Rachel Parent Debates Kevin O’Leary About GMOs

After debating Canadian Kevin O’Leary on television, 14 yeah old Rachel O’Leary has become anti GMO food activist celebrity. Disregarding her age, Rachel hold her own and defends some of the movements main points.

The Future of Food director Deborah Koons Garcia got a chance to meet Rachel back in February during the Canadian Organic Growers’ Conference and the two hit it off.

Rachel Parent Debates Kevin O’Leary About GMOs

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Whole Foods Market and GMOs

There’s an article about Whole Foods that has surfaced the social media universe today “USDA Forces Whole Foods To Accept Monsanto“. And while the passive food activist posted this article and are commenting on each others Facebook walls, many did not look at the date of the article, February 4, 2012.
On Friday March 15th of this year, Whole Foods announced that they will be labeling GMOs in their stores. They will be working on this process over the next 5 years.

Here’s an article about it from The Examiner:

Whole Foods Market announces labeling of GMOs

• March 17, 2013
• By: Norbert O’Hare

Crookneck summer squash available in stores is often genetically modified.

On Friday, Whole Foods Market announced their intent to have all genetically-modified foods in their stores labeled as such by 2018. Whole Foods president A. C. Gallo told The New York Times that this decision was driven by the basic economic law of demand. “We’ve seen how our customers have responded to the products we do have labeled,” Gallo said. “Some of our manufacturers say they’ve seen a 15% increase in sales of products they have labeled.”There is a movement in the U. S. to require this labeling in all stores but it has yet to gain any legal traction. A proposition to require labeling was defeated in California in the November election. However, Hawaii, New Mexico, Missouri, Vermont, and Washington are currently deciding this issue in various legal forms, and a bill requiring labeling has been introduced in the U. S. Congress.

Despite the support of organizations like Consumers Union and the World Health Organization, the federal Food and Drug Administration has required no safety testing of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Naturally, without assurances that GMOs are safe, there is concern among the public. A Huffington Post poll published earlier this month show that 82% of respondents favored labeling food made with GMOs.

Science will need to be a major player in the quest to feed the world’s growing population for coming generations, but the debate over GMOs has been tainted by corporate greed at Monsanto. The vast majority of the GMO crops are Round-up Ready soybeans and corn, which seed farmers buy from Monsanto. The farmers can’t save seed for their next year’s crop; Monsanto requires them to buy it again. Then, Monsanto sells the herbicide Round-up to the same farmers to control weeds. Round-up Ready crops are immune to the herbicide, but so are a growing number of weeds. Nature has a way of adapting to changing conditions, and this is, of course, just one example. Some farmers have been forced to revert to older, less safe herbicides.

There are currently commentary and petitions on the web thanking Whole Foods, but this appears to be a logical, profit driven, decision.

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Becoming Soil Conscious by Deborah Koons Garcia

Becoming Soil Conscious

This fall I will be completing my new feature length documentary, Symphony of the Soil. Along with this exploration of soil, I am creating several short films, Sonatas of the Soil, each of which goes deeply into one soil-related topic like dry farming grapes, as is depicted in Portrait of a Winemaker: John Williams of Frogs’ Leap. Yes, I have become a soil freak or soil geek or soil lover or all three. How did this happen?

Several years ago I made the film The Future of Food that helped kick start the food movement. I spent years travelling around the country and the world showing the film and speaking about food and agriculture. That film was very well received and had a positive impact on a lot of people’s lives, so I decided to make another film in the same realm, a film about soil. Knowing little about soil before I committed to the project, I soon realized how incredibly complex soil is. How could I make a film that does justice to this fascinating substance, which is in fact a living organism? After all, if you just look at soil, there seems to be no action, no action at all. But if you are in the know, you marvel at what has gone into creating that soil, what is going on in it, the billions of organisms and dynamics we are only beginning to discover, and what happens because of soil, like the recycling of life.

