Twenty years ago, teens consumed almost twice as much milk as soda; today they consume almost twice as much soda as milk." The Sugeon General has determined that two out of every three premature dealths is related to diet.

..numberous repudable studies have shown that consuming irradiated meat can cause DNA damage, resulting in abnormalities in laboratory animals and their offspring. Moreover, irradiation can destroy essential vitamins and nutrients that are naturally present in foods and can make food taste and smell rancid.

---

MYTH #3- INDUSTRIAL FOOD IS CHEAP

The dollar price on your food does not reflect TRUE cost of that food.

quote:

---

If you added the real cost of industrial food - its health, enviromental, and social costs - the the current supermarket price, not even our wealthiest citizens could afford to buy it.

...We expend tens of billions of dollars in taxes, medical expenses, toxic clean-ups, insurance premiums, and other pass-along costs to subsidize industrial food producers. Given the ever-increasing health, environmental, and social destruction involved in industrial agriculture, the real price of this food production for future generations is incalculable.

..The overuse of chemicals and machines on industrial farms erodes away the topsoil - the fertile earth from which all food is grown. The United States has lost half of its topsoil since 1960, and we continue losing topsoil 17 times faster than nature can create it.

..The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that 75 percent of genetic diversity in agriculture disappeared in this past century. The resulting monocultured crops are genetically limited and far more susceptible to insects, blights, diseases, and bad weather than are diverse crops.

..The food on an average American's plate now travels at least 1,300 miles from the field to the dinner table. Vehicles moving food around the world burn massive amounts of fossil fuels, exacerbating air and water pollution problems. Currently, consumers pay billions of dollars annually in environmental costs directly attributed to industrial food production, not including the loss of irreplaceable and priceless biodiversity and topsoil, and the incalculable costs of problems such as global warming and ozone depletion.

..Also uncalculated are the expenses and lost workdays of 80 million Americans who contract food-borne illnesses each year. Moreover, industrial food's health price tage should reflect the expense, pain, and suffering of the tens of millions who are victims of such diseases as obesity and heart disease caused by industrial fast-food diets. Taken together these medical health costs are clearly in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

..Whereas the occupational fatality rate for all private sector industries is 4.3 per 100,000 full time employeess, the rate for agriculture, forestry, and fishing occupations was 24 per 100,000 - or nearly six times the national average. For migrant farmworkers, health conditions are even worse. Migrant workers, who now account for more than half of all food production in the United States, are 15 times more likely to manifest symptoms of pesticide exposure than non-migrant farm employees in California, according to Sandra Archibald of the Humphrey Institute. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 300,000 farm workers suffer acute pesticide poisoning each year.

...Seventy years ago there were nearly 7 million American farmers. Today, after the onslaught of industrial agriculture, there are only about 2 million, even though the U.S. population has doubled. Between 1987 and 1992, America lost an average of 32,500 farms per year, about 80 percent of which were family-run. A mere 50,000 farming operations now account for 75 percent of U.S. food production. Meanwhile, at supermarkets our pruportedly cheap food is getting more expensive as industrial agriculture passes along the high costs of wasteful processing and packaging techniques. But the money is n't going to the farmers. The vast majority of the profits go to corporate middlemen who squeeze farmers both ways when selling them seed and when purchasing their crops for processing.

..Current costs associated with industrial food and agriculture do not include welfare and other government payments to ex-farmers and farmworkers driven into poverty. The U.S. Office of Technology Assessment studied 200 communities and discovered that as farm size increases, so does poverty. As farm size and absentee ownership increase (both endemic to industrial agriculture), social conditions in the local community deteriorate. Businesses close and crime increases. It is difficult to put a dollar value on the loss of farmers and communities; clearly much of what is lost is priceless. However, numerous studies have put the costs of such dislocation since World War II in the tens of billions of dollars.

