50 Members of Congress Urge EPA and USDA to Reject New GMO Crops

GE Crops Would Lead to Dramatic Increase in Use of Toxic, War-era Herbicide 2,4-D

GMO farmer

Activist Post

Fifty Members of Congress led by Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-OR-04) and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME-01) wrote today to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expressing “grave concerns” over Dow Chemical's Enlist Duo™ herbicide and new varieties of genetically engineered (GE) corn and soy the herbicide mixture would be used with.

“In the absence of leadership from the agencies tasked to protect our health, our food, and our environment, it is up to Congress to put pressure on the Obama Administration to do what's right. On the cusp of the 5-week August recess, 50 Members of Congress sent a clear message to USDA and EPA: reject the next wave of pesticide promoting crops before it is too late,” said Colin O'Neil, director of government affairs at Center for Food Safety.

“If either USDA or EPA had any surprises in store over the August recess, they’d better think again,” added O’Neil.

Organic Consumers Association Calls for Immediate End to Field Testing GM Crops

Activist Post

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to immediately end all open-air field testing of genetically engineered crops (GMOs). The request comes in response to last week’s discovery by an Oregon farmer of an unapproved, illegal variety of wheat, genetically engineered by Monsanto to withstand the company's toxic RoundUp herbicide, growing on his property.

The OCA has launched a consumer petition calling on the USDA to halt open-air field trials of GMO crops.

“Public health and the livelihood of U.S. wheat farmers have been endangered as a result of America’s regulatory recklessness,” said Ronnie Cummins, National Director of the OCA. “Monsanto is currently conducting hundreds of field trials of GMO crops in the U.S. How many other unknown instances of contamination have occurred but have yet to be discovered? The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack should impose an immediate moratorium on open-air field trials of all new GMO crops that have yet to be approved for human consumption.”

The People's Movement Against Monsanto

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Monsanto is a company feared and reviled by the public in equal measure. But whatever cases Monsanto has lost in the court of public opinion it has made up for in the courts of justice thanks to its revolving door with the upper reaches of Washington. Now, a new movement is seeking to galvanize grassroots resistance to the corporation, and derail its agenda.


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The Video Monsanto Does Not Want You To See

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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.

Report Finds Regulators Knew Monsanto's Roundup Caused Birth Defects

Lucia Graves
Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- Industry regulators have known for years that Roundup, the world's best-selling herbicide produced by U.S. company Monsanto, causes birth defects, according to a new report released Tuesday.

The report, "Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?" found regulators knew as long ago as 1980 that glyphosate, the chemical on which Roundup is based, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals.

But despite such warnings, and although the European Commission has known that glyphosate causes malformations since at least 2002, the information was not made public.

Instead regulators misled the public about glyphosate's safety, according to the report, and as recently as last year, the German Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, the German government body dealing with the glyphosate review, told the European Commission that there was no evidence glyphosate causes birth defects.

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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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Monsanto Will Soon Be Allowed To Police Itself

Ariel Schwartz
Fast Company

Monsanto, enemy of organic farmers and anti-GMO advocates alike, will likely be allowed to conduct its own environmental studies as part of a two-year USDA experiment. But there is no good that can possibly come of an experiment where the company behind nearly every genetically modified crop in our daily diets is allowed to decide whether its products are causing any environmental harm. And Monsanto isn't the only biotech company that will be permitted to police itself.

As it stands, the USDA is responsible for assessing environmental impacts of new GMO crops. The agency has been lax about this, to say the least. In 2005, the USDA gave Monsanto the go-ahead to unleash its sugar beets before preparing an Environmental Impact Statement. This decision triggered a judge to rule that Monsanto sugar beet seedlings should be ripped from the ground.

Because the USDA is so bad at doing its job on time, the agency decided to see if anyone else was prepared to do its EIS work instead. And so it looks like the USDA will at least temporarily hand over environmental impact responsibilities to the biotech companies behind GMO crops. The pilot program will allow these companies to conduct their own environmental assessments of crops or outsource the work to contractors.