The way I now understand soil, if I were holding some soil in my hand and said, “This is soil,” it would be like holding seawater in my hand and saying “This is the ocean.” I have spent the past few years wrestling with, crystallizing, distilling complexity. The study of soil involves chemistry, physics, anthropology, geology and geography, but most importantly, biology—the study of life—because soil is the essence of life. Soil is about transformation. Without soil, there would be no human race. In fact, the word “human” comes from the same root as the word “humus,” a component of soil. Soil is one of the true miracles of this planet. And we treat it like dirt.

Early in my research, an accomplished soil scientist told me that she didn’t think of soil as an agricultural medium, even though she has published many books and papers on agricultural soils. As I got up to speed on what soil really encompasses, I came to the realization that soil is a vast realm, and food and farming are only a part of that realm. I came to see soil as a protagonist of our planetary story. I became protective of it and broke myself of the habit of thinking soil/agriculture, soil/ agriculture, of thinking of soil and immediately jumping to “How can we use this? What can we get out of this?” The real questions became “How can we appreciate soil? How can we let it live?”

In much of what passes for agriculture today, soil has become an inert medium that chemicals are poured into and dollars are pulled out of. In fact, the chemicals that are poured into it can deform and kill the life in the soil and it’s the life in the soil that creates fertility. The classic, sensible axiom that healthy soil creates healthy plants that create healthy people has been lost in the vast fields of today’s industrial agriculture.

A year ago I was invited to go to China to show my films. One of our hosts was an esteemed scientist who told me that only about 10% of China’s soil is usable for farming or grazing. By contrast, over 40% of the soil in the United States is made up of the planet’s most productive soil types—the “molisols” found on prairie grasslands and fertile forest “alfisols.” This scientist also told me that the reality of so little good soil has shaped Chinese culture and character: they are more collective-minded, more careful, more conservative because they have to be. They have to pull together to be able to feed themselves. They have a similar situation with their water resources.

In America, on the other hand, we have lived as if we are so rich in resources that we can abuse our soil without consequences. We think we can let topsoil blow away and that there will always be more, somehow, somewhere. We Ameri-cans think of ourselves as highly individualistic. We like “doing our own thing.” If we have a problem with wanting too much and wasting too much, we can blame our good soil for that. With so much abundance, we have had little need of being careful. But, China has been around for thousands of years, and our modern US society about 300. Our soils have now become profoundly stressed and degraded. If we keep farming the way we are currently, we will be out of topsoil in 30 years. We need to reconsider what has become our national character, our “natural” tendencies. We don’t like limits, but we are running up against them. Rather than slipping into arrogant denial, we need to learn to thrive within limits, to take that as our challenge.

How do we create a healthy relationship with soil? We have to look to nature and see how she does it. Modern science offers us a way to explore this natural world. Today, because of advances in technology—electron microscopes, satellites and various tools for measuring—we know a lot more about soil. Soil science is now cutting edge and profoundly relevant in researching everything from climate change to nutrition.

We now know that soil is a complex ecosystem. Soil is a community, and we are all part of the soil community. From the smallest microorganisms to insects to prairie dogs to bison to humans, we are all taking from and giving back to the soil; it’s an incredibly dynamic process. Soil is the matrix and web of life. And it’s all about relationships. Burrowing animals churn up the soil to let air and water in, to let roots grow. Without them soil can become compact and dried out. Without grazing animals, prairies would become forests. Prairies support grasses and their deep roots that die and replenish the prairie soils, which is why those soils have the highest fertility of all soils. By contrast, tropical soils tend to be shallow and relatively infertile because all the life is held in the dense forest plants. Soil is also a mysterious ecosystem. 90% of the microorganisms in soil have not been identified, much less understood as to how they function.

