tagged w/ Bt corn
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U.S. biotech firm Monsanto said on Tuesday it does not plan to sell its genetically modified maize MON810 in France this year, nor after, even though the country's highest court overturned a 3-year ban in November.
"Monsanto considers that favorable conditions for the sale of the MON810 in France in 2012 and beyond are not in place," the company said in a statement, adding that it had told the French authorities about its intentions.
The French government said earlier this month it would uphold its ban on the insect-resistant strain of maize, despite the court's decision to annul the ban after finding that it had not produced enough evidence that Monsanto's MON810 posed a significant risk to health or the environment.
The farm ministry said France would reintroduce its moratorium on MON810 maize (corn) before spring sowings start.
Monsanto's statement follows an action by anti-GMO activists in one of its plants in southwestern France on Tuesday. They said Monsanto was about to sell MON810 to French farmers ahead of sowings whereas the U.S. firm said GMO seeds stored at some of its French plants were aimed at export markets.
Genetically modified organism (GMO) crops are widely used in countries such as the United States and Brazil but consumers in France, the EU's largest grain producer, are among the staunchest biotech skeptics.
Monsanto, which stressed that it had not sold nor tested MON810 in France since 2008, said that as long as the political climate remained unfavorable it would limit its offer to non-GMO seeds.
More at the linkU.S. biotech firm Monsanto said on Tuesday it does not plan to sell its genetically... more
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Monsanto Co. corn that's genetically engineered to kill insects may be losing its effectiveness against rootworms in four states, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.
Rootworms in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska are suspected of developing tolerance to the plants’ insecticide, based on documented cases of severe crop damage and reports from entomologists, the EPA said in a memo dated Nov. 22 and posted Nov. 30 on a government website. Monsanto's program for monitoring suspected cases of resistance is "inadequate," the EPA said.
"Resistance is suspected in at least some portions of four states in which 'unexpected damage' reports originated," the EPA said in the memo, which reviewed damage reports.
The insects, which begin life as root-chewing grubs before developing into adult beetles, are among the most destructive corn pests, costing U.S. farmers about $1 billion a year in damages and chemical pesticides, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, introduced its rootworm-killing corn technology 2003. The modified corn was planted on more than 37 million acres this year, Lee Quarles, a spokesman for St. Louis-based Monsanto, said yesterday. Corn is Monsanto's largest business, accounting for 41 percent of its $11.8 billion of sales during the fiscal year ended Aug. 31.
University Study
An Iowa State University study said in July that some rootworms have evolved resistance to an insect-killing protein derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a natural insecticide engineered into Monsanto corn. Entomologists in Illinois and other Midwestern states are studying possible resistance where the insects devour roots of Monsanto's Bt corn.
Monsanto continues to believe there's no scientific confirmation of resistance to its Bt corn, Quarles said by telephone. Still, Monsanto takes the EPA report "seriously" and is increasing efforts to teach farmers how to respond to unexpected damage in their fields, he said.
Less than 0.2 percent of the acres planted with Monsanto's Bt corn were affected by unexpected rootworm damage this year, Quarles said. Farmers with root damage in their fields should consider changing practices to "stay ahead of this insect," Monsanto said in a statement. That could include rotating corn with soybeans or using a product such as Monsanto's SmartStax corn, which kills rootworms with two types of Bt, the company said.
SmartStax Corn
The agency said in the memo that using SmartStax in fields where the bugs have developed resistance to Bt corn could hasten resistance to SmartStax because SmartStax's effectiveness is predicated on both types of Bt working as designed. SmartStax corn produces the second type of Bt with a gene licensed from Dow Chemical Co. (DOW)
The EPA tries to deter resistance to Bt corn by requiring farmers to plant corn that doesn't produce the pesticide alongside the modified crop. This creates a so-called refuge of unexposed bugs that can mate with insects developing resistance, creating a second generation of bugs that's susceptible to the toxin.
The EPA's requirement of a refuge equal to at least 5 percent of a SmartStax crop, compared with 20 percent for Bt corn, "will be substantially less durable and could ultimately compromise the second unrelated toxin used to control the pest" if insects are already resistant to Monsanto’s Bt, the agency said in the memo.
Monsanto Tests
Monsanto should enact a remedial action plan in fields where resistance to the Bt insecticide is suspected, the EPA said. That includes having growers use conventional pesticide to kill adult rootworm beetles late in the season and alternate pest control methods in the following season.
Monsanto tested rootworms for resistance in Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa and should expand the monitoring to Colorado, Minnesota, South Dakota and western Wisconsin because questions about the performance of Bt corn extends to all seven states, the EPA said in the memo.
http://www.agricorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/monsanto-corn-300x225.jpgMonsanto Co. corn that's genetically engineered to kill insects may be losing its... more
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More than 250 people of different race and culture, including foreigner joins holding placards and banners demanding answers, representing Nepalese farmers in solidarity. Police stopped them from standing in front of the American embassy, which was there initial program.
"The ultimate goal of the protest is to put pressure on the Government of Nepal to
cancel their agreement with USAID and Monsanto Inc. and stop the proposed
hybrid maize pilot project from going ahead", on of the participant said.They also add "The introduction of Monsanto seed products into Nepal will have
disastrous consequences for the people of Nepal. Nepali farmers will
be forced into a relationship of dependancy with Monsanto Company.
Farmers will be worse off economically, soil and land will be
irreversibly damaged with the need for increased use of fertilizers.
thus decreasing chances of future livelihoods in farming and food
production. Nepal's international trade will also suffer.
http://www.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/large_610x456_scaled/photos/939565.jpgMore than 250 people of different race and culture, including foreigner joins holding... more
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A report released Wednesday by the Washington- based Food and Water Watch (FWW) on the destructive impacts of GMOs added fuel to a two-decades-long fight by farmers, economists and experts against the FDA's conclusions.
"Genetically Engineered Food: An Overview" details how the genetic engineering of seeds, crops and animals for human consumption is not the foolproof answer long championed by agribusiness and biotechnology industries to feeding the world.
