tagged w/ Boycott Monsanto
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This is great news from the Emerald Isle! This is a victory for sustainable agriculture and the environment. This is also the policy that should be adopted by the U.S.A! Let's just hope their yes vote on the Lisbon Treaty does not negate this decision.
Thank you Ireland.
'The Irish Government will ban the cultivation of all GM crops and introduce a voluntary GM-free label for food - including meat, poultry, eggs, fish, crustaceans, and dairy produce made without the use of GM animal feed.
The policy was adopted as part of the Renewed Programme for Government agreed between the two coalition partners, the centre-right Fianna Faíl and the Green Party, after the latter voted to support it on Saturday.
The agreement specifies that the Government will "Declare the Republic of Ireland a GM-Free Zone, free from the cultivation of all GM plants". The official text also states "To optimise Ireland's competitive advantage as a GM-Free country, we will introduce a voluntary GM-Free logo for use in all relevant product labelling and advertising, similar to a scheme recently introduced in Germany." [1]
The President of the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association, Malcolm Thompson, said he was delighted by the announcement, adding, "The Government's new GM-free policy is the fulfillment of what we at ICSA have held for the last five years. I very much look forward to its full implementation." [2]
Michael O'Callaghan of GM-free Ireland said the policy signals a new dawn for Irish farmers and food producers:
"The WTO's economic globalisation agenda has forced most Irish farmers to enter an unwinnable race to the bottom for low quality GM-fed meat and dairy produce, in competition with countries like the USA, Argentina and Brazil which can easily out-compete us with their highly subsidised GM crop monocultures, cheap fossil fuel, extensive use of toxic agrochemicals that are not up to EU standards, and underpaid migrant farm labour.
"Meanwhile, hundreds of European food brands, retailers and Regions now offer GM-free beef, pork, lamb, poultry, eggs, fish and dairy produce as part of their Food Safety, Quality Agriculture, Biodiversity, Fair Trade, Sustainable Development and Climate Change strategies. Thousands of brands in the USA are doing likewise. Without a GM-free label to distinguish our produce, Irish food is being excluded from this global market."
"The Irish Government plan to ban GM crops and to provide a voluntary GM-fee label for qualifying animal produce makes obvious business sense for our agri-food and eco-tourism sectors [3]. Everyone knows that US and EU consumers, food brands and retailers want safe GM-free food, and Ireland is ideally positioned to deliver the safest, most credible GM-free food brand in Europe, if not the world."
The international market for GM-free animal produce is growing rapidly.'This is great news from the Emerald Isle! This is a victory for sustainable... more
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Willie Nelson's 24th annual Farm Aid music festival will feature performances by fellow board members of the organization such as Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews. The all-day concerts happen on Sunday, October 4 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Maryland Heights, Missouri, in the heart of America's farmlands.
Other performers on the bill include country star Gretchen Wilson, rock bands Wilco and Phosphorescent, and a host of other talents.
Doors open at 12:30 pm Central Time and the show runs until 10 pm. The live show will be satellite-cast via DIRECTV which will match donations through October. The show will also be webcast, streaming live at www.farmaid.org, beginning at 5:00 pm ET.
The organization's goal has been to strengthen family farms in America and support the Good Food Movement, helping to keep families on farms. Through concerts, benefit dinners, ad campaigns, and other efforts, board members Nelson, and the other rockers promote the cause, raising nearly $36 million for programs.
Farm Aid unites farmers, artists, consumers, and concerned citizens. The organization also works on educating about issues that affect family farms such as genetic engineering, food labeling, factory and industrial frame farms, and Mad Cow, Bird Flu and other diseases.
Concertgoers are encouraged to bring non-perishable food items for foodbank collections for hungry families in the region.
Site: www.farmaid.org/events
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The small family farmer is being systematically pushed out by corporate conglomerates.This is an American tragedy. Hopefully money raised will actually go to help small farmers who farm sustainably and who protect the culture and traditions of America.
Boycott Monsanto. Boycott GMOs. Stand up for the men and women who really care about the health of the environment and the body. Those who work with the land and preserve biodiversity instead of stripping it for profit.
To the family farmers who still survive and care about our planet: You have my undying gratitude for your work and sacrfice. Thank you.Willie Nelson's 24th annual Farm Aid music festival will feature performances by... more
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Shares of Monsanto Co. continued to slide early Thursday, then perked up a bit, after the company reported Wednesday that its fiscal 2009 earnings would be at the lower end of guidance because price cuts by Chinese competitors and cooler, wetter weather in the U.S. have led to lower sales of its Roundup glyphosate herbicide.
Monsanto shares were trading below $79 a share earlier Thursday morning, but later inched closer to Wednesday’s market close of $79.88 a share. Monsanto closed Tuesday at $84.78 a share.
“We believe that Monsanto shares will probably tread water,” Jeffrey Zekauskas, a J.P. Morgan analyst, wrote in a note to investors Thursday morning.