One of the interesting things I’ve learned about soil is that it’s not just what we think of as “earth.” Soil is 50% solid matter, made up mostly of minerals, 25% air and 25% water—no matter how dry it seems. 1.5% to 15% of the solid matter is what is known as “soil organic matter.” Most of that is comprised of dead microorganisms and a very small percentage of it is alive. I see soil as being made up of all the elements—earth, air, water and the microorganisms are the fire—the force that drives life as it cycles through the soil.

In a healthy organic system, nematodes can eat 10,000 bacteria a day and break apart the nutrients, including nitrogen, in those bacteria and then poop them out so they are available to be taken up by plants. This is referred to as the “poop loop” and it functions as a nitrogen bank. Mycorrhizal fungi have a symbiotic relationship with plants—the plants give them carbohydrates and they reach out with hyphae, branching filaments tinier than plant roots, and find minerals to take back to the plant. This is how plants get the phosphorous they need to grow. Bacteria also feed on plant exudates, carbohydrates, and then build up around the plant, acting like a castle wall protecting the plant from diseases. These are examples of mutualism that only happen when soil is alive and functioning as a healthy system. Putting pesticides, chemical nitrogen and toxins into this system deforms or kills the microbial life and the result is diminished fertility, diminished resistance to disease. Plants diminished in this way become dependent on external chemical inputs to feed and protect them.

Sir Albert Howard’s work has influenced organic and sustainable farmers since he began speaking and writing in the early 20th century. One of his best-known practices, which he learned from peasant farmers in India, now known as Sir Albert Howard’s Law of Return, advises us to return to the soil what we take from it, as nature does. This means that organic matter and nutrients must be returned to the soil to feed and replenish it. Since farming by definition takes produce from the fields, farmers must find ways to give nutrients and organic matter back to the soil. Composting, cover crops and crop rotation are ways to do this. These practices which give back to the soil are in direct opposition to “mining” the soil, the “gut it and get out” mentality that ultimately produces barren land.

At the Jepson Prairie Organics facility in Vacaville, they create organic compost from San Francisco’s green and restaurant food waste. It is an amazing process and the end result is compost that even organic farmers can apply to their crops. We should be doing exactly this everywhere in this country. Our soils are starving for carbon and nutrients, and recycling our “clean” wastes can help restore the soil. Composting is a form of giving back to the soil, of mimicking what nature does when a leaf falls from a tree and decomposes back into the soil under that tree to feed it. I have filmed composting on four continents, and its increasingly popularity may be a saving grace to our planet’s soils.

In complete contrast to the work they are doing at Jepson Prairie Organics and other true composting facilities like it, is the repellent public policy that allows sewage sludge to be put on farmland. The way things are working now in our waste treatment systems, the cleaner the water, the more toxic the sludge. While humans have for eons returned human waste, liquid and night soil, to land, the reality is different now because of the amount of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals now in that waste. Industrial wastes, heavy metals and a long ugly list of chemicals now end up in sewage sludge, which has been politely renamed “biosolids,” and can be labeled “organic” because it contains carbon. This use of the term organic was grandfathered in before the USDA Organic Standards were defined. Companies and municipalities, including San Francisco, then mix the sludge with wood chips, label it “compost,” and sell it. Unsuspecting buyers think they are getting actual chemicalfree, transformed green and food waste, but they are not. In my opinion this is a scandal and should be the cause of a real public outcry because some of this stuff is being put on school gardens—given away for free!

Since we humans are members of the soil community, we too must learn that if we want our community, in the largest sense, to thrive, we must give back. And just as we have been taking from the soil and not giving back, our society has mirrored this tendency, and become one in which taking and not giving back has become the norm. If we treated our soil right, perhaps that would somehow change our whole society and change the way we relate to each other so we could create healthier, living communities.

Soil is indeed the protagonist of our planetary story. Halfway through making this film, I realized I was making a film about the underworld, about death and regeneration. Our bones and muscles, our bodies, are made up of nutrients we get from plants or animals that they got from the soil. We rise up out of the soil, and we return to it when we die. These elements are then recycled by soil back into life. And if you don’t have regeneration, the cycling of life into death and back into life, you just have degradation and death.