To the contrary, the study found that genetically engineered/modified (GE/M) organisms do not out-perform their natural counterparts, and their proliferation into vast tracts of cropland have caused a slew of environmental and health crises, and actually increased poverty by forcing millions of farmers to "buy" patented seeds at exorbitant prices.
snip
According to the report, over 365 million acres of GE crops were cultivated in 29 countries in 2010 alone, representing 10 percent of global cropland.
"The United States is the world leader in GE crop production, with 165 million acres, or nearly half of global production," Patty Lovera, assistant director of FWW, told IPS.
"From only seven percent of soybean acres and one percent of corn acres in 1996, GE cultivation in the U.S. shot up to 94 percent of soybean and 88 percent of corn acres in 2011," she added.
The bulk of these crops came from seeds owned by Monsanto.
"Eighty-four percent of GM crops in the world today are herbicide- resistant soybeans, corn, cotton or canola, predominantly Monsanto's 'Roundup Ready' varieties that withstand dousing with herbicide," Bill Frees, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and author of 'Why GM Crops Will Not Feed the World', told IPS.
"Pesticide and chemical companies like Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer have bought up many of the world's largest seed companies, and now call themselves biotech companies - this represents a historic merger of the pesticide and seed industries, which allows them to profit twice by developing expensive GM seeds that increase use of the company's herbicide products," he added.
Seed patents, an off-shoot of the "agro-biotech revolution" that also spawned GE/M, have had two negative consequences since their original issuance by the U.S. Patent Office in the mid-1990s, Frees told IPS: "They enticed pesticide companies to buy up seed firms; and they led to criminalisation of seed-saving."
"Farmers have saved seeds from their harvest to replant the next year for millennia," he added. "Monsanto is changing that. The company has already sued thousands of farmers in the U.S. for saving and replanting its patented seeds and won an estimated 85 to 160 million dollars from farmers, in lawsuits that have ruined farmers' lives, and (partially explains) why we have ever fewer farmers in America."
The pushback
Ray Tricomo, a mentor at the Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity in Minnesota, told IPS, "People of colour must re-radicalise themselves and go on the offensive including the return to land bases, from Turtle Island to Africa and Asia."
"Ancient knowledge systems are to be painstakingly recovered, even if it takes centuries," he added.
And this is exactly what is happening.
Despite the deep pockets and aggressive efforts of Big Agro, a major pushback from a broad coalition of forces has limited 80 percent of GE/M planting to just three export-oriented countries: the U.S., Brazil and Argentina.
Nearly two dozen other countries, including the European Union and China, have passed mandatory GE/M labeling, and millions around the world are refusing seed patenting and developing seed banks to protect, share and preserve their seeds.
In Florida, the 4,000-strong Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is organising to resist farm wage-slavery and "seed-servitude". The Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil has organised 400,000 peasants to join forces with the nearly half-billion farms around the world that are responsible for producing 70 percent of the world's food.
Navdanya, an organisation in the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh, has united 500,000 farmers in their struggle to fight chemical dependency and save indigenous seeds, including preserving over 3,000 varieties of rice.
"For five years, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (CSD) had indigenous farmers from all over the globe come to speak against destructive farm practices and GMOs," King told IPS.
"During the Indigenous People's Permanent Forum, there were complaints about the harm caused by industrial agriculture and the acts in the name of agribusinesses. Farm workers like the (CIW) are protesting their fate," she added.
"They are picketing companies like Trader Joes and Whole Foods, letting the public know that their tomatoes were picked from workers who are basically slave labour."
"Third World Network is fighting back by exploring the problem of GMOs and publishing findings that scientists working on GMOs are capitalists using humans as guinea pigs in a global lab experiment," she added.
"[Numerous] deaths and disabilities have been traced back to a GM product emulating tryptophan. It took nearly 20 years to find the source of the problem," King told IPS.
"GM technology is antithetical to an agroecological approach to agriculture, our only hope for truly sustainable food production," Frees told IPS.
"Without radical change we will continue to have famines," he added. "Haiti is a good example of what happens when a country's farmers are put out of business by cheap, subsidised imports from a rich producer nation (here the U.S.)."
More at the linkA report released Wednesday by the Washington- based Food and Water Watch (FWW) on the... more
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Eighty-five percent (85%) of respondents to Amandala’s online poll say that Belizean authorities should NOT permit the cultivation of genetically altered or transgenic corn, or any other such genetically-engineered agricultural produce here in Belize.
Over the recent weeks, the public debate has been raging over whether Belize should exploit genetically modified organisms or GMOs—touted as hardy, economical and high-yield—or whether Belize should, instead, keep its agricultural sector as natural as possible.
The debate has been triggered by reports that Monsanto Bt corn, which has an implanted bacterial gene that produces a toxic pesticide from within the plant itself, has been imported into the country for test plots.
Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Agricultural and Fishers, Gabino Canto, had told Amandala that the trial run in Belize should not pose a danger of cross-pollinating other natural cornfields, since the 20 pounds of seed would be planted under quarantine, and the 6 plots of about 15 by 20 feet, to be surrounded by electric fencing, would be under the watch of a guard to discourage theft of the GMO corn.
We understand that some high-ranking technical staff in the Government service, including some who sit on the Biosafety Council, firmly objected to their superiors, and Cabinet has since declared that it will not allow the propagation of GMO seeds in Belize.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow announced on Wednesday, October 5, on the KREM WUB Morning Vibes, that the GMO corn will be destroyed with the Government Press Office as witness. We have tried to find out from Mr. Barrow if independent media can also witness the event, but we have not gotten a response to our query.
How will the government verify that no one will try to pull a fast one, by switching the Monsanto corn with regular corn?
Since Barrow’s announcement, members of the public have been advocating for confirmation testing to ensure the seeds earmarked for destruction are really the said GMO seeds.