...Taxpayers cover billions of dollarss in government subsidies to industrial agriculture. Price supports, price "fixing", tax credits, and product promotion are all forms of "welfare" for agribusiness. Among the most outrageous subsidies is the $659 million of taxpayer money spent each year to promote the products of industrial agriculture, including $1.6 million to McDonald's to help market Chicken McNuggets in Singapore from 1986 to 1994 and $11 million to Pillsbury to promote the Doughboy in foreign countries. Taken together these subsidies add almost $3 billion to the "hidden" cost of foods to consumers.

---

MYTH #4- INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE IS EFFICIENT

quote:

---

a 1989 study by the U.S. National Research Council assessed the effiency of large industrial food production systems compared with alternative methods. The conclusion was exactly contrary to the "bigger is better" myth: "Well-managed alternative farming systems nearly always use less synthetic chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and antibiotics per unit of production than conventional farms. Reduced use of these inputs lowers production costs and lessens agriculture's potential for adverse environmental and health effects without decreasing - and in some cases increasing - per acre crop yields and the productivity of livestock mangement systems."

...As summarized by the food policy expert Peter Rosset, "Surveying the data, we indeed find that small farms almost always produce far more agricultural output per unit area than larger farms. This is now widely recognized by agricultural economists across the political spectrum, as the 'inverse relationship between farm size and output.'" He notes that even the World Bank now advocates redistributing land to small farmers in the third world as a step toward increasing overall agricultural productivity

..According to a 1992 U.S. Agricultural Census report, relatively smaller farm sizes are 2 to 10 times more productive (in dollar output per acre) than large farms (6,000 acres or more), and extremely small farms (4 acres or less) can be over a hundred times as productive.

We have allowed transnational corporations to run a food system that eliminates livelihoods, destroys communities, poisons the earth, undermines biodiversity, and doesn't even feel the people. All in the name of efficincy. It is indisputalble that this highly touted modern system of food production is actually less efficient, less productive than small-scale alternative farming. It is time to reembrace the virtues of small farming, with its intimate knowledge and techniques like intercropping, cover cropping, and seasonal rotations; its saving of seeds to preserve genetic diversity; and its better integration of farms with forest, woody shrubs, and wild plant and animal species. In other words, it's time to get efficient.

---

Okay so that ended up abit longer than I anticipated. I just don't think it's worth having a conversation about if not everyone reads the facts. Sure Monsanto has an agenda and the authors of these articles have an agenda. The heart of the matter is this- whose agenda is more benign?. The motivation of Monsanto to make as much money as possible or the motivation to create a sustainable, efficient, healthy food supply?

posted May 04, 2004 02:16 PM            

So, if all the land that is currently being used for industrial agriculture were turned over to a large number of small farmers (remember- 70 years ago there were 7 million farmers in the U.S. Today there are about 2 million) who were trained in sustainable farming techniques then the agricultural output of this country would be anywhere from 2 to 100 times more productive!

Please, tell me how this would fail to feed our society.

You see.. the problem is, from where I'm standing, after WWII, when the mantra told to farmers turned into "Get big or get out!", something very sinister and unrealized was taking place. It strikes me as a robbery of monstrous porportions.

The wealth that was previously distributed throughout about 5 million farmers was consolidated and handed over to gigantic corporations over the next half a century.

Now we are realizing the ecological catastrophe that has been wrought upon the once rich lands of our great land. Granted, it can't all be blamed on the corporations. The farming practices of this country weren't exactly sustainble prior to WWII and that's why industrial agriculture was born.. to try and fix the destruction of the soil that had already taken place. Unfortunetly with their focus on chemical inputs and now genetic engineering, they have only created new problems in an attempt to "fix" the soil. Or "fix" the plants.

Quietly another revolutionary approach has been taken towards agriculture. New scientific discoveries in the field of ecology has been sucessfully used to create new techniques in agriculture which actually build healthy soil and control weeds and pests without the use of chemicals or genetic manipulation. These techniques are based on the premise of observing the perfect balance of a natural ecosystem and seeing how the pricipals at work there can be sucessfully applied to our settlements and farms. And Yes. Large amounts of food could be grown in cities with just alittle ingenuity.