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LOL, oh yes, colder wetter weather is stopping use of Round Up as well as "competitors"... I think it is also more likely that more people are finally becoming wise to the POISON they are selling. Something to celebrate. Hopefully it will keep treading water and then drown. ANY company selling this poison needs to be held accountable for it. Profit sheets are a good way to do it. Keep it going.Shares of Monsanto Co. continued to slide early Thursday, then perked up a bit, after... more
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"Se controlli il petrolio controlli le nazioni, se controlli gli alimenti controlli i popoli" Henry Kissinger
Nella complessa dominazione dell'Imperialismo nordamericano ci sono attività produttive nelle quali le corporazioni multinazionali che lo rappresentano hanno prodotto dei veri disastri umani e ambientali, non soltanto in molti paesi del mondo ma anche negli stessi Stati Uniti.
Dopo la seconda guerra mondiale, l'Imperialismo Nordamericano è rimasto in una posizione di vantaggio per aumentare lo sfruttamento del resto del mondo. Le sue corporazioni minerarie, petroliere, manufatturiere, finanziarie e delle banane, sono uscite alla ricerca di fortuna con tutto quello che avevano a disposizione, includendo la scienza, la tecnologia, la propaganda ideologica, l'estorsione e la forza militare."Se controlli il petrolio controlli le nazioni, se controlli gli alimenti controlli i... more
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The FDA today said that it was ok to have melamine in baby formula. Melamine is a plastic manufactured by Monsanto chemical company which dates back to the 1950 and the petro-chemistry revolution. Melamine is commonly used in counter tops and for the interior of buses.
Melamine is an organic base and a trimer of cyanamide, with a 1,3,5-triazine skeleton. Like cyanamide, it contains 66% nitrogen by mass and, if mixed with resins, has fire retardant properties due to its release of nitrogen gas when burned or charred, and has several other industrial uses. Melamine is also a metabolite of cyromazine, a pesticide. It is formed in the body of mammals who have ingested cyromazine. It has been reported that cyromazine can also be converted to melamine in plants.
Melamine combines with cyanuric acid to form melamine cyanurate, which has been implicated in the Chinese protein export contamination.
Melamine is combined with formaldehyde to produce melamine resin, a very durable thermosetting plastic used in Formica, and melamine foam, a polymeric cleaning product. The end products include countertops, dry erase boards, fabrics, glues, housewares and flame retardants. Melamine is one of the major components in Pigment Yellow 150, a colorant in inks and plastics.
Melamine also enters the fabrication of melamine poly-sulfonate used as superplasticizer for making high-resistance concrete. Sulfonated melamine formaldehyde (SMF) is a polymer used as cement admixture to reduce the water content in concrete while increasing the fluidity and the workability of the mix during its handling and pouring. It results in concrete with a lower porosity and a higher mechanical strength exhibiting an improved resistance to aggressive environments and a longer life-time.
Now doesn't that sound like a healthy ingredient for your child's baby formula?
Less than two months after federal food regulators said they were unable to set a safety threshold for the industrial chemical melamine in baby formula, they announced a standard that allows for higher levels than those found in U.S.-made batches of the product.
Food and Drug Administration officials on Friday set a threshold of 1 part per million of melamine in formula, provided a related chemical isn't present. They insisted the formulas are safe.The FDA today said that it was ok to have melamine in baby formula. Melamine is a... more
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That's a lot of poison in our rivers, streams, food, air and stomachs. Poison for profit. That should be their slogan. And why are these profits so high? Well, because they have bought up close to 90% of the global seed market thus forcing farmers to sign their bogus contracts holding them to buying their seeds and poison every year. They cannot save the seeds, and they have to buy the poison sprays with the seeds yearly. And the pesticides sprayed on crops made by these companies have also been found in higher levels in beehives, suggesting that it is possible that when bees have tried to pollinate GM crops they carry these pesticides back to the hives which makes them sick, thus causing them to desert the hives. Imagine what their seeds with built in pesticides can do for your salad!
And yet, the FDA states there is no difference between this poison and the conventional crops that farmers once grew and could regrow with saved seeds as has been the tradition in agriculture since ancient times. That way they also get out of responsibility from labelling the food you eat. That way you don't know the poisons you are consuming. And even if you are an organic farmer, chances are your crops have also been poisoned by their transgenic pollution. Even without selling you the seeds, you are a part of their big happy poison family.
Oh, and of course, these fake seeds with the poison centers are feeding the world! Don't pay attention to all of the starving people in Haiti, Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Don't let the real truth blind you to their propaganda... profit is good even at the expense of morality, truth, and this planet. That's the Monsanto way.
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From the entry noted:
Monsanto positions itself as a green company.
"Using the tools of modern biology," its website informs us, "we help farmers grow more yield sustainably so they can produce more and conserve more."