More at the linkEighty-five percent (85%) of respondents to Amandala’s online poll say that... more
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Today in the United States, by the simple act of feeding ourselves, we unwittingly participate in the largest experiment ever conducted on human beings. Massive agro-chemical companies like Monsanto (Agent Orange) and Dow (Napalm) are feeding us genetically-modified food, GMO's, that have never been fully tested and aren't labeled. This small handful of corporations are tightening their grip on the world's food supply—buying, modifying, and patenting seeds to ensure total control over everything we eat.
The GMO Film Project (Untitled) tells the story of a father's discovery of GMO's through the symbolic act of poor Haitian farmers burning seeds in defiance of Monsanto's gift of 475 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to Haiti shortly after the devastating earthquake. After a journey to Haiti to learn why hungry farmers would burn seeds, the real awakening of what has happened to our food, what we are feeding our families, and what is at stake for the global food supply unfolds in a trip across the United States in search of answers.
Are we at a tipping point? Is it time to take back our food? The encroaching darkness of unknown health and environmental risks, seed take over, chemical toxins, and food monopoly meets with the light of a growing resistance of organic farmers, concerned citizens, and a burgeoning movement to take back what we have lost.
We still have time to heal the planet, feed the world, and live sustainably. But we have to start now.
A film by Compeller Pictures
gmofilm.com
Directed by Jeremy Seifert
Produced by Joshua Kunau
Co-Producer, Elizabeth Kucinich
Associate Producer, Timothy Vatterott
Cinematographer, Rod HasslerToday in the United States, by the simple act of feeding ourselves, we unwittingly... more
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Surveys over the past decade have consistently shown that Americans don’t want to eat genetically engineered (GE or GMO) food. Despite the overwhelming opposition to this risky new food technology, the biotech giant Monsanto continues to impose its unlabeled GMO’s onto our dinner plates.
The latest: Monsanto’s new GMO corn, intended for the frozen and/or canned corn market. This experimental corn will not be labeled, so consumers cannot know when they may be eating a GMO food that contains a toxic pesticide in every bite. Monsanto’s corn is a new GMO variety that has been genetically modified for three different traits, to resist two different insects and to withstand heavy spraying with Monsanto's toxic Roundup herbicide. Because there are already varieties of other insect-resistant and Roundup-Ready varieties on the market, federal regulators are not requiring ANY approval process—which means NO public comment on its introduction into our food supply.
CFS has teamed up with the Center for Environmental Health to urge major companies that make frozen and/or canned corn to take action to avoid Monsanto’s new crop. We need tell Del Monte, Bird’s Eye and other major food makers to reject this new GMO corn. General Mills (Green Giant, Cascadian Farms) and Trader Joe’s have already indicated that they will not use Monsanto’s new GMO sweet corn in their products—so can the other top companies!
Take action today! Send food makers a message that we don’t want Monsanto’s food experiments!
Targets:
Neil Harrison, Del Monte (Del Monte, S&W)
Robert J. Gamgort, Pinnacle Foods/Bird's Eye
Roderick L. Allen, Allen's Inc. (Veg-all, Allen's, SteamSupreme, Freshlike, Freshlike Selects)
Kraig H. Kayser, President & CEO, Seneca Foods (Libby's, Aunt Nelly's, Read, Stokely's, Festal, private label brands)
Steven A. Burd, President & CEO, Safeway
David B. Dillon, Kroger
Michael T. Duke, Walmart
Craig R. Herkert- President, CEO, & Director, Supervalu
John P. Mackey, Co-CEO & Director, Whole Foods
Gregg Steinhafel, Chairman, President and CEO, Target (Archer Farms, Market Pantry)
https://secure3.convio.net/cfs/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=385&JServSessionIdr004=s9a7fa67h3.app306a
PetitionSurveys over the past decade have consistently shown that Americans don’t want... more
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On Sept. 6, the European Union’s top court paved the way for farmers and beekeepers to recoup losses when their crops or honey become genetically contaminated from neighboring GM fields.
The European Court of Justice ruled that all food products containing GMOs – whether intentional or not – must undergo an approval process.
This marks a much stricter view than that being pushed by European Union Commissioner for health and consumer affairs, John Dalli, who wants no regulation of foods genetically contaminated “by accident,” a ludicrous idea given that coexistence ensures genetic contamination.
At the center of the dispute is Bavarian beekeeper Karl Heinz Bablok who joined with several others in suing the state when its research plots of Monsanto’s GM corn, MON 810, contaminated his honey.
In 2008, an administrative court banned Bablok from selling or giving away that honey. But in a bizarre turn, the Augsburg court also ruled that beekeepers have no claim to protection against the growing of GM crops. They immediately filed a new lawsuit. [1]
Discussing today’s ruling, attorneys for the beekeepers noted that they may now have “a claim for damages against a farmer if MON 810 pollen from his cultivation gets into their honey.” [2]
Attorneys Dr Achim Willand and Dr Georg Buchholz explained:
“If the beekeeper can no longer sell his honey, this is considered a major impairment causing a claim for damage. If the beekeeper moves his bees in order to prevent this impairment, it is also possible that the cultivator is liable for the additional work and expense of the beekeeper.”
They added that the “decision is important not only for beekeeping, but in general for the production of food and feed, as well as for trade.”
The new ruling will also apply to “imports containing traces of material from genetically modified crops that don’t have sufficient approval within the EU,” they said.
The European Court of Justice only “interprets EU law and does not settle the dispute itself,” notes Inf’OGM, a French group that maintains a neutral position on GMOs. Member states like Germany, France and Spain can apply the ruling however they deem fit in particular cases of genetic contamination. [3]
In describing the questions before the court, Inf’OGM explained that Monsanto failed to seek approval for genetically modified pollen. Instead, MON 810 approval only covers flour, gluten, semolina, starch, glucose and corn oil.
