Dear Farmers: U.S. is Now Importing Organic Corn to Satisfy Consumer Demand

Heather Callaghan

There are three things driving a surge in organic imports:

1. U.S. farmers have been systematically pushed into growing mostly GMO crops; grown primarily for fuel, animal feed and cheap processed foods. Russia even used our food supply as an example for the EU to dump us and join them instead. 
2. U.S. consumers are not only demanding fresh, organic produce as well as non-GMO convenience foods - but also want meat, dairy and eggs from animals that were fed non-GMO or organic feed.
3. Other countries primarily grow non-GE crops, and plenty of organic. They've got the goods and they reap the benefits of trade.  

This is ridiculous, as the U.S. could not only use a valuable export, but could honestly use a supportive, in-house product. Yet again, we find ourselves outsourcing for staples. Shouldn't our own farmers be benefiting from this rise in demand coming from their country? Yet again, farmers have been tricked and kicked by the very companies with which they sign agreements.

U.S. consumers are coming into awareness about how their food affects their health and want superior products, which sadly, aren't always available here...yet.

Rising Political Candidate Takes Firm Stance Against GMOs

Brandon Turbeville

After years of leading the charge against genetically modified food, California now has its own anti-GMO/pro-organic political candidate. James Hinton, an Independent running for California’s US House District 5, has come out strong against the proliferation of GM food in the US food supply as well as in the environment. Hinton has also taken a strong stand in favor of GMO labeling.

Hinton has received an impressive amount of support already, despite running against an opponent who is a career politician with a sizable campaign purse. Hinton has amassed endorsements from a variety of organizations from the NRA to the Tax Wall Street Party but, even more important, he has received the endorsement of California voters.

Hinton has already survived the California primary and received enough votes to be the only candidate facing Democrat Mike Thompson in the general election. There have been a number of anti-GMO candidates in the past – in California and elsewhere – but Hinton’s campaign appears to be the most promising.

Colorado to Decide on GMO Labeling on Election Day

KDVR

DENVER — The movement to require food manufacturers to identify genetically modified organisms (GMO) is picking up support and may be an issue for voters to decide this November.

Members of a coalition fighting for GMO labeling held a rally at the state capitol then marched to the Secretary of State’s office Monday.

They have collected more than 170,000 signatures on a petition in an effort to get the issue on the ballot.  They say they well surpassed the 86,105 signatures required.

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Philippines Protesters Trample, Uproot GM Golden Rice Trial

Image 1, Image 2

Heather Callaghan

A new genetically modified crop of 'Golden rice' was weeks away from harvest in the Philippines. It was reportedly going to be submitted to authorities for evaluation. This was an important milestone as other countries like Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia were considering going for the crops in Philippines' wake.

Growing GM rice with vitamin A to help the blind is one of the biggest philanthropic harbingers for GM crops. Extra genes are inserted to better produce beta-carotene. As discussed in yesterday's Top 5 GMO Myths Debunked, there are a number of ways to address vision problems of the poor without resorting to forever changing plant ecology.

BBC author Matt McGrath reports that the project to develop this golden rice was in the works 20 years ago with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to German researchers.

Helen Keller International claims that 670,000 can die from vitamin A deficiency caused disease each year and 350,000 will go blind. But, if growing these crops to help with poor people's vision is such a grand idea, why are they being rejected, oftentimes by those very people?

Some 400 Philippines farming protesters had other things in mind for the trial.

Fast Food, the Non-GMO Style, and Awesome

Bruce and Marsha Weinstein
Awesome Foods

Catherine J. Frompovich

In today’s extremely busy lifestyles, food choices often wind up being something fast, on the run, or munchies out of cellophane bags, which usually are nothing more than ‘Frankenfood’ gussied up to appeal to deadened taste buds.

If you’re like me, you don’t have a taste for, nor want to buy, any of those quick fixes whose ingredient labels take a degree in food chemistry to understand. Furthermore, the sinister part of an ingredient label anymore—especially in the USA—is what’s not listed, i.e., genetically modified organisms or GMOs. Personally, when I studied nutrition, I thought food processing chemicals, artificial colors and sweeteners, plus all the trans fats were nutritional horrors, but now we have to deal with GMOs, which are in just about every commercially-produced product since most processing ingredients contain some form of soy, corn, canola, or cottonseed oil. 