Compare that twaddle to this bit from Monsanto's announcement on Tuesday:
[Monsanto's Chief Financial Officer Terry] Crews will indicate that Monsanto's Roundup® and other glyphosate-based herbicides business is on track to be above $1.9 billion of gross profit for the 2008 fiscal year, ahead of the previous forecast. Wow. Nearly $2 billion in profit, from Roundup alone. As recently as February, Monsanto was expecting to make $1.4 billion from its herbicide division this year. I guess farmers applied it even more copiously than expected.
But the company isn't just churning out profit by peddling weed-killer. Its seeds are doing pretty well, too -- particularly corn:
Crews will also note that for the 2008 fiscal year, the company's corn business should exceed $2 billion in gross-profit generation for the first time. Interesting. So it makes nearly as much on herbicide as it does on corn seeds. (Overall, the company expects to make $3.8 billion on seeds in '08).
Investors applauded Monsanto's announcement, sending shares up 7.5 percent Tuesday.
I wonder if they're being short-sighted. Monsanto's success rests on Roundup Ready technology -- selling seeds genetically engineered to withstand heavy doses of its flagship herbicide.
But Roundup-tolerant weeds (so-called "superweeds") are on the rise. Eventully, farmers will have to shift away from Roundup -- Monsanto's $1.8 billion cash cow.
Meanwhile, Bayer is rolling out a new line of herbicide-tolerant seeds, this one designed to withstand doses of Bayer's glufosinate herbicide. Ain't the agrichemical industry grand?
That's a lot of poison in our rivers, streams, food, air and stomachs. Poison for... more
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The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) is part of the Risk Management Agency (RMA) that serves under the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), a Federal Executive Department (or Cabinet Department).The USDA-FCIC safeguards the economic stability of agriculture through a system of crop insurance and provides the means for research in devising and establishing such insurance. It is managed by a Board of Directors, subject to the general supervision of the Secretary of Agriculture.
On 12 September 2007, the FCIC Board of Directors approved a Biotech Yield Endorsement (BYE) pilot programme submitted under section 523(d) of the Federal Crop Insurance Act. The result is that farmers growing Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) maize receives crop insurance at a greatly reduced cost of between 20 and 70 percent.
The BYE programme was crafted by the Monsanto Corporation and its first beneficiary is limited to its GM maize. This insurance bonanza is intended for farmers planting Monsanto’s GM maize that has Bt genes against corn borer and root worm stacked with a gene for tolerance to Round-up herbicide. The FCIC Board of Directors, at its 14 August 2008 meeting, approved additional seed technologies for premium rate reduction for producers planting certain corn hybrid varieties; i.e., those containing Bt genes for corn borer and rootworm stacked with genes for tolerance to herbicides such as glyphosate and glufosinate. The companies benefiting from the largesse of the USDA give-away insurance include besides Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta and Pioneer Hi-Bred [1, 2].
The crop insurance policies insure producers against yield losses due to natural causes such as drought, excessive moisture, hail, wind, frost, insects, and disease [3]. It is clear that the stacked GM maize lines are protected against corn borer and rootworm, but not particularly well protected against drought, excessive moisture, hail, wind, frost and disease, nor against the numerous insect pest that are likely to take advantage of reduced competition from borer or root worm. It may be that the stacked maize lines will benefit from a USDA give-away insurance that specifically protects against any such secondary insect pests; for they have indeed already emerged in China and India as the result of growing Bt cotton [4, 5] (see Why Prince Charles is Right, SiS 40 and Deadly gift from Monsanto to India, SiS 39)
FCIC is presuming that the stacked GM maize lines will consistently produce more than conventional or organic maize, but that has not been proven scientifically. It is based solely on an act of faith on the part of the USDA bureaucrats.
Why then do these new GM constructs deserve the gift of reduced insurance cost at the US taxpayers’ expense? Have the taxpayers been consulted before such egregious largesse has been doled out to well-heeled farmers and the corporations who licence the GM seeds?
The rest of the farming community may feel especially aggrieved at this blatant display of favouritism on the part of the FCIC. After all, insured organic farmers were not compensated for damages from epidemics of fungal disease, even though the conventional fungicides were ineffective against the fungus disease. It seems that FCAC is taking on the role of sugar daddy to the GM industry and compliant farmers. And that may go a long way towards promoting universal GM farming practices and bankrupting the public coffers.
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So not only do consumers pay for their frankenfood at the markets of America without proper disclosure as to health effects of it; US taxpayers are now footing the bill for their crop insurance, thanks to a gift from the USDA. Are you outraged yet?The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) is part of the Risk Management Agency... more
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Support Schmeiser, Nelson and hundreds of other farmers who are being forced to pay Monsanto to have their fields contaminated by genetically modified organisms.
Sign OCA's "Millions Against Monsanto" petition. These petitions will be physically delivered to Monsanto and related court hearings
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1265
The petition can also be found half way down the subject page above organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm after the following story.