MON 810 approval is currently under reconsideration. It has been linked to organ damage in test animals [4] and its approval may be withdrawn. Until last year, it was the only GM crop approved for cultivation in the EU, although a total of 40 GMO food and feed products have been approved for sale. [5]
One of Commissioner Dalli’s first acts after taking office in 2010 was to lift the 13-year ban on BASF’s GM potato, Amflora. Sweden, Germany and the Czech Republic took the bait and immediately suffered from 47 contamination events. [6]
Today’s ruling also overturns the court’s Advocate General recommendation this February which found that genetic material inadvertently transferred from GM corn to other living organisms “is no longer viable and is thus infertile, is not a living organism and, therefore, cannot be regarded as a GMO.” [7]
In that same recommendation, however, the AG maintained that any products containing GMOs should be regulated.
More at the linkOn Sept. 6, the European Union’s top court paved the way for farmers and... more
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Some 400 hectares of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds have been destroyed throughout Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar said.
The GMO maize has been ploughed under, said Lajos Bognar, but pollen has not spread from the maize, he added. Unlike several EU members, GMO seeds are banned in Hungary.
Authorities have been checking for GMO crops since the beginning of this year as a new regulation came in force this March which stipulates GMO checks before seeds are introduced to the market.
The checks will continue despite the fact that seed traders are obliged to make sure that their products are GMO free, Bognar said.
Compensation unlikely
Controllers have found Pioneer and Monsanto products among the seeds planted. The free movement of goods within the EU means that authorities will not investigate how the seeds arrived in Hungary but they will check where the goods can be found, Bognar said.
Regional public radio reported that the two biggest international seed producing companies are affected in the matter and GMO seeds could have been sown on up to thousands of hectares in the country.
Local farmers complain that the use of GMO seeds has only been revealed now when it is too late to sow again and the entire year's harvest has been lost.
Another problem is that the company that distributed the seeds in Baranya county is under liquidation, therefore if any compensation is paid by the international seed producers, the money will be paid primarily to that company's creditors, rather than the farmers.Some 400 hectares of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds... more
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I'll state straight away, I hate/loathe/despise/abhor Monsanto. They are evil, not metaphorically evil, but actually evil. And as for our politicians who should have protected us from Monsanto; well, there’s a special circle of Hell reserved just for them.
I came across this video in the twitterverse and wanted to share it because it gives you a good idea of what is involved in actually using GM seed and the (hoocoodanode!?) consequences. Farmer to Farmer.
I ask you: What do we do to extricate ourselves from this politico-corporate nightmare?I'll state straight away, I hate/loathe/despise/abhor Monsanto. They are evil,... more
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At this site you will find action items and ways you can get involved with getting GMO labelling on the ballot in California in 2012. This will hopefully be the beginning of a nationwide effort to do what Europe did years ago due to citizen action. Labelling GMOs in our food will give us a choice in what we purchase and what we consume. Of course, Monsanto and the biotech lobby have their money, big guns and political connections, but we the consumer have the power of the purse and the voices to drown them out and it is time we used them.
More at the link.At this site you will find action items and ways you can get involved with getting GMO... more
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http://www.enveurope.com/content/23/1/10
A new paper shows that consuming genetically modified (GM) corn or soybeans leads to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice, particularly in livers and kidneys. By reviewing data from 19 animal studies, Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and others reveal that 9% of the measured parameters, including blood and urine biochemistry, organ weights, and microscopic analyses (histopathology), were significantly disrupted in the GM-fed animals. The kidneys of males fared the worst, with 43.5% of all the changes. The liver of females followed, with 30.8%. The report, published in Environmental Sciences Europe on March 1, 2011, confirms that “several convergent data appear to indicate liver and kidney problems as end points of GMO diet effects.” The authors point out that livers and kidneys “are the major reactive organs” in cases of chronic food toxicity.
“Other organs may be affected too, such as the heart and spleen, or blood cells,” stated the paper. In fact some of the animals fed genetically modified organisms had altered body weights in at least one gender, which is “a very good predictor of side effects in various organs.”
The GM soybean and corn varieties used in the feeding trials “constitute 83% of the commercialized GMOs” that are currently consumed by billions of people. While the findings may have serious ramifications for the human population, the authors demonstrate how a multitude of GMO-related health problems could easily pass undetected through the superficial and largely incompetent safety assessments that are used around the world.
Feed’em longer!
One of the most glaring faults in the current regulatory regime is the short duration of animals feeding studies. The industry limits trials to 90 days at most, with some less than a month. Only two studies reviewed in this new publication were over 90 days—both were non-industry research.
Short studies could easily miss many serious effects of GMOs. It is well established that some pesticides and drugs, for example, can create effects that are passed on through generations, only showing up decades later. IN the case of the drug DES (diethylstilbestrol), “induced female genital cancers among other problems in the second generation.” The authors urge regulators to require long-term multi-generational studies, to “provide evidence of carcinogenic, developmental, hormonal, neural, and reproductive potential dysfunctions, as it does for pesticides or drugs.”
“Pesticide Plants”
Nearly all GM crops are described as “pesticide plants.” They either tolerate doses of weed killer, such as Roundup, or produce an insecticide called Bt-toxin. In both cases, the added toxin—weedkiller or bug killer—is found inside the corn or soybeans we consume.
When regulators evaluate the toxic effects of pesticides, they typically require studies using three types of animals, with at least one feeding trial lasting 2 years or more. One third or more of the side effects produced by these toxins will show up only in the longer study—not the shorter ones. But for no good reason, regulators ignore the lessons learned from pesticides and waive the GM crops-containing-pesticides onto the market with a single species tested for just 90 days. The authors affirm that “it is impossible, within only 13 weeks, to conclude about the kind of pathology that could be induced by pesticide GMOs and whether it is a major pathology or a minor one. It is therefore necessary to prolong the tests.”
GMO approvals also ignore the new understanding that toxins don’t always follow a linear dose-response. Sometimes a smaller amount of toxins have greater impact than larger doses. Approvals also overlook the fact that mixtures can be far more dangerous than single chemicals acting alone. Roundup residues, for example, have been “shown to be toxic for human placental, embryonic, and umbilical cord cells,” whereas Roundup’s active ingredient glyphosate does not on its own provoke the same degree of damage. One reason for this is that the chemicals in Roundup “stabilize glyphosate and allow its penetration into cells.”