So the problem comes when we realize that the massive industrial farms must be divided into smaller parts and redistributed to millions of farmers. This is the part where people start calling me a communist maybe. I don't know exactly the economic intracacies of how that would happen. All I know is it Must happen for us to have a sustainable, healthy, responsible food production system.

Another problem I think I'm seeing is that people are afraid to come to the realization that industrial agriculture doesn't work and we need to totally restructure our food production. Afraid, because a change in consciousness around this very critical issue would likely act as a domino affect throughout many facets of one's- life, environment, and politics. Even if recognition of the potential for this 'domino affect' isn't a conscious one, it is nevertheless lurking beneath the surface.

I could be totally off base with that observation though.

Pidaua,
With all due respect, I know you are a scientist and have strong ties to industrial agriculture. I am afraid that you wouldn't be able to change your opinion of industrial agriculture without some major upheaval of many of your other beliefs and opinions. I need to know that if presented with all the evidence, were it to be in conflict with your worldview, you would be able to change your mind.
Feel free of course to correct my assumptions if they are totally off-base.

Now, that said, I would like to know what scientific evidence you are in possession of that contradicts the things I have said.

posted May 04, 2004 03:43 PM            

juniperb

posted May 04, 2004 03:57 PM            

I just think the issue is too big to be summarized in a post. There are multiple facets to the problem, which would be better discussed point for point rather than in general.

One thing that isn't addressed is the cattle, poultry and pork industries. Was this touched upon at all, or is it just solely farming that they're talking about? Because you can't support the US's consumption of beef with grazing - especially not if you need all that land to farm soybeans and wheat to feed the world. The main arguments I've heard there are, "well, you should't eat meat"...which is hardly a valid argument IMO - it's unrealistic. I'd be interested to hear what, if anything is said in that regard.

posted May 04, 2004 05:15 PM            

Anyways, I'm glad to hear you aren't wanting to eat GE foods. Though scientific proof as to the health dangers of it are only beginning to manifest, I believe evidence will only continue to mount. We've already seen evidence that they can't be controlled enough to keep them from contaminating the environment. GE corn has been found one of the most remote parts of Mexico- the birthplace of corn. I can't remember how to spell it -Oaxoa or something

The thing is, genetic engineering isn't even the best solution to feeding the hungry in Africa. The solution is healthy soil.. A major problem with growing crops in many parts of Africa is a phosphate deficiency. It's a world wide problem, really. Except in places like the U.S. where we have so much it leads to pollution. According to Bill Mollison, author of "Permaculture- A Designer's Manual",-

quote:

---

Of all the phosphatic fertilisers used, Europe and North America consume 75% (and get least return from this input because of overuse, over-irrigation, and poor soil economy). If we really wanted to reduce world famine, the redirection of these surplus phosphates to the poor soils of Africa and India (or any other food-deficient area), would do it. Forget about miracle plants; we need global ethics for all such essential soil resources. As long as we clear-cultivate, most of this essential and rare resource will end up back in the sea. Seabirds and salmon do try to recycle it back to us, be we tend to reduce their numbers by denying them breeding grounds.

---

A better way to battle deficiency, once we've helped build up soils in these hungry places, is to encourage farmers there to grow a diverse range of crops instead of pushing them to grow cash crops for export.

You're right Isis, this is all a very complex issue that would probably be better discussed in incremental phases. I apologize that sometimes my mind stretches out far beyond the details to see the bigger picture, which causes me to speak so passionately of it so often. It's a Mercury/Mars conjunction in Sagittarius thing, I think.

As for industrial meat production..
The beautiful thing about looking at agriculture with an ecological eye is that grazing animals fit beautifully within the scheme of a sustainable farm. The reason that agricultural output is exponentially increased as the size of the farm decreases is that careful planning, management and stacking of multiple functions allows for a diverse range of crops and animals to be produced from the land.

An acre of monocultured crop may produce more corn than the amount of corn from a sustainably farmed acre of land but the total sum of (diverse) resources put out by that sustainably farmed acre FAR exceeds the amount of corn being put out by that monoculture acre.