GMO crops are sprayed with tremendous amounts of glyphosate, especially GMO seed crops known as Roundup Ready®, which Monsanto makes farmers adhere to through special legal agreements. 

Californians: Stop Waiting to Be Helped on GMO Labeling

Ari Smithson

In California, the biotech industry and the industrial food giants are pouring millions into stopping the labeling of the most extreme food toxin ever seen in human history.  And they are succeeding in making the battle close.  They did this before in Oregon where the public was at first massively opposed to GMOs, but the final vote was in favor of industry.

Meanwhile, the people themselves in California seem to be sitting on their hands, expecting the Organic Consumers Association or the Institute for Responsible Technology or a few other groups to do the work to inform everyone.  But those groups are not reaching the poor or the Chinese, the Japanese, the Indian, the Muslim and other communities who either don't have computers or don't speak English, so can't be convinced by videos or phone banking.

Let's get real and personal, Californians. Your lives are at stake here.  How many people have you spoken to?  How many churches, temples, organizations, etc., are you in and have you informed other members?  How many signs have you made yourself and put up?  

Seeds of Freedom

The story of seed has become one of loss, control, dependence and debt. It’s been written by those who want to make vast profit from our food system, no matter what the true cost.  It’s time to change the story.

Seeds of Freedom charts the story of seed from its roots at the heart of traditional, diversity rich farming systems across the world, to being transformed into a powerful commodity, used to monopolise the global food system.The film highlights the extent to which the industrial agricultural system, and genetically modified (GM) seeds in particular, has impacted on the enormous agro -biodiversity evolved by farmers and communities around the world, since the beginning of agriculture.



For more information visit Seeds of Freedom

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Celebrities Lend Their Sarcasm For Your Right to Know About GMO Food

YouTube - GoodFoodnH20

Click here to help us get this ad on the air: http://fwwat.ch/Right2KnowTVAD

To learn more about Prop 37 and Food & Water Watch's campaign to make GE Labeling the Law, visit www.foodandwaterwatch.org/yeson37.

"What makes you think you have the right to know?" asks Danny DeVito in a witty, ironic public service announcement by the political action committee sponsored by consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch in support of Proposition 37. California's ballot initiative to label genetically engineered foods. A diverse, all-star cast joins DeVito in the "Right to Know" PSA, including Bill Maher, Dave Matthews, Jillian Michaels, Emily Deschanel, John Cho, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, KaDee Strickland and Kristin Bauer van Straten.

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The Right to Know About GMO Food

YouTube - GoodFoodnH20

Click here to help us get this ad on the air: http://fwwat.ch/Right2KnowTVAD

To learn more about Prop 37 and Food & Water Watch's campaign to make GE Labeling the Law, visit www.foodandwaterwatch.org/yeson37.

"What makes you think you have the right to know?" asks Danny DeVito in a witty, ironic public service announcement by the political action committee sponsored by consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch in support of Proposition 37. California's ballot initiative to label genetically engineered foods. A diverse, all-star cast joins DeVito in the "Right to Know" PSA, including Bill Maher, Dave Matthews, Jillian Michaels, Emily Deschanel, John Cho, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, KaDee Strickland and Kristin Bauer van Straten.

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California Families Take on GMOs

Jim Artwin

The campaign for Prop 37 is pretty high tech and educated.  Many communities are being completely left out of even knowing what is happening to them because they don't have computers or speak English.  How non-visual it all is, and yet what a great time for the whole state of California to erupt into a visual and grassroots expression of antipathy for GMOs and for truth (prop 37).

To get even more media attention, parents and grandparents and children across California to make their own yard signs, car signs, banners, flags, sculptures and murals, with everyone making them as interesting as possible.

In the Latino, Chinese, South Asian, Japanese and many other communities, they could write them in different languages. 
हाँ = Yes for Prop 37! 
ఔను = Yes for Prop 37
હા = Yes for Prop 37
ਹਾਂ = Yes for Prop 37
And 是 or shi means yes for Prop 37!

Kids would really get into this.