Furthermore, toxins may generate new substances (metabolites) “either in the GM plant or in the animals fed with it.” Current assessments completely ignore the potential danger from these new components in our diets, such as the “new metabolites” in GMOs engineered to withstand Roundup. The authors warn, “We consider this as a major oversight in the present regulations.”
cont.http://www.enveurope.com/content/23/1/10
A new paper shows that consuming... more
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These subsidies are nothing more than payola for supporting industrial fossil fuel intensive GMO agriculture. No wonder some of these farmers don't want to stop planting these crops for their GMO masters. Making over 200,000 a year in planting their crap and trashing the planet seems like a good trade off for them. Are you really a farmer then, or simply no better than a greedy selfish Goldman Sachs vampire?
And I am not as nice about this as the EWG when it comes to Congress. If you aren't a farmer who actually works the land you should not get one. Period.
Excerpt:
"This would be a good place to point out that just five crops – corn, cotton, rice wheat and soybeans – account for 90 percent of all farm subsidies. Sixty-two percent of American farmers do not receive any direct payments from the federal farm subsidy system, and that group includes most livestock producers and fruit and vegetable growers.
Among the members of the 112th Congress who collect payments from USDA are six Democrats and 17 Republicans. The disparity between the parties is even greater in terms of dollar amounts: $489,856 went to Democrats, but more than 10 times as much, $5,334,565, to Republicans.
One reason for the disproportionate number of Republican lawmakers benefiting from farm subsidy programs is the current scarcity of rural Democrats in Congress – casualties of the Tea Party wave that swept into office in November of 2010. (This was despite the Democrats’ decision to bow to the wishes of the subsidy lobby by passing a status quo 2008 farm bill in a misguided bid to hang on to those seats.)
Several new members of Congress who won with tea party support have been less than eager to talk about farm subsidies ever since the news broke last year that they, or their families, personally benefit from those very taxpayer dollars.
EWG doesn’t believe that the payments to lawmakers are improper or illegal. But the fact that so many more Republicans in Congress receive so much more in farm subsidies than their Democratic colleagues does highlight the GOP’s controversial decision to spare those programs from the budget ax – even as it slashes funding for so many others. Consider:
•In January, David Rogers of Politico, and Phillip Brasher at the Des Moines Register, reported that the Republican Study Committee proposed to eliminate the meager federal funding for an organic food growers’ program without even mentioning the the possibility of cutting spending for entitlements that send checks out to largest producers of corn, cotton and other commodity crops – regardless of need.
•Then last week (March 21), National Journal reported that the Republican-led House Agriculture Committee is backing cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – previously known as food stamps – in the face of record enrollment levels triggered by high unemployment. But not even minimal reductions were proposed to the excessive payments to wealthy farms.
The GOP-led support for subsidies also comes at a time when big commodity farms clearly don’t need taxpayer funding.
The farm sector is white-hot, and has generally fared extremely well as recession gripped the rest of the economy. Farm income and prices for commodity crops are soaring. In 2008, $210,000 was the average household income of farms that received at least $30,000 in government payments that year. But according to the House Agriculture Committee and the Republic Study Committee, payments to those farms should stay in place while the record 43 million Americans enrolled in SNAP – millions of whom are unemployed for the first time – face slashes in the help they get to put food on the table.
It’s important to note that two of the Republican senators who collect subsidies – Charles Grassley of Iowa and Richard Lugar of Indiana – have been long-time leaders in the effort to reform federal farm programs. Both have fought to right the gross inequity of sending 74 percent of taxpayer-funded payments to the largest and wealthiest 10 percent of farm operations and landlords. The top-heavy support for the biggest operations puts smaller family farms at a serious disadvantage and works against a more diverse and resilient food production system that could stand up against wild swings in weather or global markets – and provide Americans with a healthier food supply.
Of course, Democratic members of Congress have historically been subsidy recipients too, notably former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Charles Stenholm of Texas and former Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.
Nor is the phenomenon of lawmakers receiving farm subsidies limited to the federal level. Recent media reports have shown that direct payments are even more common in state legislatures in Wyoming, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho and South Dakota.
At EWG, we believe that farmers deserve a reasonable safety net to protect against damage from drought, storms and fickle markets. But the American public’s investment portfolio in agriculture needs to change. It’s indefensible to provide subsidies to well-off farmers and landowners, especially in the face of a booming farm economy and a federal budget squeeze. Meanwhile, farmers seeking modest federal support to protect water, land and wildlife are being turned away for lack of funds.
We’re also committed advocates for government transparency, and it’s deeply disturbing that the public’s ability to see who gets what from the federal farm subsidy system has been curtailed by the Obama administration. Under the Bush administration, the rules allowed the public to see through shell corporations and paper entities to identify the part owners of subsidized farms and show where the money ended up. The transparency pertained to lawmakers as well. For this analysis EWG was forced to resort to harvesting data from members’ disclosure forms. That was an arduous but ultimately worthwhile task when advocating for greater accountability and transparency, and it didn’t use to be necessary.
Some Congress members (or their families) collecting federal farm subsidies are major players in the annual farm subsidy drama, others have only bit parts in terms of the amount of subsidies they receive. Overall, the distribution of subsidies among members of Congress reflects the highly distorted distribution of farm subsidies among farmers and landlords in the United States – between 1995 and 2009, 10 percent of subsidy recipients collected 74 percent of all subsidies.
The current salary for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year, and members enjoy robust health benefits. But whether major or bit players, members of Congress who receive farm subsidies are part of a system that cries out for reform and poses stark choices between helping wealthy landowners or doing right by struggling farm and urban families and the environment."
continuedThese subsidies are nothing more than payola for supporting industrial fossil fuel... more
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Breakfast cereals, including corn flakes, bread and snacks are under threat after the US authorities approved the growing of a new GM maize.
The warning is significant because it comes from the North American Millers' Association, a food industry trade body, rather than green campaigners.
The new maize or corn has been genetically modified to be used to create ethanol, which is being promoted as a substitute for petrol.