The good news is that soil is pretty forgiving. If we change the way we treat soil, we could solve so many of our problems in just a few years. Soil lovers unite! The planet we save will be our own!

Written by Deborah Koons Garcia
Deborah Koons Garcia has lived on the same watershed in Mill Valley for 35 years. She has been seeking out organic food since she became a vegetarian in 1970. She now eats wild salmon, too.

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Conference Asks What the Future of Food Should Look Like

“What has brought us here today is the belief that our current food system is broken… and we believe this system must be changed,” said Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation” and co-producer of “Food, Inc,” at the Future of Food Conference last Wednesday at Georgetown University. Organized by Washington Post Live, this conference brought together policymakers, scientific experts, advocates and food company leaders to think about how to fix the food system. Read an article by Mara Schechter

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Researcher: Roundup or Roundup-Ready Crops May Be Causing Animal Miscarriages and Infertility

One of the nation’s senior soil scientists alerted the federal government to a newly discovered organism that may have the potential to cause infertility and spontaneous abortion in farm animals, raising significant concerns about human health.  Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University, believes the appearance and prevalence of the unnamed organism may be related to the nation’s over reliance on the weed killer known as Roundup and/or to something about the genetically engineered Roundup-Ready crops. In a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the professor called on the federal government to immediately stop deregulation of roundup ready crops, particularly roundup ready alfalfa.

Read the full text of the letter.

 

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Urge Congress To Take A Stand Against GE Fish! Support the bipartisan legislation to ban GE fish, require labeling

Despite nearly 400,000 comments in opposition, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to announce its approval of genetically engineered (GE) salmon any day now. To make matters worse, FDA argues that these GE salmon don’t even need to be labeled!

In response to FDA’s imminent approval, Congress is taking action. Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Representative Don Young (R-Alaska) recently introduced bipartisan legislation in Congress that would ban GE fish (Bill# S. 230/H.R. 521) and require mandatory labeling for consumers if approved (Bill# S. 229/H.R. 520).

Please send your email to Congress in support of these important bills!

The legislation has been endorsed by 64 consumer, worker, religious and environmental groups, along with commercial, recreational and subsistence fisheries associations, food businesses and retailers—including the Center for Food Safety, Ocean Conservancy, Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development, the Alaska Trollers Association, Food and Water Watch, the National Cooperative Grocers Association and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations among others—who know that the approval of GE salmon would represent a serious threat to the survival of native salmon populations, many of which have already suffered severe declines related to salmon farms and other man-made impacts. Wild Atlantic salmon are already on the Endangered Species List in the U.S.; approving these GE Atlantic salmon could be the final blow to these wild stocks. Additionally, the human health impacts of eating GE fish are entirely unknown. If GE salmon are approved, these fish must be labeled so people can make informed choices.

Please write your U.S. Senators and Representative and urge them to protect fishers, consumers and the environment by co-sponsoring S. 230/H.R. 521 and S. 229/H.R. 520!

 

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Over 9,900 Upset Consumers Tell Fair Trade Certifier ‘No Thanks’ on Name Change

WASHINGTON, DC – North America’s largest consumer advocacy organization, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), which represents over 850,000 consumers, announced last month a new campaign to oppose the name change of the fair trade certifier TransFair USA to “Fair Trade USA”. TransFair has applied for the new name to be trademarked, along with the term “Fair Trade Certified”. As the certifier that works with major brands such as Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s, it is in effect an attempt to legally claim, as an exclusive brand, a term that encompasses a broad movement that extends far beyond the work of TransFair.

