A Must See!

A wonderful informative satire by Infomatic Films.

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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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USDA ‘partially deregulates’ GM sugar beets, defying court order

A week ago, the USDA shocked the organic-farming community by “fully deregulating” genetically modified alfalfa, after acknowledgingthat organic farmers had legitimate concerns about the move and hinting they’d be taken into account.

On Friday, the agency didn’t simply skulk away from its own words in an apparent attempt to appease the agrichemical industry. This time, it defied a court order banning the planting of GM sugar beets until a proper study of their environmental impact can be done. The USDA announced that it would allow farmers to begin planting Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets — genetically tweaked to withstand copious lashings of Monsanto’s herbicide — even though the environmental impact study has yet to be completed, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“The USDA decision is the second big victory for the crop-biotechnology industry in a week,” theJournal noted.

Sugar beets provide about half of the sugar consumed in the United States — and Monsanto controls 95 percent of the sugar beet seed market with its Roundup Ready genes. The company’s stranglehold over the beet market demonstrates its insidious market power. When a federal judge demanded in August 2010 that farmers stop planting Monsanto’s GM beet seeds pending an impact study, farmersquickly found out that virtually no non-GM seed was available. Between 2005, when the USDA first greenlighted GM beets, and 2010, Monsanto had essentially driven all competition out of the market.

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Big Win for Biotech: USDA Deregulates Monsanto Alfalfa

After nearly five years of legal and regulatory battles, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has fully deregulated Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa that is genetically modified (GM) to be resistant to Roundup herbicide.

The decision squashed a proposed compromise between the biotech industry and its opponents that would have placed geographic restrictions on Roundup Ready alfalfa to prevent organic and traditional alfalfa from being contaminated by herbicide sprays and transgenes spread by cross-pollination and other factors.

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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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Food for a Rooted Future

Our search for rootedness has brought us back to the Philippines, back to communities in the south where Robin spent a year over three decades ago.

We spend time with the family of a rice farmer, Delia, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Delia, her husband Romulo, two daughters, one son, and three grandchildren live in a simple but roomy house on the edge of their rice field. Behind the house is a tilapia-filled fish pond with papaya trees growing on one side. A few pigs are housed by the fish pond, and fifteen chickens have free range of the property. Vitamin-rich greens grow at the far edge of the pond, and two towering jackfruit trees provide shade as well as ingredients for delicious meals. Theirs is an example of what we call a “rooted” life; among other things, they eat mainly what they grow and raise.

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Tell President Obama and Sec. of Agriculture Vilsack to Adopt a Moratorium on the Planting of GE Alfalfa. USDA’s Environmental Impact Statement Does Not Justify Approval

In a precedent-setting final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the planting of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) acknowledges for the first time that GE contamination of organic and conventionally grown crops presents a huge problem in the U.S.  Yet, the document falls woefully short of proving that GE alfalfa is safe for the environment or that it will afford all farmers their fair share of the US agricultural economy.  In fact, the EIS sorely lacks the type of rigorous scientific data and analysis that the public expects from the Agency to justify going forward with any type of deregulation of GE alfalfa.

Read more and take action.

 

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Video: Paul Hawken: The High Cost of Cheap Food

“Paul Hawken: The High Cost of Che…” from blip.tv: Excerpted from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s, Cooking For Solutions 2010 media conference, Paul Hawken eloquently explains how the price of food is divorced from its true costs, and what this really means for society at large.

See the video.

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Tell Sec. of Agriculture Vilsack to Adopt a Moratorium on the Planting of GE Alfalfa. USDA’s Environmental Impact Statement Does Not Justify Approval

In a precedent-setting final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the planting of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) acknowledges for the first time that GE contamination of organic and conventionally grown crops presents a huge problem in the U.S.  Yet, the document falls woefully short of proving that GE alfalfa is safe for the environment or that it will afford all farmers their fair share of the US agricultural economy.  In fact, the EIS sorely lacks the type of rigorous scientific data and analysis that the public expects from the Agency to justify going forward with any type of deregulation of GE alfalfa.

That is why we are calling on our supporters to urge USDA to adopt a moratorium on the planting of GE alfalfa.

Read more and sign petition.

 

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Monsanto & the Merchants of Death

In the 1990s, Monsanto found an ingenious way to sell large quantities of its broad-spectrum toxic herbicide RoundUp to farmers. The company’s scientists gene-spliced corn, soy, cotton, and canola with foreign DNA, enabling these “Frankencrops” to survive massive doses of RoundUp. Farmers could now repeatedly spray their fields with RoundUp, killing weeds but not the crop. Unfortunately, the collateral damage of heavy RoundUp spraying includes groundwater pollution, toxic residues in crops, and destruction of essential soil microorganisms. The Genetically Modified (GM) crops themselves create herbicide-resistant Superweeds and spread genetic pollution to organic and non-GMO crops as well as plant relatives. Last but certainly not least, Monsanto’s GM foods have been linked to serious health damage – not only for animals, but humans as well.

Today, a major portion of cropland in the US is sown with Monsanto’s “RoundUp Ready” corn, soy, cotton, canola, and sugar beets. Eighty percent of these GM crops are then sold as animal feed to the nation’s 125,000 factory farms or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that produce most of the non-organic meat, dairy, or eggs sold in grocery stores or served in restaurants, schools, and hospitals. The other 20% of Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Organisms are laced into non-organic processed foods (soy lecithin, corn or sugar beet sweeteners, cooking oils, etc.) that are found in every grocery store aisle.

There is a direct correlation between our genetically engineered food supply and the $2 trillion the US spends annually on medical care, namely an epidemic of diet-related chronic diseases. Instead of healthy fruits, vegetables, grains, and grass-fed animal products, US factory farms and food processors produce a glut of genetically engineered junk foods that generate heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. Low fruit and vegetable consumption is directly costing the United States $56 billion a year in diet-related chronic diseases.

Monsanto’s GM crops are highly profitable for the food industry, turning cheap, federally subsidized, genetically engineered crops and GE-fed animals into cheap, ubiquitous, junky foods. But from the standpoint of public health and environmental sustainability, Monsanto and their factory farm collaborators are nothing less than merchants of disease and death.

A critical mass of consumers would turn away from GMOs and Factory Farmed meat, dairy, and eggs – if they knew what they were eating. Please join and support OCA in our new Truth-in-Labeling campaign.

Learn more.

 

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