However, wheat growers, food companies and millers in America, fear that food crops will become contaminated with the GM maize, which has been developed by biotech company Syngenta.
They say that changes made to the corn would taint any food products that it gets into.
The US Department for Agriculture (USDA) has allowed the growing of Sungenta's 3272 Amylase Corn without water-tight controls to ensure it is kept separate from food crops.
Once the crop is grown on a large scale in the US, there is every chance it will become mixed with food standard corn and be exported around the world, including the UK.
The issue turns the spotlight on the attitude of the British Government and the beleagued Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, to GM crops.
Britain is currently lobbying within the EU to allow crops tainted with low levels of non-approved GM varieties to be imported from other parts of the world.
The Millers' Association said it was 'disappointed' the GM corn had been approved without conditions.
It warned: 'Syngenta's own scientific data released last month shows if this corn is co-mingled with other corn, it will have significant adverse impacts on food product quality and performance.'
Association president, Mary Waters, said: 'USDA has failed to provide the public with sufficient scientific data on the economic impacts of contamination on food production.'
The corn contains a powerful enzyme that breaks down the starch inside the plant, which is a cost saving function for ethanol production.
The association said that it if were to enter the food processing stream, the same function that benefits ethanol production will damage the quality of food products like breakfast cereals, snack foods, and battered products.
The concerns are all the more important because the association is a well-known supporter of GM crops and food.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1359109/GM-cornflakes-Fears-U-S-approve-new-engineered-maize.html#ixzz1EeCgSJo1
cont.Breakfast cereals, including corn flakes, bread and snacks are under threat after the... more
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EXTRACT: "Genetically modified organisms and pesticides on the table mean more exclusion, more misery, more needless deaths, more dependence on multinational corporations and more humiliation for Paraguay," notes the National Coordinator of Rural and Indigenous Women Workers (CONAMURI).
NOTES: In Latin America, GM soy production has caused the destruction of many millions of hectares of forest in Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. It's also caused violent land grabs, displaced indigenous peoples, dramatically increased the use of Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller and other agrotoxins, causing major health problems, and maintaining vast unsustainable GM monocultures. Despite this disaster, GM soy production is being greenwashed by the likes of Monsanto and the WWF via the Round Table on Responsible Soy. Meanwhile, illegal GM maize production has led to contamination of native strains. See our collection of videos on the topic, including several on what's happening in Paraguay: http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-videos/26-gm-in-latin-america
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Transgenic corn moves forward
http://lapress.org/articles.asp?art=6300
*Multinational corporation Monsanto begins experimental cultivation of genetically modified corn.
In Guarani, corn is called avati. One of the many legends about this versatile plant tells of the misfortune of a young man whose fiancée dies after she is hit by a stray arrow. The name of this maiden with luminous white-blonde hair was Avati (áva: hair, tî: white). Anguished over losing her, he decides to never leave the graveside of his beloved. On that very land, dampened by so many tears, a mysterious plant with long leaves began to grow. With time, it bore fruit, and from that moment on, ears with golden kernels began to multiply and were used to make various types of food.
This fantastical story may not accurately explain the origin and evolution of this grain; however, it does shed light on certain aspects of folk wisdom and a world view expressing its relationship with nature. It is with this impressive background that several generations of indigenous and campesino communities that live on Paraguayan territory have been producing and conserving dozens of varieties of native seeds for human and animal consumption. This ancient practice is nevertheless being threatened by multinational biotechnology corporations and elite agricultural exporters.
In Paraguay, genetically modified corn was prohibited in 1993 by Environmental Impact Assessment Law 294/93; however, in January the Paraguayan Institute of Agricultural Technology (IPTA) — recently created by President Fernando Lugo — authorized the multinational corporation Monsanto to experimentally grow transgenic corn, a move that foreshadows a point of no return for best practices in agro-ecology and organic agriculture because of potential genetic contamination. This jeopardizes the development of campesino family farming and traditional indigenous production, which will be the primary parties affected if genetically modified seeds got out, according to the National Campaign for Paraguay Free of Genetically Modified Corn, which includes environmentalist and human rights groups.
Farmers in the villages of Caazapa, Guaira, Caaguazu and Misiones, in eastern part of the country, are being pushed out by agribusiness with increasingly frequency to the detriment of traditional farming. It is during this transition that the use of transgenic corn seeds emerged, brought from soybean-producing areas located in the departments of Itapua, Alto Parana, Canindeyu; in these regions genetically modified corn seeds are smuggled in from Brazil and Argentina. According to estimates by the National Service for the Health and Quality of Plants and Seeds (SENAVE), there are about 100,000 hectares of genetically modified corn in the country.
Transgenic soy is legal in Paraguay, however, and Paraguay was the last country in the soy-producing region —which also includes Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay— to allow its use. In October 2004, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock approved the commercialization of four varieties of Monsanto-developed genetically modified soybeans, but in reality almost all soybean crops were already transgenic.
The fear given this new reality comes from the fact that Paraguayans do not consume soy; corn, on the other hand, is a mainstay in the country´s diet.
cont.EXTRACT: "Genetically modified organisms and pesticides on the table mean more... more
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Yank the husks off ears of corn grown in the mountains of southern Mexico, and you may find kernels that are red, yellow, white, blue, black or even variegated.
It's only one measure of the diversity of the 60 or so native varieties of corn in Mexico. Another is the unusual adaptation of some varieties to drought, high heat, altitude or strong winds.
Plant specialists describe the native varieties of corn in Mexico as a genetic trove that might prove valuable should extreme weather associated with global warming get out of hand. Corn, one of the most widely grown grains in the world, is a key component of the global food supply.
But experts say Mexico's native varieties are themselves under peril — from economics and genetic contamination — potentially depriving humans of a crucial resource.
Farmers are punished at the marketplace for selling native corn, and some types are dwindling from use. Perhaps more significantly, genetically modified corn is drifting southward and mingling with native varieties, potentially bringing unexpected aberrations and even possible extinction.
At stake may be more than just curious and exotic types of corn, grown in small fields alongside beans and then ground into tortillas after harvest.