France Maintains Key Ban on Monsanto’s GMO Maize Crops

Anthony Gucciardi

In another massive victory against Monsanto and the spread of genetically modified crops, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayraul has announced that the nation will be maintaining a key ban on the only remaining GMO currently allowed in Europe.

Known as Monsanto’s GMO maize crops, or MON810 maize, the original ban was brought forth back in March following the French court’s previous annulment on a November ban.

Thanks to activism by French citizens and serious political outcry, Monsanto is now effectively blocked from Europe’s gigantic marketplace.

5 Reasons NOT to Eat Genetically Modified Foods

“We are confronted with the most powerful technology the world has ever known, and it is being rapidly deployed with almost no thought whatsoever to its consequences.” — Dr Suzanne Wuerthele, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) toxicologist.

Image source

Activist Post

Most Americans are unaware that they eat a steady diet of genetically modified food.  This is mainly because the GMO giants, as if ashamed of their creation, refuse to allow labels on food that contains genetic engineering.

Consumers are also generally distracted by all the other things on food labels that they're supposed to be concerned about. And when they are exposed to information on GMOs, it's usually from a mainstream source featuring "philanthropist" Bill Gates beaming a smile while expounding the "benefits" that GMOs bring to starving people.

They typically don't hear about studies that show crop yields with GMOs are actually lower than with non-GM crops, or that they require far more pesticides than heirloom seeds, or that some are patented "terminator" seeds that don't re-germinate, which ensures an eventual monopoly over food.  Or, perhaps one of the worst findings, that hamsters in one study became completely infertile, among other disturbing effects, after only 3 generations of eating GM soy.

Protesters destroy controversial GMO field trial

Food First 

In Wetteren, a municipality in the Belgian province of East Flanders, activists succeeded in damaging the GM potatoes being trialled for blight resistance, despite a large contingent of police officers who had been ordered to guard the GM trial. The officers were unable to stop the 300-400 or more peaceful protesters of all ages, who included local people.



During the protest organized by the Belgian Field Liberation Movement (FLM) - an informal collective consisting of farmers, scientists, consumers, and environmental activists, protesters climbed over a high fence and pulled up GM potato plants. The trial was also allegedly sprayed with herbicide. Some 40 people were arrested.

The non-violent direct action had been announced in advance with the FLM saying they planned to remove the GM potatoes and replant the field with non-GM blight resistant potatoes in a peaceful and public manner.

A sympathetic farmer was quoted as saying, "They [the GM lobby] talk a lot about farmers, but we are never heard. This type of action strengthens us and seems like the only way forward for consumers and small producers who are independent of powerful interest groups like big agribusiness."

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Genetically Engineered Salmon's Empty Promises

It's not going to feed more people, be cheaper, or cleaner. So what's it about? A power grab.

Dees Illustration

Paul Greenberg
Gilt Taste

For those who follow the theater of food politics, particularly the underwater portion of the drama, AquaBounty's AquAdvantage genetically engineered salmon has played something of leading role for two decades, dating back to the 1990s when the fish was first conceived. The AquAdvantage salmon, in case you haven't heard about it, is an Atlantic salmon with a (much larger) Chinook salmon growth gene inserted into its DNA. This is coupled with a promoter from a third fish, an ocean pout, that keeps that growth gene more or less permanently in the "on" position. This makes for a fish that grows faster than an unmodified salmon—something which its creators hail as a key to providing more fish for the world and easing the crisis in over-fishing.

I have long opposed the AquAdvantage salmon, taking pretty familiar positions that any member of the local/organic/wild food community would recognize: Positions that include the fear that the fish will escape and contaminate wild populations of salmon, and that the fish requires much wasteful transport since it would be cloned in Canada, grown in Panama and then flown back to the U.S. for consumption. But at a recent lecture when I was laying out these old chestnuts, it suddenly occurred to me that the non-fishy public might be missing one monumental fact about the AquAdvantage salmon, with all its attendant risks:

It is completely unnecessary.

Australia shuns GM canola in response to consumer demand for non-GMO products

Jonathan Benson
Natural News

The biotechnology industry and its lackeys in the US government may be getting away with pulling a fast one on the American people, but citizens across Europe and in Australia continue to resist the onslaught of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in their food supply. A recent report from Gene Ethics Media (GEM) explains that two of Australia's largest grain traders are refusing to deal with any GM canola this year, citing intense and increasing consumer opposition to GM grains.