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A Government of Monsanto, by Monsanto, and for Monsanto

Barbara H. Peterson
Farm Wars

With help from the FDA and USDA, the biotech industry is set to completely take over our food supply with genetically modified ingredients, irregardless of the wishes of “we the people.” Through collusion, subterfuge, and a bit of back-door manipulation, Monsanto can write it’s own ticket with the U.S. Federal Government’s stamp of approval. If the rules get in the way, then change the rules, or at least their interpretation, to fit the situation.

Monsanto is now ready to grow soybeans that are genetically modified to produce omega-3 fatty acids. The fact that the company is doing this comes as no surprise, but the important thing to note is the process that the FDA goes through to approve these types of substances as Generally Recognized as Safe, or GRAS, is to simply rubber-stamp the Monsanto application, no questions asked.

Monsanto Says it's the "Right Time" for GMO Wheat

Editor's Note: Problem = wheat shortages due to extreme weather and speculation driving commodity prices; Reaction = global starvation and outrage; Solution = Drought-resistant GMO wheat seed from Monsanto.

PopSci

This year, your bread dishes are probably not genetically modified — consumer and food industry opposition has so far prevented any GM wheat from making it to your table. So your biscuits, thickened gravy and turkey stuffing are made with flour from traditionally bred wheat.

But several seed companies, including Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF and others, are working on transgenic wheat. U.S. Wheat Associates, an industry group, said in early 2010 that GM wheat is still several years away, but efforts are ongoing to improve its acceptance among international consumers.

Monsanto Co., the world’s largest producer of genetically modified seed, backed off commercialization of “Roundup Ready” wheat several years ago, amid concerns it could hurt the U.S. wheat market. But earlier this month, the firm said it's the "right time" to pursue development of drought-resistant and high-yielding wheat.

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Monsanto Says it's the "Right Time" for GMO Wheat

Editor's Note: Problem = wheat shortages due to extreme weather and speculation driving commodity prices; Reaction = global starvation and outrage; Solution = Drought-resistant GMO wheat seed from Monsanto.

PopSci

This year, your bread dishes are probably not genetically modified — consumer and food industry opposition has so far prevented any GM wheat from making it to your table. So your biscuits, thickened gravy and turkey stuffing are made with flour from traditionally bred wheat.

But several seed companies, including Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF and others, are working on transgenic wheat. U.S. Wheat Associates, an industry group, said in early 2010 that GM wheat is still several years away, but efforts are ongoing to improve its acceptance among international consumers.

Monsanto Co., the world’s largest producer of genetically modified seed, backed off commercialization of “Roundup Ready” wheat several years ago, amid concerns it could hurt the U.S. wheat market. But earlier this month, the firm said it's the "right time" to pursue development of drought-resistant and high-yielding wheat.

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Food Fascism in the Land of the Free
7 Mega-Cartels That Run the World

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Gene Giants Stockpile Patents on “Climate-Ready” Crops in Bid to Become Biomassters

Surge in Corporate Patents on “Climate-Ready” Crops Threatens Biodiversity and Signals Grab on Land and Biomass 

Arctic Doomsday Seed Vault

ETC Group

Nagoya, Japan -- Under the guise of developing “climate-ready” crops, the world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations are filing hundreds of sweeping, multi-genome patents in a bid to control the world’s plant biomass, according to a report released by ETC Group today.

A handful of multinational corporations are pressuring governments to allow what could become the broadest and most dangerous patent claims in history, warns the group at the United Nations’ Convention on Biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan (18-29 October 2010).

“The Gene Giants are stockpiling patents that threaten to put a choke-hold on the world’s biomass and our future food supply,” warns Silvia Ribeiro of ETC Group. “The breadth of many patent claims on climate ready crop genes is staggering. In many cases, a single patent or patent application claims ownership of engineered gene sequences that could be deployed in virtually all major crops – as well as the processed food and feed products derived from them,” explains Ribeiro.


ETC Group identifies over 262 patent families, subsuming 1663 patent documents published worldwide (both applications and issued patents) that make specific claims on environmental stress tolerance in plants (such as drought, heat, flood, cold, salt tolerance). DuPont, Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta and their biotech partners account for three-quarters (77%) of the patent families identified. Just three companies – DuPont, BASF, Monsanto – account for over two-thirds of the total. Public sector researchers hold only 10%.