"With climate change," said Aldo Gonzalez, an indigenous Zapotec engineer with long, flowing black hair who's at the forefront of protecting native varieties, "new diseases could occur, and the only place in the world where we can look for existing varieties that might be resistant is in Mexico.
"These varieties of corn might at some point save humanity."
Corn is not only a crucial crop in Mexico but also a symbol in a nation that's the birthplace of the grain. Maize likely originated from a grass-like, tasseled plant, teosinte, in southern Mexico. Scientists say humans domesticated corn 7,000 to 10,000 years ago.
In the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Mayans, gods create humans out of cornmeal, allowing the "people of corn" to flourish.
Through the centuries, varieties of corn adapted to different soils, altitudes, temperature conditions and water availability, and Gonzalez said the seed stock handed down in his village in this corner of the Sierra Juarez range in central Oaxaca state probably wouldn't grow well just a few miles distant.
"In the sierra here, there are varieties of corn that grow as high as 3,000 meters," Gonzalez said, or nearly 10,000 feet. "There are varieties that can be planted in swampy land or that you can plant in semidesert areas. They may not be very productive but they have allowed people to survive."
Native varieties of corn have fed humans for millennia in Mesoamerica.
"The elders understand the importance of various types of corn because they had their fields in different places under different conditions," said Lilia Perez Santiago, an agricultural engineer who works for a state forestry bureau.
Perez was among the activists behind a petition in 2000 to the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation, a panel created under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The petition claimed that genetically modified corn, altered to be pest resistant or herbicide tolerant, had drifted to southern Mexico and begun contaminating native varieties.
Four years later, the panel recommended to Mexico that it suspend modified corn imports and adopt strict labeling rules to allow the public to identify food products that contained such corn. Mexico ignored the recommendations, arguing that the ruling came into conflict with its obligations to open markets under trade pacts.
In late 2009, the government permitted a subsidiary of a U.S. conglomerate, Monsanto, to test genetically modified corn on isolated plots of about 240 acres in Sinaloa and Tamaulipas states in the north.
The head of Monsanto Mexico, Jose Manuel Madero, said at a news conference two weeks ago that the federal government demands further tests before allowing commercial farming of the genetically altered corn.
Madero said modified corn was in use in 20 countries around the world and would help Mexico raise agricultural productivity, cut its reliance on food imports and slash the use of herbicides, thereby protecting the environment.
Several scientists have joined a Mexican grass-roots campaign, known as Sin Maiz No Hay Pais, or There Is No Country Without Corn, to oppose the import or harvest of genetically changed corn.
"We have a nationwide survey that shows genetic contamination in Guanajuato, Yucatan, Veracruz and Oaxaca (states). We also know of some large-scale plantings in Chihuahua," said Elena Alvarez-Buylla Roces, a molecular geneticist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
She said lab analysis showed that some native varieties already carried altered genes.
"There is no possibility of coexistence without contamination," Alvarez-Buylla said. "One gene can make a large difference. Do we want to run the risk?"
Black-market brokers already sell genetically modified seed corn to farmers in the north of Mexico, opponents say, and bags of unmarked genetically altered corn have been found in the far south.
"The bags of corn are not secure. During transport, some bags break open and fall out. So there are many possible ways of contamination," Perez said.
The vast majority of farmers of native varieties select seeds each year to save for the next harvest, thus making what Alvarez-Buylla described as "active, dynamic genetic elements" prone to aberrations from genetic drift of altered corn.
Scientists don't know which varieties could prove useful for climate change.
"We don't really know if there is a variety with the most promise. Promise for what?" Alvarez-Buylla said, adding that future climate conditions are unknowable.
While the government maintains seed banks for native corn, Alvarez-Buylla said, "This is not a diversity that can be preserved in a laboratory."
cont.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/02/107954/mexico-cradle-of-corn-finds-its.html#ixzz1Cxc4CThDYank the husks off ears of corn grown in the mountains of southern Mexico, and you may... more
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Authorities in Mexico have denied an application from seed giant Monsanto Co. to expand to pilot planting projects of genetically modified corn in northern Mexico, arguing that more experimental planting is needed to ensure the GM crops won't affect native corn varieties.
The head of Mexico's inter-agency commission on genetically modified crops says more small, strictly-controlled experimental plots are needed in order to decide on whether the crops can be grown in the birthplace of corn.
Reynaldo Alvarez Morales said Wednesday companies will have to plan at least another cycle of small plots of about 2 acres (1 hectare), before they can move on to "pilot" plots of as much as 50 hectares (124 acres).Authorities in Mexico have denied an application from seed giant Monsanto Co. to... more
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The former United States ambassador to France suggested "moving to retaliation" against France and the European Union (EU) in late 2007 to fight a French ban on Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) corn and changes in European policy toward biotech crops, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks on Sunday.
Former Ambassador Craig Stapleton was concerned about France's decision to suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON-810 corn and warned that a new French environmental review standard could spread anti-biotech policy across the EU.
"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits," Stapleton wrote to diplomatic colleagues.
President George W. Bush appointed Stapleton as ambassador to France in 2005, and in 2009, Stapleton left the office and became an owner of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Bush and Stapleton co-owned the Texas Rangers during the 1990s.
Monsanto is based in St. Louis.
The EU's 1998 approval of MON-810 corn has since expired. In recent years, several European countries joined France in banning MON-810 and similar biotech crops while the products are reassessed in light of research showing they could harm the environment and human health.
It is not clear if Stapleton's retaliation scheme was ever implemented.
"In our view, Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the Commission ... Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," Stapleton wrote.
MON-810 is engineered to excrete the Bt toxin, which is poisonous to some insect pests. A stacked version of MON-810 is also engineered to be resistant to glyphosate, a herbicide first popularized by Monsanto under the brand name Roundup.
The debate in France over Monsanto's GM products has grown ugly in recent years.