Multi-Billion $$ Monsanto Sues More Small Family Farmers
Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Saskatchewan Canada, whose Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen from a nearby farm. Monsanto says it doesn't matter how the contamination took place, and is therefore demanding Schmeiser pay their Technology Fee (the fee farmers must pay to grow Monsanto's genetically engineered products). According to Schmeiser, "I never had anything to do with Monsanto, outside of buying chemicals. I never signed a contract.
If I would go to St. Louis (Monsanto Headquarters) and contaminate their plots - destroy what they have worked on for 40 years - I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away."
Rodney Nelson's family farm is being forced into a similar lawsuit by Monsanto.
Support Schmeiser, Nelson and hundreds of other farmers who are being forced to pay Monsanto to have their fields contaminated by genetically modified organisms.
Sign OCA's "Millions Against Monsanto" petition. These petitions will be physically delivered to Monsanto and related court hearings.Monsanto Takes Ownership of Public Water Resources
Over the past century, global water supplies have been contaminated with the full gamut of Monsanto's chemicals, including PCBs, dioxin and glyophosate (Roundup). So now the company, seeing a profitable market niche, is taking control of the public water resources they polluted, filtering it, and selling it back to the people. In short, Monsanto is making a double profit by polluting the world's scarce freshwater resources, privately taking ownership of that water, filtering it, and selling it back to those who can afford to pay for it.
Sign OCA's "Millions Against Monsanto" petition. These petitions will be physically delivered to Monsanto and related court hearings
Support Schmeiser, Nelson and hundreds of other farmers who are being forced to pay... more
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In late March, Monsanto Co. sent a Dear Valued Customer letter to most U.S. corn and soybean farmers. The reason, wrote Jim Zimmer, Monsanto's vice president of U.S. branded business, was to discuss some current marketplace dynamics that will directly affect you in terms of increased prices for Monsanto's line of Roundup herbicides for 2008.
Demand for glyphosate, Roundup's generic counterpart, is at an all time high, explained Zimmer. As such, we have seen the demand for Roundup brand herbicide increase more than our current ability to supply.
That's a problem, he continued, because We have a reliable supplier commitment to farmers who choose to purchase Roundup Ready technology and who choose to purchase Roundup brand herbicide that we will have supply available.
The solution?
Our competitive challenges have put our commitment at risk, forcing us to increase our price for Roundup herbicide.
Golly, a farmer who telephoned me about the letter asked, How much is their promise to me going to cost me?
Globally, about $411 million, the amount Roundup net sales increased from March through May over the same three months in 2007, according to Monsanto's third quarter, Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission June 27.
That's a 54 percent increase.
Additionally, the 10-Q reports, Net sales of Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides increased 63 percent, or $1,222 million $1.222 billion in the nine-month comparison with fiscal 2007's first three quarters.
Remarkably, however, that $1.2 billion increase in Roundup sales, notes the 10-Q, was posted despite a seven percent sales volume drop in Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides in third quarter 2008 and only an 8 percent increase in global Roundup sales for the nine-month period ending in May.
Clearly, Roundup mostly because Monsanto boosted its price hit a home run. Gross profit increased $927 million because of higher sales of Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides in the first nine months of 2008, the company said.
What Monsanto did for Roundup herbicide this spring, it promises to do for Roundup seed corn next year, according to a July interview of company officials by DTN and Progressive Farmer editors.
Indeed, wrote Marcia Taylor for DTN after the gathering, Even the list price on seed corn will topple the $300 per bag barrier starting this fall, up about $95 to $100 per bag, or 35 percent on average, according to Monsanto officials.
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Again, according to Monsanto's most recent 10-Q: In the first quarter 2008, Monsanto entered into an agreement on corn herbicide tolerance and insect control technologies with Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc (whereby Monsanto will receive) cumulative cash receipts of $725 million over an eight-year period.
In third quarter 2008, Monsanto and Syngenta entered into a Roundup Ready 2 Yield Soybean License Agreement (under which) the minimum obligation from Syngenta over this (nine-) year period is $81 million, reports the 10-Q.
Is Monsanto everywhere? Almost; according to its June SEC filing, it recently bought a vegetable seed company in Europe, a seed corn company in Guatemala, another in Brazil.
In late March, Monsanto Co. sent a Dear Valued Customer letter to most U.S. corn and... more
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A clever little analogical letter to Monsanto....the evil bully on the playground.
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Interesting... Is Monsanto feeling the heat from farmers, people in the medical field, consumer groups, and state attorney generals who know this product is dangerous? Or are they simply looking to do this to invest more in their continuing effort to control the entire seed market of the world and the pesticides that are toxifying it? Personally, I think they are feeling some heat regarding the labelling of products, and people are becoming more informed as to what they buy. People are becoming aware and don't want antibiotics and pus in their milk, nor an added injection of IGF-1 everytime they pour a glass of it. Perhaps the next step will be to have it banned altogether as it should be.Interesting... Is Monsanto feeling the heat from farmers, people in the medical field,... more
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For more than a century, farms have been getting bigger while seeds, fertilization and pest control have been getting more uniform. Led by farm suppliers, it has raised productivity. But negative byproducts of this trend include increasing chemical dependence and loss of biodiversity. Ecofeminist Vandana Shiva is at the Organic World Congress to protest the human and environmental cost of monoculture. The pendulum may be swinging back her way as consumer preference (among "locavores") for locally grown food and organic food increases, as the public becomes more aware of the impact of chemicals on the environment, and as higher petroleum prices result in pricier fertilizers and pesticides.