I bet Monsanto isn't talking about that crucial detail in their books about promoting themselves.

posted May 07, 2004 03:30 PM            

The articles you posted raise some interesting questions, specifically about genetic engineering.

Not widely understood by people in general is the fact that produce and staple crops have been selectively engineered genetically for centuries. There are few produce items that bear any resemblance to their original species many of which were inedible or if you could actually find the original and eat it, you would think them inedible or definitely inferior.

Horticulturists have cross bred species across the broad spectrum of plants to produce better flavor, better shipping qualities, larger fruit or grain heads, more resistant plants that withstand various wilts, fungus, resist the depravations of insects and a host of other maladies that befell the earlier varieties. That is not well understood outside the farming industry and the private and governmental groups who are involved with the farming industry. Even the so called Heirloom varieties were selectively bred or cross bred at some point in time or many times in the past. Corn is a case in point. The corn of 300 years ago wouldn't be eaten by most people today. Primarily, it was ground into meal. Fresh corn, both canned and on the ear were bred from those far in the past stocks. Tomatoes are another that 300 years ago were watery and disagreeable tasting and many thought poisonous.

One of the things that does bother me is the way heirloom varieties are falling by the wayside. They produce true to their variety while the hybrid varieties do not. If something ever happened to the seed stocks, either through new diseases that attacked them, severe climatic changes or some other disaster, millions would starve.

I would suggest that adding the cost of unknowns and unproven costs both social and economic to the cost of high yield genetically altered foods is getting the horse before the cart.

The idea of breaking up large farms and redistributing the land in small lots to indigenous populations has already been done. In every case I'm aware of it produced disaster in that formerly prosperous nations with well fed citizens soon found themselves at the point of starvation. In fact, many did starve even with the rest of the world providing relief by shipping enormous quantities of food into the country that formerly fed itself and had excess food for export.

posted May 07, 2004 03:44 PM            

I do not have ties to industrial agriculture. I have ties to the animal / livestock sector, but I am familar with industrial ag because they grow the grains that feed the animals and humans. My company does not have ANY stake in the ag market at all.

What I do come from is a family of farmers from the good old states of Kansas and Texas. I also know many farmers that used their crops to help supplement the livestock business. It is not that easy to just have several hundred thousand small farms to produce what the country needs.

So you are wrong when you insinuate that I have some type of financial or professional tie to the agriculture business. We pulled our product off the market, so I don't rely on any of that nor did I ever receive a commission from working in the livestock market. What I did learn was many valuable lessons concerning how hard it is to sustain agriculture and to grow those plants we seem to take for granted.

jwhop is right. Genetic engineering started long ago with the Monk Gregor Mendel and his theory of hybridization. To introduce new genes into an organism increases the likelihood of success against the elements and specfically disease. The theory was first started with pea pods and flowers then grew to horses. By cross breeding horses you could take the strong genetics of one - say for the ability to pull carts - along with the traits of being docile - so the animal wouldn't be skittish. Those traits are goverened by genes...so in that respect - it introducing new genes into an old organism.

On another level - this occurance happens in nature all the time. Bacteria become resistant to antibiotic because they incorporate a gene into their own genetic sequence. Sometimes it is by the infection of a virus into the bacterial cell itself - say a virus that protects against penicillin - then you end up with a penicillin resistant staphyloccus organism.

posted May 07, 2004 07:30 PM            

As jwhop would say, "that won't wash."

The genetic engineering of today bears very little, if any, significant similarity to traditional cross breeding by farmers. We are talking about farmers who spent all day in the field observing how the weather and landscape affected their crop and making decisions about which plants to encourage based on his intimate relationship with the land.
The genetic engineering is now done by people who spend most of their time in a laboratory, answering to the demands of gigantic agrobusiness men who live far removed from the land that they are affecting. They insert genes into plants that could NEVER be created in nature.