Europeans import much of their canola from Australia, a country that for years had unilaterally held anon-GMO policy for canola. After all, virtually nobody from the countries to whom Australia exports itsgrains wants GM canola, and this has naturally created market conditions in which canola growers have voluntarily chosen to stick with non-GM and organic varieties.

GMO created foods may be used as a biological weapon

Kenneth Schortgen Jr
Examiner

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) which are used to create new food seeds and crops, are being tied to use as a potential biological weapon in creating infertility in places around the world.

A report published on May 28th tied together that the international organization Codex, which is seeking to regulate every food, mineral, and herb in the world used for consumption, does not consider GMO created products as food, and thus they are being placed in a separate sphere of attributes that can be used for alternative functions.

Including birth control and creating infertility in a nation or population.

There has been a concerted national effort by citizens to have the US government label GMOs.  Opposing it are government intent not only to keep them unlabeled in the US but efforts at the international level by the US government to remove all labeling of GMOs through Codex.  The problem is that Codex applies to food, and GMOs don't qualify. 

The corn has been field tested in tests financed by the US Department of Agriculture along with a small California bio-tech company named Epicyte. Announcing his success at a 2001 press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants, announced, “We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies.” 

Hein claimed it was a possible solution to world “over-population. – Salem News

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With no labeling, few realize they are eating genetically modified foods

Some consumers are concerned that such foods may pose health risks and say manufacturers should be required to identify them for consumers

Monica Eng
LA Times

When a team of activists wearing white hazmat suits showed up at a Chicago grocery store to protest the sale of genetically modified foods, they picked an unlikely target: Whole Foods Market.

Organic foods, by definition, can’t knowingly contain genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs. But genetically modified corn, soy and other crops have become such common ingredients in processed foods that even one of the nation’s top organic food retailers says it hasn’t been able to avoid stocking some products that contain them.

“No one would guess that there are genetically engineered foods right here in Whole Foods,” said Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association, which organized the protest. The activists dramatically trashed a battery of well-known health food brands outside the store, including Tofutti, Kashi and Boca Burgers.

Though people have been modifying foodstuffs through selective breeding and other methods for centuries, genetically modified crops differ in that the plants grow from seeds in which DNA splicing has been used to place genes from another source into a plant. In this way, the crop can be made to withstand a weed-killing pesticide, for example, or incorporate a bacterial toxin that can repel pests.

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Cows engineered to produce "human milk," and why Bessie will never, ever replace you.

Wiki Image

Breastfeeding Blog

Well, they say they've done it.

For years researchers in China, with the backing of a "major biotechnology company" have been working to genetically modify cows to produce human milk, and The Telegraph says that they've done it:

The scientists have successfully introduced human genes into 300 dairy cows to produce milk with the same properties as human breast milk.

The scientists behind the research believe milk from herds of genetically modified cows could provide an alternative to human breast milk and formula milk for babies, which is often criticised as being an inferior substitute.

Lawsuit seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s GMO patents

Rady Ananda, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

“A new invention to poison people … is not a patentable invention.” Lowell v. Lewis, 1817

A landmark lawsuit filed on March 29 in US federal court seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seeds and to prohibit the company from suing those whose crops become genetically contaminated.

The Public Patent Foundation filed suit on behalf of 270,000 people from sixty organic and sustainable businesses and trade associations, including thousands of certified-organic farmers.

“As Justice Story wrote in 1817, to be patentable, an invention must not be ‘injurious to the well being, good policy, or sound morals of society,’” notes the complaint in its opening paragraphs.

The suit points to studies citing harm caused by Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, including human placental damage, lymphoma, myeloma, animal miscarriages, and other impacts on human health.
Plaintiffs condemn Monsanto for prohibiting independent research on its transgenic seeds and for its successful lobby efforts to ban GM food labeling. Many raise the specter of allergic reaction to GM foods, proof of which is hidden by lack of labeling. GMO label laws, currently pending in 14 states, would partially remedy this situation. (Please contact your state reps.)