Vandana is one of the speakers at the opening ceremony of the Organic World Congress in Modena's large Piazza Grande, which fills the center of the city behind the famed (Michelin three-starred) Romanesque Duomo, shown below earlier in the day as the seats were being set up.
An eloquent defender of the property rights of small farms in India and other countries, Vandana has devoted much of her life to research on the effects of loss of biodiversity resulting from monoculture and has allied herself with the Slow Food Movement. Her books include The Violence of the Green Revolution and Monocultures of the Mind. She decided that science was not serving the interests of small farmers, so she left the academic world and formed her own organization, Navdanya.
Because she associates monoculture with a masculine wish to dominate -- and sees it as threatening both small farmers and biodiversity in the name of temporarily higher productivity -- Vandana has been called an ecofeminist, a term attributed to the late Francoise d'Eaubonne describing someone resistant to abuse of either women or mother nature, and adds in empathy for the small farmer in developing countries.
Small-farm consolidation continues, as was highlighted in South Africa just this week. The Valley Trust has for years been working with rural communities to provide health and other services and support organic farms. It has recently broken ranks with the South African Department of Agriculture for its pressure on small-scale farmers to join cooperatives. Small farmers are promised financial help, farm equipment, water piping and free seeds in return for joining the larger farming unit. The catch is that the small farmer must plant genetically modified seeds, which create farmer dependence on commercial monoculture. The director of Biowatch, an NGO promoting alternatives to GMO farming, says: "In the end, most farmers end up in huge debt, because they can't save seeds and are obliged to buy the matching GM fertilizers and pesticides" .
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Dr. Shiva was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 2005. I think she should be nominated again and win in this year for her work to sow seeds of hope and peace in place of the seeds of deception and environmental destruction that have been planted by Monsanto.
For more than a century, farms have been getting bigger while seeds, fertilization and... more
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Doug Cameron reported in today's Wall Street Journal that, "A group of U.S. agribusiness companies including Archer Daniels Midland Co. are uniting in the intensifying food-versus-fuel debate, forming an alliance to promote the idea that technology can ease global supply shortages.
"The Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy - which includes seed makers Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co., as well as farm-gear maker Deere & Co. - wants to spread its belief that renewable fuels won't cut into food supplies if new technologies, such as genetically modified crops, are used to their fullest. The group is also working hard to protect government subsidies for ethanol production.
"ADM, Monsanto and others have seen their own profits soar in recent years, as booming demand for agricultural products in emerging markets has pushed up commodity prices and spurred additional production."
And Reuters writer Lisa Shumaker reported yesterday that, "A new group is adding its voice to the debate on using crops to produce alternative fuels such as ethanol amid rising food prices and shortages in some countries.
"The Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy in Washington D.C. was created by Archer Daniels Midland Co, DuPont Co, Deere & Co, Monsanto Co and the Renewable Fuels Association (www.foodandenergy.org ).
"'There are critics who are trying to create an either-or decision between food and fuel,' said Mark Kornblau, the alliance's executive director. 'We believe this is a false choice. Today, more than 90 percent of crops in the United States and around the world are used exclusively for food.'"
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Keith Good
President FarmPolicy.com, Inc.
Champaign, IL
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There you have it. Unequivocal proof that these biotech agribusiness corporations don't care one whit about you.The battle lines have been drawn. It is them against us and this planet. Profit trumping sustainability and fair access to food and water. I don't think it is then too dramatic to state that this is a battle for our lives. These companies with the full backing of our own government, including those who voted for their subsidies (and yes, that also includes Obama) are set on total control of our food and water supply in order to control us.
In the last post I placed here on this topic today regarding Monsanto raising the price of corn seed during a food crisis it was stated that it is time this be given serious attention... well, I go one further here... this requires serious ACTION.
Please go to the article link and there you will find a petition calling for the boycott of Monsanto. The people this will affect, mainly the poor, farmers, and people living in developing countries must join together to fight this insidious takeover of our lives. And yes, it's that serious. Click on the tag, 'Monsanto' to see much more on exactly what is transpiring on a global scale and why the majority of this world is AGAINST GMOs and allowing Monsanto to patent life itself.Doug Cameron reported in today's Wall Street Journal that, "A group of U.S.... more
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Do you know who Monsanto is? They are a chemical corporation which made Agent Orange and after that, PCBs, with which they drowned the town of Anniston, Alabama for decades, even after knowing for sure that PCBs were highly carcinogenic. They make organophosphates, including glyphosate (Round-up) - which are highly neuro-toxic.