“In a desperate bid for moral legitimacy and to try to ease public acceptance of genetically modified crops, the Gene Giants have donated a few proprietary crop genes to poor farmers in Africa,” explains Ribeiro.

“The quid pro quo is that South governments must facilitate market access for genetically modified crops and embrace biotech-friendly patent laws. It’s an unacceptable trade-off.  In exchange for untested technologies, South governments are being pressured to surrender national sovereignty over intellectual property, biomass, and food,” she warned.

“These patents are the latest form of biopiracy,” notes Vandana Shiva, Director of India’s Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. “Farmers have bred seeds for drought, flood and salt tolerance over millennia. Climate resilience ultimately depends on farmers’ innovation, biodiversity and agro-ecological processes staying in the hands of farming communities,” said Shiva.

“Governments meeting at the UN Biodiversity Convention in Nagoya, Japan must put a stop to the patent grab, yet another false solution to climate change. They should instruct their patent offices to reject or rescind all of these patents,” said ETC Group’s Neth Daño, who is attending the meeting. “A fundamental review of all intellectual property claims in agriculture should be jointly undertaken by the CBD and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). These patents also clearly violate the FAO Seed Treaty and its governing body must investigate and take action.”

ETC Group’s report Gene Giants Stockpile Patents on “Climate-Ready” Crops in Bid to Become Biomassters will be released and discussed at a side event in Nagoya, Japan on 25 October (4:30 pm, Room 236, Bldg 2, 3rd floor).

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Why Monsanto is paying farmers to spray its rivals’ herbicides

Image: Big Grey Mare - Grist

Tom Philpott
Grist 

Monsanto's ongoing humiliationproceeds apace. No, I'm not referring to the company's triumph in our recent "Villains of Food" poll. Instead, I'm talking about a Tuesday item from the Des Moines Register'sPhilip Brasher, reporting that Monsanto has been forced into the unenviable position of having to pay farmers to spray the herbicides of rival companies. 

If you tend large plantings of Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" soy or cotton, genetically engineered to withstand application of the company's Roundup herbicide (which will kill the weeds -- supposedly -- but not the crops), Monsanto will cut you a  $6 check for every acre on which you apply at least two other herbicides. One imagines farmers counting their cash as literally millions of acres across the South and Midwest get doused with Monsanto-subsidized poison cocktails.

The move is the latest step in the abject reversal of Monsanto's longtime claim: that Roundup Ready technology solved the age-old problem of weeds in an ecologically benign way. The company had developed a novel trait that would allow crops to survive unlimited lashings of glyphosate, Monsanto's then-patent-protected, broad-spectrum herbicide. It was kind of a miracle technology. Farmers would no longer have to think about weeds; glyphosate, which killed everything but the trait-endowed crop, would do all the work. Moreover, Monsanto promised, Roundup was less toxic to humans and wildlife than the herbicides then in use; and it allowed farmers to decrease erosion by dramatically reducing tillage -- a common method of weed control.

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After Growth, Fortunes Turn for Monsanto

Andrew Pollack

NY Times

As recently as late December,Monsanto was named “company of the year” by Forbes magazine. Last week, the company earned a different accolade from Jim Cramer, the television stock market commentator. “This may be the worst stock of 2010,” he proclaimed.

Bags of Asgrow Roundup Ready soybean seeds sit inside a Monsanto lab in St. Louis. Monsanto, the world’s biggest seed company, plans to complete most of its $800 million stock buyback plan more than a year ahead of schedule after the shares dropped to the lowest since 2007.

Monsanto, the giant of agricultural biotechnology, has been buffeted by setbacks this year that have prompted analysts to question whether its winning streak of creating ever more expensive genetically engineered crops is coming to an end.

The company’s stock, which rose steadily over several years to peak at around $140 a share in mid-2008, closed Monday at $47.77, having fallen about 42 percent since the beginning of the year. Its earnings for the fiscal year that ended in August, which will be announced Wednesday, are expected to be well below projections made at the beginning of the year, and the company has abandoned its profit goal for 2012 as well.

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