“Since our campaign began two weeks ago, more than 9,900 conscious consumers across the United States have sent letters to TransFair USA opposing their name change to ‘Fair Trade USA,” says OCA Executive Director Ronnie Cummins. “TransFair’s response pitifully claims that the new name is ‘popular’ even as they get strong evidence of a revolt by consumer stakeholders that see the new name as yet another step by TransFair to co-opt and corporatize the Fair Trade movement.”

Read more and sign the petition.

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Tell President Obama not to cave to Monsanto!

Unbelievably, over the past 12 days the Obama administration has approved not one, but two of Monsanto’s Round Up Ready genetically modified (GMO) crops. On Thursday January 27th, the USDA made the decision, under the directive of the White House, to fully deregulate Roundup Ready alfalfa, followed by the partial deregulation of Roundup Ready sugar beets this past Friday, opening the door for the planting of both of these GMO crops this spring.¹

Together, these decisions send a clear signal that the Obama administration has abandoned all objectivity and scientific scrutiny when it comes to regulating biotech crops and has adopted a policy of rapid approval in order to overcome growing public outrage and concern about the harmful effects that Monsanto’s monopoly power has on family farmers, American citizens, our common environment and our democracy.

We need to continue to stand up to this influence in the halls of power of the United States. If you haven’t signed this letter telling Obama to rescind the decision for deregulation of GMO crops, now is the time. Tell President Obama it’s time to put family farmers, our food security and America’s citizens over Monsanto’s bottom line.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/338?akid=296.51381.M1G5Au&t=7

In their first decision, the full deregulation of GMO alfalfa, the Obama administration and the USDA ignored more than 200,000 citizen comments against approval during the public comment period in the Spring of 2010, including more than 56,000 comments from Food Democracy Now! members. Recently, in the week prior to the USDA’s approval, more than 100,000 Food Democracy Now! members demanded that President Obama and Secretary Vilsack reject Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa, and more than 2,000 of you made calls directly to the White House on the day of the decision. Despite the strong objections of citizens and the warnings of scientists, the administration opted to “plow ahead” on the planting of GMO alfalfa.²

As many of you may be aware, the Obama decision on Monsanto’s GMO alfalfa has caused some controversy within the organic and sustainable community. However, with last Friday’s decision to partially deregulate GMO sugar beets, it has become clear that we must unite in the common purpose of defeating Monsanto and their continued efforts to take over our food supply.

Last week we sent out a letter drafted by dozens of farmers and activists at the EcoFarm conference, calling for unity and a reversal of the deregulation decision – more than 32,000 Food Democracy Now! members have signed it so far. If you’ve already signed it, there’s no need to sign it again, but please forward to it to at least 3 of your friends and tell them it’s serious — and urgent.

Sign the letter to President Obama and Secretary Vilsack.

 

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Sugar Beet Industry’s Opinion on Roundup Ready Sugar Beets and Frank Morton’s Response

The pro-biotech web site “Truth About Trade & Technology” published an article written by a farmer named Noel Kjesbo, who is a sugar beet producer in the Red River Valley (North Dakota and Minnesota – he doesn’t say specifically which state he farms). Noel was responding to the lawsuit brought by OSA and others against USDA-APHIS for the improper deregulation of a Roundup Ready sugar beet. Noel accused Organic Seed Alliance and the co-plaintiffs of being ”fraudulent”, “dishonest”, “selfish”,  and of using “misleading names”. He believes that we are using “global terrorism and food scares” to cause anxiety around food safety, and specifically the safety of genetically modified foods. While we at OSA do have concerns about the human and environmental health impacts of industrial biotech agriculture, we also have concerns about the impact of biotech crops on organic farmers freedom to operate – their ability to produce organic food with integrity and compete in the marketplace .

The following was a response written by Frank Morton – farmer, plant breeder, and owner of Wild Garden Seeds in Philomath, Oregon:

As a farmer, seedsman, plant breeder, member of the Isolation Pinning Rules Committee of Oregon’s Willamette Valley Specialty Seeds Association, and director on the boards of both Organic Seed Alliance and the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, I want to offer agricultural perspective on the deregulation and planting of genetically engineered Roundup Ready sugar beets.