With this background in illness and killing, Monsanto then began "doing" your food. It genetically engineers food.
But before you say "Oh, that's good because genetic engineering is making food better, adding vitamins, growing bigger crops, ..." I have bad news for you. Please go to http://www.responsibletechnology.org and listen to Jeffrey Smith's lecture on how genetic engineering works and what it does to organs.
And as the greater yield PR, I suggest you read: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/IBTCF.php about the Bt-cotton fraud in India while Monsanto claims to have increased yield by 160%. http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/asp/news.asp?newsId=nr20070917&yr=2007 What do Indian farmers say? Indian farmers call Monsanto's Bt-cotton seeds, the Seeds of Death. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/indiacotton012406.cfm
Beyond India, there are also problems. http://www.slogefree.org/news07/a-disaster-in-search-of-success-bt-cotton-in
Who to believe? Isn't this the same Monsanto that for four decades denied that PCBs caused cancer, while sitting on thousands of documents to the contrary? http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/ features/2008/05/monsanto200805
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It works like this: Monsanto gets George HW Bush to put one of its employees on the Supreme Court. From there, Clarence Thomas is in time to rule that genetically modified organisms are no different from normal organisms. Science by legal decision. Pandora's box of endlessly mutant organisms being let loose onto the world by Monsanto's influence over Bush and via one single law.
Clarence Thomas also ruled for an extreme extension of the intellectual property laws that allow Monsanto (and other biotech companies) to call their scrambling of DNA, "inventions" and through that, patent them. So, when a farmer buys GE-seeds, he doesn't buy just buy seeds, he buys himself into a deep, deep trap. For after buying the seeds and planting them and tending the plants all season, when the harvest comes and the farmer goes to collect seeds from those plants, Monsanto steps in and says "those are mine." Monsanto, in effect, claims to own biology itself, not just the process by which it screwed with the seeds, but all seeds forever from those seeds. In this way, this Monsanto as god way, it turns farmers into tenant farmers on their own land.
The two main crops in America, corn and soy - the basis of most our food, and now grains that are used for biofuels - are controlled by Monsanto. 90% of soy is GMO and of that, 90% of those traits "belong" to Monsanto. And for corn, the largest crop, 60% is GMO, nearly 100% are Monsanto "owned" traits. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9716.cfm
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Now, maybe the news that Monsanto is raising the price of its GE-corn by $100 a bag will have due significance, since farmers have lost other seed companies, are threatened in saving their own seeds, and thus are left not only with a massive monopoly but one that then through patents, "owns" the farmer.
Notice, too, that Monsanto is drastically raising prices while it is making phenomenal profits, while food prices are rising dramatically (related often to its grains), leading to food riots around the world, and while fuel is skyrocketing and Monsanto's corn is now the basis of biofuel, and while our economy is tanking. All the while Monsanto claims that genetically engineering is a wonder - the way to help farmers around the world and to feed the hungry.
It's time to pay serious attention.
Do you know who Monsanto is? They are a chemical corporation which made Agent Orange... more
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Monsanto, best known today for its agricultural biotechnology products, has a long and dirty history of polluting this country and others with some of the most toxic compounds known to humankind. From PCBs to Agent Orange to Roundup, we have many reasons to question the motives of this company that claims to be working to reduce environmental destruction and feed the world with its genetically engineered food crops.
Headquartered near St. Louis, Missouri, the Monsanto Chemical Company was founded in 1901. Monsanto became a leading manufacturer of sulfuric acid and other industrial chemicals in the 1920s. In the 1930s, Monsanto began producing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PCBs, widely used as lubricants, hydraulic fluids, cutting oils, waterproof coatings and liquid sealants, are potent carcinogens and have been implicated in reproductive, developmental and immune system disorders.
The world’s center of PCB manufacturing was Monsanto’s plant on the outskirts of East St. Louis, Illinois, which has the highest rate of fetal death and immature births in the state. By 1982, nearby Times Beach, Missouri, was found to be so thoroughly contaminated with dioxin, a by-product of PCB manufacturing, that the government ordered it evacuated. Dioxins are endocrine and immune system disruptors, cause congenital birth defects, reproductive and developmental problems, and increase the incidence of cancer, heart disease and diabetes in laboratory animals.
By the 1940s, Monsanto had begun focusing on plastics and synthetic fabrics like polystyrene (still widely used in food packaging and other consumer products), which is ranked fifth in the EPA’s 1980s listing of chemicals whose production generates the most total hazardous waste.
During World War II, Monsanto played a significant role in the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb.
Following the war, Monsanto championed the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture, and began manufacturing the herbicide 2,4,5-T, which contains dioxin. Monsanto has been accused of covering up or failing to report dioxin contamination in a wide range of its products.