This genetic engineering of today is supposed to herald the solution to the enviromental catastrophe brought on by chemical farming practices. The thing is, much of these GE crops are bred to be more resistant to pesticides or herbicides and therefore facillitate an even GREATER dumping of these highly toxic chemicals onto our food.

quote:

---

Food production is so basic that it shouldn't be jeopardized by foreign ownership of the land or the seed that feeds us all

---

HALLELUJAH! I'm so happy we agree on this very important point, jwhop. So by reverse we should also do everything we can to help the nations of the world produce all, or atleast as much as possible, the staple foods of that region. Forcing countries to convert all their prime farmland to the production of luxury export items while their populations are dependent on imports to meet their basic needs is inherently unstable.

I would also wager that the examples of countries who have redistributed their farmland to small indigenous farmers may have failed because the farmers weren't educated in sustainable agriculture techniques. I'm not advocating that we adopt entirely the pre-industrial techniques of farming. I'm advocating a system that, while it may adopt some of the oldest practices of agriculture, it also would incorporate some very new practices that could probably most accurately called agroecology.

Permaculture techniques have sucessfully turned barren desert into lush shaded food forests. I've seen pictures- Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute in New Mexico is one example. This could also be applied to places like Ethiopia and I've no doubt that food could be grown there, with the proper rehabilitation of the land, without any genetic engineering of crops necessary.

pidaua,
Sorry, I couldn't remember if your company was in the agrobusiness or livestock.

It's true that this country couldn't be supported by small farms the way agriculture is practiced now or in the past. I do hold the strong belief that if farmers were educated in sustainable agroecological or permacultural techniques than not only could this country be supported but we would have a food supply that was more secure, healthier, tastier and offered a FAR greater variety of food.

Like jwhop touched on, industrial agriculture has destroyed 80-98% of the varieties of apples, lettuce, corn, tomatoes (one of the world's most threatened species in terms of genetic diversity) and potatoes, amongst others.

Large scale monoculture farming relies on usually one of two varieties of a crop and when a pest becomes too much of blight to that variety, farmers turn to the seed companies to give them a different variety. The thing is, since only one or two varieties are being grown by the vast majority of farmers, the seed companies are drawing upon the genetic stock that was established by farmers prior to industrial ag. practices. No new varieties are really being added and infact they are disappearing rapidly. Essentially the bank of genetic diversity is being mined- as in unsustainable. Meaning that we are setting ourselves up for some potentially frightening scenarios. Pests that grow increasingly resistant to pesticides and weeds that could inadvertently become contaminated by the genetic engineering to be super resistant to herbicides or pests. Couple these things with the eventual possiblility that one day we may only have one or two varieties left of staple crops (crops that are likely owned by major transnational corporations) and the possibility for widespread famine looms.

quote:

---

there will always be a anti-science group that calls it Franken Food. It used to be scientists had to worry about the Church coming down on scientific theories and advances...now we have to worry about zany churchies as well as the rapid left. 100 years from now people will laugh at the Franken food movement as "how naive" just as we look at the people would killed those that believed the world was flat.

---

This quote makes me feel rather discouraged. It sounds to me as if you've already characterized people who are against GE crops as "anti-science" and as ignorant as folks who thought the world was flat. I have a really hard time thinking that your mind is open to hearing criticism from an objective standpoint if you've already made these judgements of me and people who feel the same way as me. This is actually more of what I was talking about when I was mentioning your ties to industrial agriculture. You've already put yourself on their side of the fence and for you to stand over here would require a rather dramatic shift in how you characterize people.
I know that may come across as sounding presumptuous but I'm just trying to genuinely understand where you are coming from.

posted May 11, 2004 08:25 PM            

I"m really frustrated because this issue is atleast as important, if not more, than what's going on in Iraq right now and yet nobody seems very interested in talking about it.

posted May 11, 2004 09:10 PM            

Right now, I am just a bit emotionally jarred and I want to enjoy the happiness of meeting someone that may well be a soul mate, while trying to resolve the pain of hurting someone I once cared deeply for but had to let go of once and for all.

posted May 12, 2004 12:03 AM            

pidaua, wow soul mate business is quite serious and time consuming. Please take your time, I totally understand.