A recent Truthout report detailed the story of Dr. Gilles-Eric Seralini, a scientist at the University of Caen in France. Seralini's supporters claim the scientist has faced intimidation from within the French scientific community after he published several studies showing Monsanto GM corn and glyphosate posed risks to human health.The former United States ambassador to France suggested "moving to... more
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Drawing on a Plataforma Transgenicos Fora press release, ENDS notes how the popularity of GM maize - the main GM crop approved for cultivation in the European Union - is waning among cereal growers in the Iberian peninsular, according to data published this week. This is highly significant because Spain and Portugal accounted for almost 86% of the 94,700 hectares under GM cultivation in the EU in 2009.
GM maize (MON 810) cultivation in Portugal fell this year for the first time since the variety's commercial authorisation in 2005. 4,868 hectares were planted with GM maize this year, according to Portuguese agriculture ministry data, compared with a peak of over 5,200 hectares in 2009.
In Spain, 2010 has seen an 11% year-on-year drop to 67,726 hectares, the smallest area of GM maize cultivation since 2006, according to data from seed producers.
The figures are said to indicate that a significant percentage of producers who experiment with GM maize end up abandoning it.
Source: ENDS Europe: http://www.endseurope.com/25266
Transgenicos Fora: http://stopogm.net/webfm_send/460Drawing on a Plataforma Transgenicos Fora press release, ENDS notes how the popularity... more
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La Via Campesina (www.viacampesina.org), a global peasant movement representing small farmers, landless workers, fisherfolk, rural women, youth and indigenous peoples, with 150 member organizations from 70 countries on five continents, has denounced the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s recent acquisition of Monsanto Company shares. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was founded in 1994 by Microsoft founder William H. Gates, and today exerts a hegemonic influence on global agricultural development policy. The Foundation channels hundreds of millions of dollars into projects that encourage peasants and farmers to use Monsanto’s genetically-engineered (GE) seed and agrochemicals. In August the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which manages the $33.5 billion asset trust endowment that funds the Foundation’s philanthropic projects (and to which Bill & Melinda are trustees) disclosed that it purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto shares for just over $23 million.(1)
According to Dena Hoff, a diversified family farmer in Glendive, Montana and North American coordinator of La Via Campesina, “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s purchase of Monsanto shares indicates that the Gates Foundation’s interest in promoting the company’s seed is less about philanthropy than about profit-making. The Foundation is helping to open new markets for Monsanto, which is already the largest seed company in the world.”
Since 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has collaborated with the Rockefeller Foundation, an ardent promoter of GE crops for the world’s poor, to implement the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which is opening up the continent to GE seed and chemicals sold by Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta. The Foundation has given $456 million to AGRA, and in 2006 hired Robert Horsch, a Monsanto executive for 25 years, to work on the project. In Kenya about 70 percent of AGRA grantees work directly with Monsanto (2) , nearly 80 percent of Gates' funding in the country involves biotech, and over $100 million in grants has been made to Kenyan organizations connected to Monsanto. In 2008, some 30 percent of the Foundation's agricultural development funds went to promoting or developing GE seed varieties (3).
In April the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and finance ministers from the US, Canada, Spain and South Korea pledged $880 million to create the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), managed by the World Bank to “tackle world hunger and poverty.”(4) In June GAFSP announced that it gave $35 million to Haiti to increase smallholder farmers’ access to “agricultural inputs, technology, and supply chains.”(5) In May Monsanto announced that it donated 475 tons of seed to Haiti, which is being distributed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The administrator of USAID is Rajiv Shah, who worked at the Gates Foundation before being appointed by the Obama administration in 2009.
According to Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Haitian Peasant Movement of Papaye and Caribbean coordinator of La Via Campesina, “It is really shocking for the peasant organizations and social movements in Haiti to learn about the decision of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to buy Monsanto shares while it is giving money for agricultural projects in Haiti that promote the company’s seed and agrochemicals. The peasant organizations in Haiti want to denounce this policy which is against the interests of 80 percent of the Haitian population, and is against peasant agriculture—the base of Haiti’s food production. ”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also funds the US government’s Feed the Future initiative, administered by the State Department. At a July 20 congressional subcommittee hearing on Feed the Future, executive vice president for Monsanto Gerald Steiner testified that “Feed the Future is exciting not least because it recognizes both the business imperatives by which Monsanto and other companies must operate… We want to do good in the world, while we also do well for our shareholders.” Steiner mentioned Monsanto’s project to develop drought resistant maize for Africa, also funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.(6)
According to Hoff, “Foundations, however well meaning, should not be setting food and agricultural policies for any nation of peoples. Democracy demands the informed participation of civil society to determine what is in the best interest of each nation's population. ‘Doing well for our shareholders’ seems an ulterior motive for meddling in the health and welfare of the planet and all its inhabitants in order to make a profit.”
Perhaps not by coincidence, in July Monsanto’s chief executive officer and president Hugh Grant purchased $2 million of company shares, and vice president and chief financial officer Carl M. Casale bought $1.6 million of shares. “Grant and Casale have pocketed nice sums from selling Monsanto shares over the years.”(7) Purchase of Monsanto shares by Gates, Grant and Casale could have been in anticipation of last week’s news that researchers published the genome for wheat, the staple grain for one-third of the world's population. “For Monsanto, a quality wheat genome map could potentially help in our efforts to bring better wheat varieties to farmers," said Monsanto. (8) In 2008, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded $26.8 million to Cornell University to research wheat, and in May awarded $1.6 million to researchers at Washington State University to develop drought-resistant GE wheat varieties.(9)
The Gates Foundation continues to push Monsanto’s products on the poor, despite mounting evidence of the ecological, economic and physical dangers of producing and consuming GE crops and agrochemicals. In June the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monsanto Co. vs. Geertson Seed Farms, its first case about a GE crop. The Court recognized that genetic contamination of non-GE crops from transgene flow of DNA from GE crops, which occurs through the spread of pollen by wind and bees, is harmful and onerous to the environment and farmers. According to the web site of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, “AGRA and its partners have released more than 100 new varieties of improved seed across the [African] continent.”(10)La Via Campesina (www.viacampesina.org), a global peasant movement representing small... more
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