The herbicide “Agent Orange,” used by U.S. military forces as a defoliant during the Vietnam War, was a mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D and had very high concentrations of dioxin. U.S. Vietnam War veterans have suffered from a host of debilitating symptoms attributable to Agent Orange exposure, and since the end of the war an estimated 500,000 Vietnamese children have been born with deformities.
In the 1970s, Monsanto began manufacturing the herbicide Roundup, which has been marketed as a safe, general-purpose herbicide for widespread commercial and consumer use, even though its key ingredient, glyphosate, is a highly toxic poison for animals and humans. In 1997, The New York State Attorney General took Monsanto to court and Monsanto was subsequently forced to stop claiming that Roundup is “biodegradable” and “environmentally friendly.”
Monsanto has been repeatedly fined and ruled against for, among many things, mislabeling containers of Roundup, failing to report health data to EPA, and chemical spills and improper chemical deposition. In 1995, Monsanto ranked fifth among U.S. corporations in EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, having discharged 37 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, land, water and underground.
Since the inception of Plan Colombia in 2000, the US has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in funding aerial sprayings of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicides in Colombia. The Roundup is often applied in concentrations 26 times higher than what is recommended for agricultural use. Additionally, it contains at least one surfactant, Cosmo-Flux 411f, whose ingredients are a trade secret, has never been approved for use in the US, and which quadruples the biological action of the herbicide.
cont...Monsanto, best known today for its agricultural biotechnology products, has a long and... more
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Baphethile Mntambo has been farming organically for the past five years because she knows that avoiding chemicals will in the long-term benefit her yield.
She decided not to plant genetically modified seeds because she has heard that they cannot be saved for the next season and will eventually deplete her soil. But she is not entirely sure how and why.
"I have heard about GMO, but I don't understand what it is exactly," she says. "The only thing I know is that it will cost a lot of money to buy the seeds, the fertiliser and the pesticides."
Mntambo is one of 50 small-scale farmers in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province who have been taught how to farm organically by non-governmental organisation Valley Trust. The farmers learn to plant seasonal crops that will provide their families both with food security and an opportunity to generate income by selling their produce at local markets.
"We decided to promote organic farming to create sustainability for small-scale farmers. We believe it is the only way to give them food sovereignty and stability," explains Valley Trust food security facilitator Nhlanhla Vezi.
The Valley Trust used to cooperate with the Department of Agriculture, according to Vezi, but the collaboration ceased when the department started to put pressure on small-scale farmers to form cooperatives if they wanted its support. "The Department makes very attractive offers to provide farming equipment, water piping and seeds, but then uses this as a strategy to push GMO because of agreements they have signed with multinational GM seed patent holders," says Vezi.
Rural farmers are often lured into planting GM seeds by the Department of Agriculture by promises of substantial bank loans and the prospect of huge earnings, agrees Lesley Liddell, director of Biowatch, an NGO promoting alternatives to GMO farming by encouraging farmers to inter-crop, use natural fertilisers and non-chemical crops. "But in the end, most farmers end up in huge debt, because they can't save seeds and are obliged to buy the matching GM fertilisers and pesticides."
Yet, small-scale farmers are often so desperate for financial support that they consider planting GMO crops against better knowledge if they are offered the seeds for free. "I know that GMO is not good in the long run, but if someone gave me these seeds I would still plant them," says Tholani Bhengu, another small-scale farmer who works with the Valley Trust. "For me, the most important thing is to bring food on the table every week. I can't afford to think now about what will happen next year."
Because small-scale farmers in rural Africa often have little or no formal education, they are generally unable to make informed choices around GMO farming. "We encourage them to attend portfolio committees that discuss GMO regulations, but the farmers' knowledge is very limited, so it's difficult for them to contribute. They understand the issues but not the legislation," says Liddell.
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That last quoted paragraph is exactly why these small scale farmers are the targets of multinationals like Monsanto. And as well in South Africa, mandatory labelling is not required.
They are using the poverty these farmers live in as a way to force them into planting GM crap... and when their GM crops fail because of drought or cross contamination, no one is there to bail them out and they have to rebuy seed and "herbicide" again if they wish to plant as they get deeper in debt while Monsanto and other companies reap the benefits.
Insidious.Baphethile Mntambo has been farming organically for the past five years because she... more
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Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'"
He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.
The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto's own weedkiller, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop's take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya's yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.
The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.
The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a "decrease" in yields.
But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.
A similar situation seems to have happened with GM cotton in the US, where the total US crop declined even as GM technology took over.
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GM food is not the answer to world hunger. Addressing the cause of hunger is. This is only a profit making scheme for CEOs like Hugh Grant of Monsanto to make over THREE MILLION dollars a year not even counting the hundreds of thousands of shares he has in the company while people continue to starve in the world.
And our own FDA has helped them put something on the market that goes in our bodies and the bodies of our children that was not scientifically vetted and is not labelled on our food. It is time to expose the corporate frauds that seek to control our food and water and send more poor farmers in this country and in Asia, Africa, and South America into debt. Patenting life is immoral as is deceiving the public about what they are eating and devastating our environment.