Read the rest of this article.

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USDA DECISION ON GE ALFALFA LEAVES DOOR OPEN FOR CONTAMINATION, RISE OF SUPERWEEDS

ROGUE AGENCY CHOOSES “BUSINESS AS USUAL” OVER SOUND SCIENCE

CENTER ANNOUNCES IMMEDIATE LEGAL CHALLENGE TO USDA’S FLAWED ASSESSMENT
The Center for Food Safety criticized the announcement today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that it will once again allow unlimited, nation-wide commercial planting of Monsanto’s genetically-engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa, despite the many risks to organic and conventional farmers USDA acknowledged in its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS).  On a call today with stakeholders, Secretary Vilsack reiterated the concerns surrounding purity and access to non-GE seed, yet the Agency’s decision still places the entire burden for preventing contamination on non-GE farmers, with no protections for food producers, consumers and exporters.

“We’re disappointed with USDA’s decision and we will be back in court representing the interest of farmers, preservation of the environment, and consumer choice” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety. “USDA has become a rogue agency in its regulation of biotech crops and its decision to appease the few companies who seek to benefit from this technology comes despite increasing evidence that GE alfalfa will threaten the rights of farmers and consumers, as well as damage the environment.”

On Monday, the Center sent an open letter to Secretary Vilsack calling on USDA to base its decision on sound science and the interests of farmers, and to avoid rushing the process to meet the marketing timelines or sales targets of Monsanto, Forage Genetics or other entities.

CFS also addressed several key points that were not properly assessed in the FEIS, among them were:

• Liability, Implementation and Oversight — Citing over 200 past contamination episodes that have cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales, CFS demands that liability for financial losses incurred by farmers due to transgenic contamination be assigned to the crop developers.  CFS also calls on USDA to take a more active oversight role to ensure that any stewardship plans are properly implemented and enforced.
• Roundup Ready alfalfa will substantially increase herbicide use – USDA’s assessment misrepresented conventional alfalfa as utilizing more herbicides than it does, which in turn provided a false rationale for introducing herbicide-promoting Roundup Ready alfalfa.  In fact, USDA’s own data shows that just 7% of alfalfa hay acres are treated with herbicides.  USDA’s projections in the FEIS show that substantial adoption of Roundup Ready alfalfa would trigger large increases in herbicide use of up to 23 million lbs. per year.
  
• Harms from glyphosate-resistant weeds – USDA’s sloppy and unscientific treatment of glyphosate-resistant (GR) weeds ignored the significant contribution that RR alfalfa could make to their rapid evolution.  USDA failed to analyze how GR weeds fostered by currently grown RR crops are increasing herbicide use; spurring more use of soil-eroding tillage; and reducing farmer income through increased weed control costs, an essential baseline analysis.

“We in the farm sector are dissatisfied but not surprised at the lack of courage from USDA to stop Roundup Ready alfalfa and defend family farmers,” said Pat Trask, conventional alfalfa grower and plaintiff in the alfalfa litigation.

The FEIS comes in response to a 2007 lawsuit brought by CFS, in which a federal court ruled that the USDA’s approval of GE alfalfa violated environmental laws by failing to analyze risks such as the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa, the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds, and increased use of glyphosate herbicide, sold by Monsanto as Roundup.  The Court banned new plantings of GE alfalfa until USDA completed a more comprehensive assessment of these impacts. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals twice affirmed the national ban on GE alfalfa planting.  In June 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Alfalfa until and unless future deregulation occurs.

“Last spring more than 200,000 people submitted comments to the USDA highly critical of the substance and conclusions of its Draft EIS on GE Alfalfa,” said Kimbrell.  “Clearly the USDA was not listening to the public or farmers but rather to just a handful of corporations.”

 

 

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