We need to boycott Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, and any other multinational in the business of profit over people until they are held accountable for their deceptions.Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new... more
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Heard about the thousands of farmer suicides in India? Well, Iraqi farmers may be next thanks to the work of U.S. diplomat Paul Bremer and his Monsanto friends.
Anyone hearing about central India's ongoing epidemic of farmer suicides, where growers are killing themselves at a terrifying clip, has to be horrified. But among the more disturbed must be the once-grand poobah of post-invasion Iraq, U.S. diplomat L. Paul Bremer.
Why Bremer? Because Indian farmers are choosing death after finding themselves caught in a loop of crop failure and debt rooted in genetically modified and patented agriculture -- the same farming model that Bremer introduced to Iraq during his tenure as administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American body that ruled the "new Iraq" in its chaotic early days.
In his 400 days of service as CPA administrator, Bremer issued a series of directives known collectively as the "100 Orders." Bremer's orders set up the building blocks of the new Iraq, and among them is Order 81 [PDF], officially titled Amendments to Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety Law, enacted by Bremer on April 26, 2004.
Order 81 generated very little press attention when it was issued. And what coverage it did spark tended to get the details wrong. Reports claimed that what the United States' man in Iraq had done was no less than tell each and every Iraqi farmer -- growers who had been tilling the soil of Mesopotamia for thousands of years -- that from here on out they could not reuse seeds from their fields or trade seeds with their neighbors, but instead they would be required to purchase all of their seeds from the likes of U.S. agriculture conglomerates like Monsanto.
That's not quite right. Order 81 wasn't that draconian, and it was not so clearly a colonial mandate. In fact, the edict was more or less a legal tweak.
What Order 81 did was to establish the strong intellectual property protections on seed and plant products that a company like the St. Louis-based Monsanto -- purveyors of genetically modified (GM) seeds and other patented agricultural goods -- requires before they'll set up shop in a new market like the new Iraq. With these new protections, Iraq was open for business. In short, Order 81 was Bremer's way of telling Monsanto that the same conditions had been created in Iraq that had led to the company's stunning successes in India.
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Insidious bastards.
Heard about the thousands of farmer suicides in India? Well, Iraqi farmers may be next... more
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On the west side of Anniston, the poor side of Anniston,
the people ate dirt. They called it "Alabama clay" and cooked it for extra
flavor. They also grew berries in their gardens, raised hogs in their back
yards, caught bass in the murky streams where their children swam and
played and were baptized. They didn't know their dirt and yards and bass
and kids -- along with the acrid air they breathed -- were all contaminated
with chemicals. They didn't know they lived in one of the most polluted patches
of America.
Now they know. They also know that for nearly 40 years, while producing the
now-banned industrial coolants known as PCBs at a local factory, Monsanto
Co. routinely discharged toxic waste into a west Anniston creek and dumped
millions of pounds of PCBs into oozing open-pit landfills. And thousands of
pages of Monsanto documents -- many emblazoned with warnings such as
"CONFIDENTIAL: Read and Destroy" -- show that for decades, the corporate
giant concealed what it did and what it knew.
In 1966, Monsanto managers discovered that fish submerged in that creek
turned belly-up within 10 seconds, spurting blood and shedding skin as if
dunked into boiling water. They told no one. In 1969, they found fish in
another creek with 7,500 times the legal PCB levels. They decided "there is
little object in going to expensive extremes in limiting discharges." In
1975, a company study found that PCBs caused tumors in rats. They ordered
its conclusion changed from "slightly tumorigenic" to "does not appear to
be carcinogenic."
Monsanto enjoyed a lucrative four-decade monopoly on PCB production in the
United States, and battled to protect that monopoly long after PCBs were
confirmed as a global pollutant. "We can't afford to lose one dollar of
business," one internal memo concluded.
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This story dated 2002 tells of something that happened decades ago that Monsanto knew and did nothing about. Will the same thing happen regarding GM foods? Will the effects of them on our health and on the sustainability of our planet start to show themselves in the next decade? Inadequate human testing of GM soy and corn has led to America being one of the only countries allowing it in food. As many of my entries and other entries on this have shown, Monsanto cannot be trusted with the health and safety of Americans. They thought nothing of dumping lethal compounds into the waterways and land of our country. I doubt they then care about the potential toxins they dump into our bodies by not allowing proper disclosure on food labels by using their political muscle to stifle Democracy.
BOYCOTT Monsanto until they do, and until the govt. agencies entrusted with the health and safety of the American people do their job.On the west side of Anniston, the poor side of Anniston,
the people ate dirt. They... more
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Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) Rice with Human DNA - planting plans in Kansas, Spring 2007 - Lee Quaintance farms in Edgerton, Kansas - member grower, Kansas City Food Circle.
He speaks truth about crop contamination and GMOs regarding disclosure. Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) Rice with Human DNA - planting plans in Kansas,... more
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